̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Irish

Ireland’s Troy?

tdk25 — Wed, 23 Apr 2014 07:41:57 +0000

̽��ֱ��standard account of the Battle of Clontarf – a defining moment in Irish history which happened 1,000 years ago this week – was partly a “pseudo-history” borrowed from the tale of Troy, new research suggests.

̽��ֱ��findings, which are to be published in a forthcoming book about the intellectual culture of medieval Ireland, coincide with extensive celebrations in Dublin marking the millennium of Clontarf, which was fought on Good Friday, April 23, 1014.

In popular history, the battle has been characterised as an epic and violent clash between the army of the Christian Irish High King, Brian Boru, and a combined force led by the rebel king of the territory of Leinster, Máel Mórda, and Sitric, leader of the Dublin-based Vikings. ̽��ֱ��disputed outcome saw the Vikings beaten off, but at huge cost. Brian himself was killed, and became an iconic figure and Irish martyr.

According to the new study, however, much of what we know about Clontarf may be rooted not in historical fact, but a brilliant work of historical literature which modelled sections of its text on an earlier account of the siege of Troy.

Rather than a trustworthy description of the battle itself, this account – Cogadh Gáedhel re Gallaibh (“ ̽��ֱ��War Of ̽��ֱ��Irish Against ̽��ֱ��Foreigners”) – was really a rhetorical masterpiece designed to place Ireland’s legendary past in the context of a grand, classical tradition, stretching back to the works of Homer and classical philosophy.

̽��ֱ��study argues that this in itself should be seen as evidence that the cultural achievements of Brian Boru’s successors in medieval Ireland were complex, highly sophisticated, and the equal of anywhere else in Europe.

It also means, however, that despite the widespread portrayal of Clontarf as a heroic, quasi-national conflict in which the lives of Brian and others were sacrificed in the Irish cause, the historical truth is unknown. While the advent of the battle itself and its significance is beyond question, the details of what happened are likely to remain a mystery.

̽��ֱ��research was carried out by Dr Máire Ní Mhaonaigh, a Reader in medieval literature and history at St John’s College, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge. It will appear in a new book called Classical Literature and Learning in Medieval Irish Narrative, published in Boydell and Brewer’s ‘Studies in Celtic History’ series and edited by Ralph O’Connor.

“ ̽��ֱ��casting of Clontarf as a national struggle in which the aged, holy Brian was martyred still defines what most people know about the battle, and it has probably endured because that was what numerous generations of Irish men and women wanted to read,” Dr Ní Mhaonaigh said.

“Academics have long accepted that Cogadh couldn’t be taken as reliable evidence but that hasn’t stopped some of them from continuing to draw on it to portray the encounter. What this research shows is that its account of the battle was crafted, at least in part, to create a version of events that was the equivalent of Troy. This was more than a literary flourish, it was a work of a superb, sophisticated and learned author.”

Another reason that the story may have endured is a lack of physical evidence for the battle. No archaeological remains have been found, and the precise location, presumed to be somewhere around the modern Dublin suburb of Clontarf, is disputed.

Compared with the very basic information in contemporary chronicles, Cogadh provides by far the most comprehensive account of what happened. It was, however, written about a century later, probably at the behest of Brian’s great-grandson. Historians have rightly treated it as partial, but also as the written version of oral accounts that had been passed on from those who witnessed the battle itself.

̽��ֱ��new research suggests that this pivotal source was even more of a cultivated fabrication than previously thought. Through a close study of the text, Dr Ní Mhaonaigh found that the imagery, terminology and ideas draw inspiration from a range of earlier sources – in particular Togail Troí ( ̽��ֱ��Destruction of Troy), an eleventh-century translation of a fifth-century account of the battle for Troy.

In particular, the unknown author explicitly cast Brian’s son, who it is believed led a large part of his father’s army at Clontarf, as an Irish Hector, whom he describes as “the last man who had true valour in Ireland”. Tellingly, Togail Troí is also found in the same manuscript as Cogadh – suggesting that the author had this to hand when describing the battle.

Rather than pouring cold water on the millennial celebrations by showing the main account of Clontarf to have been an elaborate piece of story-telling, however, the study points out that the work bears witness to the cultural achievements of Brian’s successors.

̽��ֱ��parallel between Murchad and Hector in particular was in fact part of a complex and deeply scholarly analogy which drew on the recurring classical motif of the “Six Ages of the World” and “Six Ages of Man”. It shows that whoever wrote it was not simply describing a battle, but crafting a brilliant work of art.

“Whoever wrote this was operating as part of larger, learned European tradition,” Dr Ní Mhaonaigh added. “People should not see the fact that it is a fabricated narrative as somehow a slur against Brian, because what it really shows is that his descendants were operating at a cultural level of the highest complexity and order.”

For further information about this story, please contact: Tom Kirk, tdk25@cam.ac.uk

As Ireland marks the millennium of the Battle of Clontarf – portrayed as a heroic encounter between Irish and Vikings which defined the nation’s identity - new research argues that our main source for what happened may be more literary history than historical fact.

This was more than a literary flourish, it was a work of a superb, sophisticated and learned author

Máire Ní Mhaonaigh

Isaacs Art Centre, via Wikimedia Commons

An 1826 painting of the Battle of Clontarf by the Irish artist, Hugh Frazer

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Explore the scary stories of early cultures

amb206 — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 16:00:31 +0000

̽��ֱ��Festival of Ideas (www.cam.ac.uk/festivalofideas/) is the UK’s largest free festival celebrating the arts, humanities and social sciences. It runs this year from October 24-November 4 with a theme of ‘Dream and Nightmares’.

Narratives built around dreams and nightmares are woven into the early cultures of the British Isles with blood-curdling descriptions of scary beasts – fire-breathing dragons, many-humped sea-monsters, composite creatures mutating before our eyes – whose forms decorate many of the precious manuscripts that survive to bring us gripping tales of heroes and outlaws.

An afternoon of talks and readings this Saturday (3 November) at the Faculty of English will explore the language and literature of early Britain and Ireland – the Anglo-Saxons, the Welsh, and the Irish – with a series of eminent speakers giving an accessible overview of their research for an audience of teenagers upwards. ̽��ֱ��Vikings, whose culture influenced those of Britain and Ireland in this period, will also make an appearance.

̽��ֱ��sessions will start with a talk by Professor Paul Russell about dream narratives in Old Welsh and Old Irish. Professor Russell, head of Cambridge’s Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse, and Celtic, will introduce the audience to tales such as the Old Irish Aislinge Oenguso ( ̽��ֱ��Dream of Oengus) and the medieval Welsh Breudwyt Ronabwy ( ̽��ֱ��Dream of Ronabwy). ̽��ֱ��audience will also meet a Welsh monk who dreams of a beautiful girl. This talk will be followed by readings of Old Welsh and Old Irish given by current undergraduates of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic.

Dr Richard Dance will explore the origins of the words ‘dream’ and ‘nightmare’ with reference to his research into the history of the English language. He will then read an extract of the Old English poem ̽��ֱ��Dream of the Rood, an early Christian poem that describes the Crucifixion from the viewpoint of the Cross. ‘This poem is an example of Old English verse at its most imaginative,’ said Dr Dance. “It brilliantly harnesses the vivid, weird metamorphosis of dreams to explain the inner meaning of this central Christian story.”

Further readings of Old English and Old Norse by students will be followed by a talk on the monsters of Old English coinage by Dr Rory Naismith. He will refer in particular to a coin belonging to the Fitzwilliam Museum that bears the image of a creature that is half-dragon, half-wolf. It illustrates the way in which imagery from the pagan heritage of the English overlapped with Christian imagery as symbols of the power of rulers such as Penda and Offa of Mercia.

̽��ֱ��afternoon will conclude with a talk on dreams in Old Norse by Dr Judy Quinn, who is known for her work on Old Norse poetry and Icelandic sagas. She will explore two different dream sequences recorded in Icelandic sagas, one set in the ancient pagan past (Gísla saga) and another during the politically tumultuous thirteenth century (Íslendinga saga). In both sagas, powerful ‘dream women’ visit saga figures to try to influence their behaviour, creating scenes that are shockingly vivid and rich in detail about the cultural value of dreams.

Dreams and nightmares in early Britain and Ireland will take place at the Judith Wilson Studio, Faculty of English, Sidgwick Site, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge on Saturday 3 November from 2pm to 5pm. No need to book, no charge, suitable for ages 14 and over.

For full details of the sessions and all Festival of Ideas events go to www.cam.ac.uk/festivalofideas/.

Don’t miss the chance to learn about the rich cultures of the early British Isles in a series of free talks and readings at the Faculty of English, taking place this Saturday (3 November) as part of Cambridge ̽��ֱ��’s Festival of Ideas.

Narratives built around dreams and nightmares are woven into the early cultures of the British Isles.

Jóhanna Ólafsdóttir

Illustration from the Saga of St Olaf, Flateyjarbók, Reykjavik, Iceland

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Rebellion, repression, retribution

tdk25 — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 00:00:00 +0000

̽��ֱ��true course of events of the Irish rebellion of 1641 has never been fully known. Initiated by disaffected Irish Catholics rebelling against Protestant settlers, the rebellion quickly escalated in violence, resulting in widespread killing. But was the rebellion intended to be a bloodless coup that spiralled out of control, or were the thousands of Protestants deliberately driven out and massacred? What’s clear is that the years that followed were a time of savage revenge for the events of 1641 – Oliver Cromwell arrived with 30,000 English troops to conquer Ireland in the name of the English Republic and to exact ‘a just judgement of God upon those barbarous wretches, who have imbrued their hands in so much innocent blood’ – and the groundwork was laid for Ireland’s Catholic–Protestant divide.

A curious aspect of the rebellion is that although it is the least understood of all the great massacres of European history, it is amongst the best recorded. Historical narratives in the form of eyewitness accounts of those who lived through the rebellion are still in existence in the library of Trinity College Dublin, where they have remained largely unstudied. This is chiefly because there is too much of a record of what happened and it has taken until now, with improvements in technology and the political climate, to conspire finally to make it possible for the secrets of the ‘1641 depositions’ to be unlocked. A team of scholars in Cambridge, Dublin and Aberdeen are poised to do just this. Professor John Morrill from Cambridge’s Faculty of History is chairing the three-year project, working alongside Professor Jane Ohlmeyer and Dr Micheál Ó Siochrú (Trinity College Dublin), and Professor Tom Bartlett ( ̽��ֱ�� of Aberdeen).

Roots of an uprising

̽��ֱ��1641 rebellion had roots stretching back to the mid-16th century, when the Irish provinces were heavily colonised by English settlers. Throughout the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, the English government, fearful that continental Catholic kings would use Ireland as a springboard for invading England to exploit the dynastic weaknesses (Elizabeth was, in Catholic eyes, a heretic bastard tyrant, unmarried and the last of her line), sought to impose strong Protestant control of Ireland. This led to a dreadful cycle: Catholic rebellion, repression of the uprising, replacement of Irish landowners by English as part of a ‘Plantation’ policy, then more rebellion, more repression and further Plantation.

In and after 1610, the largest of the Plantation policies, in which not only the Irish landowners but also the tenant farmers and urban elites were displaced, affected large parts of Ulster in the far north of Ireland. Previous Catholic owners and occupiers were driven into exile, where thousands either became mercenary soldiers (‘Wild Geese’) in the armies of the Habsburg kings or fell into destitution.

For 30 years, the strong authoritarian government, softened by a blind-eye to private Catholic worship, kept the dispossessed of Ulster and elsewhere in check. But in 1641, England was paralysed by the disputes that were to lead, a year later, to civil war.

King Charles I’s puritan opponents had plans to introduce much more effective religious persecution of the Catholic Irish and to make Ireland increasingly part of an enlarged English state. This provoked, from late October 1641, a series of pre-emptive strikes by members of the Catholic nobility and, in the ensuing chaos, a series of what (unless this research project tells otherwise) appear to be spontaneous revenge attacks on Protestant settlers that quickly got out of control.

An imperfect account

Although we have no idea how many people were killed during the events of 1641, the most prudent estimates are that 4000 died through acts of violence and that 6000 more died of the consequences of being driven out naked into the winter cold, while many more fled from their homes and made their way eventually back to England. So much is clear. But the precise chronology and geography of the rebellion have remained hazy at best.

̽��ֱ��English government had to do something to protect the English Protestant settlers, but their own country was in chaos. They could not raise taxes to fund the army. So they borrowed money from 2000 venture capitalists (the ‘Adventurers’) against the promise that they would receive two million acres of Irish land once Ireland was conquered. To establish which land was to be confiscated, all (mainly Protestant) witnesses to the rebellion were questioned by government-appointed commissioners and their accounts recorded as ‘depositions’ that could be used in court.

Today, 3400 depositions are in existence, providing the fullest and most dramatic evidence we have for any event of this kind before the 20th century. They add to up 19,000 pages of testimony in crabbed 17th-century hands. Trinity College Library acquired the documents in 1741 and for centuries there they have remained, far too extensive for any one scholar to explore them all and in too poor a condition for widespread access. Even with a team of researchers, it will take a total of more than eight person years to transcribe the accounts.

A new kind of history

̽��ֱ��spirit of co-operation between the UK and Irish governments following the Good Friday agreement has made it possible to fund a project of this size – the most ambitious British-Irish collaboration in the humanities ever undertaken. Separate but linked funding streams in the UK and Ireland have raised more than 1 million euros from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) in the UK, the Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences (IRCHSS) and Trinity College Dublin.

Once the depositions are captured and online, they will constitute a database that can be arranged and re-arranged in any way a scholar would like: by date, by map reference, even by act of violence. Many of the depositions give detailed inventories of goods taken and destroyed, affording unique insights into the material culture of a colonial society. Members of the general public might even use depositions to trace family trees. There are endless possibilities for further study, both looking backwards to the pattern of exploitation that provoked the explosion of Catholic violence, and forwards to the way in which these massacres resulted in the confiscation of 40% of the land of Ireland and its transfer from Catholics born in Ireland to Protestants born in England. These are events that transformed Irish history and therefore British and world history. This collaborative project represents a new kind of history: one where the medium and the message can change how we understand ourselves in time.

For more information, please contact the author Professor John Morrill (jsm1000@cam.ac.uk) at the Faculty of History.

John Morrill explores one of the most extraordinary and least understood aspects of Anglo-Irish history - the rebellion of 1641.

But was the rebellion intended to be a bloodless coup that spiralled out of control, or were the thousands of Protestants deliberately driven out and massacred?

Credit- the Board of Trinity College, Dublin

Deposition taken from a witness to the 1641 Irish rebellion

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