Note 1 — Chapter I · THE VIKINGS IN IRELAND (795-1014).

Zimmer was of the opinion that the Norsemen made their way to Ireland as early as the seventh century. He bases his theory on an entry in the Annals of Ulster and in certain other Irish annals (under the year 617) recording “the devastation of Tory Island by a marine fleet.” (über die frühesten Berührungen der Iren mit den Nordgermanen, p. 279 ff. in Sitzungsberichte der kgl. preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. 1891. Bd. I., pp. 279-317.) But this attack is likely to have been due to Saxon or Pictish raiders rather than to the Norsemen.