Irish Slaves..

jetsonx

reading a book over the summer.

The (american) author states that there are alot of descendants of the
Irish in Iceland - seemingly the Vikings has some sort of a slave trade thing
going on betwee Ireland and Iceland. Did anyone else ever hear of this because I did'nt ?

Karoma

They took slaves. I wouldn't imagine that they kept many, and what few they did were likely to have been worked to death or killed. There's little or no Celtic influence in Icelandic culture. Although, supposedly, there's some genetic evidence.
What exactly is your source? What are the 'facts'?

jetsonx

no hard facts, just a statement in a book.

boneless

Vikings (or even better, Scandinavian pirates and traders), took slaves. The Irish were pirates and traders too. There is evidence that Irish slaves ended up in Iceland; there are names which are possibly of Gaelic origin, eg. Cartanson (Mc Cartan??). There is also evidence of how badly the Irish treated their slaves. Go to the NMI and see the artefacts found at the Ballinderry crannog... leg irons and collar chains were found... with skeletal remains included!!

Anyhow, how did Patrick first end up in Ireland?

cushtac

Earlier in the year I met a spa from Iceland who felt it his duty to remind me every ten minutes that Iclanders used to keep Irish as slaves, so there's obviously some knowledge of this theory/statement in Iceland too.

lostexpectation

cushtac wrote:

Earlier in the year I met a spa from Iceland who felt it his duty to remind me every ten minutes that Iclanders used to keep Irish as slaves, so there's obviously some knowledge of this theory/statement in Iceland too.

isn't that sentence supposed to be 'Earlier in the year I met a spa from Iceland who felt it his duty to remind me every ten minutes that Vikings used to keep Irish as slaves, so there's obviously some knowledge of this theory/statement in Iceland'

cushtac

No it isn't, it's supposed to be exactly as I wrote it. Feel free to correct the grammar and spelling, but don't tell me what I'm supposed to have written.

Riamfada

take it to spell checks lads

I guess its not entirely impossible that viking brought Irish slaves to Iceland in the latter half of their Irish settlements however would that slave base have been great enough to influence the culture of the Icelandic people?

lostexpectation

cushtac wrote:

No it isn't, it's supposed to be exactly as I wrote it. Feel free to correct the grammar and spelling, but don't tell me what I'm supposed to have written.

I was just using the sentence to question whether there is such a thing as icelandic people, could they not have been made from Vikings landing there?

Capt'n Midnight

In June 1631 pirates from Algiers and armed troops of the Turkish Ottoman Empire, led by the notorious pirate captain Morat Rais, stormed ashore at the little harbour village of Baltimore in West Cork. They captured almost all the villagers and bore them away to a life of slavery in North Africa. The prisoners were destined for a variety of fates -- some would live out their days chained to the oars as galley slaves, while others would spend long years in the scented seclusion of the harem or within the walls of the Sultan's palace. The old city of Algiers, with its narrow streets, intense heat and lively trade, was a melting pot where the villagers would join slaves and freemen of many nationalities. Only two of them ever saw Ireland again.

Mrs. MacGyver

Captn- read that book on the Sacking of Baltimore on Friday on the train home to Cork. Never heard of it till i picked up the book in Reads on my lunch break. Thought initially it was fiction till i read on.... truly amazing stuff. I live about 45 mins from the place and never knew this ever happend. The theory the odonovan the irish cheiftan who let the lands to the British immigrants was involved was interesting... the 21yr lease was up that year and i suppose he was afraid of hostilities if he asked them to leave 'ploitely' so shipping them off to Algiers was his way of getting them out. The human aspect to the whole thing really touched a chord with me in a way no other historical event has. Also the paralles drawn with Iceland were horrendous, and to think this went on until the C19 on the Barbary Coast. Was annoyed by the whole approach Boyle, the Earl of Cork and his indecisiveness at ramsoming these poor unfortunate people...i mean £10,000 for his daughters dowry and only a small portion of this could have been used to reunify these poor families exiled to a life of torture, greed, and slavery - and these being his own country folk...the mind boggles....

Exit

Getting back to Iceland and slaves...

I remember reading that Irish monks were the first inhabitants of Iceland (looking for a place of solitude) and that when the Vikings first landed there, they took the monks as slaves.

boneless

Not too sure about that, but I do know that there is possible evidence for Irish monks on the Faroe Islands when the Vikings got there. I will have to dig out the source for this.

Tha Gopher

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

In June 1631 pirates from Algiers and armed troops of the Turkish Ottoman Empire, led by the notorious pirate captain Morat Rais, stormed ashore at the little harbour village of Baltimore in West Cork. They captured almost all the villagers and bore them away to a life of slavery in North Africa.

Quick to anger, influential leaders, great skill, dark Corkman but light skinned Arab, the two areas of family origin (Algeria/Cork), a liking for head shaving and occasional beard growing.......Roy Keane and Zinedine Zidane anyone? :eek: What a linkage!

spaceman1

Hi,

I studied archaeology and Early Irish in college and from my studies I can tell you that it is not unusual that Irish slave were found in Iceland. Ireland used to have a very strong traditional slave trade before the vikings and trade has been Identified as far as Spain and North Africa, evidenced by a barbary ape skeleton in Navan Fort. Dublin at the time of the Vikings was also a very powerful trading town and has been suggested to have been one of the biggest slave trade posts at the time. Iceland was settled by the Vikings too and it would not be unusual for Irish slave to have been traded there.

hope this helps,

Capt'n Midnight

But we used to raid Wales for slaves, so maybe the "irish slaves" were slaves bought from the irish ?

Exit

boneless wrote:

Not too sure about that, but I do know that there is possible evidence for Irish monks on the Faroe Islands when the Vikings got there. I will have to dig out the source for this.

Ah, it was the Faeroes I was thinking of.

spaceman1

Well the trade in slaves and evidence referred to of Irish slaves in Iceland can anly be consistant if the dates are matched. It is true that the Romans spoke of Irish raiders in the early centuries A.D. thes people being referred to as the "Scotii" these raids did probably consist of enslaving people in Wales. However in the time of the Vikings, they were the main traders, and trade of different materials spanned as far as their settlements in Canada. This therefore reinfores the evidence for Irish slaves being traded to Iceland. However, I am not sure of the dates for when these Irish slaves are evidenced to have existed in Iceland.

jdivision

Irish slaves were brought to Iceland and most people there are part Norwegian and part-Irish. The Westman Islands are named after the Irish slaves.

boneless

spaceman1 wrote:

Well the trade in slaves and evidence referred to of Irish slaves in Iceland can anly be consistant if the dates are matched. It is true that the Romans spoke of Irish raiders in the early centuries A.D. thes people being referred to as the "Scotii" these raids did probably consist of enslaving people in Wales. However in the time of the Vikings, they were the main traders, and trade of different materials spanned as far as their settlements in Canada. This therefore reinfores the evidence for Irish slaves being traded to Iceland. However, I am not sure of the dates for when these Irish slaves are evidenced to have existed in Iceland.

The Viking settlement excavated at L'anse aux Meadows included in the finds a ring pin of a type associated with production in Dublin.

Maybe there was an Irish slave or two there as well!!

spaceman1

Yeah Boneless, there are limitless possibilities for the slave trade in the viking world. Trade in the Viking world spread from the Middle East all the way to L'ans Meadow, and the slave trade is practically invisible in the archaeological record. Scholars have suggested that Dublin may have been one of the leading slave markets in Europe.

boneless

I read somewhere, or heard in a lecture- can't remember which- that the first mention of a black person in Ireland comes from the 10th or 11th century Hiberno-Norse Dublin.

WindSock

cushtac wrote:

Earlier in the year I met a spa from Iceland who felt it his duty to remind me every ten minutes that Iclanders used to keep Irish as slaves, so there's obviously some knowledge of this theory/statement in Iceland too.

Haha, I thought this was funny, just the way it's told, I suppose. Tell your smelly Icelandic friend that he's descended from slaves then. I heard the Norwegians plucked Irish women from the West and started a new life with them there in Iceland.

Fletch123

spaceman1 wrote:

Scholars have suggested that Dublin may have been one of the leading slave markets in Europe.

Dalkey Island, Co Dublin was used to keep the Vikings' slaves safe, shackles and various injured bones have been found there. What an island- consitent settlement from Late Mesolithic to e20th century!

mountainyman

The genetic evidence indicates that Icelanders are about 50% Irish.
This is heavily contested and the debate breaks down on ideological lines.

Most of the slaves brought to Iceland were women, they weren't worked to death they were servants/concubines.

MM

luckylucky

boneless wrote:

I read somewhere, or heard in a lecture- can't remember which- that the first mention of a black person in Ireland comes from the 10th or 11th century Hiberno-Norse Dublin.

This might be a reference to the Dubh Gheall (Black Foreigners). This actually is a reference to Danish Vikings, called black foreigners because of the blackened look to their steal armour as opposed to the silver look of the Norwgeian Vikings armour. The Dubh Gheall are still with us today of course, in the form of Doyle - by far the most common surname of Viking origin in Ireland.

From what I've gathered vis-a-vis history programs and the interweb is that the male bloodline in Iceland has a high percentage of Scandanavian, while the female bloodline has Dna which has something like 60% from both Britain and Ireland. So it looks like a lot of the women of Scandanavia said feck that for a lark about going to Iceland, the Irish and British ones didn't have a lotta choice in the matter.

boneless

^ No, this was an actual reference to a black person, or as the Irish refered to them, Blue person... na dhaoine gorm... Gorm being the Gaelic for woad. When coloured people were first heard of the natives here assumed they had dyed themselves with woad, as our ancestors were wont to do before battle.

luckylucky

boneless wrote:

^ No, this was an actual reference to a black person, or as the Irish refered to them, Blue person... na dhaoine gorm... Gorm being the Gaelic for woad. When coloured people were first heard of the natives here assumed they had dyed themselves with woad, as our ancestors were wont to do before battle.

Ah I see. Interesting.

btw what does the ^ mean? it's one symbol I'm never quite sure what it means, raised eyebrow perhaps?

boneless

^ is refer to post above... not a raised eyebrow!! We are quite friendly and civilized here on the Archaeology forum!!

Lirange

I don't know much about the early settlements of Iceland. But I found this:

The Irish in Iceland

Their slaves and concubines (the mothers of many later generations) were also predominantly Irish, some of impressively noble birth. The Saga of the People of Laxardal mentions a haughty slave-girl with no appreciation of her duties, brought to Iceland already pregnant with the child of her Viking captor. She is eventually revealed as Melkorka (Mael-Curchaich?), the daughter of the Irish king Myrkjartan (Muircertach?), kidnapped at fifteen years of age. Faced with feuding women and clearly unable to control his Irish mistress, her owner eventually installed her in a homestead of her own across the river, recorded as the now-deserted site of Melkorkustadir.

She sounds Irish alright. Poor vikings.

jsvitkona

cushtac wrote: »

Earlier in the year I met a spa from Iceland who felt it his duty to remind me every ten minutes that Iclanders used to keep Irish as slaves, so there's obviously some knowledge of this theory/statement in Iceland too.

Just confirming what you've said. I'm Icelandic. It's said in my family that all people who have red hair in their family are descended from Irish slaves that the Vikings took back with them. We've been told this since I was little.

Pablo_

Tim Severins book on his voyage across the atlantic following St. Brendans route has a bit on faroe/iceland and irish connections. He speaks of irish 'papar' , latin for 'father' as far back as C.8th ... these were irish priests, more like monks i'd say, of which evidence has been found and they are mentioned in Viking lore also. But it seems the wave of Viking raiders ousted these priests.

But this is probably irrelevant to the DNA line ( not for celibacy reasons as not a rule yet, but no women around )

keryl

Crazy really.

I'm interested in the Baltic Slaves brought to Ireland if anyone knows of them.

There's a theory that R1a DNA Haplogroup is partly a result of them