page_title: Echmarcach mac Ragnaill
section_title: Pilgrimage and death in Rome
hierarchical_section_title: Echmarcach mac Ragnaill / Pilgrimage and death in Rome
caption_attribution_description: English: An excerpt from folio 16v of Oxford Bodleian Library MS Rawlinson B 488 (the Annals of Tigernach): "Amlaim mac Sitriuca". The excerpt concerns Amlaíb mac Sitriuc (died 1034).
context_page_description: Echmarcach mac Ragnaill was a dominant figure in the eleventh-century Irish Sea region. At his height, he reigned as king over Dublin, the Isles, and perhaps the Rhinns of Galloway. The precise identity of Echmarcach's father, Ragnall, is uncertain. One possibility is that this man was one of two eleventh-century rulers of Waterford. Another possibility is that Echmarcach's father was an early eleventh-century ruler of the Isles. If any of these identifications are correct, Echmarcach may have been a member of the Uí Ímair kindred.
  Echmarcach first appears on record in about 1031, when he was one of three kings in northern Britain who submitted to Knútr Sveinnsson, ruler of the Anglo-Scandinavian Empire. Echmarcach is recorded to have ruled over Dublin in 1036–1038 and 1046–1052. After losing Dublin for the final time, he appears to have been seated in the Isles on Mann. In 1061, about a decade after his final defeat in Dublin, Echmarcach appears to have been expelled from the Isles, and may have then fallen back into Galloway.
  Echmarcach appears to have forged an alliance with the powerful Uí Briain.
context_section_description: In 1064, Echmarcach seems to have accompanied by Donnchad upon a pilgrimage to Rome. By this time the two may well have been of an advanced age, and both appear to have died in the city soon afterwards. Surviving sources give conflicting dates for Echmarcach's passing, and it is uncertain whether he died in 1064 or 1065. The Annals of Inisfallen, the Annals of Loch Cé, and the Annals of Ulster indicate that he died in 1064. The eleventh-century Chronicon of Marianus Scotus records that Echmarcach died in 1065, in a statement which implies that Echmarcach and Donnchad travelled to Rome together. Donnchad himself seems to have died in 1064, as a multitude of sources report his pilgrimage to Rome and demise that year. Several of these sources appear to indicate that Donnchad died at Santo Stefano Rotondo, an ancient basilica on the Caelian Hill. This building was an important place of pilgrimage to contemporaries, and apparently housed both Echmarcach and Donnchad before they died. Pilgrimages such as those of Echmarcach and Donnchad were not unheard of amongst high-ranking Gaelic and Norse-Gaelic contemporaries, and several such high-status figures are known to have perished undertaking pilgrimages of their own to Rome. If Echmarcach's father was indeed Ragnall mac Gofraid, and if Echmarcach had been born only a few years before his father's death, Echmarcach would have thus been about sixty-five when he himself was laid to rest.
  Marianus Scotus' account of Echmarcach accords him the Latin title "rex Innarenn". On one hand, this may be a garbled form of the Latin "rex insularum", meaning "King of the Isles". If so, the titles "ri Gall" and "rí Gall" accorded to him by the Annals of Ulster and the Annals of Inisfallen in 1064 could indicate that he was still regarded as ruler of Mann. On the other hand, "rex Innarenn" could instead mean "King of the Rhinns", in reference to the Rhinns of Galloway. During Echmarcach's floruit, the Rhinns appears have also included what is today known as the Machars. The entire region would have thus stretched from the North Channel to Wigtown Bay, and would have likely encompassed an area similar to the modern boundaries of Wigtownshire. Earlier in the century, the entire region may have formed part of Sitriuc's realm, and various Irish and Welsh sources indicate that it may have been held by one of the latter's two sons named Amlaíb.
  If Echmarcach was indeed the son of Ragnall mac Gofraid, and succeeded his father sometime in the 1030s, Echmarcach may well have first gained control of the Rhinns when he apparently began his domination of the Irish Sea region in 1036 (the year he first seized Dublin). Even if such a chronology is correct it does not necessarily mean that Echmarcach owed his rule in the Rhinns to ancestral connections in the Isles—it could have instead derived from his new-found position in Dublin. Although in practice, the collection of cáin could be undertaken without the displacement of an underking, if "rex Innarenn" indeed refers to the Rhinns it could reveal that, after having been defeated by Murchad on Mann, the defeated Echmarcach fled to this mainland region. Furthermore, if Echmarcach was a native of what is today the south-west of Scotland, the title could be evidence that, on the collapse of Echmarcach's once expansive kingdom, Echmarcach proceeded to entrench himself in the protection of his native home.
caption: The name of Amlaíb mac Sitriuc as it appears on folio 16v of Oxford Bodleian Library Rawlinson B 488: "Amlaim mac Sitriuca".[222] Amlaíb was the son of Echmarcach's Dublin opponent, Sitriuc, and may have been a neighbouring ruler in Galloway.
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