Chapter III: The Book of Invasions, Part two: Here be dragons!
It's hard to imagine properly the impact the sudden arrival of the Vikings had in Ireland. Apart from a raid on the nearby island of Lindisfarne in Northumbria (Wales) in 793 AD, there had been no sign of invaders from across the sea and the explosion of violence and mayhem unleashed by the Norsemen when they attacked Irish ports in 795 surely took the Irish totally by surprise. Apart from anything else, though they warred among each other as frequently as ever, Ireland would have to have been said to have been a generally peaceful place, and it was those centres of peace, the Christian monasteries and abbeys, that first became the targets of these fierce warriors from across the sea. Stuffed with gold and jewels and precious statues as well as fine cloth and other riches – most if not all for use in the creation of their works and not the monks' own personal goods – they were treasure troves to the Vikings, and even better, weren't even defended! The monks were men of peace, sworn to oppose violence and forgive those who trespassed against them, but that wasn't much use when a Viking sword was slicing into your ribs or you were on the receiving end of a blow from a battleaxe that could remove your head clean from its shoulders!
And so the early raids went largely unopposed, as fragmented Irish tribal kingdoms tried to come to terms with the fact that they were under attack, not from another clan, but by experienced and battle-hardened veteran fighters who seemed to know no fear, and dispensed no mercy to their foes. Apart from threatening their religion with their pagan beliefs and their vicious aim of forcing these beliefs on the Irish (a role reversal if ever there was one, minus the violence) the Vikings posed a threat to the fragile alliances and small kingdoms dotted throughout Ireland, and the Irish knew if they did not fight back they would soon be overrun, and so began to try to put aside petty rivalries in an attempt to present a united front against the common enemy.
This was not, however, easy, and to realise why we have to take something of a hard look at exactly how the system of government, such as it was, worked in Ireland at this time, which was, to be fair, not very well at all.
The Tuatha
Irish people were divided into clans, or
tuatha, these being more or less simple gatherings of people in the same area. Like any clan, there was a leader, though in general he (always he) had no authority outside of his own
tuath. They called these
tuatha (the plural has an “a” added, like a lot of Irish words, in case you think I'm just being lazy with the spellcheck; one
tuath, two
tuatha) kingdoms but they really weren't, and there were about two hundred of them scattered across Ireland. Of course, they all got on with each other.
To add to this, the north/south split had already been well in evidence in Ireland, with the powerful O'Neill family ruling pretty much all of Ulster, and casting greedy and ambitious glances South, and if O'Neill (known as “The” O'Neill, to denote the head of the family and the man in power, to differentiate him from the many other O'Neills scattered throughout Ulster) believed himself king of Ireland (High King), while there was no actual king in the South, his authority was not acknowledged there, though his southern cousins did control much of it.
The coming of Saint Patrick and the advent of the monasteries did little to change the age-old rivalries and tribal differences between the Irish, and while this
tuath or that, this small king or that would support the monasteries with their patronage or gold, they continued to fight among themselves. Irish history is, sadly, replete with the seemingly unquenchable need to fight someone, often ourselves. With really little to no power over the local kings the abbeys and monasteries existed in a kind of oasis of peace within a maelstrom of in-fighting, petty rivalries and sneak attacks by one self-proclaimed king on another. As a matter of sad fact, the riches and lack of defences of the monasteries began to appeal even to certain Irish warlords, who would originally have fought to save them, and so the monks were caught between a rock and, well, another rock. Certain kings, chieftains or warlords would even ally with the Vikings if it served their cause, all of which increased the level of rivalry and violence that was spreading throughout Ireland.
Although power was mostly held in the fists of the Northern king, the O'Neill, history would record that Ireland's greatest leader of the time would arise out of an obscure town in the south of the country, near Limerick. It was called Dal Cais, and when the southern side of the O'Neills, led by a man called Mael Seachnaill, claimed overlordship and High Kingship of Ireland, they were opposed by the man who would eventually become Ireland's first true High King.
Brian Boru (941 – 1014 AD)
Born in the south province of Munster, Brian succeeded his brother to the throne shortly after the death of their father, and became the king of Munster. He then marched to challenge the declared High King, Mael Seachnaill, who controlled Meath, another province of Ireland. Brian wished to take Leinster and Connacht, the remaining two provinces in the south, and so went to war against Meal Seachnaill. Although he did not win every battle he fought, he proved a determined commander and a shrewd tactician, laying down much of the strategy later generations of Irish military would use. After fifteen years of attack and withdraw, bloody fighting and huge casualties on both sides, Brian finally prevailed and brought Leinster under his control. Meal Seachnaill was allowed to live, providing he swear fealty to Brian as the new High King, and the two men divided control of the southern half of Ireland between them. Meal Seachnaill, however, was quickly overthrown on his return to his own province, leading to a new rebellion against Brian, led by Mael Seachnaill's successor, Mael Morda .
It took another three bloody years before Brian finally took Dublin, after fighting the Viking lord of the city, Sitric Silkenbeard, whom he sent back to rule over the city in his name, as well as giving the Viking one of his daughters in marriage. As the first millennium turned, Brian faced off against the High King again, this time for the overall kingship of the island, and after two years of war Brian was crowned High King of Ireland in 1002. He then turned to consolidate his power by warring upon the long-independent northern province of Ulster and taking on the O'Neill and his allies there. A measure of how implacable and determined an enemy Ulster was shows not only in the fact that it took him a further ten years to subdue the province, but also when you realise that Brian had the massed forces of three quarters of the country against essentially a much smaller land, and yet they held out. Nevertheless, it was inevitable that the superior forces should triumph, and eventually in 1011 Brian Boru was crowned High King, and also recognised as the only Emperor of Ireland.
However the replacement for Mael Seachnaill, Meal Morda, decided he was going to challenge Brian's power, but knowing he could not do so by himself, and failing to sway any of the other leaders to his flag, he turned to Silkenbeard – who in addition to being ruler of Dublin was his cousin - for help. The Viking lord was able to reach out to his comrades in the Orkney Islands and the Isle of Man and bring them to the assistance of Mael Morda, and the two armies finally met in one of the most climactic battles in early Irish history.
The Battle of Clontarf (1014 AD)
The struggle between Mael Morda and Brian Boru for control of Ireland was pretty much the very first Irish civil war, though it would not be the last. It was not Vikings against Irish, as Brian had Norsemen on his side too; the Vikings who fought for Mael Morda did not do so out of any family loyalty, despite Sitric Silkenbeard's ties to him, nor indeed in the hope of gaining land. This was a raiding party, a chance to grab riches, loot the monasteries (again: you get the feeling the monasteries must have had something similar to a sign on the door saying “X days/weeks since being looted”!) and return across the seas. They were not interested in settling in Ireland, and once they had made Mael Morda High King and taken their spoils they would just **** off back to where they came.
Brian suffered his first setback when his old enemy Mael Seachnaill, with whom he had once shared the High Kingship of Ireland, withdrew his forces, though promising not to join in the attack. However he did not take part in the defence either, severely weakening Brian's forces. Though the Viking were armoured and the Irish were not, the former used swords and battleaxes, which required close-quarters fighting, while the Irish tended to hurl short spears that could kill from a distance, and they had the numerical superiority. Brian's own son, Murchad, is said to have fought valiantly, killing “fifty men with the sword in his left hand and fifty with the sword in his right”. That's probably over-romanticised, but the facts of the battle are that there was much death on both sides, and that the fighting was fierce. It's said the battle lasted the entire day, though this again could be down to the poets making more of the story later.
In the end, as darkness began to fall and the Vikings withdrew, pressed by Brian's men, the high tide at Clontarf rose and cut them off from their ships, which were carried away. Didn't they think to anchor them? Did Vikings not
have anchors? Anyway, that's the account. With many of them perishing in the sea as they drowned, others making for the safety of a nearby wood but unable to gain access thanks to the rising tides, the men under Brian Boru surged forth and dealt them a crippling blow. By nightfall, they had proven victorious.
Brian, however, paid a high price for his victory. As the Vikings fled, and while praying in his tent in thanks for their defeat, Brian was discovered by one of the leaders of the opposition, Brodir, who had led the forces from the Isle of Man, and beheaded as he knelt. Shortly afterwards Brodir himself was killed, but the first Irish High King was dead. His son, too, died in the battle, as did his grandson, effectively ending the line of succession. Perhaps ironically, Mael Seachnaill was restored as High King after Brian's death. Brian was given probably the first official Irish state funeral, his body lying in state for twelve days of mourning before being finally buried in Armagh.
Although the power of the Vikings was not broken after the Battle of Clontarf, and indeed Silkenbeard remained as King of Dublin until 1036, though like most of his people in Ireland by now he seems to have converted to Christianity, making a pilgrimage to Rome in 1028, they were no longer invaders, no longer an occupying force. Like other invaders would find as the centuries turned, Ireland was a place that tended to defeat you not by military might, but by its allure of lands and climate. Most of those who attacked Ireland ended up settling in it, intermarrying Irish women and forming alliances, and often defending the country against their own fellows when fresh invasions came.
The next to try would also learn this lesson, though it would take a longer span of time before the Normans would yield up and surrender to the irresistible pull of the Emerald Isle. Their arrival would also echo down the annals of Irish history and change Ireland forever.