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Donald of Islay, Lord of the Isles

Lord of the Isles and chief of the Scottish Clan Donald

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 23, 2026
Entity authorityQ3036052 ↗
Source-derived summary

Donald, Lord of the Isles (Scottish Gaelic: Dómhnall; died 1423), was the son and successor of John of Islay, Lord of the Isles and chief of Clan Donald. The Lordship of the Isles was based in and around the Scottish west-coast island of Islay, but under Donald's father had come to include most of the isles and the lands of Somerled, the King of the Isles in the 12th century, Donald's predecessor, including Morvern, Garmoran, Lochaber, Kintyre and Knapdale on the mainland.

Donald was the grandson of King Robert II of Scotland and first cousin of King Robert III; he took pride in his royal blood, even adopting the royal tressure to surround his coat of arms.

While it is customary to portray the Lords of the Isles as divorced from the mainstream of Scottish political life, and as representatives of a brand of lordship distinct from the rest of Scotland, this view obscures the fact that Donald was only one of many magnates who held large lordships with little interference from the crown in late 14th and early 15th century Scotland. The Douglas kindred of southern Scotland and the Albany Stewarts had similar roles to Donald.

Early rule

Donald spent some of his first years as Lord of the Isles suppressing a revolt by his brother John Mór. John was Donald's younger brother, and resented his meagre inheritance. Although he was recognised as heir-apparent (tànaiste) until Donald produced a son, he only received patches of land in Kintyre and Islay. The rebellion initiated by the MacKinnons, including their chief, Niall and the "Green Abbot" of Iona, started in 1387 and went on into the 1390s. The MacKinnons and John obtained the support of the MacLean and MacLeod kindreds.

Editorial summary

“Donald of Islay, Lord of the Isles” enters the record as lord of the Isles and chief of the Scottish Clan Donald. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Donald, Islay and Lord can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1423, 1387—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1301. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Donald, Islay and Lord.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Donald of Islay, Lord of the Isles” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Donald, Islay and Lord provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3036052. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1423 and 1387.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Donald of Islay, Lord of the Isles”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Donald of Islay, Lord of the Isles primary sources, Donald of Islay, Lord of the Isles archive and Donald research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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  2. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Donald of Islay, Lord of the Isles” 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.