Dal Riata (Dalriada, Early Old Irish Dal Reti) is the term for the GAELic-speaking kingdom in Argyll (Earra-Ghaidheal) between the 6th and 9th centuries ad.
Writing c. 730, the Northumbrian Bede explained the presence of Gaelic speakers in Britain as follows: ‘These came from Ireland under their leader Reuda, and won lands among the Picts... They are still called Dalreudini after this leader.’
By the 10th century, the migration had been redated to the time of Fergus Mor mac Eirc (t501). In its introductory passage, the Senchus Fer n-Alban (Tradition of the men of North Britain) claims six sons of Erc settled in Scotland (Alba), probably reflecting six cenela (kindreds) there when the tract was compiled.
Later there are three
Important cenela: Cenel nGabrain (based in Kintyre and Arran), Cenel Loairn (based in Mull and Lorne), and Cenel nOengusa (part of Islay). It is also clear that part of the kingdom of Dal Riata was in Ireland, but whose kingdom and how extensive it was are less clear.
For most of the historical period, from the mid-6th century to the end of the kingdom in the 9th century, the kingship, or overkingship, was held by Cenel nGabrain. In the decades around 700, Cenel Loairn was sometimes able to challenge this monopoly.
Dal Riata is most famous for St Columba (Colum Cille) and his foundation of Iona (Eilean I). As a result, we are relatively well informed about the kingdom from the period of Columba’s arrival (c. 563) through to the mid-8th century. Columba’s contemporary AedAn mac GabrAin (r. 574-608) is the most famous king, partly because he features significantly in the saint’s Life but also because he seems to have been the most successfully aggressive of the kings of Dal Riata, campaigning widely in northern Britain and establishing a regional hegemony in north-central Ireland.
After the end of the Iona Chronicle coverage in the mid-8th century, our understanding of the history of Dal Riata is reduced. By the middle of the 9th century, a Cenel nGabrain dynast, Cinaed mac Ailpin, made himself king of the Picts and set the stage for the Gaelicization of all northern Britain. Precisely how this was achieved remains far from clear. Likewise, the date of the disappearance of Cenel nGabrain control over parts of Ireland is unknown, although it presumably followed the Vikings’ rule in the latter part of the 9th century.
Alex Woolf
World History
