Loarn mac Eirc was a possible king of
Dál Riata
Dál Riata or Dál Riada (also Dalriada) () was a Gaelic kingdom that encompassed the western seaboard of Scotland and north-eastern Ireland, on each side of the North Channel. At its height in the 6th and 7th centuries, it covered what is n ...
who may have lived in the 5th century. He was buried on
Iona
Iona (; gd, Ì Chaluim Chille (IPA: iːˈxaɫ̪ɯimˈçiʎə, sometimes simply ''Ì''; sco, Iona) is a small island in the Inner Hebrides, off the Ross of Mull on the western coast of Scotland. It is mainly known for Iona Abbey, though ther ...
.
[J. M. P. Calise, Pictish sourcebook, Greenwood Press, 2002.] Loarn's main significance is as the
eponymous
An eponym is a person, a place, or a thing after whom or which someone or something is, or is believed to be, named. The adjectives which are derived from the word eponym include ''eponymous'' and ''eponymic''.
Usage of the word
The term ''epon ...
ancestor of
Cenél Loairn
The Cenél Loairn, the descendants of Loarn mac Eirc, controlled parts of northern Argyll around the Firth of Lorne, most probably centred in Lorne but perhaps including the islands of Mull and Colonsay, Morvern and Ardnamurchan. The boundary to ...
, a kindred whose name is preserved in
Lorne.
The
Duan Albanach
The Duan Albanach (Song of the Scots) is a Middle Gaelic poem. Written during the reign of Mael Coluim III, who ruled between 1058 and 1093, it is found in a variety of Irish sources, and the usual version comes from the '' Book of Lecan'' and ' ...
and the
Senchus Fer n-Alban
The ''Senchus fer n-Alban'' (''The History of the men of Scotland'') is an Old Irish medieval text believed to have been compiled in the 10th century. It provides genealogies for kings of Dál Riata and a census of the kingdoms which comprised D ...
and other genealogies name Loarn's father as
Erc son of Eochaid Muinremuir. Loarn appears in Irish traditions as 'King of Alba' in the eighth- to twelfth-century tale "Of The Miracles of Cairnech Here" in the ''Lebhor Bretnach'', the Irish version of the ''Historia Brittonum'', and in the tenth- to twelfth-century tale ''Aided Muirchertach mac Erca''. In these tales, mac Erca spends time with Loarn, his grandfather, before murdering him by setting him aflame.
Notes
References
*
Bannerman, John, ''Studies in the History of Dalriada.'' Scottish Academic Press, Edinburgh, 1974.
*
Pestano,Dane, ''King Arthur in Irish Pseudo-Historical Tradition - An Introduction.'' Dark Age Arthurian Books, 2011.
*
Broun, Dauvit, ''The Irish Identity of the Kingdom of the Scots in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries.'' Boydell, Woodbridge, 1999.
* Menzies, Gordon (ed) (1971) ''Who are the Scots: A search for the origins of the Scottish nation''. BBC.
*
Woolf, Alex, ''From Pictland to Alba, 789-1070'' Edinburgh University Press, 2007.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Loarn Mac Eirc
Kings of Dál Riata
5th-century Irish monarchs
5th-century Scottish monarchs