Donald Randall Richberg

Home > People > History > U.S. History: Biographies

MacDonnell, the Irish offshoot of the Scottish Highland family of MacDonald, lords of the Isles of Islay and Kintyre, later earls of Antrim. In 1399 John Mór MacDonnell married Margery Bisset, heiress to the Glens of Antrim. In the 16th century the family, now under growing pressure from a hostile Scottish monarchy, began to expand in Co. Antrim, overrunning the neighbouring lands of the MacQuillans (‘the Route’) to form a formidable territorial base. Randal MacDonnell (d. 1636), younger son of Sorley Boy MacDonnell, maintained a carefully ambiguous relationship with his father‐in‐law Hugh O'Neill during the Nine Years War. After the battle of Kinsale he submitted to the crown, and then aided in the suppression of a rebellion by his Scottish MacDonald cousins. He was rewarded with a grant of over 300,000 acres in the Route and the Glens of Antrim, and in 1620 became 1st earl of Antrim.

Randal MacDonnell, 2nd earl and 1st marquis (see antrim), survived the political upheavals of the 1640s and 1650s, and the hostility of Ormond, to regain his estates at the Restoration. The 3rd earl, Alexander MacDonnell (1615–96), supported James II in the Williamite War: it was against his troops that the Apprentice Boys of Derry closed the city gates. His estates were protected under the treaty of Limerick. The 4th earl, Randal MacDonnell (1680–1721), was suspected of Jacobite conspiracy in the political crisis of 1714–15, but nothing was proved. His son Alexander (1713–75), 5th earl, was brought up as a Protestant by his uncle, the 3rd Viscount Massereene.

Donald Randall Richberg 1881–1960, American public official, b. Knoxville, Tenn. He practiced law in Chicago, served as attorney for the city and for Illinois, and became nationally known after specializing in railroad and labor legislation. He helped draft (1933) the act that established the National Recovery Administration and was (1933–35) adviser to the NRA before becoming (1935) its chief administrator. After the NRA was declared unconstitutional, he returned to law practice. His writings include A Man of Purpose (1922), Tents of the Mighty (1930), and Government and Business Tomorrow: a Public Relations Program (1943).

Bibliography: See his autobiography, My Hero (1954); study by T. E. Vadney (1970).