Uí Ímair

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The Uí Ímair or Uí Ímhair were a Norse-Gaelic dynasty who ruled the Irish sea region and western coast of Scotland from the late 9th century into the 10th century. The name is Old Irish, and means "grandchildren" or "descendants of Ivar", perhaps referring to Ivar the Boneless, the man whose obit is recorded in the Irish annals under the year 873, reading Imhar, rex Nordmannorum totius Hibernie & Brittanie, uitam finiuit., or "Ivar, king of all the Norse of Ireland and Britain, ended his life". The Uí Ímair took their inheritance and ruled the same area - namely the Irish longphuirt (i.e. "ship-ports" like Dublin and Waterford), Mann, the Hebrides, Argyll, and the coasts of Galloway, Ayrshire, and Cumberland-Westmorland, as well as much of Northumbria - into the next century. However, as Alex Woolf points out, it would be a mistake to view the lordship as a "unitary empire", but instead a collection of lordships ruled by the same kindred, with only varying degrees of unity depending on the political circumstances of the moment and the charisma of individual leaders.

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References

Forte, Angelo, Oram, Richard, & Pedersen, Frederik, Viking Empires, (Cambridge, 2005)
Woolf, Alex, "Age of Sea-Kings: 900-1300", in Donald Omand (ed.), The Argyll Book, (Edinburgh, 2004), pp. 94-109

External links

Annals of Ulster

translation

Uí Ímair

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