When Brian Boru was killed at the Battle of Clontarf he left two sons chall-enging each other for the succession, half-brothers of whom the older was Donnchad, son of the famous Gormlaith (d. 1030). There followed a type of civil war within Dál Cais, culminating in 1023 in the treacherous killing of the younger brother, … Read more
Jimmy Deenihan, Minister for Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht, has announced a programme to mark the millennium of the Battle of Clontarf, despite being told to ‘shush’ by a security guard at Trinity College, Dublin, where the launch took place. The events to mark the battle will truly be on a national scale, with his … Read more
In anticipation of the possibility of Home Rule, Edward Carson and James Craig founded the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) in early 1913. Their intention was that unionists in the north would prevent the enactment of Home Rule. In March 1914 the third Home Rule Bill was introduced into the House of Commons. Because of the … Read more
Claire Gogarty Clontarf Books £30 ISBN 9781782801702 Clontarf these days, to outsiders at least, seems no more than an amorphous part of the suburbs that stretch without interruption around Dublin Bay from Howth to Killiney. In the late eighteenth century, however, it was a small fishing base and one of the early bathing places close … Read more
James Graham Campbell Thames & Hudson £9.95 ISBN 9780500204191 Viking art is an illustrated study of the applied art of Scandinavia and the Scandinavian world in the period c. AD 800–1100. The subject is large in time-scale, in geographical area and in the range of decorated objects of differing scales and functions, materials, methods and … Read more