April 23rd is the 1,000th anniversary of the death of Brian Boru, the most famous and, arguably, the greatest Irishman before the modern era. He died in his hour of victory at the Battle of Clontarf, after a lifetime of remarkable achievement.
The man we call Brian Boru – Brian of Béal Bóraimhe, near Killaloe in Co Clare – was from a Munster family formerly of no great distinction. He was born into an Ireland that was hidebound by tradition, where political power was dominated by a single great dynasty, the Uí Néill.
These descendants of the eponymous and perhaps mythical Niall of the Nine Hostages occupied a vast swathe of Ireland, their southern branch inhabiting the midlands from the Shannon to the Irish Sea, the northern Uí Néill ruling from modern Donegal to the River Bann.
