[122] See the map of the Irish Trade Routes in Mrs. J. R. Green’s _The Old Irish World_.
[123] “Epscop fina” in the sea-laws, _i.e._, “a vessel for measuring wine used by the merchants of the Norsemen and the Franks.” See _Sanas Cormaic_ (_Cormac’s Glossary_) compiled c. A.D. 900. (_Anecdota from Irish Manuscripts_ IV., ed. Kuno Meyer.)
[124] Cf. O’Curry: _Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish_, II., p. 125. For a transcript of the poem see A. Bugge: _Vesterlandenes Indflydelse paa Nordboernes i Vikingetiden_, p. 183.
[126] According to an ancient poem on the great fair of Carman (Co. Kildare) foreign merchants visited this fair and sold there “articles of gold and silver, ornaments and beautiful clothes.” For other references see Joyce: _A Social History of Ancient Ireland_, Vol. II., pp. 429-431; O’Curry: _Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish_, III., p. 531.
[127] _War of the Gaedhil with the Gaill_, p. 115.
[128] _Saga Óláfs Tryggvasonar_ (_Heimskringla_), ch. 51.
[134] _War of the Gaedhil with the Gaill_, p. 79.
[136] _War of the Gaedhil with the Gaill_, p. 79.
[137] _The Book of Rights_ (Leabhar na gCeart), pp. 87, 181. Ed. J. O’Donovan.
[138] _Liber Eliensis_, (ed. Gale) I., ch. XLII.
[139] _Keating: History of Ireland_, III., p. 271. (Ed. Dinneen). Keating probably derived his information from Giraldus Cambrensis: _Topographia Hibernica_, D. III., ch. LIII.
[140] _Expugnatio Hibernica_, I., ch. XVIII.
(See Cunningham: _Growth of English Industry and Commerce_, I., p. 86.)
[142] Giraldus Cambrensis: _Topographia Hibernica_, I., ch. VI.
[143] A. Bugge: _Contributions to the History of the Norsemen in Ireland_, Part III.
[144] Giraldus Cambrensis: _Expugnatio Hibernica_, I., ch. III.
[145] A. Bugge: _Vesterlandenes Indflydelse paa Nordboernes i Vikingetiden_, pp. 300-304.
[148] Duald Mac Firbis: _On the Fomorians and the Norsemen_ (ed. A. Bugge), p. 11.
The almost complete absence of any allusion to Irish ships[149] during the eighth and ninth centuries shows that at this time the Irish had no warships to drive back the powerful naval forces of the Vikings. Meeting with no opposition on sea the invaders were able to anchor their fleets in the large harbours, and afterwards to occupy certain important positions along the coasts. In this connection it is interesting to note that the Irish word _longphort_ (a ‘shipstead’; later, ‘a camp’) is used for the first time in the _Annals of Ulster_ with reference to the Norse encampments at Dublin and Linn-Duachaill (840); hence it has been concluded that the early Norse _long-phorts_ were not exactly fortified camps, but ‘ships drawn up and protected on the landside, probably by a stockaded earthwork.’[150]