Godred Crovan
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Godred Crovan (Old Irish: Gofraid mac meic Arailt, Gofraid Méranech) (died 1095) was a Norse-Gael ruler of Dublin, the Isle of Man and the Hebrides in the second half of the 11th century. Godred's epithet Crovan means white hand (Middle Irish: crobh bhan). In Manx folklore he is known as King Orry.
The notice of Godred's death in the Annals of Tigernach calls him Gofraid mac meic Aralt or Godred, son of Harald's son. As a result, it has been suggested that Godred was a son, or nephew, of the Norse-Gael king Imar mac Arailt (or Ivar Haraldsson) who ruled Dublin from 1038 to 1046, who was in turn a nephew of Sigtrygg Silkbeard. The Chronicle of Man reports that Godred, who it calls the son of Harald the Black of Iceland, was among the survivors of Harald Hardraade's defeat at battle of Stamford Bridge on 25 September 1066, and that he took refuge with his kinsman Godred Sigtryggsson, then king of the Isle of Man. Irish sources tell us that Godred Sigtryggsson was subject to the Irish king of Dublin, Murchad son of Diarmait mac Mail na mBo of the Uí Cheinnselaig. Godred and Murchad both died in 1070, and the rule of the Isle of Man passed to Godred's son Fingall.
In 1079, the Chronicle of Man says that Godred invaded the Isle of Man three times:
In the year 1056 [1079], Godred Crovan collected a number of ships and came to Man; he gave battle to the natives but was defeated, and forced to fly. Again he assembled an army and a fleet, came to Man, encountered the Manxmen, was defeated and put to fight. A third time he collected a numerous body of followers, came by night to the port called Ramsey, and concealed 300 men in a wood, on the sloping brow of a hill called Snaefell. At daylight the men of Man drew up in order of battle, and, with a mighty rush, encountered Godred. During the heat of the contest the 300 men, rising from the ambuscade in the rear, threw the Manxmen into disorder, and compelled them to fly.
The Chronicle says, and Irish sources agree, that Godred then took Dublin although the date is unknown. In 1087 the Annals of Ulster record that "the grandsons of Ragnall" were killed on an expedition to the Isle of Man. In 1094 Godred was driven out of Dublin by Muircheartach Ua Briain. He died the following year, "of pestilence" according the Annals of the Four Masters, on Islay.
Godred left three known sons, Lagmann, Olaf and Harald. Harald was blinded by Lagmann and disappears from the record, but the descendants of Lagmann and Olaf ruled the Kingdom of the Isles until the rise of Somerled and his sons, and ruled the Isle of Man until the end of the kingdom 1265 and its annexation by Alexander III, King of Scots. Even as late as 1275 Godred son of the last king of Man tried to seize the island.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- Crawford, Barbara, Scandinavian Scotland. Leicester University Press, Leicester, 1987. ISBN 0-7185-1282-0
- McDonald, R. Andrew, The Kingdom of the Isles: Scotland's Western Seaboard c.1100–c.1336. Tuckwell Press, East Linton, 1997. ISBN 1-898410-85-2
[edit] External links
- The Chronicle of Man and the Sudreys published by the Manx Society (1874) at A Manx Note Book
- CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts at University College Cork includes the Annals of Ulster, Tigernach and the Four Masters as well as Genealogies, and various Saints' Lives. Most are translated into English, or translations are in progress
