Shortly after its establishment, this kingship, or chieftainship, lost its Irish character and centred in Scotland. But relations were constant--though by no means constantly friendly--and the Lords of the Isles held Rathlin Island for many centuries. However near the Irish coast this island lies--only divided by some five miles from the base of Fair Head--the sound between it and the mainland is so dangerous, with its racing tides, as to be an effectual barrier; and very often passage may be easier made from the Scotch coast than from the bay of Ballycastle. At all events, the Mac Donnells owned Rathlin when Robert Bruce needed a refuge, and the castle is still there in which the Bruce sheltered for seven years--and in which it was that he watched the spider's patience and drew the moral for his own far-off designs. The Mac Donnells were one of three great clans who divided a disputed lordship in Ulster before Ulster (last of the provinces) was finally subdued. The Mac Donnell lordship was the least authoritative and (although it traced descent to the sixth century) the latest in date. O'Neill and O'Donnell, the true Gaelic overlords of Ulster, sprang from two sons of Niall of the Nine Hostages, High King of Ireland from 379 to 405. Of their sons, Conall settled himself on Donegal Bay, and Eoghan (or Owen) on the Inishowen hills. Tyrconnell--_Tir Chonaill_--takes its name from the one son; Tyrone--_Tir Eoghain_--from the other. About these centres power grouped itself, each chief having sub-chiefs or _urraghts_ under him, each with his own sept. It was only in the tenth century when Brian Boru was High King that the hereditary surnames came to be adopted--O'Neill for the lord of Tyrone, O'Donnell for the princes of Tyrconnell. Their country was remote of access, difficult of passage for troops; their people were hardy; and so it happened that in the reign of Henry VIII, and even of Elizabeth, when all else in Ireland had been fairly brought within British sovereignty (even the O'Briens of Thomond submitting) O'Neill and O'Donnell could still hold their own. But mutual jealousies and border feuds weakened the Gael; the O'Neills were the strongest people, yet the O'Donnells on one flank and the Mac Donnells on the other often sought advantage by English alliance. Shane O'Neill, perhaps the most dangerous foe that Elizabeth had to meet in Ireland, of whom Sir Henry Sidney wrote that "this man could burn, if he liked, up to the gates of Dublin, and go away unfought", met his crushing defeat at the hand of Irish enemies, the O'Donnells, who routed him on the Swilly river near Letterkenny; and in his trouble he fled to unfriends on the other side, the Mac Donnells, in whose camp at Cushendun he was poniarded, and his head sold to the English.