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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 December 2015
The Battle of Clontarf was fought in A.D. 1014 by the forces of Brian Boru, over-king of Munster, and his allies against the forces of Viking Dublin, Leinster and their foreign allies. The saga ‘The War of the Irish and the Foreigners’ (Cogad Gáedel re Gallaib) was written about events leading up the conflict and gives a dramatic account of events on the battlefield. It became the archetype for many later legends about Clontarf. This paper explores stylistic contrast in the saga between the terse description of events in the early Viking Age and the florid account of the reign of Brian Boru. This contrast has led some readers to conclude that two separate narratives were conflated in Cogad Gáedel re Gallaib – the first being a summary of annals and the second being a saga. However this paper argues that there is a unity of purpose throughout the work and that its stylistic divisions were deliberately contrived to help glorify Brian’s victory at the Battle of Clontarf.
1 Adémar de Chabannes, Chronique, ed. J. Chavanon (Paris, 1897), pp 176–8 (chs 53–5); Mariani Scotti Chronicon, ed. G. Waitz, M.G.H. SS 5 (Hannover, 1844), pp 481–562, s.a. 1014.
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23 Cog. Gaedhel, §lxiii, pp 100–1. This translation is quoted from Ní Mhaonaigh, Brian Boru, p. 44.
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85 I should like to thank David Dumville for providing access to bibliographic items I could not otherwise obtain. I would also like to thank the I.H.S. reviewers for their feedback and recommendations.
