for a Pict is or , and Pictland is . It has thus been suggested that the Cruthin and Picts were the same people or were in some way linked. Professor T. F. O'Rahilly argued that the Qritani/Pritani were "the earliest inhabitants of these islands to whom a name can be assigned". Other scholars disagree. Historian Francis John Byrne notes that although in Irish both groups were called by the same name, in Latin they had different names, with being reserved for the Picts. Professor Dáibhí Ó Cróinín says the "notion that the Cruthin were 'Irish Picts' and were closely connected with the Picts of Scotland is quite mistaken", while Professor Kenneth H. Jackson wrote that the Cruthin "were not Picts, had no connection with the Picts, linguistic or otherwise, and are never called by Irish writers". There is no archaeological evidence of a Pictish link and in archaeology the Cruthin are indistinguishable from their neighbours in Ireland. The records show that the Cruthin bore Irish names, spoke Irish and followed the Irish system of inheritance rather than the matrilineal system sometimes attributed to the Picts. Historian Alex Woolf suggested that the Dál Riata were a part of the Cruthin, and that they were descended from the Epidii. Dál Riata was a Gaelic kingdom that included parts of western Scotland and northeastern Ireland. The Irish part of the kingdom was surrounded by Cruthin territory. Modern politics and culture In the 1970s, Unionist politician Ian Adamson proposed that the Cruthin were a British people who spoke a non-Celtic language and were the original inhabitants of Ulster. He argues that they were at war with the Irish Gaels for centuries, seeing the story of the Táin Bó Cúailnge as representing this; and argues that most of the Cruthin were driven to Scotland after the Battle of Moira (637), only for their descendants to return 1,000 years later in the Plantation of Ulster. Adamson's suggestion is that the Gaelic Irish are not really native to Ulster, and that the Ulster Scots have merely returned to their ancient lands. His theory has been adopted by some Ulster loyalists and Ulster Scots activists to counter Irish nationalism, and was promoted by elements in the Ulster Defence Association (UDA). They saw this new 'origin myth' as "a justification for their presence in Ireland and for partition of the country". Historians, archaeologists and anthropologists have widely rejected