The Socio-Political Networks of Sitric Silkenbeard: The Foreign Kings of Dublin - 980 to 1054

This study sets out to examine Dublin between 980 and 1054; more particularly it assesses the role of socio-political networks in maintaining power in Ireland. Associations between the Irish kingdoms and the Hiberno-Scandinavian kingdom of Dublin are made apparent through military alliances, marriages, and the formation of overlord-client relations. Kinship was the fundamental institution upon which power was claimed and maintained in Ireland, but kings also formed larger political networks during their lives in order to serve their political ambitions. However, any claims to overlordship crumbled at the time of deaths, and Ireland was persistently thrown into political turmoil throughout the tenth and eleventh centuries by the power-vacuums left in their wake. Irish history changed most drastically with the arrival of the Normans in the twelfth-century, but there are significant and important shifts that began in 980 during the reign of Glúniairn. Prior to 1054, the kingship of Dublin remained the reserve of the Uí Ímair dynasty. This paper proposes that the last successful king of this dynasty in Dublin was Sitric Silkenbeard, and that his success was rooted in his biological and ethnic relation to Ireland. While a ‘foreign’ king in title (rí Gall), Sitric the product of two centuries of convergence between Scandinavian settlers and the native inhabitants of the British Isles. Broadly, the eleventh-century has been understood as the period in which the interests of the Hiberno-Scandinavian elite were entirely fiscal, as they turned from raiders to traders. In particular, this has greatly minimalized the political impact of the four kings who ruled during this period, most notably Sitric Silkenbeard