A replica Viking longship has set off on a 2200km return journey from Dublin to Denmark.The Sea Stallion of Glendalough began the six week trip from the mouth of the River Liffey after almost a year on display in Collins Barracks museum. More than 1,000 people turned out to wish the vessel and its 65 crew a safe journey.

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Pic: gary

The first part of the Midsummer Special is available for download and is on the feed. We celebrate the Midsummer Festival with a massive offering of goodies. So we’ve divided the episode into two parts. The first part contains a reading from The Religion of the Ancient Celts, another from a modern book called Fairy Healing, some music, and a story by Willie Meikle called The First Silkie. Part 2 of the Midsummer Special will be available in the middle of next week.

The Episode is available for subscribers on the feed, or you can download it or listen to it from our Episodes page. You can find the Shownotes for this episode in the Shownotes section.

Pic: fjorukrain

Our Viking cousins are holding an annual Viking festival in Hafnafjordur that kicked off on the 12th June with the opening of the Viking craft market at 5pm.The festival has been held since 1995 and is the oldest, largest and most important event of its kind in Iceland. Activities include battle demonstrations, storytelling, wrestling, archery, music, dancing and plenty of eating and drinking.

The organisers behind the event, the Viking restaurant and hotel Fjorukrain, have arranged for almost two hundred Vikings to attend, both foreign and domestic, often arriving by boat with an exotic cargo of goods to sell. There are also troops of jesters and dancing girls, filling the centre of this normally quiet coastal town with music and merriment.

The event is not all peaceful, however, as the organisers promise a good Viking battle with mock deaths, just as visitors least expect it.

The Viking festival is held from 12th to 18th of June in Hafnafjordur, a town just outside Reykjavik.

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Photo: Werner Karrasch, Viking Ship Museum

The Irish Examiner reports that at three o’clock next Thursday afternoon Dubliners will be treated to an extraordinary spectacle. The Viking ship Sea Stallion, which has been on display at the National Museum in Collins Barracks, will be lifted 50 metres into the air by a giant crane. Then the huge vessel will be swung out over the three-storey museum building and deposited in the nearby Croppy’s Acre. In the middle of the night it will be moved to the River Liffey, prior to its long sea journey back to Denmark.

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Andrew West has just published an amazing blog about the recent Time Team discovery of an Ogham stone on the Isle of Man. He throws doubt upon the transliteration/translation made by the Time Team’s expert, Kate Forsyth from Glasgow University. Andrew makes a well argued claim that the inscription is not a record of Fifty Warriors fighting Viking marauders but instead, in common with most other Ogham finds, a commemorative marker for an individual.

His blog explains: Continue Reading »

One of the Vikings’ most important trading centres has been discovered in Ireland. The settlement at Woodstown in County Waterford is estimated to be about 1,200 years old. It was discovered during archaeological excavations for a road by-pass for Waterford city, which was founded by the Vikings.

The news was announced by the BBC, and they say:

Almost 6,000 artefacts and a Viking chieftain’s grave have been discovered at the site, which was established by the year 860. The grave contains a sword, shield and silver mark.

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Anyone who starts to take an interest in the medieval texts relating to Ireland quickly picks up the idea that the country was divided into ‘fifths’. Indeed, the Gaelic word cuigeadh still means ‘fifths’ (singular coiced) and the modern-day Gaelic expression which translates literally as ‘the five fifths of Ireland’ refers to the political divisions of Ulster, Connacht, Leinster and Munster. Yes, you have counted correctly. There are only four ‘fifths’ in Ireland. The early legends subdivided Munster into east and west, but this is an artificial adjustment. The earliest clearly datable references to the cuigeadh relate to the kingdoms which emerged in the fifth and sixth centuries. At this date Ireland is considered to be divided into fifths but only four functional divisions are recognisable.

Ireland divided into four ‘fifths’ (adapted from Rees and Ress).

A region known as Midhe (perhaps meaning ‘middle’ or ‘neck’), which incorporated the royal centre at Tara, was regarded as having pre-eminent status and has for many centuries been popularly considered to be the fifth coiced. Yet, politically, from the iron age onwards, Midhe was under the domination of one or other adjoining kingdoms. Tara, with its impressive group of ditched earthworks and the Lia Fail (Stone of Density, used for the coronation of the High Kings of Ireland), indeed had enourmous prestige in the medieval literature yet, when the kings met annually (at Beltain), they did so at a natural outcrop known in recent years as Aill na Mireann, but probably traditionally as Carraig Choithrigi (the Stone of Divisions), which is situated near the less-impressive earthworks on the Hill of Uisnech. Furthermore, it is Uisnech, not Tara, which is the geographical mid-point of Ireland. For instance, it is claimed that a beacon fire on Uisnech can be seen over a quarter of Ireland [1].
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St. Maughold of the Isle of Man, Bishop(also known as Macaille, Maccaldus, Machalus, Machella, Maghor, Maccul) Died c. 488. Saint Maughold was an Irish prince and reputedly a captain of robbers who was converted by Patrick. Upon his conversion, he became a new man by putting on the spirit of Christ. One version of the legend says that Patrick told him to put to sea in a coracle without oars as a penance for his evil deeds.

Isle of Man

Another says that he set sail in order to avoid the temptations of the world. In both stories, he retired to the Isle of Man (Eubonia) off the coast of Lancashire, England. Continue Reading »

EVER wondered what it was like to live like a Roman-Celt or a Viking? Defend your village on the battlefield? Or have a go at horn–blowing, cooking on a camp fire, weaving and felt-making? Well you will soon get to experience all this and more when Martin Mere launches its newest attraction this month: Mere Tun, a traditional roundhouse village. The Liverpool Echo is running a competition for schools all over Merseyside and Lancashire. Five family passes are up for grabs to those who can answer a simple question. Can you name two materials used in the construction of a Round House?

Over the forthcoming weeks, school groups from all over Merseyside and Lancashire will invade Martin Mere in Fish Lane, Burscough, to take part in Living History Days for an outdoor interactive day. They will leave behind everything modern and experience life as a Viking or Roman-Celt and learn traditional skills as well as find out about the history of the mere. Continue Reading »

At the end of the classical Celtic period, the Irish tribes were harried by Viking invaders. Several battles of historic import occurred from between 719 AD, the first recorded Norse raid to the battle of 1014 AD in which Brian Boru repelled the Vikings in a very costly encounter. It is said that out of 6600 warriors, only 600 survived the day. Thanks to the War and Game wargaming site, we have some details about this three hundred year period of Viing occupation.

In 795 the first recorded Norse raid took place on Ireland’s north coast. This Irish raid came soon after the first attacks in England. Iona was also attacked in 795 and again in 802. In 806 sixty-eight persons were killed at Iona by raiders. In 807 a new monastic community was begun at Kells, Co. Meath, and was completed by 814, by which time much of the administration had been moved from Iona to Kells. It was during this period or immediately before it that the magnificent illuminated manuscript, the Book of Kells, was completed.

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