Irish annals

At the centre of this struggle stood Aymar, a man whose origins remain uncertain, but whose power was impossible for contemporary chroniclers to ignore.

When he died in the year 873, the Irish annals remember him with an extraordinary title, describing him as the King of the Norsemen of all Ireland and Britain.

It was a remarkable way to remember any Viking leader and it tells us something about the scale of his authority, reputation and influence he had built during his lifetime.

Yet Aymar is also one of the great mysteries of the Viking Age.

It is a story of Dublin, conquest, dynastic ambition, shifting alliances, and brutal warfare across the Irish Sea.

Above all, it is the story of Aymar, remembered by the annalists as the King of the Norsemen.

The earliest source and contemporary reference of Aymar comes in the Irish Annals under the year 857.

The Annals of Ulster record that Aymar and Amliab, the ruler traditionally identified with Olaf the White, inflicted a defeat upon Catil the Fair and his Norse-Irish followers in Munster.