484 



torically notable is the Earl himself, Gerald, ninth of that ancient line. 

 His character and history, his adventurous career and melancholy end, 

 are too familiar to readers of Irish history to require any notice at my 

 hands ; but I may mention that the existence of such relations between 

 the Geraldines and a remote western sept, like that of Mac Rannall, as 

 this agreement discloses, dates from an earlier period than that of the 

 ninth Earl Gerald, and may most probably be traced to an expedition 

 of his father, Gerald, eighth Earl, into Connaught in 1499, in which 

 he reduced several castles, and overran part of the territory of the Mac 

 Rannall, although no special mention is made of that sept as being en- 

 gaged in the rising which occasioned this expedition. The Mac Rannalls 

 were of the same stock with the O'Eerralls, and their possessions lay 

 in the ancient territory of Conmaicne, in the present county of Leitrim, 

 but chiefly in the territory of Muintir Eolus, the district lying between 

 Slieve-an-Iarain and Slieve Carbry, and coinciding with the modern 

 baronies of Leitrim, Mohill, and Carrigallen. O'Dugan, in his well- 

 known genealogical poem, refers to the seat of the Mac Eannalls in 

 terms of high admiration : — 



1TI 0:571 aon cull clmnceap cmoip 

 Gip muinceap alumn Goluip. 

 " Magradhnaill is now heard 



Over the delightful Muintir Eolus."* 



Like most of the Irish septs, the Mac Rannalls were divided into 

 several clans — as Clan Melachlain Mac Rannall, and Clan Maelruana 

 Mac Rannall, both which are named by the Four Masters in the entries 

 under 1485. The former is specially represented in this agreement, and 

 must have been of considerable pretensions in the sept, since I find that 

 in 1468, on the death of Cathal Roe, the "full chief [< lomcaoipeac'] 

 the clansmen of Melachlain Mac Rannall were strong enough to set up 

 a chief of their own choosing in opposition to Teige, the son of the 

 deceased chieftain.f I have searched in vain, however, not alone in 

 the Eour Masters and in the several Calendars of Irish State Papers of 

 the period, but also in the pedigree of Mac Rannall in the Ulster Office, j 

 kindly communicated to me by the Ulster King of Arms, for the names 

 of any of the four parties to the agreement on the Mac Rannall side ; but 

 that some friendly interchange of good offices subsisted between the 

 Earl and the individuals of the sept, may be inferred from the fact that 

 the chaplain sent to Rome, in 1534, by Lord Offaly to beg abso- 

 lution for the murder of Archbishop Allen, was Cahir Mac Rannall. § 

 The name in this form began to be disused at an early date. A Roll 

 of 22 and 23 Henry VIII., dated October 9, 1531, already recognises the 

 change to the English form, Reynolds, and authorizes " Charles Rey- 

 nolds, otherwise Magraghnell, bachelor of laws" (manifestly the chaplain 



* O'Connellan's " Four Masters," p. 607, note, 

 f "Annals," A. D. 1468. 

 X " Pedigrees," vol. i., p. 81, and following. 

 § Lord Kildare's " Earls of Kildare," p. 136. 



