Some versions of the king list associate Gartnait with the foundation of the monastery of Abernethy, although other variants associate this either with Nechtan nepos Uerb or the similarly named pre-historic king Nechtan son of Erp.[2]
John Bannerman proposed that this Gartnait was to be identified with the son of Áedán mac Gabráin found in the genealogies known as Cethri Primchenela dail Riata attached to the Senchus fer n-Alban, and furthermore with the Gartnait whose kin were active on the isle of Skye during the 7th and early 8th centuries.[3]T. F. O'Rahilly had earlier rejected the identification of "Gartnait son of Áedán" with the eponym of the Skye kindred who is called Gartnait son of Accidán in the Irish annals.[4] The most recent study, by Fraser, rejects the existence of Gartnait son of Áedán outright, presuming this person to have been a genealogical fiction created in the early 8th century to bolster the ambitions of Cenél nGartnait, descendants of Gartnait son of Accidán, to rule in Kintyre.[5] Instead, due to the Picts being prone to practice matrilineal succession, his true parentage was indeed Domelch, who was probably a sister or daughter of his predecessor, King Uradech.[6]
References
^Anderson, Early Sources, [loc. wanting]; Anderson, Kings and Kingship, pp. 231–233 table D and p. 248; Evans, Royal succession, p. 15 table 1; Charles-Edwards, Chronicle of Ireland, volume 1, pp. 114 (584:3) and 120 (599:3).
^Anderson, Early Sources, [loc wanting]; Anderson, Kings and Kingship, pp. 64–65, 92–96, 266; Fraser, Caledonia to Pictland, p. 134; Smyth, Warlords & Holy Men, pp. 82–83.
^Bannerman, Studies, pp. 92–94; Smyth, Warlords and Holy Men, p. 70.
^Anderson, Kings and Kingship, pp. 154–155; Smyth, Warlords and Holy Men, pp. 79–80; Charles-Edwards, Chronicle of Ireland, volume I, p. 146 (649:4).
Charles-Edwards, T. M. (2006). The Chronicle of Ireland. Translated Texts for Historians. Vol. 44. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. ISBN0-85323-959-2.
Fraser, James E. (2009). From Caledonia to Pictland: Scotland to 795. New Edinburgh History of Scotland. Vol. I. Edinburgh University Press. ISBN978-0-7486-1232-1.
Smyth, Alfred P. (1989). Warlords and Holy Men: Scotland A.D. 80–1000. Edinburgh University Press. ISBN0-7486-0100-7.
External links
CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts at University College Cork includes the Annals of Ulster, Tigernach, the Four Masters and Innisfallen, the Chronicon Scotorum, the Lebor Bretnach (which includes the Duan Albanach), Genealogies, and various Saints' Lives. Most are translated into English or translations are in progress.
