Leinster was a misfit in Brian's new kingdom. The Leinstermen must be coerced into submission to him; otherwise they might destroy him. They were, in their desire for independence, pre pared to break up the unity which he had built. The Dublin Norse, who were a rich and powerful body, had not yet been absorbed into the Irish system. They too were a dangerous element, an alien element in a country of explosive minor states. Until Malachy, King of Meath, had pushed them back some years before this, they had threatened to dominate the midlands. Out side Ireland the Norse peoples were still on the move. There were still Vikings on the seas. Svend, King of Denmark, had just then established his dominion over a great part of England. Half a century later Harold Hardrada of Norway, bent on plunder or conquest, was killed while leading a new invasion of England. The rise of a Norse kingdom of Ireland on the ruins of Brian's empire of the Gael was not an impossibility.
      The story of Gormflath's jealousy that makes up the greater part of what the chroniclers have to tell us of Clontarf may be an intimate disclosure of real court intrigue; but there were greater forces moving in the background. There were motives other than personal ones for the strife.
      The war began in 1013, with Brian and Malachy, the reigning High King and the previous one, on one side and Maelmora and Sitric, the brother of Gormflath and her son, on the other. According to the romantic literature, Gormflath chided Maelmora for his lack of spirit in paying tribute to Brian. Stung by her words, Maelmora was easily led to quarrel with Brian's son Murchad. There were angry passages, and Maelmora left Brian's court, vowing vengeance for the insults which he had received. He roused the Leinstermen and the Norsemen of Dublin against Brian, who collected his forces and marched against them. Dublin was besieged.
      The first was a drawn round. Brian gave up the siege at Christmas and went home to his territory of Dal Chais. Both sides, however, made ready to renew the fight. When they took the field again in spring both had been reinforced. Sitric's Dublinmen had with them Sigurd from the Orkneys, Brodar from the Isle of Man, and their followers, a small but formidable gathering of the famous fighting material that had already overrun the Western Isles and that was to contribute so much, in the commingling of blood, to the Highland Scottish race. The Norse account of these happenings, the Saga of Burnt Njal, bears out the Irish ones in the extraordinary role attributed to Gormflath.
      According to the Saga, Sitric promised his mother's hand, together with the rule of the Norse Kingdom of Dublin, to both Sigurd and Brodar. Maelmora's contribution to the Dublin force was the full hosting of the men of North Leinster. South Leinster, adopting the attitude of the greater part of Ireland, held aloof. The authority of the North Leinster rulers was seldom effective there.
      On the other side were the warriors of the Dal Chais, assisted by the fighting men of the remaining parts of Munster and of the two Galway districts of Uí Maine and Uí Fiachrach Aidne, areas that stretched from the Shannon to the headwaters of Galway Bay and lay adjacent to the homeland of the Dal Chais. These, since Brian was over seventy years of age and too old to lead them, were commanded by Brian's son Murchad. Malachy's army of Meathmen was also in the field, but, as we shall see, was not engaged at Clontarf.
      The Irish forces present at the battle were, as is apparent, drawn only from a limited part of the country. None hailed from the northern half of the island. It is clear, however, that by contemporary standards the opposing armies were big ones. We have no parade states to guide us. The Irish literary genius of the past ran neither to statistics nor to simple narrative; the writers were too busy weaving high drama from the loves and hates of Gormflath, or too active in pursuing endless genealogies to improbable beginnings, to have either the energy or the ability left to make plain statements of fact; and so there are no contemporary pronouncements of strength. It has been reckoned that at the battle of Hastings, where the Normans won Britain in 1066, Harold's army may have been as low as 4,000 and Duke William's no bigger than 5,000. Since Clontarf was certainly not a bigger battle than Hastings, we may perhaps conclude that the total strength of both sides added together did not exceed 5,000 men. Even at that, the battle would have stood out as a great one of its age, a clash of the most powerful forces yet seen in Ireland.

From Irish Battles - A Military History of Ireland by G.A.Hayes-McCoy. Click here for more information on the book.

Further reading: A Little History of Ireland by Martin Wallace with illustrations by Ian McCullough. Click here for more information on the book.

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