It has become something of a boast among us that the Irish were the only people in western Europe to be colonised. Hence our intuitive understanding of peoples in the developing world. Or so the comforting myth goes.
But invasion and dominance by strangers was something most European countries experienced during and following the two World Wars of the last century and previous centuries. And we “indomitable Irishry” may have done something similar in the first millennium.
There was a colony in western Scotland called Dalriada . Or Dal Riada. You'll find both spellings. Roughly it included that part of western Scotland known as Argyll today, plus Antrim in Northern Ireland.
According to Roman records in 297 AD, complaints were made of attacks on the fortified Roman frontier by the “Picti” and the “Scotti”, two tribes who would eventually create the kingdom of Scotland.
The Scots of Dalriada were said to be from as far south as Down in present day Northern Ireland, with which they maintained active contact into the ninth century when, as believed, Dalriada declined.
The Roman's referred to the Irish as "Hiberni" (from the land of winter) and/or "Scotti" (pirates, because of frequent attacks on their western and northern borders). Hence Scotland – "land of the Scotti". Hence the one great Irish theologian, known as John Scotus Eriugenia (died 877 AD). The "Eriugena" in his name also meant Irish-born, "Eriu" being Ireland.
Appropriately enough, as with so many things Irish, the history of Dalriada is enveloped in myth and uncertainty. However one of the founding myths of Scotland itself speaks of Irish King Fergus Mór settling Scots from Ireland in modern-day Argyll.
Meanwhile, English historian the Venerable Bede (died 735) wrote that Irish Scots led by “Reuda” took lands from the Picts.
However there is another theory that, rather than being occupied from Ireland, the natives of Dalriada shared a common Gaelic language with their neighbours across the 12 miles of sea between western Scotland and Antrim.
The island of Iona is within the kingdom of Dalriada and it was there Columba founded his very influential monastic settlement which spread Christianity through today's northern Britain. It was there too that work on the Book of Kells began.
One of Dalriada 's legacies to history was a descendant of its kings, himself King of Scotland, none other than Mac Bethad Mac Findlaich, better known to most of us as Macbeth.
inaword@irishtimes.com
