Middle Irish in the context of Somerled

Bardic poetry is the writings produced by a class of poets trained in the bardic schools of Ireland and the Gaelic parts of Scotland, as they existed down to about the middle of the 17th century or, in Scotland, the early 18th century. Most of the texts preserved are in Middle Irish or in early Modern Irish, however, even though the manuscripts were very plentiful, very few have been published. It is considered a period of great literary stability due to the formalised literary language that changed very little.

Scottish Gaelic (/ˈɡælɪk/ GAL-ik; endonym: Gàidhlig [ˈkaːlɪkʲ] ), also known as Scots Gaelic or simply Gaelic, is a Celtic language native to the Gaels of Scotland. As a member of the Goidelic branch of Celtic, Scottish Gaelic, alongside both Irish and Manx, developed out of Old Irish. It became a distinct spoken language sometime in the 13th century in the Middle Irish period, although a common literary language was shared by the Gaels of both Ireland and Scotland until well into the 17th century. Most of modern Scotland was once Gaelic-speaking, as evidenced especially by Gaelic-language place names.

In the 2011 census of Scotland, 57,375 people (1.1% of the Scottish population, three years and older) reported being able to speak Gaelic, 1,275 fewer than in 2001. The highest percentages of Gaelic speakers were in the Outer Hebrides. Nevertheless, there is a language revival, and the number of speakers of the language under age 20 did not decrease between the 2001 and 2011 censuses. In the 2022 census of Scotland, it was found that 2.5% of the Scottish population had some skills in Gaelic, or 130,161 persons. Of these, 69,701 people reported speaking the language, with a further 46,404 people reporting that they understood the language, but did not speak, read, or write in it.

Old Irish, also called Old Gaelic (endonym: Goídelc; Irish: Sean-Ghaeilge; Scottish Gaelic: Seann-Ghàidhlig; Manx: Shenn Yernish or Shenn Ghaelg), is the oldest form of the Goidelic/Gaelic language for which there are extensive written texts. It was used from c. 600 to c. 900. The main contemporary texts are dated c. 700–850; by 900 the language had already transitioned into early Middle Irish. Some Old Irish texts date from the 10th century, although these are presumably copies of texts written at an earlier time. Old Irish is forebear to Modern Irish, Manx and Scottish Gaelic.

Old Irish is known for having a particularly complex system of morphology and especially of allomorphy (more or less unpredictable variations in stems and suffixes in differing circumstances), as well as a complex sound system involving grammatically significant consonant mutations to the initial consonant of a word. Apparently, neither characteristic was present in the preceding Primitive Irish period, though initial mutations likely existed in a non-grammaticalised form in the prehistoric era.

Malcolm III (Middle Irish: Máel Coluim mac Donnchada; Scottish Gaelic: Maol Chaluim mac Dhonnchaidh; c. 1031–13 November 1093) was King of Alba from 1058 to 1093. He was later nicknamed "Canmore" (Scottish Gaelic: ceann mòr, lit. 'big head', understood as "great chief"). Malcolm's long reign of 35 years preceded the beginning of the Scoto-Norman age. Henry I of England and Eustace III, Count of Boulogne were his sons-in-law, making him the maternal grandfather of Empress Matilda, William Adelin and Matilda I, Countess of Boulogne. All three of them were prominent in English politics during the 12th century.

Malcolm's kingdom did not extend over the full territory of modern Scotland: many of the islands and the land north of the River Oykel were Scandinavian, and south of the Firth of Forth there were numerous independent or semi-independent realms, including the kingdom of Strathclyde and Bamburgh, and it is not certain what if any power the Scots exerted there on Malcolm's accession. Throughout his reign, Malcolm III led at least five invasions into English territory. One of Malcolm's primary achievements was to secure the position of the lineage that ruled Scotland until the late thirteenth century, although his role as founder of a dynasty has more to do with the propaganda of his descendants than with history. He appears as a major character in William Shakespeare's Macbeth, while his second wife, Margaret, was canonised as a saint in the thirteenth century.

The Old North (Welsh: Hen Ogledd, Welsh pronunciation: [ˌheːn ˈɔɡlɛð]) is the term used in modern scholarship for the historical and literary space which was inhabited by Brittonic-speaking peoples of modern Northern England and southern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. The people of Wales and those of the Old North considered themselves to be one people, and both were referred to as Cymry ('fellow-countrymen') from the Brittonic word combrogi. The Old North was distinct from the parts of Great Britain inhabited by the Picts, Anglo-Saxons, and Scoti.

The major kingdoms of the Old North were Elmet, Gododdin, Rheged, and the Kingdom of Strathclyde (Welsh: Ystrad Clud). Smaller kingdoms included Aeron and Calchfynydd. Eidyn, Lleuddiniawn, and Manaw Gododdin were evidently parts of Gododdin. The later Anglian kingdoms of Deira and Bernicia both had Brittonic-derived names, suggesting they may have been Brittonic kingdoms originally. All the kingdoms of the Old North except Strathclyde were gradually either integrated or subsumed by the emerging Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, Gaelic Scots and fellow Brittonic Picts by about 800; Strathclyde was eventually incorporated into the rising Middle Irish-speaking Kingdom of Scotland in the 11th century.

Western Brittonic languages (Welsh: Brythoneg Gorllewinol) comprise two dialects into which Common Brittonic split during the Early Middle Ages; its counterpart was the ancestor of the Southwestern Brittonic languages. The reason and date for the split is often given as the Battle of Deorham in 577, at which point the victorious Saxons of Wessex essentially cut Brittonic-speaking Britain in two, which in turn caused the Western and Southwestern branches to develop separately.

According to this categorisation, Western Brittonic languages were spoken in Wales, western England and the Hen Ogledd, or "Old North", an area of northern England and southern Scotland. One Western language evolved into Old Welsh and thus to the modern Welsh language; the language of yr Hen Ogledd, Cumbric, became extinct after the expansion of the Middle Irish-speaking Dál Riata polity. Southwestern Brittonic became the ancestor to Cornish and Breton.

Táin Bó Cúailnge (Modern Irish pronunciation: [ˈt̪ˠaːnʲ bˠoː ˈkuəlʲɲə]; "the driving-off of the cows of Cooley"), commonly known as The Táin or less commonly as The Cattle Raid of Cooley, is an epic from Irish mythology. It is often called "the Irish Iliad", although like most other early Irish literature, the Táin is written in prosimetrum, i.e. prose with periodic additions of verse composed by the characters. The Táin tells of a war against Ulster by Queen Medb of Connacht and her husband King Ailill, who intend to steal the stud bull Donn Cuailnge. Due to a curse upon the king and warriors of Ulster, the invaders are opposed only by the young demigod, Cú Chulainn.

The Táin is traditionally set in the 1st century in a pagan heroic age, and is the central text of a group of tales known as the Ulster Cycle. It survives in three written versions or "recensions" in manuscripts of the 12th century and later, the first a compilation largely written in Old Irish, the second a more consistent work in Middle Irish, and the third an Early Modern Irish version.

Early Modern Irish (Irish: Gaeilge Chlasaiceach, lit. 'Classical Irish') represented a transition between Middle Irish and Modern Irish. Its literary form, Classical Gaelic, was used in Ireland and Scotland from the 13th to the 18th century.

Alexander II (Medieval Gaelic: Alaxandair mac Uilliam; Modern Gaelic: Alasdair mac Uilleim; nicknamed "the Peaceful" by modern historians; 24 August 1198 – 8 July 1249) was King of Alba (Scotland) from 1214 until his death. He concluded the Treaty of York (1237) which defined the boundary between England and Scotland, largely unchanged today.

Alexander I (medieval Gaelic: Alaxandair mac Maíl Coluim; modern Gaelic: Alasdair mac Mhaol Chaluim; c. 1078 – 23 April 1124), posthumously nicknamed The Fierce, was the King of Alba (Scotland) from 1107 to his death. He was the fifth son of Malcolm III and his second wife, Margaret, sister of Edward Ætheling, a prince of the pre-conquest English royal house.

He succeeded his brother, King Edgar, and his successor was his brother David. He was married to Sybilla of Normandy, an illegitimate daughter of Henry I of England.

The history of the Irish language begins with the period from the arrival of speakers of Celtic languages in Ireland to Ireland's earliest known form of Irish, Primitive Irish, which is found in Ogham inscriptions dating from the 3rd or 4th century AD. After the conversion to Christianity in the 5th century, Old Irish begins to appear as glosses and other marginalia in manuscripts written in Latin, beginning in the 6th century. It evolved in the 10th century to Middle Irish. Early Modern Irish represented a transition between Middle and Modern Irish. Its literary form, Classical Gaelic, was used by writers in both Ireland and Scotland until the 18th century, in the course of which slowly but surely writers began writing in the vernacular dialects, Ulster Irish, Connacht Irish, Munster Irish and Scottish Gaelic. As the number of hereditary poets and scribes dwindled under British rule in the early 19th century, Irish became a mostly spoken tongue with little written literature appearing in the language until the Gaelic Revival of the late 19th century. The number of speakers was also declining in this period with monoglot and bilingual speakers of Irish increasingly adopting only English: while Irish never died out, by the time of the Revival it was largely confined to the less Anglicised regions of the island, which were often also the more rural and remote areas. In the 20th and 21st centuries, Irish has continued to survive in Gaeltacht regions and among a minority in other regions. It has once again come to be considered an important part of the island's culture and heritage, with efforts being made to preserve and promote it.

The Manx (/mæŋks/ manks; Manx: ny Manninee) are an ethnic group originating on the Isle of Man, in the Irish Sea in Northern Europe. They belong to the Gaelic ethnolinguistic group, which now populate the parts of the British Isles which once were the Kingdom of the Isles and Dál Riata. The Manx are governed through the Tynwald (Ard-whaiyl Tinvaal), the legislature of the island, which was introduced by Viking settlers over a thousand years ago. The native mythology and folklores of the Manx belong to the overall Celtic Mythology group, with Manannán mac Lir, the Mooinjer veggey, Buggane, Lhiannan-Shee, Ben-Varrey and the Moddey Dhoo being prominent mythological figures on the island. Their language, Manx Gaelic (Gaelg, Gailck) is derived from Middle Irish, which was introduced by settlers that colonised the island from Gaelic Ireland. However, Manx Gaelic later developed in isolation and belongs as a separate Goidelic language of the Insular Celtic languages.

Dubgaill and Finngaill, or Dubgenti and Finngenti, are Middle Irish terms used to denote different rival groups of Vikings in Ireland and Britain. Literally, Dub-/Finngaill is translated as "dark and fair foreigners" or "black and white foreigners", and similarly, Dub-/Finngenti as "dark/black" and "fair/white heathens". Similar terms are found in Welsh chronicles, probably derived from Gaelic usage. The first known use of these terms in the chronicles is from 851, when it is noted that "The Dubhghoill arrived in Ath Cliath [Dublin], and made a great slaughter of the Finnghoill". The terms appear, with various spellings, in entries in Irish annals from the 9th and 10th century, and are also used and interpreted in later historiography.

There have been different interpretations of the terms. Traditionally, historians have speculated whether these distinctions refer to physical features such as skin or hair-colour, weaponry or outfits. Alfred P. Smyth suggested a new interpretation of dub and finn as "new" and "old". There is a long tradition of understanding Dubgaill as Danish Vikings and Finngaill as Norwegian Vikings. This interpretation has recently been challenged by David N. Dumville and Clare Downham, who, building on Smyth's conclusions, propose that the terms may not be related to ethnicity or origin of the different groups of Vikings.