Clontraf - Ireland's Illiad

he Battle of Clontarf pitched the forces of the Munster over-king Brian Boru and his allies against the armies of north Leinster, Dublin, and Viking mercenaries and allies from across the sea. Brian has been seen as a paragon of Christian leadership, who struggled against all odds to rid Ireland of the perils of conquest by pagan Vikings. He won the battle, but made the ultimate sacrifice in losing his life while praying for victory.

'Battle of Clontarf' - Hugh Frazer 1826

According to a study by Cambridge University in 2014, link here to mark the millennial anniversary of the battle, much of what we know about Clontarf may be rooted not in historical fact, but a brilliant work of historical literature which modelled sections of its text on an earlier account of the siege of Troy.

Rather than a trustworthy description of the battle itself, this account – The War Of The Irish Against The Foreigners – was really a rhetorical masterpiece designed to place Ireland’s legendary past in the context of a grand, classical tradition, stretching back to the works of Homer and classical philosophy.

During the eleventh and twelfth centuries, a genre of propaganda literature developed that celebrated historic Irish victories over Vikings. Through negative portrayals of foreigners, these stories provided a justification for Viking ports to be brought under Irish rule. They also promoted an enhanced sense of Irish identity, which can be linked to the struggles of over-kings to impose their authority across the island.  ‘The War of the Irish and the Foreigners’, was written for Muirchertach Ua Briain, great-grandson of Brian Boru, between 1103 and 1113. It was the archetype for the development of many later legends about Clontarf.

During the later Middle Ages, Brian’s victory at Clontarf continued to be celebrated in Irish bardic poetry, particularly because the island was troubled by another wave of invaders, the English. Some expressed hope that another king like Brian might rise up to crush the foreign oppressors. As circumstances worsened for the Irish during the seventeenth century, there was a flurry of prose writing about Brian Boru, perhaps to inspire or comfort people during troubled times.

Over the centuries fictional elements have been added to accounts of the Battle of Clontarf. These include the introduction of magical and supernatural occurrences, for it was often believed in the Middle Ages that great events were heralded by strange wonders and prophecies. In addition, the numbers that participated in the battle grew with successive retellings. Characters also became greater or more evil, depending on whose side they were on. Thus the foreigners became more outrageously horrible, and Brian was more frequently (but not always) praised as Ireland’s greatest hero. Each of these narrative developments added to the dramatic impact of the Clontarf story.

Another feature in literary accounts of the Battle of Clontarf is the way in which characters become more extreme. This is a standard element in dramas where a conflict between good and evil is part of the plot. The Vikings were a fairly easy target for demonisation. By the time of the Battle of Clontarf the Vikings already had a long history in the European literary imagination as bloodthirsty barbarians. In literary accounts of the Battle of Clontarf the number of Vikings opposed to Brian generally increases over time, and they are portrayed as evil oppressors who threatened to destroy Ireland.  Another feature of the polarisation, especially during the 17th century, was the portrayal of Brian’s reign as a ‘golden age’. During his years in power the political and natural world were shown to work in harmony. Brian was portrayed as a patron of justice, education, and of building works that benefited his subjects. These idealistic images obscure the brutal realities of Brian’s time in power, when warfare was employed almost continuously to quell those who opposed him.

In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, romantic nationalism came to the fore in Irish literature and political thinking. The Battle of Clontarf had long been a rallying point in developing perceptions of nationhood, and the conflict was celebrated as a struggle by the people of Ireland against foreign domination. It was at the forefront of Irish nationalist propaganda during the struggle for independence with Britain.

Irish nationalist propoganda

The Cambridge study diminishes the importance of Clontarf to a mere sequence in the inevitable demise of Viking power over Ireland.  However the study argues that the eloquence of the literature and legends surrounding the battle should be seen as evidence that the cultural achievements of Brian Boru’s successors in medieval Ireland were complex, highly sophisticated, and the equal of anywhere else in Europe.

It also means, however, that despite the widespread portrayal of Clontarf as a heroic, quasi-national conflict in which the lives of Brian and others were sacrificed in the Irish cause, the specific historical truth is unknown. While the advent of the battle itself and its significance is beyond question, the details of what happened are likely to remain a mystery.

 ‘The casting of Clontarf as a national struggle in which the aged, holy Brian was martyred still defines what most people know about the battle, and it has probably endured because that was what numerous generations of Irish men and women wanted to read,’ - Dr Ní Mhaonaigh stated.
“Academics have long accepted that Cogadh couldn’t be taken as reliable evidence but that hasn’t stopped some of them from continuing to draw on it to portray the encounter. What this research shows is that its account of the battle was crafted, at least in part, to create a version of events that was the equivalent of Troy. This was more than a literary flourish, it was a work of a superb, sophisticated and learned author.”

Another reason that the story may have endured is a lack of physical evidence for the battle. No archaeological remains have been found, and the precise location, presumed to be somewhere around the modern Dublin suburb of Clontarf, is disputed.

Compared with the very basic information in contemporary chronicles, Cogadh provides by far the most comprehensive account of what happened. It was, however, written about a century later, probably at the behest of Brian’s great-grandson. Historians have rightly treated it as partial, but also as the written version of oral accounts that had been passed on from those who witnessed the battle itself.
The new research suggests that this pivotal source was even more of a cultivated fabrication than previously thought. Through a close study of the text, Dr Ní Mhaonaigh found that the imagery, terminology and ideas draw inspiration from a range of earlier sources – in particular Togail Troí (The Destruction of Troy), an eleventh-century translation of a fifth-century account of the battle for Troy.

In particular, the unknown author overtly cast Brian’s son, who it is believed led a large part of his father’s army at Clontarf, as an Irish Hector, whom he describes as “the last man who had true valour in Ireland”. Tellingly, Togail Troí is also found in the same manuscript as Cogadh  – suggesting that the author utilised this when describing the battle.  The study stresses that the work bears witness to the cultural achievements of Brian’s successors.  The parallel between Murchad and Hector was in fact part of a complex and deeply scholarly analogy which drew on the recurring classical motif of the 'Six Ages of the World' and 'Six Ages of Man'. It shows that whoever wrote it was not simply describing a battle, but crafting a brilliant work of art.

 This study was particularly fascinating as it asks questions of the difference between history and mythology, and whether the two can blur into a single narrative, as is the case with Clontarf.