The Battle of Clontarf

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the best known events and figures in Irish history. In 1014 Brian Boru, High King of Ireland, defeated the Hiberno-Norse forces of Sigtrygg Silkbeard and allies near their Dublin stronghold, with Brian losing his life on the day of battle. Soon chroniclers in Ireland and abroad were recording and retelling the events, raising the status of Brian Boru as one who sacrificed himself for Ireland, Christ-like, a connection reinforced by the battle taking place on Good Friday. While some of the facts are contested, the Battle of Clontarf became a powerful symbol of what a united Ireland could achieve by force against invaders.

→ Listen on BBC Sounds website

Guests

• Sean Duffy No other episodes
  Professor of Medieval Irish and Insular History at Trinity College Dublin
• Maire Ni Mhaonaigh No other episodes
  Professor of Celtic and Medieval Studies at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of St John's College, Cambridge
• Alex Woolf 4 episodes
  Professor of Medieval Studies at the University of St Andrews

Reading list

• Dublin and the Viking World
  Howard B. Clarke, Sheila Dooley and Ruth Johnson (O'Brien Press Ltd, 2018) Google Books →
• The Vikings in Ireland and Beyond: Before and After Clontarf
  Howard B. Clarke and Ruth Johnson (ed.) (Four Courts Press, 2015)
• The Battle of Clontarf in Irish History and Legend
  Clare Downham (History Ireland 13, No. 5, 2005)
• Brian Boru and the Battle of Clontarf
  Sean Duffy (Gill & Macmillan, 2014) Google Books →
• Medieval Dublin XVI: Proceedings of Clontarf 1014-2014: National Conference Marking the Millennium of the Battle of Clontarf
  Sean Duffy (ed.) (Four Courts Press, 2017) Google Books →
• North Wales, Ireland and the Isles: The Insular Viking Zone
  Colman Etchingham (Peritia 15, 2001)
• Norse-Gaelic Contacts in a Viking World
  Colman Etchingham, Jon Vidar Sigurdsson, Maire Ni Mhaonaigh and Elizabeth Ashman Rowe (Brepols N.V., 2019) Google Books →
• Vikings of the Irish Sea
  David Griffiths (The History Press, 2nd ed., 2025) Google Books →
• Cogadh Gaedhel re Gallaibh: The War of the Gaedhil with the Gaill, or, the Invasions of Ireland by the Danes and other Norsemen
  James Henthorn Todd (ed. and trans.) (first published 1867; Cambridge University Press, 2012) Google Books →
• Brian Boru: Ireland's greatest king?
  Maire Ni Mhaonaigh (The History Press, 2006) Google Books →
• Tales of Three Gormlaiths in Medieval Irish Literature
  Maire Ni Mhaonaigh (Eriu 52, 2002)
• Cogad Gaedel re Gallaib: Some Dating Consierations
  Maire Ni Mhaonaigh (Peritia 9, 1995)
• The Cambridge History of Ireland, vol. 1, 600-1550
  Brendan Smith (Cambridge University Press, 2018) Google Books →
• The Scandinavian Intervention
  Alex Woolf

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Programme ID: m0029qh3

Episode page: bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0029qh3

Auto-category: 941.5 (History of Ireland)

Hello (First sentence from this episode)

Hello. The Battle of Clontarf 1014 is one of the best-known dates in Irish history, akin to 1066 for England in significance but not in outcome, as in 1014, the Irish won.