Brian Boru

Brian Bóruma mac Cennétig, known in English as Brian Boru, rose from the kingship of a regional Munster dynasty to become High King of Ireland in the early eleventh century. He was a member of the Dál gCais, whose power was centred in Thomond, in the north of Munster around the lower Shannon, in the area of present-day County Clare. His father, Cennétig mac Lorcáin, was king of that people; later genealogies name his mother as Bé Binn, a daughter of Aurchad of the Uí Briúin of western Connacht. Brian's epithet Bóruma is associated with Béal Bóruma, a fort near Killaloe on the Shannon, and with the taking of cattle tribute. Contemporary annals do not record his birth; later tradition places it in the early to mid tenth century, conventionally about 941, near Killaloe. His elder brother Mathgamain became king of Munster before being killed in 976. Brian then took the kingship of the Dál gCais, avenged his brother, and began a career of expansion that would reshape Irish politics.

Having secured his own dynasty, Brian turned against the Norse-Gaelic kingdom of Limerick and against the Eóganachta, the older royal kindreds of Munster. He captured Limerick, imposed his authority over Munster, and made Kincora (Ceann Coradh) near Killaloe his principal seat. From Munster he campaigned into Connacht, Ossory, and Leinster, and he repeatedly attacked or extracted submission from the Viking towns of Dublin, Waterford, and Limerick. In the 990s his power came to rival that of Máel Sechnaill mac Domnaill of the Clann Cholmáin Uí Néill, who held the high kingship. After a period of conflict and a division of the island between them, Máel Sechnaill submitted in 1002, and Brian was recognized as High King of Ireland, the first man from Munster to hold that position and the first to break the long Uí Néill monopoly. He enforced his claim by hosting and circuit, by taking hostages, and by military demonstration as far as the north of Ireland.

Brian presented his rule in Christian and imperial terms. He visited Armagh, the church of Saint Patrick, and a contemporary note in the Book of Armagh styles him Imperator Scottorum, Emperor of the Irish. He is recorded as confirming the privileges of Armagh and as a benefactor of churches, a posture that distinguished his kingship from mere warlordship and aligned it with the idea of a Christian monarchy over the whole island. He contracted several marriages that served political ends. Among his wives was Gormflaith ingen Murchada of the Uí Dúnlainge of Leinster, previously married to Amlaíb Cuarán of Dublin and to Máel Sechnaill; other wives named in the genealogies include Mór, Echrad, and Dub Choblaig. He had a number of sons, of whom Murchad was the eldest and principal lieutenant, and others including Tadc and Donnchad, as well as daughters whose marriages tied him to other dynasties, including Sláine, who married Sitric Silkbeard of Dublin.

Opposition to Brian coalesced in Leinster and Dublin. In 1014 Máel Mórda, king of Leinster and brother of Gormflaith, and Sitric of Dublin brought in Viking allies from Orkney and the Isle of Man, including Sigurd the Stout, earl of Orkney, and Brodir. Brian marched on Dublin with a host drawn from Munster and from some Connacht allies; Máel Sechnaill and the Uí Néill stood aside. The armies met at Clontarf, north of the Liffey, on Good Friday, 23 April 1014. The battle was exceptionally hard-fought. Murchad and many of the Munster nobility were killed, as were Máel Mórda, Sigurd, and a great part of the Dublin and Leinster leadership. Brian's forces held the field, and the immediate military power of Dublin and of the Leinster kingship was shattered. Brian, who on account of his age had remained in the camp, was killed in the aftermath, according to later accounts by Brodir, who was then captured and put to death.

Brian's body, together with that of Murchad, was taken north and buried at Armagh, in the cathedral church of Saint Patrick, a burial that advertised his status as a Christian high king of all Ireland. His surviving sons did not succeed to an effective high kingship; Donnchad and Tadc contested Munster, and Máel Sechnaill resumed the high kingship until his own death in 1022. The Uí Briain, Brian's descendants, nevertheless remained the leading dynasty of Munster and at times claimed the high kingship in the later eleventh and twelfth centuries. Brian's life is documented in the Irish annals, especially those of Ulster and of Inisfallen, and was later recast in the twelfth-century Munster text Cogadh Gaedhel re Gallaibh, which portrayed him as the champion of the Gaels against the foreigners. That work, together with folklore and modern nationalist writing, made him a symbol of Irish resistance and unity, even though the Ireland of his day was a mosaic of Gaelic and Norse-Gaelic kingdoms rather than a single nation-state. He was never formally canonized, and he has no feast day in the calendars of the Church; his importance is political and historical rather than hagiographical.