Áed Find
mac Echdach Áed Find
mac EchdachThe people of Dál Riata had gone through a period of domination by the Picts under their powerful king Onuist, son of Urguist (Óengus mac Fergusa), who died in 761 [AU (s.a. 760)]. Áed Find was the first king of Dál Riata to emerge from the obscurity following Onuist's domination, and there does not seem to be any good reason to regard the thirty year reign given to him by Duan Albanach as being accurate [Duan Albanach, 131]. Áed first appears in the year 768, fighting against Ciniod, king of the Picts, in Fortriu ["Bellum i Fortrinn iter Aedh & Cinaedh." AU (s.a. 767)]. He died in 778 ["... & Aedh Finn m. Echdach rex Dal Riati,---omnes mortui sunt." AU (s.a. 777)], and was succeeded by Fergus, evidently his brother. The Old Scottish Chronicle states that the laws of Áed mac Echdach were made the law of the kingdom in the reign of Domnall mac Ailpín, who was Áed's great-grandson ["In huius tempore íura ac legi regní Edi filíí Ecdach fecerunt Goedeli cum rege suo i Fochíurthabaicth." KKES, 250].
Date of Birth: Unknown.
Place of
Birth: Unknown.
Date of Death: 778.
See above.
Place of
Death: Unknown.
Father: Eochaid mac Echach, d. 733, king of Dál Riata, 726-733; probably also king of Dál nAraide, 727-733.
Mother: Unknown.
Spouse: Unknown.
Child:
Eochu/Eochaid mac
Áeda (king of Dál Riata?).
AU = Seán Mac Airt and Gearóid Mac Niocaill, The Annals of Ulster (Dublin, 1983). See also the CELT website.
Duan Albanach = Jackson (1956) [critical edition], Jackson (1957) [parallel text and translation]; unless otherwise specified, citations are to the latter.
Jackson (1956) = Kenneth Jackson, "The Poem A eolcha Alban uile", Celtica 3 (1956): 149-167.
Jackson (1957) = Kenneth Jackson, "The Duan Albanach", Scottish Historical Review 36 (1957): 125-137.
KKES = Marjorie Ogilvy Anderson, Kings and Kingship in Early Scotland (Edinburgh, Totowa, NJ, 1973).
Compiled by Stewart Baldwin
First uploaded 26 April 2007.