ANGLO-IRISH RELATIONSMide, but in 947 he and Congalach were defeated in
battle at Slane by Ua Canannáin. The following year,
948, Blacaire was back in Dublin, only to be slain
by Congalach, and Amlaíb was back in Northumbria.
It seems likely that the defeat at Slane had convinced
the Dubliners that the alliance with Congalach was
a mistake and that Amlaíb had been expelled for
promoting it.
Amlaíb continued to rule in Northumbria until
952, when he was expelled by the populace. He then
disappeared for about a decade while Blacaire’s
nephew Gofraid ruled in Dublin. This Gofraid mac
Amlaíb died in 963, and the following year Amlaíb
Cuarán returned to the Irish stage with a raid on
Kildare. Amlaíb seems to have maintained his alli-
ance with the family of Congalach, who had been
slain by Gofraid in 956. Curiously the woman who
succeeded as abbess of Kildare in 963, did not
belong, like her predecessors, to the Fothairt dynasty,
but was Congalach’s daughter Muirenn. This seems
more than coincidence. At this time Amlaíb had his
own daughter, Ragnaillt, married to Domnall mac
Congalaig. Amlaíb himself married Dúnlaith, the sis-
ter of Domnall ua Néill, king of Tara, and widow of
Domnall mac Donnchada king of Mide (d. 952). At
some point between about 966 and 970, Amlaíb mar-
ried Gormflaith daughter of Máel Mórda, king of the
Laigin, and his relations with Domnall ua Néill
soured. The king of Tara targeted the monasteries
that fell under Amlaíb’s protection at Louth,
Dromiskin, Monasterboice, and Dunleer. In 976, he
also destroyed Skreen, the Columban church adjacent
to Tara, which seems to have been patronized by
Amlaíb. In the same year Domnall mac Congalaig,
Amlaíb’s son-in-law, died.
In 980, following the retirement into religion of
Domnall ua Néill, Amlaíb fought a great battle at Tara
against his own stepson Máel Sechnaill mac Domnaill,
king of Mide. It is possible that Amlaíb was presenting
his own claim to the kingship of Ireland, but he was
defeated and Máel Sechnaill took the kingship.
Amlaíb, after four decades at the heart of Insular pol-
itics retired to Iona where he died in penance the
following year. One son, Ragnall, was killed in the
battle of Tara, but a number of others, including Glún
Iairn, Sitriuc, Aralt, Ímar, and Dubgall, survived their
father and continued to play a significant role in Irish
history. Amlaíb’s career marks the process of nativiza-
tion of the Vikings. His father’s generation were pagan
Scandinavians, but his own patronage of monasteries,
retirement to Iona, and the Gaelic names borne by
some of his children bear witness to the extent to which
the Hiberno-Norse were now as much Irishmen as
foreigners.
ALEX WOOLF
References and Further Reading
Downham, Clare. “The Chronology of the Last Scandinavian
Kings of York.” Northern History40 (2003): 25–51.
Smyth, A. P. Scandinavian York and Dublin. Dublin: Temple-
kieran Press, 1979.
Woolf, Alex. “Amlaíb Cuarán and the Gael, 941–81.” In Medi-
eval Dublin III, edited by Seán Duffy. Dublin: Four Courts,
2002.
See alsoCináed Ua hArtacáin; Viking IncursionsANGLO-IRISH RELATIONS
Anglo-Irish relations were given constitutional expres-
sion when King Henry II of England (1154–1189)
came to Ireland in 1171 and took the formal submis-
sion of the Irish kings. Yet given the geographical
proximity of Britain and Ireland, it is certain there had
always been interactions between the peoples of the
two islands. Ireland was not absorbed by the Roman
Empire, despite the claim of the historian Tacitus that
the governor of Roman Britain from 77–83 C.E., Agri-
cola, contemplated an invasion. Contact with Roman
Britain took the form of raiding and trading. In the
early medieval period, Irish missionaries were influ-
ential in Britain, and political relations with Scotland
and Wales were intimate. Dating Ireland’s contact with
England is more problematic. Unlike Ireland, the peo-
ples that made up England were culturally diverse. The
English kingdom was a comparatively recent inven-
tion, the very word Engla-lndonly appearing in the
late tenth century. Before a certain point, therefore, it
may be nonsensical to talk of “Anglo-Irish” relations.
For a brief period in the tenth century, the Viking kings
of Dublin were also kings of York. But although this
is evidence of contact, it is questionable whether it
should be dubbed “Anglo-Irish” relations.
On the other hand, it seems that the Viking fleets of
Ireland were coveted by the Anglo-Saxon kings, and
in the eleventh century Ireland’s contacts with England
come into focus. At the time of the Norman conquest
of England, the sons of Harold Godwinsson sought
refuge in Ireland from the Normans. It seems that the
Norman kings of England aspired to control Ireland.
According to his death notice in the Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle, had William “the Conqueror” (1066–1087)
lived two more years, “he would have conquered Ire-
land by his prudence and without any weapons.”
GiraldusCambrensis records that the conqueror’s son,
William II “Rufus” (1087–1100) gazed from the coast
of Wales towards Ireland and boasted that “For the
conquest of the land, I will gather all the ships of my
kingdom, and will make of them a bridge to cross over.”
The interest was not all from predatory English
kings. The archbishop of Canterbury, Lanfranc (d. 1089),