The first Norse attackers reached Ireland in 795. They came for portable wealth and captives, not to found a country. Within generations, however, naval camps had become royal bases, and some bases had become towns.

Longships and Market Streets follows that transformation from the first recorded raids to the Anglo-Norman capture of Ireland's principal Hiberno-Norse ports. It explains how Dublin's rulers built power across the Irish Sea; why Waterford, Wexford and Limerick followed different paths; and how streets, households, workshops, ships and markets made the settlements more durable than the kings who fought over them.

Drawing on Irish annals, archaeology, coins, ships, church history and recent genetic research, the book separates evidence from legend. It revisits Clontarf without turning it into a simple national war, confronts the towns' involvement in slavery, and shows how Christian, locally born descendants of settlers became part of Irish political and social life while retaining a distinctive urban identity.

The Viking kingdoms ended. The towns-and the maritime habits that made them valuable-endured.