Somerled
Norse-Gaelic ruler of the Kingdom of the Isles
Years: 1115 - 1164
Somerled (d. 1164) is a mid-twelfth-century warlord who, through marital alliance and military conquest, rises in prominence and seizes control of the Kingdom of the Isles.
Little is certain of Somerled's origins, although he appears to have belonged to a Norse-Gaelic family of some substance.
His father, GilleBride, appears to have conducted a marriage alliance with Malcolm, a son of Alexander I, King of Scotland, and claimant to the Scottish throne.
Following a period of dependence upon David I, King of Scotland, Somerled first appears on record in 1153, when he supportskinsmen, identified as the sons of Malcolm, in their insurgence against the newly enthroned Malcolm IV, King of Scotland.
Following this unsuccessful uprising, Somerled appears to have turned his sights upon the kingship of the Isles, ruled by his brother-in-law, Godred Olafsson, King of the Isles.
Taking advantage of the latter's faltering authority, Somerled participates in a violent coup d'état, and seizes half of the kingdom in 1156.
Two years later, he defeats and drives Godred from power, and Somerled rules the entire kingdom until his death.
Somerled is slain in 1164, a and beyond.
The reasons for his attack are unknown.
While it is possible that he wished to nullify Scottish encroachment, the scale of Somerled's venture suggests that he nursed greater ambitions.
On his demise, Somerled's vast kingdom disintegrates, although his sons retain much of the southern Hebridean portion.
Compared to his immediate descendants, who associate themselves with reformed religious orders, Somerled may have been something a religious traditionalist.
In the last year of his life, he had attempted to persuade the head of the Columban monastic community, Flaithbertach Ua Brolcháin, Abbot of Derry, to relocate from Ireland to Iona, a sacred island seated within Somerled's sphere of influence.
Unfortunately for Somerled, his demise at the Battle of Renfrew had denied him the ecclesiastical reunification he sought, and decades later his descendants oversee the obliteration of the island's Columban monastery.
Be that as it may, the oldest surviving building on the island, St Oran's Chapel, dates to the mid-twelfth century, and may have been constructed by Somerled or his family.
Traditionally imagined as a Celtic hero, who vanquished Viking foes and fostered a Gaelic renaissance, contemporary sources instead reveal that Somerled operated in, and belonged to, the same Norse-Gaelic cultural environment of his maritime neighbors.
By his wife, Ragnhild, daughter of Olaf Godredsson, King of the Isles, a member of the Crovan dynasty, Somerled and his descendants are able to lay claims to the Kingdom of the Isles.
A later mediaeval successor to this kingdom, the Lordship of the Isles, is ruled by Somerled's descendants until the late fifteenth century.
Regarded as a significant figure in twelfth-century Scottish and Manx history, Somerled is proudly proclaimed as a patrilineal ancestor by several Scottish clans.
Recent genetic studies suggest that Somerled has hundreds of thousands of patrilineal descendants, and that his patrilineal origins may lie in Scandinavia.
