Riata

From Dál Riata to the Innse Gall If the Vikings had a great impact on Pictland and in Ireland, in Dál Riata, as in Northumbria, they appear to have entirely replaced the existing kingdom with a new entity.

Riata Little Walker shows a photo book of her daughter whose doctors called for a termination of the pregnancy because of medical reasons, in Casper, Wyo., on May 2, 2024.

According to 9th- and 10th-century sources, the Gaelic kingdom of Dál Riata was founded on the west coast of Scotland in the 6th century.

After a third campaign by Óengus in 741, Dál Riata then disappears from the Irish records for a generation.

Although the monastery of Iona belonged to the Cenél Conaill of the Northern Uí Néill, and not to Dál Riata, it had close ties to the Cenél nGabráin, ties which may make the annals less than entirely impartial.

As noted, Columba brokered the alliance between Dál Riata and the Northern Uí Néill.

Background Kenneth's origins are uncertain, as are his ties, if any, to previous kings of the Picts or Dál Riata.

Bede offers a different, and probably older, account wherein Dál Riata was conquered by Irish Gaels led by a certain Reuda.

Bede's tale may come from the same root as the Irish tales of Cairpre Riata and his brothers, the Síl Conairi (sons/descendants of Conaire Mór / Conaire Cóem ).

Byrne, Irish Kings and High-Kings, p. 114; Annals of the Four Masters, s.a. 728. This defeat shattered the power of Dál Riata as well as that of Dál nAraidi, allowing the Northern Uí Néill to become the dominant force in the north of Ireland.

By the 9th century, the Gaels of Dál Riata (Dalriada) were subject to the kings of Fortriu of the family of Constantín mac Fergusa (Constantine son of Fergus).

Campbell argues that the medieval accounts were a kind of dynastic propaganda, constructed to bolster a dynasty's claim to the throne and to bolster Dál Riata claims to territory in Antrim.

If Iona was the greatest religious centre in Dál Riata, it was far from unique.

In the west were the Gaelic ( Goidelic )-speaking people of Dál Riata with their royal fortress at Dunadd in Argyll, with close links with the island of Ireland, from whom comes the name Scots.

Nieke, Margaret R. "Secular Society from the Iron Age to Dál Riata and the Kingdom of Scots" in Omand (2006) p. 60 This encompassed roughly what is now Argyll and Bute and Lochaber in Scotland and County Antrim in Ireland.

North of Dál Riata, the Inner and Outer Hebrides were nominally under Pictish control, although the historical record is sparse.

Oswald thus spent the remainder of his youth in the Scottish kingdom of Dál Riata in northern Britain, where he was converted to Christianity.

Pictland, also called Pictavia by some sources, gradually merged with the Gaelic kingdom of Dál Riata to form the Kingdom of Alba (Scotland).

Religion and art 9th century St Martin's Cross on Iona No written accounts exist for pre-Christian Dál Riata, and the earliest known records come from the chroniclers of Iona and Irish monasteries.

See, for example, Broun, "Dál Riata"; for the evidence of place-names as an indicator of Ionan influence, see Taylor, "Iona abbots".