Aonghus Óg of Islay
Scottish magnate / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Aonghus Óg Mac Domhnaill (died 1314 × 1318/c. 1330), or Angus Og MacDonald, was a fourteenth-century Scottish magnate and chief of Clann Domhnaill.[note 1] He was a younger son of Aonghus Mór mac Domhnaill, Lord of Islay. After the latter's apparent death, the chiefship of the kindred was assumed by Aonghus Óg's elder brother, Alasdair Óg Mac Domhnaill.
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Aonghus Óg Mac Domhnaill | |
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Lord of Islay | |
![]() Aonghus Óg's name as it appears in a facsimile of correspondence between him and his feudal overlord, Edward I, King of England: "Engus de Yle".[1] | |
Predecessor | Alasdair Óg Mac Domhnaill? |
Died | 1314 × 1318/c. 1330 |
Buried | Iona |
Noble family | Clann Domhnaill |
Spouse(s) | Áine Ní Chatháin |
Issue | Eóin (John of Islay) Máire Áine? Eóin (illegitimate) |
Father | Aonghus Mór mac Domhnaill |
Most of the documentation regarding Aonghus Óg's career concerns his support of Edward I, King of England against supporters of John, King of Scotland. The latter's principal adherents on the western seaboard of Scotland were Clann Dubhghaill, regional rivals of Clann Domhnaill. Although there is much uncertainty concerning the Clann Domhnaill chiefship at this period in history, at some point after Alasdair Óg's apparent death at the hands of Clann Dubhghaill in 1299, Aonghus Óg seems to have taken up the chiefship as Lord of Islay.
Pressure from Clann Domhnaill and other supporters of the English Crown evidently compelled Clann Dubhghaill into coming onside with the English in the first years of the fourteenth century. However, when Robert Bruce VII, Earl of Carrick murdered the Scottish claimant John Comyn of Badenoch in 1306, and subsequently made himself King of Scotland (as Robert I), Clann Domhnaill seems to have switched their allegiance to Robert I in an effort to gain leverage against Clann Dubhghaill. Members of Clann Domhnaill almost certainly harboured the latter in 1306, when he was doggedly pursued by adherents of the English Crown.
Following Robert I's successful consolidation of the Scottish kingship, Aonghus Óg and other members of his kindred were rewarded with extensive grants of territories formerly held by their regional opponents. According to the late fourteenth-century Bruce, Aonghus Óg participated in the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314, Robert I's greatest victory over the English. It is uncertain when Aonghus Óg died. It could have been before or after the death of an unknown member of the clan at the Battle of Faughart in 1318—a man who seems to have held the chiefship at the time. Certainly, Eóin Mac Domhnaill—Aonghus Óg's lawful son by Áine Ní Chatháin—held the chiefship by the 1330s, and became the first member of Clann Domhnaill to rule as Lord of the Isles.