Vikings
Normans
Background Image | The Hook Lighthouse, County Wexford, earth’s oldest operating lighthouse, was commissioned by William Marshal and completed around 1230
Vikings • Normans
Arriving at Dublin Airport, one finds oneself in the northern district of Dublin called Fingal. The name derives from the Gaeilge (or Irish-language) words fine and gall, meaning “tribe” and “foreigners,” respectively. Originally, it referred to a settlement of Vikings, invaders from Scandinavia. The first of this module’s two units rehearses key data about the Vikings (or Norse) in Ireland. Like Dublin, Wexford Town has Norwegian-Viking roots; the name Wexford is a way of rendering a Norwegian phrase translatable as “bay of the mudflats.”
The Vikings who first attacked Ireland worshipped their own gods (such as Thor). By the mid-twelfth century, their descendants living in Ireland had Christianized. Beginning in 1169, both they and the native Irish faced a major incursion from Cambro-Norman (or Welsh-Norman) lords. The module’s second unit summarizes important dimensions of the Normans’ impact upon Ireland, especially its Southeast region. Overall, the unit posits Ireland as historically multicultural. It also conveys how pre-modern legacies continue to affect Irish culture.
VIKINGS
also known as Norse
Multicultural Medieval Ireland
Vikings (Norse) \ Multicultural Medieval Ireland
¶ Norwegian and (to a lesser degree) Danish Vikings first engaged with Ireland by conducting hit-and-run raids, mainly targeted at monasteries, which often possessed considerable material wealth, derived from agricultural productivity. The raiders also sought captives for enslavement.
¶ The raiding configured as two great phases: from the late 700s through the mid-800s; and after 914. One example of a raid is the 819 attack on St. Ibar’s monastery on Begerin Island, near present-day Wexford Town.
¶ In time, the Vikings established year-round settlements at strategic, defensible Irish harbors, including Dublin, Waterford, and Wexford.
¶ Located where the River Slaney (“health”) forms its estuary, Wexford Town was originally a Viking longphort or ship-camp named Waesfjord (“bay of the mudflats”).
¶ The terms “Norse” and “Oatsmen” are often applied to the Vikings in Ireland, regardless of their precise origin (Norway or Denmark). Some historians employ the compound term “Hiberno-Norse” to indicate communities of Viking origin whose long-term residence in Ireland (also known as Hibernia) caused them to absorb Irish cultural and environmental influences.
¶ A common Gaeilge (Irish-language) noun, bád — which means “boat” — derives from the Norwegian language of the Viking era. Very close to GS’s Wexford Town campus is the ruin of Selskar Abbey, whose name is of Viking origin. Some historians claim that the twelfth-century abbey replaced a Viking temple, dedicated to Odin.
¶ How to experience Viking Ireland when based at GS’s Wexford Campus? Under three miles away is the Irish National Heritage Park, one of whose immersive components is a full-scale reproduction of a Viking homestead settlement.
¶ Around 50 minutes to the west is the city of Waterford, on the River Suir (pronounced “sure”). Like Wexford, it was originally a Viking longphort. Its Viking Triangle district features the Reginald’s Tower Viking Museum, plus King of the Vikings, a virtual-reality experience presented in a replica Viking house.
¶ In the early twenty-first century, another Viking longphort was discovered at Woodstown, around 5.5 miles up the Suir from Waterford City. Artifacts retrieved during an archaeological excavation, conducted there between 2003 and 2007, reveal evidence of an extensive Viking trading network that embraced the Baltic and the Near East.
¶ A simple narrative of Irish history claims that Brian Boru — king of the Dál gCais, a southern Irish dynasty — lost his life while breaking Viking power in Ireland at the Battle of Clontarf, a large-scale engagement, fought near Dublin on Good Friday 1014. Across subsequent centuries, this understanding of Clontarf rendered it a symbol of Ireland’s ability to overcome enemies.
¶ The reality is more complicated. During his career, Brian made significant gains over other native-Irish dynasties, such as the Northen Uí Néill dynasty, based in Ulster (Ireland’s northern province). Brian’s principal antagonist at Clontarf was Máel Mórda mac Murchada, the native Irish king of Leinster (Ireland’s eastern province).
¶ Máel Mórda assembled a coalition army with a significant Hiberno-Norse component, most notably Sitrick Silkbear, Viking king of Dublin. For his part, Brian also secured Hiberno-Norse allies, such as the Vikings of Waterford.
Book of Kells
¶ During the first phase of Vikings raids, the Irish exercised colonial control over most of Scotland (a name that means “land of the Irish”).
¶ Established by the sixth-century Irish saint Columba (or Columcille), the monastery on the western Scottish island of Iona had become a major community within Gaelic, Irish, or insular Christianity, a distinctive form of Christianity whose practice extended from Ireland into Scotland and Northumbria (northern England). It was less centralized and more nature-oriented than the Christianity closely affiliated with the Papacy in Rome.
¶ The Vikings raided Iona in 795, 802, and 806, with 68 monks being massacred during the third attack. Such disasters caused the network of Gaelic Christian monasteries associated with Columba to construct a new, inland monastery at Kells in (what is now) County Meath in eastern Ireland.
¶ Although not universally accepted, one theory holds that the illuminated manuscript known as the Book of Kells — a copy of the four gospels, written in Latin — was produced on Iona but transferred to Kells for safekeeping from Viking raiders. Today, that document, considered a national treasure, is the centerpiece of a permanent exhibition at Trinity College, University of Dublin.
Awareness of the Vikings persists across Southeastern Ireland. • Left: Ireland’s National Heritage Park, just outside Wexford Town, reproduces — and offers interpretative tours of — Viking buildings (as well as structures representative of other eras). • Center: The Waterford-based King of the Vikings experience provides VR immersion in aspects of Viking Ireland. • Right: A portion of a Viking comb, uncovered during an archaeological dig on South Main Street, Wexford Town — close to Georgia Southern’s Wexford Campus.
NORMANS
also known as Cambro-Normans, Anglo-Normans, Old English, Strongbownians
Multicultural Medieval Ireland
Normans \ Multicultural Medieval Ireland
¶ Upon arrival in Ireland, Georgia Southern students often stop at Ferns, in northern County Wexford, en route from Dublin Airport to GS’s campus in Wexford Town, which lies in the southeast of the county.
¶ Encompassing a monastic community founded in the sixth century, Ferns (as explained below) became an important Gaelic or native-Irish regional capital. However, in the early thirteenth century, the Normans built a castle there, square in shape with a tower at each corner. While more than half the castle is in ruins, one tower remains intact.
¶ As part of their welcome to County Wexford, Georgia Southern students enjoy Ferns Castle. A guided tour of the interior of the intact tower culminates with entry onto the structure’s roof. The spectacular view from the roof revives and inspires the young people after their overnight transatlantic flight. Standing atop a Norman castle while absorbing County Wexford’s forty shades of green reinforces the fact that they are no longer Stateside!
First Generation: Strongbow
¶ In 1066, descendants of Vikings who settled in Normandy, France, invaded Britain under William, Duke of Normandy, known as “the Bastard” and, later, “the Conqueror.” Their Norman-French language blended with the Anglo-Saxon already spoken in Britain to produce Middle English, forerunner of the English that we use.
¶ Some of William’s warriors — whose family names often started with “Fitz” (meaning “son of”) — established themselves as feudal lords in Wales (also called Cambria), becoming the Cambro-Normans.
¶ During the late 1160s, Diarmaid Mac Murchadha (Dermot MacMurrough), the Gaelic or native-Irish king of Leinster, Ireland’s eastern province, requested military support from the Cambro-Normans to regain his throne, which he had lost to domestic enemies. This request opened the door to the Norman invasion and settlement of Ireland, led by Richard (“Strongbow”) de Clare, Earl of Pembroke, a place in Wales.
¶ At that time, Ferns in northern County Wexford was the capital of the province of Leinster. Therefore, County Wexford was ground zero for the Normans’ incursion.
¶ The initial landing (ahead of Strongbow’s arrival) occurred in early May 1169, when a force of several hundred Cambro-Norman bowmen and other soldiers disembarked at Bannow Bay in southern County Wexford, prior to successfully besieging the Hiberno-Norse settlement of Wexford Town. A fine suite of (ruined) Norman buildings remains at Clonmines, County Wexford, near the site of the Normans’ first footfall.
¶ Strongbow made land grants to his followers. One grant was a large fief (landed estate) north of Wexford Town, presented to Maurice de Prendergast. Thanks in part to strategic marriages, the Prendergast family expanded its holdings, becoming one of the largest landowners in County Wexford.
¶ Fearful that the Cambro-Normans, led by Strongbow, might establish a separate polity in at least some of Ireland, King Henry II of England (the first monarch of the Plantagenet dynasty) arrived in Ireland in October 1671, remaining there into the next year. He obliged Strongbow and other Cambro-Norman settlers — as well as various native-Irish lords — to subject their Irish territories to the English crown. We can regard this outcome as the beginning of England’s colonization of Ireland.
¶ This royal connection precipitated use of the term “Anglo-Norman” to describe the Norman regime in Ireland. Henry II and generations of his successors adopted the style Lord (rather than King) of Ireland. However, during his reign ( 1509-1547), Henry VIII changed the phrase to King of Ireland; he also made the harp Ireland’s official symbol.
Second Generation: Isabel de Clare And William Marshal
¶ Per an agreement, Strongbow wed Diarmaid Mac Murchadha’s daughter, Aoife. That union brought together Gaelic and Norman traditions.
¶ Having turned 18, Strongbow and Aoife’s daughter and heir, Isabel de Clare, married Europe’s most famous knight, the Englishman William Marshal. The two founded the river-port of New Ross, County Wexford, which became one of medieval Europe’s chief maritime trading centers.
¶ William built castles, abbeys, and other structures throughout County Wexford and its hinterland. His legacy includes the county’s most iconic edifice, the Hook Lighthouse, earth’s oldest operating lighthouse, designed to facilitate vessels moving between the ocean and New Ross.
¶ Norman influence is manifest not just in County Wexford’s built environment but also in many of its place names and family names. Examples of the latter include Codd, Curtis, Devereaux (pronounced “dev-rix”), Dillon, Fitzsimons, Hore, Petitt, Prendergast, Redmond, Rossiter, and Sinnott. A visit to Catholic Cemetery, Savannah, will reveal some of these names on tombstones, a result of the city’s significant Wexford diaspora.
¶ Ireland configured into zones of influence, some of which were controlled by Norman families and others by Gaelic (native-Irish) families, although few families on either side were without marital and other ties to “the other.”
¶ In County Wexford, the Normans became dominant in coastal lands, and a visitor experience, the Norman Way, helps curate that history. A significant portion of the north of the county remained associated with the essentially Gaelic MacMurrough-Kavanagh family.
¶ In her blockbuster novel, The Wild Irish Girl: A National Tale (first published in 1806), Sydney Owenson — also known as Lady Morgan — features an encounter between the adult son of the English colonial owner of an estate in the west of Ireland and an old Irishman, who reflects on the former, native-Irish owners of the property. He calls them Milesians, a synonym for Gaels, the native Irish, and he contrasts them with the Normans, a people he identifies with Strongbow: “[T]hey were true Milesians bread and born, every mother’s soul of them. O not a drop of Strongbonean flowed in their Irish veins, agrah!”
William Marshal, the so-called Flower of Chivalry, is remembered throughout County Wexford. (Images used with permission of Wexford County Council.) • Right: Constructed by 1230, Marshal’s Hook Lighthouse identifies the meeting of three great bodies of water — the Celtic Sea (portion of the Atlantic Ocean); St. George’s Channel (between Ireland and Wales), and the combined estuary of the Nore, Barrow, and Suir rivers (known as Waterford Harbor). • Center: Marshal established the Abbey of Tintern Minor, a dozen miles from Hook Head, around 1200. He had promised God to do so if delivered from a sea tempest; thus, its moniker is Tintern of the Vow. • Right: A depiction of two phases of Marshal’s career from one of the 15 panels that constitute the Ros Tapestry, a modern needlework tour-de-force viewable in the town of New Ross, County Wexford.
¶ In Irish history books, the Normans in Ireland appear under several names (a fact that can cause confusion). One term is the Old English; another (as we have seen) is Strongbownians. Some older texts frequently claim that, over the generations, the Normans became “more Irish than the Irish themselves.” Certainly, sufficient assimilation occurred to cause the English authorities to pass, in 1366, a series of 35 regulations, known as the Statutes of Kilkenny. Among other things, they forbade Irish-based Normans from marrying the native Irish or playing the sport of hurling.
¶ A portion of the third statute insists “that every Englishman [i.e. Norman in Ireland]” must “use the English custom, fashion, mode of riding, and apparel, according to his estate [rank].” That statute also bans Normans from conversing among themselves through the medium of Gaeilge (the Irish language).
¶ The Gaelic dispensation had its own legal code, known as the Brehon Laws. By contrast with the colonists’ legal code, which recognized male primogeniture — being the first-born son — as the basis for inheriting titles, lands, and other property, the Gaelic system deployed tanistry: the election of the clan’s heir apparent from among members an extended family group. Today, Ireland’s deputy prime minister is referred to as the Tániste.
¶ The Brehon Laws also recognized gravelkind: the division of a deceased landowner’s land equally among all his sons.
¶ Branches of two Norman families rose to great power in Ireland. One was the branch of the Butlers (also known as the Fitzwalters) that gained the title earls of Ormond and was particularly associated with Kilkenny Castle, although it and certain Butler kinsfolk established castles and manor houses in additional locations. The other was the branch of the Fitzgeralds that gained the title earls of Kildare and was particularly associated with Maynooth Castle.
¶ A third Norman dynasty of note was the Fitzgeralds, earls of Desmond. That family was related to the Fitzgeralds of Kildare. The term “Geraldine” is used in connection with both families.
¶ In 1485, a new dynasty, the Tudors, took the English throne. Some heads of that royal house would preside over the rise of Protestantism in England. The dynastic and religious changes caused significant alienation of many Normans in Ireland. The Fitzgeralds of Desmond, who remained Catholic after the Reformation, led two significant uprisings— the Desmond Rebellions (1569–1573 and 1579–1583) — against the forces of Queen Elizabeth I, the last Tudor monarch.
¶ The eventual Elizabethan victory resulted in the confiscation of much Desmond-controlled territory and its redistribution to “New English” settlers, known as planters. This outcome is called the Plantation of Muster (Ireland’s southern province). It marks a turning point, after which Norman power in Ireland lessened.
Left: A sketch map identifying three of the most important Norman dynasties to emerge in Ireland. The Geraldines consisted principally of the Fitzgeralds, earls of Kildare, and the Fitzgeralds, earls of Desmond. The main branch of the Butler (Fitzwalter) family controlled the earldom of Ormond. • Right: A portion of the deserted Norman borough of Clonmines, County Wexford, founded by William Marshal on the northwest shore of Bannow Bay. (Image used with permission of Menapia Research & Education.)