The work has been done exceptionally well, and after all the original footprint is still there, in its original spot. There’s one rumour that the monks at Scone gave Edward I a stone cover from a cess pit. It’s such a pleasure to share these places. Obviously the people who hide the stone couldn’t have been left alive to retrieve it! Fantastic. He was forced to surrender Dál Riata's Irish lands before he eventually suffered his final defeat at the hands of Owen of Dumbarton at the Battle of Strathcarron in 642 AD. It’s always a compromise, I can see that… but part of me wishes that we didn’t have to make it.Dunadd may not have been abandoned immediately. Facts are sorted by community importance and you can build your personalized lexicon If the Gaels did invade from Ireland then new objects and differing types of building style could be expected to appear. Your photos show just what it’s like being there, and the description really conveys the location and information as far as it’s known. However, along with Pictland, Dál Riata became the essential ingredient in the new Kingdom of Alba.The Open University has produced a free booklet of postcards about Scottish history. Love the photos and love your writing style – a magical mix of facts and your own observations, ideas and musings! It really fires your imagination – you feel as if those long-lost ancestors are almost close enough to touch. That is an erroneous translation of the sengaeilge/old Irish. No matter how often I visit Dunadd or Kilmartin glen, it has the same effect; sensing the history of people all down the ages coming there for amazing occasions. Dunadd is very special, and I’ve been wanting to get there for a long time. An important trading centre, many goods flowed through it: gold from Ireland, wine from southern Europe, even rare minerals from the far east used by scribes to colour manuscripts.The Adobe Flash player and Javascript are required in order to view a video which appears on this page. It’s certainly a special place to visit that still commands a powerful draw on your imagination. I'm also Writer in Residence at the Royal Scottish Geographical Society. Precious metals were worked here – … I had read that about Scota or Scotia, but I didn’t know about the genetic research – I will be looking that up now! You may wish to It was from this background of decline that Kenneth MacAlpin emerged. Is it a very thin protective layer, like a ‘skin’, or is it larger copy placed over the top of the original to completely cover it? Civil war raged between the rival factions until Fercher Fota (c697 AD) established a new royal line.