This is the fourth volume in the Pathways to our past series, and is billed as ‘a partnership project between Dublin City Council and the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland’ (p. xxv), which grew out of a meeting of the U.K.’s Midlands Viking Symposium, held in Dublin in 2011. It contains articles by twenty-seven scholars, on a wide variety of topics, and collectively they have much to offer Viking and Irish studies. The Vikings in Ireland and beyond is bookended with two significant review articles, by the editors and Donnchadh Ó Corráin, respectively. In the first, the editors offer a useful historiography of Viking-Age Ireland from the 1830s to the present and then proceed to question ‘when the Viking Age as a whole may be said to have occurred’ (p.17). They note the influence of national perspectives on this issue, particularly on assigning a terminus to the Viking Age. For example, Danish historians see it end c.1050, with the demise of Danish influence in England, while Irish scholars have pushed it farther forward to c.1100, owing to the expeditions of the Norwegian king Magnus Barelegs to Ireland and the isles, which culminated in his death in Ulster in 1103. However, as Clarke and Johnson point out, historians’ event-based approach to setting the chronological limits of the Viking Age is at odds with archaeologists’ preference for trend-based periodisation; trends such as changes in material culture or the evolution of urban settlements do not sit easily within an event-based chronological framework. For their part, the editors propose dividing the Viking Age into ‘early’ (c.790–c.950) and ‘late’ (c.950–c.1100), whereby ‘early’ is ‘the classic period of Viking activity as it is normally conceived’ (a somewhat nebulous formulation) and ‘late’ was ‘characterized by various forms of acculturation abroad and by progressive developments in the homelands evinced by state formation, town growth, mintage, and conversion to Christianity’ (p. 21). This places the Battle of Clontarf (1014) comfortably within the later Viking Age, and does not make it the chronological dividing line that the book’s subtitle might suggest. (Indeed the battle does not get much attention overall, with the exception of articles by Máire Ní Mhaonaigh and Howard Clarke). The final essay, by Donnchadh Ó Corráin, bears his characteristic vim, vigour and erudition, challenging traditional interpretations of Viking impact on Irish learning and the reasons why they never conquered large portions of Ireland.

The focus of Viking studies in Ireland generally lies upon Dublin, which is understandable given the richness of archaeological finds from urban excavations carried out within the city. However, as Gareth Williams notes, Dublin may be considered ‘atypical of wider Viking settlement in Ireland’ (p. 101), and this volume’s wide geographic purview goes somewhat toward redressing the balance. Individual fields of study such as art history and settlement are well served, but it is the trio of articles by John Sheehan, Gareth Williams and Andrew Woods (in economic history and archaeology) that probably constitute the most important contribution of this volume to Viking studies. Sheehan places the silver assemblage excavated at Woodstown (Co. Waterford) within a wider Irish and Scandinavian economic context. In doing so, he highlights the paradox that although Norway is generally believed to be the Viking homeland that had the greatest degree of contact with Ireland, it is Danish-controlled southern Scandinavia that is vital for understanding Woodstown’s silver. Williams looks at means of exchange and the ninth-century pre-urban Viking camps of Britain and Ireland and argues that they were established at a time of major economic change in Scandinavia. The Vikings, he concludes, did not come from a well-developed silver-using economy, but rather one that was evolving rapidly while they were venturing to these islands. Woods convincingly argues that three coin hoards found in Dublin, dating from the decade immediately prior to Sitric’s establishment of Dublin’s coinage (c.995), offer evidence for the monetisation of Dublin’s economy prior to Sitric’s innovation. Consequently Sitric’s decision – although significant – was not as revolutionary as it may first seem, and for Dubliners in the years following 995 ‘it was very much business as usual’ (p. 370). Collectively, these three essays represent a significant advancement in our interpretation of the economic history of Viking-Age Ireland.

As with almost every large volume of essays, not every contribution will be of a uniformly high standard. Gillian Fellows-Jensen’s exploration of Viking influence on personal names and place-names in Ireland is problematic in many instances, not least because of a number of factual inaccuracies. For example, the Annals of Inisfallen do not record an attack on Rechru in 795 (neither is the Rechru mentioned in other annals in 795 generally believed to be Lambay island) (p. 270), Glún Iairn son of Diarmait slain in 1070 was not ‘also king of the Gaill’ (rather his brother Murchad may have ruled Dublin) (p. 271), and the Fragmentary Annals is an eleventh-century (and not a seventeenth-century) text (p. 273). Questionable too is the implied proliferation of the personal name Iargna (Jarnkné) in the ninth century (annalistic entries for three of the four years referenced most likely refer to the same Iargna, and a fourth does not refer to anyone by that name (p. 270)). Something similar may be said of its Gaelic equivalent, Glún Iarn, in the tenth century (the ‘Glúniairn son of Olaf Cuarán’ and ‘Glún Iarn, who was the son of Amlaíb’ are actually the same person (p. 271)). Inexplicably the Irish genealogies were not used in this exploration of personal names. Meanwhile, Colmán Etchingham’s article on the Vikings at Annagassan is so heavily reliant for proof upon a number of the author’s own forthcoming works that a rounded judgement on it will have to be postponed until these appear.

Overall, Clarke and Johnson have produced an admirable volume that is worth reading and worth the price.