Clontarf: A Backward Glance

CLONTARF: A BACKWARD GLANCE
By DR NIALL BRADY

THE YEAR OF 2014 a year of anniversaries. Most notably, it is the centenary of the outbreak of the Great War, and of the death of that holy pope, St Pius X (of blessed memory). In the Irish context, it is the centenary of the Government of Ireland Act, and of the Howth gun-running incident involving the yacht Asgard. Further back in time, this year also sees the millennial anniversary of the death of Brian mac Cennétig, king of the Munster sept of Dál Cais, who in the course of a lengthy and illustrious political career, had succeeded in imposing his authority not only on the rest of Munster but on the rest of Ireland also, and who is known to history as Brian Boru.

It is fair to say that, insofar as he is remembered at all, Brian and his achievements are viewed much more sympathetically by Irishmen of the present time than they were by his contemporaries. The popular imagination of the past century and a half remembers Brian as something of a national hero, as an Irish patriot who, at the cost of his life, stood up to a despotic foreign tyranny in the course of which he instilled courage and national pride in the Irishmen of his day. This is a comforting and enduring myth, and it appealed especially to nationalist writers in the decades around the turn of the twentieth century; but it is nonetheless a myth, and while it owes a great deal to the nationalist aspirations of the Irish literary and academic elite of a hundred years ago, its origin is to be traced to the year 1867, in which a Trinity scholar, Dr James Henthorne Todd, published the first modern edition and translation of a previously little known Irish prose saga. This saga is entitled Cogadh Gaedhel re Gallaibh, or “The War of the Irish with the Foreigners”, and its hero is Brian Boru.

We must keep in mind that, in the 1860s, very little of the primary source material for Early Irish history had been made available in print. The great editions of the various Irish annals by Hennessy and MacCarthy, which have nourished the researches of scholars for over a century, did not then exist; and O’Donovan’s editions of the Four Masters and the Three Fragments had only been printed a few years previously. The exciting narrative of Cogadh Gaedhel re Gallaibh, in contrast with the generally dry and terse style of the annals, fired the imaginations of many, and its presentation of the life and career of Brian Boru and of the Battle of Clontarf were received uncritically not only by Irish researchers interested in Irish-Norse relations but by their Scandinavian colleagues also. Consequently, the narrative of the Cogadh dominated historical approaches to the significance of the Battle of Clontarf until in the 1960s a new generation of scholars began to study the text with a more critical eye—whereat the traditionally-accepted nationalist view began to crumble, and with it the pedestal upon which Brian had stood for the previous century.
More or less forgotten
We must also bear in mind that, with the exception of the Cogadh itself, Brian was most emphatically not a heroic figure of saga and poetry at any time between 1014 and 1867, but had been more or less forgotten; he certainly never achieved the fame of legendary literary figures such as Finn mac Cumhaill or Cú Chulainn.

I do not mean that the Cogadh routinely presents as fact details that are demonstrably fictitious, or factually
wrong; but the effect of the author’s profound bias is to lend a colour and significance to Brian’s status and the encounter at Clontarf that would not have been recognised by anyone actually alive in the Ireland of 1014. Todd believed the Cogadh was written by a contemporary and eyewitness of the Battle of Clontarf; in particular, he identified Mac Liaig, Brian’s court poet, as the likely author. Todd’s view held the field for a considerable time, but it was later realised that the text of the Cogadh is not contemporary with Clontarf at all and belongs instead to the twelfth century. Current consensus attributes the composition of the text to the time of Brian’s greatgrandson, Muirchertach Ua Briain (ob. 1119), and in particular to the years between 1103 and 1113. As to the reasons underlying its composition, this much at least is clear: the text was intended to portray Brian as a brave and selfless freedom-fighter who had saved Ireland from being crushed under the remorseless heel of the heathen Norse, and that in order to bolster the political standing of the Uí Briain dynasty in twelfth-century Ireland and their claims to the kingship exercised over the country by their ancestor.

I encourage readers who are interested in this period of Irish history to read the Cogadh for themselves.  It is almost impossible to find in print, unless one enjoys the privilege of access to a university library, but thanks to the internet it is widely available in digital form. Although written in the prolix and somewhat bombastic style popular in the twelfth century and unashamedly political, it is a great read and thoroughly enjoyable, at least to those who have some familiarity with Early Irish literature. It takes itself so seriously it is often unintentionally hilarious; the reader should take note of the contrasting manner in which Brian, his family and his enemies are presented; the language employed to describe the deeds of each and, not least, the manner in which “the foreigners” (i.e. the Norse) and their acts are presented.  These last are so exaggerated and over the top that the Cogadh has given me many a laugh in the course of my studies. The hyperbole and overblown style will both amuse and bemuse a modern readership; the similes and metaphors are all eminently memorable. I will not take up space here offering particularly ripe quotes from the text, although of course I have my favourites; I simply recommend my readers read it for themselves for, despite its flaws, it is a unique product of Ireland’s literary heritage and ought to be better known.
Cruel and heartless
It is perhaps a satisfying incidence of poetic justice that Brian Boru never made it into the literary big-time alongside the likes of Cú Chulainn; for if the latter is an embodiment of the Iron Age/Celtic/Indo-European ideal of the hero, the former is (at least to my mind) more an anti-hero, even an embodiment of the very tyranny the author of the Cogadh so deplores in his depictions of the Norse. The Cogadh presents us with a relentless onslaught of cruel, heartless, heathen barbarians from overseas (fresh in the memories of the twelfth-century Irish as the English were fresh in the memories of Irish nationalists nine centuries later) from whom Ireland needed saving if her civilisation and culture were not to be smashed down and destroyed, and her people enslaved. History, however, shows us that at the turn of the eleventh century, Ireland was not at all in danger of being conquered and utterly dominated by the Norse, either from abroad or those already settled in the country for several generations. Ireland was, however, in danger of being conquered and utterly dominated by Brian himself, and it is this danger—not that of the Norse—that led to the Battle of Clontarf in 1014.

I pass over Brian’s early career, how he (and his brother Mathgamain before him) elevated Dál Cais from obscurity to power over of the whole province of Munster, and how he began to expand his power over the other provinces of Ireland. For a consideration of Clontarf it suffices to note that in the early eleventh century Brian is at the apex of his power; that he has clashed with, and subdued, Mael Morda king of Leinster, and Sitric king of Dublin; that he has wrested the kingship of Tara from Mael Sechnaill mac Domnaill the Uí Néill potentate, thus becoming the first non-Uí Néill ruler since the year 482 to hold that office. Not much of a history of warring against Norse invaders there; earlier in his career he had overthrown the Norse king Ívar of Limerick (whom he killed on Scattery Island in 977), but his beef with Ívar was a political struggle for control of Munster; if the unlucky Ívar had been of Irish rather than Norse descent, it would not have made any difference; Brian would still have gone after him. The Cogadh, naturally, makes much of this episode and presents Ívar as a rapacious and usurping marauder who oppressed all Munster but who, thanks to the heroic Brian, in the end got his just desserts.
A bitterly resented ruler
It should be remembered that Brian had no natural right or claim to overlordship over all Ireland, any more than the Norse kings of either Limerick or Dublin could have had. He was not born into the position; he did not inherit it; the position itself, the so-called “High Kingship” of Ireland did not at the time exist, either in law or in fact. Brian, by dint of cunning, influence, ruthlessness and raw military power, clawed his way to being de facto ruler of Ireland—meaning that the other local kings submitted to his authority; but their submission was to Brian personally, not to any such concept as a “King of Ireland” for, without prejudice to Alice Stopford Green, there was no such thing as “the Irish State” prior to 1014 nor for a long time afterwards. The native laws from the seventh century onwards are united in their insistence that the highest grade of king in Ireland is the rí cóicid (the king of a province); the Uí Néill, who monopolised the kingship of Tara from the fifth century to Brian’s time made much of the prestige of that kingship, but could never at any point have been described as “Kings of Ireland”. In the light of this tradition of provincial independence, it becomes easier to see why Brian’s rule was so bitterly resisted outside Munster, and why a rising against him—which is precisely what the Battle of Clontarf was—was inevitable.

The Norse, the perennial antagonists of the Cogadh, played only a minor role in the actual battle itself. There was no invading Viking army such as England had experienced the year before, and which had caused Ethelred II to flee for safety to Normandy.  The battle was in the main a decisive clash between the kings of Munster and Leinster, the latter seeking his rightful independence (and, as a Leinsterman myself, I tend to sympathise with Mael Morda), and the former seeking to retain the overlordship he had won for himself by his own power. The Norse did of course take part in the battle, but only in supporting roles; Sitric, the king of Dublin, imported mercenaries from the Orkneys and the Isle of Man to help him against Brian; and Brian, for his part, brought a contingent of the Limerick Norse to help him against Mael Morda. Norse on both sides; Irish on both sides. This was not the kind of well-defined “us versus them” struggle depicted in the Cogadh.
A family tiff
Perhaps the most ironic aspect of the Battle of Clontarf is that, far from being a heroic exercise of nation-building or nation-saving, it is better described as a family tiff, inasmuch as the main participants were all related to one another. They were connected primarily through one woman—Gormflaith ingen Murchada, who was the sister of Mael Morda and the mother of Sitric (thus the Leinster allies, Mael Morda and Sitric, were uncle and nephew respectively) and finally, her third husband (after Olaf Cuarán, Sitric’s father, and the still living former king of Tara Mael Sechnaill mac Domnaill) was Brian Boru himself.  Sitric thus became Brian’s stepson and Mael Morda his brother-in-law; and if this were not already sufficiently complicated, Sitric married one of Brian’s daughters, becoming the Munster king’s son-in-law as well as his stepson. These frankly political marriages were intended to keep a clearly unstable political situation from boiling over, but did not have the desired effect. The Icelandic Njáls Saga, written in the thirteenth century but based upon lost earlier sources and which contains background narrative on the Battle of Clontarf, has a scene in which Gormflaith (now married to Brian) berates and humiliates her son Sitric for having submitted to Brian’s authority, and thus the fatal seed is sown. This scene is not recorded in any contemporary source and while, at the distance of a thousand years I cannot claim to know Gormflaith personally, I am inclined to regard it as the sort of thing she would have done. I am sure she cannot have had great love for or loyalty to Brian; all her history and her family ties were in Leinster, and I cannot fault her for that.

The great confrontation, when it occurred, was catastrophic for everyone who took part in it. It is best to read and enjoy the memorable descriptions of the battle recorded in the Cogadh, and then to put them aside; the Cogadh, which has supplied us with such wonderful details as the aged Brian being slain by  bloodthirsty Viking while praying in his tent (which we all remember from our schooldays) is not reliable history. Of course the Cogadh is going to talk the battle up in language redolent of Homer; this is the dénouement of its hero, after all. A truer picture of the battle, devoid of hyperbole and derring-do, is provided in the bald, unadorned testimony of the annals. I propose one can reliably infer how bloody such an encounter may have been by scrutinising the lists of the important persons who perished on both sides, and in the case of Clontarf, the lists of the slain are prodigious. Brian’s forces are supposed to have been victorious, but how does one measure victory in this instance? Brian’s lordship over Ireland was not maintained.  Brian himself did not survive the battle. Nor did the majority of his sons and grandsons. In fact so many of the leading men of Dál Cais and the fledgling Uí Briain dynasty were killed that their political aspirations were scotched for generations. Is this victory? On the other side, Mael Morda king of Leinster lost his life, but he had achieved what he set out to do—throw off the yoke of the Munster tyrant and win independence for his province. The Norse mercenaries Sitric imported from Man and the Orkneys were destroyed—perhaps this is what is understood as “victory” by the writer of the Cogadh. If so, it may have served his purpose; but in 1014 it did not look that way. There were two real winners of the Battle of Clontarf: Sitric, who did not take part but (at least according to the Cogadh) watched the proceedings from the ramparts of Dublin—let us recall that while Clontarf is part of the modern city, in the eleventh century the Clúain Tarb, the “bulls’ meadow”, lay outside the city limits; and Mael Sechnaill, who after Brian’s death took up the kingship of Tara once more, unopposed, and held it until his death in 1022. And as for Brian? His flame burned bright for a season, but as the Scripture says, He that loveth the danger shall perish in it (Ecclesiasticus 3, 27). God have mercy on all their souls.

Dr Niall Brady has higher degrees in Old Irish and Old Norse, specialising in Viking chiefs in early Irish history. He filed this article from Afghanistan where he is currently serving with the US Army.

The Brandsma Review, Issue 131, March-April 2014