Focusing more specifically on the arrival of the Vikings in Ireland and its relations with the local Gaelic peoples also seem of little importance if we compare them with its great adventures in Iceland and the North Atlantic, in England and the West, and of course in the East, at the hands of the Varangians.
Ireland thus remains isolated, like a microcosm that develops an alternative history barely connected to the feudal world that was forming beyond its shores.
Today we know, however, that the island of Ireland underwent an evolution very similar to that of the rest of a Western world which, during the decades surrounding the year 1000, was already leaving behind the echoes of that so-called Dark Age and faced the formation of a unitary feudal Christian world, which opened, like an arch, from the Duero to the Elbe.
It is the purpose of this brief essay, reverse that image of isolation of the island of Ireland with respect to the rest of the West, and demonstrate, through the analysis of a specific episode in its history, its link with the rest of the Christian feudal world.
Medieval Ireland
In the 10th century, which is when the episode we are about to narrate takes place, Ireland was not a political unit. Since time immemorial, the island was divided into endless kingdoms and clans different connected to each other by all sorts of pacts and ethnic and family ties. A heterogeneous world that had remained little changed since the Iron Age, and now, little by little, faced its slow disappearance.1
Changes in the old Ireland that were given by three fundamental elements, such as:the arrival of Christianity (5th century), the consolidation of the figure of the supreme king ( ard ri ) which, from a symbolic institution with legendary overtones, now becomes a political reality, and finally the arrival of the first Scandinavians in Ireland with the intention of settling down.
Of these three decisive elements it was the last of them, the arrival of the Vikings, the one that produced the most drastic changes, since in just a couple of generations since their arrival, the Norse found the first stable towns in Ireland. Important mercantile centers, always coastal, where the powerful Dublin stood out. , a key city in the Scandinavian commercial emporium in Europe, and which the Irish called the "city of foreigners".2
Therefore, around the 10th century, we have two great powers facing each other on the island:one Viking (Danish in the case of Dublin) that drained the resources of Ireland and at the same time it was an unparalleled commercial (almost cosmopolitan) showcase for the Gaels. And on the other hand a heterogeneous Christian Gaelic power whose most intelligent leaders (and also most ambitious) tried to unify the island in order to stand up to the invading pagans more effectively.
One of these leaders was Muirchertach mac Neill , king of Ailech, 3 who now emerges as a key figure in this bipolar context of struggles between the Irish and the Vikings.
Muirchertach mac Neill, also known as Muirchertach of the Leather Cloaks, was the son of Niall Glubdub , High King of Ireland, killed in battle against the Danish King of Dublin, Sitric the Blind , in 919.
Muirchertach aspired to be High King as his father was, although he wanted to be High King in a way that held power de facto – more than symbolically. A leader capable of having all the kingdoms, provinces and clans of Ireland under his command, in order to be able to efficiently face the invaders.
This aspiration was not easy to achieve since Muirchertach had two drawbacks:on the one hand, the Scandinavian power on the island, with Dublin at the forefront, was at its peak. While on the other hand, the new high king since 919 was a scheming and cruel man named Donnchad Don (Muirchertach's father-in-law by the way). A king who was unable to defend the territory against the Viking threat, as evidenced by the looting of much of the north of the island from 921.4
Muirchertach, on the other hand, was a character with an almost fictional life, capable of defeating the Vikings on at least five occasions between 921 and 933, who saw his palace and his kingdom looted in 939 being taken prisoner by a Danish flotilla and managing to escape, to later launch the assault on the Hebrides islands , thus entering the hostile seas of the north, dominated by the Vikings, to return to Ireland with an immense booty.
But Muirchertach knew that despite his deeds, they would never be enough to defeat the Nords. He had to unite the clans and kingdoms, by force if necessary.
The thousand of Muirchertach
And to achieve his goal, our man undertakes what various sources have come to call "Ireland circuit". A route that begins in Ailech, to the north, and that, following the solar direction (clockwise), goes around the island over 33 days. A circuit that has much of a propaganda campaign in order to claim the position of supreme king against his mother-in-law, and in order also to show himself strong against his enemies (wayward Irish kings and of course Nordic kings from Dublin and other cities).
For this propaganda exercise to have an echo throughout the island, he wanted to be accompanied by a thousand of his warriors, whom he dressed in striking leather capes. "The home and refuge of the heroes of Muirchertach", to say the bard Cormacán ,5 who was part of the procession, and who later wrote a long poem describing the different stages that the thousand of Muirchertach went through from leaving their houses in Ailech until they return to the starting point.
This “tour of Ireland” was a curious journey that aroused the admiration of the people and surely the fear of many others, minor kings and chiefs of different clans, who paid homage and fidelity to Muirchertach by degree or by force.
His popularity grew even more when on the seventh day of his route, he arrived in Dublin, pitching his camp there, and demanding that the Danes return the spoils of looting to the Danes. that had subjected Ireland for years, as well as the liberation of the Gaelic slaves. They then take the King of Dublin, Gotfrith the Cruel, hostage and Muirchertach hands him over to his mother-in-law.
The whole island must have been talking about Muirchertach by now:King of Ailech, son of Niall Glubdub, son-in-law of the High King, circling Ireland, performing deeds accompanied by her bards, her priests, and a thousand of her warriors.
An epic worthy of Fionn mac Cumhaill and his brave Fenians, 7 and in any case a clever propaganda exercise that paved the way for our hero to the supreme throne of Ireland against his father-in-law Donnchad, an old man at that time.
But fate would have it that he did not enjoy the fame he had acquired, since a year after finishing his warrior and propaganda epic, Muirchertach dies in battle against the vengeful sons of the King of Dublin.
It was March 943.
There will not be in all the chronicles of Ireland a more emotional farewell to any of its heroes than the one left us by the Annals of Ulster .8
Thus, we face the second half of the 10th century on an island that was experiencing the same process of concentration of power that was being experienced in other parts of Europe (whether in the hands of kings or great feudal lords), and where the Nordics had a vital role, parallel to the one they played in England with the formation of great kingdoms such as that of York, or even similar to that of the Varangians in the East, with the creation of the Russian principalities.
A process that will definitely be consolidated with the Christianization of the Vikings, and that will lead to the creation of a mixed Norse-Gaelic culture that will culminate when the king from Dublin, Olaf Cuarán , take as wife an Irish princess named Dunlaith , daughter of our hero Muirchertach.
Ireland thus enters a new historical period, and –like Muirchertach and his warriors– also closes his particular journey:the cycle that began with the introduction of Christianity and which ends now with the formation of a mixed culture with future projection.
Ireland is already opening its doors to the European feudal world and to Western Christianity.
Notes
1 For the political division of Ireland see Michael Richter, New Gill History Of Ireland, vol I Medieval Ireland , (Dublin, Gill &Macmillan, 1988) pp 31 and 32.
2 Numerous Irish chronicles mention Dublin (Áth Cliath in the Celtic language) as a city of foreigners. For example, the Annals of Ulster, for the year 938, say verbatim:"...he deployed an army to besiege the foreigners of Áth Cliath."
3 Ailech was a kingdom located in the province of Ulster, homeland of the powerful Ui Neill clan of the north.
4 Attested by the Annals of Ulster and the Annals of Inisfallen, among other chronicles.
5 Cormacán, died in the year 948, was chief of the bards of Ulster. His poem can be read in English thanks to the translation of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland and the studies of Henry Morris, one of his members, in 1936.
7 The Fenians, or fianna, were groups of autonomous warriors, mercenaries, and bandits who lived on the fringes of society. In the so-called Fennian Cycle they were led by the mythological hero Fionn mac Cumhaill
8 The Annals of Ulster, for the year 943, leave us two moving epitaphs:
“ Muirchertach son of Niall, Muirchertach of the Leathercloaks, king of Ailech and Hector of the western world, has been slain by Blacair son of Gothfrith, king of foreigners.”
« It is painful that Muirchertach has ceased to exist,
the land of the famous Irish has been orphaned.”
Primary sources
- Annals of Clonmacnoise:
From the beginning of Creation to 1408. - Annals of Ulster:
Chronicle covering AD 431 to 1540 - Annals of Innisfallen:
From 433 AD to 1450. - The Circuit of Ireland. By Muirchertach na gCochall gCroiceann A.D. 941 written by Cormacán. Translated and annotated by the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland. Vol. 6, No. 1 (June 30, 1936), pp. 9-31
Bigliography
- A New History of Ireland, vol I, Prehistoric and Early Ireland. Edited by Dáibhí Ó Cróinín. Oxford University Press, 2005.
- John Francis Byrne, Irish Kings and High Kings, Dublin, 1973.
- Morgan Llywelyn, The Vikings in Ireland, Dublin, 1996.
- New Gill History Of Ireland, vol I, Medieval Ireland, Michael Richter, 1st edition translated from German to English, 1988.