Becoming Dál Riata: A Critical Evaluation of the Emergence of an Early Medieval Insular Polity

Much valuable work has been done in recent decades on deconstructing and reconstructing the foundation myth and subsequent history of the Dál Riata. The story of the western portion of northern Britain being settled by three sons of Erc from the northern coast of Ireland at some point around ad 500 can no longer be taken at face value, but the different strands within it are very informative in relation to the contexts of their production, transmission and reception. After discussing the emergence of the Dál Riata and their constituent lineages, or cenéla, in the surviving sources, this article explores two particular narrative strands linking the Dál Riata to the Dál Fiatach, the dominant lineage within the contemporary overkingdom of Ulaid in north-east Ireland. Hinted at in the Irish annals, this narrative has been overlain or displaced by other information found in the same high- and late-medieval manuscripts as well as the more well-known traditions. However, these data may themselves be equally fictive, but they at least demonstrate the complexities involved in building group identity and anchoring it in tradition.