It was primarily the eastern, ascetic form of Christianity and monastic life that was to establish its firm roots in Ireland, although the Roman Catholic mainstream religion eventually replaced it. Of the nuns, the abbess Brigida has become the most famous. Patrick had great success, and before the end of the 5th Century, the majority of the Irish had converted to Christianity, although Druism still was present in peoples minds for a long time.ĭuring the 6th Century a great many monastic centres were erected in all parts of Ireland, mostly for monks, but some also for nuns.

Later he succeeded to escape back to Britain, but returned to Ireland to become a missionary. At the age of 16 he was taken prison by Irish “Vikings”, and sold as a slave. He was born into a wealthy Roman aristocratic family in western Britain in 385 AD. Patrick, as the Irish prefer to call him. Among the very first missionaries was Patricius, or St. Simultaneous with this internal struggle for power, the old druidic system of faith began meeting the challenge from Christianity. From this hilltop (100 metres above sea level) it’s possible to view large areas of the Irish countryside. Archaeological excavations have proved that this place had been of central importance in people’s religious beliefs and ritual practices long before the Celtic migrations took place in the 5th Century BC. The ancient coronation stone – Lia Fáil – was placed here. Tara had for centuries been a sacred place, and served as a ceremonial arena for the inauguration of the High kings of Ireland – the Árd Rí. The largest and most important centre of all was Tara in Meath, north of today’s Dublin. The petty kings or chieftains were both secular and religious leaders. These settlements were either situated on hilltops ( hillforts), or houses clustered together on artificial islands in the lakes ( crannogs). People made a living based on crop farming and cattle breeding, and lived in small villages surrounded by defensive walls and dykes. At this time there were no cities or major trading centres in the country. As time went on, two dynasties distinguished themselves, the Ui Neill dynasty in the north, and the Eóganach dynasty (Munster) in the south. Foremost among these were Connaught and Ulster in the north, Leinster and Munster in the south. Ireland was – like many other European countries at the time – dominated by rivalling clan- and family-based petty kingdoms, which alternated in having the overlordship over the others. The raiding continued after the Roman withdrawal, and eventually the Scots managed to establish a firm stronghold on the west coast of Pictland (Dalriada). The Romans in Britain had for a long time been exposed to raiding bands of Irish “Vikings” (Scots) all along the west coast, but their invasion plans were postponed again and again, until the Romans were forced to withdraw from Britain in 407 AD. However there existed plans for the invasion of Ireland by the Romans.

Érie – the green island in the west – was fortunate to escape both Roman and Anglo-Saxon occupation and colonisation, opposed to Britain in the east. Recent archaeological and linguistic knowledge have however managed to render more objectiveness into the evaluation of this important period in the history of Ireland. There also exists an Arabic source (Ibn Ghazal)! All these sources however have in common that they were written down at least two centuries after the events took place, and they are all coloured by the authors’ biased view of the Vikings. Apart from the Icelandic Sagas, written down in the 13th Century, there exists a rich array of old Irish annals and chronicles, of which the most widely known are: Annals of Ulster, Annals of the Kingdom of Ireland by the Four Masters (Annála Ríoghachta Éireann), Annals of Clonmacnoise, and “The War of the Gaedhil with the Gaill” (Cogadh Gaedhel re Gallaibh). Knowledge about the Vikings manoeuvres in Ireland is drawn from many sources. The Vikings - The Vikings in Ireland and the Isle of Man

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