Counter-Reformation at the end of the
sixteenth century together with the Huntly Gordons under their chief, the "Cock of
the North." Another branch of the Hays settled early on the Moray Firth as barons of
Lochloy, and intermarried with the local clans. Sir William de Ia Haye, Baron of Lochloy,
was sheriff of Inverness in 1296.
The Jordans (Mac Shiurtain) descend from
Jordan (Shiurtain) D’Exeter, an Anglo-Norman knight, whose descendants acquired
extensive holdings in northeast Mayo after the Anglo-Norman invasion. The present Barony
of Gallen in northeast Mayo was formerly known as "MacJordan’s Country."
Though they remembered their descent from the D’Exeter family, they nonetheless
formed a sept on the Gaelic model. In 1571 they are called "very wild Irish" by
an Elizabethan official. A branch was also settled in County Clare.
The Keatings (Ceitinn) were among the first
Anglo-Norman invaders, settling first in County Wexford, where they obtained large grants
of land. They later spread into Counties Leix, Carlow, Kildare, Tipperary, and Waterford.
The Leix and Carlow branches became Gaelic-style septs. The name is also prominent in
Anglo-Irish records, in which Keatings are found filling important positions, mainly as
sheriffs and later as members of parliament. Dr. Geoffrey Keating, the Gaelic-speaking
priest, was an important historian in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.
The Keiths (Ceiteach) take their name from
the lands of Keith in East Lothian, which passed through the granddaughter of Simon
Fraser, ancestor of the Frasers, to Sir Robert Keith, who got a grant of Keith from King
John Balliol in 1294. Sir Robert joined Robert Bruce in 1308,and became Justiciar and
Great Marischal (commander of the royal army) of Scotland. He commanded the cavalry at
Bannockburn in 1314, and was killed at Neville’s Cross in 1346. The office of Great
Marischal remained hereditary in his family, and in 1458 Sir William Keith, the then Great
Marischal, was created Earl Marischal by King James II. A cadet of his family married one
of the heiresses of the Cheynes of Akergill, and settled in Caithness, where his family
long had a sanguinary feud with the Clann Gunn. The Earls Marischal exerted great
influence on Scottish affairs through many generations, and the family acquired broad
lands in the lowlands of Aberdeenshire, Kincardineshire and West Lothian. James Keith,
younger brother of the tenth Earl Marischal, was out in the Jacobite rising of 1715, and
later became a Field-Marshal under Frederick the Great.
The Kinnairds take their name from the Barony
of Kinnaird in the Gowrie district of East Perthshire (not the Atholl Kinnaird). The first
person of the name was Radulphus Ruffus, who received a charter of the lands of Kinnaird
from King William the Lion about 1180. Richard of Kinnaird, grandson of Radulf Ruffus,
appears in the early thirteenth century, and Rauf de Kynriard in 1296. William Kynnard of
that Ilk appears in 1546. George Patrick Kinnaird |
