Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 35.djvu/68

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MacDonnell
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McDougall

mitted that he had no legal right in Ulster, expressed his sorrow for his past contumacy, and promised faithfully to abide by such conditions as were imposed upon him. An official, it is said (Hill, MacDonnell of Antrim, p. 187), brutally showed him his son's head over the castle gate, to which he proudly replied, 'My son hath many heads.' On 18 June indentures were signed (Cal. Careio MSS. ii. 427), whereby he received letters of denization, together with a grant by knight's service, the yearly payment of fifty beeves, twelve horsemen, and forty footmen to every hosting, to himself, and the issue male of his body, of all the land between the Bann and the Bush, embracing the greater part of the Route, the constableship of Dunluce Castle, and such land to the east as was not included in a grant to his nephew Angus. From this time forward he gave no trouble to the state, though his name figures in a list of 'doubtful persons' drawn up by Sir William Fitzwilliam [q. v.] in 1689. He died at Dunanynie Castle early in 1690, and was buried in the older vault in the abbey of Bunnamairge. It is traditionally stated that when his son Randal built the new vault in 1621 he transferred his father's remains thither, but no trace of his coffin is now to be found.

By his wife Mary, daughter of Con O'Neill, first earl of Tyrone, who died in 1682, Sorley Boy had, among other children, Alaster, who was killed, as noted above, in 1686; Donnell, who is said to have been slain by Turlough Luineach O'Neill; Sir James, who succeeded his father, and died suddenly at Dunluce on 13 April 1601; Sir Randal, first earl of Antrim (d. 1636) [q. v.]; Angus, and Ludar or Lother, who was implicated in the 1614 conspiracy. Of his daughters, one is said to have been married to the chief of the Macnaghtens in Scotland; another to MacQuillin of the Route; a third to Cormack O'Neill, brother of Hugh, earl of Tyrone; a fourth to Magennis, lord of Iveagh, and a fifth to Shane MacBrian MacPhelim O'Neill of Clandeboye (see MacFirbis's pedigree in Hill, MacDormells of Antrim, App. i. and the pedigree in Harl. MS. 1426, f. 188).

From information received by Sir W. Fitzwilliam in October 1688 (Cal. State Papers, Ireland, iv. 63, 64), it appears that Sorley Boy, who was then about eighty-three years of age, married in that month a daughter of Turlough Luineach O'Neill.

[Lodge's Peerage, ed. Archdall, vol. i.; Hill's Macdonnells of Antrim; State Papers in Rolls Office, London; Hamilton's Cal. of Irish State Papers, vols, i-iv.; Cal. of Carew MSS. vols. i-ii.; Morrin's Cal. of Patent Rolls, Eliz.; Cat. of Fiants, Eliz.; Collins's Sydney Papers; Devereux's Lives of the Earls of Essex; Kilkenny Archæol. Journal, 1885, pp. 133-48; D. Gregory's Western Highlands; Spottiswoode Miscellany, ii. 361; Bagwell's Ireland under the Tudors; Ulster Journal of Archæology, vols. v. viii.; Annals of the Four Masters, ed. O'Donovan, vi. 1895; Hist. MSS. Comm. 3rd Rep. p. 48.]

R. D.


MACDOUGALL, ALLAN (1750?–1829), Gaelic poet, known as Blind Allan, was born in Glencoe, Argyllshire, about 1750. At an early age he was apprenticed to an itinerant tailor, and during his wanderings he committed to memory many lines of Gaelic poetry, then orally preserved, and he thus quickened a natural aptitude for composing satirical verse. One day while at work he quarrelled with a fellow-tailor, who pierced his eye with a needle, and the wound rendered him totally blind. He afterwards made a living as a strolling musician, attending country feasts with his fiddle, and reciting his own compositions. In 1790, having received a house and a plot of land at Inverlochy, near Fort William, he retired thither, and, with the assistance of Ewan Maclachlan [q. v.], himself a poet, made arrangements for publishing his Gaelic verses, which duly appeared at Edinburgh in 1798, and included some work by Maclachlan. Colonel MacDonald, laird of Glengarry, subsequently took MacDougall under his care, and appointed him his family bard. In 1828 the poet travelled over the Western Highlands, soliciting subscriptions for a new edition of his book, but before it was issued he died, in 1829. He is buried at Kilfinan, Argyllshire.

[Reid's Bibliotheca Scoto-Celtica; Mackenzie's Beauties of Gaelic Poetry.]

J. R. M.


McDOUGALL, FRANCIS THOMAS (1817–1886), bishop of Labuan and Sarawak, born at Sydenham in 1817, was son of William Adair McDougall, captain in the 88th regiment, and his boyhood was spent among military surroundings. His mother, whose maiden name was Gell, had strong religious principles of the evangelical type. At her suggestion McDougall was entered as a medical student at the university of Malta, where his father's regiment was quartered, and he walked the hospitals at Valetta. In 1835 he became a medical student at King's College, London, and graduated in medicine at London University. Accompanying a young gentleman to Oxford as physician, he matriculated at Magdalen Hall, and graduated B.A. in 1842, rowing bow in the university eight which beat Cambridge in the same year. On leaving Oxford he found