find that Celestine succeeded to all the lands of the monastery
of Applecross in Lochalsh, Lochcarron, and Lochbroom. These lay
abbots are also said to have held, under the old Earls of Ross,
the Sleat district of the Isle of Skye, which Hugh, first of that
family, is alleged to have inherited through his mother, daughter
of the Red Priest and a descendant of Farquhar Mac an t'Sagairt, Earl
of Ross. It will be observed also that Austin, Uisdean, or Hugh,
a common name among the Applecross and old Earl of Ross dynasty,
comes into the Macdonald family for the first time at this period,
after Earl Alexander of the Macdonald line had formed a union with
the daughter of the last lay Abbot of Applecross. Skene distinctly
affirms that Hugh Macdonald of Sleat was the son of Earl Alexander
by a daughter of this Gille-Padruig ('Celtic Scotland,' Vol. III. p.
298) while Gregory suggests that the words naturalis and carnalis
used by Hugh's father and brother in the charters already quoted
"were used to designate the issue of those handfast or left-handed
marriages which appear to have been so common in the Highlands
and Isles." ['Western Highlands and Isles,' p.41] Whether the Sleat
district of Skye was or was not carried for the first time to the
Macdonald Earls of Ross and Lords of the Isles by this union with
a member of the family of the original O'Beolan Earls, it is
perfectly clear that the latter had an intimate connection with
the Sleat district at a much earlier period.

Saint Maelrubba, who is first heard of in Britain in 671, two years
later, in 673, founded the original Church of Applecross "from
which as a centre he evangelised the whole of the western districts
lying between Loch Carron and Loch Broom, as well as the south and
west parts of the Island of Skye, and planted churches in Easter
Ross and elsewhere." ['Celtic Scotland,' Vol. II. p. 166.] It is