The introduction states, "The Vikings brought many things to Ireland, and had a direct impact on the society of the time." Of course they impacted the society of the time, but what were the long term impacts of this time period? Also, almost a page of the paper is devoted to explaining that the Vikings had no impact on the warfare or religion of the Irish. It would have been better if the author made it clear in the introduction that the impact of the raids varied.
In the introduction the Viking invasions are said to have begun in 795, but the only source that is ever directly quoted throughout the paper puts it at 793. While this seems like a small error, that and the following section erodes the validity of this paper's statements. When the author says, "The Vikings established the first towns in Ireland..." and fails to sight such a bold assertion, all other parts of the paper are called into question. It seems unlikely that before 793 the Irish had no "towns" of their own. If so, where would the Vikings be going to plunder and where would the monasteries be centered? Mistakes and gross generalizations detract from the well written section on the contributions of the Vikings to Irish seafaring and trading. There should be more focus on these positive aspects of this cultural interaction, than discussion of what was not affected.
Throughout the paper there are numerous areas where it appears that something should have been quoted but was not. The section on the Vikings and the Church has a portion that is lifted straight from Foster's Oxford History of Ireland. Also, when discussing the Norse names of Irish cities, the parenthetical citation is wrong, as in the page numbers are off. The section talking about Vikings' contributions to seafaring and their ships has no quotations or citations what so ever, not even when giving the dimensions of the longboats. Whether or not, it was the author's intention to misquote or fail to quote his sources, these mistakes compound the previous ones and make the paper even more ineffectual.
The final section on the Norman Invasion and their Viking connection is disjointed and mistakenly labels the Norman influence as being "English," which did not even exist as a culture to influence anything at that time. The conclusion fails entirely to wrap up this discussion. In fact, it contradicts the introduction. Where the introduction seemed to be saying the Vikings had a big influence, the conclusion says they had almost none. In actually looking at the contributions of the Vikings, the advances in sailing, leading to more trade, it would appear that they did have a major effect on Irish society, both immediate and long term. Two points brought up in the conclusion deserve much more attention in the paper. First, why did the Vikings only set up trading posts along the coastal regions of Ireland as opposed to trying to take over huge amounts of territory? Second, what is important about the Norman ruling of Ireland and what does their being of Viking descent have to do with anything? These are questions that should be addressed in the paper.
A final note is a good lesson for all users of spell check. Throughout his paper, this author uses "decent" instead of "descent" when talking about the Vikings. The crowning achievement though, is the statement that "the Irish, being of Celtic decadence, were largely defined by their language." While the Celtic people may have been quite decadent, it probably had little bearing on the effect of their language. Seriously, there are severe problems with this paper, most of which can and should be fixed easily. Even if the depth is not increased, correcting the historical and citations errors would make the paper stronger and more credible. As it stands, there are just to many glaring mistakes to give much credence to this paper.