Westropp — Early Italian Maps of Ireland from 1300-1600. 391 



Garmain or Wexford, but was certainly inland. There is, however, no evidence 

 for trading-ports before the Norse times ; the Irish did not incline towards 

 cities ; and the largest towns were monastic (endless scattered hnts in the 

 fields round a monastery, itself not a claustral building, but a slightly walled 

 group of other houses and churches, with perhaps a round tower). Such was 

 Cork. The existence of Dublin as a city in the fifth century is a figment of 

 hagiographers, culminating in Jocelin, and repeated in many modern popular 

 books. Luimneach was not a town, but a bare islet, with a church of St. 

 Mainchin, and a long tidal estuary. Portlairge, or Loch Dachaoch, was not a 

 town, but an ill-defined reach of Waterf ord Harbour, and of the outer estuary ; 

 Ollarba (Larne) was only a bay. The Vikings founded settlements,^ at first for 

 plunder, then for trade, or both ; and in later days imported wine freely, and 

 traded with the Irish princes, or paid them a wine-tribute. The chief 

 harbours and the towns bore ISTorse names (some re-cast from an Irish original, 

 such as Dublin, Limerick, Cork, and Illfricksfiordr,^ UUerford (Ollarba); 

 others pure " Scandinavian " — Strangford, Carlingford, "Wexford (Weiseford), 

 Waterf ord (Vedrifiordr), Godelford, and Endelford, on their fiords; others, 

 like Wicklow (Vikinglo) and Smerwick (Smiorwick). Inland Norse names 

 like Leixlip, Howth, Ostmanstown, or the Laxweir, lay close to the large 

 towns. Dublin was a ford and pool (not a town) till the foreigners settled at 

 it. The " Norse " names outside these are chiefly islands — Skerries, 

 Holmpatrick, Ireland's Eye, Lambay (Irish BecJira preserved in Portrane), 

 and Dalkey, the latter an adaptation of the sound and meaning of the Irish 

 Dealg-inis, or Thorn Isle. The bold Cape of Ben Edar became " if/ze Head," 

 Howth.^ When the Anglo-Normans invaded Ireland all the chief coast-towns 

 were well established, and some centuries old, their harbours full of shipping, 

 like that of Waterford on the day of its first English assault. 



Dublin. — The convenient creeks at the old "hurdle-ford" (Ath Cliath) 

 and " Black pool " (Dubh linn) led the Norse (Finn Gall) to establish a town 

 on them about 836, when sixty ships full of the foreigners landed.'' It was 



' Mr. Herbert Hore aptly compares the later status of the Nofse towns to Calcutta, Madras, 

 and Bombay in the eighteenth century ; the Ardrigh to the Great Mogul, and the snb-kings and 

 provincial kings to the Bajahs. 



' About 1020 ; see " Orkneyinga Saga " (ed. Rolls Series), iii, p. 19. 



' Worsaae gives the components as fiord, ey, stadr (e.g. Ulaztiri, Ulster; laighin-stadr, 

 Leinster), leix (salmon) and or, cape, as at Greenore and Carnsore. Some add Torry, Thor-ey, 

 Thor's Island, as Thor was the god of stormy places! (Ulster Journal of Archaeology, vol. i, 

 p. 107, and Caesar Otway's " Sketches in Erris," p. 11.) 



* The Thingmote and Lang Stein (pillar) of the assembly place of the Norsemen, remained to 

 either side of the present front square of Trinity College. Several tumuli lay there, The Danes 

 were said to have had vaults for storage of merchandise where Christcliurch (the Cathedral of the 

 Trinity) now stands. They gave their name to " Ostmanstown," the " Oustmans old quarry, 1236," 

 " Ostman's Bridge," and " Ostman's Green " (Cal. Anct. Eec, Dublin, vol. i, the Liber Albus, 

 pp. 81, 96) : and in early days to " Tomar's Wood," near Rutland Square. 



