The origin of Somerled, the undoubted founder of the noble race of the Island Lords, is, according to Mr Gregory, involved in considerable obscurity. Assuming that the clan governed by Somerled formed part of the great tribe of Gallgael, it follows that the independent kings of the latter must in all probability have been his ancestors, and should therefore be found in the old genealogies of his family. But this scarcely appears to be the case. The last king of the Gallgael was Suibne, the son of Kenneth, who died in the year 1034; and, according to the manuscript of 1450, an ancestor of Somerled, contemporary with this petty monarch, bore the same name, from which it may be presumed that the person referred to in the genealogy and the manuscript is one and the same individual. The latter, however, calls Suibne’s father Nialgusa; and in the genealogy there is no mention whatever of a Kenneth. But from the old Scottish writers we learn that at this time there was a Kenneth, whom they call Thane of the Isles, and that one of the northern mormaors also bore the same name, although it is not very easy to say what precise claim either had to be considered as the father of Suibne. There is also a further discrepancy observable in the earlier part of the Macdonald genealogies, as compared with the manuscript; and besides, the latter, without making any mention of these supposed kings, deviates into the misty region of Irish heroic fable and romance. At this point, indeed, there is a complete divergence, if not contrariety, between the history as contained in the Irish Annals, and the genealogy developed in the manuscript; for, whilst the latter mentions the Gallgael under their leaders as far back as the year 856, the former connect Suibne, by a different genealogy, with the kings of Ireland. The fables of the Highland and Irish Sennachies now became connected with the genuine history. The real descent of the chiefs was obscured or perplexed by the Irish genealogies, and previously to the eleventh century neither these genealogies nor even that of the manuscript of 1450 can be considered as of any authority whatsoever. It seems somewhat rash, however, to conclude, as Mr Skene has done, that the Siol-Cuinn, or descendants of Conn, were of native origin. This exceeds the warrant of the premises, which merely carry the difficulty a few removes backwards into the obscurity of time, and there leave the question in greater darkness than ever.