page_title: Dubhghall mac Ruaidhrí
section_title: Repercussions from the Scottish Crown
hierarchical_section_title: Dubhghall mac Ruaidhrí / Repercussions from the Scottish Crown
caption_attribution_description: English: Illustration of a Viking ship engraved on a stone at Kirk Maughold, Isle of Man. The stone is sometimes called "Maughold IV" or "Hedin's Cross".
context_page_description: Dubhghall mac Ruaidhrí was a leading figure in the thirteenth-century Kingdom of the Isles. He was a son of Ruaidhrí mac Raghnaill, and thus a member of Clann Ruaidhrí.
  Dubhghall was active in Ireland, and is recorded to have conducted military operations against the English in Connacht. In 1259, the year after his victory over the English Sheriff of Connacht, Dubhghall's daughter was married to Aodh na nGall Ó Conchobhair, son of the reigning King of Connacht. This woman's tocher consisted of a host of gallowglass warriors commanded by Dubhghall's brother, Ailéan. This record appears to be the earliest notice of such soldiers in surviving sources. The epithet borne by Dubhghall's son-in-law—na nGall—can be taken to mean "of the Hebrideans", and appears to refer to the Hebridean military support that contributed to his success against the English.
  The careers of Dubhghall and his Clann Somhairle kinsman, Eóghan Mac Dubhghaill, exemplify the difficulties faced by the leading Norse-Gaelic lords in the Isles and along western seaboard of Scotland. In theory, these regions formed part of the greater Norwegian commonwealth.
context_section_description: Whilst Dubhghall and Eóghan were in Norway, Hákon appears to have attempted to bring Haraldr back onside; and in so doing, Hákon gave away his widowed daughter in marriage to Haraldr. Unfortunately for Hákon and his designs in the Isles, the newly wedded couple were lost at sea whilst sailing from Norway to the Isles. Not only did this calamity deprive the Islesmen of a capable king, but it cost the Norwegian Crown a closely connected advocate in the region. Upon learning of the catastrophe, Hákon immediately sent Eóghan west-over-sea to temporarily take up the kingship of the Isles on his behalf. The fact that the thirteenth- to fourteenth-century Chronicle of Mann reports that Haraldr's brother, Rǫgnvaldr, succeeded to the kingship in 1249, could indicate that Rǫgnvaldr and Eóghan shared a degree of authority in the Isles. In any event, Eóghan was not only a Norwegian dependant in the Isles, but an eminent Scottish magnate on the mainland. Although the Scottish Crown appears to have attempted to purchase the Isles earlier that decade, Alexander II launched an invasion of Argyll, in the summer of 1249, directed at the very heart of the Clann Dubhghaill lordship. The apparent cooling of relations between Eóghan and Alexander II, along with Haraldr's demise, the resultant kin-strife over Haraldr's succession, and Eóghan's acceptance of royal powers on Hákon's behalf, could all have spurred the Scots' offensive. In the course of this offensive, Alexander II demanded that Eóghan renounce his allegiance to Hákon, and ordered him to hand over certain mainland and island fortresses. Eóghan stubbornly refused, and the unfolding crisis only ended with the Scottish king's untimely death in July 1249.
  Eóghan dearly suffered as a result of conflicting obligations the Norwegians and Scots. In fact, it is probable that he had been utterly dispossessed by the Scots a result of their invasion. Although the reasons why Hákon originally awarded him the kingship over Dubhghall are unknown; for whatever reason, the latter appears to have been regarded as a less preferable candidate at the time. Eóghan's apparent displacement at the hands of Alexander II, however, could well have upended the hierarchy of Clann Somhairle. For instance, a particular entry preserved by the Icelandic annals states that, within the very year that Eóghan was forced from Argyll by the Scots, Dubhghall himself "took kingship" in the Isles. This record could reveal that Dubhghall and Eóghan shared kingship in the Hebrides, or that Dubhghall assumed the kingship from a severely weakened Eóghan. In fact, Eóghan's actions of the following year—when he and Magnús Óláfsson, a member of the Crovan dynasty, unsuccessfully attempted to seized control of Mann—could further indicate he was in dire straits.
  Magnús, Dubhghall, and Eóghan were back in Scandinavia in 1253, as Hákonar saga Hákonarsonar reveals that the latter two took part in the Norwegians' royal campaign against the Danish Crown. By 1255, however, Eóghan was reconciled with the Scottish Crown. The fact that Dubhghall was later regarded as king in Scandinavian sources could indicate that Hákon's original award of the title to Eóghan in 1248 was reversed upon the restoration of Eóghan's Scottish lordship. However, the record of Dubhghall holding kingship as early as 1249, coupled with Eóghan's attempt to gain control of Mann in 1250, and the fact that both men were identified as kings whilst campaigning with the Norwegians royal forces in 1253, could indicate that Hákon had originally intended for both men to hold kingship, possibly with Dubhghall in the Hebrides and Eóghan on Mann.
caption: Detail from Maughold IV,[86] a Manx runestone displaying a contemporary sailing vessel.[87] The power of the kings of the Isles laid in their armed galley-fleets.[88]
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