The story of Dierdre and the Sons of Uisneash

The MacNaughtans trace their origins to Nechtan, King of the Picts. There were several Kings named Nechtan or Neachtan, part of an ancient Pictish royal family. The cognate appears again and again over more than a millenium. Of all the words and names appearing in ancient ogham inscriptions the name most commonly found is Nechtan.

I would like to share the following with my McNaughton cousins, hoping you will find some meaning in it.

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An excerpt from THE WEST HIGHLANDS OF SCOTLAND by W.H. Murray

“Eagles soar above the crags, and although you will have to be lucky to observe these you are certain to see the seals around Airds Point and red deer grazing by the birch and alder groves. Loch Etiveside was the homeland of Deirdre, Deirdre of the Sorrows, as she is commonly called. Her story has so often been misstated in differing versions, and her early years wrongly set in Ireland, that the simple story of her tragedy needs to be retold. Her name, Deirdre NicCruithnigh has been frequently mistranslated as Daughter of the Musician (from Cruitear, a musician or harpist). Cruithnigh is in fact the ancient name for the Picts who occupied Loch Etiveside and also part of Northern Ireland. Deirdre’s name simply indicates that she was Daughter of the Picts. Her father was King of Picts in the first century. While she was still a young girl he betrothed her to Conchobar, King of Ulster, who was to fetch her over to Ireland, when she was eighteen. She spent her girlhood at Loch Etive in the company of three fine lads of her own age, the sons of Uisneach. Her closest friend of these three was Naoise, but their association was a boy-and-girl idyll—all three of the lads loving her deeply and she them. Brought up as they were under the strict supervision given to a daughter of the Pictish royal house, there was no question of love-making in the full sense. The boys hunted for sport and food, bringing to Deirdre the flesh of deer, fish, and badger; they would picnic by the side of Deirdre's waterfall in Glen Etive, or in her House of the Sun (Tigh Grianach), or in Naoise's wood the Coille Naoise in the bay between Achnacloich and Airds Point.

After ten happy years spent by the young folk in the land of the Gruithnigh, the day came when Conchobar’s men arrived to claim the princess. The pain of parting was more than Deirdre would endure. She refused to leave without her three friends, and Conchobar's headman had finally to pledge the word of his king to a safe conduct for the sons of Uisneach. On the seaway to Ireland, Deirdre composed and sang her lovely song of seven or eight verses, her Farewell to Alban. It has survived through the centuries for one reason—its most powerful expression of a universal experience, sorrow on leaving a homeland. Deirdre could not in the end give up her love of the three youths to marry Conchobar. The furious king had the brothers killed, and not long afterwards Deirdre died of a broken heart. The Druids of Ulster granted her dying wish: they opened the grave of the three brothers and laid her to rest beside them. Dun MhicUisneachan, the Fort of the Sons of Uisneach, is sited at Ledaig on the Benderloch shore of outer Loch Etive."

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(In Banderloch) "at the south side of the beach, near the old railroad station, a grassy hillock bears on its top the faint trace of Dun Mhic Uisneachan, the fort of the sons of Uisneach.

Some historians consider the fort to have been Beregonium, the seat of Pictish kings, and it was so named by George Buchanan (sixteenth century) in his Latin History of Scotland. Support is given to the notion by the local tradition that Pictish kings were buried on the island of Lismore, which lies only one and a half miles off the Benderloch coast. Beregonium, like the Scots fort on Dunadd, was a multiple structure incorporating several forts on the one hill. The upper fort was vitrified."

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(me again)

Dierdre was the daughter of King Cruithne. But King Cruithne also had sons, seven of them according to the old tales, and he divided up ancient Alba between these seven sons. The names of the seven parts of Alba are recorded as Cait, Ce, Cirig, Fib, Fidach, Fotla, and Fortrend.

So much for the sons of Cruithne. So -- if these were the seven sons of Cruithne --  who were the Sons of Uisnech? They were the High Druids of Uisnech. The Sons of Uisnech were the Ollamh. They had always been the Druids of Uisnech. Uisnech was the holy hill in the center of Ireland. The God Priest Nechtan lived at the source of the Boyne. Boand, the Druidess wife of Nechtan, cast her magic, and was sent forth with the waters, out the Boyne. Hense the daughters of Druidic Wisdom were sent forth out of Ireland and came to Alba. King Cruithne was their son. For the Royal lineage is matrilinear. He could only be the son of a female member of the Royal Ollahm. Otherwise the priestly wisdom could not be passed on through the generations. Alba was distributed between King Cruithne's seven sons. the Sons of Uisnech gave themselves to the priestly duties of the land.

Thus, the three young friends of Dierdre's childhood were young druid priests, cousins of her own blood through her Druid mother and female kindred. For the Druid Ollahm had to born of royal druidess mothers. The seven sons would have their own progeny and live their lives in their lands. But the Kingship of the land would continue to be passed on through the descendants of Uisnech. This would continue to be so until Unuisticc of Fortrenn, Princess Royal of Picts, (born 755 AD) married King Eochaid IV the Venomous.

The Royal Pict family of Uisneachan did not go anywhere, did not disappear. The highest order of Druids were the sons and daughters of the royal family. Their influence extended from Gaul to Iona to the Boyne and probably to the Celtiberians.  With Beregonium across from Lismore, with Dierdre living on Loch Etive, the head of Loch Etive touches Glen Coe, King Nechtain's son Henry possessed the lands of Glen Coe. We might include among these concepts the fact that Loch Ness gets its name in antiquity from Naoise, and remember that King Nechtan's palace was located on Loch Ness according to Bede, giving him access through the great glen to either the east coast or the west. When Dalraidan Scots pressed inward from the west, and Norsemen invaded southward from The Shetlands, and the Danes pressed inward from Northumbria, it was a short move from Loch Ness for the Neachtan Pict armies and other Pict royal armies to march to Moray and gather in strength to make a stand against all invaders. And there in Moray is where most ancient chronaclers begin their genealogical tales.