The Irish - The Lost Tribe?

THE IRISH - THE LOST TRIBE?

By PEADAR LAIGHLÉIS

Vos autem genus electum, regale sacerdotium, gens sancta, populus acquisitionis - 1 St Peter, 2:9

A combination of material wealth and religious poverty is invariably followed by on of those immense 

catastrophes, which write themselves forever on the memory of man.  - Donoso Cortez 

MY FAVOURITE NOVEL in Irish is Monsignor Breandán Ó Doibhlin's Néal Maidine agus Tine Oíche.*  The title "Morning Cloud and Night Fire"is based on Exodus 40:36.  In fact the novel closely follows the delivery of the enslaved Hebrews from Egypt andd their subsequent journey town the promised land.  But the book is written about the Irish, and it is made difficult for the average Irish reader by his frequent references to an older form of the Irish tongue.

Mgr Ó  Doibhlin was not the first.  When I read the book for the second time a number of years ago, I wondered how much the author knew about the fascination of the early Irish monks with ancient Israel and also how shocked those monks would be with modern scholarly attitudes.

Biblical influence crucial

The literature of early mediaeval Ireland has to date been analysed in a strictly Aryan construct.  Parallels are forever sought within the overall Indo-European (indo-germanisch) context.  This can be fruitful. For, example, Cormac mac Airt is suckled by a wolf in infancy.  We could safely assume this to be a direct borrowing from the story of Romulus and Remus, were it not for the fact that a similar tale is told of Cyrus the Persian and the same theme emerges in Greek and Germanic lore.  Though valuable, the Indo-European view is not the last word on the matter.

The early Irish monks had little interest in India or Persia.  Their only interest in Germany was to convert the place.  In general, their only interest in an alleged Caucasian heritage was a belief that were are all descended from Noah's son Japheth.  The early Irish monks were more interested in Israel than in India.

Most of the writings now seen as mythological can be read as a retelling of a distinctly Irish folklore, subject to biblical influence.  So the puny Lug Lám Fata slays Balor of the evil eye with a sling shot.

But the monastic scribes went a lot further than that.  Lebor Gabála (The Book of Invasions) describes the primaeval history of Ireland.  It shows the influence of St Isidore of Seville and St Augustine in its view of history.  But it is interesting to see the lengths to which the monks went to parallel the Irish experience with that of the Hebrews.  In ways quite reminiscent of the Boers in South Africa or the Mormons, the first Irish Christians appear to have latched on to the conviction that they were a unique people, to whom God had allotted a special destiny.

Egyptian link

The common ancestor of the Gael was a Scythian.  (Here - and only here - would mediaeval and modern scholar find consensus.)  The lawyer and linguist, Fénius Farsaid, finds his way to Egypt where he founds a school of law.  His son married the Pharaoh's duaghter, that the father names  the language he invents after her son, Góedel, so we have Gaelic.  It is strongly hinted that young Góedel had Moses for a foster brother and Fénius taught both of them law.

Anyway, the time comes when it is now longer politic for Fénius and his kin to remain in Egypt, so they embark on a journey which brings them through the North African desert over 40 years and than through Spain, before they come to rest in Ireland.  Of course, they have to displace the peoples who were there before them, which they have no problem in doing.

 Place of natural law

A nice story, but the monks had to back it up.  They appealed to St Paul, who in Romans 2:14-15, implies a Natural Law written into creation by God.  The Irish were quite diligent in there observance of natural law (recht aicnid), according to the scribes.  Natural law was seen as a very important judicial concept; aand one presumes it remained so until Chief Justice Hamilton enlightened us on the the topic in the judgement on the constitutionality of the Abortion Information Act a few years ago.  Wherever they could point out a coincidence with the Law of Moses (recht litre - written law, they did; the most striking example being in relation to heiresses.

In the fullness of time, the Irish received the Law of Moses and with it, the Prophets and the New Testament.  This would naturally single St Patrick out as somewhat special.  The monks depicted him as a Moses-Elias figure.  Whereas the St Patrick of the Confessio and the Epistola is a simple and zealous missionary (methinks he doth protest too much - both writings are a lot more sophisticated than they appear to the naked eye), the various biographers of the saint give us the picture of either of the greatest figures of the Old Testament.

 Not merely hagiographical

Again and again, incidents are related which are similar to the lives of Moses and Elias.  In his various confrontations with the druids, we see retellings of the stand-off between Moses and Pharoah's magicians or between Elias and the priests of Baal.

It is all too simple to dismiss the Lives of St Patrick in the light of his own literary legacy.  Too simple, and based on an uncritical reading of both.  It should be remembered that St Patrick must have been a very impressive figure to silence the whole court of the High King and pave the way for the Christianisation of the entire country.

One of the Lives contains a very frank details: though the saint makes a great impression of King Lóegaire Ua Néill, the king remains a heathen.  This would hardly appear in a text which was merely hagiographical.

As Moses and Elias (foreshadowing Our Lord) fast 40 days and nights, so does St Patrick.  Finally, as the 12 Apostles are given the authority to judge the 12 Tribes of Israel, (St Matthew 19:28), Muirchú's Life assigns the same task to St Patrick, as he had been an apostle to us.  This is as close as the monks came to claiming status as a lost tribe.

 Judgement for sins

One could go into great detail about other efforts to associate Early Ireland with the peoples of the Old and New Testament, whether in lawa or customs, in origins ( though Japheth was the father of the Europeans, most Irish genealogies were traced through Shem), or personal contact.  (At least one Irish jurist went the wrong way on leaving Egypt and wandered with the Israelites for 40 years, receiving the Law from Moses.  And three Irish nobles were said to have become Christian before St Patrick came - Conchobar mac Nessa and Cormac mac Airt are the best known.)

The matter did not rest there.  At a much later time, during Plantations and Penal Laws, Irish writers and scholars returned to the same theme.  This time the literati were largely in exile on the continent, especially in Louvain.  The Elizabethan and Cromwellian terrors were fresh memories and it seemed one anti-Catholic pogrom followed another.  The writers went back to the Old Testament view of the Babylonian captivity and the conquest of the Promised Land by the Gentiles.  It was the judgement of God on Ireland for the sins of the Irish.

 Slavery and idols

Mgr Ó Doibhlin returns to the same theme this century.  Behind all the allusion to Exodus and Lebor Gabála, despite how archaic and remote all the characters and themes appear, one cannot help but believe he is referring to our own day.  Slavery and idols, though they come in different shapes and sizes, are still present; and little is so destructive as the slavery or seductive comforts, especially after enduring the more obvious slavery for so long.

Ireland has changed a lot since the 1960s, and the delusion of the Celtic Tiger within a new European superstate suggests that our present affluence may be a new form of enslavement.  If I draw my own parallel with the Old Testament in 1 Macchabees 1:11-16, we see the description of the apostasy of the Jews.

It is a depressing portrait of a race who throw off their distinctive beliefs and customs, given them by the true God, for the peace and prosperity of a pagan empire: an apostasy before the coming of Christ, which prefigures the apostasy before His Second Coming: Quo vadis, Hibernia?

There are many similarities between the Irish and the Jews, and the comparison is a lot more instructive than ideas about common links between Ireland and India (links which do exist but are buried in the mists of prehistory).  Unfortunately this resemblance is not a matter for self-congratulation; it is, rather, a cross to be carried.

Nations, like individuals, have their own vocations, their own specific missions.  Has Ireland, insula sanctorum et scholarum, made good use of the graces God has conferred on her?  And does she continue to do so in our own day?

* Breandán Ó Doibhlin, Néal Maidine agus Tine Oíche, Foilseacháin Náisiúnta Teoranta, 1964

 The Brandsma Review, Issue 39, October-November 1998 

A Brief History of Irish Monasticism

A BRIEF HISTORY OF IRISH MONASTICISM

by PEADAR LAIGHLÉIS

ST PATRICK was trained as a monk in Gaul.  Christian Gaul was under the influence of the old Greek colonies in south-eastern France and the monasticism of Gaul was of a similar character to the monasticism of Egypt - in the spirit of St Anthony.  The popularity of St Anthony is seen in the copies of St Athanasius' Life of St Anthony in the monastic libraries and more concretely in his image on many high crosses.

St Patrick was particularly influenced by his Gaulish monastic exemplar - St Martin of Tours.  Sulpicius' Life of St Martin was also widely available in Irish monasteries.  The Irish monastic communities followed the spirituality and practice of desert monasticism.  This was ascetic and altogether different from the monasticism that would develop on the continent under the Rule of St Benedict.  Benedictine monasticism paralleled the cenobitic  monasticim of Cappadocia influenced by St Basil.

Egyptian monasticism tended to be eremitic; this phenomenon, beloved of the Irish, was later common in Orthodox Russia.  The great Irish monasteries began as hermitagesw.  Anchorites such as St Enda attracted huge followings and thus laid the foundations of influential monasteries - St Kevin's in Glendalough was a good example of this.

When St Colmcille - whether voluntarily or otherwise - went to Iona in 563, he set a very important precedent in the development of the Irish church.  Ever after, Irish monks would seek to preach the Gospel overseas.

Very soon afterwards, Irish monks left their mark all over the continent.  St Columbanus was particularly influential in France and Italy, and his disciple St Gall established a monastery in a canton that still bears his name in Switzerland.  St Fiachra became particularly associated with Paris taxi-drivers.  All over the German-speaking world, the phenomenon of the Schottenklöster or "Scottish monastery" is indicative no of the Scots, but of the Irish.  Scotus was Latin for Gael.  There is a district in Vienna called Schottentor which is indicative of this Irish invasion.  Irish monks went as far east as Kiev and perhaps Novgorod.  St Brendan the Navigator may well have reached Newfoundland.

In time, the Irish monasteries in Europe adopted the Benedictine rule, but continued to be Irish in character until the Reformation.  The Schottenklöster were known for the asceticism of their monks; St Macarius was the prior of the Schottenkloster in Würzburg in the 1100s and he was said to have changed wine into water.  Würzburg is at the heart of the Franconian wine producing region along the Main.
Strict asceticism
Irish monasteries, as remarkable for their distinctive craftsmanship and scholarship as for their asceticism, fell into disarray due to the political instability of the following centuries.  The Viking raids maid a well-publicised impact; but many monasteries suffered at the hands of Irish nobles.

A reform movement was already in place at this time.  In around 800, the Céle Dé (Slaves of God) were established in Tallaght, Co Dublin, principally by the anchorite St Óengus.  The Céle Dé, also known as Culdees and currently fêted among New Agers, were an incredibly strict monastic movement, analogous to orders which developed later.  Their concept of stabilitas loci was very literal and they lived on a very meagre vegetarian diet - they seem to have anticipated the Carthusians.

The movement spread rapidly and soon had foundations all over Ireland - some more questionable than others.  The ninth century king-bishop of Munster and Cashel, Feilimid mac Crimthaind, was a Céle Dé.  Feilimid was both very able and politically astute.  He set about claiming the high kingship and nearly succeeded until he was killed in battle against the Uí Néill in 847.  During Feilimid's reign, the cause of reform had a momentum unlike at any other period.  Not many abbots would risk taking on his wrath at the time.
Malachy and Bernard
The political upheaval that began after the Battle of Clontarf in 1014 was damaging to the Church in Ireland.  Clontarf was no great victory; when Brian Boru died, the notion of a country under a single high king was established, but it was at least another century before a given dynasty established a claim to the high kingship.

In the late 11th century, the Irish Church faced another threat as the Archbishops of Canterbury began claiming jurisdiction over Ireland.  A movement of Irish Churchmen  saw it was important to for Irishmen to reform the Church here before others would come to reform it.  The star of this movement was St Malachy of Armagh - and the most significant element was the relationship of St Malachy to the most influential churchman of the day - St Bernard of Clairvaux.  The relics of Ss Malachy and Bernard are kept together before the high altar in the monastery of Clairvaux - and it is said they cannot be separated.

St Malachy introduced the Cistercians and the Augustinian canons regular into Ireland, and other orders followed.  When the Cistercian Pope Blessed Eugenius III was in exile, he asked St Bernard for advice and St Bernard told him to model his life on St Malachy.   Blessed Eugenius perhaps made the most significant contribution to the Irish Church in its whole history in 1152, when he sent John Cardinal Paparo as his legate to the Synod of Kells.

The embryonic Irish hierarchy erectic dioceses and petitioned for pallia for Armagh and Cashel.  This was not what Blessed Eugenius granted.  Cardinal Paparo delivered not two, but four pallia to Ireland - recognising Dublin and Tuam as metropolitian sees in addition to Armagh and Cashel.
English Pope's role
It is a tragedy of Irish history that there was rivalry between the Cistercians and Benedictines.  The more ascetic Cistercians held the upper hand in Ireland as they do today.  Blessed Eugenius had difficulties with King Stephen of England who retained the throne after a civil war against the Empress Matilda.  Eugenius was succeeded by the English Benedictine Adrian IV who had no sympathy for Cistercians and a better relationship with Matilda's son Henry II (who was later excommunicated for the murder of St Thomas Beckett).  Adrian issued the Bull Laudabiliter to Henry granting him Ireland as a papal fief, on the condition he would reform the Church.

So, within the space of a few years, a Cistercian pope saw the Irish church as being in such a good condition that it deserved four metropolitans, rather than just the two it had requested; and then a Benedictine pope came to the conclusion that the only hope for the Irish church was to entrust its reformation to a foreign monarch who happened to be a fellow countryman of his!

However, there is no doubt that the post-Norman invasion Irish Church maintained its vigour and continued to journey far afield.  To mention two examples, the tutor of the young St Thomas Aquinas was a teacher called Petrus de Hiberniae (Peter of Ireland).  One imagines he did a good job.  And when the Franciscans sent a mission to China in the mid-13th century, among the friars was Jacobus de Hiberniae (James of Ireland).  The Mongol dynasty was quite amenable to external ideas, including Christianity; and an archdiocese was erected in Beijing.  The Mongols were overthrown by the more inward looking Ming dynasty around the time the Black Death wreaked havoc with the Western Church.  And thus a tremendous opportunity was lost.
The Great Schism
In the later Middle Ages, the Irish Church suffered the decadence that was the lot of the Western Church after the Black Death.  Religious communities were particularly affected - and devastated.  The Great Schism of the West happened soon aftertwards.  It is well worth noting that two canonised saints of the Dominican Order, St Vincent Ferrer and St Catherine of Siena disagreed as to which purported Pope was legitimate.  Every order had at least two claimant superiors-general, based in Avignon and Rome.  And after the schism, there was still much disagreement as to the balance of power between a Council and a Pope.

The fifteenth century saw three of the mendicant orders - the Augustinians, Dominicans and Franciscans - develop reform movements within themselves.  These observantine congregations went back to their original rule, constitutions, spirituality and purposes, and also depended directly on the superior general rather than a local provincial who might have had political biases injurious to the interest of the order.  The observantine Augustinians particularly established themselves in the west of Ireland and principally among the Irish-speaking population.  This one bright spark offered a hope to the church which was standing on the brink of chaos.
Disaster on disaster
One immediate consequence of Henry VIII's schism was the suppression of religious houses in Ireland simply to gratify the avarice of the king's henchmen.  Some houses lasted as late as the reign of James I, but excepting a respite during Mary I's reign, the so-called Reformation led to one disaster after another for Ireland, culminating in the Penal Laws which lasted into the 19th century.

However, attempts were made to run religious houses in Ireland during penal times.  My favourite story relates to the presence of incognito Dominican nuns in Drogheda in the 17th century.  The local sheriff called to the house to discuss rumours of "Popish nuns" living there.  The prioress, an aristocratic Irishwoman, received him in her finest gown and put on all her airs and graces, dispelling the suggestion with the truthful statement: "Sir, the women in this house are no more Popish nuns than I am."
All over Europe
All this time, Irish religious houses were established all over the continent, many to parallel the Irish colleges there.  To this day, there is still an Irish Dominican convent in Lisbon and until the First World War there was an Irish Benedictine convent in Ypres (now Kylemore Abbey).  There were Irish religious houses in Paris, Louvain and Salamanca, all now tragically closed.  At one stage, there was an Irish college in Prague, associated with Charles University.

There were several other centres throughout the Catholic world which also provided Catholic gentlemen with education for vocations in the world.  A relative of Daniel O'Connell once said their clothes, their wine, their education and their religious were all contraband.  O'Connell and his brother were students at Douay at the time of the French Revolution and witnessed the bloodshed first hand - and the anti-religious nature of the revolution.  The Napoleonic era marked much upheaval for the church in Europe, so the relaxation of the penal laws afforded the Irish on the continent an opportunity to come home.

The 19th century was marked not only by the re-establishment of older religious orders in Ireland, or those founded on the continent in the interim, but by the foundation of new religious orders specifically for Irish needs: Blessed Ignatius Rice's Christian Brothers and Presentation Brothers; Nano Nagle's Presentation Sisters; Mother Catherine McCauley's Sisters of Mercy; and Mother Mary Aikenhead's Sisters of Charity.  As Cardinal Cullen dominated the Irish church in the mid-nineteenth century, convents and monasteries dotted the country.

Once again the Irish took to the missions, building up the Church throughout the English-speaking world, prior to moving into more difficult territories.  Three endeavours arose from Maynooth  alone in the early 20th century.  Following the failure of the Maynooth Mission to India, the Maynooth Mission to China and the Maynooth Mission to Africa became the Society of St Columban and the Society of St Patrick.
A sudden drought
Religious life continued to expand in Ireland until the late 20th century, when it suddenly slowed down and went into reverse.  Religious houses closed.  Religious were no longer visible.  Religious spokesmen and women sent out mixed messages in a confused age.  The source of religious vocations suddenly dried up where only a short time ago they had been plentiful.

This is not altogether new in the Irish church.  Religious life in Ireland had many dark and bleak periods.  These coincided with a general decline in the health of the Church.  When the Church recovered, religious life was strong - but such a strengthening was evident in the fervour of the religious; the pride in which they wore their distinctive habits, practiced the ascetic life, proclaimed the teaching of the Church  in and out of season, and stuck to the original intention of their founders.

The world is not without such religious houses - more in France than anywhere else.  So when are we going to look once again to continental Europe for guidance?

The Brandsma Review, Issue 65, March-April 2003

St Malachy, Architect of Church Autonomy

SAINT MALACHY, ARCHITECT OF CHURCH AUTONOMY

by PEADAR LAIGHLÉIS

Beatus servus, quem, cum venerit dominus, invenerit vigilantem: amen dico vobis, super omnia bona sua constituet eum. St Matthew 25: 46-47

NOT far from Fatima is the fortress monastery of Alcobaça, resting place of many early kings and queens of Portugal and a monument to Portugal's history as a frontier territory between Europe and the Moorish empire.  This is why so many castles appear on the Portuguese flag and arms.  Alcobaça was Cistercian and among the saints particularly venerated by the mediaeval Cistercian order was one Irishman.  His statue is to be seen in the cloister there.  That was St Malachy of Armagh (1094-1148).

St Malachy, like so many historical figure, has a posthumous reputation that represents a distortion of his career.  In the English-speaking world, his is associated with a series of epigrams concerning future popes.  Assuming the present Holy Father is De Labore Solis, we are left with Gloriae Olivitiae and Petrus Romanus prior to the Second Coming.  I plead agnosticism on both authorship and authenticity of these prophecies, but that does not subtract from either the holiness or significance of the saint.

The Church in early 11th-century Europe sank into a mire that would make the Church on the eve of the Reformation seem positively virtuous - with dubious characters such as Benedict IX occupying the Throne of St Peter.  The one beacon that blazed on Continental Europe was at Cluny and from Cluny came a reform unlike any other - unequaled even by the Counter-Reformation.

Though many saints were raised up in this movement, the pontificate of St Gregory VII (Hildebrand) left its stamp on the Church even after Catholic monarchs throughout Europe implemented these reforms - such as St Edward the Confessor in England and St Margaret in Scotland, queen of Malcolm III Canmore, who succeeded Macbeth as King of Scots.

Ireland was on the outer periphery.  Between 1002 and 1014, Brian Boru O'Kennedy usurped the High Kingship and centralised it in a way his predecessors never could have done.  By the end of the 11th century, Turlough O'Brien had instituted attempts to reform a demoralised church.  Monasteries had ceased to be the centres of learning and piety that earned Ireland the title Insula Sanctorum et Doctorum.  The descendents of the Vikings had long been Christian, but the Ostman dioceses of Dublin and later Waterford and Limerick looked to Canterbury for jurisdiction rather than to Cashel or Armagh.

Ecclesiastical jurisdiction was problematic in Ireland anyway.  St Patrick instituted the episcopacy but as there were no towns in Ireland before the Viking raids, no diocesan structure evolved.  The monasteries became the centre of ecclesiastical, commercial and even political life.  Monasteries linked by a common founder grouped together into federations called paruchiae to advance a common cause.  So the Columban paruchia, centred first in Iona and later at Kells, represented the interests of its founder St Colmcille (or Columba).  It sought an ecclesiastical primacy consistent with the political primacy of its patrons: the house of O'Neill.  The monastery of Armagh and its paruchia represented the interest of St Patrick, who was clearly venerated as the Apostle of the Irish, but until Armagh was universally accepted as the primatial see, not universally recognised as patron saint.

The Comarba Pátraic (successor of St Patrick) claimed primacy but was not acknowledged as such.  The would-be primate was only definitively an abbot of the monastery in Armagh, was not necessarily a bishop and from time to time may not have been a cleric in major orders.  Many of these officials were lay beneficiaries who were lesser nobility - theoretically in minor orders but essentially living a secular life serving the interests of their families or their superiors in the social order.

Other reforms were needed.  Lanfranc of Canterbury, who claimed Ireland was within his jurisdiction, wrote to Turlough O'Brien on the matter - on one occasion complaining the Irish had a law of fornication rather than of marriage.  The shortcomings in the Irish church delineated by Lanfranc were far from unique to Ireland, and the pace of reform was slow.  In Ireland, as elsewhere, it would take a very powerful personality to implement the Hildebrandine reforms.

There certainly was a mood in favour of reform among some political and religious leaders.  Some were aware of the claims of Canterbury and York.  Some were appalled at the prevailing state of the church within Ireland.  No one could question the high king's commitment to reform, but it would take a supernatural effort to bring order to an unruly Irish Church.

In 1096, St Anselm of Canterbury consecrated Malchus O'Hanvery as the first bishop of Waterford.  During a pilgrimage to Rome, Turlough O'Brien's son Murtagh realised how isolated Ireland had become from the Church and civil society on the continent.  In 1098, he invited the reform-minded Meath bishop, Maelmhuire O'Doonan to become Bishop of Killaloe.  O'Doonan was subsequently appointed Legate to Munster by Pope Paschal II.

Murtagh and O'Doonan together set an agenda for reform in the First Synod of Cashel in 1101 and were later joined by the scholarly Gilbert (previously a monk in Rouen) who became Bishop of Limerick at about the same time as Murtagh made Limerick his capital.
Celsus of Armagh
The drive for reform had its base in the south of Ireland and might have remained there had not an educated layman named Celsus become Successor of St Patrick in 1105 following the death of his great-uncle.  Celsus was a member of the Clann Sinaich, who monopolised the abbacy of Armagh for several generations.  When he succeeded his great-uncle, he was already zealous for reform.  One of his first acts was to receive ordination to the priesthood.  As there was a bishop in Armagh at the time, he waited until his death in 1106 to receive episcopal consecration.

The articulate Gilbert of Limerick outlined the plan for reform not only of the Church, but secular society as well, in De Statu Ecclesiae ("On the State of the Church") while Celsus made circuits of all the provinces in his capacity of successor of St Patrick.  In 1111, Gilbert presided as Papal Legate over the Synod of Rathbrasil (Co Tipperary) where the Irish hierarchy proposed an ecclesiastical map of 26 dioceses.  Though there have been a number of variations in the interim, the number of sees in Ireland remains at 26.
The rise of Malachy
Over the next decade and a half, the pace of reform slowed down and might have come to an end, had not Celsus picked out a gifted protegé.  Mael Maedog O'Morgair was a young man, born in Armagh in 1094.  His father was a teacher and his mother was from a family that had a claim over the abbacy of Bangor similar to that which Celsus' family had over Armagh - her brother, a layman, became successor of St Comgall and Abbot of Bangor.  Mael Meadog felt called to the monastic life from an early age, but in spite of many attempts, it was a vocation he would never realise.  Celsus saw in this young man a reformer like no other.  Mael Maedog became known to history as St Malachy of Armagh.

In 1119, Celsus ordained Malachy to the priesthood and sent him to the monastery of Lismore to study under Malchus O'Hanvery, the Bishop of Waterford, who was previously a monk of Winchester.  In 1124, Celsus recalled Malachy north to set him in the position of Successor of St Comgall, Abbot of Bangor and Bishop of Down.  During the following years, Malachy would introduce the rule of the Augustinian Canons and the Savignac Benedictines into his diocese.  In 1127, he was expelled from Bangor following political upheaval and he brought his monks into exile in Lismore.

In 1129, Celsus died leaving clear instructions that Malachy should succeed him as Successor of St Patrick and Primate.  Clann Sinaich were not going to surrender without a fight and nominated Murtagh to succeed.  Malachy refused to challenge Murtach until he had the backing of Ireland's secular and religious leaders.  Murtagh retained the revenues until his death in 1134, though Malachy was recognised as Primate.  When Clann Sinaich nominated Celsus' brother Niall in 1134, it was clear no one in Ireland was prepared to listen - so the Clann Sinaich pretensions came to an end in 1139.

When Malachy was satisfied the independence of the primacy was secured, he resigned the See of Armagh in favour of Gelasius, the Abbot of Derry and head of the Columban paruchia.  This was a deft political move, as Gelasius was uncompromised politically yet was dedicated to reform.

Malachy went back to Down as bishop.  He thought this was the end of his active life and he could retire to the cloister.  But first, the bishops of Ireland asked him to go to Rome to present their petition to Pope Innocent II to grant pallia to Armagh and Cashel, setting them up as metropolitan sees and guaranteeing the independence of the Irish Church.  Malachy undertook the task.

On his way, he visited Clairvaux where he made friends with St Bernard of Clairvaux.  St Bernard was the most influential churchman of his day and also became the biographer of St Malachy.  Malachy was thoroughly impressed with the Cistercian life and he petitioned Pope Innocent to be released from his obligations as a bishop in order to enter the Cistercian monastery at Clairvaux.  The Pope was not without sympathy but recognised St Malachy's calling was to reform the Irish Church.  The pallia were not to be granted to Cashel and Armagh just yet - and Malachy was ordered to return to Ireland.

The cause of reform prospered.  Malachy established the Cistercian Order in Ireland with monks from Clairvaux, and it spread rapidly.  There were some problems between Irish and French monks, but that did not lesson the Cistercian influence in Ireland.  He also introduced the Arroasian congregation of the Augustinian Canons Regular to Ireland, judging them to be particularly suited to Irish conditions.  The Canons Regular of St Augustine would eventually become the biggest order in pre-Reformation Ireland, but were never re-established after penal times.  St Malachy's legacy is still seen in the Cistercian houses in Ireland.
Wine into water
Though the main influence on the Irish Church form abroad was French, there are German influences to be seen to.  The Schottenklöster (Irish monasteries in Europe - in the early middle ages the Latin Scotus or the German Schotte designated an Irishman) had adopted the Benedictine rule at the time of Charlemagne.  In the mid 12th century, the king of Munster's cousin was the Abbot of the Irish monastery at Regensburg, so Irish Benedictines from Germany came to establish houses in Ireland.

At this time an unknown but rather interesting Irish Benedictine was Abbot of the Irish monastery at Würzburg.  St Macarius (died 1153) was so ascetic that he is said to have changed wine into water.  But the more ascetic discipline of the French Cistercians made a greater impact on Ireland that did the German Benedictines.

In 1148, St Malachy, armed with the authority of Papal Legate, summoned a synod of the Irish church to Inis Pádraig, Co Dublin.  At the time, Blessed Eugenius III was pope and had began his pontificate with two years in exile.  As he was a Cistercian, he asked St Bernard for advice on what he should do.  Bernard told him to model his life on the Irishman, Malachy of Armagh.

Malachy set out on another trip to Rome to petition Eugenius for the pallia.  This time he was not to return.  He died in Clairvaux on the way on the night of November 1-2, attended by St Bernard.  Very soon after St Malachy's death, St Bernard regarded him as a saint.  He was canonised by Pope Clement III in 1190.  His feast day is 3 November.

Though St Malachy never reached Rome, the petition did.  And in 1152, Blessed Eugenius III sent John Cardinal Paparo as Papal Legate to Ireland.  Cardinal Paparo convened the bishops of Ireland at a synod in Kells  where he unveiled the Pope's plans for the Irish Church.

Blessed Eugenius did not grant the two pallia as requested.  Instead he sent four - also recognising Dublin and Tuam as metropolitan sees.  In this way, the pope showed a profound understanding of the political and regional divisions in Ireland.  He also guaranteed the independence of the Irish church and recognised the strides made in its reform over half a century.  The pallia are the legacy of St Malachy of Armagh.

Not long after this triumph, St Bernard died.  He was buried with St Malachy under the high altar at Clairvaux as he requested.  The relics of the two saints are still together and according to some traditions cannot be separated.  They are in death as they willed to be in life.

St Malachy may or may not be the author of the prophecies I referred to at the beginning of this article.  It doesn't matter.  The vocation of St Malachy of Armagh represents the transition of Ireland from being an isolated Church with many distinctive characteristics into one which was definitively part of the Western Church.  The drive for this reform came not from without but from within.  The native Irish monastic rules were eclipsed, but that was an unintended effect of the reform.  Nobody foresaw how readily and completely Irish vocations would drift toward the Cistercians, Augustinian Canons and other continental orders.  Nor did this reform destroy the autonomy of the Irish church - on the contrary, obtaining the pallia from Rome in the manner achieved ensured that the Irish Church would be autonomous.  Had it been otherwise, the Archbishops of Canterbury would have gladly instituted a reform of the Irish Church to their own liking.

The saint's lasting memorial is not in imprecise predictions but in securing the independence of the Irish church and guaranteeing its reform by native Irish ecclesiasticsw.  That Church survived the upheaval of the next few centuries, the Reformation and Penal Laws, onl to be seriously threatened in our own day.

The Brandsma Review, Issue 75, November-December 2004

St Lorcan the Peacemaker

SAINT LORCAN THE PEACEMAKER

by PEADAR LAIGHLÉIS

Beati pacifici: quoniam filii Dei vocabuntur - St Matthew, 5:9

A Muire as mor in gním ado ringed in hErend indiu.(Mary, terrible is the deed done in Ireland this day) - A Leinster scribe lamenting the banishment of Diarmait Mac Murchada in 1166)

WE often judge past in the light of subsequent events.  For example, there is a tendency to see the First World War through the prism of the Second.  Notwithstanding nasty Prussian militarism, the Central Powers were not comparable with the Axis Powers a generation later.  The former's defeat was no great triumph for the West - it rather set Europe up for something much worse.

Likewise, we should not look at Brian Boróma through post-Norman invasion spectacles (pardon the anachronism).  A disgruntled, dispossessed Gaelic noble gave his version of events in Cogadh Gaedel re Gallda.  The central thesis was that the Ua Conchobair dynasty was as incompetent against the Norman as the Uí Néill were against the Viking - but Brian Boróma was the Irish military exemplare and ideal king.

The truth was different.  The Vikings were long defeated and baptised prior to Clontarf, in which more of them were allied to Brian's real enemy, Máel Mórda, than to Brian himself.  Contemporary Irish aristocrats regarded Brian as a parvenu of inferior ancestry (the monks of Cashel could even point at two pedigrees - one was obviously flawed).  And Clontarf was a Phyrric victory - it resulted in several generations of internecine warfare preparing the country for the Norman invasion.

For all that, Brian was ruthless and able, and if he allowed his admiration for Charlemagne carry him away (signing the Book of Armagh as Imperator Scottorum), it was his vision of a centralised Irish kingdom which dominated Irish political thought ever since.

Clontarf devastated Leinster.  A ruler with the unlikely moniker of Diarmait mac Máel na mBó attained the kingship of Leinster in 1042 and claimed the high kingship a generation after Brian.  His sept, the Uí Cennsalaig, would dominate Leinster politics in the following centuries (though they hadn't provided a king for several centuries previously).  Many lines vied for the high kingship and the country was beset by intermittent civil war and anarchy.

The former Viking towns looked to Canterbury for spiritual guidance, and Gaelic churchmen recognised Lanfranc and St Anselm's designs on Ireland.  They delivered the reform of the Irish church during the ceasefires.

Blessed Eugenius III approved the Irish Church's reforms by granting the requested pallia to Armagh and Cashel and granting additional pallia to Dublin and Tuam on his own initiative.  Thus he guarranteed the independence of the Irish Church in 1152.  Eugenius was a Cistercian and saw that the reform was Cistercian-driven.  His mentor, St Bernard of Clairvaux, was very close to St Malachy of Armagh.  The black monks and white monks were engaged in a power struggle at the time and Eugenius was succeed by an English Benedictine, Adrian IV.

Young Henry II wanted to conquer Ireland and sent John of Salisbury to get Adrian's approbation.  In 1155, Adrian saw the Irish Church differently to his predecessor (there were few Benedictines in Ireland), so he commissioned Henry to bring Christianity to Ireland in Laudabiliter.  The Empress Mathilda was still alive and had no desire to see her son engage in wasteful adventures.  So Henry neglected his charge for another decade and a half.

Twelfth-century Ireland was dominated by the career of Diarmait MacMurchada.  He became king of Leinster in 1126.  Unable to compete for the high kingship like his great-grandfather, he could and did make it difficult for others.  The year he took the throne, Lorcan Ua Tuathail (Laurence O'Toole) was born in Wicklow.  Until the advent of Diarmait mac Máel na mBó, the Ua Tuathail were a more prestigious family than MacMurchada.  Lorcan's mother was an Ua Brain princess of Uí Faeláin, from North Leinster's second family (Wicklow and Kildare were in north Leinster at the time).  In the Gaelic custom, Lorcan was sent to the Ua Conchobair of Uí Fáilge for foseterage, which aligned him to a third powerful house in Leinster, as befitted a young prince.  All was well until Leinster nobles intrigued against the king in 1141.  Diarmait killed or blinded 17 of the conspirators in anticipatory retaliation.  Muirchertach Ua Tuathail became head of the Uí Muireadaig and his only daughter was married to Diarmait.  As a safeguard against further plots, Diarmait dragged Lorcan with other Leinster princes to Ferns as hostages.
A clear insult
The old Gaelic order was very strict on the treatment of hostages, but Diarmait did not comply.  He sent Lorcan to an inferior household, a clear insult to his wife's family.  Muirchertach seized a few of Diarmait's key officers and threatened to kill them if his son was not released.  Diarmait placed the boy in the custody of the Abbot of Glendalough until Muirchertach let his men go.  Lorcan was tired of politics now and wanted to remain in Glendalough as a monk.  An ironic beginning to a vocation that would place him at the epicentre of a political crisis which would have permanent repercussions in Ireland.

There were doubts about Lorcan in Glendalough.  His education was martial rather than literary.  And there was discontent when his father nominated him as abbot in 1153 (which was in Muirchertach's gift).  Lorcan had already been ordained to the priesthood when younger than the canonical age of 30.  However, it is a tribute to Lorcan that he was the near unanimous choice as Bishop of Glendalough when Gilla na Náemh died in 1157.  He refused on the grounds he was too young.

In 1161, he became Archbishop of Dublin.  There had been eight Bishops of Dublin before his immediate predecessor Gréne (Gregory) got the pallium in 1152.  These were all Ostmen (as the descendents of the Vikings were called) with no love for the Gaelic Irish and until the Synod of Kells, they looked to Canterbury rather than Armagh.  Lorcan's brother-in-law, Diarmait, was overlord of Dublin and he had a hand in the election.  The Primate, Gilla mac Liag MacRuaidri, consecrated Lorcan.

The Dublin Ostmen were not enthusiastic about the appointment.  Christ Church Cathedral was Lorcan's first priority.  He introduced the observantine Arrouasian Congregation of Augustinian Canons into the cathedral and as far as his administrative duties allowed, he took an active part in Christ Church's liturgical life (wearing the Arrouasian habit) and he was known for his prayer, penance and almsdeeds.

The best known Irish twelfth century scandal was Diarmait's abduction of Derbforgall, Tigernan Ua Ruairc's wife in 1152.  Commentators suggest Derbforgall had a role in this, but the king of Breffny became Diarmait's sworn enemy for the insult - even after Derbforgall was returned with her fortune.  The other party to the insult was Mór, Lorcan's sister, who withdrew to a convent in Dublin.  This event would have a disproportionate bearing on subsequent Irish history.

Things came to a head in 1166 when the kings of Ireland combined under Ruaidrí Ua Conchobair to expel Diarmait from Ireland.  They accomplished this and Ua Ruairc drew sinful pleasure form plundering Diarmait's castle in Ferns.

It was a short-lived victory.  Diarmait spent the next year seeking Norman aid.  Though Henry II was too occupied to give him immediate help, he did see the request as a golden opportunity (to rid himself of troublesome vassals).  Diarmait still had a problem persuading the Norman Earls on the Welsh Marches to join him, but they did come, to stay.  Initially Diarmait recovered his own territory.  Then he attempted to take Leinster.  The high king successfully thwarted him, but the worst was yet to come.

Strongbow's advance party camped at Baginbun in 1169.  They were reinforced by the main force and took Waterford, after which Strongbow married Diarmait's daughter (Lorcan's niece) Aífe.  Strongbow turned on Dublin.  The Ostman king, Asgall MacTorchaill's fleet controlled the Irish Sea.  A formidable Irish hosting protected Dublin, but Diarmait and Strongbow avoided them, and when Dublin sought terms, Ruaidrí withdrew.  Lorcan now had to intercede with his in-laws on behalf of his flock as Dublin's finest went with Asgall and the navy (and their valuables) to the Isle of Man.  When Asgall returned with reinforcements, Norman luck again prevailed and Asgall, defiant to the end, was beheaded in the hall of his own palace.  A Manx naval squadron blockaded Dublin for two months and Strongbow got into deeper trouble as Diarmait died, but now Henry arrived in Ireland.
Parallel with Becket?
Henry was an unlikely crusader.  He had been excommunicated for his role in St Thomas Beckett's murder, as England faced an interdict - and he came to Ireland to restore Christianity!  His obsequiousness to the Papal Legate, Christian O Conarchy was in marked contrast to his refusal to admit legates to England at the time.  Henry's main motivation in Ireland  was not its conquest, for religious or secular reasons, but the containment of his own Anglo-Norman subjects.  He didn't want an independent Norman kingdom to his west.  He attended the Second Synod of Cashel in the winter of 1171-1172 to convince the Pope of his fidelity.  The Irish bishops were prepared to accept Henry's lordship if he would bring an end to Ireland's protracted political instability.

Though the Normans were as politically divided as the native Irish, they had a clear military superiority and only mutual rivalry and apathy (the former encouraged by Henry) prevented them from overrunning the whole island.  In 1175, Lorcan was the chief negotiator of the Treaty of Windsor between Henry and Ruaidrí.  As the treaty was not honoured, we can only deduce that Lorcan was more interested in securing a peaceful political settlement for Ireland than in rival political claims.  During the negotiation, an assailant attempted to fell Lorcan with an axe as he said Mass.  Noting the similarities between this and Beckett's martyrdom, most contemporaries cast a suspicious eye on Henry.

After Windsor, Lorcan had another test.  St Malachy of Armagh had achieved autonomy for the Irish Church a generation earlier.  It was now for Lorcan to defend it.  Alexander III broadly endorsed the Norman invasion of Ireland, in spite of his distrust of Henry.  He now angered Henry by naming Lorcan as Papal Legate in Ireland in 1179.  Lorcan had a high standing in the universal church and he participated in the Second Lateran Council that year.

As Papal Legate, Lorcan was concerned that the 12th Century reform should not be undone, as signs indicated it would be.  The role of the Norman in this process was interesting.  If the Bull Laudabiliter commissioned Henry to reform the Irish Church, Lorcan must have sensed some irony.  In slightly more than one year in office, he reported over a hundred Norman clerics holding Irish benefices to Roman ecclesiastic tribunals for sundry offences.

One would suspect that Lorcan would no longer be the best candidate to negotiate with Henry.  But this is exactly what Ruaidrí asked him to do in 1180.  Lorcan undertook to do so, to find that Henry refused to see him and left England for France.  Lorcan followed him to Normandy where he fell ill and died in the Abbey of Eu on the night of November 14.  The Augustinian Canons were convinced of his sanctity and investigated his life; one canon wrote his biography.  The cause for his canonisation is regarded as the first modern ecclesiastical legal process in history.  It received overwhelming support from old adversaries - the Ostmen of Dublin, once opposed to his appointment as archbishop, now wholeheartedly endorsed his sanctity.  Even the Normans attested to the prelate's virtue.  In 1225, he was canonised by Pope Honorius II and his feast is on November 14.  His body lies in Eu, but his heart is in his own cathedral - Christ Church.

The Brandsma Review, Issue 76, January-February 2005

Flawed Pedigree or Irish Charlemagne: The Legacy of Brian Boru

FLAWED PEDIGREE OR IRISH CHARLEMAGNE: THE LEGACY OF BRIAN BORU
By PEADAR LAIGHLÉIS

FROM ST PATRICK’S TIME TO the turn of the Millennium, Ireland was dominated by the Uí Néill dynasty. With their power-base in Meath and in Tyrone and Donegal, they effectively dominated the northern half of Ireland for centuries. Their only rivals on the island were based in Cashel. These were the Eóganacht of Munster. A couple of times in the centuries, the Eóganacht would manage to field a champion to rival the Uí Néill, but it did not happen very often. In the early ninth century, this was achieved by Feidlimid mac Crimthainn. Not only was Feidlimid King of Munster; he was also Bishop of Cashel; and he was a monk of the reforming Céle Dé (Slave of God) rule which had its origins in Tallaght in the 800s. Feidlimid was well able to use the secular arm to extend monastic reform. If an abbot proved obstinate, Feidlimid would carry out a raid leading contemporaries to observe that he burned more monasteries than any Norse chief. The presence of Feidlimid in various venues outside Munster at the head of an army was hardly unusual, as he attempted to wrest hegemony from the Uí Néill and almost succeeded. He died in 846.

A century and a half later would bring a more successful challenger from Munster onto a national stage which hardly existed before. One of the sub-kingdoms the Eóganacht maintained were the Déisi in what is now Waterford. Some of these made conquests in East Clare and adopted the moniker the Dál Cais. In 934, Cennétig mac Lorcáin became King of the Dál Cais. The Dál Cais were in the ascendent as their Eóganacht overlords declined. This brought some risk as four of Cennétig’s sons were killed in raids on the Dál Cais from both the Eóganacht and the Uí Néill prior to his own death in 951. But when he died, he was described as king of Thomond. His son Lachtna reigned until he was killed in 953 when he was succeeded by his brother Mathgamain.
Resentful Rivals
Mathgamain mac Cennétig was an extremely able ruler and was aware the kingship of Munster was in his grasp as only one branch of the Eóganachta could rival him. In 964, he occupied Cashel which seriously staked his claim. At this stage, he had allies as far afield as Waterford. Limerick proved a cockpit in the struggle for dominance of Munster and its Norse ruler Ivar was frequently driven out. In 974, Mathgamain was acting as King of Munster, but he had a number of resentful opponents. In 976, he was captured and put to death by his Eóganacht enemy Máel Muad and his allies. He was suceeded by his brother Brian Boruma, known to history as Brian Boru.

Brian’s first target on assuming the kingship of the Dál Cais was the coalition who had killed his brother. The Norse king of Limerick, Ivar was first. Brian killed him with two of his sons in the sanctuary of Inis Scataig (Scattery Island) in 977. Following this, he attacked the Uí Fidgente, an Eóganacht ally based in Co Limerick. In 978, he defeated Máel Muad, killed him and took hostages. At this stage, he consolidated his position in Munster. It would be a mistake to think Brian came from nowhere after his brother’s death. For many years he had been a leading political and martial figure within the Dál Cais and many of the tactics he employed were learned from experience. Brian’s biographer cast him in the light of Alfred the Great of England, fighting Norse here, there and everywhere as a young man. This is unlikely, but there was never any shortage of Norse mercenaries in the forces Brian found himself opposing.
Norse impact
The Norse had made an impact on Ireland in the late tenth century. They were now substantially Christianised and their ports were the centre of trade routes. They minted the first Irish coinage. Irish words for commerce and seafaring are largely derived from Scandinavian languages. Some Irish names betray Viking origin: most people are aware that as Lochlann is the Irish for Scandanavia, O’Loughlin and McLoughlin indicate descent from the Norse or Danes. Less obviously, Doyle is derived from Ua Dubhghaill or “dark foreigner”, as the brown-haired Danes were known (the Norse with the “fionn gall”, the blond foreigner). It is no coincidence that Doyle is most common in Dublin. But consider the name Higgins. In Irish, this is Ó hUiginn. When dealing with a language with neither “v” nor “k” and a people who still turn “ing” into “in’”, it becomes clear that Uiginn disguises the word viking. There are many more. If one were to question the depth of the Christianity of the Irish Norse in Dublin, Limerick and Waterford, one might ask the same question about the rest of Ireland or indeed the bulk of Christian Europe. The absorption of the Gospel was a very slow process. Slavery, plurality of wives among the nobility, and other horrors endured a long time. Pre-feudal western Europe was a warrior society barely aspiring to the civilisation of Byzantium. But the Norse left their mark on Ireland. Even without Norse troops, Norse armour and weaponry were adopted. Brian Boru was quite adept at using a naval arm in a lot of his campaigns, often attacking his enemies by land and sea simultaneously. He learned this from the Vikings.

In 982, Brian moved against the Osraige. This corresponds with the present-day Ossory diocese and if considered part of Leinster now, it was in the Munster sphere of influence in the first millennium. As Leinster emerged as a power in its own right late in this era, the buffer kingdom of Osraige wavered between Munster and Leinster. Brian sought to subordinate it to Munster with success that was clear enough to create conflict with the King of Tara, Máel Sechnaill II. The Uí Néill king invaded Clare, but this was no deterrant to Brian who sent a fleet up the Shannon the following year to attack Connaught. He then allied with the Norse of Waterford to attack Dublin and Leinster. Once again, Brian employed a coordinated amphibious attack against his enemies.  This time he invaded Meath in a direct challenge to Máel Sechnaill.

If Brian was going to challenge to the Uí Néill king, he would have to ensure his own position in Munster and in the late 980s, he did just that. He defeated his Déisi kinsmen and took hostages from Lismore, Emly and Cork. Once again, he sailed up the Shannon, attacking Meath and Connaught, though the detachment in Connaught was defeated. Máel Sechnaill invaded Munster, but in 997 he recognised Brian’s dominance over the southern half of Ireland.  At this stage, Leinster was conceded to the Munster sphere of influence. Leinster rebelled, but Máel Morda was captured and the Hiberno-Norse king of Dublin, Sitric was exiled. Both were forced to submit to Brian who was now challenging the King of Tara. Máel Sechnaill found a way to counter one of Brian’s favourite tactics: allying with Connaught, he bridged the Shannon making navigation difficult. But the following year, Brian defeated Meath and Connaught.
Emperor of the Irish
In 1005, Brian moved against Ulster. It should be remembered that Brian was a politician as well as a soldier and would take a diplomatic solution where possible. Leaving a donation of twenty ounces of gold in Armagh and recognising the Church of Armagh as the primatial see was an example of this. Brian was probably illiterate; most kings were. So his secretary signed the Book of Armagh for him. Brian was Imperator Scotorum, literally “Emperor of the Scots”, but the Latin Scotus is more accurately translated as “Gael”, and the Gael of Dál Riada had yet to give their name to Scotland, so the title is understood as Emperor of the Irish. Brian thus disclosed his admiration for Charlemagne (and his brass neck). The Church in Armagh were not indifferent to his endeavours as a more centralised kingdom along the lines of the Carolignian empire or Anglo-Saxon England was a logic that appealed to them. The administrative framework of centralisation would make things easier for the Church. The person of Brian Boru was another matter. The monks at Cashel very obligingly furnished him with a noble lineage going back to the legendary Eógain Mór who founded the Eóganachta.  Of course, the abbot of Cashel was himself an Eóganacht with strong feelings about a Dál Cais parvenu masquerading as something he was not, so he retained Brian’s authentic genealogy. Which goes to show that the politics of a flawed pedigree has a long history.

One after the other, Brian subdued the three Ulster kingdoms of the Ulaid, the Cenél Eógain and in 1011, the Cenél Conaill. At this stage, he was the undisputed High King, or in his own words, Emperor, of the Irish. One might ask what this meant. He certainly was not the effective ruler of Ireland. But he did, as an outsider, manage to gain what the Uí Néill dynasts claimed in principle for centuries, but never put into practice. He created the concept of the kingship of Ireland and showed how this could be gained and maintained. He was not an heroic figure, least of all for royalist legitimists among us. He was able, ruthless, cunning, ambitious and he thought strategically.  He exploited the divisions of his enemies. He understood the politics of the Irish Church and used it to his advantage: Armagh appreciated this was in its own interest. His horizons were much wider than the island of Ireland, as seen in the policies he employed. It is inevitable that a man like Brian will raise resentment, and this came from Leinster and Dublin in 1013. Sitric sought reinforcements from Man and the Isles and Brian assembled a coalition to counter them. Initially Brian had the numeric advantage, but a disagreement with Máel Sechnall evened the sides. They met at Clontarf on 23 April 1014, which was Good Friday that year. Irishmen and Norse fought on both sides. The main protagonists were all dead at the end of the day and Brian’s dream of a centralised Irish monarchy survived only as an idea thereafter, itself leading to more wars through the eleventh and twelfth centuries. But the possibility of an effective national kingdom died at Clontarf.

The Brandsma Review, Issue 131, March-April 2014