page_title: Inner Hebrides
section_title: Dál Riata
hierarchical_section_title: Inner Hebrides / History / Dál Riata
caption_attribution_description: English: St Martins cross on Iona, Scotland. Outside the abbey.
context_page_description: The Inner Hebrides is an archipelago off the west coast of mainland Scotland, to the south east of the Outer Hebrides. Together these two island chains form the Hebrides, which experience a mild oceanic climate. The Inner Hebrides comprise 35 inhabited islands as well as 44 uninhabited islands with an area greater than 30 hectares. Skye, Islay and Mull are the three largest, and also have the highest populations. The main commercial activities are tourism, crofting, fishing and whisky distilling. In modern times the Inner Hebrides have formed part of two separate local government jurisdictions, one to the north and the other to the south. Together, the islands have an area of about 4,130 km², and had a population of 18,948 in 2011. The population density is therefore about 4.6 inhabitants per square kilometre.
  There are various important prehistoric structures, many of which pre-date the first written references to the islands by Roman and Greek authors.
context_section_description: Although Ptolemy's map identifies various tribes such as the Creones that might conceivably have lived in the Inner Hebrides in the Roman era,
  the first written records of life begin in the 6th century AD when the founding of the kingdom of Dál Riata is recorded. This encompassed roughly what is now Argyll and Bute and Lochaber in Scotland and County Antrim in Ireland.
  In Argyll it consisted initially of three main kindreds: Cenél Loairn in north and mid-Argyll, Cenél nÓengusa based on Islay and Cenél nGabráin based in Kintyre. By the end of the 7th century a fourth kindred, Cenél Comgaill had emerged, based in eastern Argyll.
  The figure of Columba looms large in any history of  Dál Riata and his founding of a monastery on Iona ensured that Dál Riata would be of great importance in the spread of Christianity in northern Britain. However, Iona was far from unique. Lismore in the territory of the Cenél Loairn, was sufficiently important for the death of its abbots to be recorded with some frequency and many smaller sites, such as on Eigg, Hinba and Tiree, are known from the annals. The kingdom's independent existence ended in the Viking Age, and it eventually merged with the lands of the Picts to form the Kingdom of Alba.
  North of Dál Riata the Inner Hebrides were nominally under Pictish control although the historical record is sparse.
caption: The eighth century St Martin's Cross on Iona
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