Timeline of Key Historical Events

The purpose of this timeline is threefold:

1. to provide a rough outline of Gaelic history as it relates to the rest of the world, and internally as it relates to movement of people between Scotland and Ireland;
2. to provide genealogists with key event dates that may relate to the movements of their ancestors, and to identify known migration patterns;
3. to provide a few dates that relate especially to Highland dress, tartans, Scottish regiments, folk heroes, etc., and a few historical Cuindlis personages, ancient to modern.

It does not do all of these things well yet, as a lot of information is missing on numbers of Scots, Irish, and Scots-Irish immigrants to Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and the West Indies; among other deficiencies. Some things are too subtle for a timeline, e.g. analysis of the disportionate number of Scottish male deaths in the World Wars, etc.

If you have a timeline item to add, please get in touch via the Forums, or use the Contact form.

• Prehistory – 6th century: Ireland was dominated more or less entirely by Gaels (albeit of mixed genetic backgrounds). While at constant war between many fractious minor kingdoms and regional dynasties, they had a shared culture, mutually intelligible language, etc.
• Prehistory – 9th century: The native Picts or Priteni, after whom Britain is named, ruled most of what is now Scotland, holding off against invasions by Romans, Irish, Anglo-Saxons, more southerly Britons, and Vikings.
• 43 AD: Roman invasion and beginning of occupation of most of Britain (Provincia Britannia).
• 4th century or earlier: The Irish (called Scoti or Scotti in Latin) raided and sometimes settled on the west coast of Roman Britain.
• 410: End of Roman occupation of most of Britain.
• 446: The Anglo-Saxon invasion of what is now England began in earnest. The Arthurian legendary cycle is set during this time period.
• 5th–8th centuries: Dál Riada, a Gaelic kingdom rooted in the north-east of Ireland, spanned the North Channel of the Irish sea and claimed substantial parts of what today is western Scotland from the Picts, beginning a long process of Gaelicization.
• 577: The Britons lost key cities to the Anglo-Saxons after Battle of Deorham.
• 6th–10th centuries: Uí Néill dynasty ruled north-west and parts of east-central Ireland, and supplied an outsized number of Ireland’s (sometimes disputed) high kings. Ulster’s distinctiveness from the rest of Ireland began this early.
• ca. 600: By this time, Anglo-Saxons controlled most of what today is lowland England.
• 713–24: Cuindles of Connacht was the 17th Abbot of Clonmacnoise in Uí Failghe (now Offaly, Leinster, Ireland).
• ca. 793–1066: The Viking Age, during which Norse raiders and eventually settlers played a formative role in various regions of Ireland and Scotland (and England, and France). Viking influence was particularly strong in what today are eastern Ireland and west coastal Scotland, including Galloway in particular (the name of which means ‘Norse-Gaelic’) and the Hebrides.
• 838: Viking settlement of Dublin (later the Kingdom of Dublin) began. Also the beginning of a wave of Norse–Gaelic assimilation and intermarriage; the Vikings were somewhat integrating into Gaelic society in some areas. The Ivar dynasty (Gaelic: Uí Ímair) established in Dublin soon came to control the islands from the Hebrides to Mann (the Kingdom of the Isles), the west coast of Scotland, and even York in England for a while. It also supplied two or more “queens of Ireland” (actually queens of multiple parts of Ireland) and possibly a queen of Norway.
• ca. 843–1286: The Kingdom of Alba (a merger of Dalriadic and Pictish lands and crowns) covers what is now most of Scotland; Kenneth MacAlpin (Cináed mac Ailpín), r. 843–858, widely regarded today as first king of a unified Scotland (though some southern parts of the modern country were still part of the Kingdom of Strathclyde until the 10th or 11th c.).
• 865: The Great Heathen Army – a coalition of Scandinavian forces sought to not raid but take over much of England (then divided into four kingdoms), in a 14-year campaign culminating in the Battle of Edington with the English nominally victorious.
• 886: The Anglo-Saxons unite under a single king, Alfred the Great, who negotiated a treaty with the Vikings in England, forming the Danelaw in 886, which lasted roughly two centuries before full English assimilation.
• ca. 943–954: Máel Coluim (Malcolm) I of Alba is believed to have annexed the Brittonic kingdom Strathclyde at least as a client state. At any rate, it was entirely subsumed no later than the 1070s, when Strathclyde was granted by Alexander I of Scotland to his brother, who was to become David I.
• 980: The Battle of Tara, in which the Irish Gaels under high king Máel Sechnaill II retook the Kingdom of Dublin for a time from the Vikings.
• 999: The Battle of Glenmama, in which a Gaelic alliance of the forces of Máel Sechnaill II and Brían Boru again defeated the Dublin Vikings who this time had aid from the fractious Gaelic forces of Leinster.
• 1002: Æthelred II of England razed much of the Danelaw in the St. Brice’s Day massacre, in retaliation for Denmark’s continued raiding of English territory.
• 1002–13: King Sweyn Forkbeard of Denmark repeatedly raided and invaded England to avenge the St. Brice’s Day massacre, and in 1013 wrested the kingship of England from Æthelred II, albeit only for five weeks.
• 1014: The Battle of Clontarf, in which high king Brían Boru defeated a Norse–Gaelic alliance, though at the cost of his own life and those of his male heirs. This Gaelic victory is generally seen as freeing Ireland from Viking rule. Picts from the Mar clan or tribe participated on the winning side, and foreshadowed a later long tradition of Scottish mercenary work in and migration to Ireland.
  1014 Battle of Clontarf depicted
  by Eoghan Ó Neachtain in 1905
• 1016–42: England was ruled by Nordic kings (Cnut or Canute, Harold I, then Harthacnut/Hardicanute) as part of a broader North Sea Empire.
• 1066: The Norman conquest of England. Greatly changed England and even its language.
• 1169–77: The Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland, under Henry II of England. This established the Lordship of Ireland, which at its late 13th to early 14th century peak encompassed about 2/3 of Ireland. Fitz- and de names in Ireland (FitzHugh, de Burgh) are of Norman origin, as are de names of Scotland. Ireland was essentially divided into Anglo-Norman and Gaelic areas, though with the fomer generally as overlords of Gaelic chieftains and minor kings.
• 13th century: Scottish gallowglass mercenaries began a centuries-long practice of moving to Ireland, primarily from the Western Isles and Scotland’s west coast (especially Argyll). They settled on land grants and became permanent members of the Norse-Gaelic clans of Ireland, but often kept their names. The first group arrived in 1258–1259, and there were at least 59 such contingents by 1512. In 1569, a single group of incoming gallowglass consisted on at least 1,200 men, perhaps as many as 5,000 within a few years. Use of gallowglass forces declined after the 1601 Irish loss of the Battle of Kinsale, but continued into the 1640s.
• 1292: John Balliol elected (over 12 other claimants) by nobles as King of Scots, after an interregnum. He was basically a coerced and undermined puppet of Edward I of England, and was eventually forced to abdicate. Scotland was left without a king until 1306.
• 1295: The Auld Alliance was formed, a mutual aid treaty between Scotland and France (especially against the English).
• 1296–1328: First War of Scottish Independence; Scotland defended (eventually successfully) against English invasion.
• 1297: Rebellion against England under William Wallace (“Braveheart”) and Andrew Moray.
• 1306: Robert the Bruce became King of Scotland. He was actually Normano-Scottish; the name was originally de Brus.
• 1314: Battle of Bannockburn: Bruce’s Scottish forces defeated those of England’s Edward II. This was effectively the end of the First War of Scottish Independence (the formal end came in 1328).
• 1315–17: Widespread famine in Europe, including Ireland and Britain.
• 1315-18: Scottish invasion of Ireland by Edward Bruce (brother of Robert) allied with some of the native Irish (Gaelic) lords against Anglo-Norman occupation; these supporters declared Edward the new High King of Ireland. The war was not ultimately successful, in part due to the ongoing famine which made supplying an army difficult; but it wreaked much havoc for the English. It also involved the movement of some 6,000 to 10,000 Scots into Ireland, mostly Ulster.
• ca. 1310s–20s: O’Neills of Tyrone brought many Scottish gallowglas mercenaries to Ulster to fight the English, during reign of Robert the Bruce. Many remained there.
• 1326: The Auld Alliance between Scotland and France was renewed.
• 1328: Treaty of Edinburgh–Northampton formally ended the First War of Scottish Independence, largely in Scotland’s favour.
• 1332–57: Second War of Scottish Independence; Scotland again slowly repelled an attempted English invasion (successful in part because of the Auld Alliance between Scotland and France, plus England becoming embroiled in the Hundred Years’ War with France from 1337). Conflict more or less ended with the Treaty of Berwick. Scotland was destitued by the war, but remained independent until the Treaty of Union in 1707.
• 1333: The Anglo-Norman English lost control of Ireland west of the River Shannon.
• 1337–1453: The Hundred Years’ War between the English and French dynasties drew English military away from Gaelic areas.
• 1342: Death of Domnall Ó Cuindlis, a chronicler in Uí Maine (present-day Galway and Roscommon, Ireland).

A medieval Irish scribe as depicted
by medieval Irish scribes, from
8th-century Book of Mulling
• 1346–53: The Black Death (bubonic plague), which reached Ireland in 1348 and Scotland in 1349. The effect in Ireland was so calamitous that English control there shrank back to the Pale, the fortified area surrounding Dublin, with surviving Gaels reasserting control over the rest of the island. In Scotland, at least a third of the population died. Plague returned many times over the next century.
• ca. 1350–1500: The Gaelic Resurgence or Gaelic Revival in Ireland. Hiberno-Norman landholders outside the Pale were (when they survived) assimilalted to Gaelic language and life to such an extent they were later described as “more Irish than the Irish themselves”.
• 1398–1411: Murchadh Riabhach Ó Cuindlis was a scribe in Uí Maine, working on still-surviving Irish manuscripts including the Book of Lecan and An Leabhar Breac.
• 1448–63: Cornelius Ó Cunlis was bishop of Clonfert, in east Co. Galway, Ireland.
• 1460–85: The Wars of the Roses in England (also affected Scotland and parts of Ireland through troop conscription, etc.).
• 1496–97: James IV of Scotland twice invaded northern England in support of a pretender (ultimately failed) to the English throne. The insecurity of the Anglo-Scottish border effectively forced Henry VII of England into the Treaty of Ayton with Scotland in 1497, the Treaty of Perpetual Peace in 1502, and arrangement of marriage between James IV and Henry VII’s daughter Margaret in 1503. The marriage meant that the only thing standing between the Scottish king and the English succession was the future Henry VIII of England, who at this time was an heirless prince. This commingling of the Scottish and English royal lineages had important consequences in 1603.
• 1534: The Silken Thomas Rebellion in Ireland.
• 1534: Establishment of the Church of England under Henry VIII.
• 1540s–1600s: Tudor re-conquest of Ireland, under Henry VIII and later Elizabeth I, and James I (VI of Scotland). Established the Kingdom of Ireland in 1542 as a secondary realm of the kings and queens of England, and lasted to 1800.
• 1550s: A privately organized British “plantation” (colony) was founded in Ireland in counties Laois and Offaly. It is unclear how many of the settlers were Scottish and from what parts.
• 1560: Establishment of the Church of Scotland, under the Reformation Parliament.
• 1569–73: The First Desmond Rebellion in Ireland.
• 1570s: Another private British colony was established in east Ulster (Northern Ireland today). Presaged but usually not included in accounts of the Plantation of Ulster (1606–1641).
• 1579–83: The Second Desmond Rebellion in Ireland.
• 1580s: A third private British plantation in Ireland was organized in Munster.
• 1594–1603: The Nine Years’ War.
• 1597: the Fife Adventurers with royal backing from James VI of Scotland set up a Lowland Scots colony on the (Gaelic) Isle of Lewis; reinforced in 1605 and 1609, but ultimately unsuccessful. Nevertheless, this (along with a similar de-Gaelicization efforts in Kintyre, Uist, and Skye) was something of the blueprint for later Scots and English colonization of Ulster.
• 1603: James VI of Scotland became also James I of England, and the two kingdoms merged in a personal union under this monarch, though otherwise remained essentially separate until 1707. The personal union also included the Kingdom of Ireland.
• 1606–41: The overall period of the Plantation of Ulster, the settlement of British (including Scottish) families into what today is Northern Ireland.
• 1606–7: Notable Scots (Presbyterian) settlement in Ulster began, including in Antrim and Down.
• 1607: Flight of the Ulster earls – the earls of Tyrone and Tryconnell fled to continental Europe, after the Nine Years’ War, leaving much of Ulster open to British seizure and colonization.
• 1607: Founding of Jamestown colony in Virginia, in what today is the United States. It was the first successful permanent British colony in North America.
• 1608: O’Doherty’s Rebellion in Ireland.
• 1609: Highland and Island chiefs of Scottish clans forced to largely accept the Statutes of Iona, a de-Gaelicization effort of James I & VI. It was the beginning of the end for the Highlander way of life.
• 1609: James I & VI’s formal Plantation of Ulster began (Donegal, Londonderry/Derry, Tyrone, Fermanagh, Cavan, Armagh).
• 1609: Founding of the first successful British colony in the West Indies, at Bermuda. Much early British and Irish immigration was to the West Indies rather than North America proper (thus, e.g., the strong influence of Irish English on Jamaican and related dialects).
• 1610: The first permanent, non-seasonal British settlement in what is now Canada was established in Newfoundland, though there was already a significant population of seasonal trappers and traders, and the French had permanent settlements in Nova Scotia since 1605 and Quebec since 1608.
• 1622: By this year, there were 6,400 British males living on Ulster Plantation lands, of whom 3,700 were Scottish, with a further 4,000 Scottish men in Antrim and Down (about a total settler population in NI of 19,000).
• 1630s: By this decade, about 20,000 British males lived on Ulster Plantation lands. Most of the Scots were from SW Scotland and the Borders counties. McCandlish/McCandless is not among the known names of families moved there during the Plantantion, but these records are woefully incomplete, recording only 422 names out of thousands.)
• 1633: Raising of the first Scottish regiment of the British army, the Royal Scots (Royal Regiment of Foot), a Lowlands regiment (Highlands regiments would not exist until 1881). This marked the beginning of “institutionalization” of the kilt; its use in Scottish regimental attire did much to preserve it over the coming centuries, and to standardize kilt length, sporran usage, and other elements of now-traditional kilt attire.
• 1639–53: The Wars of the Three Kingdoms, civil wars in England, Scotland, and Ireland. Ulster Scots were on the losing side (against Cromwell’s New Model Army) in 1648–50, providing an early reason to emigrate out (e.g. to North America, though some probably back to Scotland).
• 1641: Irish Rebellion of 1641.
• 1645: The Great Plague of 1645.
• 1649–50: English interregnum after execution of Charles I; the “three kingdoms” became a dictatorial republic (formally Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland from 1653), under Oliver Cromwell.
• 1649–50: Also the Scottish revolt for Charles II.
• 1650: The English (and thus Scottish and Irish) monarchy resumed with the Restoration of Charles II.
• ca. 1671–1734: Lifetime of Roy Roy, who was to become a romanticized Highland folk hero, mostly due to fictionalized accounts of him in 1723 (when he was still living) and in 1817.
• 1688: the Glorious Revolution (James II & VII deposed in November of that year by his daughter Mary II and her husband, William III of Orange – “William & Mary”, who ruled jointly).
• 1688–91: The Williamite–Jacobite war in Ireland – which led to around 100,000 deaths, counting famine and sickness. Presbyterians in Ulster (mostly Ulster Scots), though on the winning side of this conflict, were, along with Catholics, excluded from power by Anglicans, providing a reason to emigrate to North America and elsewhere.
• 1691: The clan chiefs were ordered to swear loyalty to William & Mary by 31 December of that year. Failure to comply by MacDonald of Glencoe (MacIain) was what lead to the Massacre of Glencoe (12 February 1692) by the Earl of Argyll’s Regiment of Foot under the command of Campbell of Glenlyon (source of treating “Campbell” as a bad name in parts of Scotland).
• 1690s: Another wave of Scottish immigration to Ulster (tens of thousands) due to a Borders famine. Despite some emigration back out, over 100,000 Ulster Scots Presbyterians were in Ulster in 1700.
• 1707: Treaty and Acts of Union; formed a single Kingdom of Great Britain, under Queen Anne of England, Scotland and Ireland.
• 1710–75: More than 100,000 Ulster Presbyterians of Scottish origin left for America in this date range (see details below). It was the largest British migration to North America in the 18th century. The bulk of British Isles immigrants to American colonies were from N. Ireland (about 150,000 to 200,000 in that date range), Scotland, and English Borders counties. The N. Ir. ones mostly went to Pennsylvania and western Virginia, and the Carolinas, thence southwest to the South, Ozarks, Appalachians. One large group went to New Hampshire.
• 1710: By this year, despite some emigration out, Presbyterians in Ulster had quickly gone from a semi-oppressed 20% to a majority, up to 50,000, accounting for about half of the newcomers (most of the rest were English).
• 1715: The ’15, the Jacobite revolt for James Francis Stuart (“James III”).
• 1717: The Indemnity Act 1717 pardoned all the surviving Jacobite rebels except for Clan Gregor.
• 1730–1830: Lowland Clearances – tens of thousands re-settled in purpose-built agricultural villages; moved to Glasgow, Edinburgh, and northern England; or emigrated, mostly to Canada.
• 1745: The ’45, the Jacobite revolt for Charles Edward Stuart (“Bonnie Prince Charlie”). The first significant engagement was the Battle of Prestonpans.
  Advance of the Highlanders at Prestonpans (1745)
  from British Battles on Land and Sea, 1873
• 1746: Battle of Culloden; England defeated Scotland; end of the Jacobite uprisings.
• 1750–1860: Highland Clearances, some continuing to 1886 (Crofter’s Act), after the Highland Land League and so-called Crofters’ War of the 1880s. 1st phase ca. mid-18th century. 2nd phase ca. 1815–20 to 1850s. Mostly affected the n. and w. Highlands and Islands. Highlanders moved to the coast, the Lowlands, North America (more Canada than the US in this period), and Australia. Especially: Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, parts of Ontario; the Carolinas.
• 1756–63: The Seven Years’ War.
• 1756–1815: Highlands men were recruited in large numbers into the British Army and sent to fight and die in foreign wars; estimates range from 40,000 to 75,000 in this time period. (The first proper Highlands regiment did not form until 1881, however.)
• 1761: A group of N. Irish immigrants to New Hampshire moved on from there to Nova Scotia, Canada. Around the same time, a Highland regiment garrison in New Brunswick began attracting Scots settlers, who increased by thousands of loyalists during and after the American Revolution.
• 1772: Many Gaels went to Prince Edward Island.
• 1773: 200 more came from the Highlands to Nova Scotia.
• 1775–83: The American Revolution.
• 1780s: Immigration to the US resumed after the American Revolution, especially to Pennsylvia and New York.
• 1782: Ireland gained parliamentary independence from England in the Constitution of 1782.
• 1783: More Scottish loyalists left the US for Ontario and Nova Scotia.
• 1788: British penal colony founded in New South Wales in present-day Australia.
• 1789–99: French Revolution, which along with the American one sent shockwaves through European monarchies (and the peoples subject to them).
• 1790: The first US census showed a full 12% of the population to be of Scottish or Scots-Irish descent (today it is 2% or less).
• 1790s: By this decade, there were about 400,000 Americans of Irish descent, half from Ulster; and Cape Breton Island was almost entirely Gaelic-speaking (Scottish), while many Catholic Highlanders moved to Prince Edward Island to escape post-Culloden religious persecution.
• 1795–1803: The British came to control Cape Town in what is now South Africa.
• 1798–1803: Rebellions in Ireland and the Newfoundland Colony, organized by the Society of United Irishmen, inspired by the American and French Revolutions, and with military support from France. The Society was actually founded by Scots-Irish Presbyterians and later swelled by Ireland’s majority Catholics, as both groups had reason to oppose control by Anglican English. The rebellions were swiftly repressed.
• ca. 1800–1825: Glasgow’s population boomed from 70,000 to 170,000 in a single generation.
• 1803: 800 Highlanders relocated to Prince Edward Island, and another large group that year came to PEI from the Isle of Skye.
• 1803: British colony founded in Tasmania.
• 1803–15: Napoleonic Wars.
• 1803: Castle Hill Rebellion in Ireland, organized by Society of United Irishmen.
• 1806: British regained control of Cape Town; it was ceded to Great Britain at the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815.
• 1810s: Australian transition began from penal to civil colonization in New South Wales.
• 1811: More Highlanders came to Manitoba.
• 1812–15: War of 1812, between the United States and Canada (then British North America).
• 1815: By this time, Scots and some Scots-Irish (mostly farmers) were one of the three major ethnic groups in the Maritimes, and a Canadian dialect of Scottish Gaelic was the third most-spoken language in Canada in the mid-19th century.
• ca. 1815–45: a pre-Famine wave of emigration from Ireland, guestimated at 250,000 to 1.5 million between these years. A fairly conservative estimate is that around 500,000 Irish and Scots-Irish arrived in the US in this range.
• 1815–70: Approx. 50,000 Scots moved to Nova Scotia alone between these years, due to late Highland Clearances and destitution that followed.
• 1815–1915: This century saw some 13 million Scots arriving in the US, 4 million more in Canada, and another million and a half in Australia.
• 1817: The “Celtic Twilight”, a period of rewewed (if romanticized) interest in things Celtic and Gaelic, began with the publication of Rob Roy by Sir Walter Scott.
• ca. 1818: British immigration to southern Africa began in earnest.
• 1820: “The 1820 Settlers”: around 4,000 colonists from Ireland, Scotland, England, and Wales arrived in southern Africa, especially the Eastern Cape area.
• 1820s–1841: Irish (especially Northern Irish) seasonal workers in Britain shot up in number from around 7,000 per year to 58,000 in a generation. In 1841, some 126,000 Irish-born people lived in Scotland, making up about 5% of the population (much higher in Galloway and Glasgow, e.g. 16.5% in Wigtownshire).
• 1827: Britain claimed the entirety of Australia, and colonization (primarily coastal) increased throughout the century.
• 1840: Britain declared sovereignty over New Zealand, after unofficial “trickle-in” settlement, since the 1770s, by European (and North American) missionaries, traders, whalers, and others. The next year, it was declared its own colony, separate from the administration of New South Wales (Australia).
• 1842: Publication of the Vestiarium Scoticum, purportedly a 15th-century manuscript on clan tartans; now known to be a forgery, it nevertheless caused a resurgence of interest in the Highlands, clans, tartan, and kilts, and established many of the “official” clan tartans still in use today.
• 1843: The Great Disruption and the establishment of the Free Church of Scotland, primarily by Thomas Chalmers and Robert Smith Candlish.
• 1843: By this year, there were over 30,000 Scots and Scots-Irish in New Brunswick alone. There was organized movement, until 1850, of Scots to Canada, as part of the Clearances.
• ca. 1845–55: Irish potato famine. First major potato crop failure was in 1846, and 1846–52 was the worst of it. Produced an estimated 2–3 million refugees and 1 million deaths. The emigrés mostly went to the US, Canada, and Australia, but many also went to Britain, some 75,000 to Scotland (7.2% of the population).
• 1846–61: Highland Potato Famine; peak famine from 1846 to roughly 1856; after-effect emigration was due to destitution.
• 1848: The Young Irelander Rebellion.
• 1851–99: Another 900,000 Irish and Scots-Irish came to the US. Many had also been coming directly to Canada for some time as noted above.
• 1857: McCandless Township was incorporated, in north-central Pennsylvania.
• 1859: Wilson McCandless became a judge of the US Federal Court of the Western District of Pennsylvania.
• 1861: David Colbert McCanles was killed by “Wild Bill” Hickok in Nebraska.
• 1866: John Candlish became Member of Parliament for Sunderland, Durham, England.
• 1866–85: The Fenian raids, rising, and bombing campaigns, in Ireland, Canada, and the UK; organized by the Fenian Brotherhood.
• 1867: William McCandless elected to Pennsylvania State Senate; later, state Secretary of Internal Affairs, 1875.
• 1872: James Smith Candlish became Professor of Systematic Theology at the Free Church College in Glasgow, Scotland.
• 1879: Potato blight returned to Ireland as the Famine of 1879.
• 1879: The British consolidated power over most colonies in southern Africa after the Anglo-Zulu war.
• 1880: First Anglo-Boer War – the British essentially lost, and Boers retained self-rule in the South African Republic (Transvaal), i.e. much of what today is South Africa.
• 1881: Raising of the first Highland regiment of the British army, the Black Watch (Royal Highland Regiment).
• 1887: John MacGregor McCandlish became the first president of the Society of Actuaries, Scotland.
• 1899–1902: Second Anglo-Boer War, at the conclusion of which the British Empire absorbed the South African Republic and the Orange Free State.
  Charge of the Highlanders by
  Frank Algernon Stewart, 1900
• 1907: Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and New Brunswick (not yet part of Canada) became self-governing dominions.
• 1910: British and Boer colonies in southern Africa were united as a self-governing dominion, the Union of South Africa.
• 1912: McCandlish Hall was constructed in Straiton, South Ayrshire, Scotland.
• 1914–18: World War I.
• 1914: S.C. “Jack” McCandless was signed as an outfielder to the major league baseball team Baltimore Terrapins (Federal League).
• 1916: The Easter Rising in Ireland.
• 1919–22: The Anglo-Irish War, or War of Irish Independece; ended with the Anglo-Irish Treaty and the establishment of the Irish Free State, with dominion status (like Australia, et al.).
• 1920: Timothy Quinlisk, an Irish Brigade member who informed to the British, was executed by the Irish Republican Army.
• ca. 1922: James Sutton McCandless was Imperial Potentate of Masonic organization Shriners North America.
• 1925: William McCandlish became Chairman of the presigious Kennel Club (UK), the first dog breeders’ and fanciers’ organization.
• 1926: Formation of the [British] Commonwealth of Nations (formalized in 1931 and again in 1949) and the beginning of British de-colonialism.
• 1927: Coleraine Football Club was co-founded in Northern Ireland by John (Jack) McCandless.
• 1933: Veteran player Billy McCandless began a long second career phase of football (soccer) management across Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, first with Ballymena F.C. in Northern Ireland.
• 1933: Link McCandless (Republican of Hawaii) elected to US House of Representatives.
• 1936: Benjamin Vaughan McCandlish became Naval Governor of Guam.
• 1937: Ireland became an independent country again, no longer a British dominion. (Name changed to Republic of Ireland in 1949.)
• 1937: Cdre. Byron McCandless became commanding officer of the US Navy Destroyer Base, San Diego, California (where a street is now named after him).
• 1939–45: World War II.
• 1944: Cmdr. (later RAdm.) Bruce McCandless I took command of the US Navy destroyer USS Gregory, shortly after being awarded the Medal of Honor.
• 1945: Brig. Gen. John Edward Chalmers McCandlish became Deputy Adjutant-General of the British Army of the Rhine.
• 1945–: Acceleration of British de-colonialism.
• 1967: James Conlisk Jr. became head of the Chicago Police Department.
• 1969: John Conlisk became Professor of Economics at University of California San Diego.
• 1971: Launch of the US Navy destroyer escort/frigate USS McCandless (in active service 1972–1994).
• 1983: Al McCandless, Republican of California, elected to US House of Representatives.
• 1984: Navy pilot and NASA astronaut Capt. Bruce McCandless II took the first untethered spacewalk with a jetpack.
• 1997: Scottish referendum for a separate parliament from that of England; passed by a 3/4 margin.
• 2014: Scottish independence referendum (“Should Scotland be an independent country?”), in which the “No” vote won by only 55.3%.

Key Wikipedia articles relied upon: 1820 Settlers, 1907 Imperial Conference, Auld Alliance, Australia, Battle of Clontarf, Battle of Tara, British Empire, Bruce campaign in Ireland, Celtic Revival, Clan Mar, Connachta, Dál Riata, Danelaw, Galloway, Gallowglass, Glorious Revolution, Great Famine (Ireland), Highland Clearances, Highland Potato Famine, Kingdom of Alba, Kingdom of Ireland, Kingdom of Scotland, Kingdom of Strathclyde, List of Irish uprisings, Lordship of Ireland, Lowland Clearances, Military history of South Africa, Monarchy of the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Plantation of Ulster, Roman Britain, Scotch-Irish Americans, Scottish Canadians, Scottish names in Ulster, South Africa, Vestiarum Scoticum, Viking Age, Uí Ímair, Uí Néill, Wars of Scottish Independence, Williamite War in Ireland.
Other source used: Moffat, Alistair; “Wha’s Like Us?”; The Scots: A Genetic Journey; 2nd ed.; Edinburgh: Birlinn; 2017; pp. 216–243.
Other source used: Ryan, David (writer/director); Sweeney, Maurice; Wilson, Les; Delaney, Bob (co-writers); After Braveheart, two-part documentary; BBC / RTÉ / Caledonia TV / Tile Films; 2015.

Last modified 2023-03-24 by SMcCandlish.