The Vikings

The fact that Dublin became the capital of Ireland was deter mined by the economic importance of its mercantile connections in the tenth and eleventh centuries. Archaeological excavations in Dublin over the last two decades have revealed the extent of its activities as a manufacturing and trading centre. Dublin had specialised craftsmen, especially bronze-smiths, combmakers and leatherworkers. Imported items recovered also revealed the extent of Dublin's external trading contacts. Some time after the middle of the eleventh century the fine metalworkers of Dublin began producing goods for the Irish hinterland. By the end of the eleventh century Scandinavian styles and tastes were exercising a dominant influence on Irish artwork produced in such native centres as Clonmacnoise.

The small Hiberno-Norse colonies centred on the trading towns of Dublin, Waterford, Wexford, Limerick and Cork were not politically powerful. On the contrary, they were all subjected from the mid-tenth century to the overlordship of the more powerful of the Irish kings. But the Scandinavian towns did constitute an important dynamic element in Irish society, engaging in an expanding trade and increasingly influencing Ireland's communications with the outside world. They provided an important additional source of wealth for those Irish kings who subjected them to their overlordship, chiefly in the form of silver exacted as tribute or rents. The more powerful Irish kings also learned to use ships, at sea and on the rivers and lakes in their military man oeuvres.

The positive and enduring benefits accruing from the Hiberno Norse settlements more than offset the short-term limited destructive effects of the period of Viking raids, which have been so highlighted in the past. The traditional perception of the Vikings as merely robbers and plunderers, as negative and destructive irritants of Irish society, was derived largely from the monastic annalists. It has been modified considerably by historical and archaeological research in recent years; in the case of Ireland, particularly by the archaeological evidence emanating from Dublin in the last two decades. The Dublin excavations attested to the peaceful and productive co-existence with an integration into Irish society of the Vikings.

The long-running controversy between developers and archaeologists which occurred at the site of the Wood Quay excavations in Dublin during the 1970s forced the citizens of Dublin at least to re-evaluate the Viking contribution to their city. The result was a convincing vote in favour of the Viking heritage. On 23 September 1978 no less than 15,000 people marched to protest against proposals to build high-rise offices for Dublin Corporation on the Wood Quay site. And over a quarter of a million people signed a petition for its preservation. They lobbied to preserve the Viking contribution to the foundation of the city of Dublin, which they had come to perceive as valuable and important. Although offices for Dublin Corporation were subsequently built on the Wood Quay site, the enduring victory of the Wood Quay protest has been the enriched understanding and popular enthusiasm and concern for the Viking contribution to their origins among the present generation of Dubliners, a re-evaluation which hopefully will be absorbed by all the inhabitants of Ireland.

The preoccupation with Viking violence in the past obscured the process of settlement and integration of the Vikings into Irish society. Once the Viking settlers were converted to Christianity, once intermarriage took place and once local roots were put down, the Vikings made no effort or had no desire to stand apart from Irish society. The Viking age in Ireland ended with the Scandinavian settlers becoming part of Irish society.

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From the Appletree Press title: The People of Ireland (currently out of print).
Also see A Little History of Ireland.