Colmán Etchingham passed away in early June 2023 while this book was going through production with Boydell and Brewer. Dr. Etchingham had submitted a typescript of the entire volume that same February and, as the series editors note in the preface, barring a few probable minor amendments, the book was to all intents complete. As it stands this is a monumental piece of work, a capstone to a long and successful career as a leading expert on early medieval Ireland. The volume builds upon a substantial body of scholarship developed over the course of almost four decades and entails a major methodological and historiographical reassessment of Viking activity in Ireland from its inception in the late eighth century through to the Battle of Clontarf in 1014. It is fair to say that scholarship on early and high medieval Ireland is going through something of a purple patch at the moment and the appearance of Etchingham’s very welcome book coincides with the publication of several other significant studies including Seán Ó Hoireabhárd’s The Medieval Irish Kings and the English Invasion of 1169 (Liverpool University Press, 2024), Ronan Mulhaire’s Irish Kingship in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries: Approaches to the Study of Power (Routledge, 2025), and Patrick Gleeson’s Landscapes of Kingship in Early Medieval Ireland, AD 400-1150 (Four Courts Press, 2025) to name but a few of the highlights. Equally, scholarly and public interest in what has been dubbed (not unproblematically) the Viking Age (c.793-1066) grows from strength to strength with each passing year, it seems.
The core objective of this book was to undertake a systematic and comprehensive quantitative analysis of the Irish annals and consider what this material can reveal about the changing nature of Viking activity in Ireland, with a particular focus on church-raiding. The first chapter serves as an invaluable and incredibly detailed critique of traditional and established approaches to this topic. Etchingham discusses the long-term impact of other scholars’ unwillingness to conduct a rigorous appraisal of the annalistic material. As the author acknowledges (and indeed demonstrates), this is no easy task, requiring not only a significant amount of time but also an innate knowledge of the complex literary and textual traditions underpinning the annalistic corpus. However, the benefits of undertaking such an approach should be clear to the reader. Hitherto, the lack of such a systematic investigation means that sweeping statements and misconceptions about the Vikings (such as the notion that raiding was the precursor to settlement) have gained considerable traction within current scholarship. Indeed, in some cases, these ideas may well have become the new scholarly orthodoxy, and current research tends to emphasise the “positive” role of the Vikings in Ireland, often conveniently eliding their use of extreme violence to achieve their goals. This argument for seeing the Vikings as a profoundly negative force within Irish politics (and Western Europe more generally) is not new. Indeed, it was made forcefully and convincingly by Alfred Smyth almost thirty years ago; [1] the same point has been iterated by Colmán Etchingham in his own body of work, yet the relationship between the Vikings and violence remains very much a sub-theme within mainstream medieval Irish historiography.
The Viking period in Irish history is, of course, complex and, as this book demonstrates, church-raiding continued throughout the ninth and tenth centuries until the autonomy of the Viking city-states in Ireland was effectively broken in the early eleventh century. This hefty tome is divided into two main parts, the first of which focuses on the annalistic material. Chapters two and three draw upon the corpus of Irish annals (as well as the early twelfth century text Cogadh Gaedheal re Gallaibh) to compile detailed chronologies and regional distributions of Viking raids in Ireland. Although most scholars of the Vikings in Ireland use the annals in their research, this kind of painstaking work is rarely carried out and generally scholars have confined themselves to smaller samples or regional case studies. By scrutinising the entire corpus, Etchingham has provided future researchers with a foundational framework for mapping the frequency of Viking raids in Ireland, accurately delineating periods of intense raiding as well as years when piratical activity seems to have reduced. Chapters four and five assess the primary goal of raiding in the ninth century: it argues that the Vikings were mainly motivated by a desire to take captives, either for slavery or ransom, rather than necessarily seeking precious metalwork or moveable wealth as has commonly been asserted.
With a solid methodological approach established in the first section of the book, part two moves on to explore the political and cultural impact of Viking raids upon Irish society more generally. The next three chapters focus on the evolving Viking presence in Ireland. Chapter six offers a fascinating discussion on the link between raiding and settlement in ninth-century Ireland and how emerging settlement patterns reflected the Vikings’ attempts to exploit rifts between rival Irish dynasties. Chapter seven wades into the contentious debate on the ethnic origins of the “Fair foreigners” and “Black foreigners” but also makes some interesting observations on the growing numbers of Scandinavian “royals” active in Ireland: leading a war party appears to have been an opportunity for an ambitious and budding young prince to demonstrate his martial credentials, and these raids should be viewed within the context of royal struggles within Denmark and the wider Viking world. Chapter eight examines the decline of church-raiding during the mid-ninth century and argues that this was not a sign of weakness but rather reflected the shifting priorities of the Dublin Vikings and their ability to direct their attentions overseas in the pursuit of more ambitious targets. In chapter nine, the author reconsiders the evidence for Viking raids in the later ninth and early tenth centuries. Traditionally, it was assumed that there was a major lull in Viking activity, and while this chapter does not necessarily challenge that core idea, it does provide the most comprehensive answer by assessing the surviving corpus of annals.
Chapters ten and eleven reinforce the importance of looking beyond Irish shores to understand the course and evolution of Viking raids. Between 914 and 941, the Vikings of Dublin (who also controlled York) enjoyed an unprecedented level of power, and church-raiding in this period should be viewed through the prism of dynastic politics. These attacks were not random or isolated hit-and-runs; rather, they were an attempt to assert Dublin’s influence across Ireland’s eastern seaboard. However, the loss of York saw the power of Dublin contract significantly. The pattern of raiding in mid-to-later tenth century should, therefore, be understood as an attempt to shore up Dublin’s position in the face of the increasingly assertive Uí Néill dynasty. The final chapter deals with the decline of Viking power in Ireland following the defeat of the Dublin king, Amlaíb Cúarán, at the hands of Máel Sechnaill mac Domhnaill in 980. The latter’s victory at Tara saw Dublin fall under the hegemony of the Uí Néill and, although contemporaries could not have predicted it, this defeat foreshadowed the long-term terminal decline of Viking autonomy within Ireland (and the Irish Sea basin more generally). Church-raiding continued in the aftermath of 980 but the chapter makes a strong case for seeing these raids as being the activity of actors outside of Ireland. Dublin’s capacity for raiding was severely circumscribed and piratical activity in Ireland should instead be understood as being carried out by the Vikings of Man and the Hebrides. The book’s conclusion—or epilogue as it is termed—offers a helpful summary of the core arguments but also a roadmap for undertaking research on the Viking presence in Ireland in the wake of Clontarf in 1014. Indeed, although Viking power in Ireland had suffered a series of major reversals since 980, the city of Dublin was not brought firmly under Irish control until the 1050s. In the interim, the citizens of Dublin retained a certain degree of autonomy and, as the author notes, an examination of this neglected period (using the methodological approach set forth in this book) will doubtless offer new insights into the late Viking age in Ireland.
Overall, this book is a hugely impressive piece of scholarship and should be essential reading for anyone working on early medieval Ireland. The bibliography alone should serve as an invaluable resource and could easily be used as an extended reading list for undergraduate courses. The data compiled from the various annalistic sources is helpfully (and clearly) tabulated in several appendices and presented in numerous maps. The inclusion of genealogies would have been useful in navigating the complex lineage-based world of early medieval Ireland, but this is a minor quibble in the grand scheme of things. On another positive note, in an age when indexing is becoming an almost meaningless exercise, it is a pleasure to see such as comprehensive index included. In terms of readership, experienced historians will naturally find a great deal to delight them here as will archaeologists; equally, the author’s skilled approach to the annals will, no doubt, impress Celticists and literary experts alike. Doubtless, the volume should also attract a wider readership. It goes without saying that the Viking age embraced a huge swathe of Eurasia, and people of Scandinavian heritage were found as far afield as the Iberian Peninsula, the Black Sea, and the Eastern Mediterranean. Irish source material offers a valuable point of comparison for scholars across these regions, and the late Dr Etchingham’s book provides with what is perhaps the best account of Viking raids in Ireland (and the wider Irish Sea world) to date.
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Note:
1. Alfred Smyth, “The Effect of Scandinavian Raiders on English and Irish Churches: A Preliminary Assessment,” in Britain and Ireland, 900-1300: Insular Responses to Medieval European Change, edited by Brendan Smith (Cambridge University Press, 1999), 1-38.