Come Here To Me!

In recent weeks I’ve been doing some research on how Irish nationalists and the city of Dublin commemorated the Battle of Clontarf in 1914. I had an article on this subject in the History Ireland special on Clontarf and a recent Irish Times supplement. The History Ireland special is still available in shops. Last night this audio piece narrated by me aired on The History Show, hopefully some of you will enjoy it. The piece today is a sort of mixmatch of the two previously published articles.

While the millennium of the Battle of Clontarf has captured the public imagination, previous milestone anniversaries of the iconic moment have likewise had an impact on the populace. In 1914 Irish nationalists organised commemorative events around the theme of Clontarf, and attempted to politicise the historic event in the pages of publications like the Irish Volunteer. Against a backdrop of political uncertainty regarding Home Rule, and with armed volunteers once more appearing on Irish streets, the battle was presented as a definitive victory for a native Irish force over a foreign aggressor.

The Irish Volunteer newspaper and Clontarf.

The first edition of the Irish Volunteer appeared on 7 February 1914, following on from the establishment of the nationalist body in November 1913. The inaugural issue of the publication featured articles on everything from ‘modern weapons of warfare’ to first aid training. Alongside these contemporary articles were features, poems and songs drawing on the past, attempting to give a historical narrative to this new force. Clontarf and the struggle against ‘the Danes’ (as the paper saw it) emerge from the pages of the publication as being every bit as important an event as the republican insurrections of more recent times. One song, the ‘Shan Van Vocht’, written in the days of the United Irish movement, was amended to reflect the aspirations of this new body:

And God bless my Volunteers,
Says the Shan Von Vocht.
And God bless my Volunteers,
Says the Shan Van Vocht.
They’ve hot blood in their veins,
And they’ll burst your galling chains,
As they did the robber Danes,
Says the Shan Van Vocht.

Sir Roger Casement contributed an article entitled ‘From Clontarf to Berlin: National Status in Sport’, in which he referred to Clontarf as ‘one of the really great events in our history of depression.’ To Casement, one of the lessons of Clontarf was ‘that to be a good Irishman means also to be a good Christian’, and ‘Clontarf, Christian Clontarf, calls Ireland back to manhood: let Irish manhood and boyhood respond to that call.’ Casement outlined a belief that Ireland, with a degree of political independence achieved, should send men forward to the 1916 Olympics in Berlin, as a demonstration of that manhood, Irish strength and ability. The Irish Volunteer called for a presence of uniformed men at Clontarf on Easter Sunday 1914, noting in its 28 March edition that:

Corps throughout the country are eagerly awaiting orders for the big event, and are holding themselves in readiness to send contingents for the fitting celebration of a great National victory. And undoubtedly a Volunteer review will be a fitting and a worthy celebration of Ireland’s victory over the Dane.

There was not widespread agreement on this approach however, something that was evidently clear from the response of ‘Conan Maol’, the alias of P.J O’Shea, a week later. To him, the Volunteers appearing at Clontarf was a premature idea:

I think it is my duty to protest such an unwise step. We are not out for a star turn. We know some drill, but we are weaponless… It will be mainly a splash of mud oratory by speakers whom Brian would not understand and who know little of him and his times, nor of the events which led up to the great battle.

An interesting theme that emerged on occasion in the Irish Volunteer and other nationalist publications was the celebration of the assimilation of the Vikings in light of their defeat at the Battle of Clontarf, as Irish nationalists saw it. Thomas McDonagh, in his ‘Marching Song of the Volunteers’, wrote that:

Tired of wayfaring here he found
The welcome due to a valiant foe:
The Viking stock on Irish ground.
Has grown and strongly still shall grow.

In the pages of An Claidheamh Soluis, an editorial soon after the anniversary of the battle outlined a hope that Ulstermen could be won the cause of Ireland, as ‘The Ireland that assimilated the Dane and the Norman should not fail, if opinion were not poisoned by the malicious teachings of the foreigner, to assimilate the Ulsterman who researched Ireland speaking the Gaelic, and not the Saxon tongue.’ The significance of Boru to the Volunteers is clear from the naming of their organised body in Ennis, known as the Brian Boru Corps. It was reported by The Irish Times on 27 May 1914 that the men of the Brian Boru Corps had led a march in the town in celebration of the third reading of the Home Rule Bill, ‘followed by an immense crowd, who cheered John Redmond and Home Rule.’

Commemorations of Clontarf and Brian Boru.

The year witnessed several commemorations of both the battle and Brian Boru himself. In April, thousands gathered at Kincora, with the Nenagh Guardian proclaiming that ‘in a year when we are verging on Home Rule’, the rally was a fitting event. The paper noted that:

Never since the days of Brian Boru has world famed Kincora -the birth-place of Ireland’s greatest king—come so prominently forward as it did on Sunday last, when thousands of Irishmen of all political and religious beliefs assembled to honour the name of Brian Boru ; for was it not he who drove the Danes back at the Battle of Clontarf, and who relieved Ireland to a certain extent of the thraldom of the Scandinavian.

The lines between history and contemporary politics were blurred in Kincora, with one speaker informing the crowd if Boru were alive among them ‘he would go out for the Irish language and would take part in the Volunteers, and not the Carson Volunteers.’ The Volunteers themselves featured in some local commemorations, for example at Fermoy, where a crowd heard from a Reverend chairing proceedings that ‘there was no finer example than that of Brian Boru, who, at the head of his army, holding the Crucifix aloft, exhorted his troops to victory in their battle for Faith and Fatherland.’

The absence of a central, public commemoration was noted by some commentators, and it was not until May that it was reported Dublin Corporation had invited County Councils and other public bodies to discuss commemorating the anniversary. A writer in the Ulster Herald bemoaned the fact that ‘few throughout the length and breadth of the land’ had marked the anniversary, but did praise the ‘bright, burning fires’ lit in some of the hills of Donegal in honour of Clontarf. The Abbey Theatre in Dublin marked the anniversary with a revival of ‘Kincora’ by Lady Gregory, which was generally well received by the media.

The murals of Dublin City Hall.

1914 saw the beginning of the painting of the murals depicting the history of the city within the rotunda of Dublin’s City Hall, the work of students of the Metropolitan School of Art, under the guidance of James Ward. Alderman Thomas Kelly, leader of Sinn Féin at Corporation level, had been instrumental in this process, suggesting the subject matter. Ward and his team of students proposed a series of murals depicting events including the arrival of the Norse, the Battle of Clontarf and the coming of Saint Patrick. There is a clear nationalistic bent to the works, and as Philip McEvansoneya has noted, there are three strong emerging themes: ‘Dublin legends and history, Irish Christianity and the historic struggle for Irish independence.’ While the mural of Boru and Clontarf was not painted until later, in a process that took until 1919 to complete, the arrival of the Norse was one of the murals commenced in 1914. The sight of the native Irish, preparing to fight off this approaching alien influence, is no doubt influenced by the discourse at the time.

Clontarf and Boru continued to play an important role in the nationalist narrative and the ideology of Irish separatism after 1914. Seamus Daly, a member of the Irish Volunteers, recalled Thomas McDonagh addressing him and others on Holy Thursday 1916 in his statement to the Bureau of Military History, remembering preparing weapons at Clontarf for the insurrection ahead. McDonagh ‘reminded us we were standing on historic ground in Clontarf where Brian Boru had defeated the Danes in 1014. Easter was the time of the battle of Clontarf. The battle was on Good Friday. Good Friday and Easter were coming near, and that was the time of resurgence in Ireland.’ No doubt McDonagh, Daly and others firmly believed Clontarf to be a part of their nationalist heritage.

Admiration wasn’t restricted to nationalists. A year after the anniversary, in 1915, The Irish Times reported a recruitment sergeant with the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers telling a crowd at Dún Laoghaire – then Kingstown – that he was a Clontarf man, like Brian, and that “he thought Boru would have made a splendid recruiting officer, and he wished they had him today”.