The Howth people have it both ways. In business and professional life, they may be enthusiastic Dubliners, savouring the benefits of working and enjoying themselves in one of the world's most entertaining cities. But at home they are villagers, hill-dwellers (albeit in some style), and sea ferers, with a peninsula and maritime way of life which could be dozens of miles from any major urban centre. The sense of interaction between sea and land is imbued in the peninsula's history. In the great Gaelic days of the High Kings of tara, the 563ft peak of the Hill of Howth was one of the inter-linking signal hills of Ireland. Yet at the same time it was an important navigation point for seafarers, known to the Phoenicians and even earlier voyagers, so not surprisingly it was reputedly the base in the First Century AD of the great seafaring Irish King Crimthann. Over the centuries, it is a seafarer's name which has stuck. Thus the old Irish name Beann Eadair (derived possibly from ''Hill of the Oakwood'', but more likely 'The Hill of Eadair'' after a Chieftain of Tuatha de Danann) has been eclipsed in favour of the blunter Howth, derived from the Norse hoved, which simply means headland. Naturally any seafaring community will happily claim a significant Viking input, but for Howth the case is particularly strong. While nearby areas of what was formerly north County Dublin such as Baldoyle and Fingal have their Irish names which indicate the presence of the Vikings settled among the earlier inhabitants, in Howth the Viking name took over, suggesting a dominant presence. In 1994 this historic interaction between Norseman and Gael moved into a new phase with Howth becoming part of the new County of Fingal, which is an Irish name for a Norse situation, as finegall is Irish for ''territory of the Danes'', so calling it Fingal County is superfluous, plain Fingal would do fine Yet at either end of this Irish-named district are the ports of Skerries and Howth, names derived directly from the Norse. This complex interaction of peoples and their languages is a reminder that history is seldom clearcut. The popular account would have it that after the Battle of Clontarf in 1014, the defeated Danes retreated to Howth, and from there they left in their Viking longships. Yet it is accepted that the first Christian church in Howth, on the formerly waterfront site of what is now the ruined St.Mary's Abbey, was built in 1042 by sitric, the Norse King of Dublin. So some twenty eight years after the Vikings are supposed to have taken their departure, there was a thriving community with a strong Danish influence in Howth. This notion of ''the Danes of Howth'' persists strongly down the ages, and local surnames found in the village today such as Harford, Rickard, Thunder and Waldron, are of Norse origin. Although the Howth peninsula is supposed to have been the scene of a great battle between the men of Munster and the men of Leinster in 1087, the foreign'' maritime community in the village some how seems to have kept itself out of the fray to survive intact. They managed to preserve a certain independence despite other great movements of history. The Norman invasion of Ireland (which some would argue was just a new Viking Invasion, but by more refined Vikings with a veneer of French polish) was under way by 1169, and Dublin was taken in 1170. But it was 1177 before a Norman force is recorded as arriving by sea to do battle with the Danes at Howth. Nominally it was led by Sir John de Courcy, but he was off colour on the day, the 10th August 1177. So it was his right hand man, Sir Armoricus Tristram, who led the party ashore and defeated the Danes and the Irish of Howth in the Battle of Evora on the rising ground where the village's Church of Ireland church now stands. It was a bloody little skirmish while it lasted, but it wasn't genocide by any means, so life in Howth resumed, but under new management. Sir Armoricus (whose name suggests Breton origins, yet another element in the Howth melting pot) took the name St.Lawrence in honour of the Saint's Day of August 10th. As the first Lord of Howth he inaugurated a dynasty which was to continue through thirty generations and thought the last Earl of Howth died in 1909, the St Lawrence family are still in residence at Howth Castle. Such continuity is rare in Ireland's turbulent history, and suggests political acumen, ingenuity, and a level of luck which the Vikings would have appreciated. It is altogether in keeping with St Lawrence traditions that the present custodians of the castle have preserved their inheritance and the integrity of their castle through turning their lands into two public golf courses. Over the centuries, the Lords of Howth preserved their position and inheritance through thick and thin, adjusting where necessary (though sometimes with ill grace) to the needs of the times, and in so doing they ensured that the Howth peninsula was largely preserved from the many horrors which were to sweep across Ireland. They were able to work in concert with the Howth people's natural sense of insularity.		For centuries to come, Howth was still to be most easily reached from Dublin by sea, as the rough track from the city was a lawless road. Because the rugged peninsula's farmland is limited, the main industry had been fishing since time immemorial, something reflected in the Irish name - Balscadden - for the area immediately eastward of the present harbour, for it means The Town of the Herring''. So the sea was, for much of the community, the most important element of life, and a natural highway. But although it was thus a place apart, Howth was by no means a backwater. In Mediaeval times - the roadstead in the South inside Ireland's Eye was one of the more sheltered and strategically important anchorage's in the greater Dublin area. Heavy cargoes would have been brought in leisurely style directly to the city as the tide rose across the shallows of Dublin Bay, while the neighbouring North County Dublin was similarly served by the important estuary ports of Baldoyle, Malahide and Rogerstown. But Howth, while always a fishing port, was also the shore access point for speedy craft such as naval vessels and packet boats, which used the Sound as their Irish base as rule from London became more dominant. That Ireland's Eye was the prime factor in Howth's usefulness as an anchorage is underlined by the number of other plans from this period which incorporated the island in proposed and often decidedly grandiose harbours. Meanwhile in Dublin Port there had been an attempt to overcome the problems of the shallow bar with a small harbour built at the Pigeon House tavern along the Liffey entrance's South Wall. The idea behind it was that it would provide a sheltered berth for smaller craft which would cross the bar when there was insufficient tide for the Holyhead packet to enter port. The hazardous business of these boats taking off passengers from the packet boat in the open waters of the bay proved unpopular, and the harbour only functioned from its completion around 1790 until 1810. Thus demand was growing for a proper ferry port, and among those making proposals at the time was Captain Bligh of Bounty Fame, who fetched up in Dublin after this unfortunate experiences in the Pacific. Bligh went on to design Dublin's new harbour mouth, but meanwhile Howth became central to a frenzied movement towards harbour development, as the Government of the day had decided that an all-weather harbour to serve the Holyhead packet was urgently required, and the mindset of its servants mistakenly saw Howth as being central to the London connection. The renowned engineer Telford was commissioned to design a route which started in Dublin, went through Howth, and then went on to London via Holyhead and his bridge across the Menai Straits. To this day what is now the old Howth Road from Dublin through Raheny and Sutton is mile posted with London in mind, and Howth has an extensive harbour. But it emphatically isn't the ferry port. Government seems to have been an even more confused business in the early 19th century than it is today, and although a large harbour was built at Howth between 1807 and 1818, involving several engineers including the great John Rennie, even while it was being built it was increasingly clear that it was going to be inadequate, with much of it shallow, and an awkward entrance for large craft approaching from the east through the relatively narrow Sound into the prevailing westerly wind. So even before Howth's new harbour was fully operational, work was already under way on the south side of Dublin Bay on an enormous artificial harbour at Dunleary. Howth's shallow new harbour served as the official packet station only from 1st August 1818 until 22nd January 1834 with increasing difficulty, for the packet ships were growing in size. But by 1834 Dunleary already re-named Kingstown - was the place where officialdom and fashion came to the sea. Officialdom and polite society didn't wish to be reminded of Howth. After all, the Dublin Harbour authority - the Belfast Board - had effectively squandered £300,000 of public money at Howth building an inadequate harbour which wasn't even in Dublin Bay. In today's terms, that sum becomes a figure somewhere between £12 million and £15 million - a substantial amount, and even more so when it is remembered that at the time, large projects of public expenditure were much rarer than they are today. So after just twenty - seven years of unaccustomed national attention, from the time work on the new harbour started, until the day the ferries were transferred to Kingstown, Howth moved into a much greater insularity and isolation than before. The tiny village no longer even saw so much as the occasional transit of administrators hastening to and from London. It had been by-passed. So it slumbered on through the 19th Century as a forgotten fishing port and small ship harbour, completely off the beaten track. "Howth has it all" we have said, but it seems we were omitting one very important attraction - the pleasant company of you and your friends. You are very welcome ashore.