[2] The next year, William, Earl of Ross, granted the lands of Gairloch to Paul and his heirs by "Mary of Grahame", with remainder to the lawful heirs of Paul, for the annual payment of a silver penny in name of blench ferme, in lieu of all services, except forinsee service to the king if required.

According to Alexander Grant, he is likely to have filled the vacuum in southern Ross, left by the reduction of Norse power in the later part of the 11th century.

[5][note 2] According to the 19th-century historian Alexander Mackenzie, Paul's name Mactire stands for the Gaelic Mac an t'Oighre, meaning "son of the Heir";[11] although the 20th century etymologist George Fraser Black thought this a "wild statement".

[13] Black gave the name's derivation from the Irish mac tire, meaning "son of the soil (wolf)".

[5] The manuscript history of the Rosses of Balnagown states that a King of Denmark had three sons who came to the north of Scotland: "Gwine", "Loid", and "Leandres".

It relates how Murthow Reoche was slain at "Spittalhill", between Yule and Candlemas, while on a trip to Caithness to collect the blackmail; when Gillespik heard of his brother's death, he returned home to Ross.

[20] On the death of the fifth chief, William III, Earl of Ross (d.1372),[21] the title passed through an heiress to a member of Clan Leslie.

[10] In the late 18th century, the Welsh naturalist Thomas Pennant, toured the north of Scotland and wrote of his travels.

Included within his description of the parish of Creich, in Sutherland, Pennant wrote of a tradition concerning Paul, and the marriage of his daughter.

It is a common tradition, that Paul Mactier gave the lands of Strath Okel as a patrimony to his daughter, who was married to a nobelman [sic] of Norway, called Leander.

Gordonstoun stated that Paul built the fortress with a hard mortar which could not be identified even at the time of his writing, in the 17th century.

Jamieson proposed that the memory of Paul in the area, may have led the locals to connect him to the fortress, and attempt to explain its unfinished state.

[25] In the late 19th century, William Taylor stated that a spot near Tain, on the shores of Fendom, was known as Paul MacTyre's Hill.

[26] The 20th-century Scottish toponymist William J. Watson noted that there was a place, located near Plaids (near Tain), where there was said to have been a court-hill of Paul.

Macbain noted that the 19th century antiquary Cosmo Innes stated that this family was descended from Paul, who is recorded as acquiring the lands by charter, in 1365.