hypothesis is a descent from a Bute family in service to the Clan MacRuari and granted Barra by them after the conquest of Bute by Scotland. History The earliest contemporary record of the Macneils of Barra is only in 1427, when Giolla Adhamhnáin Mac Néill (typically anglicised as Gilleonan Macneil) received a charter of Barra and Boisdale, from the Lord of the Isles, following the forfeiture of the previous Lordships of Uist and Garmoran, earlier that year. Gilleonan's namesake, reckoned the twelfth chief, was one of the island lords who were tricked into meeting James V of Scotland at Portree, where they were promised safe conduct but instead were arrested and imprisoned. The MacNeil chief of Barra was not released until the king's death in 1542, when the Regent Moray wanted to use the island chiefs to counterbalance the growing power of the Clan Campbell. His son was amongst the chiefs who supported the last Lord of the Isles in his alliance with Henry VIII of England in 1545. The treaty they signed with the English as overlords proclaimed the ancient enmity between the chiefs of the isles and the kingdom of Scotland. In 1579 the Bishop of the Isles made a complaint of molestation against the MacNeil chief of Barra. His son, the next chief, was denounced as a rebel by the Privy Council so many times that he was described as a "hereditary outlaw" and was known as the Turbulent or Ruari the Tatar. He has also been described as the last of the Viking raiders as he often raided from his Kisimul Castle. The king eventually arranged for his loyal vassals to extirpate and root out the chief of Clan MacNeil, whose own nephews captured him and placed him in chains. During the Scottish Civil War of the 17th century the chief of Clan MacNeil, Neil Og, was appointed as Colonel of the Horse by Charles II of England and fought at the Battle of Worcester in 1651. His grandson was Roderick Dhu the Black who received a Crown charter for all of the lands of Barra to be erected into a free barony. Roderick also led his clan at the Battle of Killiecrankie in 1689. He also supported the Jacobite rising of 1715 and as a result his two sons, Roderick and James, went into exile in France. Upon their father's death they returned but for