Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Fearchair I
FEARCHAIR or FERCHARDUS I (622?–636?), the fifty-second king of Scottish Dalriada, according to the fictitious chronology of Boece and Buchanan, but the ninth according to the rectified list of Father Innes, reckoning from Fergus the son of Earc, is supposed by Buchanan to have been a son of Eugenius Eochadh Buidhe (the Yellow), who reigned between Conadh (Kenneth) Kerr and the more famous Donald IV (Breac) [q. v.], another son of Eochadh Buidhe. Skene, who conjectured in a note to the ‘Chronicles of the Picts and Scots’ that he may have reigned with or followed Donald Breac (preface cxii), omits him from the line of Dalriad kings in his ‘History of Celtic Scotland.’ The existence of another Fearchair II, called Fada (the Long) [q. v.], makes it not impossible that the chroniclers made two kings out of one. Buchanan's biography of Fearchair I and II is quite imaginary, and we know nothing of this king except that his name appears in the list of kings in the register of the priory of St. Andrews (Innes, app. 5) and other old lists as distinct from Fearchair Fada. In several of these he is called the son of Eroin.
[Innes's Critical Essay; Chronicles of Picts and Scots; Skene's Celtic Scotland.]