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10 THE VIKING PERIOD
CHAPTER II.
INTERCOURSE BETWEEN THE GAILL AND
THE GAEDHIL DURING THE VIKING
PERIOD.
THE existence of the Gaill-Gaedhil or foreign Irish in Ulster
and various parts of Minister 1
during the years 854-856
shows that even in the early part of the ninth century
there must have been considerable intercourse between the
Vikings and the native population. For some of the Gaill-
Gaedhil were partly of Irish, partly of Norse extraction ;
others, as the annalist explicitly states, were Irishmen who
had been fostered by the Norsemen, and in consequence
had forsaken Christian practices and lapsed into Paganism.
2
From a chance allusion in a tenth century text3
it
would seem that they could speak Gaelic, but so badly
that the expression
"
the gicgog of a Gall-Gaedheal
’
;
was
generally understood to mean halting or broken Gaelic.
They are mentioned in the Annals for the first time* in
854, in which year Aedh Finnliath, King of Aileach, won
1
Annals of Ulster, A.D. 855, 856; Annals of (he Four Masters,
A.D. 856.
*Three Fragments of Annals, pp. 128, 129 ; 138, 139.
3
Airec Menmam Uraird Maic Coisse, sec. 29 (Marstronder :
Bidrag til det Norske Sprogs Historic i Irland, p. 10).
4
With the Gaill-Gaedhil are often identified a body of plunderers,
members of Meath and Cavan clans, who in the year 845 devastated
large tracts of territory
"
after the manner of the Gentiles
"
(
Annals
of Ulster, A.D. 845). The Annalists call them
"
sons of death
"
(mate
bdis), possibly a term applied by the monastic chroniclers to a people
who had abandoned their Christian baptism, and who had profaned
churches and religious houses. (Cf. Marstrauder, op. cit., p. 7, n.)
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