Chronology
It is widely accepted that most ringforts date from the Early Christian period. Finds from ringforts typically include items which date from the second half of the first millennium: wheel-made pottery; souterrain ware; glass beads; bone, bronze and iron pins; and artefacts of bone and metalwork. The artefacts, which Dr. Bernard found during his excavation of the cashel interior, seem to correspond to the above list of typical items. Indeed in a recent publication, Brian Lacy comes up with an exact date for its construction which corresponds with this period. He argues that Aileach is the name of a specific site in antiquity and also the name of the Cenél nEógain ‘homeland’ kingdom of Inis Eogian, derived from the place now known as Elaghmore (Aileach Mór) in County Londonderry. After the decisive battle of Cloítech in 789, when the Cenél nEógain won total control of the over-kingdom of the northern Uí Néill, the successful kings relocated to the Grianán, building it inside the pre-existing prehistoric hillfort as a visual symbol of their new mastery of all the landscape visible from that commanding view. Stout comes to the conclusion that the majority of Ireland’s ringforts were occupied and constructed during a three hundred year period from the beginning of the seventh century to the end of the ninth century AD.
Lacy concludes that Aileach was inhabited by the northern Ui Néill dynasty from 789 to about 1050. This was a period when many of the local kings in Ireland were moving to the towns founded by the Vikings or into more important ecclesiastical sites which by this time seemed to have been functioning as towns following the Vikings’ model.
Read more about this topic: Grianan Of Aileach