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.
