Cruthin

Map of the tribes Ireland per Ptolemy's Geography (2nd century AD); the Cruithin are supposedly in the northeast. Yet in the oldest copies of the map the Cruthin are not mentioned by Ptolemy.[citation needed]
For the asteroid named for this people, see 3753 Cruithne.

The Cruthin (Old Irish: [ˈkruθʲinʲ]; Middle Irish: Cruithnig or Cruithni; Modern Irish: Cruithne [ˈkɾˠɪ(h)nʲə]) were a people of early medieval Ireland. Their heartland was in Ulster and included parts of the present-day counties of Antrim, Down and Londonderry. They are also said to have lived in parts of Leinster and Connacht. Their name is the Irish equivalent of *Pritanī, the reconstructed native name of the Celtic Britons, and Cruthin was sometimes used to refer to the Picts, but there is a debate among scholars as to the relationship of the Cruthin with the Britons and Picts.[1]

The Cruthin comprised several túatha (territories), which included the Dál nAraidi of County Antrim and the Uí Echach Cobo of County Down. Early sources distinguish between the Cruthin and the Ulaid, who gave their name to the over-kingdom, although the Dál nAraidi would later claim in their genealogies to be na fír Ulaid, "the true Ulaid".[2] The Loígis, who gave their name to County Laois in Leinster, and the Sogain of Leinster and Connacht, are also claimed as Cruthin in early Irish genealogies.[3]

By 773 AD, the annals had stopped using the term Cruthin in favour of the term Dál nAraidi,[1] who had secured their over-kingship of the Cruthin.

  1. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference EMI was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Ó Cróinín 2005, pp. 182-234.
  3. ^ Byrne 2001, pp. 39, 236.