Good
Friday 1014: Brian Boru, Clontarf and the long shadow
Niall
C.E.J. O’Brien
On Good Friday, 1014
(23rd April), the famous Battle of Clontarf was fought to the
north-east of Dublin. The battle has been seen by history as the great fight
for Ireland against the Viking invaders. A thousand years later it is still
remembered as such even though Clontarf was only one of many battles between
the Irish and the Vikings.
The death of the hero
of the battle, Brian Boru, helped preserved the memory of the battle through
the generations. History seems to enjoy the premature death of a hero. We
remember today the Battle of Trafalgar (1805) better than the Battle of The
Nile or of the Battle of Copenhagen more because the hero of the hour, Horatio
Nelson, was killed than it was an important victory. Without Trafalgar there
would have been no Peninsular War. Without the Peninsular war, Napoleon
Bonaparte would still have possibly lost in Russia but he would have retained
the rest of Europe. Yet Trafalgar did not end the war between England and
France. It would be another ten years before final victory for England and her
allies at Waterloo (1815) brought the war to an end and the end of French
military aggression.
A thousand years ago
the Battle of Clontarf did end the idea of independent Viking kingdoms in
Ireland but Viking aggression across Europe and against Ireland continued. I
say Clontarf ended the idea of independent Viking kingdoms in Ireland because
for a good number of years before Clontarf the various Viking kingdoms had come
under the overlordship of various Irish kingdoms. Limerick, Cork and Waterford
were under the various Munster kingdoms while Dublin was regarded as a
sub-kingdom of the King of Tara, otherwise, known as the High King of Ireland.
Dublin
before Clontarf
In the 920s the Dublin
Viking kingdom made a last great determined effort to form a Scandinavian
kingdom in Ireland like the great Scandinavian kingdom in England. But this was
not a unite Viking effort. The Viking Kingdom of Limerick opposed any idea that
Dublin should be the chief city of this Scandinavian kingdom. In 937 Amlaib,
Viking king of Dublin defeated the Limerick Vikings. This victory should have
opened the door to Dublin advancement but Amlaib was distracted by other
affairs.
Since 919 the Kingdoms
of York and Dublin were united under a single dynasty. After defeating the
Limerick Vikings Amlaid returned to York to take on the aggression of King
Athelstan. In 938 Amlaid was defeated by Athelstan yet this was not an end.
After Athelstan died in 939 Amlaid renewed his power and became King of York
and Northumberland. Yet the great kingdom of York was soon lost after the death
of Amlaid in 941. Hs successor, Almaid Cuaran returned to Dublin and renewed
the idea of a great Dublin kingdom.
The Ireland of the 940s
was at the height of the warfare between the Irish and the Vikings.
Muirchertach of the Northern Uí Neill had won many victories over the Vikings
but in 943 was killed in battle by the Vikings. This victory did not bring clear
victory to the Vikings. Next year, Congalach, king of Brega united with Broen,
king of Leinster and attacked Dublin with a large army and sacked the city.
Congalach was recognised as King of Tara and overlord of Dublin. From that time
the lordship of Dublin (and control of its profitable economy) was taken as a
perquisite to the High Kingship of Ireland.
But Irish kingdoms
before, and even long after, the Norman invasion of 1169 only recognised an
overlord king as long as that superior king displays the power of a king. This environment
of independent kingdoms did not really end until the Flight of the Earls in
1607. Only then could Ireland be described as one country. When the overlord
king showed weakness the subkingdoms reassert independence or recognised
another overlord. In the 940s Dublin often revolted against Congalach until
defeated by Congalach in 948. Yet Dublin continued to shift is loyalties and
hold ambitions of power.
In 980 this struggle
came to a head with the defeat of Dublin at the Battle of Tara by Mael
Sechnaill of the Southern Uí Neill. The hostages and tributes claimed by Dublin
across much of the Irish midlands were released. Amlaib Cuarin left Dublin for
Iona and in 989 Sitric Silkenbeard, the new king of Dublin, continued the
recognition of overlordship by the King of Tara.
Brain
Boru
There now entered upon
the scene Brian Boru, king of the Dal Cais (modern day County Clare) and King
of Munster. Brain succeeded his murdered brother as king of Dal Cais and set
forth to destroy the Eóganacht hold on the Kingship of Munster. Before Brain
the various Eóganacht branches competed for the title as King of Cashel (otherwise
known as the King of Munster) with other kingdoms in Munster just looking on. Brain
swept them al aside and took Munster.
After Munster Brian’s
ambitions were to be High King of Ireland and he used the Vikings of Ireland in
his quest. In 984 and 988 he employed the Viking fleet of Waterford; in 1000 he
used the cavalry of Viking Dublin and later, in 1006 and 1007 he used the
Dublin fleet in his northern campaigns.
The victory of Clontarf
in 1014 was not the greatest victory but that of 1002 when Brian Boru was
recognised as High King of Ireland. Brian’s victory opened the door to the High
Kingship to all ambitious Irish kings. Before 1002 the High Kingship was the
preserve of the Northern and Southern Uí Neill. Other Irish kings ended their
ambitions with becoming provincial king. Brian Boru broke the mould by going
for the High Kinship and winning. So much was his victory that after his death
at Clontarf Brian Boru wasn’t taken back to Kincora, his capital in Dal Cais,
but to Armagh, seat of the senior cleric of the Irish church and a position
within the rebellious Northern Uí Neill.
After 1002 any
ambitious king who sought power beyond the limits of his kingdom could not just
stop at achieving the status of provincial king but must move onward to make a
challenge to become High King. The rise of Brian Boru can be seen in the same
light as the rise of Hugh Capet in France. On the death of the childless Ludwig
V the French elected a Frenchman as king instead of picking another German like
the Caroline family of Ludwig.
But Brian Boru was no
total revolutionary. He may have challenged and won against the established
monarchy in Munster and at Tara yet he did not abolish or annex the independent
kingdoms into one Ireland. He did absorb the Viking kingdom of Limerick into
Dal Cais and made Limerick his new capital but that was the furthest extent.
Clontarf
1014
What was Clontarf was
all about? It had two big issues – one was the suppression of the rebellious
Leinstermen while the other was the suppression of the Dublin Vikings. In 1013
the Vikings were growing in power across Europe. This culminated in the Danish
king, Sweyn Forkbeard, becoming king of England. The Viking king of Dublin,
Sitric Silkenbeard, saw his chance for freedom. Using his connections as
brother-in-law of the King of Norway, Sitric assembled a large army from across
the Viking world. This force was joined the Leinster kingdoms as they too made
a bid for freedom from Brain Boru.
Brain Boru rallying the troops at Clontarf
Opposing this army was
Brian Boru, High King of Ireland and his defeated High King, Mael Sechnaill.
Both were married, at different times, to Sitric’s mother, Gormlaith. The
Vikings of Waterford and Limerick joined the army of Brain Boru.
The two armies came to
meet near Dublin on the north bank of the River Liffey. After a day long battle
at and around Clontarf the Vikings and their Leinster allies were defeated.
But, just as at Trafalgar, the celebrations of the victors were muted by the
death of their leader, Brain Boru, killed in his tent by a Viking running from
the battle. The reigning family of Brian Boru was also cut down. His eldest son
and successor, Murrough was killed as was his son – three generations wiped out.
After
Clontarf
After Clontarf the
power of the Dal Cais power was reduced for a time and Mael Sechnaill Uí Neill
was restored as High King. Over the succeeding decades, control of Dublin and
the High Kingship passed between different kings. Tairdelbach was accepted as
King of Dublin and High King of Ireland in the 1070s and his son, Muirchertach
was crowned High King at Dublin. Muirchertach made Dublin his capital and
control of the city was seen as key to becoming High King. The Normans also saw
Dublin as the key to controlling Ireland and retained control until 1922.
The remembrance and
glory of Clontarf was encouraged by Muirchertach O’Brien in the Brjanssaga
(Brain’s saga) and in the Cogad Gaedel re Gallaib (The War of the Irish with
the Foreigners). Both works portrayed the battle as a victory of good over evil
– the Christian Irish over the pagan Vikings. The propaganda of the O’Brien scribes
portrayed the reign of Brian Boru as a golden age of Irish unity and Clontarf
as the great victory of the foreigners. The reality was that there was little
in the way of national political unity before, or after, Brain Boru. The defeat
of the foreigners was a recognised result but a third of the opposing army at
Clontarf was made of people and kings from the Kingdom of Leinster.
The long shadow of
Clontarf was taken up by later writers who followed the O’Brien propaganda of a
glorious victory that ended foreign plans to control Ireland and ended a golden
age. Yet the golden age of monastic illustrated manuscripts was well gone before
Brain Boru and the fine structures of Romanesque Ireland came after 1100.
Towards the end of
English rule in Ireland the shadow of Good Friday 1014 stretched long. It cannot
have been lost on those who went out in rebellion in 1916 that they began their
fight on Easter Monday. They had hoped to start on Easter Sunday – the day of
the Resurrection of the Lord and the resurrection of Ireland. As good Catholics
they could not start the fight on Good Friday 1916. Yet, remembering that an
army does not march on an empty stomach that was not a bad deferment.
Long after 2014 the
story of that battle at Clontarf in 1014 will be long remembered and told
around firesides on dark winter nights to fill people with hope when dark
clouds threaten.
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