had a governor in the city. Generally, the Irish kings milked the cities for men, fleets
and taxes, and it is likely that they encouraged their wealth-creating trade. Irish writers
appreciated the skills of the merchants and this may reflect the attitudes of the political
class they served: seolad crann dar muir co beacht / cráes Gall is cennaigecht ‘sailing ships
skilfully over the sea / the gluttony and commerce of the Vikings’. Their influence,
which was significant, was henceforth commercial and cultural – in art, language and
literature (Bugge 1900 , 1904 ). The Viking past, which now looked more like a remote
heroic age, a time when dynastic ancestors fought a fearsome foe, was drawn upon for the
historical propaganda that gave status to twelfth-century kings and expressed their
ambitions. The Christian and relatively peaceful Vikings were the whipping boys of this
new royal patriotism (Goedheer 1938 ). Ironically, their world of urbanisation, trade and
communications provided the means by which these very kings grew great (Ó Corráin
1987 : 287 – 93 ; 1998 b: 420 – 52 ).
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–– chapter 31: The Vikings and Ireland––