Viking Notes

Yesterday I discovered some notes I’d made on Vikings in Scotland, written in 1998 by Donchadh Ó Corráin. I think the Irish scholar is dead now, but I did once get in touch with him via email with a question about Sitric of Dublin and he was kind enough to answer. If nothing else, it shows how long I have been interested in Vikings in the Outer Hebrides and Ireland!

Vikings conquered the northern and western isles plus the coastal mainland of Scotland from Caithness via Sutherland to Argyll between c795-c825. By the middle of the period they had set up a kingdom and the name they gave the country was Laithlinn. 

At that time Norway had no kings and power did not emerge there until the 11^th century. Most early raids were based on aristocratic free enterprise with named leaders. Attacks on Ireland were co-ordinated from the middle of the 9^th century and orchestrated from Laithlinn.

There are various spelllings of the name – Lothlend, Laithlind, Laithlinn and Lochlainn.

The Dublin settlement was established in the year 841-42 and the invaders were described as “an assembled host of uncouth, barbarous, berserk, stubborn, treacherous foreigners from Orkney, Shetland, Man, Skye, Lewis, Kintyre and Argyle.” 

There was rivalry between the King of Skye, who controlled the Inner Hebrides, and the King of Inis Gall, the Outer Hebrides. The Viking name for the Hebrides was Suðrǿyjar.

Longphoirt – the Viking name for a protective fortress for both men and ships.