Manus O'Cahan's Regiment
Manus O'Cahan (Irish: Maghnus Ó Catháin) never set foot in England; all of his fighting took place in Ulster and Scotland.
Officers Lieftennant James Dease Ancient Bartholomew Newgent Sarjeants of the company Tohill Moddirrt Mac Illrey and John That.
Officers Patricke O Mallen, Lieftennant Phelim O Donnelly, Ancient Daniel Mac Duffy and James O Mulhollan, Sargeants.
In all, 500 besydes officers[citation needed] Macdonald territories in Scotland originally formed a relatively homogeneous unit with those held by their Irish cousins the MacDonnells in County Antrim.
With the loss of the Lordship of the Isles in 1493, these links were severed, leading to nearly two centuries of conflict for their possession, primarily between the MacDonalds, the McLeans and the Campbells.
The Hebridean isles of Islay and Colonsay had been held by the MacDonald leader Colkitto, whose mother was an O'Cahan but in 1614, the Scottish Crown transferred ownership to the Campbells in return for pacifying them.
[1] Religion was another cause of tension; the Protestant Reformation created a Calvinist Church of Scotland and by 1640, Catholicism was largely restricted to Gaelic-speaking areas held by the MacDonalds in the remote Highlands and Islands.
In Ireland, the post-1609 Plantation of Ulster dispossessed traditional Irish landholders like the MacDonnells in favour of Protestant settlers, many of whom were Scots.
Political instability and a desire to reverse these losses resulted in the 1641 Irish Rebellion; the Covenanters originally remained neutral in the 1642-1651 Wars of the Three Kingdoms but sent troops to Ulster to support their co-religionists and the bitterness of this conflict radicalised views in both countries.
[3] Colkitto's son Alastair McColla was appointed to command the Brigade but his objective of regaining family lands in South-West Scotland would ultimately clash with those of the Royalist leader, James Graham.
In 1641, as McColla raised his army in Ulster, on behalf of Randal MacDonnell (Earl of Antrim), a strong Royalist sympathiser, the Irish Rebellion of 1641 erupted.
Finding themselves despised by the Protestants in the force, the Scot and the Irishman rebelled and went on a guerrilla warfare rampage throughout Northern Ireland.
In the course of the conflict they developed a new battle technique known as the 'Irish Charge', which involved discarding heavy weapons such as pikes and muskets to rush the enemy to kill them at close quarter with dirks, daggers and swords or even with unarmed combat tactics.
As the Scottish Covenant forces declared military support for the English Parliament in late 1643, Antrim hit on a plan to send Catholic troops to Scotland.
The aim was for them to cause as much destruction as possible, to force the Scots to withdraw from Ireland, to deal with the increasing crisis back home.
Antrim negotiated the plans through the Confederacy's Supreme Council, and with the full blessing of James Butler, Earl of Ormonde, a personal advisor to King Charles.
On Antrim's orders, McColla and O'Cahan, with Thomas Lachnan and James MacDonnell, raised an army of 1,500 men and sailed for Scotland, intending to avenge the wrongs done to them by the Campbell clan, who were ardent Covenanters.
On 7 July O'Cahan led the division that took Kinlochaline Castle, coming under intense cannon fire, but emerging victorious to rejoin the main body of MacColla's men in their own captured territory, Loch Sunart.
Earthwork battery ramparts and trenches were dug to help secure the territories The ships were soon lost in acts of piracy against Covenant and Parliamentary vessels that patrolled the waters looking for invaders.
Realising that their position was growing increasingly dangerous as, only 1,500 strong, they were hopelessly outnumbered, O'Cahan and McColla started to move inland, recruiting among local clansmen as they went.
Montrose had planned on taking an army from England to serve his cause in Scotland, and made his way to an audience with Prince Rupert of The Rhine.
The next, at Aberdeen, on 13 September 1644, was more controversial in that the Royalists, including O'Cahan's men, were involved in the massacre of hundreds of unarmed civilians throughout the city.
Montrose wanted to expand his forces and march south, to England to help the King, who was by this time faring badly as Cromwell's New Model Army grew in strength.
The Highland warriors who came to their aid frequently left the battlefields to carry home their spoils of war, so they often vanished for months on end, though most did return.
The Scottish soldiers who served Montrose constantly drew him back from his planned advances on the English border to have another charge against the forces of the Earl of Argyll, leader of the Campbell Clan.
When McColla was away on a recruitment drive on 21 October 1644, Montrose and O'Cahan and their men found themselves pinned down at Fyvie Castle by Argyll's forces.
The culminating attack, and massacre of Campbells at Inverlochy on 2 February 1645 was made after a two-day march over the foothills of Ben Nevis.
The traditional story of Auldearn is that Montrose hid his main army in a hollow and set up McColla and O'Cahan as a false front and a decoy target before executing a brilliant pincer movement to trap the enemy.
David Leslie, a leading soldier and Covenanter, attacked O'Cahan's men as they were waking up at an encampment in Philiphaugh on 13 September 1645.
He moved through Europe, and later led an attack on the Covenanters on behalf of King Charles II, using an inexperienced army of Danish and Scandinavian mercenaries.
