Kenneth I of Scotland in the context of King of Dál Riada

Birnam is a village in Perth and Kinross, Scotland. It is located 12 miles (19 km) north of Perth on the A9 road, the main tourist route through Perthshire, in an area of Scotland marketed as Big Tree Country. The village originated from the Victorian era with the coming of the railway in 1856, although the place and name is well known because William Shakespeare mentioned Birnam Wood in Macbeth:

Prior to the construction of the railway, the only substantial building on the site of the present village was the church of Little Dunkeld parish, which still stands in its ancient position within a graveyard within the village. Dunkeld, to whose monastery Kenneth MacAlpin, the first King of Scotland, moved the bones of St. Columba around the middle of the ninth century, and which is notable for its cathedral, lies on the opposite bank of the river.

The consorts of the monarchs of Scotland, such as queens consort, princesses consort, and kings consort, bore titles derived from their marriage. The Kingdom of Scotland was first unified as a state by Kenneth I of Scotland in 843, and ceased to exist as an independent kingdom after the Act of Union 1707 when it was merged with the Kingdom of England to become the Kingdom of Great Britain.

The early history of Scotland is confused and often obscure, due largely to information given by the sources of the time and after, which are often contradictory, vague, and lacking in detail. Details of the kings prior to Malcolm III are sparse, and the status of two – Giric and Eochaid – dubious; details of their wives are almost non-existent. Thus, it is practically impossible to construct a list of consorts of Scotland prior to the accession of Macbeth, whose wife Gruoch is well-documented.

Alpín mac Echdach was a supposed king of Dál Riata, an ancient kingdom that included parts of Ireland and Scotland.

Alpín was included in a pedigree chart created in the 10th century to connect the kings of Alba (Scotland) to legendary Dál Riatan and Irish ancestors. In this pedigree, Alpín's father is Eochaid, an Irish name, yet he becomes the father of Cináed (Kenneth MacAlpin) and Domnall mac Ailpín.