The mythologising of Brian Boru began within a generation or two of his death at Clontarf. Cogadh Gáedhel re Gallaibh, an early twelfth-century O’Brienite propagandist tract, first articulated a vision of Brian as belonging to a long line of universal heroic leaders and kings, combining the military prowess of Alexander, the wisdom of Solomon, the … Read more
In the twelfth-century Cogadh Gáedhel re Gallaibh Brian’s second wife Gormlaith, daughter of the king of Leinster, is given a colourful role in the fatal march towards Clontarf and her husband’s murder. Geoffrey Keating picked up this theme in Foras Feasa ar Éirinn, where Gormlaith is pictured as rebuking her brother Máelmórda, who had inherited … Read more
A fundamental problem with the so-called kingship of Ireland after Brian (or indeed during Brian’s own reign and before) is that, while the concept was certainly old, it is unclear what it entailed. As early as the seventh century, kings of Cenél Conaill (County Donegal) were recorded in the annals as kings of Ireland, but … Read more
A mountain of material was written about the Battle of Clontarf in succeeding generations but there is very little that is genuinely contemporaneous; distinguishing between what can be believed and what cannot be believed in later traditions is therefore a tricky business. And the business of deciding once and for all what happened at Clontarf … Read more
Whereas some modern historians see the Leinstermen as Brian’s principal opponents at Clontarf, medieval sources are in no doubt that the enemy were the Norse of Dublin. The Annals of Inisfallen see Clontarf as the culmination of a ‘great war between Brian and the Foreigners of Dublin’. The Leinstermen were of course present but, as … Read more