King Arthur
King Arthur was a legendary British leader who, according to medieval histories and romances, led the defence of Britain against Saxon invaders in the late 5th and early 6th centuries. The details of Arthur's story are composed of folklore and literary invention, his historical existence is debated and disputed by modern historians; the sparse historical background of Arthur is gleaned from various sources, including the Annales Cambriae, the Historia Brittonum, the writings of Gildas. Arthur's name occurs in early poetic sources such as Y Gododdin. Arthur is a central figure in the legends making up the Matter of Britain; the legendary Arthur developed as a figure of international interest through the popularity of Geoffrey of Monmouth's fanciful and imaginative 12th-century Historia Regum Britanniae. In some Welsh and Breton tales and poems that date from before this work, Arthur appears either as a great warrior defending Britain from human and supernatural enemies or as a magical figure of folklore, sometimes associated with the Welsh otherworld Annwn.
How much of Geoffrey's Historia was adapted from such earlier sources, rather than invented by Geoffrey himself, is unknown. Although the themes and characters of the Arthurian legend varied from text to text, there is no one canonical version, Geoffrey's version of events served as the starting point for stories. Geoffrey depicted Arthur as a king of Britain who established a vast empire. Many elements and incidents that are now an integral part of the Arthurian story appear in Geoffrey's Historia, including Arthur's father Uther Pendragon, the magician Merlin, Arthur's wife Guinevere, the sword Excalibur, Arthur's conception at Tintagel, his final battle against Mordred at Camlann, final rest in Avalon; the 12th-century French writer Chrétien de Troyes, who added Lancelot and the Holy Grail to the story, began the genre of Arthurian romance that became a significant strand of medieval literature. In these French stories, the narrative focus shifts from King Arthur himself to other characters, such as various Knights of the Round Table.
Arthurian literature thrived during the Middle Ages but waned in the centuries that followed until it experienced a major resurgence in the 19th century. In the 21st century, the legend lives on, not only in literature but in adaptations for theatre, television and other media; the historical basis for King Arthur has long been debated by scholars. One school of thought, citing entries in the Historia Brittonum and Annales Cambriae, sees Arthur as a genuine historical figure, a Romano-British leader who fought against the invading Anglo-Saxons some time in the late 5th to early 6th century; the Historia Brittonum, a 9th-century Latin historical compilation attributed in some late manuscripts to a Welsh cleric called Nennius, contains the first datable mention of King Arthur, listing twelve battles that Arthur fought. These culminate in the Battle of Badon. Recent studies, question the reliability of the Historia Brittonum; the other text that seems to support the case for Arthur's historical existence is the 10th-century Annales Cambriae, which link Arthur with the Battle of Badon.
The Annales date this battle to 516–518, mention the Battle of Camlann, in which Arthur and Medraut were both killed, dated to 537–539. These details have been used to bolster confidence in the Historia's account and to confirm that Arthur did fight at Badon. Problems have been identified, with using this source to support the Historia Brittonum's account; the latest research shows that the Annales Cambriae was based on a chronicle begun in the late 8th century in Wales. Additionally, the complex textual history of the Annales Cambriae precludes any certainty that the Arthurian annals were added to it that early, they were more added at some point in the 10th century and may never have existed in any earlier set of annals. The Badon entry derived from the Historia Brittonum; this lack of convincing early evidence is the reason many recent historians exclude Arthur from their accounts of sub-Roman Britain. In the view of historian Thomas Charles-Edwards, "at this stage of the enquiry, one can only say that there may well have been an historical Arthur the historian can as yet say nothing of value about him".
These modern admissions of ignorance are a recent trend. The historian John Morris made the putative reign of Arthur the organising principle of his history of sub-Roman Britain and Ireland, The Age of Arthur. So, he found little to say about a historical Arthur. In reaction to such theories, another school of thought emerged which argued that Arthur had no historical existence at all. Morris's Age of Arthur prompted the archaeologist Nowell Myres to observe that "no figure on the borderline of history and mythology has wasted more of the historian's time". Gildas' 6th-century polemic De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae, written within living memory of Badon, mentions the battle but does not mention Arthur. Arthur is not mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle or named in any surviving manuscript written between 400 and 820, he is absent from Bede's early-8th-century Ecclesiastical History of the English People, another major early source for post-Roman history that mentions Badon. The historian David Dumville wrote: "I think.
He owes his place in our history books to a'no smoke without fire' school of thought... The f
Dunkeld and Birnam
Dunkeld and Birnam is a community council area and UK Census locality in Perth and Kinross, consisting of two villages on opposite banks of the River Tay: the historic cathedral "city" of Dunkeld on the north bank, Birnam on the south bank. The two were first linked by a bridge built in 1809 by Thomas Telford; the two places lie close to the Highland Boundary Fault, which marks the geological boundary between the Highlands and the Lowlands, are described as the "Gateway to the Highlands" due to their position on the main road and rail lines north. Dunkeld and Birnam share a railway station, Dunkeld & Birnam, on the Highland Main Line, are about 24 kilometres north of Perth on what is now the A9 road. Dunkeld lies on the eastern side of the A9 on the north bank of the River Tay; the town is the location of Dunkeld Cathedral. Around 20 of the houses within Dunkeld have been restored by the National Trust for Scotland, who run a shop within the town; the Hermitage, on the western side of the A9, is a countryside property, a National Trust for Scotland site.
Birnam lies opposite Dunkeld, on the south bank of the Tay, to which it is linked by the Telford bridge. It is the location of the Birnam Oak, believed to the only remaining tree from the Birnam Wood named in Shakespeare's Macbeth; the Highland games held at Birnam are the location of the World Haggis Eating Championships. The name Dùn Chailleann means Fort of the Caledonii or of the Caledonians. The'fort' is the hill fort on King's Seat north of the town. Both these place-names imply an early importance for the area of the town and bishop's seat, stretching back into the Iron Age. Dunkeld is said to have been'founded' or'built' by Caustantín son of Fergus, king of the Picts; this founding referred to one of an ecclesiastical nature on a site of secular importance, a Pictish monastery is known to have existed on the site. Kenneth I of Scotland is reputed to have brought relics of St Columba from Iona in 849, in order to preserve them from Viking raids, building a new church to replace the existing structures, which may been constructed as a simple group of wattle huts.
The relics were divided in Kenneth's time between Dunkeld and the Columban monastery at Kells, Co. Meath, Ireland, to preserve them from Viking raids. The'Apostles' Stone', an elaborate but badly worn cross-slab preserved in the cathedral museum, may date to this time. A well-preserved bronze'Celtic' hand bell kept in the church of the parish of Little Dunkeld on the south bank of the River Tay opposite Dunkeld, may survive from the early monastery: a replica is kept in the cathedral museum; the dedication of the medieval cathedral was to St Columba. This early church was for a time the chief ecclesiastical site of eastern Scotland. An entry in the Annals of Ulster for 865 refers to the death of Tuathal, son of Artgus, primepscop of Fortriu and Abbot of Dunkeld; the monastery was raided in 903 by Danish Vikings sailing up the River Tay, but continued to flourish into the 11th century. At that time, its abbot, Crínán of Dunkeld, married one of the daughters of Máel Coluim mac Cináeda and became the ancestor of Kings of Scots through their son Donnchad.
The see of Dunkeld was revived by Alexander I. Between 1183 and 1189 the newly formed diocese of Argyll was separated from that of Dunkeld, which extended to the west coast of Scotland. By 1300 the Bishops of Dunkeld administered a diocese comprising sixty parish churches, a number of them oddly scattered within the sees of St Andrews and Dunblane; the much-restored cathedral choir, still in use as the parish church, is unaisled and dates to the 13th and 14th centuries. The aisled nave was erected from the early 15th century; the western tower, south porch and chapter house were added between 1450 and 1475. The cathedral was stripped of its rich furnishings after the mid-16th century Reformation and its iconoclasm; the nave and porch have been roofless since the early 17th century. They and the tower in the 21st century are in the care of Historic Environment Scotland. Below the ceiling vault of the tower ground floor are remnants of pre-Reformation murals showing biblical scenes, one of few such survivals in Scotland.
The clearest to survive is a representation of the Judgement of Solomon. This reflects the medieval use of this space as the Bishop's Court. Within the tower are preserved fragments of stonework associated with the cathedral and the surrounding area, including a Pictish carving of a horseman with a spear and drinking-horn, a number of medieval grave-monuments; the cathedral museum is housed in the former chapter house and sacristy, on the north side of the choir. After the Reformation this chamber was used as a burial aisle by the Earls and Dukes of Atholl, contains a number of elaborate monuments of the 17th-early 19th centuries. Preserved within the museum are two early Christian cross-slabs, a number of communion and other items, a display on the history of Dunkeld and the cathedral. In June 2005, there was a major theft from the cathedral museum. Items stolen included a quaich, communion cups, and'a cast-bronze beadle’s bell with a wooden handle, used in the cathedral from the 17th century.'
Most of the original town was destroyed during the Battle of Dunkeld when, in August 1689, the 26th Foot fought the Jacobites shortly after the latter's vic
British Caledonian
British Caledonian was a private, British independent airline, operating out of Gatwick Airport in south-east England during the 1970s and 1980s. It was created as an alternative to the British government-controlled corporation airlines and was described as the "Second Force" in the 1969 Edwards report, it was formed by the UK's second-largest, independent charter airline Caledonian Airways taking over British United Airways the largest British independent airline and the United Kingdom's leading independent scheduled carrier. The BUA takeover enabled Caledonian to realise its long-held ambition to transform itself into a scheduled airline; the merged entity became the UK's foremost independent, international scheduled airline. A series of major financial setbacks during the mid-1980s combined with the airline's inability to grow sufficiently to reach a viable size put the airline at serious risk of collapse. BCal began looking for a merger partner to improve its competitive position. In December 1987, British Airways gained control of the airline.
The Caledonian name and livery was used to rebrand BA's Gatwick-based subsidiary British Airtours as Caledonian Airways. The Edwards Committee was formed in 1967 to look at the future of British aviation, its report published in May 1969 made a number of recommendations. One of them was that a "second force" airline should be formed from Britain's independent operators to expand the UK's airline capacity on short- and long-haul routes; this private airline would get preference to be the second licensed British operator on a given route. In exchange for routes from the state corporations the corporations were expected to gain a presence on the second force's board. Two British independents were mentioned - Caledonian and BUA. At the government's instigation Caledonian - a 10-year-old profitable charter operator - took over the bigger and older but financially troubled British United Airways; the resulting company was known as "Caledonian/BUA" before becoming "British Caledonian Airways". During the 1970s, as the third major airline in the UK, British Caledonian took on the role of counterbalancing the near-monopoly of the corporations, which provided 90% of all UK scheduled air transport capacity at the beginning of the decade.
This entailed expanding the inherited scheduled network to provide effective competition to established rivals on a number of key routes, as well as augmenting the acquired fleet with the latest generation narrow-, widebody airliners to maintain a competitive edge. The rapid expansion of British Caledonian suffered a temporary setback during the 1973-75 recession which followed in the wake of the 1973 oil crisis; this undermined the airline's financial stability during its formative years and threatened its survival at that stage. Following economic revival during that decade's second half, it regained its financial stability, enabling it to expand again and to become profitable. There were many downs for British Caledonian during the 1980s. BCal suffered a series of major setbacks as a result of several geopolitical events that occurred during that decade. Transatlantic bookings fell as a result of the American bombing of the Chernobyl disaster; these routes accounted for 25% of revenue. Devaluation and currency export controls affecting Nigeria cut off revenue from West African routes.
Total revenue loss was £80 million. These events weakened BCal operationally and financially, they were the main factors that contributed to the airline's demise during the second half of that decade. BCal disposed of assets and made redundancies but the benefit only lasted until mid-1987. BCal looked to a merger as a solution. A merger of BCal and newly privatized BA was announced but other bids for the business and referral to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission was followed by BCal turning its back on BA's merger proposal. Other airline partners were sought and Scandinavian Airlines System entered talks to acquire a substantial minority stake and restructure the company such that "nationality" clauses in the bilateral agreements covering air traffic would not be contravened. In the end, BA made a take-it-or-leave-it deal worth more than SAS's offer which BCal's principal shareholder, the board accepted; the British and European monopolies commissions still had to agree the deal. As a result, following the merger landing slots at Gatwick and routes were given up to other operators.
BCal and its subsidiaries operated the following fixed wing aircraft types: Airbus A310-200 BAC One-Eleven 200/300/400/500 series Boeing 707-120B/320B/320C Boeing 747-100/200B/200B "Combi" McDonnell Douglas DC-10-10/30 Piper PA-23 Aztec Piper PA-31 Navajo Chieftain Vickers VC10 1103/1109 series Vickers Viscount 800 series Lockheed L-1011 TriStar 100 series Fleet in 1972In May 1972 BCal's fleet comprised 32 jet aircraft. 5,300 people were employed. Fleet in 1975In March 1975 BCal's fleet comprised 24 jet aircraft. 4,846 people were employed. Fleet in 1978In April 1978 BCal's fleet comprised 29 aircraft with two DC-10-30 on order. 5,500 people were employed. Fleet in 1981In May 1981 BCal's fleet comprised 29 jet aircraft. 6,600 people were employed. Fleet in 1984In March 1984 BCal's mainline fleet comprised 25 jet aircraft. 6,300 people were employed. Fleet in 1986In March 1986 BCal's mainline fleet comprised 27 jet aircraft with seven Airbus A320 on order. BCal employed 6,750 staff. BCal had an enviable safety record during its 17-year existence.
Its aircraft were never involved in fatal accidents. There were a few noteworthy non-fatal incidents involving the airline's aircraft. On 24 September 1971, a Vickers VC10 1103 was hit by clear air turbulence
Scotland
Scotland is a country, part of the United Kingdom. Sharing a border with England to the southeast, Scotland is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, by the North Sea to the northeast and by the Irish Sea to the south. In addition to the mainland, situated on the northern third of the island of Great Britain, Scotland has over 790 islands, including the Northern Isles and the Hebrides; the Kingdom of Scotland emerged as an independent sovereign state in the Early Middle Ages and continued to exist until 1707. By inheritance in 1603, James VI, King of Scots, became King of England and King of Ireland, thus forming a personal union of the three kingdoms. Scotland subsequently entered into a political union with the Kingdom of England on 1 May 1707 to create the new Kingdom of Great Britain; the union created a new Parliament of Great Britain, which succeeded both the Parliament of Scotland and the Parliament of England. In 1801, the Kingdom of Great Britain and Kingdom of Ireland enacted a political union to create a United Kingdom.
The majority of Ireland subsequently seceded from the UK in 1922. Within Scotland, the monarchy of the United Kingdom has continued to use a variety of styles and other royal symbols of statehood specific to the pre-union Kingdom of Scotland; the legal system within Scotland has remained separate from those of England and Wales and Northern Ireland. The continued existence of legal, educational and other institutions distinct from those in the remainder of the UK have all contributed to the continuation of Scottish culture and national identity since the 1707 union with England; the Scottish Parliament, a unicameral legislature comprising 129 members, was established in 1999 and has authority over those areas of domestic policy which have been devolved by the United Kingdom Parliament. The head of the Scottish Government, the executive of the devolved legislature, is the First Minister of Scotland. Scotland is represented in the UK House of Commons by 59 MPs and in the European Parliament by 6 MEPs.
Scotland is a member of the British–Irish Council, sends five members of the Scottish Parliament to the British–Irish Parliamentary Assembly. Scotland is divided into councils. Glasgow City is the largest subdivision in Scotland in terms of population, with Highland being the largest in terms of area. "Scotland" comes from the Latin name for the Gaels. From the ninth century, the meaning of Scotia shifted to designate Gaelic Scotland and by the eleventh century the name was being used to refer to the core territory of the Kingdom of Alba in what is now east-central Scotland; the use of the words Scots and Scotland to encompass most of what is now Scotland became common in the Late Middle Ages, as the Kingdom of Alba expanded and came to encompass various peoples of diverse origins. Repeated glaciations, which covered the entire land mass of modern Scotland, destroyed any traces of human habitation that may have existed before the Mesolithic period, it is believed the first post-glacial groups of hunter-gatherers arrived in Scotland around 12,800 years ago, as the ice sheet retreated after the last glaciation.
At the time, Scotland was covered in forests, had more bog-land, the main form of transport was by water. These settlers began building the first known permanent houses on Scottish soil around 9,500 years ago, the first villages around 6,000 years ago; the well-preserved village of Skara Brae on the mainland of Orkney dates from this period. Neolithic habitation and ritual sites are common and well preserved in the Northern Isles and Western Isles, where a lack of trees led to most structures being built of local stone. Evidence of sophisticated pre-Christian belief systems is demonstrated by sites such as the Callanish Stones on Lewis and the Maes Howe on Orkney, which were built in the third millennium BCE; the first written reference to Scotland was in 320 BC by Greek sailor Pytheas, who called the northern tip of Britain "Orcas", the source of the name of the Orkney islands. During the first millennium BCE, the society changed to a chiefdom model, as consolidation of settlement led to the concentration of wealth and underground stores of surplus food.
The first Roman incursion into Scotland occurred in 79 AD. After the Roman victory, Roman forts were set along the Gask Ridge close to the Highland line, but by three years after the battle, the Roman armies had withdrawn to the Southern Uplands; the Romans erected Hadrian's Wall in northern England and the Limes Britannicus became the northern border of the Roman Empire. The Roman influence on the southern part of the country was considerable, they introduced Christianity to Scotland. Beginning in the sixth century, the area, now Scotland was divided into three areas: Pictland, a patchwork of small lordships in central Scotland; these societies were based on the family unit and had sharp divisions in wealth, although the vast majority were poor and worked full-time in subsistence agriculture. The Picts kept slaves through the ninth century. Gaelic influence over Pictland and Northumbria was facilitated by the large number of Gaelic-speaking clerics working as missionaries. Operating in the sixth ce
Ballad
A ballad is a form of verse a narrative set to music. Ballads derive from the medieval French chanson balladée or ballade, which were "danced songs". Ballads were characteristic of the popular poetry and song of Ireland and Britain from the medieval period until the 19th century, they were used across Europe, in Australia, North Africa, North America and South America. Ballads are 13 lines with an ABABBCBC form, consisting of couplets of rhymed verse, each of 14 syllables. Another common form is ABCB repeated, in alternating 8 and 6 syllable lines. Many ballads were sold as single sheet broadsides; the form was used by poets and composers from the 18th century onwards to produce lyrical ballads. In the 19th century, the term took on the meaning of a slow form of popular love song and is used for any love song the sentimental ballad of pop or rock, although the term is associated with the concept of a stylized storytelling song or poem when used as a title for other media such as a film; the ballad derives its name from medieval French dance songs or "ballares", from which'ballet' is derived, as did the alternative rival form that became the French ballade.
As a narrative song, their theme and function may originate from Scandinavian and Germanic traditions of storytelling that can be seen in poems such as Beowulf. Musically they were influenced by the Minnelieder of the Minnesang tradition; the earliest example of a recognizable ballad in form in England is "Judas" in a 13th-century manuscript. Ballads were written to accompany dances, so were composed in couplets with refrains in alternate lines; these refrains would have been sung by the dancers in time with the dance. Most northern and west European ballads are written in ballad stanzas or quatrains of alternating lines of iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter, known as ballad meter. Only the second and fourth line of a quatrain are rhymed, taken to suggest that ballads consisted of couplets of rhymed verse, each of 14 syllables; this can be seen in this stanza from "Lord Thomas and Fair Annet": The horse | fair Ann | et rode | upon | He amb | led like | the wind |, With sil | ver he | was shod | before, With burn | ing gold | behind |.
There is considerable variation on this pattern in every respect, including length, number of lines and rhyming scheme, making the strict definition of a ballad difficult. In southern and eastern Europe, in countries that derive their tradition from them, ballad structure differs like Spanish romanceros, which are octosyllabic and use consonance rather than rhyme. Ballads are influenced by the regions in which they originate and use the common dialect of the people. Scotland's ballads in particular, both in theme and language, are characterised by their distinctive tradition exhibiting some pre-Christian influences in the inclusion of supernatural elements such as travel to the Fairy Kingdom in the Scots ballad "Tam Lin"; the ballads do not correct version. The ballads remained an oral tradition until the increased interest in folk songs in the 18th century led collectors such as Bishop Thomas Percy to publish volumes of popular ballads. In all traditions most ballads are narrative in nature, with a self-contained story concise, rely on imagery, rather than description, which can be tragic, romantic or comic.
Themes concerning rural laborers and their sexuality are common, there are many ballads based on the Robin Hood legend. Another common feature of ballads is repetition, sometimes of fourth lines in succeeding stanzas, as a refrain, sometimes of third and fourth lines of a stanza and sometimes of entire stanzas. Scholars of ballads have been divided into "communalists", such as Johann Gottfried Herder and the Brothers Grimm, who argue that ballads are communal compositions, "individualists" such as Cecil Sharp, who assert that there was one single original author. Communalists tend to see more recent printed, broadside ballads of known authorship as a debased form of the genre, while individualists see variants as corruptions of an original text. More scholars have pointed to the interchange of oral and written forms of the ballad; the transmission of ballads comprises a key stage in their re-composition. In romantic terms this process is dramatized as a narrative of degeneration away from the pure'folk memory' or'immemorial tradition'.
In the introduction to Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border the romantic poet and historical novelist Walter Scott argued a need to'remove obvious corruptions' in order to attempt to restore a supposed original. For Scott, the process of multiple recitations'incurs the risk of impertinent interpolations from the conceit of one rehearser, unintelligible blunders from the stupidity of another, omissions to be regretted, from the want of memory of a third.' John Robert Moore noted'a natural tendency to oblivescence'. According to Scott, transcribed ballads have a'flatness and insipidity' compared to their oral counterparts. European Ballads have been classified into three major groups: traditional and literary. In America a distinction is drawn between ballads that are versions of European British and Irish songs, and'Native American ballads
Dál Riata
Dál Riata or Dál Riada was a Gaelic overkingdom that included parts of western Scotland and northeastern Ireland, on each side of the North Channel. At its height in the late 6th and early 7th centuries, it encompassed what is now Argyll in Scotland and part of County Antrim in the Irish province of Ulster. In Argyll, it consisted of four main kindreds each with their own chief: Cenél Loairn in north and mid-Argyll, who gave their name to the district of Lorn Cenél nÓengusa based on Islay Cenél nGabráin based in Kintyre Cenél Comgaill based in east Argyll, who gave their name to the district of CowalLatin sources referred to the inhabitants of Dál Riata as Scots, a name used by Roman and Greek writers for the Irish who raided Roman Britain, it came to refer to Gaelic-speakers, whether from Ireland or elsewhere. They are referred to herein as Dál Riatans; the hillfort of Dunadd is believed to have been its capital. Other royal forts included Dunollie and Dunseverick. Within Dál Riata was the important monastery of Iona, which played a key role in the spread of Celtic Christianity throughout northern Britain, in the development of insular art.
Iona produced many important manuscripts. Dál Riata had a large fleet. Dál Riata is said to have been founded by the legendary king Fergus Mór in the 5th century; the kingdom reached its height under Áedán mac Gabráin. During his reign Dál Riata's power and influence grew. However, King Æthelfrith of Bernicia checked its growth at the Battle of Degsastan in 603. Serious defeats in Ireland and Scotland during the reign of Domnall Brecc ended Dál Riata's "golden age", the kingdom became a client of Northumbria for a time. In the 730s the Pictish king Óengus I led campaigns against Dál Riata and brought it under Pictish overlordship by 741. There is disagreement over the fate of the kingdom from the late 8th century onwards; some scholars have seen no revival of Dál Riatan power after the long period of foreign domination, while others have seen a revival under Áed Find. Some claim that the Dál Riata usurped the kingship of Fortriu. From 795 onward there were sporadic Viking raids in Dál Riata. In the following century, there may have been a merger of the Dál Pictish crowns.
Some sources say Cináed mac Ailpín was king of Dál Riata before becoming king of the Picts in 843, following a disastrous defeat of the Picts by Vikings. The kingdom's independence ended sometime after, as it merged with Pictland to form the Kingdom of Alba; the name Dál Riata is derived from Old Irish. Dál, cognate to English dole and deal, German Teil, Latin tāliō and descendants including French taille and Italian taglia, means "portion" or "share". Thus, the name refers to "Riada's portion" of territory in the area; the Dalradian geological series, a term coined by Archibald Geikie in 1891, was named after Dál Riata because its outcrop has a similar geographical reach to that of the former kingdom. Dál Riata included parts of western Scotland and northeastern Ireland. In Scotland, it corresponded to Argyll and grew to include Skye. In Ireland, it took in the northeast of County Antrim corresponding to the baronies of Cary and Glenarm; the modern human landscape of Dál Riata differs a great deal from that of the first millennium.
Most people today live in settlements far larger than anything known in early times, while some areas, such as Kilmartin, many of the islands, such as Islay and Tiree, may well have had as many inhabitants as they do today. Many of the small settlements have now disappeared, so that the countryside is far emptier than was the case, many areas that were farmed are now abandoned; the physical landscape is not as it was: sea-levels have changed, the combination of erosion and silting will have altered the shape of the coast in some places, while the natural accumulation of peat and man-made changes from peat-cutting have altered inland landscapes. As was normal at the time, subsistence farming was the occupation of most people. Oats and barley were the main cereal crops. Pastoralism was important, transhumance was the practice in many places; some areas, most notably Islay, were fertile, good grazing would have been available all year round, just as it was in Ireland. Tiree was famed in times for its oats and barley, while smaller, uninhabited islands were used to keep sheep.
The area, until was notable for its inshore fisheries, for plentiful shellfish, therefore seafood is to have been an important part of the diet. The Senchus fer n-Alban lists three main kin groups in Dál Riata in Scotland, with a fourth being added later: The Cenél nGabráin, in Kintyre the descendants of Gabrán mac Domangairt; the Cenél nÓengusa, in Islay and Jura the descendants of Óengus Mór mac Eirc. The Cenél Loairn, in Lorne also Mull and Ardnamurchan the descendants of Loarn mac Eirc; the Cenél Comgaill, in Cowal and Bute, a addition the descendants of Comgall mac Domangairt. The Senchus does not list any kindreds in Ireland, but does list an
Train
A train is a form of transport consisting of a series of connected vehicles that runs along a rail track to transport cargo or passengers. The word "train" comes from the Old French trahiner, derived from the Latin trahere meaning "to pull" or "to draw". Motive power for a train is provided by a separate locomotive or individual motors in a self-propelled multiple unit. Although steam propulsion dominated, the most common types of locomotive are diesel and electric, the latter supplied by overhead wires or additional rails. Trains can be hauled by horses, pulled by engine or water-driven cable or wire winch, run downhill using gravity, or powered by pneumatics, gas turbines or batteries. Train tracks consist of two running rails, sometimes supplemented by additional rails such as electric conducting rails and rack rails. Monorails and maglev guideways are used occasionally. A passenger train includes passenger-carrying vehicles and can be long and fast. One notable and growing long-distance train.
In order to achieve much faster operation at speeds of over 500 km/h, innovative maglev technology has been the subject of research for many years. The term "light rail" is sometimes used to refer to a modern tram system, but it may mean an intermediate form between a tram and a train, similar to a heavy rail rapid transit system. In most countries, the distinction between a tramway and a railway is precise and defined in law. A freight train uses freight cars to transport materials, it is possible to carry passengers and freight in the same train using a mixed consist. Rail cars and machinery that are used for the maintenance and repair of tracks, are termed "maintenance of way" equipment. Dedicated trains may be used to provide support services to stations along a train line, such as garbage or revenue collection. There are various types of train. A train can consist of a combination of one or more locomotives and attached railroad cars, or a self-propelled multiple unit, or a single or articulated powered coach called a railcar.
Special kinds of train running on corresponding purpose-built "railways" are monorails, high-speed railways, atmospheric railways, rubber-tired underground and cog railways. A passenger train consists of several coaches. Alternatively, a train may consist of passenger-carrying coaches, some or all of which are powered. In many parts of the world the Far East and Europe, high-speed rail is used extensively for passenger travel. Freight trains consist of wagons or trucks rather than carriages, though some parcel and mail trains appear outwardly to be more like passenger trains. Trains can have mixed consist, with both passenger accommodation and freight vehicles; these mixed trains are most to be used for services that run infrequently, where the provision of separate passenger and freight trains would not be cost-effective, but the disparate needs of passengers and freight means that this is avoided where possible. Special trains are used for track maintenance. In the United Kingdom, a train hauled using two locomotives is known as a "double-headed" train.
In Canada and the United States, it is quite common for a long freight train to be headed by three or more locomotives. A train with a locomotive attached at both ends is described as "top and tailed", this practice being used when there are no reversing facilities available. Where a second locomotive is attached temporarily to assist a train when ascending steep banks or gradients, this is referred to as "banking" in the UK. Many loaded trains in the US are assembled using one or more locomotives in the middle or at the rear of the train, which are operated remotely from the lead cab; this is referred to as "DP" or "Distributed Power." The railway terminology, used to describe a train varies between countries. In the United Kingdom, the interchangeable terms set and unit are used to refer to a group of permanently or semi-permanently coupled vehicles, such as those of a multiple unit. While when referring to a train made up of a variety of vehicles, or of several sets/units, the term formation is used.
The word rake is used for a group of coaches or wagons. Section 83 of the UK's Railways Act 1993 defines "train" as follows: a) two or more items of rolling stock coupled together, at least one of, a locomotive. In the United States, the term consist is used to describe the group of rail vehicles that make up a train; when referring to motive power, consist refers to the group of locomotives powering the train. The term trainset refers to a group of rolling stock, permanently or semi-permanently coupled together to form a unified set of equipment. There are three types of locomotive: electric and steam; the Atchison and Santa Fe Railway's 1948 operating rules define a train as: "An engine or more than one engine coupled, with or without cars, displaying markers." A bogie is trolley. In mechanics terms, a bogie is a framework carrying wheels, attached to a vehicle, it can be fixed in place, as on a cargo truck, mounted on a swivel, as on a railway carriage or locomotive, o
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