Gartnait II
King of the Picts
Gartnait, son of Domelch, (died 595) was a king of the Picts from 584 to 595.
The Pictish Chronicle king lists contained in the Poppleton Manuscript have Gartnait following Bridei I whose death c. 586 is recorded by the Irish annals. Death of Gartnait II is noted in the Annals of Tigernach c. 599 and the king lists have him succeeded by Nechtan nepos Uerb.
Some versions of the king list associate Gartnait with the foundation of the monastery of Abernethy, although other variants associate this either with Nechtan nepos Uerb or the similarly named pre-historic king Nechtan son of Erp.
John Bannerman proposed that this Gartnait was to be identified with the son of Áedán mac Gabráin found in the genealogies known as Cethri Primchenela dail Riata attached to the Senchus fer n-Alban, and furthermore with the Gartnait whose kin were active on the isle of Skye during the 7th and early 8th centuries. T. F. O'Rahilly had earlier rejected the identification of "Gartnait son of Áedán" with the eponym of the Skye kindred who is called Gartnait son of Accidán in the Irish annals. The most recent study, by Fraser, rejects the existence of Gartnait son of Áedán outright, presuming this person to have been a genealogical fiction created in the early 8th century to bolster the ambitions of Cenél nGartnait, descendants of Gartnait son of Accidán, to rule in Kintyre. Instead, due to the Picts being prone to practice matrilineal succession, his true parentage was indeed Domelch, who was probably a sister or daughter of his predecessor, King Uradech.
“Gartnait II” enters the record as king of the Picts. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Gartnait, King and Picts can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2550970. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.
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This entry incorporates text from “Gartnait II” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.