Brian Boru and the Battle of Clontarf by Sean Duffy

Author:Sean Duffy [Duffy, Sean]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Europe, Ireland
ISBN: 9780717162079
Google: c7FjngEACAAJ
Publisher: Gill
Published: 2014-03-10T00:00:00+00:00

This is the extent of the annalist’s commentary on one of the most famous battles in Irish history; but the sheer brevity is perhaps the surest sign of its contemporaneity.

If this was our only source of information on the battle, what could it tell us? As mentioned above, it is significant that for the events of this and the preceding year the author introduces into his lexicon the word cocad (‘war’) to capture a sense that this was in no sense a typical campaign. Of course he will have been aware that Brian fought very few full-scale field battles during his long life, and none since his last great confrontation with the Dubliners and Leinstermen at Glenn Máma nearly fifteen years earlier. And so perhaps it merited this word cocad, which, as earlier noted, the annalists had tended to reserve for conflict with the Vikings. Indeed that is very much how he perceives it.

Whereas some modern historians see the Leinstermen as Brian’s primary enemy at Clontarf, the annalist was in no doubt that the enemy was the Norse of Dublin. In fact he has the same black-and-white picture of the opposing sides that we tend to think of as later legend, indeed as reflecting a later nationalist, if not xenophobic, outlook. After all, Brian—he would have us believe—commanded ‘a great muster of the men of Ireland (morthinol fer n-Erend),’ although the only evidence he offers to support the statement is the death of one non-Munster ally of Brian, the south Connacht king of Uí Maine. And this campaign was part of a ‘great war between Brian and the Foreigners of Dublin (cocad mór eter Brian & Gullu Atha Cliath).’ Brian prosecuted that war by marshalling an army that had only one destination: ‘Brian then brought a great muster of the men of Ireland to Dublin (morthinol fer n-Erend co Ath Cliath).’ There was more than one possible outcome of his arrival in the vicinity, but what transpired was that ‘after that (Is íar sain),’ after he challenged their contumacy, ‘the Foreigners of Dublin gave battle to Brian (doratsat Gaill Atha Clíath cath do Brian).’

Admittedly the only one of Brian’s opponents named as dying in the contest is Máelmórda of Leinster, along with ‘the royalty of Leinster,’ but evidently the writer felt that they had died serving the interests of Dublin, and one of the most notable outcomes of the day was the ‘slaughter of the Foreigners of the Western World (ocus ar Gall iarthair domain).’

That, by the way, is as close as the author of the Inisfallen entry on Clontarf comes to describing it as a victory for Brian, and it is by no means certain that he viewed it as such. From his viewpoint—although he says it in a rather matter-of-fact way—by far the most considerable outcome of the encounter was the death of Brian. This loss was compounded by the death of Brian’s most senior son, Murchad, who, as we know, had been his trusty lieutenant for many

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