FOOTNOTES
[40] Annals of Ulster, A.D. 855, 856; Annals of the Four Masters, A.D. 856.
[41] Three Fragments of Annals, pp. 128, 129, 138, 139.
[42] Airec Menmam Uraird Maic Coisse, sec. 29 (Marstrander: Bidrag til det Norske Sprogs Historie i Irland, p. 10).
[43] With the Gaill-Gaedhil are often identified a body of plunderers, members of Meath and Cavan clans, who in the year 845 devastated large tracts of territory “after the manner of the Gentiles” (Annals of Ulster, A.D. 845). The Annalists call them “sons of death” (maic báis), possibly a term applied by the monastic chroniclers to a people who had abandoned their Christian baptism, and who had profaned churches and religious houses. (Cf. Marstrander, op. cit., p. 7, n.)
[44] Cf. Annals of the Four Masters, A.D. 854. Three Fragments of Annals, A.D. 852, referring to the same event, mention the “fleet of the Gaill-Gaedhil.”
[45] Annals of Ulster, A.D. 855.
[46] Annals of the Four Masters, A.D. 856.
[47] Fragments of Annals, A.D. 858.
[48] There was also a mixed Norse and Gaelic population in Galloway (the word is a corruption of Gall-Gaedhil, Welsh Galwydel) as well as in the Hebrides (Ir. Innse Gall., i.e., the “Islands of the Foreigners or Norsemen”) and other parts of Scotland. There is a reference to these Gaill-Gaedhil in the Four Masters (A.D. 1154): “The Cinél Eoghain and Muirchertach, son of Niall, sent persons over the sea to hire the fleets of the Gaill-Gaedhil of Aran, Cantire and the Isle of Man and the borders of Scotland in general, over which Mac Sgelling was in command…” (For other references see Marstrander, op. cit., p. 9.)
By Gaddgethlar the Norsemen understood “the place… where Scotland and England meet” (cf. Orkneyinga Saga, ch. 28). It is also interesting to note that in Norse sources the inhabitants of Galloway are called Vikinga-Skotar, a direct translation of Gaill-Gaedhil.
O’Flaherty (Ogygia, p. 360) thought that the Gaill-Gaedhil mentioned in the Annals of the mid-ninth century came to Ireland from Scotland, but the ancient Three Fragments of Annals, which contain the fullest accounts of the Gaill-Gaedhil (pp. 138-141) speak of them as Scuit (i.e., an Irish form of the Latin Scoti, a word which is always used with reference to the Irish before the tenth century). Moreover, the impression received from reading the Fragments of Annals is that the Annalist had in his mind the Norse-Gaelic population of Ireland, not of Scotland.
[49] Ann. Cambriae, A.D. 902; (Steenstrup: Normannerne, III., pp. 37-41).
[50] Three Fragments of Annals, p. 230 ff.
[51] Annals of the Four Masters, A.D. 845, 852; Annals of Ulster, A.D. 846. Three Fragments of Annals, A.D. 862.
[52] Annals of the Four Masters, A.D. 848.
[53] The plundering of these burial-mounds—“a thing that had never been done before”—made a deep impression on the Irish Annalists; it was thought that the Vikings discovered the existence of the treasure by magic, “through paganism and idol worship” (War of the Gaedhil with the Gaill, p. 115). The same source (p. 25) records the plundering of Kerry by Baraid (O.N. Barthr) and Olaf the White’s son “who left not a cave there underground that they did not explore.”
Several references to this practice of the Vikings occur also in Icelandic literature. It is interesting to compare the Irish accounts with the following passage from Landnámabók (I., ch. 5): “Leifr (one of the earliest settlers in Iceland) went on a Viking raid to the West. He plundered Ireland and found there a large underground house (Icel. jarth-hus). It was dark within until he made his way to a place where he saw a light shining from a sword which a man held in his hand. Leifr slew the man and took the sword and much treasure besides.”
[54] Three Fragments of Annals, p. 135.
[55] Ib., p. 137.
[56] Heimskringla: Óláfs Saga Tryggvasonar, ch. 35.
[57] Cf. The story of Samr, (i.e., probably Ir. sam, “happy” or “peaceful”) the Irish hound which Olaf Pai gave to Gunnarr. Samr was killed while defending his master’s homestead. (Njáls Saga, chs. 69, 75.)
[58] Annals of the Four Masters, A.D. 820; Fragments of Annals, p. 166; War of the Gaedhil with the Gaill, p. 79; The Victorious Career of Callachan of Cashel, p. 9.
[59] Landnámabók, V., ch. 8.
[60] Ib., V., ch. 13.
[61] Ib., III., ch. 9.
[62] Ib., III., ch. 12. Rafarta was the wife of Eyvindr the Easterner, “who settled down in Ireland and had charge of Kjarval’s defences” (cf. Grettis Saga, ch. 3). Orkneyinga Saga (ch. 11.) makes Edna (Ir. Eithne) another of Kjarval’s daughters to be the mother of Sigurthr, Earl of Orkney (killed in the battle of Clontarf, 1014); but owing to the chronological difficulty this is hardly likely.
[63] Landnámabók, I., ch. 1.
[64] Ib., II., ch. 15.
[65] Three Fragments of Annals, p. 151. The same source (p. 173) mentions still another wife of Olaf, “the daughter of Cinaedh,” i.e., in all probability Cinaedh Mac Ailpin, King of the Picts (d. 858).
[66] Laxdaela Saga (translated by M.A.C. Press), chs. 12, 13, 20, 21.
[67] The Annals of the Four Masters record his death under the year 941: “Muirchertach of the Leather Cloaks, lord of Aileach, the Hector of the West of Europe in his time, was slain at Ardee by Blacaire, son of Godfrey, lord of the Foreigners.”
Muirchertach’s grandson was killed by Olaf Cuaran. (Ib., A.D. 975).
[68] Ib., A.D. 981.
[69] Ib., A.D. 1021.
[70] War of the Gaedhit with the Gaill, p. 142 ff.; Njáls Saga, chs. 153, 154.
[71] Annals of the Four Masters, A.D. 851.
[72] Three Fragments of Annals, pp. 119, 123. Annals of Ulster, A.D. 852.
[73] Chronicon Scotorum, A.D. 883.
[74] Ib., 886; Annals of Ulster, A.D. 885.
[75] See A. Bugge: Nordisk Sprog og Nordisk Nationalitet, i Irland, pp. 284, 285. Professor Marstrander (op. cit., pp. 45, 46) takes Gluntradna to be an Irish adaptation of an O.N. nickname Trönu-Kné, to which he compares Trönubeina, the daughter of Thraell, in the Rígsthula, 9.
[76] Cf. the name Grímr Kamban (Landnámabók, Hauksbók MS., ch. 19) which seems to be a Norse form of the Irish Camman.
[77] According to A. Bugge, Dubhcenn is a translation of the O.N. Svarthöfthi, but Marstrander (op. cit., p. 45) holds that the name was known in Ireland before the Viking age. It may be suggested that it was a nickname given to Ivarr’s son by the Irish. Cf. Olaf Cuaran (Ir. cuaran, a shoe made of skin); Olaf Cenncairech (i.e., “Scabby-head.”)
[78] Their mother was an Irishwoman, sister of Donnabhan, King of Ui Fidgenti. Donnabhan himself was married to a daughter of Ivarr, King of Limerick. (War of the Gaedhil with the Gaill, p. 207).
[79] Annals of the Four Masters, A.D. 931; Annals of Ulster, A.D. 960, 1036, 1042, etc. See also Whitley Stokes: On the Gaelic Names in the Landnámabók (Revue Celtique, III., pp. 186-191).
[80] From the contemporary Irish poems the Book of Rights and The Curcuit of Muirchertach Mac Neill it may be inferred that in ancient Ireland all payments were made in kind. With the extension of trade, however, it is probable that many Anglo-Saxon and other foreign coins—including those of the Scandinavian Kings of Northumbria, several of whom also reigned in Ireland—came to be circulated in Ireland. The Vikings in England struck coins there during the reign of Halfdanr (d. 877). (Cf. C. F. Keary: Catalogue of Coins in the British Museum, I., p. 202).
[81] One of these fugitives wrote the following lines on the margin of Priscian’s Latin Grammar in the monastery of St. Gall, Switzerland:
“Is acher ingaith innocht fufuasna fairge findfolt,
Ni agor reimm mora minn dond laechraid lainn na lothlind.”
(Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus. Ed. Stokes and Strachan, II., 290.)
i.e.,
Bitter is the wind to-night,
It tosses the ocean’s white hair;
To-night I fear not the fierce warriors of Norway
Coursing on the Irish Sea.
(Translation by Kuno Meyer: Ancient Irish Poetry, p. 101.)
[82] See Margaret Stokes: Early Christian Architecture in Ireland, p. 127.
[83] G. Coffey: A Guide to the Celtic Antiquities of the Christian Period (National Museum, Dublin) pp. 29, 49 and 62.
[84] Ib., p. 17.
CHAPTER III.
THE GROWTH OF THE SEAPORT TOWNS.
The foundation of the seaport towns was the most important, and at the same time the most permanent effect of the Viking invasion of Ireland. Before this the only towns were the larger monastic centres[85] at Armagh, Clonmacnois, Durrow and Clonfert, which, besides the monastery itself, consisted of numerous beehive-shaped houses of stone, or small huts of clay and wattles built for the accommodation of the students attending the schools. During the first half of the ninth century these monasteries suffered sorely from the attacks of Viking raiders. After a stubborn resistance on the part of the Irish, Armagh fell into the hands of Turgeis, who drove out the abbot Farannan and “usurped the abbacy” (c. A.D. 839). Some years later Armagh was abandoned when the Vikings captured Dublin, at this time a small “town by the hurdle ford,”[86] but they were quick to realise its possibilities as the seat of their monarchy and the chief centre of their trade. As a result of the struggle for ecclesiastical supremacy, which took place at a later period[87] between Armagh and Dublin, the Bishops of Dublin were obliged to acknowledge the Primate of Armagh; but the latter town never recovered its former prestige as the capital of Ireland.[88]
That Dublin owes its importance, if not its origin, to the Norsemen may be inferred from the almost total silence of the historians and annalists regarding it in the years preceding the Scandinavian inroads. It is probable that there was a fort to guard the hurdle-ford where the great road from Tara to Wicklow, Arklow and Wexford crossed the Liffey, but it seems to have played no great part in history before the Norsemen fortified it in 840. Between Church Lane and Suffolk Street they had their Thing[89] or meeting-place, which was still to be seen in the seventeenth century; while all along College Green, called Le Hogges[90] and later Hoggen Green by the English, lay their barrows (O.N. haugar). During the ninth and tenth centuries the Kingdom of Dublin—known to the Scandinavians as Dyflinarski—became one of the most powerful in the west. Its sway extended north to its colonies[91] at the Strangford and Carlingford Loughs, west to Leixlip, south to Wicklow, Wexford[92] and even as far as Waterford. The Dublin kings intermarried with royal families in Ireland, England and Scotland, and between the years 919 and 950 ruled, though in somewhat broken succession, as Kings of York.
Limerick (O.N. Hlymrek)[93], the great stronghold on the west coast, had no existence as a city before the ninth century. It was first occupied during the reign of Turgeis by Vikings, who used the harbour as a base for their ships.[94] The only chieftains mentioned in connection with this kingdom during the ninth century are Hona and Tomrir Torra (O.N. Thórarr Thórri), who were slain about the year 860 in attempting to capture Waterford.[95] A few years later Barith (O.N. Barthr) and Haimar (O.N. Heimarr) when marching through Connacht on their way to Limerick, were attacked by the Connachtmen and forced to retreat.[96] The real importance of Limerick, however, dates from the early part of the tenth century when it was colonised by Vikings under Tomar (Thórir) son of Elgi (O.N. Helgi). To secure the fort against attack an earthen mound was built all round, and gates were placed at certain distances leading into the streets and the houses.[97] As a kingdom it was independent, having subject colonies at Cashel, Thurles, Lough Ree and Lough Corrib.[98] It had no connection with Dublin during the tenth century; in fact, there is evidence to show that both royal houses were bitterly hostile towards each another. On one occasion Guthfrith, King of Dublin, led an army to Limerick, but was repulsed with heavy losses by the Vikings there.[99] A few years later (A.D. 929) he expelled Tomar’s successor, King Ivarr of Limerick, and his followers from Magh Roighne (a plain in Ossory), where they had encamped for a whole year. Olaf Godfreyson was equally active. After defeating Olaf Cenncairech and the Limerick Vikings at Lough Ree in 937, he carried them off to Dublin,[100] and that same year probably forced them to fight on his side in the battle of Brunnanburh.
This hostility would seem to have been due to rivalry between two powerful kingdoms, rather than, as has been suggested,[101] to difference of nationality. It is not at all certain that the Limerick Vikings were purely Danes. One Irish chronicler speaks of the Scandinavians in Munster as Gaill and Danair and calls their fleets loingeas Danmarcach ocus allmurach (“fleets of Danes and foreigners”).[102] Elsewhere[103] we find the word Lochlannaigh (i.e., Norsemen) used with reference to the Limerick settlers; and Colla (O.N. Kolli), Prince of Limerick (d. 931) was certainly a Norseman, for he was son of Barthr, a leader of the Finn-Gennti in the ninth century. There would seem to have been a mixture of both Danes and Norsemen in Limerick, and since there is no proof that struggles for mastery took place between them, we may take it that they acted in harmony.
During the tenth century Limerick stood in close connection with the Scandinavian Kingdom in the Hebrides.[104] Mention is made of one chieftain “Morann, son of the Sea King of Lewis,”[105] who fought and fell in Limerick against the Irish. Moreover, the occurrence of the names Manus, Maccus (O.N. Magnus) and Somarlidh (O.N. Sumarlithi) in both royal families points at least to relationship by marriage. Indeed, the same family seems to have reigned in both kingdoms. “Godfrey, son of Harold, King of the Hebrides,” who was slain by the Dal Riada in 989[106] was in all probability a son of that “Harold, lord of the foreigners of Limerick,” whose death is recorded by the Four Masters in 940.
Practically nothing is known of the Scandinavian settlement in Waterford[107] (O.N. Vethrafjörthr) before the year 919, when Vikings under Raghnall (O.N. Rögnvaldr), “King of the Danes,” concentrated their forces there before attacking Dublin. These invaders, sometimes called Nortmannai (‘Norsemen’), but generally alluded to as Gaill (‘foreigners’) must have also included Danes, as Raghnall’s army was composed of both Danes and Norsemen;[108] and moreover, both parties are represented as fighting side by side against the Irish in Waterford.[109]
Waterford had not at first a dynasty of its own, but was dependent on the Dublin Kingdom. Olaf Godfreyson seems to have been in command there while his father was King of Dublin;[110] and we hear also that when the town was attacked by the Irish under Cellachan of Cashel, Sihtric, a prince from Dublin, came with a fleet to relieve it.[111] Later in the same century, the kingdom of Waterford stood quite distinct, and was governed by Ivarr (d. 1000), who was probably a member of the Dublin royal family. He came forward as a claimant to the Dublin throne after the murder of Gluniarainn, son of Olaf Cuaran (989) but was driven out after a three years’ reign by Sihtric Silken-Beard. Ivarr’s successors in Waterford, Amond (O.N. Amundr) and Goistilin Gall were killed in the battle of Clontarf.
In the tenth and eleventh centuries Waterford was strongly fortified, and, like Limerick, had gates leading into the town.[112] The town itself was built in the form of a triangle with a tower at each angle,[113] only one of which, the famous Reginald’s Tower, built in 1003, is still standing. Gualtier (? Ir. Gall tír, ‘land of the foreigners’), a barony lying on the west side of the harbour, is supposed to have been connected with the ‘Ostmen,’ who were obliged to settle there after the arrival of the English in 1169.
Cork, the seat of a famous school founded by St. Finbar, fell an easy prey to the Vikings in the first half of the ninth century. They built forts there and at Youghal,[114] but in endeavouring to push their way inland to Fermoy were checked by the Irish (866), and their chief, Gnimcinnsiolla (or Gnimbeolu)[115] was slain. We hear no more of Scandinavians here until early in the tenth century when new invaders, part of the large army which came to Waterford with Raghnall and Earl Ottarr in 919, gained possession of the town. The new settlers seem to have been chiefly, if not entirely, Danes (Danair and Duibhgeinnti),[116] and it would seem that with the Danish colonies at Thurles and Cashel they subsequently came under the authority of Ivarr of Limerick, “the high-king of the foreigners of Munster.”
Traces of the Scandinavian occupation still remain in the place-names on the coast, especially in the districts surrounding the seaport towns. Near Dublin we find Howth (O.N. höfuth, ‘a head’) and Skerries (O.N. skjær, ‘a rock’); also Lambey, Dalkey and Ireland’s Eye, all three containing the O.N. form ey, an ‘island.’ The name Leixlip is probably a form of O.N. laxhleypa[117] (‘salmon-leap’) not, as is generally supposed, of O.N. lax-hlaup. The O.N. fjörthr occurs in Wexford, Strangford and Carlingford (O.N. Kerlingafjörthr).[118] Other Scandinavian names on the east coast are Copeland Islands (i.e., Kaupmannaeyjar, ‘the merchants’ islands’) near Belfast Lough; Arklow, Wicklow (O.N. lo, a low, flat meadow by the water’s edge.); Carnsore and Greenore (O.N. eyrr, ‘a small tongue of land running into the sea’).
The number of names on the south and west coasts is limited; besides Waterford, we find only Helvick (O.N. vík, ‘a bay’), Dursey Island, south-west of Cork, and Swerwick Harbour, in Kerry. At least three well-authenticated place-names have dropped out of use; Dún na Trapcharla, in Co. Limerick (O.N. (1) torf-karl, ‘a turf-cutter’ or (2) thorp-karl, a ‘small farmer’);[119] Jolduhlaup,[120] a cape in the north of Ireland; and Ulfreksfjörthr,[121] the Norse name for Lough Larne.
It is also interesting to note that the second element in the names of the three provinces, Ulster, Leinster and Munster is derived from the O.N. stathir (plural of stathr, ‘a place’), while the name Ireland (O.N. Iraland) is Scandinavian in form and replaced the old Irish word Eríu during the Viking period.