Brian Boru defeated the Vikings in Ireland on this day in 1014 at the Battle of Clontarf. It must have been quite a battle because all the leaders died. It wasn’t simply a battle between the Irish and the Vikings, because the Vikings were allied to the Irish king of Dublin.
I confess that I had known very little about the Vikings in Ireland before today. The excellent books by Julian de la Motte, Senlac, books 1 and 2, taught me much more about 1066 than I had known before. Senlac taught me about the role that Harold’s brother Tostig played. Tostig allied himself with the Vikings in the hope of taking his brother’s crown. Harold defeated Tostig and his Vikings at the Battle of Stamford Bridge. Then he had to march south to meet William the Conqueror at Senlac.
Claire and I have been watching Simon Reeve’s excellent programme on Ireland. The occupation of Ireland by the English is well known. In Reeve’s programme this week he explored Oliver Cromwell’s role. Cromwell seems to get a lot of the blame from the Irish, but he certainly wasn’t the first. Henry II was the first English king to set foot on Irish soil. Elizabeth I sent Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, to quell rebellion in Ireland. He was accompanied by my 10th great-granduncle, Sir Anthony Standen, as I recount in The Spy who Sank the Armada.
Talking of ancestry, when the UK left the EU, I explored my ancestry hoping to find an Irish grandparent and claim an Irish passport. Sadly my search was in vain. I do however have 17% DNA from Sweden and Denmark, so I am of Viking descent. Perhaps that’s where I get my love of the sea and sailing from. Therefore I shall just have to join the long queues at passport control when visiting the EU. How I long for the day when we rejoin, it can’t come soon enough for me.