The volume represents these differences of opinion, by and large with the sting, but not the substance, taken out. The conference took place in Dublin in 1995 in order to mark the anniversary of the first recorded Viking raid on Ireland and to examine selected aspects of the relations between Scandinavia and Ireland between c. 800 and c. 1000. From the Insular point of view, however, these developments have little resonance until the first appearance, apparently in the 790s, of those raiders on western European shores.
Several papers acknowledge the problem, but no one solves it.
This is a solution unlikely to find favour wherever the definition of the Viking Age rests more prosaically on the presence of Vikings. Clearly the volume is not aiming for consensus, and such differences do not undermine it. Rather, they underline and demonstrate the problems offered by the sources available for study of the early Viking Age in Ireland. Doherty emphasizes the degree of success of Irish resistance and its social implications-a 'militarization of society' which did indeed bring about the passing of the old order, though not as envisaged by Daniel Binchy in 1959. This volume brings together sixteen papers from an international conference held in October 1995 in Dublin to mark the 12th anniversary of the first recorded Viking raid on Ireland.