214 
the Brown,’’ whose father, Brian, was brother of Con, eldest son of 
Hugh Boy the Second, the ancestor of the noble house of Shane’s Castle, 
now, alas! extinct in the male line. Domhnall Donn became possessed 
of the district on the Antrim side of the Bann, and founded a sept called 
the Clann Oorhnaill Ouinn na bana,* ‘ Descendants of Donnell Donn 
of the Bann.” Hence arose among the English the familiar appellation of 
Clandonnells, as employed by Bagenal and Dymmok in the passages above 
cited. Camden, however, erroneously supposed them to be the same as the 
Mac Donnells, familiarly called M‘Connells; and, speaking of the Karl 
of Essex’s failure in reducing Ulster, he adds, that he ‘left this country 
to the O’ Neals, and Brian Carragh of the family of the MacConnells, 
who have since cut one another’s throats in their disputes for sove- 
reignty.”+ The name Clandonnell, no doubt, was often applied to the © 
MacDonnells,} especially O’Neill’s gallowglasses, but in the present in- 
stance it was borrowed from Donnell Donn O’ Neill. 
The epithet, ‘‘a bastard kind of Scotts,” is, probably, derived from 
a mistaken notion that Brian Carragh’s men were MacDonnells; or it 
may have reference to Scotch mercenaries employed by the chief of the 
district, who settled and intermarried therein. In confirmation of this 
view, there is the local tradition that the Mac Erleans, who abound in 
the district, were a Scotch clan, whose name was originally Mac Clean,§ 
and that they were invited over from the west coast of Argyle and 
planted here by Brian Carrach, where they became his best supporters 
against O’Cahan. 
Brian Carrach flourished in the middle of the sixteenth century, || and 
died about 1586. A son of his was slain, according to the Four Mas- 
ters, in 1577. Another son, Shane Boy, who was captain of the district 
in 1599, is the last of that line noticed in Mac Firbis’s Genealogy of the 
O’Neills, but the old family pedigree, copies of which belonging to the 
families of Shanescastle and Bannvale, have been examined by me, gives 
another generation in Cormac, son of Shane Boy. Anne, daughter of 
Brian Carrach, was second wife of Shane O’ Neill, of Shanescastle,** son 
of the Brian O’ Neill, whom the Earl of Essex caused to be apprehended 
near Carrickfergus in 1574.}+} 
Neale Carrach at 1488; a Rory Carrach at 1523, all O’Neills. Mr. Hoare, supposing 
Carrach to be a surname, in anoteon Brian Carrach cites a statement about Alexander 
Carrach ; but he was a Mac Donnell. His name appears in the family pedigree, and in 
the “ Four Masters,” at 1542, 1577. This Alexander Carrach died in 1634. See note 
to O’Donovan’s “ Four Masters,” 1590 (p. 1895). 
* Mac Firbis, Geneal. MS. (Library, Royal Irish Academy), p. 121 a. 
+ Britannia, vol. iv., p. 481. (Gibson’s translation, ed. Gough, London.) 
{ See Miscellany of the Celtic Society, p. 192; Iar Connacht, p. 331. 
§ That is Mac Gilla Eoin. See ‘‘ Four Masters,” at 1523, 1559, 1577. 
|| The learned editor of the ‘“ Four Masters” makes a slight mistake in identifying 
Brian Carrach of 1387 (p. 709) with the present individual noticed at 1577 (p. 1692). 
** O'Neill Pedigree. 
++ Camden, Annales Elizabeth, anno 1573 (p. 246, ed. 1573). Devereux’s Lives 
and Letters of the Earls of Essex, vol. i. pp. 19, 34, 37-39, 66, 69, 89, 90. O’Donovan’s 
“Four Masters,” 1573 (p. 1664), 1574 (p. 1676). 
