1014: Brian Boru & the Battle for Ireland Page 3

  Brian put a stop to the mindless, headlong charge practised by the Gael by insisting on drilling his troops. Perhaps he even tied the legs of pairs of men together as they marched, as was reported by early chroniclers. His followers may not have liked his methods at first, but they learned to respect him. They also learned to follow orders without question, knowing there was a plan behind them.

  The Norse, whose traditional way of battle was similar to the reckless charge of the Gael, were confused by these tactics.

  Sometime during this period Brian captured a Viking battle-axe. Short-hafted, broad-socketed, intended to be clasped with both hands to give more power to the swing, the so-called Lochlann axe was deadly in hand-to-hand fighting. Brian took his into a stand of young ash saplings and taught himself to use it. Swinging with all his weight behind it, until he thought the muscles of his shoulders and upper arms would tear free from his bones.

  The Viking axe was a singularly savage weapon. While a sword might kill a man outright if very skilfully wielded, it was more likely to cause a wound that would gradually prove fatal, either through loss of blood or a subsequent infection. But one powerful blow from a Viking axe could extinguish life within a heartbeat.

  Exceptional energy and his genius for strategy were enough to sustain Brian for almost two years. Poets were beginning to sing of him in royal halls, which was the ultimate tribute to a warrior, but he was losing his followers to attrition. Men he cared about poured out their life’s blood onto stony soil. Meanwhile Mahon’s policies were rewarding members of his tribe with food in the bowl and fat on the knife. No new young Dalcassians arrived to join the outlaws in the hills.

  Their second winter in the wilds was bitterly cold. Ice formed on the Shannon. A savage wind from the Atlantic blew incessantly across Thomond, until no birds would fly. There was no game to be speared and eaten, even the vermin had disappeared underground. Brian’s companions were reduced to gnawing roots dug out of the frozen soil, but these did not provide enough nourishment to sustain a fighting man. For shelter they constructed rude huts made of branches. The wind tore through this meagre protection and chilled sleeping men to the bone, so they awakened shivering and feverish.

  It was hard to admit defeat. The foreigners did not beat Brian, he told himself. The weather did.

  A headstrong and rebellious youth had stormed off into the wilderness. Eighteen months later a haggard, exhausted, but wiser man returned, accompanied by the surviving handful of his warrior band. They were gaunt and hollow-eyed and staggered as they walked, but their heads were held high. When Brian led them into Mahon’s hall they brought with them the scent of the wilderness.

  Their fellow Dalcassians stared. Even dressed in rags, Brian of Béal Boru must have been memorable. His contemporaries described him as being exceptionally tall. Julius Caesar had written of the Gaulish Celts, ‘They are taller by the length of a man’s forearm than the tallest of my legions.’ According to anthropologists, the Irish Celts produced large, well built men and women. It would take famine to shrink them to small stature; generations of improved nutrition are reversing the process. Brian also may have been red-haired. The gene for red hair which was almost ubiquitous with the Celts, was common among the Irish, and greatly admired; now it is slowly disappearing throughout the world.

  Overjoyed at his brother’s return, Mahon urged Brian to join him and settle down. He may even have suggested a princess of Connacht who would make a fine wife for him. Brian was not averse to the idea of marrying – he was the age for marrying – but he had no intention of settling down. In front of the other Dalcassians he angrily accused his brother of abandoning the inheritance of their ancestors and surrendering their sovereignty to foreigners. We do not know exactly what Brian said to Mahon, but it was the first known example of a gift for powerful oratory that would transform his life. Sometime during that speech Mahon felt the weight of opinion shift against him. Perhaps against his better judgement, he agreed to call an assembly of the chieftains of Thomond. When Brian addressed them the result was unanimous. War! As with one voice, the clan leaders voted to attack the foreigners and expel them from their seats of power.

  With his firebrand brother by his side, Mahon mac Kennedy set out to claim the prize which had escaped their father: the kingship of the province of Munster. This was an act of blatant defiance to Ivar, the Norse king of Limerick, who had allied himself with the Owenacht princes. During this period the indefatigable Brian also found time to marry Mor, a princess of Connacht and daughter of a powerful petty king. Mor would bear him three sons – Murrough, Conor, and Flann – and at least one daughter. Brian’s followers referred to them as ‘the cubs of the lion’.

  Although Mahon was the nominal commander of the Dalcassian army, it was Brian who led the allied tribes against Ivar of Limerick in 967. After winning a spectacular victory at the battle of Sulcoit in what is now county Limerick, he pursued the Norsemen back to their stronghold and set fire to the town. A fortune in Viking plunder, including gold jewellery and silver-trimmed saddles set with precious gems, was retrieved and shared out among the victors. The Norse who survived the catastrophe crept off into the hills to hide from the fury of Brian Boru. And the stories about him spread.

  The ruling Owenacht tribe, traditional enemy of the Dalcassians, was dismayed by this unexpected consolidation of power in Munster. For once, Gaelic chieftains were not fighting amongst themselves, but had united to turn their full force on the foreigners. Such a policy could seriously threaten the autonomy of petty kings like Molloy. It must be stopped. But among the Gael, the impetus of victory was unstoppable and finally Owenacht power was replaced by Dalcassian. Mahon mac Kennedy was acclaimed as king of Munster.

  His inauguration took place on the Rock of Cashel, Ireland’s Acropolis. On this site St Patrick had converted a sixth-century pagan king to Christianity. Since that time the Rock had been not only royal but holy, the perfect place for kingmaking. With a gold circlet resting on his brow, Mahon was content at last: he had achieved the height of his ambition. His clan and tribe were restored to their rightful status. His father could sleep peacefully in his grave.

  For young Brian, the inauguration at the Rock of Cashel was certainly not a final achievement. Rather, it would be a stepping stone.

  Under his leadership the army of Munster repeatedly repelled invading war parties from Leinster. Leinster was the most contentious of the provinces, comprised of tribes who constantly battled one another for supremacy, battles which spilled over into other territories. Arrogant, given to snobbery and loving intrigue, the Leinstermen kept their own province in a state of upheaval and their neighbours in Munster on edge. There was no love lost between the two provinces.

  Brian was both an inspiring leader of men and a clever tactician who won more often than he lost. With Brian holding the Leinstermen at bay – more or less – Mahon was able to hold court in style atop the Rock of Cashel. Kings were expected to dispense unlimited hospitality as well as make just judgements when called upon to do so. Mahon excelled at both. Most of his people loved him. But envy and belligerence ran deep. Other Munster princes desired his crown. The Owenacht, in particular, deeply resented what they saw as a usurpation of their ancient right to rule.

  In 976 Mahon was assassinated through a conspiracy which involved Molloy, self-proclaimed king of the Owenachts, and Donovan, a prince of the Desmond tribe, as well as Ivar, the bitter ex-king of Limerick. Brian took the death of his beloved brother very hard. The guilty Owenacht and Desmonian princes were tracked down and slain. Molloy died at the hands of Brian’s young son Murrough.

  At one time, this would have signalled a bloody feud that would last for generations and inspire countless poets. But by now Brian was thirty-five years old. If marriage and fatherhood had not tamed the lion, at least they had given him a sense of the future. After cornering Ivar on an island in the Shannon and killing him with his bare hands, Brian allowed his Norsemen to retain Limerick in return for an an
nual tribute of wine. This unexpectedly generous gesture would bear fruit in years to come when former Vikings began to think of themselves as Irishmen.

  On the strength of his military achievements Brian Boru was chosen by acclaim to follow his dead brother as king of Munster. By the autumn of 976 he occupied the royal stronghold atop Cashel. Thus began a reign unique in the Irish annals for its achievements.

  In Ireland a plethora of ancient laws laid down specific prohibitions for every king. At his inauguration Brian would have sworn to observe those binding the monarch of Cashel. He was forbidden to hold a court before celebrating the feast of Loch Lein; to spend a wet autumn night before winter in Letrecha; to camp for nine days on the River Suir; to hold a meeting at the boundary near Gowran; and to hear the complaints of oppressed women on the plain between Cashel and Clonmel. Each of these taboos undoubtedly dated back to some misfortune that had once befallen a king of Munster.

  Conversely, Brian had to promise to obey the orders demanded of his kingship, namely to despoil Cruachan at the call of the cuckoo; to burn the Laighin to the north of Gabair; to chant the Lenten prayers at Cashel; to cross the Knockmealdown Mountains after pacifying the south of Ireland; and to lead a dark grey army across the plains of north Carlow and south Kildare – on a Tuesday. It had to be a Tuesday.

  This is but a small example of the countless laws, rules and superstitions that shaped the lives of the Gael in the tenth century, each a remnant of the ancient past.

  Brian would spend the next twenty-two years reorganising and consolidating Munster by alternately punishing and persuading its tribes to make them submit to his authority. To the astonishment of everyone, Brian promised his young daughter Sabia – identified by some annalists as Sive – in marriage to his old Owenacht enemy Molloy’s oldest son, Cian. Cian was said to exceed all other men in stature and beauty, and would prove to be a valuable ally for his father-in-law. Cian was instrumental in effecting a truce between rival princes of the Owenacht and Desmond tribes, whose quarrels were keeping Munster unsettled. A few years later Cian joined Brian in forcing the submission of the Norse king of Waterford.

  In order to enforce submission from another king, battle was not always necessary. A common and more popular method was the taking of hostages, which often could be achieved through intimidation or even stealth. The higher in rank these hostages were, the more eager – in theory – their tribe would be to get them back. But hospitality was of paramount importance in the Gaelic world and a man’s prestige was seriously at risk if he failed to be a magnanimous host. Any king who took hostages was obliged to treat them well and provide them with the best accommodations and the finest food and drink, better than that served at his own table, if possible. Taking too many hostages had ruined more than one king, when his ‘guests’ simply refused to go home.

  Brian took a large number of hostages during his time at Cashel. An ever-expanding cluster of guesting houses surrounded the base of the Rock, forming the foundations of what would some day be a sizeable town. When their tribes sent the requested tribute to the king of Munster the hostages were released without question. The annalists kept no record of how many refused to return home, but surely some did. Throughout his life Brian Boru would be a generous host.

  He used a third of the tributes he received to build roads, drain boglands, and repair churches and monasteries that had been damaged by Irish raiders as well as by Viking marauders. He also sent emissaries abroad to find and bring back treasures which the Vikings had stolen. In this manner Brian rescued a number of priceless artefacts ‘from damp and Danes’. This was probably arranged with the assistance of his secretary, Maolsuthain Ua Cearbhaill (O’Carroll), a well travelled, highly educated man who had connections on the continent of Europe and would remain with Brian all his life.

  After summoning a convocation of the foremost judges and kings to Cashel, Brian personally worked with them to reinterpret Irish law based on the Psalter of Cashel. This psalter had originated with St Benean, a disciple of St Patrick, and contained the original record of the tributes of Munster – what was owed to the king and when it was to be paid, all organised under the patronage of the Church. In the ninth century it had been amended by Cormac mac Cuilleanáin, archbishop of Cashel, and included a reference to the fact that the king of Ulster had the collecting of all milk and sewing thread in his province, and other such details. Under Brian Boru’s guidance it was rewritten again and expanded to conform to the needs of his time. Parts of this work still exist in the much later Book of Rights.

  During this period Brian also modified his own marital arrangements. In accordance with Brehon law, which allowed a man to have more than one wife if he could afford to care for her, Brian married Achra, a princess of Meath, whose father was a tributary king of the southern branch of the powerful Uí Néill tribe. In time, several children were born to Brian and Achra, including two sons, Domnall and Tadhg.

  The annalists make no mention of the reaction of the Christian clergy to this marriage, but one may assume they were not pleased. However, Brian was quite able to ignore the censure of others when it served his purpose. Heaven could wait. Bit by bit, he was patching something else together.

  The Ireland he knew was a fractured emerald, divided and subdivided by provinces and tribes and endless petty quarrels. The arrival of the Vikings had exacerbated the fault lines. As if that were not enough, the island was also divided into two halves, Leth Cuin in the north and Leth Moga in the south, in a tradition dating back to the coming of the Gael at the dawn of the Iron Age. The borders between north and south were always relatively fluid, depending upon which chieftains were in the ascendancy. The Uí Néill were the dominant tribe, overlords of both halves. From their stronghold at Aileach, in what is now county Donegal, Uí Néill princes claimed tribute from the north. Their southern seat of power was at Tara, in county Meath, where their monopoly of the high kingship and the tribute of the southern provinces seemed as fixed as the stars.

  But why should it be?

  In 980 the title of Árd Rí was assumed by Malachy Mór, whose father was a prince of the northern Uí Néill; he also was qualified on his mother’s side to hold the kingship of the southern Uí Néill – the tribe to which Brian’s new wife was related. His marriage to Achra had linked Brian with the most powerful tribe in Ireland. Such connections were of paramount importance in determining rank and prestige, which is why the bards had spent decades memorising genealogies long before the arrival of literacy.

  Malachy was well equipped to be a king. In addition to considerable physical strength and a good character, he was an exceptional horsemen. He took pride in being able to manage a stallion that had never been ridden or handled in any way until it was seven years old. It was said that the first time he mounted such an animal he could ride it as any other man would ride an old tame mare.

  Almost from the day of his inauguration at Tara, Malachy was at war. Under the rule of Olaf Cuaran, known as ‘Olaf of the Sandals’, the king of Dublin, the city had acquired a black name for the number and ill-treatment of its Irish captives. To make matters worse, Olaf Cuaran had formed an alliance with Donall, king of the neighbouring province of Leinster. Together they were ravaging the royal territory of Meath. Malachy Mór gathered his new army and set out to teach them a lesson they would never forget.

  Olaf Cuaran had ruled Dublin for more than a generation. During that time he had converted to Christianity and encouraged his followers to join him. Most of the Dublin Danes had become at least nominal Christians, though for some their pagan tendencies died hard. By 980 Olaf Cuaran was worn and tired. He had outlived two wives, participated in a number of battles, and in his later years had married again. She was Gormlaith, princess of Leinster. The aging king had been proud when his very young and very beautiful new wife bore him a son, whom they called Sitric. But those may have been his last days of happiness.

  Marriage to Gormlaith was like trying to sail a small boat in a tempest. Sh
e could not resist causing trouble. If there was no conspiracy afoot to keep her entertained, she concocted one. While she was in the royal palace in Dublin there was never any peace for an old man. When Olaf Cuaran and his Leinster allies were soundly whipped in battle by Malachy, the newly crowned Árd Rí, Olaf surrendered to the inevitable. He may have been reluctant to give up his kingship but he was not unhappy to turn his back on his marriage. He abandoned both Dublin and Gormlaith and fled to a monastery. The one he chose had been founded by St Columba in 563, on the island of Iona; it is believed that the famous illuminated Book of Kells, now in Trinity College, Dublin, was begun on Iona but later removed to Kells in Ireland.

  Iona was part of a sixth-century Irish settlement which once had included Argyll on the Scottish mainland and the islands of the Hebrides. The settlers were members of the Dal Riada tribe in northern Ireland. Their descendants were the highland Scots, who for centuries would resist English domination with indomitable courage. The monastery St Columba founded on Iona had been a frequent target of the Vikings. Perhaps Olaf Cuaran went there as an act of contrition, but if so, he did not have much time to gain forgiveness. Not long after his arrival on Iona, the old king died.

  Upon payment of an exorbitantly high tribute, Malachy Mór allowed Sitric, who was so young they still called him ‘Silkbeard’, to succeed his father as king of Dublin. He was not the first king of Dublin to bear that name; at least three had preceded him over the years: ‘Sigtryggr’ was a popular Viking name. The arrangement was somewhat reminiscent of Brian Boru’s generous treatment of the Norse in Limerick, but it did not win the eternal loyalty of the Danes of Dublin for Malachy. Their allegiance was given to their new king and through him to his uncle, Maelmora of Leinster, Gormlaith’s brother.