Carrick (from the Gaelic "carraig", meaning "rock") is a former comital district of Scotland which today forms part of South Ayrshire.
Carrick (from the Gaelic "carraig", meaning "rock") is a former comital district of Scotland which today forms part of South Ayrshire.
The district of Carrick originally formed part of the 11th- to 12th-century Kingdom of Galloway, whose lords ruled it until 1186, when it was granted to Duncan, son of Gilbert of Galloway. He became the first to hold the Earldom of Carrick. His son Neil became the second Earl, but he had no male heir - accordingly, his daughter, Margaret (also known as Marjorie of Carrick) inherited and became Countess of Carrick.
Upon her death in 1292 the earldom passed to her son Robert de Bruce, later to become King Robert I of Scotland (r. 1306–1329).
Carrick saw some involvement in the Scottish wars of independence under the said Robert the Bruce, which culminated in his victory over the English at Bannockburn (1314). It witnessed much inter-family feuding during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, with various branches of the powerful Kennedys contending for land and honour. [1]
Carrick's scattered villages and rugged terrain made it a favourite haunt of the persecuted Covenanters in the seventeenth century, and its rocky coastline with its many hidden coves and inlets has made it a favourite location for smuggling. [1] Robert Burns made his living as an exciseman along that coastline in the late-eighteenth century. [2]
In 1469 the title "Earl of Carrick" became one of the lesser titles of the heir apparent to the Scots (later British) throne - as of 2022 [update] Prince William, the Prince of Wales, whose principal Scottish title is "Duke of Rothesay", also bears the title of "Earl of Carrick".
The word "Carrick" comes from the Gaelic word carraig, meaning "rock" or "rocky place", and may preserve an earlier name from Brittonic carreg, which has a similar meaning (Welsh carreg). [3] Compare the English crag - from the Celtic. [4]
Maybole functioned as the historic capital of Carrick. The county was eventually subsumed into Ayrshire, which was divided naturally according to its river valleys into the three districts of Cunninghame (in the north along the River Irvine), Kyle (in the centre along the River Ayr) and Carrick (in the south along the River Doon). These three districts formed Ayrshire, one of the counties of Scotland. A major reorganisation took place in the wake of the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1889; this Act established a uniform system of county councils and town councils in Scotland and restructured many of Scotland's counties. (See: History of local government in the United Kingdom)
Kyle and Carrick was the former name (1975–1996) of a local-government district in the Strathclyde region of Scotland. In 1996 it was re-constituted as a council area, but renamed South Ayrshire.
South Ayrshire is one of thirty-two council areas of Scotland, covering the southern part of Ayrshire. It borders onto Dumfries and Galloway, East Ayrshire and North Ayrshire. The area had an estimated population in 2021 of 112,450.
Cumbric was a variety of the Common Brittonic language spoken during the Early Middle Ages in the Hen Ogledd or "Old North" in what is now the counties of Westmorland, Cumberland, northern Lancashire in Northern England and the southern Scottish Lowlands, alongside the Kingdom of Elmet in modern day Yorkshire. It was closely related to Old Welsh and the other Brittonic languages. Place name evidence suggests Cumbric may also have been spoken as far south as Pendle and the Yorkshire Dales. The prevailing view is that it became extinct in the 12th century, after the incorporation of the semi-independent Kingdom of Strathclyde into the Kingdom of Scotland.
In early medieval Scotland, a mormaer was the Gaelic name for a regional or provincial ruler, theoretically second only to the King of Scots, and the senior of a Toísech (chieftain). Mormaers were equivalent to English earls or Continental counts, and the term is often translated into English as 'earl'.
Menteith or Monteith, a district of south Perthshire, Scotland, roughly comprises the territory between the Teith and the Forth. Earlier forms of its name include Meneted, Maneteth and Meneteth.
Earl of Carrick is the title applied to the ruler of Carrick, subsequently part of the Peerage of Scotland. The position came to be strongly associated with the Scottish crown when Robert the Bruce, who had inherited it from his maternal kin, became King of the Scots in the early 14th century. Since the 15th century, the title of Earl of Carrick has automatically been held by the heir apparent to the throne, thus the current holder of the title is Prince William, Duke of Rothesay.
Nithsdale, also known as Strathnith, Stranith or Stranit, is the strath or dale of the River Nith in southern Scotland. Nithsdale was one of the medieval provinces of Scotland. The provinces gradually lost their administrative importance to the shires created from the twelfth century, with Nithsdale forming part of Dumfriesshire. A Nithsdale district covering a similar area to the medieval province was created in 1975, based in the area's main town of Dumfries. The district was abolished in 1996, since when the area has been directly administered by Dumfries and Galloway Council.
A dun is an ancient or medieval fort. In Ireland and Britain it is mainly a kind of hillfort and also a kind of Atlantic roundhouse.
Kyle is a former comital district of Scotland which stretched across parts of modern-day East Ayrshire and South Ayrshire. It is supposedly named after Coel Hen, a legendary king of the Britons, who is said to be buried under a mound at Coylton.
Clan Kennedy is a Scottish clan of the Scottish Lowlands.
The Britons, also known as Celtic Britons or Ancient Britons, were the indigenous Celtic people who inhabited Great Britain from at least the British Iron Age until the High Middle Ages, at which point they diverged into the Welsh, Cornish, and Bretons. They spoke Common Brittonic, the ancestor of the modern Brittonic languages.
Donnchadh was a Gall-Gaidhil prince and Scottish magnate in what is now south-western Scotland, whose career stretched from the last quarter of the 12th century until his death in 1250. His father, Gille-Brighde of Galloway, and his uncle, Uhtred of Galloway, were the two rival sons of Fergus, Prince or Lord of Galloway. As a result of Gille-Brighde's conflict with Uhtred and the Scottish monarch William the Lion, Donnchadh became a hostage of King Henry II of England. He probably remained in England for almost a decade before returning north on the death of his father. Although denied succession to all the lands of Galloway, he was granted lordship over Carrick in the north.
Clan Armstrong is a Scottish clan of the Scottish Borders.
Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley is a county constituency of the Scottish Parliament at Holyrood, covering parts of the council areas of South Ayrshire and East Ayrshire. It elects one Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) by the plurality method of election. Also, it is one of nine constituencies in the South Scotland electoral region, which elects seven additional members, in addition to the nine constituency MSPs, to produce a form of proportional representation for the region as a whole.
Galwegian Gaelic is an extinct dialect of Scottish Gaelic formerly spoken in southwest Scotland. It was spoken by the people of Galloway and Carrick until the early modern period. Little has survived of the dialect, so that its exact relationship with other Gaelic language is uncertain.
Carrick is an Anglicised version of creag/carraig, Gaelic for "rock", and may refer to:
Formartine is a committee area in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. This district extends north from the River Don to the River Ythan. It has a population of 36,478.
There are many large stones of Scotland of cultural and historical interest, such as the distinctive Pictish stones.
Cumbrian toponymy refers to the study of place names in Cumbria, a county in North West England, and as a result of the spread of the ancient Cumbric language, further parts of northern England and the Southern Uplands of Scotland.
Turnberry Castle is a fragmentary ruin on the coast of Kirkoswald parish, near Maybole in Ayrshire, Scotland. Situated at the extremity of the lower peninsula within the parish, it was the seat of the Earls of Carrick. Turnberry Castle is adjacent to Turnberry Golf Course.
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