Note 385 — Chapter VI · THE KINGDOM OF SCONE.

727 Congressio Irroisfoichne, ubi quidam ceciderunt den dibh Airgiallaibh inter Selbacum et familiam Echdach nepotis Domhnaill.—An. Ult. This term ‘Airgialla’ is the same word as that applied to the territory said to have been acquired from the Picts in Ulster by the three Collas in the fourth century, of which Emhan or Emania was the capital. It was called Oirgialla or Airgialla, from which comes the modern name of Oriel; but this Airgialla cannot here be meant, for in the tract on the Men of Alban we are told that ‘the armed muster of the Cinel Loarn was 700 men; but it is of the Airgialla that the seventh hundred is’ (acht is dinaibh Airgiall in Sechtmadh cet.—Chron. Picts and Scots, p. 313). This name was therefore likewise applied to two districts whose people were subject to the Cinel Loarn, and contributed 100 men to their armed muster, and were probably the ‘Comites’ who fought along with Sealbach in 719. This leads us to look to the origin of the name. ‘Gialla’ is a hostage, and the tribes who owed fealty to the head of a superior tribe gave hostages for the fulfilment of their obligation. When any failure took place in their duty, these hostages were fettered. Thus, at the king’s table, as described in the Crith Gablach, sat on one side the hostages, and at the extreme end the forfeited hostages or pledges in fetters (see Introduction to O’Curry’s Lectures, p. cccli); and in the Pictish legends Finach takes hostages (Gialla) of the Cruithnigh, and Fiachna mac Baedan fetters the hostages of Erin and Alban.—Chron. Picts and Scots, pp. 24, 320. Now we learn from the Book of Rights that it was a privilege of the kingdom of Airgialla that ‘their hostages were not bound in fetters nor in chains, save that they swear by the hand of the king that they will not then make their escape’ (see Book of Rights, p. 135); and a tract on Oirghialla states that whenever the hostage of the Oirghialla was fettered, golden chains were used for the purpose, and that it was hence they were called Oirghialla, i.e. of the golden hostages. The Airgialla of Dalriada were therefore districts which owed fealty to the Cinel Loarn, but possessed the same privileges which gave that name to the Irish Airgialla; and the central districts between the territories of the Cinel Loarn, Cinel Gabbran, and Cinel Comgall, situated on both sides of Loch Awe, and occupied by the remains of the older population, were probably the districts known by the name of the two Airgiallas.