[Zuider]

At the time, Ireland was indeed a wealthy country, having made its fortune selling leather to the Romans three centuries before, because the semi-nomadic Irish cultivated large herds of cattle roaming on unfenced plains, while the settled Britons kept sheep. This permitted the establishment of a culturally sophisticated Gaelic Order so stable that it was able to assimilate the invading Vikings and the first wave of Normans, who actually went native and began speaking the Irish language.

[robgibbons]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/More_Irish_than_the_Irish_th...