Vikings

Presented by Shannon

This is what Vikings wore

• Viking men wore long woolen shirts

with cloth trousers

• Viking women wore long linen

dresses

• The Vikings ate two main meals a day, one of which usually consisted of some kind of meal or porridge. The mainstay of everyday eating was the big kettle of stew containing whatever vegetables and meat were available, and added to day by day

• This is what Vikings ate

Raids

• The first raids in the British Isles was in 793, when the great monastery at Lindisfarne was sacked. In Ireland, Rathlin island monastery was burned by the Vikings in 795. Other prominent monasteries that were attacked included Holmpatrick, Inishmurray, Inishbofin and Sceilg Mhicil. Sceilg Mhicil's abbot died of thirst as a Viking prisoner. St Colum Cille's great monastery at Iona was burned in 802. For the next 30-40 years, the Vikings engaged in hit-and-run raids where they landed a small number of ships at a settlement, spent a few days pillaging and burning it before heading back to Scandanavia to sell their booty. The Vikings were after two types of booty - riches and slaves - which they carried off to sell..

This is a Viking longboat

• However, the Vikings were soon to improve their methods of pillaging. Instead of landing 3 or 4 boats, raiding nearby settlements and going back to Scandanavia, they decided to scale-up. They brought between 50 and 100 boats of Viking warriors, landed, and set up a camp. From this base they then raided extensively into the surrounding countryside for a period of several months. They pillaged monasteries, churches, the fortresses of Irish Lords, and farms. In 836 the lands of the southern Uí Néill suffered such an episode. In 837, the same thing happened on the Boyne and Liffey rivers on the east coast and on the Shannon on the west. In 840 the Vikings spent a year on Lough Neagh pillaging, amongst others, the monastery of Armagh

• This was the most intense period of Viking activity, and the Irish Kings seemed to be able to do little to prevent the wholesale destruction of large tracts of their Provinces. The southern Uí Néill were routed by the Vikings when they attempted to drive them out. By the end, many of the monks themselves had taken to fighting the Vikings. However, just as it looked as if Ireland was about to be conquered by the Vikings, and just as the Irish began to develop tactics with which to more effectively attack them, the raids died away. The last major Viking raid of this phase was in 851 by which time they appeared to have turned their attention to Britain. The map below shows the attacks in this period.