
Sihtric Caech (884-927), also known as Sigtryggr of Irland, was King of Dyflin from 917 to 921 (succeeding Imar ua Imair and preceding Gofraid ua Imair) and King of Sudreyjar from 921 to 927 (succeeding Ragnall ua Imair and preceding Gofraid ua Imair).
Biography[]
Rise to power[]

Sigtryggr in 911
Sihtric Caech was a grandson of Ivar the Boneless and the brother of Ragnall ua Imair, and they were both forced to flee to Britain after the Irish expelled the Vikings from Dublin in 902. In 911, he and his army invaded Wales and conquered the Deheubarth fortress at Dinefwr before defeating Hywel Dda's Welsh army when he attempted to retake it. He then liberated the prisoner Brida, who had been the lover of his cousin Cnut Longsword, and she repeatedly attempted to convince him to avenge the deaths of thousands of Danes at the Battle of Tettenhall. Sihtric was finally persuaded to take action when the Mercian defector Eardwulf arrived in Wales with a plan to have his own revenge against the Anglo-Saxons. Sihtric and his army took the West Saxon capital of Winchester without resistance, helped into the unprotected city by Eardwulf. Sihtric took Uhtred of Bebbanburg's daughter Stiorra prisoner, and they fell in love during her captivity. He then held off numerous costly attacks on the city by King Edward the Elder, but the West Saxons ultimately breached the walls. Sihtric and Uhtred convinced Edward to cease the fighting, and Sihtric offered to leave Wessex and Mercia for good if Lady Aethelflaed of Mercia would grant him her recent conquest of Northymbre as his kingdom. Aethelflaed reluctantly agreed, but one of the terms was Sihtric's marriage to Stiorra, who convinced her father to allow her to leave with her lover.
King of Northymbre[]
Sihtric ruled territory in the eastern Danelaw until 917, when Sihtric and Ragnall led separate fleets in an invasion of Ireland. Sihtric recaptured Dublin in 917 and became its new king, but he became rivals with his brother after refusing to join his brother in his invasion of England. His brother allied with Ailech against Sihtric, and Sihtric and Stiorra were besieged at Loch Cuan (Strangford Lough) until Uhtred came to their rescue by ambushing Ragnall's fleet and convincing its leader Ova Freyrsson to join him. In 919, Sihtric won the Battle of Islandbridge against a coalition of local Irish kings, killing six of them. In 920, he left Dublin for Northymbre, with his kinsman Gofraid ua Imair succeeding him as king. In 921, Ragnall's death led to Sihtric becoming the new King of Northymbre, and he reconquered much of Mercia from Wessex in the following years. In 926, he married a sister of Aethelstan of England as part of a peace treaty, and he briefly converted to Catholicism before reverting to paganism. He died in 927.