The armoury of 'the terrible, nimble wolf-hounds of victorious Banba' was little different from that of their foes. The Irish too had swords and spears and carried shields with metal bosses. Their leaders wore crested helmets; some even bore the enemy's weapons, the 'Lochlann axes'. They do not seem to have had armour; the only garments of theirs which are mentioned are cloth ones. Neither side was well equipped with missile weapons. Although both had bows, neither the Norse nor the Irish were renowned archers. The Irish missile, then and later, was the casting spear, javelin, or dart. At Clontarf, says The War of the Gaedhil with the Gaill, they had 'darts with variegated silken strings, thick set with bright, dazzling, shining nails, to be violently cast at the heroes of valour and bravery'. The string was the thong which was retained by the thrower to ensure retrieval of his missile; such throwing weapons were used by the Irish for centuries.
      Whatever advantage their armour and their tradition of fighting gave them, however, the Norsemen were outfought. As the day wore on 'the fight broke out throughout all the host'; every man was engaged. By evening the 'shield wall' in front of what was left of Sitric's men collapsed. Rout followed. The Norse and the Ldnstermen, with their backs to the Tolka and the sea, were borne further backward by the pressure of the victors. 'They retreated to the sea like a herd of cows in heat, from sun, and from gadflies, and from insects, and they were pursued closely, rapidly and lightly; and the foreigners were drowned in great numbers in the sea'. The chroniclers supply the details; most of which, we must suspect, are imaginary.
      And in the midst of this victory Brian died. Before the battle a 'shieldburg' had been 'thrown round him', that is, he was left under guard behind his line. After the rout had commenced, and when most of the guard had gone off to join in the pursuit-the occasion of plunder-Brodar, the sea-rover, who had lurked through the later part of the day in the wood to which he had earlier fled, came forth. He saw 'that there were few men by the shieldburg', and, breaking through these, he forced his way to Brian and 'hewed at the king'.
      Although Clontarf was clouded by the death of Brian, Emperor of the Gael, and although it was followed by an era of strife that seems like the aftermath of a defeat, it was still-as a combat -a mighty victory, and was remembered as such throughout the Gaelic and the Norse world. To have overcome 'men of such hardihood that nothing can withstand them', men on whose mail shirts 'no steel would bite', was a proud achievement.
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The literature of Clontarf is extensive, but not all valuable. There are two sub-contemporary accounts, those in-(1) The War of the Gaedhil with the Gaill (edited by J. H. Todd and published in the Rolls Series), and (2) Njáls Saga (edited in various editions by G. W. Dasent as The Story of Burnt Njal; the passages relating to the battle were edited ant published by Dr Colm O Lochlainn in 1933 under the title The Story of King Brian's Battle). The most detailed and reliable of the modern accounts of the battle is Rev. Professor John Ryan's 'The Battle of Clontarf' in the Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, LXVIII (I938), pp. 1 ff. This contains in its footnotes an extensive bibliography. See also, among many popular descriptions, Mrs Stopford Green's paper on Clontarf in Irish History Studies, 2nd series (I927), pp. 63 ff. Mrs Green, in common with many earlier writers (including W. St J. Joyce in his Ireland's Battles and Battlefields, published in 1892, p. 8), places the battlefield in the district between the mouths of the Liffey and Tolka-i.e. from Drumcondra southwards. For an estimate of the Vikings as fighters see H. Nickerson, 'Warfare in the Roman Empire, the Dark and Middle Ages' in Warfare, published by Harrap in 1924, pp.284 f; for an enquiry regarding the time of high tide on the day of the battle see Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, VII (I857-61), pp.495 ff; for correspondence regarding a mound said to mark the site of the battlefield see The Irish Independent, Dublin for 2-12 January 1907.

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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