The Scandinavian impact on Irish seafaring technology

Courtesy Medievalists.net:
"In the Middle Ages mariners from both Ireland and Scandinavia sailed the North Atlantic, but in different types of ships and for very different reasons. The Irish sailors appear to have favoured skin-covered ships called curraghs as the means by which they sought out remote islands on which to establish monastic retreats. The Norsemen, however, travelled the northern seas in clinker-built wooden vessels seeking plunder, land and trade. When at the end of the eighth century the Vikings invaded Ireland, these two distinct seafaring traditions came into contact with one another. This thesis is an analysis of the impact that the arrival of Scandinavian seafaring technology had upon that of the indigenous Irish." The full text of this 1984 Master's Thesis by Garth Stewart Wilson may be read in PDF format at the University of British Columbia's website.

Ancient Ireland: The Vikings

Courtesy of the Witches' Voice, Inc:


"The Viking Age in Ireland began in 795 when the Viking sea kings pillaged the Christian monasteries on the island’s west coast. Prior to the Viking age, Ireland was a remote island at the edge of the civilized world. Unlike the neighboring island of Britain, Ireland had not been a part of the Roman empire and this meant that it did not have roads, cities, or political institutions. It was generally seen by people in “civilized” Europe as being inhabited by a barbarous race. Following the Christianization of Ireland by St. Patrick, Ireland became the home to many monasteries. The monasteries were usually poorly defended militarily and they contained easily portable treasures and sacred relics which the Christian monks would pay high ransoms to retain. The monasteries thus attracted the Viking raiders." Read the full article at The Daily Kos.

The Poet and the Spae-Wife: An Attempt to Reconstruct Al-Ghazal’s Embassy to the Vikings

Courtesy of Medievalists.net:

"The  purpose  of  the  present  essay  is  to  review  the
evidence  for  the  authenticity  of  al-Ghazal's  embassy  to
the  Vikings:  to  affirm  that the  first  Viking  attack  on  the
emirate  of  Cordova  in  844  was  a  Norwegian  adventure
undertaken  by  way  of  the  Biscay  coast  from  original
bases in  Ireland; and that al-Ghazal was sent by the amir
Abd-al-Rahman  II  to  the  Norwegians  in  Ireland  where
he  encountered Turgeis  and his  wife  Ota."

Note that many myths and stereotypes about the Vikings have been dispelled thanks to the less biased accounts written about them by Arab chroniclers. The complete PDF of this 1960 essay by W.E.D. Allen may be found at Saga-Book.

Hiberno-Danish Coins: The Danish Kings of Ireland

Courtesy Medievalists.net: "“It must surprise those who examine the history of Ireland that so little appears known respecting the social position of those Scandinavians who under the common name of Ostmen or of Danes, occupied our principal seaports from the ninth to the twelfth century, and that even local historians are silent respecting the civil and religious institutions, the works and monumental remains of a people, who not only inhabited and ruled over Dublin for more than three hundred years, but who, if not the founders of the city, were unquestionably the cause of its metropolitan supremacy..." The Danes are generally credited with developing Dublin into a major city. The full PDF file may be viewed here.

The Enchanted Islands: A comparison of mythological traditions from Ireland and Iceland

Ósvör Fishing Museum at Bolungarvik, Iceland Image from Wikimedia Commons

Originally posted at Medievalists.net. The Enchanted Islands: A comparison of mythological traditions from Ireland and Iceland, by Katarzyna Herd, Master’s Thesis, University of Jyväskylä, 2008: "The later conversion to Christianity did not destroy completely the previous, older cults. In some areas the old stories were erased almost totally, but every now and then a Christian monk, a true follower of a new faith, felt the need to preserve those mysterious legends of his ancestors. That was the case in Ireland and Iceland, where the two major mythologies, the Norse and the Celtic, were written down." Read the full thesis here.