Loarn mac Eirc was a possible king of
Dál Riata
Dál Riata or Dál Riada (also Dalriada) () was a Gaels, Gaelic Monarchy, kingdom that encompassed the Inner Hebrides, western seaboard of Scotland and north-eastern Ireland, on each side of the North Channel (Great Britain and Ireland), North ...
who may have lived in the 5th century. He was buried on
Iona.
[J. M. P. Calise, Pictish sourcebook, Greenwood Press, 2002.] Loarn's main significance is as the
eponymous
An eponym is a noun after which or for which someone or something is, or is believed to be, named. Adjectives derived from the word ''eponym'' include ''eponymous'' and ''eponymic''.
Eponyms are commonly used for time periods, places, innovati ...
ancestor of
Cenél Loairn, a kindred whose name is preserved in
Lorne.
The
Duan Albanach and the
Senchus Fer n-Alban and other genealogies name Loarn's father as
Erc son of
Eochaid Muinremuir. Loarn appears in Irish traditions as 'King of Alba' in the eighth- to twelfth-century tale "Of The Miracles of Cairnech Here" in the ''Lebhor Bretnach'', the Irish version of the ''Historia Brittonum'', and in the tenth- to twelfth-century tale ''Aided Muirchertach mac Erca''. In these tales, mac Erca spends time with Loarn, his grandfather, before murdering him by setting him aflame.
Notes
References
*
Bannerman, John, ''Studies in the History of Dalriada.'' Scottish Academic Press, Edinburgh, 1974.
*
Pestano, Dane, ''King Arthur in Irish Pseudo-Historical Tradition - An Introduction.'' Dark Age Arthurian Books, 2011.
*
Broun, Dauvit, ''The Irish Identity of the Kingdom of the Scots in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries.'' Boydell, Woodbridge, 1999.
* Menzies, Gordon (ed) (1971) ''Who are the Scots: A search for the origins of the Scottish nation''. BBC.
*
Woolf, Alex, ''From Pictland to Alba, 789-1070'' Edinburgh University Press, 2007.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Loarn Mac Eirc
Kings of Dál Riata
5th-century Irish monarchs
5th-century Scottish monarchs