Giric

Giric mac Dúngail
King of the Picts
Reign878–889
PredecessorÁed
SuccessorDonald II
Bornc. 832
Diedc. 890
Dundurn, Scotland
FatherDúngal

Giric mac Dúngail (Modern Gaelic: Griogair mac Dhunghail;[1] fl. c. 878–889), in modern English his name is Gregory or Greg MacDougal and nicknamed Mac Rath ("Son of Fortune"),[2] was a king of the Picts or the king of Alba. The Irish annals record nothing of Giric's reign, nor do Anglo-Saxon writings add anything, and the meagre information which survives is contradictory. Modern historians disagree as to whether Giric was the sole king or ruled jointly with Eochaid, on his ancestry, and if he should be considered a Pictish king or the first king of Alba.

Although little is now known of Giric, he appears to have been regarded as an important figure in Scotland in the High Middle Ages and the Late Middle Ages. Scots chroniclers such as John of Fordun, Andrew of Wyntoun, Hector Boece and the humanist scholar George Buchanan wrote of Giric as "King Gregory the Great" and told how he had conquered half of England and Ireland too.

The Chronicle of Melrose and some versions of the Chronicle of the Kings of Alba say that Giric died at Dundurn in Strathearn.

  1. ^ Giric mac Dúngail is the mediaeval form.
  2. ^ Skene, Chronicles, p. 87.