Raiding & Trading
Vikings from all parts of Scandinavia had a reputation as invaders and raiders. They were also traders, merchants, farmers, and artisans. The attack of Vikings on the monastery at Lindisfarne in 793 is considered the beginning of the Viking age, and not much later in 795, Vikings appeared in Inis Muirígh and Inis Bó Finne, on the northwest coast of Ireland.
Viking Settlements in Ireland
Between 795 CE and the middle of the 10th century, Scandinavian traders and travelers from Denmark, Norway, and Sweden settled in, and developed, important Irish towns. Historians distinguish two main groups of Viking raiders in Ireland: the Lochlannach, or Norwegians, and the Danair, or Danes. Initially, the Norwegians dominated, and their raids were sporadic and unsystematic.
From about 830, however, a new phase of large-scale attacks began, involving the use of fleets of longships, and the Vikings used rivers and lakes to penetrate deep inland. Attracted by the wealth of Irish monasteries and churches, the Vikings plundered them steadily, and created the first of their fortified settlements in Ireland.
In 852, Danes seized control of the military and trading post of Dublin from the Irish-born Norwegian King Olaf (in Irish Amlaoimh) and founded a Danish kingdom there which significantly expanded the importance of Dublin as a trading hub in the Western Viking world. Viking control of Dublin was to last about three hundred years, until the coming of the Anglo-Normans. “Lochlannach” is still Irish for “Viking.”
Archaeology
A surprising discovery in Dublin challenges long-held ideas about when the Scandinavian raiders arrived on the Emerald Isle.
An excellent overview of current thinking about Viking and Irish cultural history from Archaeology magazine.
This is a nice series of short videos (~5 minutes or less) on Viking Ireland put out by the National Museum of Ireland.
Irish Immigration to Boston
While Irish citizens had been relocating to the United States for over a hundred years, the numbers of immigrants increased drastically in the years between 1845 and 1850.
This period is sometimes known as the Great Hunger, after the potato famine that crippled the country and sent many Irish searching for homes elsewhere. Boston was one of the main seaports of their landing. By 1850, 35,000 of Boston’s 136,000 residents were Irish. So if you are Irish in Boston (especially if you have relatives in Dublin, Wexford, Waterford, Limerick, or Cork) you may have some Viking blood in you.
The Balinderry Sword, mid-ninth century, at the National Museum of Ireland