Although the Scots of Dalriada had thus obtained entire independence, they did not immediately become united under one king. Their freedom from the yoke of the Britons and Angles was followed by a contest between the chiefs of their two principal tribes, the Cinel Loarn and the Cinel Gabhran, for the throne of Dalriada. On the death of Domnall Breac, when the Britons obtained a kind of supremacy over the Dalriads, his brother Conall Crandamna, and his sons Mailduin and Domnal Donn, appear to have been at the head of the Cinel Gabhran, but Fearchar Fata, the chief of the principal branch of the Cinel Loarn, had, as we have seen, taken the lead in the attempt to free Dalriada from the rule of strangers. The death of Domnall Donn, the son of Conall Crandamna, is recorded in 696, and that of Fearchar Fata in 697. The former was succeeded by Eocha, the grandson of Domnall Breac, who was slain in the same year, and the latter by his son Ainbhcellaig, who in the following year was expelled from the kingdom, after Duinonlaig or Dunolly had been burnt, and was sent bound to Ireland;[[364]] but none of these leaders of the Cinel Loarn or the Cinel Gabhran bore the title of king of Dalriada.[[365]] On the expulsion of Ainbhcellaig we find his brother Sealbach at the head of the Cinel Loarn, and in 701 he destroys Dun Onlaigh, and cuts off the Cinel Cathbath, a rival branch of the tribe of Loarn.[[366]] Three years after, the slaughter of the Dalriads in Glenlemnae, or the valley of the Leven, is recorded, but whether it was in the valley of the river Leven, which divides Lorn from Lochaber, and flows into Loch Leven there, or whether it was the Leven in Dumbartonshire, cannot be fixed with any certainty. In 707, Becc, grandson of Dunchada, was slain. He was the head of a branch of the Cinel Gabhran, who possessed the south half of Kintyre, and were descended from Conaing, one of the sons of Aidan, to whom it was given as his patrimony.[[367]]
Conflict between the Dalriads and the Britons.
The Dalriads appear soon after to have carried the war into the British territory, for we have, in 711, a conflict of the Dalriads and Britons at Loirgeclat, by which Loch Arklet, on the east side of Loch Lomond, is probably meant, in which the Britons are defeated. In 712 Sealbach besieges Aberte or Dunaverty, the main stronghold of the south half of Kintyre, the patrimony of the branch of the Cinel Gabhran of which the descendants of Conaing, son of Aidan, were the head. In 714 Dunolly is rebuilt by Sealbach, and three years afterwards there is again a conflict between the Britons and Dalriads, at the stone which is called Minvircc, and the Britons are again defeated.[[368]] In the valley at the head of Loch Lomond which is called Glenfalloch there is a place called Clach na Breatan, or the stone of the Britons, which is now at the separation of Dumbartonshire from Perthshire, but originally marked the northern boundary of the territory of the Britons, and was probably the scene of this conflict.
During the rest of the period of forty-six years which succeeded the defeat and death of Ecgfrid, no further collision between the Britons and the Dalriads is recorded, and each nation remained within the limits of its own proper kingdom.
[283]. The oldest of the Latin Chronicles says that Fergus, first king of Dalriada, reigned ‘a monte Drumalban usque ad mare Hibernie et ad Inchegal’ (Chron. Picts and Scots, p. 130), apparently excluding the islands; but the tract De Situ Albaniæ, of the same date, has it ‘a monte Brunalban usque ad Mare Hiberniæ,’ and adds, ‘Deinde reges de semine Fergus regnaverunt in Brunalban sive Brunhere’ (Ib. p. 137). Brunalban seems to be the district on the east side of the range now called Breadalban, and Brunhere is probably Bruneire, and meant for the district on the west side of the range. There are two glens both called Glenlochy, the one proceeding from the range eastward to Loch Tay, the other westward to Loch Awe, and the former is called in charters Glenlochy Alban, to distinguish it from the other. We have therefore the term Alban applied to the country beyond the frontier of Dalriada, and the term Eire to Dalriada as being a colony of Scots from Eire. The south part of Morvern was called Kinelvadon or Cinelbhadon, from Badon, a son of Loarn, and therefore belonged to Dalriada. On the shoulder of the hill in Mull called Benmore, which forms the pass from the northern to the southern part of the island and is called Mamchlachaig, there are two cairns. The one on the north is called Carn Cul ri Alban, or the cairn with its back to Alban, and the other Carn Cul ri Erin, or the cairn with its back to Eire. There is a similar cairn on Iona and another on Colonsay, both called Carn Cul ri Eirin, which seem to mark the boundary. If Iona was exactly on the boundary which separated Dalriada from the Picts, it is obvious how Bede’s statement that it was given to Saint Columba by the Picts who inhabit the adjacent districts, is not inconsistent with that of Tighernac, that it was immolated to him by the king of Dalriada. The expression is ‘offeravit.’ See Reeves’s Adamnan, orig. ed., p. 434, for a judicious examination of this point.
[284]. This account is taken from the Tract ‘On the Men of Alban’ (Chron. Picts and Scots, p. 308). The Cinel Comgall, from whom Cowall takes its name, formed properly a fourth tribe, being descended from a brother of Gabran, but they appear to have been incorporated with the Cinel Gabran. The Cinel Loarn consisted of three smaller tribes—the Cinel Fergus Salach, the Cinel Cathbath, and the Cinel Eachadh, to whom the three subdivisions of Lorn—Nether Lorn, Mid-Lorn, and Upper Lorn—may be severally assigned. Dr. O’Donovan identified Dunmonaidh, the traditionary capital of Dalriada, with Dunstaffnage, but evidently upon mere conjecture. Dr. Reeves, in his edition of Adamnan, rightly identifies it with Dunadd.
[285]. Eis quæ arduis atque horrentibus montium jugis, ab australibus eorum sunt regionibus sequestratæ (B. iii. c. iv.).
Erat autem Columba primus doctor fidei Christianæ transmontanis Pictis ad aquilonem (B. v. c. ix.).
[286]. Ut, ubi res perveniret in dubium, magis de feminea regum prosapia, quam de masculina regem sibi eligerent; quod usque hodie apud Pictos constat esse servatum.—Bede, B. i. c. 1.