Cenél Loairn, the descendants of Loarn mac Eirc, controlled parts of northern Argyll around the Firth of Lorne, in what was then the kingdom of Dál Riata during the early Middle ages.
Cenél Loairn was one of three main kindreds in early Dál Riata: Cenél nGabráin appears to have been centred in Kintyre and Knapdale to the south while Cenél nÓengusa ruled the islands of Islay and Jura. Around 700 a fourth group, the Cenél Comgaill, split from the Cenél nGabráin and controlled Cowal and Bute.
The foundation myth for the early rulers of the territory traces the lineage of these kindreds back to Erc of Dalriada, a fifth century Irish king, but the first king of Dál Riata to claim Cenél Loairn descent was Ferchar Fota (died c. 697).
The chief religious site of Cenél Loairn may have been on Lismore but with the arrival of the Vikings in the late 8th century it is likely the island was soon absorbed into the Norse-Gael Kingdom of the Isles.
Excavations of key sites associated with the kindred provide some insight in to the agriculture of the period and indicate that an extensive trade network with distant cultures was in place. A few fragments of poetry from the period survive along with king lists and other records held by religious houses.
Cenél Loairn’s later influence, probably in response to the Scandinavian take-over of the isles, seems to have transferred to Moray the rulers of which province claimed descent from the kindred as late as the 12th century.
Geography
Cenél Loairn territory was centred in modern Lorne, which takes its name from this kin group. They likely also controlled the islands of Mull, Tiree, Coll and Colonsay, the Morvern and Ardnamurchan peninsulas and parts of Lochaber. The boundary to the east was the Druim Alban mountain ridge that separated Dál Riata from Pictland.
The chief places of the kingdom appear to have been at Dun Ollaigh near Oban and Dunadd, near Crinan. The royal site of Dunadd lay at the southern edge of their territory in the midst of the lands of the main kindred groups and was a locus of the high kings of Dál Riata although there is no direct evidence that Dun Olaigh was subordinate to Dunadd. Dunstaffnage Castle is located just north of Dun Ollaigh and guards the entrance to Loch Etive. The extant structure dates from the 13th century although it has been suggested that it may stand on the site of a 7th century predecessor.
In addition to the main fortifications the remains of numerous other duns and crannog sites have been found throughout the area. Examples of the former include Dun an Fheurain at Ardalanish on Mull and An Dun, Clenamacrie in Glen Lonan near Oban. The 7th century Senchus fer n-Alban, which is the oldest known census in Britain, lists hundreds of "houses", which indicates that a substantial number of other dwellings existed as well. For every twenty "houses" the cenela were required to provide a crew for two seven-bench fighting ships and Cenèl Loairn had 420 such houses and a muster strength of 600. Dál Riata as a whole had a military force that was about 2,000 strong.
Kin groups
Gaelic society of the period was divided into tuath - kin groups - that were hierarchical in form, with a class of serfs or slaves at the bottom of the social scale, a caste of free citizens who worked the land in the middle and an aristocratic group at the apex who provided the warriors and kings. The ri tuath might be, in turn, subservient to a ruiri or overking who might be governed by a ri ruirech or high king. There is very little evidence that the neighbouring Dál Riatan kindreds managed to hold sway over Cenél Loairn prior to 695 and it is likely that the creation of a high kingship of Argyll originates around this time.
The Senchus identifies three sub-groups of Cenél Loairn: Cenél nEchdach, Cenél Cathboth and Cenél Salaich. This may mirror the modern division of Lorne into "Upper Lorn and Mid Lorn divided by Loch Etive, and the rugged country of Nether Lorn west of Loch Awe" with Cenél nEchdach dominating Benderloch and Morvern, Cenél Cathboth controlling Dun Ollaigh (near modern Oban), and Cenél Salaich centred on the island of Seil off the coast of Nether Lorn. Fraser (2010) suggests that that Mull “was probably not controlled by Cenél nEchdach” and speculates that this may have been Cenél Cathboth territory.
It is possible that the segment of Cenél nEchdach that dominated the kingship of Lorn in the early eighth century traced their descent from Baítán mac Echdach, a great-grandson of Loarn mac Eirc. The ‘Cenél Baítáin’ was identified by W. F. Skene as located in “the most northerly part of Dalriada” and the evidence from medieval records may indicate that this group were centred in Morvern with other segments of Cenél nEchdach based in adjacent Upper Lorn and Ardnamurchan.
Early Kings of Lorne and Dál Riata
The nature of the early settlement of the area by Gaelic-speaking peoples from Ireland is uncertain. Irish tradition tells of Cairbre Riata moving his people from Munster, first to Ulster and then to Kintyre and the Inner Hebrides c. 220 CE. It has been suggested that the relationship of the Dalriadic Scots to the indigenous inhabitants of Argyll was one of conquest and settlement and on the other hand that "they came in peace as Celts to a Celtic land", possibly to assist the Picts in their resistance to Rome. Archaeologists have been unable to find any evidence of large scale migration into Argyll in the early medieval period and some scholars claim that the Gaels in this part of Scotland were indigenous to the area.: referring to Ewan Campbell, Saints and Sea-Kings: the First Kingdom of the Scots, (Edinburgh, 1999) pp. 11–15; "Were the Scots Irish?‟, Antiquity 75 (2001) pp. 285–92.
The “Chronicle of the Kings of Dalriata’’ provides a foundation myth for the early rulers of the territory. Each of the three original kindreds traced their heritage back to one of three brothers, the sons of Erc of Dalriada, who are also listed in the late-14th century Book of Ballymote. Loarn mac Eirc was the founder of Cenél Loairn. Fergus Mór mac Eirc is credited as the first high king of Dál Riata who reigned for three years until his death in 501 and his grandson Gabrán mac Domangairt gave rise to Cenél nGabráin. The third brother, Óengus Mór mac Eirc, supposedly gave rise to Cenél nÓengusa. However, it is not for 75 years or more later that a "frail narrative" begins to emerge in relation to the kings of Dál Riata in the surviving records created close in time to the period.
The extant records suggest that during the 7th century the kings of Dál Riata were Cenél nGabráin or Cenél Comgaill dynasts until close to the end of that century when their dominance was challenged by the Cenél Loairn. However, this “may represent a partisan estimation of the significance of that kindred in hindsight” and it is possible that prior to that time the kingdoms of Lorn and Islay may have been independent polities for substantial periods.
The first king of Dál Riata to claim descent from Loarn was Ferchar Fota of Cenél nEchdach. The Annals of Tigernach record the defeat of the Cenél Loairn led by Ferchar Fota on Tiree at the hands of the “Britons” in 678, which is the earliest reference to the kindred in the surviving annals. Ferchar's ascent to the high-kingship in the 690s followed an ambitious military campaign in Ireland by his predecessor Domnall Donn. The records for the period are contradictory but Ferchar's short reign may have been followed by Eochaid mac Domangairt of Cenél nGabrain, then shortly thereafter by Ferchar's son Ainbcellach of Cenél Loairn who was deposed and exiled to Ireland in 698 perhaps at the hands of Cenél Cathboth.
His brother Selbach mac Ferchair then turned the tables, exacting "slaughter" on Cathboth and assuming the kingship of Lorne and as rex Dáil Riata in 701 or 702. Selbach was powerful enough to maintain his position for more than twenty years, fighting against the Strathclyde Britons at the unidentified location of "Lorg Ecclet" and besieging the Cenél nGabrain seat of Dunaverty in 711. A defeat in a sea battle against the king of Kintyre Dúnchad Bec in October 719 weakened his position and in 723 he retired to a monastery, making way for his son Dúngal. Things did not go well for Dúngal. In 726 he was deposed as king of Dál Riata by his cousin Muiredach mac Ainbcellaig. Selbach returned to the fray to assist his son's forces at the battle of Ros Foichnae but died three years later in 730. In 733 Dúngal was deposed by Muiredach as king of Loairn as well following the former's "outrageous" kidnapping of the powerful Pictish king Onuist's son Bridei from a monastery on Tory Island in a seeming act of desperation.
Muiredach's reign may have ended in 736 as a result of his defeat at the hands of Talorgan mac Fergusa, the brother of Onuist, at "Cnoc Coirpri in Calathros at Etarlinde". By 741 Argyll had been “decisively annexed” by Onuist. As this coincided with a period of domination by Cenél Loairn in Argyll and Lorne is at the opposite end of Glen Albyn to Pictavia it is possible that Onuist saw this as a more of a threat than the over-kingship of Dál Riata residing in Kintyre with the Cenél nGabráin.
Religion
Christianity probably arrived in Ireland via Roman Britain and was developed enough by 431 for the first bishop to be appointed to the "Irish believing in Christ". A feature of early Irish Christianity was the domination of monks and abbots rather than priests and bishops as was common elsewhere in Europe and the creation of early Christian monastic sites in Argyll and beyond provides some insight into the importance of religion in early Dál Riatan culture and that of their immediate neighbours. Especially so for the lands to the north beyond Ardnamurchan for which the record is otherwise very sparse.
Columba's arrival on Iona in 563 is well-known although his relationship with Cenél Loairn is not clear. The Celtic monastic system made use of isolated retreat centres they called 'deserts' and there were several smaller monastic settlements associated with Iona. Tiree had one, the island of Hinba another. The latter's location is unknown although it is likely located somewhere in Argyll. There were also similar outlying colonies on Elene Insula (off Islay) and Scia (Skye).
Other Irish monks in the area included Donnán who arrived on Eigg around 600 AD establishing a monastery at Kildonnan. Columba had warned him of the dangers of settling in Pictish territory and Donnan was murdered on Eigg along with 52 of his monks in 617. Beccan may have had a hermitage on Rùm by 632. and Moluag may have established himself on Raasay in the late sixth century. Máel Ruba founded a monastery at Applecross in 672, a move possibly linked to the support of Cenél nGartnait, a sept of Cenél nGabráin who were active in Skye at the time and who may have developed some kind of arrangement with Cenél Loairn.
The chief religious site of Cenél Loairn may have been on Lismore, which lies "in the cockpit of the territory of Lorn".: quoting Macdonald (1973) pp. 47-49. It may have originally been a daughter house of Bangor Abbey and was later the seat of the high-medieval bishop of Argyll. The Iona Chronicle records the death of Moluag in 594, who may have been the abbot of Lismore, and of subsequent abbots up to c. 640. Lismore probably maintained its status as the principal religious house of the Cenél Loairn during the remainder of the 7th century and five further such obituaries are recorded in the latter half of the 8th century. With the arrival of the Vikings in the late 8th century it is likely both Lismore and Iona were soon absorbed into the Norse-Gael Kingdom of the Isles with the latter being sacked in 802 and 806.