Studies in the History of Dalriada
John Bannerman
Scottish Academic Press
The book is a serious attempt to give the study of the history of DálRiata a solid basis on which to construct a more comprehensive and detailed synthesis of the available evidence. It looks at the continuing contacts between Northern Ireland and DálRiata in Scotland in the first century and a half of the latter's existence from c. 500 - c. 643; it examines the Scottish material in the Irish annals, the single most important source for the political history of DálRiata; it also includes an edition, with historical commentary, of the "Senchus Fer nAlban", in origin a seventh century document which besides recording the genealogies of the ruling families of DálRiata is also in some degree a census of the military and economic resources of its people. This is the first study to be wholly devoted to the history of DálRiata, the embryonic "kingdom of the Scots" which was to grow into the Scotland we know today. The Scots spoke Gaelic which was to become the language of almost all Scotland and which is still spoken in the very area of the country even now sometimes called Dalriada. The crisis of identity afflicting the modern Scot will not be resolved until he becomes aware of what is distinctive in his heritage and much of that stems directly from the foundation of the kingdom of DálRiata some fourteen and a half centuries ago.