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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. Accord-ing 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. Dub,lin 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 D:H Chais, assisted by the fighting men of the remaining parts of Munster and of the two Galway districts of Vi Maine and Vi 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 contem-porary 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. Where and how these armies fought are alike-thanks to the poor descriptive powers of the chroniclers-obscure. We know that the fight was in the district of Clontarf, at present represented by the Dublin suburb of that name; but we know nothing more. When the last man who could have pointed out the battlefield to his son died without doing so, it was forgotten. Now when we speak of Clontarf we can speak only in generalities. Sitric's overseas allies joined him in Dublin on Palm Sunday, 1014, or a little before that. The Leinster army came up about the same time. Their opponents, Malachy's and Murchad's men, soon appeared. Murchad's force, which was accompanied by Brian Boru, was less a detachment that had been sent off to raid Leinster behind Maelmora's back. The Dublin area was enemy territory for both Munstermen and Meathmen, and they fell to plundering the rich district between the town and Howth on the north side of the river Liffey. To prevent further depredations, and judging it to be a favourable moment to show fight, Maelmora and his Norse allies marched against their enemies on the morning of Good Friday. They came out from the little town, crossed the Liffey and its tributary the Tolka, and entered the district of Clontarf. That the Norsemen and Leinstermen went this far, and that the battle took place east of the Tolka seem almost certain. Somewhere beyond the reclaimed area of the present north side docks-where the Belfast trains run north-eastward out of Amiens Street station, cross the Howth Road, and gather speed above the tops of the houses-on flat ground within sight of Dublin, Brian's army under Murchad met their advancing enemies-Brian's army alone. Malachy's Meathmen, although they had co-operated with their Munster allies up to this, now stood aloof. Why? What sudden insult had been offered Malachy? Or perhaps he had, during all those years since he stood aside and saw Brian made High King in his place, dissembled a fierce hatred of his rival. Was this his revenge? Or, since in the end the Munstermen won without his aid, are we to believe that they did not need it now, and that they preferred to fight alone? We shall never know. This is a matter of personalities that the chroniclers have not explained. The history of the Battle of Clontarf, 1014 continues here Taken from the Introduction to Irish Battles by G.A. Hayes-McCoy, published by Appletree Press. 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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