Brian Boru: Legendary Irish Hero

A highly regarded figure in the history of Ireland

Sculpture at Dublin Castle. Photo by Marshall Henrie. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported licence

Like many great men of his period, Brian had a pedigree that was largely imaginary, an Arthurian fantasy of blood-drenched heroes stretching back through the dawn of history, through darkness and out into the magic world of mythology. But from the ninth century we can trace it with some accuracy, thanks largely to the vivid details we have been given of ceaseless, bloody war between Irishman and Dane.

The Danes came to Ireland early in the ninth century, stealing up the River Shannon in long, slender boats, leaping ashore to lay waste to the country, plunder what they could from it and move on: or, when the fancy took them, to settle.

A little later they met shattering, unexpected defeat at the hands of the tribal chief Corc and here history begins. We can follow Corc’s line down through his successive descendants, Lachtna, Lorcan and Cenedid, who died fighting the Danes, a hundred and twenty years after his great-grandfather had thought, with reason, that he had flung them into the sea forever.

Cenedid — a name more memorable in its modern form of Kennedy — was killed in 951. He left two sons, Mahon and Brian (the latter born in 926), and these continued the fight: waging non-stop, guerrilla war against the Danes from the unbroken forests which, in those distant days, swept down to the edge of the Danish town of Limerick. They suffered impossible hardships, never able to stay in a spot long enough to organize supplies, always harried and pursued by a larger, better-armed, well-fed force.

Eventually the young King Mahon, weak from wounds and starvation, seeing no end to the conflict, made peace with the Danes, but his brother Brian refused to do so and went on attacking, his force getting gradually smaller. At last, with only 15 able-bodied supporters left, he confronted his brother.

The Fight Goes On

Mahon approved of Brian’s courage, but saw resistance to the Danes as being hopeless. However, in time, Brian was able to win Mahon to his point of view, and the fight went on.

The Kingdom of Munster, under its king and his younger brother, prepared for war. Inspired by the alliance, the people of Munster rallied to the flag.

When the attack, after careful preparation, was launched against Limerick it was strikingly successful. The Danish stronghold was wrested from its commander, Ivor, and thousands of Danes were killed. The capture was followed by wholesale, systematic looting.

Months went by and the Danes returned with a fleet, but by now the spell of Danish power was broken and they were easily beaten off. Mahon was King of Munster in reality, with none — or so it seemed — to contest his claim. Nine good years passed.

But in 976 Mahon was murdered by a gang of conspirators, a bloody ruse of the sort that has punctuated Celtic history. Donnabhain, trusted friend of the king, paid him a visit, partook of his hospitality, overpowered him and called up the rest. One of these, Maelmuadh, butchered the king. Maelmuadh, when the news came out, was cursed by all the clergy of Munster.

A little later, he, too, was killed on the battlefield. But by this time the Danes, invited back by the conspirators, were spreading across Munster.

Brian was now a reluctant king and he swore to avenge his brother. Gathering an army, he first killed Ivor the Dane; then, systematically, he cleared islands and forts of Ivor’s men. Donnabhain, the Judas who had handed Mahon over to his death, now panicked and sent for Harold, the Dane who styled himself King of Munster. Harold assembled a large force and met Brian. In the battle that followed, the Danes were soundly beaten and Harold and Donnabhain were killed.

The Real King of Ireland

By 984 Brian was truly King of Munster and supreme in the south of Ireland. He then easily subjected the titular “King of All Ireland,” Maelsechlainn, who ruled in Meath. Gradually he over­came both Connaught and Ulster.

Tributes and captives now poured in to the man who was the real King of Ireland. (His title of “Boru” comes from the old Irish “boroma,” or “tribute.”) He was all-powerful. At the same rime, he was a good and wise ruler.

He sent abroad for books so that his people might learn wisdom, established professorships all over his kingdom and paid the incumbents lavishly. He built churches.

There was lawlessness in the land and BrianBoru set out to punish this with a severity which would be horrifying today, but was typical of the period: 11th-century hands and feet were hacked oft for venial offences, tongues and eyes torn out for what might merit a stiff reprimand in the 21st. Slowly, law, order and the blessings of knowledge settled into Munster, and began to spread over the rest of Ireland.

There is a belief in Ireland that the first years of the eleventh century were good and peaceful, under the strong rule of Brian; but history fails to confirm this. Plots, insurrections, murders and assassinations continued apace, with the ever-present Danes to complicate each issue and give each plotter and assassin hope of reward.

This idyll of peace and prosperity — and though it was largely illusory, Brian deserves great credit for his efforts to achieve it — was shattered by a new and vicious quarrel between Brian and the King of Leinster. Leinster’s king, with Danish backing, had decided that he, not Brian, should be acknowledged King of All Ireland. He challenged the army of Munster to dispute his claim.

The Death of Brian Boru

And so, on 23rd April 1014, Brian crossed the Shannon to engage the armies of Leinster and the Danes.

He was eighty-eight years old, still strong in mind and body, still in absolute command of his army and its strategy, and of the hearts of its men. He had no doubt that with God’s guidance he would defeat the enemy, for he was fortified by the knowledge that he defended the religion of Christ against the heathen worship of Odin.

The two armies met at Clontarf. For Brian and his followers it was a Crusade, and banners with the Cross of Christ were whipping in the wind when the first steel met. The battle began with a premature charge by a section of Brian’s force under his son, the headstrong Murchadh, which was repulsed. The two opposing forces settled down to bloody combat at close quarters.

A little apart from the fighting, but in his own small tent, pitched far in front of the Munster encampment, the aged King Brian prayed. He sang psalms and recited prayers. According to Irish sources, he did this accompanied only by one young page, completely unprotected, as the battle raged less than a mile away. Danish history agrees that the old king was in an exposed spot, but states that apart from the young page who prayed with him, Brian was at the center of a ring of armed men.

The boy, hearing ever-louder sounds of battle, asked the king whether he should not move. The outcome of the battle was far from clear, but the danger to an old man was growing. “I pray you, Sire — move before it is too late!” But Brian refused to do so.

The tent flap was flung open and three men burst in. They ignored the page and seized the old man, still on his knees. At first they thought that they had found a priest at prayer, but then realized that he wore the robe of a king, and killed him.

He had been, by the standards of his time, a good king, and, by any criteria, a wise and brave one. He had succeeded, not entirely for reasons of aggrandizement, in making himself ruler of an all-but-united Ireland. Had his line been spared, he and his descendants might have made that unity a real thing, and made Ireland strong and great, for even in the moment of his death Brian’s army was winning a resounding victory against the Danes and his Irish enemies.

But with Brian gone, and with him his son Murchadh, who had begun the Battle of Clontarf and was to survive it by only a short time, the line had ended. Ireland descended again into the pit of intrigue and petty warfare from which she took many years to rise.

In his long life — but a moment against the span of Irish history — Brian Boru won for himself undying fame as a great and good ruler who proved his country could be united. He has been com­pared with King Robert Bruce of Scotland, and the Battle of Clontarf with that of Bannockburn, for both men were wise rulers and both battles inflicted shattering defeat on their enemies.

But Bruce’s Scotland was more stable than Brian’s Ireland, and Bruce was fighting with his country behind him against a single, clear-cut enemy, not a fifth-column like that which was helping the Danes. And Bruce survived the battle, was able to consolidate his victory and bring to Scotland the peace and justice for which he had fought.

But though Brian’s line was extinguished and therefore his victory not as conclusive as it might have been, he has gone deservedly into history as a wise and brave ruler, one of his country’s greatest sons.

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