Raghnall Mac Ruaidhrí

Raghnall Mac Ruaidhrí
Raghnall's name as it appears on folio 1v of National Library of Scotland Advocates' MS 72.1.1 (MS 1467): "Raghnall finn".
Predecessor	Ruaidhrí Mac Ruaidhrí
Successor	Áine Nic Ruaidhrí
Noble family	Clann Ruaidhrí
Father	Ruaidhrí Mac Ruaidhrí
Died	October 1346 Elcho Priory

Raghnall Mac Ruaidhrí (died October 1346) was an eminent Scottish magnate and chief of Clann Ruaidhrí. Raghnall's father, Ruaidhrí Mac Ruaidhrí, appears to have been slain in 1318, at a time when Raghnall may have been under age. Ruaidhrí himself appears to have faced resistance over the Clann Ruaidhrí lordship from his sister, Cairistíona, wife of Donnchadh, a member of the comital family of Mar. Following Ruaidhrí's demise, there is evidence indicating that Cairistíona and her powerful confederates also posed a threat to the young Raghnall. Nevertheless, Raghnall eventually succeeded to his father, and first appears on record in 1337.

Raghnall's possession of his family's expansive ancestral territories in the Hebrides and West Highlands put him in conflict with the neighbouring magnate William III, Earl of Ross, and contention between the two probably contributed to Raghnall's assassination at the hands of the earl's adherents in 1346. Following his death, the Clann Ruaidhrí territories passed through his sister, Áine, into the possession of her husband, the chief of Clann Domhnaill, Eóin Mac Domhnaill, resulting in the latter's consolidation of power in the Hebrides as Lord of the Isles.

The fifteenth-century MS 1467 accords Raghnall with an epithet meaning "white". He was an illegitimate son of Ruaidhrí Mac Ruaidhrí (died 1318?), grandson of the eponymous ancestor of Clann Ruaidhrí. The identity of Raghnall's mother is unknown. Raghnall's father controlled a provincial lordship which encompassed the mainland territories of Moidart, Arisaig, Morar, and Knoydart; and the island territories of Rhum, Eigg, Barra, St Kilda, and Uist. This dominion, like the great lordships of Annandale and Galloway, was comparable to the kingdom's thirteen earldoms. There is reason to suspect that the rights to the family's territories were contested after Ruaidhrí's death. In fact, Ruaidhrí himself was illegitimate, and only gained formal control of the lordship after his legitimate half-sister, Cairistíona (fl. 1290–1318), resigned her rights to him at some point during the reign of Robert I, King of Scotland (died 1329).