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[Anthony]

One question about what u say about the Norse???Why would Irish princes fight for the Norse?? I read fairly much about the vikings and this is something I never heard about before???

The Irish, particularly in Leinster and Meath, were promised favorable trading status, thus increasing their wealth. It's an economic thing. The idea of the 'Irish versus the Norse' is largely a myth. The Norse in Ireland as often fought for the Irish against other Norsemen (and many of the Norse there became culturally quite thoroughly Gaelic in most ways), and most 'Norse' armies in Ireland were mostly composed of Irishmen.

Consider Clontarff. On both sides there were Norsemen and Irishmen. Brian had substantial numbers of loyal Norse subjects, and Sigtrygg had allies from Leinster and most of his subjects around Dublin were Irishmen. His only truly 'Norse' soldiers came directly from Norway, or were Icelandic mercenaries, or came from Denmark, or from the Danelaw in England.

The Norse had no numbers to actually conquer Ireland alone; it'd be impossible. The Norse at the time fought in small pirating bands. To form a maintained presence, they needed Irish soldiers, and, since Irish soldiers were loyal to chiefs, themselves loyal to local princes/sub-kings, they needed to align themselves with those men. So, they'd marry their children to Irish gentry, and promise them special status in trade; reduced tariffs, setting aside goods specifically to be sold to certain territories, selling those goods at a reduced price, and so on.


Edit; another agitation...what's with 'last names' (the Gaels didn't have any at the time, just patronyms), particularly some like Fitz-anything (Fitz names are all Norman in origin, they'd not exist in Ireland at the time), or 'of the Nine Hostages' (a title that was given to high king/emperor Niall; it isn't right to just give that to random Irishmen).