Saddell Castle (10)
In 1558, shortly after James Macdonald took possession of Saddell, disaster struck.  Thomas Radcliffe, Earl of Sussex and Lord Deputy of Ireland, was instructed by Mary Tudor to proceed with the conquest of Ireland begun by her father, Henry VIII, and to oust the Scottish highlanders that had settlements along the east coast of Ireland.  Pre-eminent among these highlanders were the Macdonalds, cousins and allies of the Macdonnells of Ulster.  Sussex decided that the best way to get rid of them was to attack their home base in Scotland, so in September 1558 Sussex set sail from Lambay, near Dublin, and landed on the west coast of Kintyre.  He wrote back to London: “I landed and burned eight myles of leynght, and therewith James McConnelles (Macdonald’s) chief house called Saudell, a fayre pyle and a stronge.”  In November he returned with his booty to Ireland. 

James Macdonald of Saddell was killed in Ireland in a local feud in 1565.
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