40 Life With Vikings

Thousands of people lived in Viking Dublin. There were merchants and craftsmen of all types—carpenters, shipwrights, blacksmiths, weavers, leather-workers, and others. Dublin’s location put it right on the trade routes from Scandinavia down to England, and the Vikings traded vigorously with the people of England and continental Europe. They got wine, silver, and wool from England and Europe, which they sent on up to Scandinavia; from Scandinavia they received amber, ivory, furs, and slaves, which they moved on to European markets.

The Vikings also traded with the Irish people. This brought them into close contact with their new neighbors, and it appears that the two groups coexisted in relative harmony. (Some of those slaves traded by the Vikings did happen to be Irish, but the sad fates of a few individuals didn’t necessarily hurt Viking–Irish relations on the whole; the Irish didn’t all love one another.) The Irish taught the Vikings about Christianity. Members of the two groups married one another and sent their children to be fostered in one another’s homes. Scandinavian artistic styles appear in Irish art around this time, and some of Ireland’s most “characteristic” metalwork patterns of interlaced spirals with free-flowing tendrils, sometimes incorporating the shapes of animals, date from this period.

The Vikings displaced some of the Irish chiefs who had held sway throughout the island. This allowed other Irish families to try to take their places. The most important of these families were the rulers of Dál Cais in the lower Shannon region, who took over the lands of the displaced Eóghanacht.

In the first half of the eighth century, the Irish lord Cennétig, son of Lorcán, became king of north Munster, a region called Thomond; he died in 951. Cennétig had two sons, Mathgamain and Brian. Mathgamain added east Munster to his kingdom, along with the Viking-controlled areas of Limerick and Waterford. He became known as king of Cashel.

Mathgamain died in 976. His brother Brian succeeded him and became known as Brian Boru, the greatest of Ireland’s high kings.