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From Wikipedia: Dál Riata (also Dalriada or Dalriata) was a Gaelic overkingdom that included parts of western Scotland and northeastern Ireland, on each side of the North Channel. In the late 6th–early 7th centuries, it encompassed roughly what is now Argyll in Scotland and County Antrim in the Irish province of Ulster.[1]
In Argyll, it consisted initially of three kindreds: Cenél Loairn (kindred of Loarn) in north and mid-Argyll Cenél nÓengusa (kindred of Óengus) based on Islay Cenél nGabráin (kindred of Gabrán) based in Kintyre
A fourth kindred, Cenél Chonchride in Islay, was seemingly too small to be deemed a major division. By the end of the 7th century, another kindred, Cenél Comgaill (kindred of Comgall), had emerged, based in eastern Argyll. The Lorn and Cowal districts of Argyll take their names from Cenél Loairn and Cenél Comgaill respectively,[1] while the Morvern district was formerly known as Kinelvadon, from the Cenél Báetáin, a subdivision of the Cenél Loairn.[2]
Latin-language sources often referred to the inhabitants of Dál Riata as Scots (Scoti in Latin), a name originally used by Roman and Greek writers for the Irish who raided Roman Britain. Later, it came to refer to Gaelic-speakers, whether from Ireland or elsewhere.[3] They are referred to herein as Gaels, an unambiguous term, or as Dál Riatans.[4]
The kingdom reached its height under Áedán mac Gabráin (r. 574–608), but King Æthelfrith of Bernicia checked its growth at the Battle of Degsastan in 603. Serious defeats in Ireland and Scotland in the time of Domnall Brecc (d. 642) ended Dál Riata's "golden age", and the kingdom became a client of Northumbria, then subject to the Picts. There is disagreement over the fate of the kingdom from the late eighth-century onwards. Some scholars have seen no revival of Dál Riata after the long period of foreign domination (after 637 to around 750 or 760), while others have seen a revival of Dál Riata under Áed Find (736–778), and later under Kenneth MacAlpin (Cináed mac Ailpín, who (some sources claim) took the kingship there in c.840 following the disastrous defeat of the Pictish army by the Danes): some even claim that the Dál Riata usurped the kingship of Fortriu several generations before MacAlpin (800–858).[5] The kingdom's independence ended in the Viking Age, as it merged with the lands of the Picts to form the Kingdom of Alba.
The name of the kingdom survives in the terminology of the Dalradian geological series, a term coined by Archibald Geikie in 1891 because its outcrop has a similar geographical reach to that of the former Dál Riata.