The Lord Lyon King of Arms, the Scottish official with responsibility for regulating heraldry in that country, issuing new grants of coats of arms, and serving as the judge of the Court of the Lord Lyon, recognises under Scottish law the High Chief of Clan Donald.

The MacDonnells of Antrim are a cadet branch of the MacDonalds of Dunnyveg but do not belong to the Scottish associations and have a chief officially recognised in Ireland.

The Norse-Gaelic Clan Donald traces its descent from Dòmhnall Mac Raghnuill (d. circa 1250),[citation needed] whose father Reginald or Ranald was styled "King of the Isles" and "Lord of Argyll and Kintyre".

[4] Ranald's father, Somerled was styled "King of the Hebrides", and was killed campaigning against Malcolm IV of Scotland at the Battle of Renfrew in 1164.

[8] The first lines of the poem begin "A Chlanna Cuinn cuimhnichibh / Cruas an àm na h-iorghaile," (Ye children of Conn remember hardihood in the time of battle).

[21] In 1429 the Battle of Lochaber took place where forces led by Donald's son, Alexander of Islay, 3rd Lord of the Isles and Earl of Ross, fought against the royalist army of James I of Scotland.

[24] The armies of the MacDonald Lords of the Isles were the only magnate forces in Scotland capable of inflicting defeats on the Crown at this time.

[20] The Battle of Bloody Bay took place in 1480 where John MacDonald of Islay, Lord of the Isles and chief of Clan Donald was defeated by his son Aonghas Óg.

[29] Loss of the Lordship of the Isles fractured Highland society and the MacDonalds in particular, who were left holding lands on either side of the Irish Sea, rather than a unified block of territory.

Their attempts to re-establish control destabilised Western Scotland for generations; the charge of "slaughter under trust", later applied after the Massacre of Glencoe in 1692, was introduced in 1587 to reduce the endemic feuding that resulted.

[31] The 1638–1651 Wars of the Three Kingdoms caused huge dislocation and damage throughout the British Isles; in 1641, the Scottish Covenanter government sent an expeditionary force that joined the vicious and bloody Irish Rebellion.

All sides committed atrocities, leading to a series of tit-for-tat responses, exacerbated by long-standing animosities; in 1642 on Rathlin Island, soldiers from a predominantly Clan Campbell-recruited unit led by Sir Duncan Campbell threw scores of MacDonnell women over the cliffs to their deaths on rocks below.

[32][33] Scotland initially stayed neutral in the First English Civil War but became involved in 1643; the shifting alliances only make sense if one understands that in Scotland, both Royalists and Covenanters agreed that the institution of monarchy was divinely ordered, but disagreed on the nature and extent of royal authority in relation to that of the church.

Ultimately the campaign ended in failure and division, since Mac Colla's objective was to regain territories in the Western Highlands, while Montrose's was to move south and aid Charles.

[35] The event served as part of the inspiration for "The Red Wedding" as featured in books and TV series Game of Thrones.

[45] However, according to A and A MacDonald these two companies were more of a hindrance than help to the Government as they were made up of officers and men who were in entire sympathy with the Jacobite Prince Charles Edward Stuart.