The lords of Galloway consisted of a dynasty of heirs who were lords (or kings) and ladies who ruled over Galloway in southwest Scotland, mainly during the High Middle Ages. Many regions of Scotland, including Galloway and Moray, periodically had kings or subkings, similar to those in Ireland during the Middle Ages. The Scottish monarch was seen as being similar to a high king (Ard-Righ in Gaelic). The lords of Galloway would have either paid tribute to the Scottish monarch, or at other times ignored him. The Lords of Galloway are fairly well recorded in the 12th and 13th centuries, but the records are incomplete or conflicting at other times. Later on, the kings were known as "lords" at the Scottish court, and "kings" at home, finally becoming "lords" in both arenas. The boundaries of the Kingdom of Galloway were ill-defined, and varied over time. During many periods Galloway was much larger than it is today, and took in parts of southern Ayrshire, such as Carrick, Upper Douglasdale and Nithsdale. The area appears to have been the main bastion of Scottish Gaelic culture south of the Highlands in the Middle Ages. Kingdom of Galloway Suibne mac Cináeda (d.1034) is the first recorded king of the Gall-ghàidhil, the people of Galloway, although it is not until about 1138 that the succession is properly recorded. The Dynasty of Fergus appears to have continued until 1234 and the Laws of Galloway remained in force until 1426. It is thought that these laws originally derived their authority from the kings of Galloway. Contrary to some popular conceptions, there is no evidence that Galloway was ever part of the Kingdom of Strathclyde. It does not logically follow from that that Galloway (west of the Nith at least) lay outside the traditional area claimed by the Kingdom of Alba, Strathclyde's successor state in the area. Galloway, often defined as all of the area to the south and west of the Clyde and west of the River Annan, acknowledged the kings of Scotland as Ard Rí or over-king when politic. The year before his death, Fergus resigned Galloway into the hands of King Mael Coluim iv of Scotland. Though it formed part of the northern mainland of Britain, Galloway was just as much a part of the Irish Sea; part of that Hiberno-Norse world of the Gall-Gaidhel lords of the Isle of Man, Dublin and the Hebrides.