Coll Ciotach
Scottish soldier
Coll Ciotach Mac Domhnaill (English: Left-handed Coll MacDonald) (1570–1647) was a Scottish adventurer and mercenary of the Clan MacDonald of Dunnyveg branch of Clan Donald, who became Laird of Colonsay in 1623, by treachery. His name, which means "Coll the left-handed" or "the crafty", was anglicised as Colkitto. However he only used the nickname Ciotach late in his life in 1629 when it appeared in a Latin translation of a Gaelic letter where Coll refers to himself as "Ego Collatius Kiotach Macdonnell".
In Gaelic he was referred to as Coll Mac Gilleasbuig ("Coll the son of Archibald"). However in English he was normally known as "Coll Macgilespik" or a variant of this, or as "Coll MacDonald". Some English speakers concluded that "Coll" must be his military rank and that "Ciotach" was a surname. So he was also referred to as: Colonell Kittoghie, Col. Kittack, Collonell McGillespick, Colonel Coill McDonnell alias McGillespick, Col. Killa and Colonel Macdonald. Others took "Coll" or "Coll Ciotach" as places, and so they introduced "MacDonald of Coll" and "MacDonald of Kolkitto".
“Coll Ciotach” enters the record as scottish soldier. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Coll, Ciotach and Scottish can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Oct 26, 2024. The linked authority identifier is Q5141809. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1570, 1647, 1623 and 1629.
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This entry incorporates text from “Coll Ciotach” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.