Dál Riada

Dál Riada, Dalriada, Dál Riata. Proto-kingdom of Northern Ireland that later flourished in Gaelic Scotland. The Irish half of the kingdom, more often known as Dál Riata, after the mythological ancestor Eochu Riata, was centred in north Northern Ireland, especially in the Glens of Antrim. When local military defeats caused it to cede ground, the kingdom expanded into what is now north Strathclyde (until 1974, Argyllshire), led by Áedán mac Gabráin, who was baptized by and associated with St Colum Cille. The Irish invaders, who established a capital at Dunadd, brought with them Gaelic language and culture as well as Christianity. An early king, Fergus mac Eirc, also Fergus Mór [ScG, the great], brought the Lia Fáil [Ir., stone of destiny] from Ireland for his coronation and did not return it; in Scotland it came to be known as the Stone of Scone. The fortunes of the Scoto-Irish kingdom rose and fell during constant warfare with the neighbouring Picts until Cináed mac Alpín [Kenneth MacAlpine] united both forces into one Scottish kingdom north of the Clyde, 844–58. Although the influence of Dál Riada ceased after the 9th century, many Highland families claimed ancestry from Loarn son of Erc, one of the founders of the Scottish branch of the kingdom.

Bibliography

See M. O. Anderson , ‘Dalriada and the Creation of the Kingdom of the Scots’, in D. Whitelock (ed.), Ireland in Medieval Europe (Cambridge, 1982), 106–32;
John Bannerman , Studies in the History of Dalriada (Edinburgh, 1974)

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