Читать книгу Irish History: People, places and events that built Ireland - Neil Hegarty - Страница 20

The seas surrounding Ireland were far from being a barrier to trade, communication, and human interaction. Quite the opposite was the case: they enabled a flow of goods and people over the centuries – and this fact is made manifest in the form of Dál Riata, a kingdom that spanned the channel between western Scotland and the Irish province of Ulster. The origins of Dál Riata lie in the early centuries of the first millennium, although the precise facts remain unproven. For many years historians posited the idea of an Irish conquest of south-west Scotland. Today, however, theories favour the idea of an essentially organic evolution of the kingdom, as the natural result of a kinship between two closely related territories. This latter theory underscores the sense of relative ease of human communication and travel across the seas. Dál Riata was an important centre for maritime trade. It endured as a kingdom until the eighth century, when military and political changes in both Ireland and Scotland led to its gradual eclipse and disappearance from the records, and the rise of the kingdom of Scotland in its place.