On Good Friday 1014, the opposing forces faced each other at Clontarf, outside Dublin. There were two Irish armies, but both with their Viking allies. Of these Vikings it was said they carried arrows anointed and browned in the blood of dragons. The...
Brian did not see himself as a king among equals but as high king of all Ireland, and with a mighty army he set about trying to control the island. In the only statement of his that we know about, he describes himself as Imperator Scottorum, Emperor...
By the 11th century, the Vikings who had settled in Ireland, the Hiberno-Norse, had been here for over a century and a half. Theyd intermarried, become Christian and formed local alliances. Theyd founded thriving port cities like Waterford, Wexford,...
For over 40 years, the Vikings raided Irelands coastal villages and monasteries, carrying off plunder and slaves in their long boats. They struck suddenly and caught the Irish unawares. So the Vikings became bolder and began to sail down the rivers o...
The Vikings who would eventually descend on Ireland had their ancestral roots here in Norway. From these fjords, they created a maritime empire that stretched from the shores of America in the west to central Russia in the east. The Viking world of t...