MACOSTER: 'son of the door-keeper' (G. osdair). In the old Gaelic monasteries the doorkeeper was called osdair, a loan from Latin ostiarius. The word now means innkeeper, Martin (p. 263—264), writing of Iona, says: "There was a Tribe here call'd Clan vic n'oster, from Ostiarii; for they are said to have been Porters. The Tradition of these is, that before Columbus died, thirty of this Family lived then in Iona, and that upon some provocation, Columbus entail'd a Curse upon them; which was, That they might all perish to the Number of five, and that they might never exceed that Number, to which they were accordingly reduc'd: and ever since, when any Woman of that Family was in Labour, both she and the other four were afraid of Death; for if the Child that was to be then born, did not the, they say one of the five was sure to the: and this they affirm to have been verify'd on every such occasion successively to this day. I found one only of this Tribe living in the Isle, and both he and the Natives of this and of all the Western Isles, unanimously declare that this Observation never fail'd; and all this little Family is now extinct, except this one poor Man," About 1770 there died in Iona a woman, the last of the race styled Clan-na-oister, "who were believed to be the lineal descendants of an individual appointed by Columba doorkeeper of the monastery-an office more likely to have existed in the subsequent Clumac establishment" (OPS., II, p. 301). A curse similar to that of Columba on the doorkeeper is recorded in the life of Adamnan (CR., V, p. 102; see also p. 98).