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Subject: Re: [DNA-R1B1C7] R1b1c7 in Scotland
Date: Sat, 21 Jul 2007 23:45:14 EDT
In a message dated 7/21/2007 2:30:53 P.M. Central Standard Time,
writes:
I also refer you to number 89. Muireadach (III.): son of Eoghan
(Eoghan, or Eugene, or Owen was a son of Niall Mor). Muireadach was married
to Earca, daughter of Loarn, King of Dalriada in Scotland, and by her had
many sons and daughter, two of them are especially mentioned: - Muirceartach
Mor, and Fergus Mor, both called "Mac Earca." From this Fergus Mor
descended the Kings of Scotland, and thence, through Queen Matilda, the
Kings of England, including the Royal Houses of Plantagenet, Stuart, and
D'Este. Among his sons was III. Fearach (or Fearadach), ancestor of Mac
Cathmhaoil (or Cowell, Campbell, Etc.).
There are three versions of Dal Riata history -this is one - but the
Shenchus Fer nAlban, Rawlinson B.502 and Bede's history contain very different
versions. You can find this version of Dal Riata history in Keating's History of
Ireland and repeated in O'Hart's "Irish Pedigrees." One version has the
Scottish Dal Riata descending from Muirchertach Mac Earca, the grandson of Nial.
Another version has them descend from Erc, the son of Eochaidh Muinremhar,
of the Irish Dal Riata. Yet another (Bede) say the founder of the Scottish
Dal Riata was someone named Reuda. You can find the Muirchertach mac Earca
version of Dal Riata history quoted in a lot of old Scottish clan histories,
mainly through the influence of Keating's History.
According to Ewan Campbell (Were the Scots Irish?), none of the stories
are true history.
Historical evidence
The documentary sources for the migration of
the Scotti are of varying date and validity but,
as with the archaeological evidence, have not
received full critical assessment by historians.
The clearest expression is in the Irish chroni-
cles, a source which has the best potential for
containing contemporary records of early me-
dieval events. In the Annals of Tighernach, an
entry for around AD 500 reads, ‘Feargus mor
rnac earca cum gente dalriada partem britania
tenuit et ibi inortus est’ - ‘Fergus Mor, mac
Erc, with the nation of Da1 Riada, took (or
held) part of Britain, and died there’. This clear state-
ment of invasion and colonization is, however,
not a contemporary record, as is shown by the
form of the Irish words. Dalriada, Feargus and
Earca are Middle Irish forms where one would
expect the Old Irish Dalriata, Fergus and Erca.
These spellings show that the entry could not
have been written before the loth century. It
has been strongly argued that this entry, which
is the earliest independent record of Fergus, is
one of a series of insertions in the Annals de-
rived from a 10th-century ‘Chronicle of
Clonmacnoise’ (Dumville 1993: 187; Grabowski
& Dumville 1984) and cannot be taken as inde-
pendent evidence of colonization.
The other main source is the Senchus Fer
nAlban (History of the Men of Scotland). This
very important document is a social survey and
genealogy of the kings of Dal Riata, believed
to have been originally written in the later 7th
century and modified in the loth century
(Bannerman 1974). Even accepting the suppos-
edly 10th-century version of the text uncritically,
it does not refer to settlement but is a genea-
logical statement of the origins of the Scottish
kings: ‘Erc, moreover had twelve sons .i. six of
them took possession of Alba.’ (Bannerman
1974: 47 ), and there follows a genealogy of
the Dalriadan kings from Fergus Mor to the mid
7th century. It is important to note that nowhere
is a mass movement of peoples mentioned, it
is purely an aristocratic, and specifically royal,
takeover of Scotland. However, this account also
cannot be a contemporary record, and can be
shown to be part of the loth century or later
rewriting of the original text (Bannerman
1974: 130-32), as Alba was not used as a term for
Scotland before the loth century.
The other early source relating to the ori-
gins of Dal Riata is found in Bede’s history of
the English church, written in the early 8th
century. Bede’s account differs from that of the
Senchus. After describing the wanderings of
the Britons and Picts, he says that Britain ‘re-
ceived a third tribe, . . . namely the Irish. These
came from Ireland under their leader Reuda,
and won lands from the Picts ... they are still
called Dalreudini after this leader’ (Colgrave
& Mynors 1969: 18-19). To summarize the his-
torical sources, it appears that there are two
conflicting accounts of the Irish origins of Scot-
tish Dalriada. The first, exemplified by the
Senchus and the Annals of Tigernach entry,
belongs to no earlier than the loth century, while
an earlier tradition represented by Bede dates
back to at least the 8th century. Bannerman has
highlighted the difference between the two tra-
ditions, and suggests that an older tradition,
reported by Bede, was supplanted in the loth
century by the Fergus Mor story for political
purposes of the time (Bannerman 1974:
132).
These sources, and some other later mate-
rial, are clearly origin legends of a type com-
mon to most peoples of the period, constructed
to show the descent of a ruling dynasty from a
powerful, mythical or religious figure. Such
genealogies, could be, and often were, manipu-
lated to suit the political climate of the times,
as shown by the replacement of Carpre Riata
by Fergus Mor. The genealogies cannot be taken
as indications of past population movements,
or even kinship ties. Recent research has high-
lighted how Middle Irish historians were prom-
ulgating a view of Irish kingship which had a
considerable effect on Scottish politics from the
loth to the 13th centuries. Herbert (2000)
has shown how the Irish view of kingship, and
political marriages, were influencing Scottish
kings in the loth century towards the concept
of kingship of a land (Alba) rather than a peo-
ple (the Dul Riata), and Duffy (2000) has dem-
onstrated that there was Irish support for one
line of rival claimants to the Scottish throne in
the 11th century. This influence continued in
the 12th-13th centuries (Broun 1999). It is prob-
able that in this climate that the manipulation
of the genealogies took place, with each line-
age trying to outdo each other in stressing their
antiquity and Irish origins. The earlier version
of the legend was possibly constructed to bol-
ster Dal Riata claims to territory in Antrim.
The critique of the sources presented above
is not particularly new - each of the elements
has been noted in the past, if not discussed in
detail, but this has not led historians to ques-
tion the invasion hypothesis. For example, in
a recent paper David Dumville, an eminent
historian and himself a noted deconstructer of
early medieval myths, dismisses both the Fergus
story and Bede’s account, while in the same
paragraph accepting the migration of settlers
(Dumville 1993: 187). The absence of a critical
appraisal of the migration story may be due to
an easy acceptance by historians of the inva-
sion paradigm. History has been largely unaf-
fected by the anti-migration backlash which
affected archaeology, not least because medi-
eval historians work in a period when there
are many indisputable invasions, although also
due to a rejection of post-modernist approaches
(e.g. Evans 1999). As far as Argyll is concerned,
although few historians would now take the
Fergus Mor story at face value, the linguistic
evidence seems so clear that there is readiness
to accept the concept of an Irish invasion or
takeover, even if the actual details are uncer-
tain and unsupported by the evidence.
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