# Barbary Pirates in Iceland and Ireland?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/barbary-pirates-in-iceland-and-ireland/766783>\
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\
**Created:** [September 25, 2016, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/barbary-pirates-in-iceland-and-ireland/766783 "2016-09-25T00:00:50Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Snorri\_Thorfinnsson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/77aa72/32.png) [@Snorri\_Thorfinnsson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snorri_Thorfinnsson)\
**Post date:** [September 25, 2016, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/barbary-pirates-in-iceland-and-ireland/766783/1 "2016-09-25T00:00:50Z")

</div>

I have always found this little sidelight of history interesting.

During their heyday the Barbary Pirates ran a pretty extensive slave gathering operation in the Mediterranean and points further north. (They - along with other North African nations also ran large slaving operations that supplied fairly distant destinations - including virtually all the slaves that initially wound up in the New World (including the U.S.)

In 1627 they raided Iceland several times and succeeded in carting off hapless residents of that island.

In 1631 they scooped up the entire village of Baltimore Ireland (leaving only two elderly people who had no value). Of that group only one or two (IIRC) were ever heard from again - they had relatives who managed to send ransom to free them.

This is a pretty interesting book on the Baltimore raid:

> **[The Stolen Village: Baltimore and the Barbary Pirates: Ekin, Des: 9781847171047:...](https://www.amazon.com/Stolen-Village-Baltimore-Barbary-Pirates/dp/1847171044)**
>
> The Stolen Village: Baltimore and the Barbary Pirates \[Ekin, Des\] on Amazon.com. \*FREE\* shipping on qualifying offers. The Stolen Village: Baltimore and the Barbary Pirates

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\
**Post date:** [September 25, 2016, 8:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/barbary-pirates-in-iceland-and-ireland/766783/2 "2016-09-25T08:02:02Z")

</div>

Slaving raids into SW England were common.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Sattua](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sattua/32/11906_2.png) [@Sattua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sattua)\
**Post date:** [September 25, 2016, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/barbary-pirates-in-iceland-and-ireland/766783/3 "2016-09-25T14:56:49Z")

</div>

Funny, I’ve been interested in those Iceland abductions recently, too. It’s hard to find accounts of it. There’s like, one historical account, and one modern book that mentions it. Does anyone have a bigger bibliography? (ETA: in English?)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Snorri\_Thorfinnsson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/77aa72/32.png) [@Snorri\_Thorfinnsson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snorri_Thorfinnsson)\
**Post date:** [September 25, 2016, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/barbary-pirates-in-iceland-and-ireland/766783/4 "2016-09-25T17:03:03Z")

</div>

> [@Sattua](#):
>
> Funny, I’ve been interested in those Iceland abductions recently, too. It’s hard to find accounts of it. There’s like, one historical account, and one modern book that mentions it. Does anyone have a bigger bibliography? (ETA: in English?)

It is mentioned at least a bit in the book I mentioned earlier - it is been a long time since I read it so I don’t remember how much detail was given.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Meurglys](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/258eb7/32.png) [@Meurglys](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meurglys)\
**Post date:** [September 26, 2016, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/barbary-pirates-in-iceland-and-ireland/766783/5 "2016-09-26T14:17:13Z")

</div>

Peter Lamborn Wilson wrote about the Barbary pirate raids at some length, iirc, in his [Pirate Utopias](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirate_utopia#On_the_Barbary_Coast). Of course, he may not be seen as a reputable historian!

And somewhere else, much more recently, I read the theory or surmise that the Norse Greenland settlements latterly also suffered from slave raids by Moorish pirates, which may have had a decisive role in their failure.