CHAPTER V.
SHIPBUILDING AND SEAFARING.
The almost complete absence of any allusion to Irish ships[149] during the eighth and ninth centuries shows that at this time the Irish had no warships to drive back the powerful naval forces of the Vikings. Meeting with no opposition on sea the invaders were able to anchor their fleets in the large harbours, and afterwards to occupy certain important positions along the coasts. In this connection it is interesting to note that the Irish word longphort (a ‘shipstead’; later, ‘a camp’) is used for the first time in the Annals of Ulster with reference to the Norse encampments at Dublin and Linn-Duachaill (840); hence it has been concluded that the early Norse long-phorts were not exactly fortified camps, but ‘ships drawn up and protected on the landside, probably by a stockaded earthwork.’[150]
The Annalists tell how, when the Vikings were expelled from Dublin in 902, they fled across the sea to England, leaving large numbers of their ships behind them. It was probably the capture of these vessels that impressed upon the Irish the advantages of this new method of warfare, for they now began to build ships and to prepare to meet the Vikings in their own element.[151] In 913 a “new fleet,” manned by Ulstermen, attacked the Norsemen off the coast of Man but was defeated.[152] Another Ulster fleet commanded by Muirchertach mac Neill, King of Aileach, sailed to the Hebrides in 939 and carried off much spoil and booty.[153] Moreover, the Irish seem to have imitated the Scandinavian practice of “drawing” or carrying their light vessels over land to the lakes and rivers in the interior of the island. Mention is made of Domhnall, son of Muirchertach, who “took the boats from the river Bann on to Lough Neagh, and over the river Blackwater upon Lough Erne, and afterwards upon Lough Uachtair.”[154]
The men of Munster also had their navy, which they organised according to Norse methods[155] by compelling each district in the different counties to contribute ten ships to it. Thus by the middle of the tenth century they were able to put a formidable fleet to sea. When Cellachan of Cashel (d. 954) was captured by the Vikings and brought to Dublin, he sent messengers to the Munstermen bidding them to defend their territory: “and afterwards,” he said, “go to the chieftains of my fleet and bring them with you to Sruth na Maeile (Mull of Cantyre), and if I am carried away from Ireland, let the men of Munster take their ships and follow me.”[156] The chronicle goes on to give a vivid description of the great naval battle which followed: the Vikings under the leadership of Sihtric, a prince from Dublin, took up their position in the Bay of Dundalk, where the “barques and swift ships of the men of Munster” met them. The Irish ships were arranged according to the territories they represented: those of Corcolaigdi and Ui Echach (Co. Cork) were placed farthest south; next came the fleets of Corcoduibne and Ciarraige (Co. Kerry), and lastly those of Clare. When the Munstermen saw Cellachan, who had been bound and fettered to the mast by Sihtric’s orders, they made gallant attempts to release him; some of them leaped upon “the rowbenches and strong oars of the mighty ships” of the Norsemen, while others threw tough ropes of hemp across the prows to prevent them from escaping. Failbhe, King of Corcoduibne, brought his ship alongside Sihtric’s, and with his sword succeeded in cutting the ropes and fetters that were round the King, but was himself slain immediately afterwards. The battle ended in victory for the Irish: the Norsemen were forced to leave the harbour with all their ships, but “they carried neither King nor chieftain with them.”[157]
The War of the Gaedhil with the Gaill records still more victories for the Munster fleet during the reign of Brian Borumha. In 984 he assembled “a great marine fleet” on Lough Derg and took three hundred boats up the Shannon to Lough Ree[158] and again in 1001 sailed with his fleet to Athlone.[159] But the greatest triumph of all was in 1005, when Brian, then at the height of his power, “sent forth a naval expedition composed of the foreigners of Dublin and Waterford and the Ui Ceinnselaigh (i.e., the men of Wexford) and almost all the men of Erin, such of them as were fit to go to sea; and they levied royal tribute from the Saxons and the Britons and from the men of Lennox in Scotland and the inhabitants of Argyle.”[160]
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records the names of a number of Frisian sailors who fought with the English in a naval battle against the Vikings (A. an. 897). In the same way the Irish ships must have been manned to a large extent by Norse mercenaries or by the Gaill-Gaedhil, for practically all the shipping terms introduced into Irish in the tenth and eleventh centuries are of Norse origin.[161] This is evident from the following list:—
| Mid. Ir. abor, abur: | O.N. hábora, ‘an oar hole.’ |
| Accaire: | O.N. akkeri, ‘an anchor.’ |
| Accarsoid: | O.N. akkerissaeti, ‘a harbour for ships.’ |
| Achtuaim: | O.N. aktaumr, ‘a brace.’ |
| athbha: | phonetic form (af, av) of O.N. höfuth, ‘head’ of a ship. |
| Allsad: | O.N. halsa, ‘to slacken a sail.’ |
| As: | O.N. ass, ‘the pole to which the lower end of a sail was fastened during a fair wind.’ |
| bat, bad: | O.N. bátr, ‘a boat.’ |
| birling: | O.N. byrthingr, ‘a transport vessel,’ ‘a merchant ship.’[162] |
| carb: | O.N. karfi, ‘a ship.’ |
| cnairr: | O.N. knörr, ‘a merchant ship.’ |
| laideng: | O.N. leithangr, ‘naval forces.’ |
| lipting: | O.N. lypting, ‘a taffrail.’ |
| lunnta, lunn (in reania): | O.N. hlunnr, ‘the handle of an oar.’ |
| scib: | O.N. skip, ‘a ship,’ whence also are derived sciobaire, ‘a sailor’ and scipad and sgiobadh, ‘to make ready for sailing.’ |
| tile: | O.N. thili, ‘a plank,’ ‘the bottom board in a boat.’ |
| Tlusdais (? teldass): | O.N. tjaldáss, ‘the horizontal topmast of a ship.’ |
| uicing, a word used for ‘a fleet’: uiginnecht, piracy: | O.N. Víkingr, ‘one who haunts a bay or creek.’ |