Through most of eight hundred years, Somerled of Argyll has been
variously denounced as an intractable rebel against his rightful king
and esteemed as the honoured ancestor of the later medieval Lord of the
Isles, but he can be recognised now as a much more complex figure of
major prominence in twelfth-century Scotland and of truly landmark
significance in the long history of the Gael. In this book individual
chapters investigate his emergence in the forefront of the Gaelic-Norse
aristocracy of the western seaboard, his part in Gaeldom's challenge to
the Canmore kings of Scots, his war on the Manx king of the Isles, his
importance for the church on Iona, and his extraordinary invasion of the
Clyde which was cut short by his violent death at Renfrew in 1164.
Perhaps most impressive is the book's demonstration of how almost
everything that is known of or has been claimed for Somerled reflects
the same characteristic fusion of Norse and Celt which binds the
cultural roots of Gaeldom.
It is this recognition which has led its author to his proposal of
Somerled's wider historical importance as the personality who most
represents the first fully-fledged emergence of the medieval
Celtic-Scandinavian cultural province from which is directly descended
the Gaelic Scotland of today.
