Within Dál Riata was the important monastery of Iona, which played a key role in the spread of Celtic Christianity throughout northern Britain, and in the development of insular art.

Serious defeats in Ireland and Scotland during the reign of Domnall Brecc (died 642) ended Dál Riata's "golden age", and the kingdom became a client of Northumbria for a time.

[8] 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.

Pastoralism was especially important, and transhumance (the seasonal movement of people with their livestock between fixed summer and winter pastures) was the practice in many places.

[18] The meaning of Airgíalla 'hostage givers' adds to the uncertainty, although it must be observed that only one grouping in Ireland was apparently given this name and it is therefore very rare, perhaps supporting the Ui Macc Uais hypothesis.

[25] Dál Riata had a large war fleet manned by skilled sailors, capable of undertaking far-reaching expeditions.

[26] No written accounts exist for pre-Christian Dál Riata, and the earliest-known records come from the chroniclers of Iona and Irish monasteries.

Because the writing of the lives of the saints in Adomnán's day had not reached the stylised formulas of the High Middle Ages, the Life contains a great deal of historically valuable information.

[29] Columba's founding Iona within the bounds of Dál Riata ensured that the kingdom would be of great importance in the spread of Christianity in northern Britain, not only to Pictland, but also to Northumbria, via Lindisfarne, to Mercia, and beyond.

[36] Whether it was or not, Iona was certainly important in the formation of Insular art, which combined Mediterranean, Anglo-Saxon, Celtic and Pictish elements into a style of which the book of Kells is a late example.

The 8th-century writer Bede offers another, and probably older, account wherein Dál Riata was conquered by Irish Gaels led by a certain Reuda.

[41] The story of Dál Riata moves from foundation myth to something nearer to history with the reports of the death of Comgall mac Domangairt around 540 and of his brother Gabrán around 560.

[42] The version of history in the Duan Albanach was long accepted, although it is preceded by the fictional tale of Albanus and Brutus conquering Britain.

However, in his academic paper Were the Scots Irish?, archaeologist Dr Ewan Campbell says that there is no archaeological or placename evidence of a migration or takeover.

[44] Campbell suggests that Argyll and Antrim formed a "maritime province", united by the sea and isolated from the rest of Scotland by the mountains of the Highlands, historically called the Druim Alban.

[47] The time in which Dál Riata arose was one of great instability in Ulster, following the Ulaid's loss of territory (including the ancient centre of Emain Macha) to the Airgíalla and the Uí Néill.

Linguistic and genealogical evidence associates ancestors of the Dál Riata with the prehistoric Iverni and Darini, suggesting kinship with the Ulaid and a number of shadowy kingdoms in distant Munster.

[48] Ultimately, the Dál Riata, according to the earliest genealogies, are descendants of Deda mac Sin, a prehistoric king or deity of the Érainn.

[52] In an attempt to have himself installed as High King of Ireland, Congal made alliances with Dál Riata and Strathclyde, which resulted in the disastrous Battle of Magh Rath in 637, which saw Congal slain by High King Domnall mac Áedo of the Northern Uí Néill and resulted in Irish Dál Riata losing possession of its Scottish lands.

[55] Domnall Brecc's policy appears to have died with him in 642, at his final, and fatal, defeat by Eugein map Beli of Strathclyde at Strathcarron, for as late as the 730s, armies and fleets from Dál Riata fought alongside the Uí Néill.

[58] However, it appears that Eadberht Eating made some effort to stop the Picts under Óengus mac Fergusa crushing Dál Riata in 740.

The long period of instability in Dál Riata was only ended by the conquest of the kingdom by Óengus mac Fergusa, king of the Picts, in the 730s.

The obvious conclusion is that whoever ruled the petty kingdom of Dál Riata after its defeat and conquest in the 730s, only Áed Find and his brother Fergus drew the least attention of the chroniclers in Iona and Ireland.

He was apparently followed by the last named king of Dál Riata Áed mac Boanta, who was killed in the great Pictish defeat of 839 at the hands of the Vikings.

[67] If the Vikings had a great impact on Pictland and in Ireland, in Dál Riata, as in Northumbria, they appear to have entirely replaced the existing kingdom with a new entity.

In the case of Dál Riata, this was to be known as the kingdom of the Sudreys, traditionally founded by Ketill Flatnose (Caitill Find in Gaelic) in the middle of the 9th century.

In turn, Woolf suggests that this gave rise to the terms Airer Gaedel and Innse Gall, respectively, "the coast of the Gaels" and the "Islands of the foreigners".

[70] In Rosemary Sutcliff's 1965 novel The Mark of the Horse Lord, the Dál Riada undergo an internal struggle for control of royal succession, and an external conflict to defend their frontiers against the Caledones.

In Julian May's Saga of Pliocene Exile series, the non-born Aiken Drum's homeworld is an ethnic Scottish planet called Dalriada.

At the earliest start date, 769 with the Charlemagne DLC, they are an Irish Catholic independent petty kingdom ruled by Áed Find, comprising the Hebrides and Argyll.