The Celtic Times

Fierce combat raged throughout the day until the Norse and Leinster lines finally broke and they were set upon unmercifully by the Dalcassians. It was nonetheless a pyrrhic victory as three generations of the Dál Cais dynasty were killed. Toirdealbhaigh, Brian’s grandson was found in a river bed with his hands entangled in the hair of a dead Viking. Murchad, leader of the Dál Cais army in the field was also slain and his father, the seventy three year old High King of Ireland was felled by the fleeing Viking Brodar. It was a disaster for Ireland and for Dál Cais who never fully recovered from this blow. It was his personal qualities that had carved out the greatness which Brian had attained in life, and this greatness was to die with him in Clontarf. He was described in the Lives of the Irish Saints ‘Blessed Brian Boru, King and Martyr’. The ancient chroniclers described Brian as the ‘over king of the Irish of Ireland and of the foreigners and of the Britons, the Augustus of the whole of north-west Europe’. His feats of war and enlightened leadership have ensconced Brian’s name in all that is forever Ireland.