of the Rosses, and this tradition is corroborated by the fact
that there is a charter on record by Earl William of the lands of
Gairloch in 1366 in favour of Paul Mac Tire and his heirs by Mary
Graham, in which the Earl styles Mac Tire his cousin. This grant
was confirmed by King Robert II. in 1372. In the manuscript of
1467 the genealogy of Clann Gille-Anrias, or the descendants of
Gillean-Ard-Rois, begins with a Paul Mac Tire. The clan whose
genealogy is there given is undoubtedly that of the Rosses, and
in the manuscript they are traced upwards from Paul MacTire in a
direct line to Gilleon na h'Airde, the "Beolan" of the Norse Sagas,
who lived in the tenth century, and who will be shown to be also
the remote progenitor of the Mackenzies. The Aird referred to is
said to be the Aird of Ross.

In the manuscript of 1467 the name Gille-Anrias appears
in the genealogies of both the Mackenzies and the Rosses exactly
contemporaneous with the generation which preceded the original
grant to "Ferchair Mac an t'Sagairt" of the Earldom of Ross. The
name Gille-Anrias has been rendered as the Gaelic equivalent for
Servant of Andrew, or St. Andrew, and that, according to Skene,
would seem to indicate that the first of that name, if not a priest
himself, must have belonged to the priestly house of Appercrossan
or Applecross, of which Earl Farquhar ultimately became the head.
The dates exactly correspond; and when, in addition to this, it
is remembered that of the earls who besieged Malcolm IV. at Perth
in 1160 one was named "Gillandres" it seems fully established that
Ferchard Mac an t'Sagairt was descended from the original earls
and that he was entitled to the earldom by ancient right on the
failure or forfeiture of the direct representative of the old line,
as well as by a new creation. Although there may have been one