Vikings in Ireland [Hardcover]

Morgan Llywelyn (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1997

In Irish history the Vikings are often seen merely as attackers, but this book gives an account of the wider picture - how the Vikings significantly influenced Irish art and trade and the growth of towns and cities. It describes their first landing as a raiding party, and their settlement and gradual merging with the Irish by intermarriage and trade, and also explores the customs and traditions, and the arts and crafts which have become part of the Irish way of life. Cameos of the lives of individual Vikings - some real, some fictitious - are used in the retelling of events, and the illustrations include photographs of excavations and artefacts.

Editorial Reviews

Review

The book is peopled by intriguingly named historical characters - as well as a shoal of fictional Vikings. Lavishly illustrated with drawings by David Rooney and archive photographs, this is an informative and entertaining read --Sunday Tribune --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Historian and novelist Morgan Llywelyn was born in New York City, but after the death of her husband and parents in 1985 returned to Ireland to take up citizenship in the land of her grandparents and make her permanent home there.

After making the shortlist for the United States Olympic Team in Dressage in 1975, but not making the team itself, she turned to writing historical novels exploring her Celtic roots. The most successful of these was Lion of Ireland - The Legend of Brian Boru, which was published in 1980 and has sold into the millions of copies.

She received the Novel of the Year Award from the National League of American Penwomen for her novel The Horse Goddess as well as the Woman of the Year Award from the Irish-American Heritage Committee for Bard: The Odyssey of the Irish. The latter award was presented to her by Ed Koch, then-mayor of New York City.

Morgan is also the author of A Pocket History of Irish Rebels for the O'Brien Pocket Books Series.

In 1990 Morgan Llywelyn turned to writing for the young reader, with the publication of Brian Boru, Emperor of the Irish, a biography in the novelistic style, by The O'Brien Press, Dublin. For this book she won an Irish Children's Book Trust Bisto Award in 1991. Her second book for the young reader is Strongbow, The Story of Richard and Aoife (The O'Brien Press) 1992, for which she won a Bisto Award in the Historical Fiction category, 1993 and the Reading Association of Ireland Award, 1993. Her third novel for young readers, entitled Star Dancer, (The O'Brien Press) was drawn from her experience of the world of showjumping and dressage. She has also written The Vikings in Ireland, an exploration of what actually happened when the Norsemen landed in Ireland.

Morgan's latest book for children is Pirate Queen, the story of Grace O'Malley, told partly through letters from Granuaile to her beloved son. It is a thrilling tale of adventure that brings this unorthodox and inspiring historical figure to life. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 96 pages
• Publisher: O'Brien Pr (June 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0862784212
• ISBN-13: 978-0862784218
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,613,205 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent overview, May 19, 1999

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Vikings in Ireland (Hardcover)

This is an excellent overview of the subject. Presents comprehensive information in plain and simple language. It didn't get the fifth star only because it lacks a bibliography. There are no references for someone who'd like to read further on the subject. Otherwise, recommended.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Collision, February 25, 2010

By 

Ron Braithwaite "Hummingbird God" (El Indio, Texas United States) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Vikings in Ireland (Hardcover)

This little book is written simply, in a style suitable for interested young people but is nonetheless loaded with information new to me. To the extent that events over 1,000 years ago are known, Llywelin does a good job of summarizing events and discussing their overall importance in the development of the place we no know as Ireland. The author, also correctly, never says that the Vikings were repulsed or strategically defeated. They simply melded with the the Celtic population to become the present-day Irish.

Still some events are more legendary than real. The epic battle of Clontarf [April 23, 1014] was probably not so epic. Reportedly, Brodir of Man, while 'running away from the battle', stumbled on Boru's tent, killing him. If he did so, Brodir must have been 'retreating' into the Irish lines, a most peculiar thing to do. Far more likely is that Boru was slain in a rear area by a Viking assault that had penetrated the lines. Also, the statement that the Vikings were discomfited and drowned because the retreating tide had pulled their long ships far from the land is weird. The Vikings were altogether familiar with the effects of tides. At worse, the long ships would have been resting on the beach...and...long ships were designed to be beached. On the other hand, maybe the author means that the tide had come in and anchored long ships were now far from the high tide mark.

This is also weird. If the Vikings, rather uncharacteristically, anchored their war ships, they would have accessed the beach by smaller rowboats...rowboats that would have been guarded. Retreating Vikings would simply have rowed to their long ships. I make a point of this because a couple of long ships have been discovered in a Danish bay. If I can recall rightly, scientific analysis shows that both ships were built of timbers felled in the Dublin area in the early 1100s i.e. the Vikings must have still be thoroughly escounced in Ireland at this time. By simple extrapolation, the Battle of Clontarf probably wasn't the climatic victory many Irish thought.

Nevertheless, the Irish continued to speak Gaelic rather than Scandinavian but, then again, there were always a lot more Irish than 'Vikings.'

Ron Braithwaite author of novels...'Skull Rack' and 'Hummingbird God'...on the Spanish Conquest of Mexico