Clive Hollick's notes on the battle of Knocknanuss (1647) in issue 46, are most useful, but like all too many historians I suspect that he has fallen into the trap of assuming that the men under MacCholla's command there were the same ones who had served under him in Scotland during 1644/45.

Very briefly; in 1644 MacCholla was given command of an infantry brigade comprising three regiments raised by the Earl of Antrim. The surviving evidence clearly indicates that they were equipped for the most part with muskets and pikes, but there were a few companies of highland mercenaries (numbering between 120 and 150) who formed MacCholla's "Lifeguard'.

It was these men whom MacCholla took off with him shortly before the battle of Philiphaugh in 1645, not the Irish regulars, and the men he and McDonnell of Glengarry subsequently took to Ireland were also highlanders.

It would be surprising indeed if the accounts quoted by Clive mentioned pikemen, since these had either died at Philiphaugh or hired themselves to the Marquis of Huntly.

Dr. David Stevenson's book ('Alasdair MacCholla and the Highland Problem in the 17th Century' Aberdeen 1980) Provides an excellent account of this phase of his career.

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