Clontarf and After (Notes)

[1] Saga of St Olaf Haraldsson, ch. lxxxvii (Heimskringla, Laing’s edn., ii, 382.

[2] Saga of Harald Hardrade, ch. lvi (op. cit., iii, 410).

[3] Ibid., ch. lvii (op. cit., iii, 412).

[4] It is not to be supposed that such words as Mór = ‘Great,’ Oge = ‘Junior,’ Fionn = ‘Fair,’ Donn = ‘Dark,’ Liath = ‘Grey,’ Boy (buidhe) = ‘Fairhaired,’ Reagh (riabhach) = ‘Swarthy,’ etc., were part of the Christian name or surname; they were personal adjectives, which sometimes were adopted to distinguish different branches of the family. The MacCarthys Reagh were a junior branch of the MacCarthys, of which the MacCarthy Mór was the head; the O’Conor Donn (now Don) was the senior branch in rank of the O’Conors. In other cases the adjective denotes the district ruled over, as O’Conor Faly (Failghe) or O’Conor Kerry (Ciarraidhe). We use the double ‘n’ in this name where the family seems to be distinct from the ruling family of Connacht, such as the O’Connors of Offaly, or O’Connors Faly, Offaly being a district comprising parts of Leix.

[5] P. A. Munch, Chronica Regum Manniæ, at 1095.

[6] Chronicle of William of Malmesbury, Bk. V, 1119.

[7] Giraldus Cambrensis, Conquest of Ireland, ch. xix, xxii.

[8] Orkneyinga Saga. Skrud means fine or costly material.

[9] Godred styled himself Rex Hiberniæ. In the Annals of Loch Cé his death is recorded under 1075: “Goffraidh, son of Ragnall, King of Ath Cliath [Dublin] mortuus est.”

[10] Giraldus Cambrensis, Topography of Ireland, ch. xxxiv.

[11] The Annals of Loch Cé call him King of Erin.

[12] Ibid., under dates 1097, 1099, 1102, 1105, 1107, 1109, 1113, etc.

[13] In 1099 the craebh-thelcha or “spreading tree of the hill,” under which the kings of Ulidia were inaugurated, was cut down by the Cinel Eoghan. It gave its name to Crewe, a townland in Co. Antrim. In 1111, in retaliation, the sacred trees or grove of the Cinel Eoghan at Telach-og, or Tullyhog, in Co. Tyrone were hewn down by the Ulidians; and in 1143 Turlogh O’Brien hewed down the Ruadh-Bheithigh, or Red Birch, the royal tree of the Hy-Fiachrach of Connacht. The inauguration tree of Murtogh’s own race had been cut down by Malaughlan, King of Tara, in his wars with Brian Boromhe; it stood on Magh Adhair in Co. Clare.

[14] P. A. Munch, op. cit., 1098; Keating, History, iii, 309.

[15] Magnus Barelegs’ Saga, ch. xxvii (Heimskringla, Laing’s edn., iv, 111).

[16] Annals of Clonmacnois, 1299.

[17] MacFirbis, On the Fomorians and the Norsemen, ed. Alexander Bugge (1905).

[18] Joyce, Names of Places; A. Walsh, Scandinavian Relations with Ireland during the Viking Period (1922).

[19] This is Worsaae’s opinion. It is erroneously assumed that Olaf was baptized in the Scilly Isles, off Cornwall. Olaf was for some time in Ireland, and took home an Irish wolfhound, which never left his side during his life. After Olaf’s death at the fatal battle of Svold the dog was found dead on the mound which he thought contained the remains of his master. See Saga of Olaf Tryggvsson, ch. xxxii, xxxv (Heimskringla, Laing’s edn., ii, iii, 115).

[20] The dates of the earliest bishops of Dublin are; Donat, 1038–1074; Patrick, 1074–84; Donat O’Hanley 1085–95; Samuel O’Hanley, his nephew, 1095–1121; Greine, or Gregory, first Archbishop, 1121–61; Laurence O’Toole, 1162–80.

[21] See also the submission of Patrick, second Bishop of Dublin, to Canterbury, in Ussher, Works, iv, 564.

[22] Keating, History, iii, 315.

[23] Keating, History, iii, 297.

[24] Gilbert was an Irishman though he was bishop of the Limerick Danes. His name is a Latinized form of the Irish Gilla espuig or “Servant of the Bishop,” often anglicized to Gillespie. He signed his name in Irish below the Acts of this Synod, for which see Keating, History, iii, 299-307, quoting from the lost Annals of Clonenagh. See also H. J. Lawlor, St Malachy, xxxvii seq.

[25] Book of Fenagh, ed. W. Hennessy (1875).

[26] St Bernard’s Life of St Malachy has been translated by H. J. Lawlor (1902). The letters and sermons are included.

[27] For the Synod of Kells see Keating, History, iii, 313-317.

[28] Annals of Loch Cé, 1055, 1060, 1089, 1128, 1138, 1170, 1185, etc.

[29] No less than eight young men of the O’Brien family were blinded by their near relations between 1153 and 1185, four of them by Donal Mór, who died in 1194. See also Annals of Loch Cé, 1092, 1093, 1265, 1266, 1368, etc.

[30] Annals of the Four Masters, 1083, 1265, 1559, 1562.

[31] Lawlor, Life of St Malachy, pp. 109-110.

[32] Margaret Stokes, Early Christian Architecture in Ireland (1920), pp. 126 seq.

[33] Gilbert, Facsimiles of National Manuscripts of Ireland, Pt. II, Nos. LIX, XLIV.

[34] Now the monastery of Graigue-na-managh, Co. Kilkenny See ibid., No. LXII (1).