Somerled (Old Norse: Sumarliðr, Scottish Gaelic: Somhairle, commonly Anglicized from Gaelic as Sorley) was a military and political leader of the Scottish Isles in the 12th century who was known in Gaelic as rí Innse Gall ("King of the Hebrides"). His father was Gillebride. The name, a common one amongst the Vikings, means summer traveller and is a kenning for Viking.^[1]

Ancestry[link]

There are a number of competing versions of Somerled's pedigree in the annals. For example, Dean Monro wrote that:

This Somerle wes the sone of Gillebryde M’Gilleadam, name Vic Sella, Vic Mearshaighe, Vic Swyffine, Vic Malgheussa, Vic Eacime, Vic Gothefred, fra quhome they were called at that time Clan Gothofred, that is, Clan Gotheray in Hybers Leid, and they were very grate men in that tymes zeire.^[2]

There is agreement that his father was "Gillibrigdi" (variously spelled) and that his grandfather was Gilli Adamnáin. Solam and its variants consistently appears as his great-grandfather, but earlier than this there can be little certainty. These sources generally lead back to the legendary figure of Colla Uais.^[3]

The name "Gofraid" also appears in all the different versions,^[3] and in addition to Monro's claim that Somerled was a member of "Clan Gothofred "^[2] in a poetic address to Aonghus of Islay, Clann Somairle is described as having "sprung from Síol nGofraidh" (the seed of Gofraid).^[4] Woolf (2005) identifies this as referring to Godred Crovan rather than Gofraid ua Ímair or Gofraid mac Fergusa as has been claimed,^[5] although as Crovan died in 1095^[5] this would require far fewer intermediate names than the annals suggest.

Life[link]

Somerled first appears in historical chronicles in the year 1140^{[citation needed]} as the Regulus, or King, of Kintyre (Cinn Tìre) when he marries Raghnailt the daughter of Olaf (or Amhlaibh), King of Mann and the Isles. The year 1153 saw the deaths of two kings: David I of Scotland and Olaf of Mann. There was much confusion and discord as a result and Somerled took his chance, making offensive moves against both Scotland and Mann and the Isles, the latter having been inherited from Olaf by Somerled's brother-in-law, Goraidh mac Amhlaibh.

A summoning was sent, from Thorfin the most powerful jarl of the Hebrides, to Somerled Dougal—Somerled's own son by his wife, the daughter of the Manx king—to move so he might be "King over the Isles". In 1156 Goraidh was defeated during the Battle of Epiphany against 80 ships of Somerled's fleet and the two enemies partitioned the isles between them. Goraidh kept the islands north of Ardnamurchan with Somerled gaining the rest. However, two years after this Somerled returned to the Isle of Man with 53 warships. He defeated Goraidh again in battle and this time forced him to flee to Norway. Somerled's kingdom now stretched from the Isle of Man to the Butt of Lewis.

Thus both Viking and Scot formed one people under a single lord, coming to share a single culture and one way of life — they were to become a powerful and noted race known as the Gall-Gaidheal, literally meaning 'Foreign-Gaels'. It was upon the seas that their power was situated under the rule of the Kings of the Isles; yet new enemies arose in the east.

Invasion and death[link]

The Stewarts made inroads in the west coast and eventually Somerled assembled a sizable army to repel them. He landed an invasion fleet on the shore of the Clyde near Inchinnan and advanced towards Renfrew and the centre of the Stewarts' territory, where the Battle of Renfrew was fought in 1164. Much confusion surrounds the manner of the battle, and indeed whether a battle occurred at all, but what is certain is that Somerled was killed, either assassinated in his tent as he camped^[6] or from a spear wound suffered in an early phase of the battle.^[7] The leaderless fleet then retreated from the area.

Legacy[link]

Following the death of Somerled several powerful lords emerged from within his kingdom. The lordship was contested by two main families; that of Somerled and his descendants and that of the descendants of Goraidh mac Amhlaibh. During the 12th and 13th centuries the Scandinavian world saw much change in methods of rule and administration which ultimately resulted in more strongly centralized, unified kingdoms such as Denmark and Norway. However, this did not happen in the Kingdom of the Isles, which was instead absorbed into the greater Kingdom of Scotland, albeit its place in that state and the loyalty of its inhabitants to the King of Scots would remain peripheral and temperamental for centuries to come.

A 2005 study by Oxford Geneticist Bryan Sykes suggested Somerled may have 500,000 living descendants -- second only to Genghis Khan: "Roughly a quarter of Macdonalds, a third of McDougalls, and 40 percent of Macalisters are direct paternal descendents of Somerled ... it has been estimated that there are there are 200,000 men who carry Somerled's Y-chromosome as proof of their descent from the man who drove the Norse from the Isles".^[8] Sykes suggested Somerled was a member of the Y-DNA R1a1 Haplogroup, a tentative marker of Viking descent among men of deep British or Scottish ancestry.^[9]

Links

• http://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/usbiography/stu/somerled.html
• http://www.electricscotland.com/history/articles/norse.htm
• http://www.oxfordancestors.com/images/pdf/geneticstructureofahighlandclan.pdf
• http://www.ourfamilyorigins.com/scotland/founderscots.htm

Family[link]

By his first wife, who is unknown, their children were:

• Somhairle Og
• Gillecallum b. c 1135, Killed in battle in 1164 during Battle of Renfrew.

He also fathered:

• Gillies
• Gall

By his wife, Ragnhildr, daughter of Óláfr Guðrøðarson, King of the Isles, and Óláfr's unnamed concubine:

• Dubgall (d. after 1175)
• Ragnall (d. between 1192–1227)
• Áengus (d. 1210)
• Amlaíb
• Bethóc

In fiction[link]

• Somerled is the central character of Nigel Tranter's novel Lord of the Isles (1983).
• Somerled MacDonald is the love interest of main character Davina McKie in Grace in Thine Eyes (2006), the fourth novel of Liz Curtis Higgs's Lowlands of Scotland historical fiction series.

See also[link]

• Lord of the Isles
• Clan Donald
• Clan MacDougall
• Norse-Gaels
• Uí Ímair
• John MacDonald II
• Scotland in the High Middle Ages

Notes[link]

References[link]

• Gregory, Donald (1881) The History of the Western Highlands and Isles of Scotland 1493 - 1625. Edinburgh. Birlinn. 2008 reprint - originally published by Thomas D. Morrison. ISBN 1-904607-57-8
• MacDonald, R. Andrew The Kingdom of the Isles: Scotland's Western Seaboard c.1100–c.1336 (Tuckwell Press, 1997) ISBN 1-898410-85-2
• MacPhee, Kathleen Somerled:Hammer of the Norse (NWP, 2004) ISBN 1-903238-24-2
• Monro, Sir Donald (1549) A Description Of The Western Isles of Scotland. Appin Regiment/Appin Historical Society. Retrieved 3 March 2007. First published in 1774.

• Murray, W.H. (1973) The Islands of Western Scotland. London. Eyre Methuen.
• Stiùbhart, Domhnall Uilleam Rìoghachd nan Eilean (Clò Hallaig, 2005) ISBN 0-9549914-0-0
• Williams, Ronald The Lords of the Isles (Chatto & Windus, 1997) ISBN 1-899863-17-6
• Woolf, Alex (2005) "The origins and ancestry of Somerled: Gofraid mac Fergusa and The Annals of the Four Masters" (pdf) in Mediaeval Scandinavia 15.
• Woolf, Alex "The Age of the Sea-Kings: 900-1300" in Omand, Donald (ed.) (2006) The Argyll Book. Edinburgh. Birlinn. ISBN 1-84158-480-0