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Viking Kings of Britain and Ireland: The Dynasty of Ivarr to A.D. 1014 Paperback – Illustrated, October 3, 2008

by Clare Downham (Author)
4.8 4.8 out of 5 stars 30 ratings
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Vikings plagued the coasts of Ireland and Britain in the 790s. By the mid-ninth century vikings had established a number of settlements in Ireland and Britain and had become heavily involved with local politics. A particularly successful viking leader named Ivarr campaigned on both sides of the Irish Sea in the 860s. His descendants dominated the major seaports of Ireland and challenged the power of kings in Britain during the later ninth and tenth centuries. This book provides a political analysis of the deeds of Ivarr's family from their first appearance in Insular records down to the year 1014. Such an account is necessary in light of the flurry of new work that has been done in other areas of Viking Studies. In line with these developments Clare Downham provides a reconsideration of events based on contemporary written accounts.

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  1. Print length
    358 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Liverpool University Press
  4. Publication date
    October 3, 2008
  5. Dimensions
    6.14 x 1 x 9.21 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    1906716064
  7. ISBN-13
    978-1906716066
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"[Downham] gives us the history of the dynasty from contemporary and near contemporary sources and brings to bear the fruits of thirty years intense scholarship that has emerged since Smyth wrote, a period in which the study of Early Insular History has been revolutionised. In addition to the blow by blow account of the dynasty's deeds, which forms the bulk of the narrative, Downham has also appended a prosopography of 121 Scandinavian leaders active in the Insular World in the period, citing all the primary sources which mention each. This appendix will doubtless be a godsend to scholar and student alike." Early Medieval Europe

- -

About the Author

Dr Clare Downham is a lecturer in Celtic in the School of Language and Literature of the University of Aberdeen. She worked previously at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Liverpool University Press; Illustrated edition (October 3, 2008)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 358 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1906716064
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1906716066
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.27 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.14 x 1 x 9.21 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.8 4.8 out of 5 stars 30 ratings

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Customer reviews

4.8 out of 5 stars
4.8 out of 5
30 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Kathy Wells
5.0 out of 5 stars Great book
Reviewed in the United States on March 14, 2019
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Exactly the book I wanted. Just as described. Thanks so much!!
One person found this helpful
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Kindle Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Good read
Reviewed in the United States on June 2, 2017
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Very informative look on viking affairs in the Irish sea region. Good use of sources both primary and secondary
Thank you
2 people found this helpful
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JPS
4.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating topic, solid scholarship but hard reading
Reviewed in the United States on April 11, 2013
The purpose of this book is to tell the true story of the dynasty of Ivarr, a Viking warlord who was, with some of his brothers and others, one of the leaders of the Viking Great Army that conquered Northumbria, East Anglian and Mercia in the 860s. He also besieged and took Dumbarton in 870 before taken control of Dublin. Over the next decades, until AD 1014 (and even afterwards), his descendants ruled, with various fortunes and at various times, Northumbria, Man, the Viking towns of Dublin and Limerick, the Hebrides and the northern part of Wales.

The author, who clearly knows her subject, has a fascinating and little-known story of alliances, treasons, feuds and wars to tell. Many interesting features come to light, such as the fact that Vikings were frequently allied with local powers against others, with the battle of Clontarf being one example among many since Vikings fought both for and against Brian Boru. Another interesting feature is that Ivarr's dynasty, whose importance is mostly ignored, finally lost out against Alfred and his successors but also against the Irish kinds, and this was at least partly because Ivarr's descendants weakened themselves by fighting against each other.

Another remarkable feature of this book is to show to what extent these "Vikings" (for want of a better term, as the author explains at length) had an eye for choosing strategic sites and successfully attacking their targets. A related feature is to illustrate to what extent their attacks were damageable and can close to overwhelming Alba, Wessex and the Irish kingdoms.

There are however some problems with this book. First, it is difficult to read, largely because it is not written for a general audience. For instance, there are long discussions in which the author rebuts the views held by some of her colleagues, without necessarily explaining in detail what these views might be.

Also, the book's structure, with a first section made into a historical overview and outline and subsequent sections detailing the activities of Ivarr and his descendants in each region where they were active, makes for a lot of redundancies and repetitions that a reader may find tedious at times. Also tedious are the sometimes overlong list of raids, fights and battles that are mentioned one after the other in long lists and sometimes hardly commented upon because little else is known about them than their name and the fact that these events happened.

Finally, the author's tendency to reject almost systemically all non-contemporary sources as "legendary" and therefore untrustworthy (the 12th and 13th sagas in particular) severely limits the source material that can be used, even if archaeology may help to some extent. One consequence, to some extent, is that the author is obliged to speculate and assume a lot.

To sum up, the topic covered and the contents of this book are fascinating and of high quality, as least as far as I know. However, getting to grips with it is a bit of a challenge. This is a pity because, from a general reader's perspective, the book's rating suffers from its relative lack of accessibility (four stars).
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Alan Huffman
5.0 out of 5 stars Knowledgeable
Reviewed in the United States on January 23, 2024
Watched her on the History Channel. Geez, fix that ugly tooth!
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Darren from Australia
5.0 out of 5 stars A great addition to our knowledge of the Viking Age
Reviewed in the United States on April 28, 2017
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Well-researched, and very readable. A great addition to our knowledge of the Viking Age.
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D. Hope
4.0 out of 5 stars A Few Problems With An Excellent Book
Reviewed in Canada on May 10, 2022
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I consider this to be a very good book on Irish history, and for the most part, on the Viking Ivar in Ireland, and on the dynasty that he founded there. However, there are some things in the book that I strongly disagree with. These include statements about Ivar's origins, his relationship to Olaf of Dublin, and the extent to which he was remembered by Scandinavians, and especially by the Scandinavian colonists of England.

The most important point that I disagree with is the author's claim that Olaf of Dublin and Ivar were brothers, and that there father was Gothfrith, the king of one of the small kingdoms of mid-ninth century Norway. This contradicts the traditional belief that Ivar's father's name was Ragnar. This is a problem that deserves further study, but even if it turns out that the 0ld Irish name Ragnall, common in Ivar's dynasty derives from old Norse Rognvaldr, there is another example of a Rognvaldr in viking age Norway being called Ragnar. There is a strong possibility that Ivar was the son of the "Reginheri" of Frankish sources, who defeated the Franks and sacked Paris in 845. There is no proof, but certainly the date and occupation line up well between the two. Also, it would help to explain how Ivar was able to get the whole mass of Vikings attacking the Frankish Empire to follow him to England in 865.

On the other hand there is really no evidence to support the author's assertion that Olaf and Ivar were brothers. She claims the Annals of Ulster's entry for 867, but she is mixing two separate statements that this very compressed entry makes. One being that there were three kings of the Vikings, and the other that one of them, Auisle, was treacherously killed by kinsmen. The entry itself doesn't even imply that one of the other kings killed him. The killing took place in Scotland when Ivar was in England, and the references to this in The Fragmentary Annals of Ireland are in what is obviously one of the most fictional portions of that work, tucked in amongst a number of obviously impossible statements.

Aside from there being no evidence for her position, the author is flying in the face of common sense with it. Their descent was an absolutely critical factor for kings, but although they could work glorious ancestors into the earlier generations of their ancestry, they were stuck with the names of their fathers, since the people that they had to impress knew who these were. Ivar couldn't just pick a father, and besides, I believe that Ragnar, whoever he was, only became a great epic hero because of the conquests in England by his sons Ivar and Halfdan. So there is no motive for the falsifying of names.

The legend of Ragnar and Ivar was almost certainly created among the Scandinavian settlers in the conquered English territory, and it was formed early, most likely in the tenth century. The author, who is a historian of Ireland, is contemptuous of this Anglo-Scandinavian tradition, which she relegates to the fourteenth century. She is out by three hundred years for the first indications of the legend in poetry and passing reference in a written source, and by two hundred years for a written description of an early stage of the legend.

I haven't room in this review to back it up with sources and detailed reasoning, but I believe that the following is the most likely account of Ivar's origins, and of how he came to be sharing the kingship of Dublin with Olaf. He was from the Scandinavian elite, the men who could take the title of king under the right circumstances, and who provided the leadership for the large Viking forces of the late ninth century.

Like many others, he came to Ireland leading his own Viking force sometime between 853 and 857. He formed an alliance with Olaf, and Alfred P. Smyth in, " Scandinavian Kings in the British Isles: 850 to 880" is wrong to claim that he had been involved in any hostile activity against any Vikings associated with Olaf previously. Such hostility would have made their partnership impossible. He brought very valuable reinforcements to Olaf in his struggle to maintain himself in competition with the Irish kings. Ireland was a very warlike country with powerful kings, and the list of Viking leaders killed in that country is quite long. A very valuable book for understanding how such a longstanding alliance could have been formed in the absence of kinship ties, is "Viking Friendship: The Social Bond in Iceland and Norway, c. 900-1300", by Jon Vidar Sigurdsson.

The action that made Ivar, and Ragnar too, I believe, legendary heroes of such high standing that the kings of both Denmark and Norway came to claim Ragnar as one of their ancestors, occurred when Ivar had left Ireland temporarily and campaigned in Britain from 865 to 871. He gathered together almost all of the huge number of Vikings who were engaged in attacks on the Frankish Empire, and he directed this force, which became known as the "Great Army" against England. Half of the country was conquered, some of it under the leadership of Ivar's brother Halfdan after Ivar had returned to Ireland in 871 and died in 873. But Halfdan later failed as a king, and he was not remembered in the legend.

Finally, in spite of these points of disagreement, i think that this book, and all of Clare Downham's other work, is quite outstanding. I don't think that anyone interested in this subject can afford to be without this book.

D. Hope
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peter
5.0 out of 5 stars Clearly written and thorough
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 23, 2021
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Viking Kings of Britain and Ireland: the dynasty of Ivarr to AD 1014, by Clare Downham, 2008, 235 pages, 277 including prosopography of viking leaders named in Irish chronicles or 340 pages all in

At first sight this is a big, thick, intimidating book, but when you realise that around a third of it consists of the appendix and so on, you don't feel as if it will take that long to read. Your sense of relaxation is further enhanced by the fact that most pages contain extensive footnotes. I'm not particularly scared of big books, but the thought of reading the same book for an extended period can be a bit off putting. The ideal book is one that isn't overly long and has been written by an expert and this has definitely been written by an expert.

The chapters include:

Preface

Ivarr and his dynasty

Ireland

England 866 – 937

England 937 – 1013

North Britain

The Kingdom of the Isles

Wales

Conclusion

The book opens with a very engaging preface that discusses terminology and how inconsistently it was applied in the original sources. In some instances an account would describe a force as being Danes and then in a later entry referring to the same group it would use Northmen and so on. It seems that rather than there being any uniform application in terminology, a lot was down to the whims of the person writing.

The chapters are arranged geographically with a footnote referring you to the relevant pages detailing the further adventures of these people when they are recounted in another chapter dealing with a different locale. This gives a certain amount of reinforcement to what you've already learned instead of it feeling like repetition,

Downham writes with a clarity of thought and that helps to make this book a happy reading experience. This is a book that is very easy to read. However, it is a little bit tricky at first keeping on top of all of the names. Many of these are very similar in kind to each other and are also transcribed in a way that you may not be immediately au fait with, as they are given the original form, rather than what we are used to seeing in other books. There is Sigtryggr instead of Sihtric and plenty of others that involve letters that I've not got a clue where to find in my keyboard options, let alone pronounce. However, you soon get used to this and I can't help but feel that if more books had gone with the original form then the early medieval studies world might be a bit of a better place.

There was a heck of a lot I liked about this book. Downham brings some much needed clarity to the events in York following the accession of Edmund to the English throne. I feel as though I now have a much better understanding of this than I had before. It's a shame that she has her doubts over Eric Bloodaxe being the correct Eric who ruled in York on occasion, but that's only because he has, let's face it, the coolest name going and if he'd been called Barry the Viking, then I wouldn't be feeling quite so let down. I enjoyed her logical and clear demolition of the theory that Maccus of the Isle of Man had Norman paternity, as she made what could have been an academic argument very easy to follow.

This book would have benefited from more maps, especially of Ireland and Scotland, as I'm not as familiar with the geography there as I am here and had to look up where in Scotland Ross was. As it happens, I will have to read the Irish, Scottish, Isles and Welsh sections again to get the most from them, because these are fairly new areas to me, but that's no real hardship.

Whilst Ivar and his descendants were clearly of significance, I can't help but wonder if geography would suggest that if it wasn't them, then it would have been other leaders mixed up in similar events, as there were plenty of rival viking leaders operating in the same areas with ambitions regarding these territories.

On a side note, I'm pretty chuffed that I passed a quarter of a million words of notes I've been making on this period whilst reading this.
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Ilse-Maria Gidion
5.0 out of 5 stars Disentanglement
Reviewed in Germany on December 16, 2012
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The book ‘Viking kings of Britain and Ireland, The Dynasty of Ivarr to A.D. 1014‘ by Clare Downham is in my opinion a Must for everyone who ever tried to disentangle the never-ending lines of IVARs and OLAFs and families in Irish viking history. I bought the book in October by Amazon and are still studying it with great interest, having been able to clear up already quite a lot of uncertainties and mistakes.
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Lorraine Sandham
5.0 out of 5 stars Great book
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 4, 2020
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Just what I need, great, and it arrived on time.
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M Harold Page
5.0 out of 5 stars Is that a ritual blood eagle, or did you get hit in the back while running away?
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 9, 2014
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Good serviceable prose that drags Ivar the Boneless out from under a bizarre academic feud and restores him to his rightful place in history.
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