SNIPPET: The Viking raiders who came to conquer Ireland in the 9th and 10th centuries were illiterate, pagan, sea-faring merchants who established the town of Dublin, and other coastal towns of Waterford, Wexford, Limerick, and Cork. The Viking influence on the Irish economy was important. They minted the first coinage in Dublin, and opened up to the outside world through coastal traffic. With such long-term coexistence, there had to be some cultural exchange. Viking craftsmen contributed the popular Ringerike style of carving and produced many significant works of art. And the Irish scholars introduced the literature of Greece and Rome to the Norse. Stone churches built with mortar began to replace the wooden ones throughout the country, and stone round towers appeared on the landscape, usually within the monasteries. They were used as storage for records and treasures of the monastery and as places of refuge for the members of the community. Much of the Norse influence was beneficial to the Irish, but when the invaders sought to expand their power, the Irish stopped them. The Irish won a decisive victory under Brian BORU (self-described in the "Book of Armagh" as the Emperor of the Irish) at Clontarf in 1014. This battle was particularly significant; it was the last successful Irish stand against a foreign invader. By the end of the 12th century the Normans had arrived in Ireland, a country of many small, often warring kingdoms. In 1170 Dermot MacMURROUGH, the king of Leinster, sought the help of the English, especially Richard de CLARE, the Norman Earl of Pembroke ("Strongbow"), in defeating the Irish king Rory O'CONNOR who had banished MacMURROUGH from his own kingdom. For his assistance Dermot offered not only his loyalty to the Normans, but the hand of his daughter in marriage to Strongbow. This drama is illustrated in a painting of the wedding of Princess Aoife and Strongbow, as well as the poem "Dermot and the Earl." Thus began a period of conquest and colonization, a dispossession that would not end for eight centuries. The Norman lords built castles and towns for themselves. It was a time of transformation and upheaval, but in the end the Normans did not effectively conquer the country. In fact, the Normans were assimilated into the Irish culture, becoming "more Irish than the Irish." They learned Gaelic, their names were Gaelicized (De BURGOS became BURKE, GERALDINE became FITZGERALD). Effective English control was now limited to "the Pale," the area including Dublin and about 20-30 miles surrounding it. Everything that went on outside these borders was simply "beyond the Pale" - unacceptable, the turf of barbarians with varying degrees of loyalty to the English crown. A portion of a letter written by Captain de CUELLAR, one of the few survivors of the 1588 wreck of the Spanish Armada off the coast of Ireland, describes his harrowing escape in this "barbarian" territory beyond the Pale. Wanting even more control over the Irish, the English government started a long process of "colonizing" Ireland, removing property from the Irish noblemen, forcing the Irish off their land and settling "plantations" of English settlers. The Ulster land of Hugh O'NEILL, the leading spirit of the Ulster resistance, was planted with thousands of Scots Presbyterians. The political and religious problems between Ulster and the rest of Ireland may well have started here. -- Excerpts, "The Irish, A Treasury of Art and Literature," ed. Leslie Conron Carola (1993).