In the 7th century, Dál Riata was the first territory in what is now the UK to conduct a census.

By the 9th century, the Gaels of Dál Riata ( Dalriada ) were subject to the kings of Fortriu of the family of Constantín mac Fergusa ( Constantine son of Fergus ).

The dominance of Fortriu came to an end in 839 with a defeat by Viking armies reported by the Annals of Ulster in which King Uen of Fortriu and his brother Bran, Constantín's nephews, together with the king of Dál Riata, Áed mac Boanta, " and others almost innumerable " were killed.

The situation of the Gaelic kingdoms of Dál Riata in western Scotland is uncertain.

The Frankish Annales Bertiniani may record the conquest of the Inner Hebrides, the seaward part of Dál Riata, by Northmen in 849.

These raiders would later found the Kingdom of Dál Riata in the West.

In the west were the Gaelic ( Goidelic )- speaking people of Dál Riata with their royal fortress at Dunadd in Argyll, with close links with the island of Ireland, from which they brought with them the name Scots.

There was also a merger of the Gaelic and Pictish crowns, although historians debate whether it was a Pictish takeover of Dál Riata, or the other way around.

The first written records of native life begin in the 6th century AD when the founding of the kingdom of Dál Riata took place.

The figure of Columba looms large in any history of Dál Riata and his founding of a monastery on Iona ensured that the kingdom would be of great importance in the spread of Christianity in northern Britain.

North of Dál Riata, the Inner and Outer Hebrides were nominally under Pictish control although the historical record is sparse.

The Scottish Gaelic language arrived via Ireland due to the growing influence of the kingdom of Dál Riata from the 6th century onwards and became the dominant language of the southern Hebrides at that time.

The larger islands have been continuously inhabited since Neolithic times, were influenced by the emergence of the kingdom of Dál Riata from 500 AD and then absorbed into the emerging Kingdom of Alba under Kenneth MacAlpin.

Map of Dál Riata at its height, c. 580 – 600.

During the 2nd century AD Irish influence was at work in the region and by the 6th century the kingdom of Dál Riata was established.

Dál Riata flourished from the time of Fergus Mór in the late fifth century until the Viking incursions that commenced in the late eighth century.

Rather than a conquest of the Picts, instead the idea of Pictish matrilineal succession, mentioned by Bede and apparently the only way to make sense of the list of Kings of the Picts found in the Pictish Chronicle, advanced the idea that Kenneth was a Gael, and a king of Dál Riata, who had inherited the throne of Pictland through a Pictish mother.

Kenneth's origins are uncertain, as are his ties, if any, to previous kings of the Picts or Dál Riata.

Medieval genealogies are unreliable sources, but many historians still accept Kenneth's descent from the established Cenél nGabráin, or at the very least from some unknown minor sept of the Dál Riata.

Pictland, also known as Pictavia, gradually merged with the Gaelic kingdom of Dál Riata to form the Kingdom of Alba ( Scotland ).

The Gaels of Dál Riata controlled their own region for a time, but suffered a series of defeats in the first third of the 7th century.

In the reign of Óengus mac Fergusa ( 729 – 761 ), Dál Riata was very much subject to the Pictish king.

Although it had its own kings from the 760s, it appears that Dál Riata did not recover.

A later Pictish king, Caustantín mac Fergusa ( 793 – 820 ), placed his son Domnall on the throne of Dál Riata ( 811 – 835 ).

The kingdom of Dál Riata was destroyed, certainly by the middle of the 9th century, when Ketil Flatnose is said to have founded the Kingdom of the Isles.

He may be the same person as Fiannamail mac Osseni who is mentioned in 699, and he is certainly the Fiannamail ua Dúnchado ( Fiannamail grandson of Dúnchad ) who witnessed the Cáin Adomnáin in 696 – 697, in which Fiachrae Cosalach is named as king of the cruithne of Dál nAraide, which argues strongly that Fiannamail was not a king of Dál nAraide.

Thus it was Artúr who led the Scotti of Dál Riata in a war against the Picts, separate from the later war with Northumbria.

The independent existence of the kingdom of the Cenél Loairn, and that of Dál Riata, probably ended in 736, after which time it formed part of the kingdom of the Picts, ruled by Óengus mac Fergusa.

Dál Riata remained allied with the Northern Uí Néill until the reign of Domnall Brecc, who reversed this policy and allied with Congal Cáech ( also known as Congal Cláen ) of the Dál nAraidi.

Fergus mac Echdach was king of Dál Riata ( modern western Scotland ) from about 778 until 781.

Muiredach mac Ainbcellaig was king of the Cenél Loairn, and of Dál Riata ( modern western Scotland ), from about 733 until 736.

Eochaid mac Eochaid was king of Dál Riata ( modern western Scotland ) from 726 until 733.

He ruled as king of the Cenél Loairn from around 698 until his abdication in 723, but it may be that he was undisputed ruler of Dál Riata only in the final years of his reign.

Ainbcellach mac Ferchair was king of the Cenél Loairn of Dál Riata, and perhaps of all Dál Riata, from 697 until 698, when he was deposed and exiled to Ireland.

Conall Crandomna was king of Dál Riata ( modern western Scotland ) from about 650 until 660.

Ferchar mac Connaid was king of Dál Riata ( in modern Scotland ) from about 642 until 650.

Domnall Brecc ( Welsh: Dyfnwal Frych ; English: Donald the Freckled ) ( d. 642 in Strathcarron ) was king of Dál Riata, in modern Scotland, from about 629 until 642.

Eochaid Buide was king of Dál Riata from around 608 until 629.

Áedán mac Gabráin ( pronounced in Old Irish ) was a king of Dál Riata from circa 574 until his death, perhaps on 17 April 609.

Conall mac Comgaill was king of Dál Riata from about 558 until 574.

Gabrán's chief importance is as the presumed ancestor of the Cenél nGabraín, a kingroup which dominated the kingship of Dál Riata until the late 7th century and continued to provide kings thereafter.

Áedán survived as King of Dál Riata until 608 when he was succeeded by his youngest son Eochaid Buide.

The Ulaid as a distinct people, as represented by the Dál Fiatach, survived until their conquest in 1177 by the Anglo-Norman knight John de Courcy.

This was a stronghold of the kingdom of Dál Riata until the 9th century, and possibly its centre at one time.

If, as seems likely, the Dál Riata Gaels established a footing in the islands towards the beginning of the 6th century, their success was short-lived, and the Picts regained power and kept it until dispossessed by the Norsemen in the 9th century.