Panel stitched by:
Katherine MacLean
Stitched in:
Lochaber
Technological change often drives politics in unexpected directions. The Hebridean warship known as the birlinn developed from the Viking dreki, the ‘dragon ships’. Naibhig in Gaelic, meaning ‘the little ships’, they were smaller than the longships and much more manoeuvrable as a result not only of scale but a simple innovation. The pilots of the dreki used a steer board (the derivation of starboard because the steer board was usually on the right-hand side) attached to the side of the ship but the birlinns were fitted with a hinged rudder fixed to the keel and therefore in the centre. Over the shallow and rocky coastal waters of the Hebrides, these fast and nimble little ships could go places larger boats with a deeper draught dared not. The birlinns were central to the power of Somerled. Sometimes known as Somerled the Viking, his name is from Sumar-lidi or Summer Raider. Rising to prominence through a mixture of conquest and judicious marriage, he established himself as Lord of the Isles, ruling over an Atlantic principality that included many of the islands of the Southern Hebrides and Argyll. In 1156, Somerled and his captains won a great naval battle against Godred Olafsson and by 1158 he had seized Godred’s kingdom of Man and the Northern Hebrides. But Somerled’s ambitions were not satisfied. In 1164, he sailed a huge army up the Clyde to attack Malcolm IV’s kingdom of Scotland. The expedition ended in disaster, Somerled died, the Islesmen retreated and his vast territories broke into smaller lordships. He is seen as the progenitor of Clan Donald and his descendants succeeded to the lordship until the late Middle Ages.
Panel stitched by:
Katherine MacLean
Stitched in:
Lochaber