In the year now known as CE791, longships containing fierce, long-haired warriors from the far-off northlands of Scandinavia first appeared off the coast of Ireland, their occupants seeking what they had sought and found elsewhere around the periphery of the North Sea and beyond – plunder and prisoners. Over the course of the next half a century or so, the raiders gradually transitioned into settlers, founding the island’s first permanent settlements in the likes of Dublin and Limerick, and by the time their Norman descendents likewise came calling, some 200 years later, they had integrated seamlessly into the local population. Now, a millennium further along the timeline, a new band of raiders, wanderers and warriors have appeared on the horizon, descending from the north west of the Emerald Isle to pillage our hearts, souls and eardrums with equally lethal intent, their axes creating music rather than spilling blood but their war drums still sounding loud and proud, a defiant declaration.