The
Irish History
And
The Fighting Irish
And
The Fighting Irish
( Ireland and the Viking Invasion )
battle of the Weir of Clontarf was one of the decisive battles of history, for it not only warded off
Danish rule from Ireland, but it probably even altered the whole subsequent history of Europe. Had the Danes been victorious and gotten possession of Ireland, they would doubtless have founded a kingdom which would have been the greatest step towards the formation of a far-flung northern empire, with its centre in London. For three centuries they strove desperately for possession of the prize, but they were unable to accomplish in those three hundred years in Ireland as much as they had accomplished in one year in northern France and in England.
After Clontarf , the Danes who were left in Ireland settled down and became as Irish as the Irish themselves, but nearly 100 years after the battle the foreigners made a final attempt to get control of Ireland. In the year 1098 the famous Norwegian King, Magnus Barelegs, so called because he dressed in the Irish fashion, who fills a large place in the romantic history of the period, came to Ireland with a mighty force. He had conquered the Hebrides and Man and had already made many visits to Ireland, and was more than half Irish in feeling and culture. He used Irish in his poems and was in love as he says, with " the Irish girl whom i love better than myself. " According to the Manx Chronicle, he sent his shoes to Muirchertach, Emperor of Ireland, and ordered him to wear them on his shoulders on Christmas day in the presence of his ambassador, as a token of his submission, and Muirchertach obeyed his command. Other old chronicles say that Magnus married Muirchertach's daughter and that afterwards he sent her back to her father. When he was killed in battle in Ulster, in the year 1103, he left a son, afterwards, King Harald Gille, who was born either in Ireland or the hebrides, of an Irish mother.
The Viking age was by no means a starless night in Ireland, nor was society so horribly disorganised as is generally believed. It was marked by the lives of Irish Chiefs of outstanding ability, of some of the greatest figures in Nordic history, and of women of unusual personality. Even in those days of terror and danger from foreign invasion, when an enemy fleet stood in every port and soldiers were encamped in many parts of the country, Ireland was still in the full current of European life. Though internecine feuds and battles with the Danes took up much of the Chieftain's time, other things besides spears and swords were exchanged between the Irish and the invader. In no other land in which these two peoples of such different culture came together did each learn so much from the other as in Ireland. In matters of agriculture and cattle raising the Irish were teachers of the Norsemen, but in other purely material pursuits the civilisation of the Norse was superior to that of the Irish.
Though by the iddle of the seventh century, in the pre-Viking period, Ireland had made considerable progress in the art of ship construction, it was above all from the hardy sailors of the north that they learned to build and sail great ships and to organise fleets, to use iron armour, to fight on horse back and no longer from chariots or on foot, to build stone forts and bridges, and to live in fortified cities surrounded by walls. By the middle of the tenth century, Dublin, Limerick, Cork, Waterford, all Viking establishments, were strong walled places.
Nor were the Vikings mere sea robbers; they were merchants as well. Since they controlled the seas, for a long time all trade and shipping between Limerick and other Irish ports and the west of France and Spain was in their hands. They exported Ireland's products and imported all that Ireland wanted, as wheat, wine, costly silks, and fine leather, and they helped to introduce foreign fashions into Ireland.
The first Irish coins that were struck in Ireland were minted by Norse Kings who hed court in Dublin; they have been found in Norway and elsewhere and point to the trade carried on between the two countries. The Irish probably also adopted the northern systen of weights and measures. How much irish society and domestic life were influenced by Norse occupation is seen in the irish language itself, in which there is scarcely a word meaning a large ship or its parts or makers or trade that is not borrowed from the Norse, if it is not from Latin. Even the by which, in English, we call Erin, is from the old Norse Ireland and the English names of three of the present day provinces, Munster, Leinster and Ulster, have a Norse termination, ' stadr ' " place " added to the Gaelic stem.
Donegal ( Dun na Gall ) " the fort of the foreigners " got its name from a fort built by the Vikings. But these are the exceptions. there are scarcely more than a dozen Norse place names on the whole map of Irelan and these are mostly on or near the sea coast, while there are over a thousand in middle and northern England. This is one of the
surest signs that there was no real conquest or occupation of the country. The Norse and the Irish had to understand each other to some appreciable extent, and it was the language of the invader that gave way to that of the invaded.
As a result of intermarriage, there was an exchange of Irish and Scandinavian peronal names, and such typical Irish names as Cormac, Patrick, Dubthach ( Duffy ) are found in Morse sagas. The children of these marriages were called Mael-Muire, Gilla Patraic, and other Christian names. On the other hand, some Norse personal names such as Somhairle ( MacSorley ) Raghnall ( MacRanald ) Amhlaobh ( MacAuliffe ) Dubhghall ( Doyle ) Maghnus
( MacManus) Iomhar ( MacIvors ) have become popular and important surnames.
After Clontarf , the Danes who were left in Ireland settled down and became as Irish as the Irish themselves, but nearly 100 years after the battle the foreigners made a final attempt to get control of Ireland. In the year 1098 the famous Norwegian King, Magnus Barelegs, so called because he dressed in the Irish fashion, who fills a large place in the romantic history of the period, came to Ireland with a mighty force. He had conquered the Hebrides and Man and had already made many visits to Ireland, and was more than half Irish in feeling and culture. He used Irish in his poems and was in love as he says, with " the Irish girl whom i love better than myself. " According to the Manx Chronicle, he sent his shoes to Muirchertach, Emperor of Ireland, and ordered him to wear them on his shoulders on Christmas day in the presence of his ambassador, as a token of his submission, and Muirchertach obeyed his command. Other old chronicles say that Magnus married Muirchertach's daughter and that afterwards he sent her back to her father. When he was killed in battle in Ulster, in the year 1103, he left a son, afterwards, King Harald Gille, who was born either in Ireland or the hebrides, of an Irish mother.
The Viking age was by no means a starless night in Ireland, nor was society so horribly disorganised as is generally believed. It was marked by the lives of Irish Chiefs of outstanding ability, of some of the greatest figures in Nordic history, and of women of unusual personality. Even in those days of terror and danger from foreign invasion, when an enemy fleet stood in every port and soldiers were encamped in many parts of the country, Ireland was still in the full current of European life. Though internecine feuds and battles with the Danes took up much of the Chieftain's time, other things besides spears and swords were exchanged between the Irish and the invader. In no other land in which these two peoples of such different culture came together did each learn so much from the other as in Ireland. In matters of agriculture and cattle raising the Irish were teachers of the Norsemen, but in other purely material pursuits the civilisation of the Norse was superior to that of the Irish.
Though by the iddle of the seventh century, in the pre-Viking period, Ireland had made considerable progress in the art of ship construction, it was above all from the hardy sailors of the north that they learned to build and sail great ships and to organise fleets, to use iron armour, to fight on horse back and no longer from chariots or on foot, to build stone forts and bridges, and to live in fortified cities surrounded by walls. By the middle of the tenth century, Dublin, Limerick, Cork, Waterford, all Viking establishments, were strong walled places.
Nor were the Vikings mere sea robbers; they were merchants as well. Since they controlled the seas, for a long time all trade and shipping between Limerick and other Irish ports and the west of France and Spain was in their hands. They exported Ireland's products and imported all that Ireland wanted, as wheat, wine, costly silks, and fine leather, and they helped to introduce foreign fashions into Ireland.
The first Irish coins that were struck in Ireland were minted by Norse Kings who hed court in Dublin; they have been found in Norway and elsewhere and point to the trade carried on between the two countries. The Irish probably also adopted the northern systen of weights and measures. How much irish society and domestic life were influenced by Norse occupation is seen in the irish language itself, in which there is scarcely a word meaning a large ship or its parts or makers or trade that is not borrowed from the Norse, if it is not from Latin. Even the by which, in English, we call Erin, is from the old Norse Ireland and the English names of three of the present day provinces, Munster, Leinster and Ulster, have a Norse termination, ' stadr ' " place " added to the Gaelic stem.
Donegal ( Dun na Gall ) " the fort of the foreigners " got its name from a fort built by the Vikings. But these are the exceptions. there are scarcely more than a dozen Norse place names on the whole map of Irelan and these are mostly on or near the sea coast, while there are over a thousand in middle and northern England. This is one of the
surest signs that there was no real conquest or occupation of the country. The Norse and the Irish had to understand each other to some appreciable extent, and it was the language of the invader that gave way to that of the invaded.
As a result of intermarriage, there was an exchange of Irish and Scandinavian peronal names, and such typical Irish names as Cormac, Patrick, Dubthach ( Duffy ) are found in Morse sagas. The children of these marriages were called Mael-Muire, Gilla Patraic, and other Christian names. On the other hand, some Norse personal names such as Somhairle ( MacSorley ) Raghnall ( MacRanald ) Amhlaobh ( MacAuliffe ) Dubhghall ( Doyle ) Maghnus
( MacManus) Iomhar ( MacIvors ) have become popular and important surnames.
Though the Viking invasion checked the normal development of Irish civilisation, undid what the efforts of successive centuries had realised, and gave Ireland such a shock that learning scarcely ever fully recovered from it, a brilliant intellectual life prevailed during that period and, in all the things that pertained to the mind, the Irish were far superior to their invaders and Irish genius made itself felt upon them. The names of Norse students are found among those who attended Ireland's most celebrated university, Clonmacnois, in the first half of the eleventh century. Streams of professors, students and missionaries continued to flow to the continent, some of them no doubt fleeing from the Vikings.
Irish sculpture, building, metal work, art and ornament, flourished and influenced the art of the Scandinavians. The most important and most beautiful illuminated manuscripts, both in Latin and in Irish, date from that period, and some of the greatest poets in Irish literature , such as Flann MacLonain, " the Vergil of the Gael, " Cinaed ua Hartacain, Eochaid O Flinn, Cormacan Eces, MacLaig, the court bard of Brian Boru, and many others flourished in it. It was Irish scholars who introduced the literature of Greece and Rome to the men of the north. At the Norwegian court of " Dublin of the Festal Drinking Horns, " Icelandic skalds and Irish bards composed and sang their poems and Irish and Icelandic sagamen, the best story tellers in the world, told their stories. The irish influence on the early literature of Iceland is unmistakable. Indeed the Norse were the imitators of the Irish, and certain northern types, motives and forms of style are clearly of Irish origin, or have been developed through Irish influence. The Irish were also of considerable influence in softening the wild manners of the Norsemen with whom they came in contact, and above all it is to the Irish that they owe their Christianity. For at least two generations before Clontarf, Christianity had taken a deep root among the Norse in Ireland, and by the end of the tenth or beginning of the eleventh century Dublin was a complete Christian City with churches and cloisters and was known as Ath Cliath na cloc " Dublin rich in bells, Ath Cliath na land's na lecht " Dublin the city of churches and graveyards. "
Irish sculpture, building, metal work, art and ornament, flourished and influenced the art of the Scandinavians. The most important and most beautiful illuminated manuscripts, both in Latin and in Irish, date from that period, and some of the greatest poets in Irish literature , such as Flann MacLonain, " the Vergil of the Gael, " Cinaed ua Hartacain, Eochaid O Flinn, Cormacan Eces, MacLaig, the court bard of Brian Boru, and many others flourished in it. It was Irish scholars who introduced the literature of Greece and Rome to the men of the north. At the Norwegian court of " Dublin of the Festal Drinking Horns, " Icelandic skalds and Irish bards composed and sang their poems and Irish and Icelandic sagamen, the best story tellers in the world, told their stories. The irish influence on the early literature of Iceland is unmistakable. Indeed the Norse were the imitators of the Irish, and certain northern types, motives and forms of style are clearly of Irish origin, or have been developed through Irish influence. The Irish were also of considerable influence in softening the wild manners of the Norsemen with whom they came in contact, and above all it is to the Irish that they owe their Christianity. For at least two generations before Clontarf, Christianity had taken a deep root among the Norse in Ireland, and by the end of the tenth or beginning of the eleventh century Dublin was a complete Christian City with churches and cloisters and was known as Ath Cliath na cloc " Dublin rich in bells, Ath Cliath na land's na lecht " Dublin the city of churches and graveyards. "
The sun sets over the ancient landscape of Ireland from the Hill of Tara
Source used: A beautiful book and well worth having " The Story of the Irish Race " by Seumas MacManus
Published By Devin-Adair
Published By Devin-Adair
