Ireland and the first Crusade This small work is to cover both the Gaelic (Native Irish) and the Ostmen (Irish vikings) who joined the lager crusade army, which departed France in 1096, and the possible Norwegian crusade that departed London in 1107. Dr Conor Kostick and Dr Damian Bracken are the two of the biggest sources of information on this topic, whose works I refer to a lot in this article as well. First, I must debunk the myth. The notion that 12th century Ireland was in a complete isolation from the rest of Europe is not true to the slightest. For example, Sitrygg Silkenbeard, king of Dublin, started a reform of churches in Ireland in 1028 with the support of Cnut the Great, king of Denmark, and the papacy in Rome. As a part of this reform, many Gaelic and Ostmen would go on pilgrimage to Europe. In the continental Europe, Gregorian reform had started in 1073. The tides of Gregorian reform reached Ireland within the same year, and by 1101 Ua Briain (O’Brien) united the Irish churches as a part of the reform, with Cashel as its centre. For this, Ua Briain was recognised as kings of Ireland by the Pope. Magnus Barelegs, king of Norway, showed his recognition by organising a marriage alliance with Ua Briain, and Scotland gifted him with a camel as a token of their acknowledgement. In the late 12th century, when Pope Urban II called for a crusade, it is recorded that ‘its great thunder did not fail to reach England and the other islands of the ocean’. In contrast, nowhere in Irish literature mentions the Irish joining the crusades, however, people of Ireland started going on ‘pilgrimage’ to Jerusalem. This is also seen in Norwegian literatures, where crusades are referred to as a ‘pilgrimage’. Later in the 1095, when the Pope called for men, an Ostman named Lǫgmaðr Guðrøðarson was looking to repent for castrating and blinding his younger brother. He was marked with a sign of the Lord’s cross, and joined Robert II, Duke of Normandy for a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Sadly, Lǫgmaðr was most likely to be killed in the siege of Antioch in 1098. In 1103, many Ostmen and the Gaelic Irish who did not support Ua Briain were seeking to leave Ireland, and it is believed they found their escape in going on pilgrimage to Jerusalem with Ólafr, the future king of the Isles of the Irish Sea, who then joined the Norwegian crusade in London. It is recorded in 1110 that the Norwegian crusade called at Constantinople. If they did survive the long journey and the wars in the east, those who did not have a place to return to in Ireland most likely joined the Varangian guards, a unit of elite soldiers in Constantinople, modern day Istanbul.

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