Dublin by this point. Muirchertach Ua Briain, King of Munster certainly gained authority over Dublin within the year, although the fact that the annal-entry evidencing Godred's kingship there in 1091 contains no verb could suggest that he too reigned in Dublin as early as 1089. Whatever the case, Godred's acquisition of this coastal settlement may well have been a strike of sheer opportunism in which he took advantage of the ongoing conflict between the kingdoms of Munster and Leinster. His probable familial links with Dublin could have contributed to his remarkable success as well, and it is possible that the Dubliners considered this conquest as a restoration of the kingdom's royal family. Certainly his conquests in the Irish Sea region amounted to the reunification of the Uí Ímair imperium, and appear to be evidence that contemporaries regarded Dublin and Mann to be components of a single political entity, with the ruler of one part entitled to that of the other. Despite Godred's apparent ancestral connections to the kingdoms of Dublin and the Isles, his rise to power could well have been driven by economic realities as much as royal aspirations. Dublin was one of the wealthiest ports in western Europe. By the end of the eleventh century, it was the most important population centre in Ireland. There appear to have been three main routes in the region: one running from southern Wales to south-eastern Ireland (connecting the settlements of Waterford and Wexford in Ireland, with Bristol and St Davids in Wales); another route running from the river Dee in northern Wales to Mann itself, and to the rivers Liffey and Boyne in Ireland (thereby connecting the ports of Chester and Holyhead in Wales, with those of Dublin and Drogheda in Ireland); the third trade route running perpendicular to the aforementioned, extending south to the Continent and north through the Hebrides to Iceland, Orkney, Shetland, Scandinavia, and the Baltic region. Godred's conquest of Dublin, therefore, could have been undertaken in the context of an Islesman securing possession of the region's southernmost routes, thereby giving him total control of the Irish Sea trade nexus. According to the Chronicle of Mann, Godred "held the Scots in such subjection that no one who built a vessel dared to insert more than three bolts", a statement implying his maritime dominance over contemporaries. The naval power of the Islesmen is perhaps evidenced in known military cooperation