By Brian Igoe
By Brian Igoe
Everything up to this point has to be qualified - may, might, probably, possibly, are words which prefix almost every 'event'. From now on, history begins to displace myth or legend. Certainly there will be some of the same qualifications - probably, possibly, may and the rest - but fewer of them than there would have been if I had started earlier, say with Brendan the Navigator who may or may not have reached American the early 6th century.
940 AD is the most generally accepted date for the birth of Brian (the 'Boru' suffix only came later). He was really the first, and arguably the only, King or all Ireland. He was head of what came to be called the O'Brien family. Apart from the 'High King', the King of all Ireland, one must take the title 'King' used with a pinch of salt. Generally speaking I think Chief or Chieftain would better describe the role. Or perhaps Ruler. However the title is always translated into English as King. It was all a question of honour, one's 'honour price', or 'face'.
That is the first paragraph of the chapter, which then goes on to look at Limerick in "Norse Gael" or Viking hands, Thomond and the River Shannon, Connacht and West Meath regions ripe for plunder, Mathgamain which means Bear, St. Patrick's Rock at Cashel, King Máel Muad, the Viking city of Dublin, Sigtrygg Silkbeard, the Battle of Glen Mama, Monasteries run by lay Abbots, Armagh, Saint Patrick, 'Emperatus Scottorum', or 'Emperor of the Irish., 'Brian of the Tributes', the Battle of Clontarf, Máel Mórda mac Murchada (Miles MacMurrough) of Leinster. As a Viking chronicler put it, 'Brian fell, but won at last'. His poet Mac Liag wrote a biography after his death Kincora was King Brian's palace, near modern Killaloe, translated by Clarence Mangan, it goes:
Oh, where, Kincora! is Brian the Great?
And where is the beauty that once was thine?
Oh, where are the princes and nobles that sate
At the feast in thy halls, and drank the red wine?
Turloch O'Connor.
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