Part Two covers the Vikings and the making of kingdoms, from 793 to 1066. It has three sections.

• The first covers the Viking raids and settlements on both islands: the Danelaw in England, the Norse isles and the birth of Alba in Scotland, Rhodri the Great in Wales, and the founding of Dublin.
• The second covers how the kingdoms answered. Æthelstan made the first kingdom of England, Constantine II ruled Alba, Hywel Dda joined much of Wales, and Brian Boru became High King of Ireland and died at Clontarf in 1014.
• The third covers the last century before 1066: Cnut’s North Sea Empire, Macbeth, Gruffudd ap Llywelyn, the only king ever to rule all of Wales, and the year that ended the Viking Age.

I. Raiders and Settlers, 793 to about 900

Every time an English speaker says “sky,” “window” or “they,” a Viking word is spoken. This section tells how those words, and the people who spoke them, arrived.

The first raids

The Vikings were seafarers from Scandinavia, the lands of modern Norway, Denmark and Sweden. Those who came to Britain and Ireland were mostly Norwegians and Danes. The English called them all Danes. Part One ended in 793, when they attacked the monastery of Lindisfarne, on a small island off the coast of Northumbria. Monasteries were easy targets: they held gold, silver and food, and they stood near the sea with no walls or soldiers.

Two years later the Vikings struck Iona, the island monastery founded by Columba. They came back in 802, and again in 806, when they killed sixty-eight monks. The survivors fled to Kells, in Ireland. They probably carried with them a great illustrated book of the Gospels. Today it is called the Book of Kells, and it is on display at Trinity College Library, in Dublin. In 825 the raiders returned to Iona once more. They killed the monk Blathmac while he was saying Mass. A poem written soon afterwards says he refused to show them where the relics of Columba were hidden.

In the area of modern England

More than seventy years after Lindisfarne, in 865, a much larger force landed in East Anglia. The English called it the Great Heathen Army. “Heathen” meant not Christian. Its leaders were Halfdan and Ivar the Boneless. They did not come only for treasure. They aimed to conquer all four English kingdoms.

They nearly did. In 866 they took York, and with it Northumbria. In 869 they conquered East Anglia and killed its king, Edmund, later honoured as a saint. By 874 Mercia had fallen too.

The monks of Lindisfarne could no longer stay on their island. In 875 they left for good. They took with them the coffin of Saint Cuthbert. He had been bishop of Lindisfarne, and the Lindisfarne Gospels were made in his honour. They also carried the Gospels themselves and the island’s other treasures. For seven years they wandered the north with the coffin. In 883 they settled at Chester-le-Street, inside an old Roman fort. In 995, fresh Viking attacks moved Cuthbert one last time, to Durham. His body still lies there today. We stood at his shrine in Durham Cathedral and thought of those monks carrying him across the hills.

Only Wessex held out, under its king, Alfred. Even Wessex almost fell. In January 878 the Viking leader Guthrum made a surprise attack at Chippenham, and Alfred escaped with a few men into the marshes of Athelney, in Somerset. From there he gathered a new army. In May 878 he defeated Guthrum at Edington, in Wiltshire. Alfred then besieged the Viking camp until it surrendered. Three weeks later Guthrum was baptised a Christian, with Alfred as his sponsor. He even took an English name, Athelstan, not to be confused with the later king. He withdrew to East Anglia, and Wessex stayed free.

The two kings then agreed a border. North and east of a line from London to Chester, Danish law ruled. This land became known as the Danelaw, meaning “the Danes’ law.” Its strongholds in the Midlands were five fortified towns, later called the Five Boroughs: Leicester, Nottingham, Derby, Stamford and Lincoln. The Vikings who settled there farmed the land and stayed.

They left their mark on the map and on the language. Place names ending in -by, meaning a village, and -thorp, meaning a small settlement, come from their Old Norse language. So does every Kirkby, the “church village.” English also took Norse words such as law, sky and window, and even the everyday words they, them and their.

In the area of modern Scotland

Norse settlers sailed to Orkney and Shetland from about 800. In the 800s the islands became an earldom. An earl was a powerful lord who ruled for a king. Here the earls were Norse and owed loyalty to the king of Norway. Later Norse tradition names the first earls as the brothers Rognvald and Sigurd the Mighty. The remains of Norse houses can still be seen on the Brough of Birsay, a small tidal island off Orkney that later became the earls’ seat. The islands stayed Norse for six centuries. Only in 1472 did they pass to Scotland.

On the mainland, the Picts and the Gaels of Dál Riata faced the same raiders. In 839 a Viking army killed the king of the Picts, his brother and many of their nobles in battle. The Picts were left without leaders. In the 840s Kenneth MacAlpin, by tradition a king from the Gaels of Dál Riata, took power over the Picts. His heirs ruled both peoples. By about 900 their joined kingdom was known as Alba, the Gaelic name for Scotland.

The Britons of Alt Clut suffered too. Their capital was a great rock on the River Clyde, and Alt Clut means “rock of the Clyde.” In 870 the Viking kings of Dublin, Olaf and Ivar, besieged it for four months and took it. In 871 they sailed home to Dublin with two hundred ships full of treasure and slaves. The Gaels later called the rock Dun Breatann, “fortress of the Britons,” and that name lives on today as Dumbarton. After the siege, the Britons ruled from further up the Clyde, and their kingdom became known as Strathclyde.

In the area of modern Wales

The Welsh kingdoms faced two enemies: Vikings from the sea, and the English kingdom of Mercia to the east. By now the Anglo-Saxons called themselves the English. The Welsh called them Saeson, “Saxons,” and still use that word for the English today. Rhodri the Great, king of Gwynedd in the north west from 844, fought both enemies. In 856 he defeated a Viking army and killed its leader, Horm. The victory was recorded even in Ireland. In 877 the Vikings beat him in the “Sunday battle” on Anglesey, and he fled to Ireland. He came back in 878, but he and his son Gwriad were killed fighting the Mercians. His sons divided his lands: Anarawd kept Gwynedd, and Cadell took Ceredigion in the west. Their families ruled in Wales for generations. Cadell’s son was Hywel Dda, whom we meet in Section II.

Ireland

The raids on Ireland began in 795, when Vikings burned the monastery on the island of Rechru, probably Rathlin, off the north coast. The Irish called the raiders Gaill, “the foreigners.”

In 841 the Vikings seized an Irish church settlement called Duiblinn, on the River Liffey. There they built a fortified camp for their ships, called a longphort. In 853 a Viking leader named Olaf arrived, and the Vikings in Ireland accepted him as their king. He became the first king of Dublin. Dublin grew into a busy port, and in time one of the largest slave markets in western Europe. Later, in the 900s, its kings sometimes ruled York as well, across the Irish Sea.

In 902 the Irish kings of Brega and Leinster drove the Vikings out of Dublin. But in 914 a great Viking fleet arrived at Waterford, and in 917 the Vikings took Dublin back. Vikings also founded Waterford, Wexford, Cork and Limerick, all still Irish cities today.

In short: the Vikings came first as raiders, then as settlers. They took much of eastern England, the northern isles of Scotland and the coasts of Ireland, where they founded Dublin.

II. The Kingdoms Answer, about 900 to 1014

How do small kingdoms survive a powerful enemy? On both islands they grew larger, and new kingdoms were born.

In the area of modern England

Alfred died in 899. His son, Edward the Elder, and his daughter, Æthelflæd, carried on the fight. Æthelflæd ruled Mercia as the “Lady of the Mercians.” Brother and sister held the land they won with fortified towns called burhs, a word that lives on in English place names ending in -borough and -bury. In the 910s they won back the Danish lands of the Midlands and East Anglia. When Æthelflæd died in 918, Edward took Mercia under his own rule.

Alfred’s grandson, Æthelstan, finished the work. In 927 he took York, the last Viking stronghold.

For the first time, one king ruled all the English. The kingdom of England was born. Before Æthelstan there were English kingdoms. From now on there was one England. The same year, at Eamont, near Penrith, the king of the Scots and kings from Wales met him and accepted him as their overlord. His coins called him “king of all Britain.”

In 937 he faced an alliance of Norse, Scots and Strathclyde Britons at Brunanburh, and he won. Nobody knows exactly where the battle took place. After Æthelstan died in 939, Viking kings won York back for a time. Viking rule in the north finally ended in 954, when the last Viking king of York, Eric Bloodaxe, was driven out.

In the area of modern Scotland

By now the joined kingdom of the Picts and Gaels was called Alba. Its king, Constantine II, ruled for more than forty years, from 900 to 943. In 906, at Scone, near Perth, he and the bishop of St Andrews promised to protect the laws of the Church. Scone later became the place where Scottish kings were crowned.

Constantine fought off the Norse. In 904 his army defeated a Viking force in Strathearn and killed its leader. In 918 he fought the Viking king Ragnall at Corbridge, in Northumbria.

He also had a powerful new neighbour to the south. In 927 he met Æthelstan at Eamont and accepted him as overlord. The peace did not last. In 934 Æthelstan invaded Alba by land and sea, with his fleet reaching as far as Caithness. Constantine looked for allies. A later chronicle says his daughter married the Norse king of Dublin, Olaf Guthfrithsson. In 937 they fought Æthelstan together at Brunanburh. Constantine lost the battle and a son. In 943 he gave up the crown and became a monk at St Andrews. He died there in 952.

In the area of modern Wales

Rhodri’s grandson, Hywel Dda, meaning Hywel the Good, joined much of Wales under one ruler. He inherited his father’s lands in the south west, and through his wife, Elen, he gained the kingdom of Dyfed. Around 920 he joined the two into a new kingdom, Deheubarth. In 942 the king of Gwynedd was killed fighting the English, and Hywel took Gwynedd and Powys too.

Hywel lived next to the new kingdom of England, and he chose peace with it. He visited Æthelstan’s court many times and stayed out of the war of 937. In 928 he made a pilgrimage to Rome. He is the only Welsh king known to have had his own coin, a silver penny made at Chester.

The traditional laws of Wales carry his name, the Laws of Hywel Dda. Later writers said he gathered lawyers and churchmen at Whitland to write them down. Historians doubt that meeting took place, and the oldest surviving copies of the laws were written centuries later. At Hywel’s death in 950, his lands were divided again among his family.

Ireland

Ireland had many kings, each ruling a province or a smaller kingdom. Above them stood the High King, whose title brought more honour than real control. In Munster, a family called the Dál gCais rose against the old ruling dynasty. In 978 their leader, Brian Boru, won the kingship of Munster in battle, two years after his elder brother was killed.

For about fifteen years Brian fought the High King, Máel Sechnaill. He used fleets of boats on the River Shannon as well as armies on land. In 997 the two kings split Ireland between them: Brian took the south, Máel Sechnaill the north. In 999 Brian defeated Leinster and the Norse of Dublin at Glenmama and took Dublin. In 1002 Máel Sechnaill gave up the title, and Brian became High King. In 1005 his scribe wrote him into the Book of Armagh as “Emperor of the Irish.” He then spent about ten years forcing Leinster, Dublin and Ulster to accept him.

In 1013 Leinster and the Norse of Dublin rebelled again. They called in allies from Orkney and the Isle of Man. On 23 April 1014, Good Friday, the armies met at Clontarf, near Dublin. Brian’s side won. Sigurd, the Norse earl of Orkney, was among the dead. But Brian, then in his seventies, was killed. A later account says he was praying in his tent, and that many of the enemy drowned as the tide cut off their escape. His son Murchad also died. Brian was buried at Armagh, and Máel Sechnaill became High King once more. Brian’s descendants became the O’Briens, a family name taken from his own.

In short: Wessex grew into England, the Picts and Gaels became Alba, Hywel joined much of Wales, and Brian Boru made himself High King of Ireland.

III. The Last Century Before 1066

By now the main kingdoms were in place. In these years a Danish king ruled England, a Scottish king later made famous by Shakespeare fought for his throne, one Welsh king ruled all of Wales, and Ireland, after Brian, had no single king.

In the area of modern England

Around 980 the Viking raids began again. England’s king, Æthelred, could not stop them. Later people called him “the Unready,” from an old English word meaning “badly advised.” He paid the raiders huge sums of silver to leave, but they kept coming back. In 1002 he married Emma, sister of the Duke of Normandy. Remember her name: she ties England to Normandy, and to 1066.

In 1013 the Danish king, Swein Forkbeard, conquered England, and Æthelred fled to Normandy. Swein died a few weeks later. In 1016 Swein’s son, Cnut, defeated the English at Assandun. When Æthelred’s son, Edmund Ironside, died that November, Cnut became king of all England. He married Æthelred’s widow, Emma. Two years later he became king of Denmark too, and in 1028 king of Norway. Historians call his lands the North Sea Empire. He died at Shaftesbury in 1035, aged about forty. His bones lie in Winchester Cathedral.

Cnut’s sons ruled England only briefly after him. In 1042 the crown went back to the old royal family: Edward, son of Æthelred and Emma, who had grown up in exile in Normandy. People later called him Edward the Confessor, for his holy life. He rebuilt the abbey church at Westminster on a grand scale, the ancestor of today’s Westminster Abbey. Beside him, the most powerful man in England was Earl Godwin, and after him his son Harold. Edward had no children. When he died on 5 January 1066, Harold was crowned king the next day.

In the area of modern Scotland

Alba kept growing. In 1018 its king, Malcolm II, defeated the English of Northumbria at Carham, on the River Tweed, and won Lothian. The Tweed is still close to the border between Scotland and England today. By the middle of the 1000s, the old British kingdom of Strathclyde had also come under the kings of Scots.

Malcolm II died in 1034 with no sons. His grandson Duncan became king, the first of a new family, the House of Dunkeld. In 1040 Macbeth, ruler of Moray in the north, killed Duncan in battle, probably near Elgin, and took the throne. Macbeth ruled for seventeen years. In 1050 he travelled to Rome as a pilgrim, the only reigning king of Scots known to have made the journey, and he gave money freely to the poor there. In 1054 an English army under Earl Siward of Northumbria invaded and defeated him, but he kept the throne. In 1057 Duncan’s son Malcolm killed him at Lumphanan. After a short reign by Macbeth’s stepson, Lulach, Malcolm became king in 1058. He is remembered as Malcolm Canmore, “big head” or “great chief.”

In the far north, the Norse earl Thorfinn the Mighty ruled Orkney and lands on the mainland. He made Birsay his seat and built a church there.

In the area of modern Wales

Gruffudd ap Llywelyn became king of Gwynedd and Powys in 1039. That same year he crushed a Mercian army at Rhyd-y-Groes, on the River Severn. In 1055 he took Deheubarth in the south west, and soon the south east as well. From then until 1063 he ruled all of Wales, the only king ever to do so. In 1055 he also joined an English rebel, Earl Ælfgar of Mercia, and together they burned Hereford. Gruffudd married Ælfgar’s daughter, Ealdgyth.

In 1063 the English struck back. Earl Harold Godwinson sailed around the coast of Wales while his brother Tostig marched in by land. Gruffudd was driven into the mountains, and there his own men killed him and sent his head to Harold. In 1066 Harold, now king, married Gruffudd’s widow, Ealdgyth, and she became queen of England.

Ireland

After Brian’s death, Máel Sechnaill was High King again until he died in 1022. After him, no single king held all Ireland. The provincial kings went on fighting for the high kingship. The annalists called the strongest of them “kings with opposition,” because there was always someone who refused to accept them.

Norse Dublin survived Clontarf. Its king, Sigtrygg Silkbeard, ruled for almost fifty years, until 1036. Around 997 he had the first coins in Ireland struck in Dublin. In 1028 he went on pilgrimage to Rome, and around 1030 he founded the church that became Christ Church Cathedral.

In 1051, when Harold Godwinson was exiled from England, he sailed to Ireland, and the king of Leinster, Diarmait mac Máel na mBó, sheltered him. Diarmait was a friend of the Godwin family. In 1052 he took Dublin and became the strongest king in Ireland..

1066: the end of the Viking Age

When Edward died, three men believed the crown of England was theirs. Harold had been crowned. Harald Hardrada, king of Norway, claimed it through an old agreement between earlier kings of Norway and Denmark. William, Duke of Normandy, said Edward had promised it to him, and he was Emma’s great-nephew. In September, within ten days of each other, two invasions reached England..

First came Hardrada, a famous warrior who had once served in the emperor’s guard in Constantinople. With him came Tostig, Harold’s own exiled brother. On 20 September they defeated the northern English at Fulford, outside York. Harold marched north from London, about 300 kilometres in four days. On 25 September he surprised and killed both Hardrada and Tostig at Stamford Bridge, near York. Hardrada is often called the last great Viking king, and historians often take this battle as the end of the Viking Age.

Three days later, William landed at Pevensey, on the south coast. Harold hurried back south. On 14 October, nineteen days after Stamford Bridge, William defeated and killed Harold at Hastings. On Christmas Day 1066, William was crowned king in Westminster Abbey, the church Edward had built. A new ruling family and a new ruling class took over England. For Wales, Scotland and Ireland the change came later, as the Normans pushed into each of them. That story opens Part Three.

In short: Part Two runs from the first Viking raid in 793 to the last great Viking invasion in 1066. The Vikings came as raiders, stayed as settlers and, for a time, ruled. In answer, Wessex grew into the first kingdom of England, the Picts and Gaels became the kingdom of Alba, Wales had one king for a few years, and Ireland was shaped by Brian Boru and the kings who fought for his title. By 1066 the islands had the shape they would carry into the age of the Normans.

Rulers of the period

In the area of modern England

• Alfred the Great, House of Wessex (871 to 899)
• Edward the Elder, House of Wessex, son of Alfred (899 to 924)
• Æthelflæd, House of Wessex, daughter of Alfred, Lady of the Mercians (911 to 918)
• Æthelstan, House of Wessex, grandson of Alfred (924 to 939; first king of all England from 927)
• Eric Bloodaxe, Norse, last Viking king of York (driven out 954)
• Æthelred the Unready, House of Wessex (978 to 1016; in exile 1013 to 1014)
• Swein Forkbeard, Danish royal house (king of England 1013 to 1014)
• Edmund Ironside, House of Wessex, son of Æthelred (1016)
• Cnut, Danish royal house, son of Swein (1016 to 1035; also king of Denmark and Norway)
• Harold Harefoot and Harthacnut, Danish royal house, sons of Cnut (1035 to 1042)
• Edward the Confessor, House of Wessex, son of Æthelred and Emma (1042 to 1066)
• Harold Godwinson, House of Godwin (January to October 1066; killed at Hastings)

In the area of modern Scotland

• Kenneth MacAlpin, House of Alpin (took power over the Picts in the 840s)
• Constantine II, House of Alpin (900 to 943)
• Malcolm II, House of Alpin (1005 to 1034)
• Duncan I, House of Dunkeld, grandson of Malcolm II (1034 to 1040)
• Macbeth, House of Moray (1040 to 1057)
• Lulach, House of Moray, stepson of Macbeth (1057 to 1058)
• Malcolm III Canmore, House of Dunkeld, son of Duncan (from 1058)
• Sigurd the Mighty, Norse Earl of Orkney (about 875 to 892, by later tradition)
• Sigurd the Stout, Norse Earl of Orkney (killed at Clontarf, 1014)
• Thorfinn the Mighty, Norse Earl of Orkney (died about 1065)

In the area of modern Wales

• Rhodri the Great, king of Gwynedd (844 to 878)
• Anarawd, son of Rhodri, king of Gwynedd (878 to 916)
• Cadell, son of Rhodri, king of Ceredigion (died 909)
• Hywel Dda, son of Cadell, of Rhodri’s line (Deheubarth from about 920; also Gwynedd and Powys from 942; died 950)
• Gruffudd ap Llywelyn (Gwynedd and Powys from 1039; all Wales 1055 to 1063)

Ireland

• Olaf, Norse, first king of Dublin (from 853)
• Olaf Guthfrithsson, Norse king of Dublin, ally of Constantine II (934 to 941)
• Máel Sechnaill mac Domnaill, Southern Uí Néill, High King (980 to 1002, and again 1014 to 1022)
• Brian Boru, Dál gCais (king of Munster from 978; High King 1002 to 1014)
• Sigtrygg Silkbeard, Norse king of Dublin (about 989 to 1036)
• Diarmait mac Máel na mBó, king of Leinster (1042 to 1072; took Dublin 1052)

Key Dates

• 793: Vikings attack Lindisfarne
• 795: First Viking raids on Iona and on Ireland
• 806: Sixty-eight monks killed on Iona; the survivors flee to Kells
• 825: Blathmac killed on Iona
• 839: Vikings kill the king of the Picts in battle
• 841: Vikings found a ship camp at Dublin
• 840s: Kenneth MacAlpin takes power over the Picts
• 853: Olaf becomes the first king of Dublin
• 856: Rhodri the Great defeats a Viking army
• 865: The Great Heathen Army lands in East Anglia
• 866: The Vikings take York
• 869: King Edmund of East Anglia killed
• 870: Vikings of Dublin besiege Alt Clut
• 875: Lindisfarne’s monks leave the island with Cuthbert’s body
• 877: Rhodri defeated in the “Sunday battle” on Anglesey
• 878: Guthrum’s surprise attack at Chippenham; Alfred wins at Edington; Rhodri killed
• 883: The monks settle at Chester-le-Street
• 899: Death of Alfred
• 902: The Irish drive the Vikings out of Dublin
• 906: Constantine II’s oath at Scone
• 914: A great Viking fleet arrives at Waterford
• 917: The Vikings take Dublin back
• 918: Æthelflæd dies; Edward takes Mercia under his own rule
• About 920: Hywel Dda forms Deheubarth
• 927: Æthelstan takes York; the first kingdom of England; kings meet at Eamont
• 934: Æthelstan invades Alba
• 937: Battle of Brunanburh
• 942: Hywel Dda takes Gwynedd and Powys
• 954: Eric Bloodaxe, last Viking king of York, driven out
• 978: Brian Boru wins the kingship of Munster
• 995: Cuthbert’s body moved to Durham
• 999: Brian wins at Glenmama and takes Dublin
• 1002: Brian becomes High King; Æthelred marries Emma of Normandy
• 1013: Swein Forkbeard conquers England
• 1014: Battle of Clontarf; Brian killed
• 1016: Cnut becomes king of England
• 1018: Battle of Carham; Malcolm II wins Lothian
• 1034: Death of Malcolm II
• 1039: Gruffudd ap Llywelyn becomes king of Gwynedd and Powys
• 1040: Macbeth kills Duncan in battle
• 1042: Edward the Confessor becomes king
• 1051: Harold Godwinson, in exile, finds shelter in Leinster
• 1052: Diarmait of Leinster takes Dublin
• 1054: Earl Siward of Northumbria defeats Macbeth
• 1055: Gruffudd ap Llywelyn rules all Wales
• 1057: Macbeth killed at Lumphanan
• 1058: Malcolm Canmore becomes king of Scots
• 1063: Gruffudd killed
• 5 January 1066: Edward the Confessor dies; Harold crowned
• 25 September 1066: Battle of Stamford Bridge; Harald Hardrada killed
• 14 October 1066: Battle of Hastings; Harold killed
• 25 December 1066: William crowned in Westminster Abbey

Where to see this period

In the area of modern England

• Lindisfarne (Holy Island), Northumberland: where the raids began. The priory museum displays a carved stone showing warriors with raised weapons, often linked to the raid. Reached by a causeway at low tide.
• Durham Cathedral: the shrine of Saint Cuthbert, carried from Lindisfarne by its monks.
• Jorvik Viking Centre, York: built on the Coppergate dig, with Viking York recreated.
• Malmesbury Abbey, Wiltshire: burial place of Æthelstan, first king of all England. His tomb there was made centuries later.
• Winchester Cathedral: where Cnut’s bones lie.
• Westminster Abbey, London: Edward the Confessor’s shrine, and the place where William was crowned on Christmas Day 1066.
• Battle Abbey, East Sussex: built by William on the battlefield of Hastings.

In the area of modern Scotland

• Brough of Birsay, Orkney: Norse houses and farm buildings on a tidal island, near the seat of Thorfinn the Mighty. Reached only at low tide.
• Iona Abbey: the island raided in 795, 802, 806 and 825, with carved crosses of the 700s and 800s in its museum.
• Dumbarton Castle: on the rock of Alt Clut, besieged by the Vikings of Dublin in 870.
• Scone Palace, Perth: Moot Hill, the old crowning place of the kings of Scots.

In the area of modern Wales

• Maen Achwyfan, Flintshire: a carved stone cross from around 1000, about eleven feet tall.
• Whitland, Carmarthenshire: the Hywel Dda Centre and garden, where tradition says his laws were written down.

Ireland

• Trinity College Library, Dublin: the Book of Kells on display. The college also keeps the Book of Armagh, where Brian Boru was called “Emperor of the Irish”.
• Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin: founded by Sigtrygg Silkbeard around 1030. Next door, the Dublinia museum tells the story of Viking Dublin.
• Kells, County Meath: the round tower and high crosses of the monastery where Iona’s monks found refuge.
• Clonmacnoise, County Offaly: the Cross of the Scriptures, carved about 900, now in the visitor centre.
• Hill of Tara, County Meath: the seat tied to the high kingship that Brian Boru won.
• St Patrick’s Cathedral, Armagh (Church of Ireland): a plaque marks Brian Boru’s burial place.