Highland Gaels are marginally the dominant ethnic group and culture in most areas of the Lordship of the Isles. They are the Gaels that are native to the Highlands and Islands, whose ancestors settled here almost a thousand years ago in the ancient Gaelic kingdom of Dal Riada, the lands of which the Campbells of Argyll now occupy (the most powerful Gaelic clan that answered to the Kingdom of Scotland rather than the Tighearna nan Eileanan).

The Highland Gaelic language is the most common in the Lordship of the Isles, and in the Highlands (which was mostly owned by allies or vassals of the Lordship, anyway) and some parts of the Lowlands (such as Galloway).

The Highland Gaels are descended from the Irish Gaels, but many have some Pictish and Norse ancestry which they are often equally proud of.