These ships, probably sailing from the Viking-occupied areas in Scotland, seem to have carried around a healthy 3,000 men in total, who for the first time butted their heads against proper local resistance, a theme that was carried on as a force of southern Uí Néills stood up against the Vikings, too, although less successfully as of them "an uncounted number were slaughtered" ( Annals of Ulster, 837. The men of Brega routed the foreigners at Deoninne in Mugdorna of Brega, and six score of the Norsemen fell. Those two forces plundered the plain of Life and the plain of Brega, including churches, forts, and dwellings. ![]() Following the already increasing scale of raids, in this year a much more mammoth-sized fleet of Vikings sailed up the rivers Liffey and Boyne into the inland territories, attacking the lands of Brega in the south of County Meath:Ī naval force of the Norsemen sixty ships strong was on the Bóinn, and another one of sixty ships on the river Life. Understandably annoyed at this whole situation, the person jotting down the record in the Irish Annals of Ulster (our main source on the Viking raids they are off by one year in their counts but are here referenced in corrected fashion) for the year 820 CE complains that at that time:Ī new phase in the Vikings' involvement with Ireland is identifiable from 837 CE. The community on Iona was so shaken up after being raided in 795 CE, burned in 802 CE, and seeing 68 of their community torn apart by Viking axes in 806 CE that they actually rehoused their treasures and some of their staff to a new monastery built inland at Kells. The appeal of the monasteries was obvious: housing more than just monks, fine metalwork was made here to embellish holy books as well as reliquaries and stored treasure was abundant too, making for easily transportable loot. Despite a few instances of successful local resistance, the Irish probably had an underdeveloped fleet, no coastal forts and an impractical 480 km of coastline to defend a bit of a hopeless job. ![]() By 807 CE the Vikings had pushed around to the western bays, too, and most of the targets they picked – monasteries and small towns – were easy prey they had the elements of surprise and speed and generally stayed within 30 km of navigable water, which kept them highly mobile.
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