Nick Maxwell Sitric Silkenbeard, king of Dublin, might be turning in his grave if he knew how much historians focus on his arch-rival, Brian. Popular claims that Brian expelled the foreigners from Ireland nearly airbrushed the remainder of Sitric’s reign from popular memory. Nevertheless, Sitric, who came to power in the early 990s, tenaciously held his position … Read more
Of any extant building, the church at Tuamgraney, Co. Clare, is arguably the one that provides us with our most tan-gible link to Brian Boru. Tuamgraney was one of the most significant ecclesiastical sites in the home territory of the Dál Cais. The western part of the church is pre-Romanesque, and it is generally agreed … Read more
In the early thirteenth-century Accallam na Senórach (‘Tales of the Elders of Ireland’) the ultimate ancestor of Brian Boru is said to have met his death in the parish of Galbally in east Limerick: ‘Cormac Cas [the Curly] son of Ailill Áulomm [Grazed Ear] attacked Eochaid Abratrúad [of the Red Eyelashes], the king of Ulster … Read more
We should not underrate the very real power of the Norse, and their physical and psychological impact upon the Irish people. Scholarship on the Vikings in Ireland, impressed (as we must be) by the technology of their ships and long swords and axes, has emphasised their technical superiority. This was allied to a superficial examination … Read more
The Irish had borrowed much from the Romans—brooches, pins, barrel padlocks, sickles, ploughshares, the furnace and eventually the watermill. Such borrowing was not passive. Recent excavations throw light on this. A crop-processing complex was discovered at Curtaun, Co. Galway (during work on the N18 Gort to Crusheen road scheme). The grain-drying kiln was close to … Read more