Commemorating Clontarf: The Battle and its Legacy

2014 is the millennium of the Battle of Clontarf, which took place on Good Friday 23 April 1014. Commemorating Clontarf: the battle and its legacy was the theme of the City Hall lunchtime lecture series this April. It was standing room only at each of these popular lectures. So in case you missed them we are giving you the chance to listen back to two fascinating lectures. Dr Colm Lennon's lecture explores how the legend of Brian Boru and the battle of Clontarf has been adopted as a means of advancing different ideologies throughout Irish history, and how modern scholarly research using antiquarian sources and textual and scientific research are helping separate fact from myth. Dr Howard Clarke re-examines the reputation of Queen Gormlaith and Brian Boru while looking at the rules of marriage, and the bewilderingly complicated nature of the relationships between some of the key players in the battle of Clontarf.

The City Hall lecture series is organised by Dublin City Archives.

That Field of Glory: Historical and Antiquarian Perspectives on The Battle of Clontarf

Dr Colm Lennon, Emeritus Professor, Department of History, NUI Maynooth



This lecture was recorded on Tuesday 1 October and chaired by by Oisín Quinn, Lord Mayor of Dublin.

Transcript of That Field of Glory

Colm Lennon is professor emeritus of history at NUI Maynooth and a member of the Royal Irish Academy. He has researched and published on Irish history, specialising in society and culture in the early modern period. Among his publications are The lords of Dublin the age of Reformation (1989), Sixteenth-century Ireland: the incomplete conquest (1994) and Confraternities and sodalities in Ireland: charity, devotion and sociability (2012). His work on Dublin includes the editing of Dublin, part II, 1610 to 1756 (2008) in the Irish Historic Towns Atlas (IHTA) series, Dublin’s civic buildings in the early modern period: the Sir John T. Gilbert commemorative lecture, 2009 (Dublin, 2010), and (with John Montague) John Rocque’s Dublin: a guide to the Georgian city (2010). A native of Clontarf, he has been advising on the organisation of the commemoration of the millennium of the battle in the locality. He is preparing, with the IHTA, a fascicle on the district for a new series on Dublin townships and suburbs, which will appear later in 2014. In addition, his history of Clontarf, entitled ‘That field of glory: the story of Clontarf from battleground to garden suburb’ is due to be published by Wordwell Books this spring.

Dr Howard B. Clarke, Emeritus Professor, Department of Medieval History, UCD

Recorded on Tuesday 8 April 2014.

Transcript of Queen Gormlaith, Brian Boru and The Northmen of Dublin

Howard Clarke is professor emeritus of medieval socio-economic history at University College Dublin and a member of the Royal Irish Academy. He continues to teach an MA course on medieval Dublin in UCD. His Viking-related work includes Ireland and Scandinavia in the early Viking Age, edited jointly with Máire Ní Mhaonaigh and Raghnall Ó Floinn (1998), together with articles on Viking-Age Dublin, on other towns in that period, on warfare and on the question of the Christianisation of the Northmen. An essay on Gormlaith will appear in Sparky Booker and Cherie Peters (eds.), Tales of medieval Dublin, due to be published by the Four Courts Press in summer 2014. Dr. Clarke is currently preparing, with Dublin City Archaeologist Ruth Johnson, an edited collection entitled Before and after the battle of Clontarf: the Vikings in Ireland and Beyond, also to be published by the Four Courts Press, towards the end of this year. In addition he continues to work on the history of medieval Dublin, on the Irish Historic Towns Atlas, on Domesday Book, on Evesham Abbey (Worcestershire) and its cartularies, and on the Bayeux Tapestry. He is the Honorary Editor of the Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland.