page_title: History of Ireland (800–1169)
section_title: Historiography
hierarchical_section_title: History of Ireland (800–1169) / Historiography
caption_attribution_description: Photograph of Eoin MacNeill, or John McNeill, Chief of Staff of the Irish Volunteers, 1916.
context_page_description: The history of Ireland 800–1169 covers the period in the history of Ireland from the first Viking raids to the Norman invasion. The first two centuries of this period are characterised by Viking raids and the subsequent Norse settlements along the coast. Viking ports were established at Dublin, Wexford, Waterford, Cork and Limerick, which became the first large towns in Ireland.
  Ireland consisted of many semi-independent túatha, and during the entire period, attempts were made by various factions to gain political control over the whole of the island. For the first two centuries of this period, this was mainly a rivalry between putative High Kings of Ireland from the northern and southern branches of the Uí Néill. The one who came closest to being de facto king over the whole of Ireland, however, was Brian Boru, the first high king in this period not belonging to the Uí Néill.
  Following Brian's death at the Battle of Clontarf in 1014, the political situation became more complex with rivalry for high kingship from several clans and dynasties.
context_section_description: Due to the rich amount of written sources, the study of Irish history 800–1169 has, to a large extent, focused on gathering, interpretation and textual criticism of these. Only recently have other sources of historical knowledge received more attention, particularly archaeology. Since the modern excavations of Dublin started in 1961, followed by similar efforts in Wexford, Waterford and Limerick, great advances have been made in the understanding of the physical character of the towns established during this period.
  The first part of the period from 800 to 1014 is well-studied; the "Viking age" has attracted the interest of historians for quite some time. The period between 1014 and 1169 has received less attention. In the words of Sean Duffy, this period
  has – historiographically speaking – fallen between two stools. Historians of early medieval Ireland, seeking to conclude their narratives on a high note, have traditionally done so after recounting the death of the famous high-king Brian Bórama (Boru) at the battle of Clontarf in 1014. On the other hand, historians of later medieval Ireland generally choose to begin proceedings with the English invasion of the 1160s. Eleventh- and early twelfth-century Ireland has, therefore, often assumed the character of a snappy epilogue or a lengthy prologue.
  In trying to interpret the history of early Ireland, one of the most frequently asked questions addressed by historians is how early it is possible to speak of an Irish nation encompassing the whole island of Ireland. Early poet-historians like Flann Mainistrech constructed a history of a monarchy of all Ireland going back to and beyond St Patrick. Only a hundred years after Mainistrech, Gerald of Wales described the Irish society in his Topographia Hibernica as utterly primitive and savage. At the beginning of modern scholarly interpretation of Irish history, Eoin MacNeill and G.H. Orpen came to opposite conclusions analyzing the same period. Orpen saw an anarchic country still in 'a tribal state'; he could see no nation, no wider community in Ireland than the tribe. MacNeill stressed the reality of the high-kingship of Ireland and the existence of many of those institutions of government which Orpen found wanting, and claimed that Irish law had a national character.
caption: Eoin MacNeill, one of the pioneers in modern studies of Irish medieval history
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "71", "Image YResolution": "71", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image ExifOffset": "90", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "300", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "539"}