In the public imagination,the battle of Clontarf ranks as one of the great landmarks in Irish history. Traditionally, it has been seen as the contest in which Brian B6ruma died in the very act of bringing Viking power in Ireland to an end. Yet, for the Hiberno-Scandinavians who ruled Dublin – the Ostmen, as they … Read more
by Nicholas Canny It is a commonplace that the merit of any piece of historical investigation can be judged by the sources employed and by the questions asked by the historians of those sources. One of my silent criticisms of the work of the earlier generation of historians who had studied early modern Ireland was … Read more
At noon on Saturday 13 October 1888 a locomotive decked with flags steamed into Belfast’s Great Victoria Street terminus. As a hundred men of the Gordon Highlanders presented arms and the band of the Black Watch played ‘God Save the Queen,’ Charles Vane-Tempest-Stewart, sixth Marquess of Londonderry and lord lieutenant of Ireland, stepped out of … Read more