The Vikings in Ireland: the Battle of Clontarf

Though it has been suggested that a fleet which raided the Hebrides and northern Ireland in 617 may actually have been Scandinavian, the first positively recorded Viking raid on Ireland dates to 795, when the island of Reachrainn (often identified with Lambey Island near Dublin, but more probably Rathlin Island, five miles north-east of the Irish mainland) was plundered and two monas­teries on the west coast were sacked. At first no more than hit-and-run affairs executed by small forces, these raids intensified after 830; and colonisation commenced (c.840 with the arrival of a certain Turgesius, or Turgeis—a semi-legendary character who, according to the Irish chroniclers, made himself 'King of all the Foreigners in Erin'. Dublin was established at about this time when a longphort was constructed at a ford on the River Liffey, the Vikings first wintering there in 841-842. Before long similar Viking encampments and settlements had sprung up along much of Ireland's coastline and, further inland, along the courses of its navigable waterways—Cork, Limerick, Waterford, Wexford and Wicklow being the major examples (though most of these only became important in the 10th century). With the exception of just one brief period in 902—919 Dublin was thereafter the seat of Viking power in Ireland under its own self-appointed kings.

One inevitable result of settling down in Ireland was that the Viking communities (mostly of Norsemen) soon found themselves being drawn into the unstable Irish political scene, where petty kings of minor kingdoms were almost continually at war with one another. Alliances between Vikings and Irishmen were, therefore, not uncommon after the mid-9th century, the Dublin Vikings even becom­ing traditional allies of the kings of Leinster. Indeed, it was this last alliance that in 1014 led to one of the most celebrated battles in Viking and Irish history, when the king of Dublin supported Máelmórdha of Leinster in his rebellion against the High King Brian Boru. The battle, of course, was Clontarf.

Brian Boru, a dynamic and ambitious chieftain, was one of the few High Kings of the medieval period who could with any justification claim to be king of Ireland in more than just name—an achievement which did not endear him to the country's many and fiercely independent petty dynasts. At the very end of the 10th century, in the closing months of 999, Máelmórdha of Leinster and King Sigtrygg Silkybeard of Dublin rose in revolt against Brian, who marched to meet them in the foothills of the Wicklow Mountains. He inflicted a crushing defeat on their combined forces at Glenn Máma, Máelmórdha only escaping the carnage by taking refuge in a yew tree. Although he and Sigtrygg were subsequently re-instated in their kingdoms by the magnanimous victor, their humiliation at Brian's hands was a festering wound which, according to one account, was tactlessly re­opened by Brian's hot-headed son Murchad in 1012. The story would have it that Murchad, beaten in a game of chess as a result of Máelmórdha giving advice to his opponent, cursed the king of Leinster, and observed that his advice was not always so fruitful: 'How wonderfully you advised the Norsemen that day they were smashed by us at Glenn Máma!' Deeply offended, Máelmórdha replied, 'I'll advise them again, but this time the outcome will be different'; to which Murchad retorted, 'Be sure to have a yew tree ready!'

Máelmórdha departed angrily from Brian's court, rallied his chieftains, and urged rebellion among the northern kings; by 1013 war had broken out in several quarters. However, Murchad soon had Máelmórdha on the run, and in the late summer he was obliged to take refuge with Sigtrygg in fortified Dublin. Here they were invested by Murchad and Brian until Christmas, when Brian's Munster army broke camp and dispersed for the winter. Making the most of this unexpected respite, Sigtrygg took ship for the North, sailing to the courts of the Viking-held Western Isles in search of allies. According to the Annals of Innisfallen he subsequently, received troops from the Gaill or 'Foreigners' of the whole Western world, various accounts referring to Viking reinforcements arriv­ing from the Hebrides, Caithness, Kintyre, Argyll, Norway and—more improbably—France, Flan­ders, Frisia and even Russia. Certainly Earl Sigurd the Stout of Orkney is known to have come to Sigtrygg's support, as did a certain Brodir of Man with 20 ships (though his partner Ospak, with another ten ships, joined Brian).

In the spring of 1014 all these forces assembled outside Dublin, where towards the end of April the High King confronted them with an army estimated at some 20,000 men drawn from Munster, the Mide ('Midlands') and southern Connacht. On 23 April—Good Friday—both sides drew up for battle on the plain of Clontarf.

There have been various attempts at establishing the dispositions of the two armies, few of them wholly convincing. However, scholars seem to fundamentally agree that the Vikings and their Leinster allies, drawn up in five or seven divisions, spread themselves too thin, in an effort to defend not only their line of retreat back into Dublin across a bridge over the Liffey, but also, on the opposite flank, to cover the ships of the foreign Vikings anchored in Dublin Bay. Njal's Saga puts Brodir on one flank, King Sigtrygg on the other, and Earl Sigurd in the centre, but makes no mention of Máelmórdha or his Leinstermen despite the fact that they must have outnumbered the Viking element by at least two to one. It is in error, too, in assigning Sigtrygg a battlefield role, since he remained in Dublin throughout the battle, his brother Dubhgall commanding the Dublin con­tingent in his place. Probably the foreign Vikings under Sigurd and Brodir were mostly on the left flank in order to protect their ships, while the Dubliners guarded the bridge on the right, and Máelmórdha held the high ground commanding the centre of the line. The disposition of Brian's forces is even more problematic. We know that their right flank was secured on the River Liffey, and their left on the parallel River Tolka. Njal's Saga says that the High King, now 73 years old, 'did not wish to wield weapons on Good Friday; so a wall of shields was formed round him and his army was drawn up in front of it'. Murchad was therefore in command, along with his cousin Conaing and 15-year-old son Toirdelbach; the saga also claims that Brian's youngest son Tadg was present. The 12th century War of the Gaedhil with the Gaill—which says that Brian stayed at prayer in his tent in Tomar's Wood—describes the Irish formation as a phalanx of men so tightly packed together that 'a four-horsed chariot could run from one end to the other of the line on their heads, so compact were they'; but it also mentions individual battals, or divisions, and three distinct lines.

'The armies clashed, and there was bitter fighting,' says Njal's Saga. In the centre of the line Máelmórdha led a downhill charge that drove deep into Murchad's ranks, but his Viking allies on either flank fared less well. After heavy fighting, Murchad's predominance in numbers—still ap­parent despite the withdrawal of the forces of Mide before the battle—began to prevail. The Leinster­men, having advanced too far unsupported, were driven back in disarray, as were the Vikings. The Dubliners on the right, falling back towards the town, were pursued so closely that allegedly only 20 men, or according to one version only nine, actually reached the fortress alive. The Viking left flank meanwhile rallied and the Leinstermen fell back on it; but they were now virtually encircled on both left and right by Murchad's victorious Munstermen. They had no choice but to retreat towards the sea, from which there was little hope of escape since high tide had put the Vikings' ships beyond reach of all but the strongest swimmers. Inevitably, therefore, a great many met their death by drowning.

However, despite the fact that some 12 hours of solid fighting had now elapsed, this was not quite the end of the battle. In their desperation some Vikings—Brodir among them—actually managed to hack through Murchad's army and reach the High King's encampment behind the Irish lines. 'Brodir could see that King Brian's forces were pursuing the fugitives,' says Njal's Saga, 'and that there were only a few men left to man the wall of shields. He ran from the woods and burst through the shield-wall and hacked at the king. The boy Tadg threw up an arm to protect Brian, but the sword cut off the arm and the king's head. . . . Then Brodir shouted, "Let the word go out that Brodir has felled Brian." ' However, he had little time to enjoy his triumph, since he and his companions were surrounded and taken captive by the High King's bodyguards, and subsequently executed.

The War of the Gaedhil with the Gaill gives the losses of the Viking-Leinster allies as 2,500 Norsemen and 3,100 Irishmen—5,600 in all. Other accounts give a total of 6,000, or 6,000 foreigners; the highest believable estimate, in the Leabhar Oiris, claims 6,700 Viking dead and 1,100 Leinstermen; while several say that the Viking losses numbered not less than 3,000 men, including the 1,000 in mail corselets who had seemingly been commanded by Brodir. In addition, virtually all of their leaders had been killed, including Earl Sigurd, Brodir, Dubh-gall and Máelmórdha: it was claimed that no Viking of rank present on the battlefield was left alive at the end of the day. Nevertheless, it was a somewhat Pyrrhic victory—not only was the High King dead, but so too was his son Murchad (he died early the next morning of a mortal wound), his grandson Toirdelbach, who drowned in the pursuit; and his nephew Conaing. At least seven other kings and 1,600 nobles had also been killed. One account puts the losses of the men of Munster and Connacht at 4,000 in all.

Though significant in many respects, the battle of Clontarf was not as decisive as we are often led to believe. It did not mark the end of Scandinavian power in Ireland—that had already begun to wane in the mid-10th century—and King Sigtrygg continued to rule undisturbed in Dublin for another 20 years. However, other than in occasional piratical forays (such as Magnus Barelegs's campaign of 1101), it would be a century and a half before a foreign Scandinavian army again fought on Irish soil.

Date: 2015-12-11; view: 876