Nechtan mac Der-Ilei

On this basis, and because Bede mentions that the Picts allowed for matrilineal succession in exceptional cases, it is thought that Der-Ilei (Bridei III) was Nechtan's mother.

A number of later figures, including the Talorgan son of Congus, defeated in 731 and likewise drowned in 734, and his unnamed brother, may be associated with Nechtan's family.

However, the Annals of Ulster for 711 report a Pictish defeat at Northumbrian hands, "in Mag Manonn", presumably in the area around Stirling where the kingdom of Manau had once been, where Finnguine son of Deile Roith was killed.

Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People includes a letter from Abbot Ceolfrid of the twin monasteries of Monkwearmouth and Jarrow to Nechtan on the subject of the dating of Easter, sent around 710.

Ceolfrid assumes his correspondent is an educated man, going some way to justifying Thomas Owen Clancy's description of Nechtan as a philosopher king.

Nechtan was convinced by Ceolfrid, and the expulsion of clergy associated with Iona in 717 may be related to the controversy over Easter and the manner of tonsures; however, it is equally likely to have been entirely unrelated.

Often portrayed as a struggle between the so-called Celtic Church and Rome, it is evident that the majority of Irish clerics had long accepted the Roman method of calculating the date of Easter.

His expulsion of Ionan clerics, rather than being a submission to Rome and Northumbria, probably marks the coming of age of an independent Pictish church, which nonetheless remained close to Iona and to Ireland.