Historical Background

Dalriada     Later Irish and Scottish annals speak of a people who came from Ulster in northern Ireland to colonize Argyll in western Scotland sometime in the sixth century AD. This colony of Gaels, as they were known, established their king’s seat at the fort of Dunadd near Kilmartin in Argyll, bringing the Gaelic language to Scotland. However, most scholars agree that, because of the close proximity of their coastlines, the northern Irish were probably in close contact with western Scotland centuries before the accepted colonization. So the first real contact between Argyll and Dalriada could easily have been made as far back as the first century, as in my books, since I am not proposing a wholesale movement of people at this time.

Dunadd     The hillfort of Dunadd near Kilmartin in Argyll is now accepted as the royal seat of the kings of Scottish Dalriada from approximately the fifth to tenth centuries AD, when it became a centre of trade and fine craftsmanship. However, excavations have proven that people were living, or at least visiting the site for thousands of years before that, including the time around the Roman invasions of Scotland. It is unlikely that a prominent volcanic crag close to the sea would not have been used by the earlier Celtic peoples of the area. Excavations have focused on the stone walls built in the middle of the first millennium, and it is entirely possible that traces of timber buildings have either been missed, or were destroyed during later building on the site. To my knowledge, the plain around the crag’s feet has not been excavated.

Picts and Gaels     The name ‘Pict’ is not used by Roman writers for the peoples of Scotland until the fourth century, and may come from a Roman term meaning ‘painted people’. However, although my characters obviously ‘became’ the Picts, we don’t know what they called themselves. So I’ve stuck to the old name for Scotland, Alba, and called them Albans. With regard to the ‘Gaels’, there is strong evidence that this is what the early peoples of Scotland called those from Ireland. Argyll, where the Dalriadans later had their centre of power, means ‘coast of the Gael’.

Language     By the sixth century there is some evidence that the Picts (descendants of Scottish people) and Argyll Scots (descendants of the Dalriadan Irish) spoke a mutually unintelligible form of the Celtic language. However, languages can change rapidly, and we don’t know how close the two were in the first century, although many people think it is likely to have been much closer. I’ve left them speaking essentially the same language.