With these boats, the Vikings left home and set their sights on new possibilities. The Viking Longship with the Mainsail addition | Public Domain

The Viking longship gained a mainsail, and the already powerful, speedy boats soon became unstoppable. But the greatest advancement of the ships would come after the fall of the Roman Empire, when expanded trade routes through and around Scandinavia opened the doors to more opportunities. More power demanded more stability, so the Vikings switched to iron nails to keep the planks in place. Then came the overlapping planks, and the switch from paddles to anchored oars. The boat’s first design mimicked the dugout canoe, or log boat. With the evolution of their longship, nothing was impossible for the Vikings in Western Europe. With the long, dark winters and big mountains, those that lived there had to adapt often to survive and when land became scarce and they were pushed further and further north, they would look elsewhere to fix their troubles. In the 8th century, the Vikings were facing hard times. The Swedish Vikings went east into Russia and the Baltic countries, whereas the Danes and the Norwegians sailed west.

But what made these ruthless raiders set sail on the Atlantic Ocean and leave their homelands? The Vikings came from three areas of what is now Scandinavia in Norway, Denmark, and Sweden. These times would see some of the darkest moments in Irish history: countless murdered, churches burned, a slave trade industrialized, and the rise and fall of multiple Gaelic kingdoms. The great Viking love affair with Ireland would begin in 795 AD, and go on for 333 years.

Viking longphort viking conquest