 Dumbarton Castle Today: Once the Capital of Strathclyde |
Eochaid (a.k.a. Eochu or Eochaidh) and Giric (a.k.a. Gregory the Great) were joint Kings of the Picts and Scots from 878 to 889. The wider picture in Scotland at the time is set out in our Historical Timeline.
Eochaid was the nephew of his predecessor, King Aedh, and son of Aedh's brother in law, King Rhun of Strathclyde. Giric's origins are unclear. He is variously described as Eochaid's cousin, his first cousin once removed, or his guardian.
Whatever their relationship, it is clear that they conspired together to bring about King Aedh's downfall, and it is most likely that Giric killed Aedh at Strathallan in Perthshire in 878. Having used Giric to clear his path to the Crown of the Picts and Scots, Eochaid found he had to share it with Giric, and the two embarked on an uneasy 11 year joint reign.
In 889 Eochaid tried to gain sole possession of the crown by commissioning his cousin Donald (the son of King Constantine I) to kill Giric. It is arguable that Donald should have succeeded King Aedh: and he certainly seems to have thought so. For having killed Giric, at Dundurn near St Fillans at the eastern end of Loch Earn, Donald exiled Eochaid and much of the surviving Strathclyde nobility to Gwynedd in Wales: and so became King Donald II.
Giric was buried in the graveyard at Saint Oran's Chapel on the Isle of Iona. It is not known when or where Eochaid died, or where he was buried. Giric went on to achieve posthumous fame of sorts as Gregory the Great when in the 1100s he became the subject of myths that he had single handedly freed the Scots from the Picts and conquered Ireland and much of England. He did none of these things.
