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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).

[Birka Viking]

Well I was aware of that the vikings never were many...Often becouse of internal fighting. I think the larges viking army I ever heard about is around 80000 men when they besieged Konstantinopel. But this is far away from confirmed that they were so many...

[Anthony]

That's the point of it. The Norse in Ireland would have stood no chance against the Irish without more soldiers fighting for them. Even if they were the best equipped and trained soldiers the Norse could get (which many of them weren't, just landed men who had gone with the Norse to raid; a lot weren't necessarily that tough), the Irish would've overwhelmed them with sheer numbers. Irish armies were utterly massive. Brian's native Irish contingent alone outnumbered his enemies at Clontarff, and they were only 1/3rd of his northern army of Munster. Any one of the kings of Ireland could have raised substantially larger numbers than any Norse king (at the time), due to the relatively small populations of Norse kingdoms, and that the Norse had smaller armies, composed of landed men, when they went invading. The Irish had the advantage; all of their nobles, all of their regular soldiers, and all of their levies were right there, and Ireland was, until the later famine and migrations out of Ireland, a very densely populated island, meaning there was a lot of people to draw soldiers from. For the Norse to have a chance at success, they needed to entice Irish leaders to support them; marriages, favored trading status, gifts, etc., to get Irish soldiers on their side, in their large numbers, and give them a chance to fight traditional enemies (for example, the people of Leinster and Munster fought all the time, what'd the Norse prince of Wexford do? Offered the Leinstermen handsome gifts, trade bonuses, and a chance to fight Munster with the support of a friend; plenty enticing for an Irish king or prince).

I would clarify, I'm not complaining about CA above, just the idea that VI is historically accurate in even the slightest.

[Boyar Son]

Anthony, the Irish beat the Viking badly? how so? I thought if the English couldn't beat the vikings nor could the Irish.

[antisocialmunky]

What's 'English' they didnt' exist yet.

[Digby Tatham Warter]

What's 'English' they didnt' exist yet.

He is just using that term loosely to describe the Anglo-Saxons.

[Boyar Son]

He is just using that term loosely to describe the Anglo-Saxons.

Yes!...tha-thats it!

Actually I didnt really know, I'm not very knoweledgeable about the middle ages.

[Anthony]

What's 'English' they didnt' exist yet.

The concept of 'England' does emerge during the viking period, but only post-viking invasions. I refer to 'England' solely as a region though in context of my post. Ignore this unless you're refering to K COSSACK.

Anthony, the Irish beat the Viking badly? how so? I thought if the English couldn't beat the vikings nor could the Irish.

Depends on which vikings. The Danes invaded Ireland before Norwegians and they made little progress. While their raids on monastaries were effective, when they actually engaged the Irish armies, they were devestated, and left to invade England (which, you should mind, was several kingdoms as well).

Even in that sense, the English were not some monolithic superpower. Until the high middle ages, well past the Norman conquest, England was a minor power, constantly dealing with internal issues (and even afterward still had to contend with them).

Further, it's a matter of military tactics. At the time, the inhabitants of England were various Anglo-Saxon kingdoms who fought little different than Norse or Danes of the era. Fighting them was nothing different or new for the Norse or Danes; they used very similar tactics. Compare to the regular use of cavalry in a Gaelic army (always drawn up on one flank, to flank the enemy).

Flanking the enemy infantry position, especially if it's a static or slow moving shieldwall, is simple, with cavalry.

I mean, come on. Do you know much of the history of the vikings in Ireland? They advanced in the east for a time, but then were driven back to the coastal forts they'd made. Permanent footholds inland were impossible for them to maintain.

Also, dark age Ireland is more advanced than you seem to realize. Never suffering the dark ages, the Irish had a more advanced military at the time than their neighbors did, in that they had readily equipped (and fairly well) regular soldiers, large weapon doles for levies, and orders of regularized proto-chivalry, with especially well-trained soldiers. It is that, aside from some advancements brought by the Norse (cheap production methods of mail and long-bladed swords, mainly), they were fairly stagnate in some ways (not all, the Irish were actively developing right up to the Norman invasion, but not necessarily new tactics; more refining the old). Even then, the Norman invasion of Ireland in the late 1100s was far from a conquest; Norman armies were often broken, and Norman captures rarely were maintained. Like the Norse, they only managed to maintain coastal holdings, as they could be easily reinforced. Inland holdings were, for centuries, trading hands between Gaelic and Norman lords (and the Normans weren't so different; they became so Gaelic in nature they were called 'more Irish than the Irish').

The 'English' in the period weren't that strong or imposing. Gaelic 'Scots' (Dal Riadans), essentially identical to the Irish, but for having smaller numbers, and the relatively backward Picts, had met with defeats by Anglo-Saxons, but also had some tremendous victories, and had efficiently contained them to a specific region of what is now Scotland. The English were hardly juggernauts, and their way of fighting at the time was steadily outmoded, particularly their lightness of cavalry, which became increasingly more important. Against the Danes, they had few real advantages to push, but the Irish had cavalry, at least, and numbers in far greater amount (the Fyrd was neither large nor well-trained nor well-equipped enough to amount to an effective resistance in northern England; the Irish ceithernn {warbands} were; they had javelins, spears, light cavalrymen, and light shock infantry, bolstered by regular soldiers and nobles, a far cry from Saxon armies composed of simple, early Fyrdmen, poorly equipped, bolstered only by their local gentry).

Ireland, also, when initially engaging the vikings, was coming out of a period of peace. Their armies were in far better shape than the kingdoms that made up England, at the time. The Irish set into eachother as a result as well (arguing over who was right to unite against the foreigners and such), but that was after the invasions that they began to fight eachother in major combat again. In addition, they drew the Norse into their fights, and turned many of the Norse against their forebears, and brought them into Irish armies, and those they couldn't could be successfully contained to coastal fortresses by either military superiority or flat-out numbers.