Impressions of Dublin Bay and Clontarf

**This is a chapter from “The Fair Hills of Ireland” by Stephen Gwynn, published in 1906. It gives a gentle introduction to the beauty of Dublin before moving on to a good account of the Battle of Clontarf and O’Connell’s failed “Monster Meeting” there. **

Dublin Bay and Clontarf.

The ancient Irish were no builders of cities;  the wars of the Irish among themselves recount no sieges of walled towns. Yet for three centuries before the Normans came to Ireland, Dublin was a town by far the most important in its own country and hardly inferior to London itself. This chapter is designed to present, in however brief a view, the sequence of early historic associations that link themselves with the deep central bay which breaks the straight Irish coastline between the Boyne and Wexford Harbour. It is well to realise the configuration of this famous and most beautiful haven.

Dublin looks eastward upon the sea - a shallow sea, blue like all the seas of Ireland, yet not with the deep blue-green of the Atlantic; pale rather, and sparkling in its lighter-toned expanses, easily passing into greys and silvers. The mountains which border it, facing the sun of the morning, tend to the same lovely faintness, seen through a transverse mist of sunlight; but they are more beautiful still when shadow deepens them into the full purples and greens and browns of evening.

This mountain mass, which makes up the whole county of Wicklow, is the southern boundary of Dublin; and a low spur of rock, thrust eastward from the hills into the sea and continued across a deep narrow sound by the rocky island of Dalkey, makes the southern arm of the bay. Dunleary (known as Kingstown since the day when George IV. landed here “in the promise and bloom of threescore ” to visit “the land which he loved - as his bride”), offers its deep water harbour on the inner edge of this promontory; and from that point a circling sweep of low featureless shore curves northward for a matter of 14 miles, till it meets the narrow sandy neck of the Howth peninsula.

Howth itself is a landmark of extraordinary interest. All to the west of Dublin, and all to the north, is a plain stretching away westward almost dead level to the Shannon, and north with very slight undulations to the Carlingford range of hills. But here, on the northern limit of the Bay, is flung down this detached block of mountain-for if cliff and rock and heather and bold outline can make a mountain, Howth surely is one, though barely half a thousand feet in height and, rising abruptly from sea and plain, it dominates the whole landscape.

Thus it happens that the citizens of Dublin have within easy command a greater variety of beautiful country than is known to me near any other town. Inland, even if the broad pastures fill us with regret for a vanished population (and I fear that hunting men in Dublin do not weep greatly for a change which has brought the finest galloping ground in the world almost to their door), yet there is the Liffey, a river of beauty incredible to those who see only the foul ditch with its paltry flow of water between the quays. Northward, Howth is easily reached; and from it you look across the bay to Dublin, sheltered under the rounded bulk of mountains, to the south of which there springs from off their long slopes the lovely line of those Wicklow Hills, in English speech called The Sugar Loaves, but in Irish Slieve Cualann. From greater peak to lessen peak you follow these delicate shapes, profiled against the sky, till the long serrated mass of Bray Head, dropping steeply down into the sea, carries the eye to a conclusion so perfect that, like some Italian landscapes, it suggests the thought of a deliberate artist.

Even by night, when the hills are hidden, all the shore facing Dublin enjoys a noble spectacle in the long curving line of lights - a sweep of 12 miles - which fringes the dim water. But for the beauty of all beauties near Dublin, I would bring any lover of landscape-by choice, on a clear day after rain, while clouds and their shadows drifted from west to east over a sunlit plain-up on to those mountains which give a romantic vista to every southward- leading street in the city. Even in winter it is glorious to see from there how

“The sounding city, rich and warm,

Smoulders and glitters in the plain.”

But in summer, or still better, in spring, is the time to view central Ireland spread out immeasurably in green fields, with little wooded eminences conspicuous here and there among them. And on a lucky day, beyond that glimmering plain, whose greenness in the far distance seems to grow translucent, you shall see 60 miles away on the northern horizon the exquisite outline of the Mourne Mountains defined in purest blue, from Slieve Gullion, standing inland and apart, to where Slieve Donard plunges his roots into the sea.

But the old chiefs of Ireland, and the Norse Vikings, regarding the matter from their several points of view, had other reasons than scenery to be interested in Dublin. To the Irish, Dublin itself, the place where the city stands, was simply Ath Cliath, the Ford of Hurdles, where the main road from Tara into Cualann (that is, Wicklow) crossed the Liffey. But Ben Edair, as they called Howth, was a place of great importance to them. Its name recurs constantly in the Ossianic poems as a favourite hunting-ground for Finn and his companions; and in the *Colloquy of the Ancients *(the oldest collection of Ossianic stories), it is not only a place where Finn musters his battalions, but it is the regular port of entry and departure for central Ireland. There the King of Thessaly’s son lands to run a wager for the tribute of all Ireland; and there we read that one of the Tuatha de Danann undertook to have a ship always in readiness to carry Finn’s messengers or champions whatever road they might choose.

Story tells, too, that the cromlech in Lord Howth’s demesne covers Aideen, the wife of Oscar who died of grief when Oscar fell with the rest of the Fianna at Gabhra. She has another monument in Ferguson’s noble poem “Aideen’s Grave”; the verses there put into the mouth of Oscar’s father, the ancient Ossian, are worthy to rank with what has been best written in the native Irish on these legendary themes.

But we come nearer to ascertained history when we touch the tradition which links Howth with the name of Crimhthann or Criffan. Where to-day the Bailey Lighthouse stands, on the south-east point of the peninsula, occupying the summit of a rock sheer to the seaward, and joined to the main hill only by a narrow passage of rock, was once a king’s stronghold - Dun Criffan, a round fort secure on this jutting eyrie. [There were two Crimthanns in the list of Irish Kings, and the lord of Dun Criffan is dated about A.D.** **10. The other, a more historic personage, was a Milesian and preceded Niall of the Hostages. The name (softened into Crimhthann) survives as Griffin.]

But these are far off and fugitive memories. It is not for nothing that the Danish name *Hovud *supplanted Ben Edair, just as in Dalkey the Danish “ey ” replaced the Irish “innis” of *Dealginnis-*Thorn Island. The Danes created that strong centre of life which grew, and in a very short period, to be the metropolis of Ireland. Irish historians have dwelt too much on their ravages and too little on the service which they rendered as founders of cities.

Their ravages, as I have noted already, were not wholly without excuse, though the terrible reprisals which they made struck Christendom in regions guiltless of any wrong to their race. The lands which lay nearest suffered first; in 787 they were on the north-east coast of England pillaging Lindisfarne, a Northumbrian offshoot of Irish Christianity. Then, working round the north of Scotland and establishing themselves in the outer Isles, they felt their way towards Ireland. In 795 they burned Rechru or Rathlm, off Fair Head; three years later they pushed further down the Channel and harried St. Patrick’s Island with its small monastic colony off the Leinster coast. These earlier raids were directed against the outlying island settlements where the Saints of the Third Order -established anchoritic communities. In Inishmurray off Mayo, on the Skelligs at the mouth of Dingle Bay, they plundered those hermits whose stone hive cells are still there, a witness to the strange austerities of that pursuit of holiness.

In 812 and 813 they pushed inland, entering Roscommon Mayo the seats of religion, their chief objects attack, were the more defenceless because a judgment given in 804 had exempted all clerics from the duty of bearing arms, which previously had been imposed on them. In 819 Howth was plundered, and also the little shrine on Ireland’s Eye; in 824 the foreigners spoiled all Meath. It would be tedious to give the details of all their maraudings. But in 832 the mischief took a graver form. The Danish king whom Irish annalists name Turgesius organised plunder into a definite plan of conquest, and, striking first at the very seat of Irish Christianity, sailed up the Bann, established a fleet on Lough Neagh and seized Armagh, where he himself held court in the shrine of Patrick.

Meanwhile another fleet, acting under his orders, was at Dundalk, and yet another on the Shannon. Posts were established by him at Dublin, at Limerick, and at Carlingford; and vessels which were worked up the Shannon to Lough Ree gave him a centre of power in the very heart of Ireland. Ota, his Queen, was established on the altar in Clonmacnoise, desecrating the great western centre of Christianity as Turgesius himself had polluted that in the North.

Who this man was is something of a problem, for the name is found only in Irish annals. But the conjecture of Mr. Halliday (from whose hook, *The Danish Kingdom of Dublin, *most of my knowledge is derived) identifies him with Ragnar Lodbrog, who perished in Ireland in 84. This date is fixed from an Icelandic source, and Irish annals give the same year as that in which Turgesius ended his ravages, defeated at last and drowned in Lough Owel near Mullingar by an Irish prince. Halliday’s theory of the name makes Turgesius a Latinising of Thorgils, that is “the servant of Thor”; as if Ragnar, coming to Ireland and seeking to establish a pagan. kingdom in the very shrines of Christian power, styled himself expressly “Thor’s man.”

At all events, to Turgesius, whoever he was, is due, I think, the foundation of Dublin. The foreigners built a castle there to command the Hurdle Ford on the rising ground where Dublin Castle stands to this day; and they occupied the territory about the bay and northward which still is known as the barony of Fingal. The Fionn-Gaill, or Fair-haired Foreigners, were the Norse, or Lochlannaigh, as distinguished from the black-haired Danar, or Dubh-Gall; and shortly after the death of Turgesius the settlement of the Fionn-Gaill at Dublin was sharply attacked by the Dubh-Gaill. Similar wars recurred till, in 852, Amlaf, son of the King of Lochlann, came to Ireland and all foreign tribes submitted to him,” and he “had rent from the Irish.” This Amlaf was Olaf the White, son of Inguald, a descendant of Ragnar Lodbrog; and the main settlement of Danish (or rather Norse) power in Dublin may be dated from his advent. Certain things must he understood about it.

In the first place, the settlement was not wholly against the will of the Irish. Amlaf’s successor, Ivar, was closely allied to Cearbhall (Carrol), King of Leinster so closely that, on Ivar’s death, Cearbhall succeeded to headship of the Danish colony; and when Iceland was first settled from Norway, about 870, sons of Cearbhall’s daughters were among the first settlers. By such alliances Ireland became almost a part of the great seafaring community which dwelt along the shores of the Baltic, and flung its outposts and its conquering expeditions far south and north; and the relation was not all one of loss for the Irish. For merchant voyages alternated with viking cruises, and these Danish strongholds were centres of commerce and of craftsmanship. The saga of Olaf Tryggsvi’s son, tells how Thorer “went on a merchant voyage to Dublin as many were in the habit of doing”; and indeed it seems that almost every King of Norway visited this seat of an allied kingdom.

And, let it be understood again, the Danish kingdom of Dublin in the ninth century was not limited to Ireland. The men who ruled there governed a territory in England which stretched from the Humber to the Scotch border, and had York for its local capital. Naturally, such a kingdom tended to break apart, and I do not suppose that Cearhhall governed more than the Dyflynarskiri, or Danish kingdom in Ireland, which stretched from Arklow, in the south of county Wicklow, to Skerries, in the north of county Dublin. On Cearbhall’s death, Flann, High King of Ireland, claimed to succeed him, but the foreigners were too strong for Flann. Yet after the death of Godfrey, who died in 896, king both of Northumbria and Dublin, the Irish rose against the foreigners and drove them out of Dublin, first to Ireland’s Eye (the craggy islet near Howth), and thence to Britain.

Thus the end of the ninth century saw an ebb in the Danish power: and Irish tradition speaks of 40 years repose. But events soon determined a new conquest of Dublin. The Irish were preoccupied as usual by internecine war: Flann the High King with allies invaded the territory of Cormac MacCullinan, King of Cashel: Cormac retaliated successfully; but in 908 a great battle, fought at Ballaghmoon, near Carlow, ended in desperate loss to the Munstermen, and the death of Cormac, king and scholar.

While Ireland was thus weakening herself, the Norse were gaining strength yearly, and in 910 the cession of Normandy by the French King to the invaders liberated a host of fighting men. Seeking plunder wherever they could find it, they raided Scotland and Wales, and finally descended on Waterford. In Ulster the foreign settlements had still maintained themselves at Strangford and Carlingford (names which keep the memory of those settlers, ousting the Irish Lough Cuan and Snamh Eidheamh); and in 912 Sitric, the son of Godfrey, setting out from his Northumbrian kingdom, recovered Dublin, and sent a fleet to reinforce the descent upon Waterford.

The Irish did not submit tamely to this new defeat. Niall Blackknee, High King, mustered an array on the slope of the Dublin hills, and encouraged his men with a prospect of spoiling the Norse of their armour

“Whoever wishes for a speckled shield-boss and a sword of sore-inflicting wounds,

And a green javelin for wounding, let him go early in the morning to Ath Cliath.”

But it fell out otherwise

“Fierce and hard was the Wednesday

On which hosts were strewn under the feet of shields;

It shall be called till Doomsday

The fatal morning of Ath Cliath.”

 

So says a poem quoted by the Four Masters, and their prose account makes it clear that Niall had mustered Eastern Ireland from the Wicklow hills to Lough Neagh and Belfast. For besides Niall Blackknee himself and Conor, son of McLoughlin, to the throne of Ireland, there fell also Aedh, of Ulidia, that is county Down; the lords of Oriel, and of South Oriel, which together would include Armagh, Monaghan and Louth; and the lords of Magh Breagh and South Breagh, which cover the country from the Boyne to Dublin and Bray. “The battle of Ath Cliath, that is of Cillmosamhog by the side of Ath Cliath,” was fought on the 17th of October, 919; and no defeat so notable had yet been inflicted by the foreigners on the Irish, who indeed had never before offered anything so like a national resistance.

In the grounds of Glen Southwell, high up on the slope of Kilmashogue mountain, there stands a cromlech on a lawn of green turf and bracken; and I see no reason to dispute the tradition that this marks the graves of those kings who fell on “the fatal morning of Ath Cliath.” But in any case, over those green pastures, across the bright running little stream, up into the hollow of the glen, battle must have raged that day till the speckled bosses of the Danish shields and their swords of sore-inflicting wounds got the mastery at last.

But while the Danes were re-establishing their power in Dublin, Northumbria was slipping from them to Athelstane. In 926 Godfrey, Sitric’s successor, vainly endeavoured to reassert that sovereignty: in 938 Amlaf Cuaran repeated the attempt, and was finally defeated at Brunanburg, whence, as the saga tells (in Tennyson’s rendering), the Norsemen fled, a

“Blood-reddened relic of

Javelins over

The jarring breaker, the deep sea billow,

Shaping their way toward Dyflyn again,

Shamed in their souls.”

Thus ended the rule of Northern England from “Dyflyn.” Amlaf Cuaran marks an epoch otherwise, for he became a Christian, and Irish annalists date the general conversion of the Danes at 948. Moreover, Amlaf brings us into touch with the hero of Clontarf, for he was the first husband of Gormflaith, the Kormiada of Icelandic saga. Gormflaith’s husband was Maelseaclilain, or Malachy, High King of Ireland, who parted from her; her third was Brian of the Tribute - and Brian also put her away. The Irish annalist relates that it was said of Gormflaith that “she took three leaps no woman should take - a leap at Dublin, a leap at Tara, and a leap of Cashel” - marrying, that is, three kings in succession, and each greater than the one before. But the Icelandic Nial-saga says curtly, yet not churlishly, that “she was the fairest of all women, and best gifted in everything that was not in her power, but she did all things ill over which she had any power.”

Before I begin to sketch the events which brought Gormflaith and her three husbands as protagonists on the stage on that momentous day at Clontarf - Amlaf, indeed, not in person, yet represented by his son-some sketch must be given of the seat of that power which Brian finally curbed, after it had threatened to master all Ireland.

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In the first place, physically, it is a little hard to realise the original Dublin - so much of the present city has been built up on land reclaimed from the sea. The germ of the city was a fortress over the ford, Ath Cliath - still marked by the Castle. *Dubh Linn, *the black pool, where the Danes beached their ships, was below this ford at the point where the Poddle stream falls into the Liffey - a watermark only distinguishable at low tide, for the Poddle is now merely a covered sewer. A mile lower down, on the same bank, the Dodder flowed in, and the triangular point of low land, enclosed between the Dodder and the Liffey, was from Danish times, for centuries onward, known as the Steyne.

It has to be remembered that embankment and reclamation have altered a main feature; and probably the unconfined tide did not go beyond the Hurdle Ford and the old bridge (west of the Four Courts). I picture to myself a clean bright salmon stream, with low banks, flowing gaily to a shallow somewhere opposite the Castle, and receiving below that a little affluent from under the rough walls-most likely of wood-which encircled the Danish stronghold. At this meeting of the waters would be a strong race and a pool, making a noble lodge for fresh run fish just up from the tide. The Danish boundary inland was marked (according to the Scandinavian usage) “as far as the salmon swims up stream,” and the Leixlip fall made this terminus; though undoubtedly in those days the ” lax” (or salmon) was as well able to leap the barrier as he is to-day.

The Steyne, lying seaward from the fort, would be such an expanse of short-growing sward, with boggy patches here and there, as all fishermen are familiar with about the mouth of salmon rivers. This tongue of land was marked by a big standing stone and one or two raths - of which there is left no trace, for the bulk of that space is now covered by the College precinct and Westland Row Station. Probably, in the College grounds comprise most of all that was sea and slob alternately. On the other side of the Steyne, tide-water came up almost to what is now Merrion Square. But between College Green and phen’s Green, near the churchyard of St. Andrew’s, there rose, in those days, a notable mound, some 40 feet high - a natural tumulus. Here the Danes, after their custom, held assembly in the open; for this was the “Thingmote” of Dublin - only levelled in the 17th century when building space began be of value. The sharp little rise from Dame Street to Suffolk Street indicates where it stood.

On the north bank of Liffey there was probably no town at all, but the whole of this country was grazed by the herds of the foreigners. Due west of Dublin, at Clondalkin, the Danes established a fort in the early days of their power, doubtless to guard against raids of the Irish. But they were oftener the attackers than the attacked.

It must not be supposed that their power was confined to Dublin, or even to the seaport towns. They left their impress far and wide through the country, and to-day if you ask what race made this or that old rath or subterranean dwelling the answer will be always “The ould Danes,” or (if in Irish) Na *Lochlannaigh. *It is notable, too, that we use Danish forms of the names of three provinces, Ulster, Munster, and Leinster; the termination ” stadr,” meaning “place” or “region,” is tacked on to the Gadic form - Ula-ster, Muwan-ster, Leighean-ster. This is probably due to the fact that the Norman-English, when they came, found intercourse much easier with those other Norsemen of the Danish kingdom than with the native Irish.

Two of the names which come to us from the Danish occupation help us to realise the organised power that ruled in Dublin. Wicklow and Arklow were points where a “lue,” lowe, or beacon blaze was ordained to be kept alight as a guide to shipmen. But for anything like a full idea of the men who held so much power in the Ireland of that day - the men whose comrades and kin had won Normandy, and whose descendants were to conquer England - it is necessary to read the sagas: where you find them quarrelsome, bloody, treacherous, yet infinitely brave, and in a strange manner mingling respect for law with the greatest disregard for life. They were the terror of Europe; and it needs no other testimony than their own to show that the greatest defeat which befel them was inflicted by Irishmen at the very seat of their kingdom.

I have sketched in my last chapter the victory of Sollohed, Brian’s rise to the Sovereignty of Munster, and his subjugation of the Danes in southern Ireland. Not less conspicuous was the success that Malachy, King of Meath, won over the foreigners at Tara in 979. From the field he marched straight on Dublin, which he captured - probably as Brian captured Limerick, more by surprise than regular siege, for the Danish walls seem always to have defied assault if adequately defended.

After taking great booty Malachy issued proclamation, “Every one of the Gael who is in the territory of the foreigners in service and bondage, let him go to his own territory in peace and happiness.” Thus, say the Four Masters, ended the Babylonian captivity of Ireland. Amlaf (or Olav) Cuaran fled from Dublin to a Christian penitence in Iona; and it is a fair conjecture that his wife Gormflaith was part of the prize of victory. At all events Malachy then, or at some other time, married her, and at some time put her away.

But the important fact is this: Malachy did for Leath Cuinn what Brian had done for Leath Mogha; and it is notable that the author of the *Wars of the Gael with the Gall *does no justice to this great victory. For the writer, whether MacLiag or another, was Brian’s partisan and in no way inclined to rate highly Malachy’s services to Ireland.

In the 18 years which followed the battle of Tara, Malachy and Brian were intermittently at war. But at last in 998 they came to rational agreement, and, after a meeting on the Westmeath shore of Lough Ree, agreed that Malachy should be undisputed sovereign of Leath Cuinn and Brian of Leath Mogha; and that their united efforts should be directed against the Danes. Two years later this bore fruit; the men of Leinster inclined to rebel against Brian - who was doubtless levying unsparingly the tribute which had been originally due to Meath - and they leagued themselves with the Danes, always more or less allied to Leinster.

Brian, accompanied by Malachy (whose honour is again omitted by MacLiag), met them at the western base of the Wicklow hills, near Dunlavin, the seat of Leinster kings; and in the pass of Glenmama the Danes were utterly defeated. Maelmordha, son of the King of Leinster, was caught hiding in the branches of a yew tree, and was pulled out of it by Murrough, Brian’s son, chief champion of the Dalcais. The enemy was pursued into Dublin, and “killed, destroyed, exterminated, enslaved, bondaged. So that there was not a winnowing sheet from Ben Edair” (that is Howth) “to Tech Duinn” (a rock off the Kenmare river in Kerry) “that had not a foreigner in bondage in it, nor was there a quern without a foreign woman.

Brian remained in Dublin “from Great Christmas to Little Christmas” (that is, to February 1st) of the millennial year 1000, and Sitric, king of the Danes, fled north, seeking asylum from the northern Hy Neill - Aedh, king of Ailech, between Lough Foyle and Lough Swilly, and Eochaidh, king of Ulaidh, that is, North-East Ulster. But Brian’s messengers followed him, and shelter was refused, so that after quarter of a year he “came into Brian’s house and submitted to Brian’s own terms, and Brian restored his fortress to him.” Brian did more. He gave his daughter to this Sitric, who was the son of Amlaf Cuaran by Gormflaith; and, probably as a means to strengthen the same bond, he himself married Gormflaith.

Brian was preparing for the blow which he struck two years later. In 1002 he marched ” a great expedition of all Leath Mogha, both Gael and Gall,” until they reached Tara of the Kings; there, Brian, with the host of southern Ireland and the Danes of Cork and Waterford behind him, demanded hostages of Malachy - claiming, that is, the High Kingship for himself.

In this claim he had nothing but force to justify him. Just as the sovereignty of Cashel alternated (in theory at least) between the Eoghanacht of Desmond and the Dalcassians of Thomond, so for centuries the title of Ard Righ had gone alternately to the Clan Colman, or southern descendants of Neill who ruled Meath, and to the Cinel Eoghain, or Hy Neill of Ailech and Ulaidh. Malachy demanded time for an appeal to Ireland against Brian’s usurpation. He asked a month “to muster Leath Cuinn”; and Brian conceded it, remaining in Tara under pledge to do “no destruction nor trespass.” I have noted already this proof that, though Tara had been abandoned in consequence of Ruadan’s curse for more than four centuries, it retained its symbolic association of sovereignty

Malachy sent northward his ambassador-a poet, not from his own court but of the north - who went to Aedh O’Neill at Ailech and incited him in a long poem to join Malachy and give battle to Brian. “‘Tis a shame to have old Temhair dragged to the West,” he cried, urging Aedh “to restore Leath Cuinn to its right,” and “bring a wave of woe upon Brian.” But Aedh answered curtly that when the northern Hy Neill had Tara, they defended it themselves. Then Malachy came in person and was offered help only on condition that he would surrender half Meath to the northern branch; and in anger he returned home and rode to Brian’s tent “without guarantee or protection beyond the honour of Brian himself and the Dalcais,” and made his submission. Brian answered that since Malachy had come so boldly and frankly, a year’s respite should be given. And accordingly in 1003 Brian met Malachy at Athlone and received his hostages, and on the same day took hostages from all Connacht. He claimed and took hostages from Ulster also; in 1004 he made his famous march through Ireland.

Starting from Kincora, his route was” through the middle of Connacht and into Magh Ai” (that is, Roscommon); “over the Curlew mountains! (near Boyle); “and into Tir Aillel “(that is county Sligo); “and into the country of Cairpre and beyond Sligo, and keeping his left hand to the sea and his right hand to the land, and to Ben Gulben, over the Duff and over the Drowes, and into Magh-h-Eine” (about Bundoran); “and over Ath Seanaigh at Assaroe” (Ballyshanny ford); “and into Tir Hugh” (that is, South Donegal); “and over Barnesmore Gap and over Fearsed”(the ford at Strabane); “and into Tyrone and into Dalriada” (the Route, in North Antrim); “and into Dalaraidhe” (the Slemish country); “and into Ulaidh ” (county Down); until about Lammas he halted at Belach Duin” - which O’Donovan thinks is the Gap of the North above Dundalk. It must anyhow have been near the sea; for when Brian dismissed the men of Erin, “the Leinstermen went over Bregha” (the plain north of Dublin) “southward, and the foreigners *over the sea *to Ath Cliath and Port Lairge ” (Waterford), “and to Limerick; and the Connacht men through Meath westwards to their homes.”

It was in the course of this royal progress that Brian visited Armagh, as has been told; and from this journey the historians date the golden decade when-

“From Tory to pleasant Cliodhna,

And carrying with her a ring of gold

In the time of Brian the white-skinned, the fearless,

A lone woman made the circuit of Erin.”

Brian was busy in those days building up civilisation, erecting churches, making bridges and causeways, strengthening fortifications in Cashel and other places; More notable still - and remember that this is quite probably a contemporary account-

“He sent professors and masters to teach wisdom and knowledge; and to buy books beyond the sea, because their writings and their books, in every church and in every sanctuary where they were, were plundered and thrown into the sea by the plunderers from the beginning to the end; and Brian himself gave the price of learning and the price of books to everyone separately who went on this service.”

Trouble arose finally out of the very alliance through which Brian had so carefully built up his power. The key of that alliance was Gormflaith, Brian’s wife, mother of Sitric the Dane, arid sister to Maelmordha, king of Leinster. The story telk how Maelmordha set out to convey three masts of pine of the trees of three districts of Leinster, as tribute to Kincora. But in a boggy place of the mountain the king himself put his hand to one mast, and in his exertions he burst a silver button off the gold-bordered silken tunic which Brian had given him - such a gift as monarchs made to their vassals.

“Now when they arrived at Cenn Coradh the King took off his tunic, and it was carried to his sister to put a silver button on it. The Queen took the tunic and cast it into the fire, and she began to reproach and incite her brother because she thought it ill that he should yield service or vassalage.”

Such incitement was easily listened to among the Gad. Next morning an open quarrel broke out while Murrough, Brian’s son, was playing chess; for Maelmordha stood by advising his opponent, and counselled a move which defeated Murrough. The Dalcassian was quick with a taunt “It was you that advised the Danes at Glenmama when they were defeated.” “I will give them advice again and they shall not be defeated,” rejoined Maelmordha. “Have the yew tree made ready,” was the fierce retort of Murrough, recalling his own triumph and Maelmordha’s ignominy. The Leinster prince in anger “retired to his bedroom without permission, without taking leave “(note the hint of courtly ceremonial here). Brian, hearing of the dispute, foresaw what would happen and sent messengers to detain Maelmordha “until he should carry away with him cattle and pay.” But the messenger only “overtook him at the end of the plank-bridge of Cill Dalua on the east side, and he was mounting his horse there.” Words arose, and Maelmordha “gave the messenger a stroke of a yew horse-switch, and broke all the bones of his head.”

The detail of all this, with its interesting glimpse of life at Brian’s court, seems certainly to suggest an author in Brian’s household, and I believe in MacLiag. Who would have troubled to invent what is duly given - the stages in Maelmordha’s journey northwards to the house of the king of East Liffey where the nobles of Leinster assembled, and were incited by him to rise against Brian?

Revolt broke quickly and was directed chiefly on Meath. The northern Hy Neill plundered Malachi’s country and O’Rourke of Brefny did the same. Malachy retorted with a raid into Fingal, plundering up to Ben Edair; but Maelmordha with Sitric and his Danes cut off one of the ravaging parties, and the foreigners and the Leinstermen then raided as far as to Fore Fechin in Westmeath.

Malachy appealed to Brian, not in vain. Up through Ossory and Leinster the host of Munster, led by Murrough, carried fire and sword into the very heart of the Wicklow mountains till they reached “the community of Caimhghen,” St. Kevin’s monastery at Glendalough. No one seems to have resisted, and Murrough pushed on to Dublin and sat down at Kilmainham “on the green of Ath Cliath.” There Brian with another army joined him. But though they were encamped “from the festival of Kiaran in harvest to great Christmas” they could make no impression on the defenders of Dublin, and lack of provisions drove them home.

But on both sides it was understood now that matters must be settled definitely, and Brian mustered a great expedition to take the field with the first of spring, about St. Patrick’s Day. The Danes on their part were not idle. Gormflaith, now openly on their side and directing their preparations, sent her son Sitric to the Orkneys to get Earl Sigurd’s assistance, which the Earl only promised on condition that Gormflaith’s hand should be pledged to him in marriage, and the kingship of Ireland if he won. This was coneeded.

Then Sitric sailed to the Isle of Man where lay two vikings, Broder and Ospak. Broder made the same conditions, and Sitric made the same promise - thinking doubtless that after the fight there might not be so many claimants for Gormflaith. Broder had been a mass deacon but was now become “God’s dastard,” and like every renegade priest he had magic powers. But his brother Ospak (the Icelandic story tells) refused to fight against so good a king as Brian, and, eluding Broder’s attempt to destroy him, sailed for Ireland, and was with Brian’s forces on the great day.

It was a wonderful muster. I quote from Sir George Dasent’s preface to his famous version of *The Saga of Niall’s Burning *a description of the auxiliaries who came over seas to Dublin.

“Along with the great Orkney Earl came a great gathering of his chiefs and followers, called to the war from every island on the Scottish main from Uist to Arran, beaten blades who had followed the descendant of Thorfinn the skull-splitter in many a roving cruise - half heathen, half Christian men, who trusted perhaps to the sign of the cross on land, and to Thor’s holy hammer on shipboard… . Along with their island levies came many Icelanders of the best blood in the land. Flosi would have gone himself, but the Earl would have none of his company, as he had his pilgrimage to Rome to fulfil, but 15 of the Burners went to the fray, and Thornstein, Hall of the Side’s son, and Halldor, son of Gudmund the powerful, and many other northern champions of lesser note.”

“On the side of Brian” - he goes on - “was arrayed the whole chivalry of Ireland, except those parts which owned the sway of Scandinavian conquerors.” It is the pity of the world it was not so. On that day Brian got no help from Ulster, which province had never thoroughly recognised his sovereignty. From Connacht came perhaps O’Rourke’s forces, certainly those of Hy Many. Malachy was there with the host of Meath, but what part Malachy took in the action is a question hard to settle. The brunt of the battle was borne by Brian’s own Munster men and their allies the southern Danes. Leinster, of course, under Maelmordha, was with Sitric-a circumstance over which good Irishmen still distress themselves. One said to me once “I may tell you a thing I would not tell everybody. The —” (naming his own sept) “were on the wrong side at Clontarf. But,” he said with fine emphasis, “they were on the right side ever since. ’ I suppose nowhere in Europe is the sense of historic continuity stronger than among us: and long may it be so.

The accounts of the battle vary in detail. *The War of the Gael with the Gall *recounts that “when the foreigners saw the conflagration in Fine Gall and the district of Edar they came against them in Maghn-Elta.” Other stories say that the Danes of purpose postponed the battle till Good Friday, since Broder had prophesied that if they fought on that day Brian would fall. But at all events the battle was fought on Good Friday, April 23rd, 1014.

The Danish host was divided into the battalion of Danmarkian allies, headed by Broder and Sigurd; the battalion of the Dublin Danes under Sitric; and the battalion of Leinster, headed by Maelmordha. On Brian’s side were, first and foremost, the Dalcais, led by Murrough and by Murrough’s son Turlough. After them came the battalion of Desmond from Kerry and West Cork; the men of the Decies and East Munster under their kings; the battalion of Connaught led by O’Heyne and O’Kelly of Hy Many; and “the ten great stewards of Brian with their foreign auxiliaries,” for Danes fought for Brian no less than Irishmen fought against him. On the field also was Malachy with the host of Meath, and whatever part they played at first there is no doubt that when fortune had declared itself, they “destroyed the Danes from the Tolka to the ford of Ath Cliath itself.”

The little river Tolka which flows into the bay about a mile north of the Liffey is our one positive landmark for locating the fight, as we know that Turlough was drowned “at the weir of Clontarf.” Behind this, by Artane and Killester, was wood; and probably the space of ground covered was not great, for it was a hand to hand encounter of footmen. Unluckily the Irish description of the battle is in the extreme bombastic manner, an attempt to render not facts but emotions. It seems that the Leinster men for Sitric and the host of Brefny for Brian were opposed, and fully occupied with each other; the people of Hy Many and Connacht proper dealt with the Danes of Dublin; but the true pith of the battle was the encounter between Dalcassian and Danmarkian.

Earl Sigurd had his banner made by his mother, who was a wise woman, and had told him “I ween it will bring victory to them before whom it is borne, but speedy death to him who bears it.” The banner was made “with mickle hand-cunning and famous skill. It was made in raven’s shape, and when the wind blew out the banner, then it was as though the raven flapped his wings.” So the Orkney saga tells. Man after man bore it and fell, and at last Sigurd called to Thorstein. “Bear thy own devil thyself,” answered Thorstein; and Sigurd took the banner and met his death, MacLiag says, by Murrough.

Murrough had raged through the battle, a sword in each hand, dealing slaughter till at last he met Sigurd, whom impenetrable armour protected. But Murrough struck with his right hand at the leather fastenings of the helmet behind Sigurd’s neck and cut them so that the helmet fell back exposing the neck; and a blow of the left-hand sword slipped in and shore Sigurd’s head away. But Ebric, the son of the King of Lochlann, charged into the host of the Dalcais “dealing in all directions fierce barbarous strokes.” Murrough turned on him and in the combat closed with the foreigner, and pulling his coat of mail over his head, stabbed him thrice with his own sword. But Ebric reached for his dirk and ripped Murrough open so that his bowels dropped out. The Dalcassian had strength left to take his slayer’s head, and he lived himself till sunrise and received absolution, “having made his confession and his will.” But Ebric’s dirk put an end to the High Kingship for the Dalcassians, and undid the best of Brian’s work.

Between Clontarf and the dun of Dublin all was then open plain, and the folk of Ath Cliath stood on the walls watching - Sitric himself among them and by him was his wife Brian’s daughter. “Well do the foreigners reap the field,” said Sitric, as he saw the play of Danish axes; “many is the sheaf they throw from them.” “At the end of the day it will be judged,” said Brian’s daughter. The day wore on, and towards afternoon the battle turned against the Danes and they made to fly. They had fought for the time of two tides, and it was flood-tide about sunrise when they joined battle. Now nearing sunset it was flood again: “And the tide had carried away their ships from them, so that they had not at the last any place to fly to but into the sea (for Malachy and the Meath host were between them and the head of the hurdle bridge). [This statement concerning the tide afforded basis for testing MacLiag’s accuracy; and independent calculation was made to fix the time of high water on Good Friday in 1014. It was found to be 5.30 a.m.]

“Then it was Brian’s daughter said: “It appears to me that the foreigners have gained their inheritance.’ ‘What meanest thou, O woman ?’ said Olaf’s son, Sitric. ‘The foreigners are going into the sea, their natural inheritance,’ said she. ‘I wonder is it heat that is on them: but they tarry not to be milked if it is.’ The son of Olaf became angered, and gave her a blow that broke her tooth out.”

If it be true that the battle was visible from the walls, the fight must have raged from the Liffey across to the Tolka - about a mile distant. The Danish ships would have been drawn up all along the edge of Liffey, for they were habitually beached; a passage in one of the sagas shows that they would float in water where men would be only up to the armpits wading. The tide at Dublin has a considerable rise, so that the water might easily drown a man at flood where a ship would be grounded and even dry at the ebb. They fled presumably in wild panic promiscuously, for the story tells that young Turlough, Murrough’s son, “went after the foreigners into the sea when the rushing tide struck him a blow against the weir of Clontarf and so he was drowned” [This weir stood where are now Ballybough bridge and the vitriol works, according to Mr, J. H. Lloyd, and there is no better authority] in grapple with at least one of the enemy. Probably the Danes, finding themselves cut off from the bridge and their ships, were trying to escape northwards along the shore and plunged into the mouth of the Tolka river, which would then be deep with the rising flood.

One of the Danes at all events escaped northwards - the viking, Broder. For somewhere on the rising ground by Clontarf Brian, whose 74 years of age kept him from the fight, knelt on a cushion praying, and no one was with him but his own attendant “whose name was Latean, from whom are the O’Lateans (Laddens) still in Munster.” Brian said 50 psalms and 50 prayers and 50 paternosters, and he asked then how the battalions were. Latean answered, ” Mixed and closely compounded, each in the grasp of the other, and the noise as if seven battalions were cutting down a wood.” Brian asked how Murrough’s standard fared and the boy answered, “It is standing, and many of the banners of the Dalcais are around it.” “That is good news,” said Brian, and he prayed again, three 50s of psalms and prayers and paternosters; and again he asked how the battalions were. And Latean answered that no man on earth could tell one side from the other, for the greater part were fallen, and those who were alive were so spattered with blood that a father could not know his own son.

And Brian asked for Murrough’s standard, and was told it was still standing and had passed far westward through the battalions. Brian said: “The men of Erin shall be well while they see that standard.” Then he went back to the praying as before; and again he asked. This time the attendant said the hosts were like a wood which had been cleared, leaving only its stately trees and immense oaks standing. And the few gallant heroes that were left were wounded and pierced through and dismembered. “And the foreigners,” he said, ” are now defeated, and Murrough’s standard has fallen.

“That is sad news, on my word,’ said Brian; ‘the honour and valour of Erin fell when that standard fell, and Erin has fallen now indeed; and never shall there appear henceforth a champion comparable to that champion. And what avails if we are to survive this, or that I should obtain the sovereignty of the world after the fall of Morrough and Conaing and the other nobles of the Dalcais.’”

Latean urged him to fly, as a party of the foreigners were retreating in his direction. But Brian refused to move; for, said he, the fairy Aoibhill of the Grey Crag above Kincora had told him he would be killed that day. And he gave Latean his blessing and told him his will; how he was to be carried first to Swords, then to Duleek, then to Louth, where the Society of Patrick should meet him and bear his body to Armagh. While he still spoke, the foreigners were seen approaching.

‘Woe is me, what manner of people are they?’ said Brian.

‘A blue stark-naked people,’ said the attendant. ‘Alas!’ said Brian, ‘they are the foreigners of the armour’, and it is not to do good to thee that they come.’ While he was saying this he arose and stepped off the cushion and unsheathed his sword. Brodar passed him by and noticed him not. One of the three who were there and who had been in Brian’s service said ‘Cing, Cing’ said he, ‘This is the king.’ ’ No, no,’ but ’ Prist, prist,’ said Brodar. ‘It is not he,’ says he, but a noble priest.’ ‘By no means,’ said the soldier, ‘that is the great King Brian.’ Brodar then turned around and appeared with a bright, gleaming, trusty battle-axe in his hand, with the handle set in the middle of it.

When Brian saw him, he gazed at him and gave him a stroke with his sword, and cut off the left leg at the knee and his right leg at the foot. The foreigner dealt Brian a stroke which cleft his head utterly, and Brian killed the second man that was with Brodar, and they fell both mutually by each other.”

The saga tells - more credibly - that Broder after his feat was captured by Brian’s men and was put to death with horrible torture. But in the essential there is agreement; the sagas admit that Brian fell, but that the defeat was crushing and conclusive. Hrafn the Red escaped with tidings to Earl Flosi. “What hast thou to tell me of my men?” asked the earl. “They all fell there,” answered Hrafn. All through Scandinavia portents were seen and recorded, for that battle was the most famous fought across the western sea, both for the host of men and the great tidings that happened there. [Tradition tells that Brian’s body was laid under a yew tree, and that the yew tree is still there. At all events, in the grounds of a house just north of Clontarf Church is a yew whose age can only be guessed by centuries the most wonderful tree of its kind in these countries, according to expert testimony.] An epoch was marked for Gall not less than for Gael. All hope and all fear of a Norse dominion in Ireland was gone : and gone also was the last prestige of Norse paganism.

With the downfall of Earl Sigurd’s banner and the death of Broder, there vanished the spirit which had prompted not merely plunder, but deliberate destruction of Christian strongholds. Sixteen years later the Danes began to build the church which was the original or germ of Christ Church Cathedral; and the first bishop of Dublin was a bishop of the Ostmen, not of the Irish. So strongly was this felt, that when the kingship of Dublin passed, as it did before 1050,** **to an Irish Prince - Diarmuid Maelnambo, whose wife was Brian’s grand-daughter - the Irish clergy resented the position given by Diarmuid to what they considered a foreign See, and claimed Fingal as a part of the Irish diocese of Glendalough. This quarrel was never really reconciled and when the Irish Church came to be disestablished, and boundaries had to be defined, it appeared that no limit had ever been fixed between the See of Dublin and Glendalough - which had been for long united in practice as they are now.

It is perhaps unnecessary to insist that the effect of Clontarf’s battle was not to expel the foreigners, but to reduce them to a position of friendly colonists, separate in race, but allied in religion, and after no great lapse of time recognising the supremacy of an Irish King. [The Danish stock survives among us. Sigerson and Kettle, for instance, are names familiar and honoured to-day in the city and county of Dublin.]

One fact may be given in illustration. A famous Irish MS. is called the Book of Leinster, in which O’Curry discovered a fragment of the *War of the Gael with the Gall *before the perfect copy (written by Michael O’Clery, one of the Four Masters) was unearthed at Brussels. This Book, a collection of historical tracts, poems, tales, and genealogies, was written (we learn by an inscription in it) under the direction of Firin, Bishop of Kildare, for Aedh MacCrimhthann (Griffin), who was tutor to Dermot MacMurrough, “Chief King of Leath Mogha.” It was precisely this claim of Dermot’s to be Chief King of southern Ireland which led to his banishment from Ireland; and the banishment is commemorated thus by a marginal note in the Book of Leinster:

“O Mary! It is a great deed that is done in Erin this day, the kalends of August. Dermod MacMurchadha, King of Leinster *and of the Danes, *was banished by the men of Ireland over the sea eastward. Och! Och! O Lord, what shall I do?”

Thus it appears that the fugitive king, who to support his own claim brought in the Normans, had regarded his title to the headship of Leath Mogha as covering the sovereignty of the Danes of Ireland.

The most painful part of the story of Clontarf begins after the battle. The host of Munster lay encamped on the green of Ath Cliath by Kilmainham for two days, waiting the arrival of Donough, Brian’s surviving son (the child of Gormflaith), who had been sent northwards with a raiding party. He came in at last, bringing a spoil of cattle, and at the sight the foreigners threatened to come out and dispute the possession, but thought better of their threats. Next day was spent in burying the dead - except the nobles, of whom 30 were taken home for burial - and in making sledges for the wounded.

But on the night after the first day’s march dissension broke out. The men of Desmond separated their camp from that of Thomond, and “their attention was fixed on the Dalcais - their small number and the great number of their wounded.” Cian, prince of Desmond (son of that Molloy who murdered Brian’s brother Mahon, and whom Brian slew), revived the claim for alternation of sovereignty, and, as head of the Eugenian stock, claimed hostages from Donough and the Dalcais. Donough answered that Desmond’s allegiance to Mahon and Brian had not been in fulfilment of the hereditary compact, but enforced because the Dalcais had won back Munster from the foreigners.

Then the Desmond force threatened Thomond, and the Dalcais thought to put their wounded into a camp at the Rath of Mullaghmast. But the wounded men stuffed their wounds with moss and took their swords and advised immediate battle. Their grim looks scared the men of Desmond, and moreover the Kerrymen were at variance with the rest of South Munster, and so the Dalcais remained unfought.

But they had still to traverse much of Leinster, and in Ossory, which Brian had plundered) MacGillaPatrick and his men demanded hostages from the weakened clan. Then the wounded men, - whose wounds had been washed in the Barrow - sent to the nearest wood for stakes to drive into the ground, and tied themselves to them, and so made ready for battle, standing. And again their fierce countenance overawed their opponents, and the opponents “avoided the Dalcais.” But thrice fifty of the wounded died of the excitement, and were buried where they had stood; and the remnant of the Dalcais came home to Kincora. So ends the story of the war of the Gael and the Gall, with an incident whose splendour only calls attention to the sad truth - that despite Brian’s efforts Ireland was yet far removed from any conception of herself as a nation. The clan was still the unit, and Irishmen, Dalcais or other, fought not for the nation, but for the clan.

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The one other great incident-another turning point in Irish history - with which Clontarf is associated, belongs to a day when the conception of Ireland as a nation was insisted on as hardly ever before, and hardly ever since. I have told of the vast meeting on the hill of Tara, in August, 1843, when half a million Irishmen - at the lowest estimate - assembled in an orderly multitude to back O’Connell’s demand for Repeal of the Union. Then followed meetings up and down through Ireland, each with its muster counted by hundreds of thousands. At the provincial meeting of Leinster, held at the Rath of Mullaghmast - an old seat of the provincial kings - O’Connell was invested with the national cap, shaped to represent the old Milesian crown. The great series of demonstrations was to close with one last and greatest meeting at the focal centre of Ireland, and on the field of Ireland’s noblest victory.

But in the meanwhile Sir Robert Peel’s Government was not idle. 35,000 troops were distributed through the country; fortifications and barracks were put in a state of defence. Little wonder, for O’Connell’s famous speech at Mallow earlier in the year had threatened armed resistance. The Clontarf meeting was fixed for Sunday, October 8th; days passed on and preparations multiplied, the Government did nothing; but on Friday night, the 6th, newspapers rumoured that the meeting would be proclaimed. Only at half-past three o’clock on the Saturday was the proclamation actually brought into the room where the Repeal Committee were sitting. O’Connell took it and glanced at it. “This must be obeyed,” he said. Then, turning to the secretary, “Write what I dictate.” An appeal to the people was improvised, and sent to the printers; workmen were despatched to pull down the platform; riders galloped in all directions to meet the vast crowds who from the four quarters of Ireland were thronging the roads to Dublin.

By dawn the appeal was posted in every village for 20 miles round, and the people, sullen but obedient, turned back to their homes. The Sunday found nothing but a regiment of rifles and a regiment of dragoons on the appointed place of meeting; two more regiments with a brigade of artillery posted on the rising ground above; three ships of war anchored in the bay, and the guns of the Pigeon House trained on Clontarf; the Lord Lieutenant riding about to view the scene; and Tom Steele, O’Connell’s “Head Pacificator,” in a green uniform hunting home any few stragglers who showed signs of assembling.

It was O’Connell’s great and dramatic collapse. He had carried Catholic emancipation 14 years earlier by the threat of civil war. He had reckoned to carry Repeal by the same method. He had failed and the result was, as Gavan Duffy puts it, that his party “incurred the hatred of England by threatening resistance, and the contempt of England by failing to perform what they threatened.” What is more, from that day he forfeited the confidence of the younger men, leaders of what became known as the Young Ireland movement.

It is one of the tragic mistakes of Irish history. Had O’Connell consistently maintained his *role *as the constitutional agitator he might have kept Ireland together. But at Mallow he preached armed resistance, then by his series of monster meetings - each a tremendous display of physical force - he strung the people up to the point of rebellion, and when the decision came to be taken, he did not rebel. Probably he never meant to rebel. Except in Parnell’s day the nationalists of Ireland have never been united as they were in 1843, and they were then more numerous by at least three million, still flushed with the pride of their victory in 1829, and their strength unsapped by the famine. Not to threaten would have been probably wiser than to rebel. But to threaten and not to rebel was a kind of national suicide.

In a word, Clontarf was the theatre of a great national triumph, now 900 years ago. But within living memory it was the scene of a national discomfiture whose consequences in a thousand pernicious forms are with us yet.

General Index .