It belongs to the history of Ireland to trace the origin and fix the race of the Scots, to settle the time of their coming into Ireland, and discover whence they came. Some suppose that they migrated originally from Britain to Ireland, while Innes and others bring them either from Scandinavia or Spain, and connect them with the Scyths, asserting that Scot is a mere corruption of Scyth, and dating the settlement at about the commencement of the Christian era. The Irish traditions connect them with a certain Scota, daughter of Pharaoh, and date their coming to Ireland upwards of 1,000 years B.C. E. W. Robertson[82] and others consider them to have been Irish Picts or Cruithne.
Wherever the Scots came from and to whatever race they belong, whether Teutonic or Celtic, they certainly appear not to have been the first settlers in Ireland, and at the time at which they first appear in authentic history occupied a district in Ireland corresponding to Connaught, Leinster, and part of Munster. They were also one of the most powerful of the Irish tribes, seeing that for many centuries Ireland was, after them, called Scotia or Scotland. It is usually said that a particular corner in the north-east of Ireland, about 30 miles in extent, corresponding to the modern county of Antrim, was the kingdom of the particular band of Scots who migrated to Scotland; and that it received its name, Dal-Riada (‘the portion of Riada’), from Carbre-Riada, a leader of the Scots who conquered this particular part, previously inhabited by Cruithne or Irish Picts. Robertson,[83] however, considers all this fable and the kingdom of Dalriada as mythical, Tighernach and the early Irish annalists never applying the name to any other locality than British Dalriada. At all events, this particular district was spoken of by the later chroniclers under the name of Dalriada, there being thus a Dalriada both in Scotland and Ireland.[84] At the time of the migration of the Scots from Ireland to Scotland, they were to all intents and purposes a Celtic race, speaking Trish Gaelic, and had already been converted to Christianity.
The account of the Scottish migration usually given is, that in the year 503 A.D.,[85] a new colony of Dalriads or Dalriadic Scots, under the leadership of Fergus son of Erc, a descendant of Carbre-Riada, along with his brothers Lorn and Angus, left Ireland and settled on the western coast of Argyle and the adjacent islands. “The territories which constituted the petty kingdoms of Dalriada can be pretty well defined. They were bounded on the south by the Frith of Clyde, and they were separated on the east from the Pictish kingdom by the ridge of the great mountain chain called Drumalban. They consisted of four tribes,--the genus or Cinel Lorn, descended from Lorn, the elder of the three brothers; the Cinel Gabran and Cinel Comgall, descended from two sons of Domangart, son of Fergus, the second of the brothers; and the Cinel Angus, descended from the third brother, Angus. The Cinel Comgall inhabited the district formerly called Comgall, now corrupted into Cowall. The Cinel Gabran inhabited what was called the Airgiallas, or the district of Argyle proper, and Kintyre. The Cinel Angus inhabited the islands of Islay and Jura, and the Cinel Lorn, the district of Lorn. Beyond this, on the north, the districts between Lorn and the promontory of Ardnamurchan, _i.e._, the island of Mull, the district of Morven, Ardgower, and probably part of Lochaber, seem to have formed a sort of debatable ground, the population of which was Pictish, while the Scots had settlements among them. In the centre of the possessions of the Cinel Gabran, at the head of the well-sheltered loch of Crinan, lies the great Moss of Crinan, with the river Add flowing through it. In the centre of the moss, and on the side of the river, rises an isolated rocky hill called Dunadd, the top of which is strongly fortified. This was the capital of Dalriada, and many a stone obelisk in the moss around it bears silent testimony to the contests of which it was the centre. The picturesque position of Dunolly Castle, on a rock at the entrance of the equally sheltered bay of Oban, afforded another fortified summit, which was the chief stronghold of the tribe of Lorn. Of Dunstaffnage, as a royal seat, history knows nothing.”[86]