Irish History [antikvár]

T~r Irish History Introduction The island of Ireland lies within sight of mainland Britain, but although their histories have been intertwined for many centuries, they remain very different places. The Romans saw Ireland ('Hibernia') as a cold inhospitable place, yet the Vikings found it well worth the sail across hundreds of miles of treacherous seas, first to plunder and later to settle. The Normans, descendants from the Norsemen who settled in what is now called France, saw Ireland as an extension of their growing kingdom, but it was a part that they could not easily hold on to as they became 'more Irish than the Irish themselves' (see p.73) and the core of their own civihsation fragmented - other Normans became English or French and they waged war against one another.