ABSTRACT
About the year 800 the Scandinavians, moved by an uncontrollable impulse, took to the sea. Led by their ‘jarls’ and free warriors, in galleys superior to anything yet invented, which could at once face the Atlantic seas and sail far up any navigable river, they soon became the constant terror of civilized lands. Ireland is rich in navigable streams and great inland lakes, and is nowhere more than fifty miles from the sea. She was thus from the Norse point of view an ideal land to attack, with her broad pastures, abundant cattle, unorganized people, and rich and numerous monasteries.
