Somerled and the Emergence of Gaelic Scotland

by John Marsden

Through most of eight hundred years, Somerled of Argyll has been variously denounced as an intractable rebel against his rightful king and esteemed as the honoured ancestor of the later medieval Lord of the Isles, but he can be recognised now as a much more complex figure of major prominence in twelfth-century Scotland and of truly landmark significance in the long history of the Gael.

In this book individual chapters investigate his emergence in the forefront of the Gaelic-Norse aristocracy of the western seaboard, his part in Gaeldom’s challenge to the Canmore kings of Scots, his war on the Manx king of the Isles, his importance for the church on Iona, and his extraordinary invasion of the Clyde which was cut short by his violent death at Renfrew in 1164.

Perhaps most impressive is the book’s demonstration of how almost everything that is known of or has been claimed for Somerled reflects the same characteristic fusion of Norse and Celt which binds the cultural roots of Gaeldom. It is this recognition which has led its author to his proposal of Somerled’s wider historical importance as the personality who most represents the first fully-fledged emergence of the medieval Celtic-Scandinavian cultural province from which is directly descended the Gaelic Scotland of today.

Genres: Scotland, History, Medieval, Medieval History

212 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2000

About the author

John Marsden is the author of a number of books on the early history of Scotland and Northumbria, including Somerled and Galloglas. In recent years he has made his home in the Western Isles of Scotland.

Reviews

[James Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

There may be little surviving sources on events in Scotland of the mid-1100s and there is even less on events in the Hebrides, and much of what is available is contradictory and was written many years after events, but Marsden uses what is available to him to try and deconstruct the traditional image of Somerled and to place him within the contemporary Norse-Gaelic world in which he moved. Marsden successfully reconstructs Somerled's early life and identifies his descendants. Marden does his best to use the information that is available to him, but the only demerit of this book is that, given the paucity of the sources, Somerled is sometimes a fleeting figure in the text.

[Barbara Henderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Readable and accessible, but with a panoply of names sure to bamboozle. A good reference work to return to again and again, I have found.