Faroe Islands Following the turmoil caused by the Napoleonic Wars (1803-1815) in 1816, the Faroe Islands became a county in the Danish Kingdom. As part of Mercantilism, Denmark maintained a monopoly over trade with the Faroe Islands and forbade their inhabitants trading with others (e.g. the geographically close Britain). The trade monopoly in the Faroe Islands was abolished in 1856, after which the area developed as a modern fishing nation with its own fishing fleet. The national awakening from 1888 initially arose from a struggle to maintain the Faroese language and was thus culturally oriented, but after 1906 it became more political
History of the Faroe Islands suggested that the people living there might have been from Ireland, Scotland or Scandinavia, with possibly groups from all three areas settling there. There is a Latin account of a voyage made by Saint Brendan, an Irish monastic saint who lived around 484–578, there is a description of "insulae" (islands) resembling the Faroe Islands. This association, however, is far from conclusive in its description. The earliest text which has been claimed to be a description of the Faroe Islands was written by an Irish monk in the Frankish Kingdom named Dicuil, who, around 825, described certain islands in the north