History of the Faroe Islands

It is possible that Brendan, an Irish monk, sailed past the islands during his North Atlantic voyage in the 6th century.

Following the 1814 Treaty of Kiel that ended the dual Denmark–Norway kingdom, the Faroe Islands remained under the administration of Denmark as a county.

There is some evidence of settlement on the Faroe Islands before Norse Viking settlers arrived in the ninth century AD.

[5] According to a ninth-century voyage tale, the Irish saint Brendan visited islands resembling the Faroes in the sixth century.

[7] Dicuil had met a "man worthy of trust" who related to his master, the abbot Sweeney (Suibhne), how he had landed on islands in the far north after sailing "two days and a summer night in a little vessel of two banks of oars" (in duobus aestivis diebus, et una intercedente nocte, navigans in duorum navicula transtrorum).

Most of these islands are small, they are separated by narrow channels, and for nearly a hundred years hermits lived there, coming from our land, Ireland, by boat.

Both the Saga of Ólafr Tryggvason and the Flateyjarbók claim that Grímr Kamban was the first man to discover the Faroe Islands.

Writings from the Papar, an order of Irish monks, show that they left the Faroe Islands due to ongoing Viking raids.

En á dögum Haralds hins hárfagra flýðu fyrir hans ofríki fjöldi manna; settust sumir í Færeyjum og byggðu þar, en sumir leituðu til annarra eyðilanda.

[12]The text suggests that Grímr Kamban settled in the Faroes some time before the flight from Harald Hårfagre, perhaps even hundreds of years before.

The Norse-Gaels had intermarried with speakers of Irish, a language also spoken at the time in Scotland (being the ancestor of Scottish Gaelic).

[14] The discovery at Toftanes on Eysturoy of wooden devotional crosses apparently modelled on Irish or Scottish exemplars suggests that some of the settlers were Christian.

Indirect support for this theory has been found in genetic research showing that many Norse settler women in the Faroe Islands had Celtic forebears.

According to Færeyinga saga there was an ancient institution on the headland called Tinganes in Tórshavn on the island of Streymoy.

King Sverre of Norway was brought up in the Faroes, being stepson of a Faroese man, and relative to Roe, bishop of the islands.

At this time trading regulations were set up so that all Faroese commerce had to pass through Bergen, Norway, in order to collect customs tax.

Archaeological excavations on the islands indicate sustained pig keeping up to and beyond the 13th century, a unique situation when compared to Iceland and Greenland.

The Faroese at Junkarinsfløtti remained dependent upon bird resources, especially puffins, far longer and to a greater degree than with any of the other Viking Age settlers of the North Atlantic islands.

English adventurers gave great trouble to the inhabitants in the 16th century, and the name of Magnus Heinason, a native of Streymoy, who was sent by Frederick II to clear the seas, is still celebrated in many songs and stories.

In 1537 the new King Christian III gave the German trader Thomas Köppen exclusive trading rights in the Faroes.

This process took five years to complete, in which time Danish was used instead of Latin and church property was transferred to the state.

During this period of the monopoly most Faroese goods (wool products, fish, meat) were taken to the Netherlands, where they were sold at pre-determined prices.

The Danish king tried to solve the problem by giving the Faroes to the courtier Christoffer Gabel (and later on his son, Frederick) as a personal feudal estate.

The Faroese, however, managed in 1852 to re-establish the Løgting as a county council with an advisory role, with many people hoping for eventual independence.

There were some attempts to declare complete independence in this period, but the UK had given an undertaking not to interfere in the internal affairs of the Faroe Islands nor to act without the permission of a liberated Denmark.

[citation needed] Following the liberation of Denmark and the end of World War II, the last British troops left in September 1945.

The subsequent elections Løgting were won by an anti-independence majority and instead a high degree of self-governance was attained in 1948 with the passing of the Act of Faroese Home Rule.

Finally, in October 1992, the Faroese national bank (Sjóvinnurbankin) called in receivers and was forced to ask Denmark for a huge financial bailout.

The independence movement dissolved on the one hand while Denmark found itself left with the Faroe Islands' unpaid bills on the other.

By the early 21st century weaknesses in the Faroese economy had been eliminated and, accordingly, many minds turned once again to the possibility of independence from Denmark.