1014: Brian Boru & the Battle for Ireland Read online

  Perhaps this was the moment when Malachy Mór decided to join the battle. He unquestionably entered the fray at some point, because he was there at the end. Malachy has always had his partisans. In his book The History of Ireland to the Coming of Henry the II, Arthur Ua Clerigh even gives Malachy credit for the victory of Clontarf.

  The Irish accounts of the battle which have come down to us through the annals had been related by the survivors to their children and grandchildren. The survivors were ordinary foot soldiers, who went where they were told without asking why. Every high-ranking commander who executed the orders personally given by Brian Boru in that final meeting died on Good Friday. This is a crucial point that has long been ignored. What those men knew about Brian’s specific battle plans would never be told.

  A telling passage in Cogadh Gaedhel re Gallaibh states, ‘The full events of that battle and its deeds God alone knows, because every one who could have knowledge of it fell there on either side.’

  Hand-to-hand battles are chaotic. They seem to have no plan and follow no design, other than kill or be killed. A warrior must trust his leader to know what is going on. For the man in the midst of it all and fighting for his life, there is nothing but noise and confusion. Therefore this was the scene the survivors of Clontarf described. For a thousand years, people studying the battle have accepted this as the complete story and overlooked the one factor that made all the difference. The mind of Brian Boru.

  On different occasions Brian had spent considerable time in and around Dublin; at the end of 999 he was there for months. Obviously he had explored the locale in detail, as was his habit. Following his orders, his men had dismantled fortresses and cleared strategic passes in a wide area around the city and its approaches. The chronicles agree on this point. With a keen eye for observation and an intuitive sense of tactical possibilities, Brian would have, consciously or subconsciously, rehearsed for what was to come.

  Like many another great general, including Robert the Bruce at the Battle of Bannockburn, Brian Boru chose the terrain at Clontarf and dictated the terms by which the battle would be fought. He may have hoped to forestall events until after Easter, but if he waited any longer the invaders would come much farther inland. His army would have faced the enemy on different ground, and that would have spoiled everything.

  Brian knew more than the lie of the land; during an earlier reconnoitring he must have taken time to study the effect of the tides. The high spring tide that delivered the foreigners in the morning had fallen back by midday. The ships which brought them had withdrawn so they would not be trapped by the receding waters. The few men left aboard may not have realised what was happening to their forces on land until it was too late.

  The Árd Rí’s chosen battleground was relatively narrow, uneven, and bounded by tidal rivers on both sides, with an impenetrable forest at the top and the sea at the bottom. In flood tide the pleasant little fishing-river of the Tolka became something else entirely. Until very recent times it was a source of major flooding in north Dublin, finally tamed at considerable expense by cement walls and determined engineers.

  By late afternoon the weir of Clontarf was completely under water. Darkly roiling, seething, foam-crested seawater that carried all before it. The valley of the Tolka was flooded almost as far as where the Botanic Gardens bloom today. The appalled Vikings in the forefront of the retreat must have realised they could not hope to reach their ships. A vast expanse of turbulent water from Dublin Bay lay between them and safety.

  The Irish were upon them now. When they realised the foreigners were trying to get away, Brian’s army attacked the enemy with all the savagery they themselves had received.

  On the twenty-third of April, 1014, the valley of the Tolka became a killing field.

  Caught by the surging water, the foreigners fought for their lives. As soon as a man crawled out of the flood he was cut down by sword and axe – or even bashed in the head with a mace. The warriors of the Irish army stalked the edge of the water like predators seeking their prey. The Tolka River ran red.

  After the tide receded the body of Brian’s grandson Turlough, would be found in the riverbed. His two strong young hands were still clutching the yellow hair of a dead invader. (According to ambulance drivers in north Dublin today, one remaining deep pool of the Tolka below Ballybough Bridge has an irresistible attraction to would-be suicides.)

  A few surviving Danes who were unwilling or unable to flee fought for their lives in the open fields. The Irish pursued them there too. When the shadows grew long with the approach of evening, Murrough’s arms were so weary he could barely lift them. His faithful shield bearer had long since fallen. He could no longer manage both his shield and his sword, so he let the shield go. Moments later he was attacked by the crazed chieftain, Anrud.

  Murrough reportedly closed with him, seizing the Norseman with his left hand and pulling off the man’s hauberk with his right. With an effort he flung his foe to the ground. He drove his sword into Anrud’s prostrate body by pressing on it with all his weight. But he was too tired; his reflexes had become too slow. When Anrud reached up with a dying effort and pulled Murrough’s dagger from its scabbard he did not even notice. The dagger sank deep into Murrough’s side. It would be a mortal wound.

  This time when Brian asked if Laiten could see Murrough’s banner, the young man closed his eyes and shook his head.

  Suddenly the Árd Rí’s tent must have seemed very dark. And very cold.

  Murrough would live until the following morning, long enough to make his confession and receive the Sacrament. Then Brian’s heir, the man who best knew his father’s plans and shared his vision, died.

  Before darkness fell on that grim Good Friday, the remaining Leinstermen made the mistake of fleeing to the city for safety. They made for Dubhgall’s Bridge, where they were met by the Liffey in full flood. By now a few of the Viking longships, aware of their plight, were moving towards the city, but they could not be reached by the terrified warriors because the whole area around Dubhgall’s Bridge was under water.

  Once again the tide was flowing over the sands of Dublin Bay, but not in the bright light of dawn. The light was lurid now – ghastly. The setting sun turned the sky to crimson. The blood of the invaders turned the water to crimson.

  The watchers on the palisades of Dublin were aghast – except for Emer, Brian Boru’s daughter. According to the chronicles, she could not resist crowing: ‘It appears to me that the foreigners have gained their inheritance.’ When Sitric Silkbeard asked what she meant, she replied, ‘The foreigners are going into the sea, their natural inheritance.’ Sitric was so angry he hit her in the mouth with his fist.

  The last of the fighting was the most bitter. Men who knew they had nothing to lose but their life, and no longer cared about that, demonstrated the savagery that could lurk beneath supposedly civilised skin. When there was no hope left, there was only death and they embraced it with fury. The Christians who had followed the banners of the Dalcassians into battle slaughtered other Christians who had followed the raven banner of Sigurd in hopes of plunder, and no one was thinking of God at all.

  The end of the day witnessed a total victory for the Irish.

  No little birds sang their sleepy twilight songs in the splintered and trampled pockets of woodland that dotted the battleground. Birdsong could not compete with the pitiful cries of the dying.

  When the first shouts of triumph reached the Árd Rí in his tent, he knew his army had won. It was over, then. Everything was over. Brian dismissed his bodyguards to join the celebration. They did not want to leave him, but he insisted. He needed to be left alone with his thoughts.

  Accompanied only by his faithful servant, Brian Boru knelt and bowed his head over his folded hands.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  SUNSET

  His deeply lined face was gaunt with fatigue. The alchemy of time had turned the Celtic copper of his hair to silver. He might have been any old man at his prayers, ex
cept for the sudden fire in Brian’s eyes when Brodir burst into his tent, and the speed with which he reached for his sword.

  The dark and desperate Dane could not make sense of the world around him. As far as he could see in the dusk the earth was littered with dismembered bodies and broken weapons; already the ravens were dropping out of the sky to feed. The battle should have been won long ago. Long ago … in the morning … he could remember the morning clearly enough, when the great fleet unloaded enough men to overrun Ireland. Or so it had seemed then. The battle began with a clash and a curse and victory had seemed certain. Then.

  The Irish had fought back but that was to be expected. What Brodir and the other leaders had not expected was the sheer stubborn determination of the Gael. It seemed as if every one of them fought like ten. Blood must be shed for every foot of ground gained. Hundreds of warriors on both sides fell in the initial charge, and then more. And more. Died screaming. The battle had swirled over the land like a storm at sea, unpredictable and uncontrollable. Brodir had killed his share several times over but still they came at him. His axe sang its grisly song again and again and still they came at him.

  Eventually the Irish were driven as far as an oak forest, Brodir recalled that clearly enough. Too clearly. Among the ancient trees he had seen deeds done that even he would rather forget. He had been a Christian once …

  No victory could be assured in so dense a forest, and in time the survivors had battled their way out into the light again. That was when things became very confused in Brodir’s mind. Was it possible his Vikings had retreated? He could not be certain. The fighting continued on and on and then there was the water …

  Blood-red water.

  Brodir had made his living on the water but he did not intend to die on it. He gave up any idea of fighting and fled, clutching his gory axe to his breast as a mother might clutch her child. He wanted to make it into the sanctuary of the trees again, wherever they were …

  Two of his men followed him through the haunted night. They would have followed anyone at that stage; their own senses had left them. As they stumbled over the dead and dying they heard the first shouts of victory. Not the voices of the Valkyries coming to claim their heroes, but the triumphant cries of the Irish.

  Up ahead Brodir could see a small glow of light. He ran towards it like a moth to a flame with his companions right behind him.

  According to the chronicles, Laiten told Brian, ‘There are some people coming towards us.’

  The high king asked, ‘What manner of people?’

  ‘Blue stark-naked people!’ cried the boy when he got a good look at them.

  In that moment Brian must have known. Vikings in chainmail. There was no time to think any further, no time to assess and plan. Only to act.

  As Brodir burst into his tent Brian reached for his sword.

  There are several versions of what happened next. Even among the Irish historians there is dispute as to the events of that evening, while the Norse sagas tell a different story altogether.

  Some writers depict Brian Boru as a frail old man waiting meekly on his prayer stool while Brodir struck him down. This seems unlikely to those who have made a study of his character based on his known actions. Throughout his long life Brian was a vigorous, robust individual, a battle-hardened warrior who had fought in combat only the year before and had remained strong enough to ride a horse halfway across Ireland. His sons had not asked him to step aside because he could not fight, only because they feared he might be killed in battle. Ireland truly could not spare him, as later events would show.

  Brian had his mighty sword with him. It was a powerful symbol of his warrior status and he never went anywhere without it, certainly not onto a battlefield. The weapon was as much a part of him as his right arm. Nor did he cease to be Brian Boru because he had ceased to lead the army. He may have been old and weary, but the imperative of survival was an automatic reflex with him. It is reasonable to assume that Brian fought for his life.

  According to Cogadh Gaedhel re Gallaibh: ‘Brodir … was carrying his trusty battle axe, 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 his 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 Brodir, and they fell mutually by each other.’

  P W Joyce in his History of Gaelic Ireland tells much the same story, without the reference to the second Viking. He adds, ‘Brian’s guards, as if struck by a sudden sense of danger, returned in haste; but too late.’

  In Cashel of the Kings, John Gleeson maintains that with a swing of his sword Brian cut off Brodir’s left leg below the knee and the right above the ankle. If this is so, the power remaining in the old warrior’s shoulders must have been mighty indeed. Brodir was as good as dead even before his axe smashed into Brian’s skull.

  Brian Boru, King of Ireland, disagrees. Roger Chatterton Newman writes, ‘It is unlikely that a man of seventy-three, weary and mourning the loss of one or more sons, would have found the strength to protect himself against sudden assault.’ Newman believes the Viking axe fell on an undefended head.

  The story as told by the Scandinavians reflects their point of view and is very revealing. Njal’s Saga relates that Brodir ‘rushed from the woods, broke through the entire shield-castle and levelled a blow at the king. The lad Tadk [Laiten] raised his arm to ward off the blow, but the stroke cut off his arm and the king’s head. The king’s blood ran upon the arm stump and the wound healed immediately.’

  The saga goes on to state that the Irish surrounded Brodir and his men and took them alive. They then ‘slit open his belly, led him round and round an oak tree, and in this way unwound all of the intestines out of his body, and Brodir did not die before they were all pulled out of him.’

  This gruesome detail describes a form of mutilation which was common amongst the Vikings, but never practised by the Irish. The fact that the saga describes Brian’s blood as healing an amputated arm shows what high regard the Scandinavians had for Brian Boru himself.

  Whatever happened in his tent, the Árd Rí of Ireland was dead. One of the last, and surely the most tragic, fatalities of that fatal day.

  The setting sun shed a baleful light over a scene of carnage. The battlefield was hideous to contemplate, littered with the dead and the dying, the dismembered and the maimed.

  The terrible rollcall of Irish casualties begins with Brian Boru, his sons Murrough, Flann and Conor, and his grandson Turlough. The swords and axes had done such dreadful work on Good Friday that many other bodies would never be identified. The Irish princes who were recognisable included Mulroney Ua Heyne (Hynes) of Galway and Tadhg Mor Ua Ceallaigh (Kelly), two of the foremost chieftains of Connacht. Also dead was the tanist of the Iceadh (Hickey) tribe, who were Dalcassians and the hereditary physicians to the kings of Thomond; Scannlan Ua Cearbhaill (Carroll) lord of Offaly; Dubhagan (Duggan), descended from the druid Mogh Roth; Mac Beatha, lord of Ciarraigh (Kerry); Ua Domhnall (Donnell) lord of Corca Bhaiscinn; at least one king of Brefni; Mothla Ua Faelan (Phelan), lord of the Deisi; Maguidhir (Maguire), prince of Fermanagh; and Brian’s nephew Conaing. It has been estimated that as many as sixteen hundred members of the Gaelic nobility died that day. Among the thousands without a title were Niall Ua Cuinn (Quinn), Brian’s personal bodyguard, plus all three of the Árd Rí’s aides-de-camp, and the son of Ospak of Orkney.

  Some of the slain Irish princes eventually would be returned to their tribes. The bodies were carried home if possible, but if those were too hideously damaged, at least the heads went home for burial. In keeping with Gaelic tradition the heroes’ heads would be tenderly cleaned and presented to their people with appropriate ceremony. That much of ancient Ireland was still alive in 1014.

  A number – though probably not all, for there were too many – of the unclaimed corpses were buried by the survivors. Trying to reunite the numerous
body parts with their original owners must have been an impossible task. Irish and foreigners went together into unmarked graves. As recently as the late nineteenth century there were still low mounds of earth in the area, described by the locals as burial mounds from the great battle. It was left to the ravens to dispose of whatever remained. The raven goddess called the Morrigan was the ancient goddess of war.

  The annalists relate that the Irish wounded were carried back to Kilmainham. Many of them died and were buried there. The site of the encampment, which later came to be known as ‘Bully’s Acre’, is near the Museum of Modern Art. It was the oldest burial ground in Dublin, and still contains a tenth-century granite shaft that once was topped with a cross. On the front of the shaft is the crudely carved image of a short sword.

  On Easter Sunday, Brian’s son, Donough, arrived from the south, driving a herd of cattle intended to feed the army. Cian, one of the very few survivors of noble rank, told him what had happened to his father and brothers and a large percentage of his fellow Dalcassians. It was too much for a fifteen-year-old to take in. The shock may have had a lasting influence on him. A boy who had been raised as a young Gaelic prince, no doubt praised and petted by all around him, discovered in one horrific day the cruelty of the world in which he lived. Within a very short time Donough became a bitter man out to get whatever he could.

  Donough was now the senior member of his clan at the site of the battle. He could no longer simply play at being a warrior. Overnight, a brash boy had to become a man. Perhaps he went to see the battleground for himself, or made an effort to confer with the other survivors. Perhaps he just wandered off by himself and stared out at the sea for a time. At the end of the day a heavy cloak of responsibility had descended on the unprepared shoulders of Brian’s youngest son. Whether he was able for it or not, only time would tell.