Fionnla Dubh mac Gillechriosd

Who is Fionnla Dubh mac Gillechriosd?

Fionnla Dubh mac Gillechriosd is purported to have been a 15th-century Scotsman, who lived in the north-west of Scotland. The Gaelic Fionnla Dubh mac Gillechriosd translates into English as "Fionnla the black, son of Gillechriosd". Fionnla Dubh is known from a late 17th-century traditional account of Clan Macrae; within that account he presented as a prominent ancestor of the clan. The tradition relates that for a time the chief of Clan Mackenzie was absent, and during that time his bastard uncles were causing trouble in the Mackenzies' territories of Kintail and Kinlochewe. Fionnla Dubh was then ordered to retrieve the chief and was successful in his task. From that time onward, says the tradition, the Macraes from the Kintail area rose in prominence amongst their Mackenzie lords. Tradition also states that Fionnla Dubh is an ancestor of the leading lines of the Macraes from Kintail.