Godfred Corvan, an Icelandic-born Viking, has twice attempted the conquest of the Isle of Man, long under the control of the Dublin Norsemen.

The Isle of Man is part of a larger political entity called the Kingdom of the Sudreys, or Kingdom of the Isles, which consists of Mann and the Hebrides.

According to the Chronicles of Mann, Godred Crovan's father was "Harald the Black of Ysland" about whom nothing more is known.

Other sources suggest he may have been a brother or son of Ivar Haraldsson, who died in 1054.

King Godred Sitricson had died in 1070 and his throne had passed to his son Fingal, but he does not seem to have remained there long.

Godred Crovan had assembled a fleet and an army, probably of Norsemen from the Hebrides, and in 1079 attacks the island.

Repulsed, he soon returns for a second attempt.

and is again repulsed, but later in the same year Godred Crovan comes back a third time, and the chronicles are reasonably clear as to what happened next: Corvan and his Vikings defeated the Manxmen at the Battle of Skyhill, one and a half miles west of Ramsey.

It has been suggested that Fingal died at this battle, as he disappears from the record from this time, but the otherwise detailed account neglects to mention this.

The result of the battle is that the Manx submit to Godred’s rule and a sanctioned plundering of the island is carried out by his men.

The island is then divided between the north, for rule by the Manx, and the South, for rule by those from the Hebrides whom Godred had brought with him to the battle.

Despite Godred then moving on to a conquest of Dublin before returning to the Hebrides, he will retain rule of the island until his death in 1095.

His descendants will continue to rule the island for the next seventy-four years, until 1153.