Chichester Phillips: the MP for Askeaton who gave Ireland its first Jewish Cemetery

The Jewish Cemetery on Fairview Strand, Ballybough, is Ireland’s oldest Jewish cemetery and one of the earliest Jewish burial grounds on these islands (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Captain Chichester Phillips (1647-1728) was a politician in the 17th and early 18th century who made his career in the immediate aftermath of the Battle of Boyne as MP for Askeaton, Co Limerick, in the Irish House of Commons from 1695 to 1713.

Phillips was the owner of Drumcondra Castle, Dublin, and his family may have given their name to Philipsburgh Avenue in the Fairview/Marino area, previously known as Ellis Avenue.

The Phillips family had a long-standing connection with Ireland. His grandfather, Sir Thomas Phillips, played a key part in the Plantation of Ulster. He founded the town of Limavady in 1610, also held lands in Coleraine, and was Governor of Coleraine. Sir Thomas died in London in 1636, leaving the Limavady estates to his eldest son Dudley. His younger son, Chichester Phillips, married Susannah Warner, daughter of the Revd Thomas Warner, Vicar of Balsham.

The younger Chichester Phillips was born in Balsham, Cambridge, in 1647, but as a child was brought to Ireland when his family moved to Dublin, where the elder Chichester Phillips died in 1656.

His widowed mother Susannah Phillips remarried, and her second husband was Sir Simon Eaton, of Dunmoylin, near Shanagolden Co Limerick. Sir Simon was given the title of baronet in 1683 and died in 1697; Susannah died in 1701. This family connection with Co Limerick may explain why Chichester Phillips became the Earl of Cork’s agent for his estates in the Askeaton and MP for Askeaton while his step-father was still living.

After the Williamite Revolution, Phillips took the side of William III against James II of England. He served in several regiments as an ensign, lieutenant and captain, and his last military appointment was as a captain in the Earl of Granard’s Regiment of Foot.

As a reward for his loyalty in 1691, the Commissioners for Forfeited Estates sold him lands in Killucan and Rathwire in Co Westmeath that had been forfeited by the O’Mulledy family. He was listed as an alderman of Dublin in 1696. He was the second MP for Askeaton, sitting first with George Evans and later with Robert Taylor.

Phillips bought the freehold title to Drumcondra Castle in 1703. Ironically, his claim to Drumcondra was based originally on a lease from King James II to Giles Martin in 1677.

Captain Phillips married Sarah Handcock in 1685. She was the daughter of William Handcock, MP for Westmeath, and they were the parents of six children, two daughters and four sons.

Captain Chichester Phillips died in 1728. He is best remembered today not as the Williamite MP for Askeaton but for giving the land to create Ireland’s first Jewish cemetery at Ballybough, Dublin. Ten years before he died, on 28 October 1718, Captain Phillips leased a plot of land to Jews who had recently established a small community in Dublin. This land became Ireland’s oldest Jewish cemetery and one of the earliest Jewish burial grounds on these islands. It merits consideration for National Monument status, according to a conservation and management plan commissioned by the Dublin City Council.

The mortuary house built in 1857 served as the caretaker’s cottage (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The façade of the caretaker’s cottage has a shield bearing an inscription that reads ‘Built in the Year 5618’ – the Hebrew calendar dating for 1857-1858 CE. The inscription is well-known on northside Dublin and has caused mirth among generations of Dublin schoolboys, but the present Jewish year that began on 29 September 2019 is 5780.

A small number of Jews had settled in the Annadale area off Ellis Avenue (now Philipsburgh Avenue), Fairview, by the 1700s. Most of them were Marranos, descended from Jewish families forced to convert to Christianity by the Inquisition. Some had fled from Spain and Portugal, others had arrived indirectly through the Netherlands.

Acting on behalf of the community, Alexander Felix (David Penso), Jacob do Porto, and David Machado de Sequeira, on behalf of the Sephardic community, and Abraham Meirs on behalf of the Ashkenazic community, leased a plot of land for a graveyard from Captain Chichester Phillips.

A 40-year lease was signed on 29 September 1717, and the lease was granted on 28 October 1718. This makes this cemetery older than the Alderney Road cemetery in Mile End, London, acquired by the Great Synagogue in London in 1725.

The Jewish community sought assistance from German and Polish Jews in London to build a wall around the cemetery. At first, they failed to receive support from the Bevis Marks Synagogue or Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue in London. But eventually the Bevis Marks community not only funded the wall but provided a supervisory agent from London.

The Dublin Jewish congregation was in financial difficulty by 1748, and was £7 10s in arrears with paying the rent on the cemetery lease. Members of the Bevis Marks Synagogue came to their assistance, and in the name of Michael Philips, a member of the Crane Lane synagogue, bought the freehold of the cemetery from Michael Phillips, grandson of Chichester Phillips, for £34 10s. The title deeds for the cemetery were deposited at Bevis Marks Synagogue and remained there until the 20th century.

The small site is only about one-seventh of an acre in size. The cemetery has more than 200 graves, and Louis Hyman lists the inscriptions in an appendix in his book The Jews of Ireland (pp 267-273).

The cemetery has almost 150 headstones with inscriptions in both Hebrew and English, and holds about 200 graves. The oldest legible headstone marks the grave of Jacob Wills (1701-1777). He was born in France, the son of Yochanan Weil, and lived in London before moving to Dublin, where was a jeweller and goldsmith on Essex Quay. In the synagogue he was known as Jacob Frenchman, but in secular life he was known as Jacob Will or Wills. He died on 11 March 1777.

In the past, visitors have shown particular interest in three or four Rothschild family graves – although they are not related to the banking family.

The mortuary house was built in 1857, 139 years after the cemetery first opened, as a defence against grave robbery and the theft of headstones, and served as the caretaker’s cottage.

The largest tomb belongs to Lewis Wormser Harris of Suffolk Street, a former alderman, who was been elected Lord Mayor of Dublin. He would have been the city’s first Jewish Lord Mayor but died the day before he was due to take office in 1876. Eighty years later, Alderman Robert Briscoe became Dublin’s first Jewish Lord Mayor in 1956.

The only burials in the 20th century were of members of the Harris family: Juliette Harris, widow of Alderman Lewis Wormser Harris (1908), their son, Ernest Wormser Harris (1946), and his wife, Maude Jeanette Harris (1958), the last burial.

The cemetery officially closed in 1978. Meanwhile, a new cemetery, dedicated to Sir Moses Montefiore, had opened on Aughavannagh Road in Dolphin’s Barn in 1898. It was established by Robert Bradlaw and the Dolphin’s Barn Jewish Burial Society.

Until recently, the cottage at Fairview was lived in by the cemetery caretakers, Con and Gloria O’Neill. Gloria was so devoted to her task that she was even seen handwashing the gravestones.

Dublin City Council took ownership of the cemetery on Fairview Strand in 2017 from the Dublin Jewish Board of Guardians, who could no longer afford its upkeep. It had been a Jewish cemetery for 300 years.

The Irish Times reported recently [15 July 2019] that the cemetery is to be refurbished and reopened to the public more than 40 years since its closure, under new plans from Dublin City Council.

However, the fabric and character of the cemetery is under threat due to the overgrown condition of the grounds, the dilapidated state of the mortuary house and encroachment from neighbouring sites. ‘Of particular concern, given international experience, is the risk of anti-Semitic vandalism leading to the defilement of this sacred space’ if its poor condition is not addressed, the plan states.

The conservation report notes the grounds have been ‘colonised’ by invasive plants, including Japanese knotweed, and mature trees are displacing memorials, damaging their stonework and metalwork.

In recent years, the cottage has suffered from break-ins and squatting. While there are ‘no obvious examples’ of anti-Semitic vandalism, the report said, this is a risk, and the house and cemetery would ‘remain a focus for anti-social behaviour’ unless a strategy was put in place to ensure the ‘preservation of the built heritage and the sanctity of the burials, while also making the site more secure and accessible to the public.’

The council has carried out historic research, cleared weeds and secured the house. It plans further conservation and restoration work before the cemetery opens to the public. There have been suggestions the house should be used as a museum or interpretive centre. The report recommends it be restored for use as a caretaker’s house for surveillance of the cemetery.

Most members of Dublin’s Jewish community are now buried in Dolphin’s Barn cemetery or in the Progressive Jewish Cemetery at Woodtown, near Rathfarnham.

As for Captain Phillips of Askeaton, two of his sons were priests in the Church of Ireland: the Revd Charles Phillips, Rector of Kilcolman, Co Cork; and Canon Marmaduke Phillips, MA, DD (1698-1770) friend of Jonathan Swift and at different times Rector of Raheny, Dublin (1732-1736), and Prebendary of Inniscarra in Cloyne, Co Cork (1751-1770).

In a letter to Dean Swift in 1734, Marmaduke Phillips quoted lines from an unknown author:

What’s past we know, and what’s to come must be,
Or good or bad, is much the same to me;
Since death must end my joy or misery,
Fix’d be my thoughts on immortality.

(Revd Canon Professor) Patrick Comerford is the Church of Ireland priest in Askeaton
.

The cemetery in Ballybough was a Jewish cemetery for 300 years (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

This feature was first published in December 2019 in ABC News 2019 (pp 61-63), the annual magazine of Askeaton/Ballysteen Community Council Muintir na Tíre

The planned closure of All Hallows’ College is a loss to theology and to social justice

Are the lights going out for All Hallows’ College? ... Drumcondra House is at the heart of the college (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2012)

Patrick Comerford

It was sad to hear the news this afternoon that All Hallows’ College, Dublin, is to shut down. It is always sad to hear the news that another theological college is to close. The college said today it is making the decision “with huge regret and deep sadness”. But today’s news is also sad personally because I have been a visiting lecturer at All Hallows in the past, and have supervised post-graduate research leading to the MA degree.

Over the years, All Hallows has also been a welcoming place for Church of Ireland conferences, and when I was there 18 years ago for a conference organised by the International Peace Bureau, I received a warm welcome from Father Patrick McDevitt, who has been the college president since the end of 2011.

Bruce Kent and President Michael D Higgins at the presentation of the Sean MacBride Peace Prize medals in All Hallows’ College, Drumcondra in November 2012 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2012)

Father McDevitt is a Vincentian priest who was raised in Chicago in an Irish- American family. Before moving to All Hallows, he was an associate professor in DePaul University College of Education, Chicago.

The college receives no State grants, and it has been operating at an increasing deficit for many years. More recently, All Hallows began a stringent programme of sustainability, including increasing its activities and launching an extensive fund-raising programme. At the same time, an investigation of the college’s archive and library was begun to see what might be disposed of to raise funds.

All Hallows’ College has 450 students on its degree courses and a staff of about 70. The college is promising to make “every effort ... to facilitate existing students in the completion of their courses.”

All Hallows found itself at the centre of controversy in recent weeks when it offered for auction a cache of letters written in 1950-1964 by Jackie Kennedy to Father Joseph Leonard. The college had hoped to auction the letters for more than €1 million, but withdrew them from sale after communications from the Kennedy family.

Since 2008, All Hallows’ College has been a constituent college of Dublin City University, along with the Mater Dei Institute and Saint Patrick’s College, Drumcondra. A number of non-profit organisations and charities are based on the campus, including the Volunteer Missionary Movement, the Daughters of Charity Education and Training Service, Ruhama, which supports women who have been victims of prostitution and human trafficking, Accord Catholic Marriage Counselling, Debt and Development Coalition Ireland, and Console (Living with Suicide).

The college motto is Euntes Docete Omnes Gentes (“Go teach all nations”). It dates from 1842, when Father John Hand (1807-1846) founded a college to train priests for foreign missions.

He leased Drumcondra House, which was designed by Sir Edward Lovett Pearce and built in 1726 for Sir Marmaduke Coghill (1673-1738), who had lived in Belvedere House, now part of Saint Patrick’s College, Drumcondra.

Coghill was an MP for Dublin and Chancellor of the Exchequer in Ireland. He moved into Drumcondra House, and lived there with his sister Mary until his death in 1738. In 1743, Mary rebuilt Drumcondra Parish Church (previously Clonturk parish), beside Drumcondra House, as a memorial to her brother.

When Mary Coghill died the house was inherited by their niece, who married Charles Moore, then 2nd Lord Tullamore and later Earl of Charleville. Later, the widowed Lady Charleville married Major John Mayne, who assumed the name of Coghill, and was made a baronet as Sir John Coghill.

Drumcondra House was then leased to Alderman Alexander Kirkpatrick, a former High Sheriff of Dublin. The last tenant of the house was Major General Sir Guy Campbell (1786-1849), a general in the British army. His wife Pamela (1795-1869), was the daughter of Lord Edward Fitzgerald, a leader of the United Irishmen in 1798.

The then Lord Mayor of Dublin, Daniel O’Connell, donated £100 to the new college. With the Famine and consequent emigration the new priests from All Hallows began to follow the Irish Diaspora, to Canada, the US, Australasia, Britain, South Africa and other places around the world. Over the years, some 5,000 men went out; some to great cities, others to outbacks and veldts.

JJ McCarthy extended Drumcondra House and designed a college quadrangle, while George Ashlin designed the college chapel (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2013)

The architect JJ McCarthy extended the house and designed a college quadrangle. However, only two sides of the college quad were built. The college chapel was designed by George Ashlin in 1876, replacing an earlier chapel by McCarthy, the south side of the chapel is dominated by a stained glass window by Evie Hone.

Both McCarthy and Ashlin were architectural heirs and successors to AWN Pugin, and McCarthy was appointed Professor of Ecclesiastical Architecture at the college.

Since 1892, All Hallows has been run by the Vincentian order. The Revd Nicholas Comerford (1873-1937), who joined the Vincentians in 1896, and taught in Saint Vincent’s College, Castleknock, and in All Hallows’ College, Drumcondra, before going to England to work on the Vincentian missions. He edited the magazine The Vincentian until his death in Sheffield on 15 April 1937.

His elder brother, the Revd Edmond Comerford (1870-1940), joined the Vincentians in 1890 and later served as Dean of Saint Vincent’s College, Castleknock, and in Saint Peter’s Church, Phibsboro. A third Vincentian priest, the Revd James Comerford, joined the Vincentians in 1884 and was later Bursar of Saint Vincent’s College, Castleknock.

In the 1980s, as the number of seminarians decreased, the college struggled to attract students before opening its doors to lay students and developing degrees and courses in areas such as social justice, ethical leadership, church and culture.

If All Hallows closes down completely, it will be a loss not only to theological education in Ireland but to the causes it has identified and promoted such as mission, social justice, ethical leadership, women’s rights, and the rights of refugees and the marginalised.

What is the legacy of Brian Boru and the Battle of Clontarf after 1,000 years?

A carving behind the bar in Clontarf Castle depicting the Battle of Clontarf (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

The date 1014 has the same place in Irish memories as 1066 in England, 1776 in the United States, 1789 in France or 1917 in Russia, so that the Battle of Clontarf holds as many inherited memories as Hastings in England, Bannockburn in Scotland, Bunker Hill in America, or the Bastille in France.

1014 ... a date deeply etched in Irish memories from schooldays (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The events planned to mark the 1,000th anniversary of the Battle of Clontarf and the death of Brian Boru on Good Friday 1014, include battle re-enactments, exhibitions, lectures and tours. The National Museum of Ireland has an exhibition on the Viking Age in Ireland, the O’Brien Clan is holding a major family reunion in Co Clare, an O’Brien banquet is being hosted in Dublin Castle on 23 April, and there is an ecumenical service that morning in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin.

Other events include a two-day conference in Trinity College Dublin, a three-day conference in Cashel, a lecture series in Dublin City Hall, and a public recital on the ‘Brian Boru Harp.’ There are new books on the Battle of Clontarf by Dr Seán Duffy of TCD and Darren McGettigan, and a special edition of History Ireland.

Separately, a new exhibition in the British Museum, London, is offering a revaluation of the Vikings and their contribution to civilisation on these islands.

Asking some questions

Brian Boru in battle on a pub sign at Cross Guns, the centre of the battlefield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Battle of Clontarf is often presented as a victory of Gaelic Irish forces over the Vikings, who are pilloried as uncivilised plunderers. Yet fundamental questions must be asked. Have the inherited memories of Clontarf and 1014 distorted facts and perpetuated myths?

The battle is seen as a great victory for the Christian king of Ireland, Brian Boru, who defeated the pagan Vikings and drove them out of Ireland. But this was not a battle between the Irish and the Vikings. Gaelic Irish forces fought alongside the Vikings, the supposedly victorious Brian was slain at the end of the day, and he was buried neither in Clontarf nor in his native Killaloe, but far further north in Armagh.

Even the main battle scenes are not concentrated in Clontarf, but spread across a vast swathe of Dublin, from Kilmainham, through Oxmantown, Phibsboro and Glasnevin to Drumcondra, Ballybough, Fairview and Clontarf.

The Viking arrival in Ireland

King Sitric Silkenbeard is remembered in a well-known restaurant in Howth (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The first Viking raids on Ireland were in 795. Viking fleets soon appeared on the major rivers, and they fortified bases for more extensive raids. The principal targets of the raiders were the monasteries, where they plundered gold, silver, chalices, crosses and manuscripts, captured slaves and pillaged the harvests.

Gradually, the Vikings established settlements and engaged in trade and commerce, with towns in Limerick (812), Dublin (841), Wexford (800 or 888), Waterford (914), and Cork (915/922).

Irish society was still overwhelmingly rural, with a mixed farming economy. But the Vikings opened new trade routes into the rich markets of the Byzantine empire and Muslim central and western Asia. The range of personal ornaments found in the Christchurch Place area of Dublin reflects the wealth and trade contacts of the city’s Vikings.

By the end of the 10th Century, the Vikings in Ireland had adopted Christianity and it is difficult to distinguish between Viking and Irish artefacts. The culture of the Viking-founded towns and cities in the 11th and early 12th centuries is often described as Hiberno-Norse.

However, there was significant opposition to their presence in Ireland, not least in Munster where King Brian Boru had defeated their armies on several occasions. Brian’s aim was to unite all the warring Celtic kingdoms, with himself as the High King.

Who was Brian Boru?

An image of Brian Boru? ... a carving of a king’s head at the main door of Saint John the Baptist Church of Ireland parish church in Clontarf (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Brian Boru rose from modest beginnings to become King of Ireland. His nickname Boru may come from the Old Irish bóruma, “of cattle tribute,” or “of Bél Bóraime,” a ringfort at Killaloe, Co Clare, where he had his royal residence.

Despite the pious Irish portrayals of him as an ageing saint praying privately in his tent, Brian was a single-minded and vengeful warlord. He had at least four wives and two or three concubines – more partners than Henry VIII – yet had his own sister executed for adultery.

Brian was born about 941, near Killaloe, into the upwardly mobile petty royal family of Dál Cais. By 967, Brian’s older brother Mathgamain was King of Cashel or Munster, the first King of Munster in five centuries who did not belong to the great Eóganachta tribe, ancestors of the MacCarthy, O’Sullivan, O’Callaghan, O’Mahony, O’Donoghue and other families.

Mathgamain took control of the Norse city in Limerick in 967. However, the Norse of Limerick were instrumental in his downfall and murder in 976. Brian avenged his brother’s death, attacking Limerick and killing its king, Ívarr.

When the Dál Cais and the Eóganachta fought for the kingship of Munster in 978, Brian emerged victorious. By 982, he was seeking to extend his rule beyond the borders of Munster, challenging the King of Tara and High King of Ireland, Máel Sechnaill II of the O’Neill Clan.

By the 990s, Brian’s fleets and forces were raiding southern Ulster, he subdued Leinster and gained control of the southern half of Ireland, and in 997, Brian and Máel Sechnaill agreed to divide Ireland between them.

Late in 999, Brian marched on Dublin and banished King Sitric Silkenbeard, his Viking son-in-law. He then tore up his treaty with Máel Sechnaill, forced the submission of the High King and marched north to demand the submission of the northern leaders.

In 1005, he arrived in Armagh, where he had insertion inscribed in the ninth century Book of Armagh, with its narratives of Saint Patrick, describing himself as “Brian, Emperor of the Irish (imperatoris Scotorum).” Now in his 70s, Brian forced the O’Neills of Ulster to submit before returning in triumph to Kincora, his royal residence at Killaloe.

But Brian’s extended power soon began to crumble, and King Sitric of Dublin and King Máelmórda of Leinster rebelled in 1013.

The Battle of Clontarf

As the tide receded, it took the Scandinavian vessels with it and scattered them about the bay (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

In a bid to force Dublin and Leinster to submit, Brian marched on Dublin with 4,900 troops, made up of 2,000 Munster men, 1,400 Dalcassians, and 1,500 Connacht clansmen. He was opposed by Mael Mordha’s army of 4,000 Leinster men and 3,000 Vikings led the King Sitric of Dublin. The Dublin and Leinster armies rallied first at Howth and were reinforced by troops from the Isle of Man, the Hebrides and the Orkneys.

The main battlefield was in Glasnevin and Phibsboro, at Cross Guns and on the banks of the River Tolka (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Battle began at first light on Good Friday, 23 April 1014, and raged all day. Although only a small segment of the battle was fought near the seafront at Clontarf, it is known as the Battle of Clontarf because some 2,000 Vikings had sailed out from Dublin in longboats at sunrise and landed at Clontarf that morning.

The Vikings and the Leinster men lined up across the sloping plains bounded by the sea and the River Tolka. Brian’s army occupied the rising ground near Tomar’s Wood in Phibsboro. But as the tide receded, it took the Scandinavian boats with it and scattered them about the bay.

The centre of battle, the ‘Bloody Acre,’ is within the bounds of Glasnevin Cemetery (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The main battlefield was in Glasnevin and Phibsboro, at Cross Guns and on the banks of the River Tolka. One centre of battle, the “Bloody Acre,” is within the bounds of Glasnevin Cemetery. The most ferocious fighting was at the Battle of the Fishing Weir, probably the site of the former DWD Whiskey Distillery on Richmond Road, Drumcondra.

The most ferocious fighting was at the site of the former DWD Whiskey Distillery on Richmond Road, Drumcondra (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

It was the bloodiest day in Ireland for centuries: 4,000 of Brian’s troops lay dead on the battlefield, and 6,000 Leinster men and Vikings were slaughtered, including every single Viking leader.

The battle scene

Clontarf Weir may have been a fishtrap on the tidal shoreline between Clontarf and Clontarf Island, on the site of Fairview Park (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Clontarf is not mentioned in the early annals. The earliest certain reference in the 12th century Book of Leinster refers to “the Battle of Clontarf Weir.” The weir may have been a fishtrap on the tidal shoreline between Clontarf and Clontarf Island, which survived until the 19th century and now forms part of Fairview Park.

In the old heart of Clontarf, the Viking and Leinster forces were pushed downhill towards the sea (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

On the modern landscape, Seán Duffy imagines the defeated forces at the old heart of Clontarf, between Castle Avenue and Seaview Avenue and Stiles Road. From there, they were pushed downhill towards the sea.

To escape, they had to cross what is now Fairview Strand, but it was submerged by the incoming tide. In the other direction, a wooded area to the east of Vernon Avenue offered them protection, but that route was blocked too by the inundation of the area around Oulton Road and Belgrove Road.

Clontarf Castle ... the first castle on the site was built two centuries after the Battle of Clontarf (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

They had no option but to stand with their backs to the sea and fight. As they were beaten back towards the sea at Clontarf, they found the tide had carried away their ships. There they were drowned in great numbers and “lay in heaps and in hundreds.”

To the west, as Brian’s enemies fled, they were slaughtered too. The last 20 fleeing Dubliners were killed at Dubgall’s Bridge, named perhaps after Dubgall mac Amlaíb, brother of King Sitric, who remained inside Dublin that day to defend the city. The bridge may have crossed the Liffey near the present Four Courts, or crossed the Tolka at Ballybough.

Pub names in Glasnevin and street names in Clontarf recall Brian Boru and his army (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Brian took no part in the battle. Instead, he pitched camp on a green area west of Dublin, either in Kilmainham or near Cross Guns. Although this was his greatest victory, he did not live to enjoy it. At the hour of victory, as he knelt praying in his tent, the fleeing Viking leader from the Isle of Man, Brodir, was hiding in the woods nearby. Brodir stole into Brian’s tent and killed Brian with his axe before he too was captured and was ritually disembowelled.

The last fleeing Dubliners were killed at a bridge that may have crossed the Liffey near the present Four Courts (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

After the battle, the bodies of Brian and his son Murchad were brought ceremoniously first to Swords and then to Armagh, where they were waked for twelve nights before being buried in a new tomb.

Evaluating Clontarf

After the battle, Brian was buried with great ceremony at Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, Armagh (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Brian Bóru’s final victory was Pyrrhic – indeed, the Welsh annals and Viking sagas present it as a defeat for Brian and a victory for Sitric. His death brought to an end his claims to the title of High King of Ireland and plans for Irish unity. Máel Sechnaill recovered his throne and the O’Brien dynasty only held the crown intermittently afterwards. By the time of the Anglo-Norman invasion a century and a half later, Rory O’Connor was High King.

After the battle, a period of relative peace followed in which Celtic chieftains and Vikings lived in relative harmony in Ireland.

But while Clontarf may have averted a major new Viking offensive in Ireland, the Danish King Knut and his family took control of England successfully in 1013-1017. Dublin triumphed as a Viking city, Dublin became a diocese in 1028 with Christ Church as its cathedral, and Sitric reigned unchallenged until his abdication in 1036.

After Clontarf, Dublin triumphed as a Viking city, where Christ Church became its cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Canon Patrick Comerford is Lecturer in Anglicanism, Liturgy and Church History, the Church of Ireland Theological Institute. This essay and vthese photographs were first published in April 2013 in the Church Review (Dublin and Glendalough) and the Diocesan Magazine (Cashel, Ferns and Ossory).

Honouring peace activists and remembering Sean MacBride

Bruce Kent and President Michael D Higgins at the presentation of the Sean MacBride Peace Prize medals in All Hallows College, Drumcondra, this evening (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2012)

Patrick Comerford

I was in All Hallows’ College, Drumcondra, this evening as President of the Irish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) for the presentation of the 2012 Sean MacBride Peace Prize to two Arab activists, Lina Ben Mhenni from Tunisia and Nawal El-Sadaawi from Egypt. Both women have shown great courage and made substantial contributions to the “Arab Spring.”

The awards were presented by President Michael D. Higgins at a ceremony on the eve of the annual conference of the International Peace Bureau.

The Irish Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Sean MacBride, was President of both the International Peace Bureau and Irish CND, and President Higgins was the first recipient of Sean MacBride Peace Prize 20 years ago at a ceremony in the Mansion House in Dublin in 1992.

This is the first year the IPB council has met in Ireland in its over 100-year history. The conference is being hosted by Afri which, like Irish CND, is a member of the International Peace Bureau.

Every year, the IPB awards the prize to a person or organisation that has done outstanding work for peace, disarmament and or human rights.

This year’s medals have been made from recycled metal from US nuclear missile parts.

Dr Nawal El-Sadaawi, who was unable to travel to Ireland for this evening’s presentation, has a long and impressive record of several decades of activism and professional engagement on behalf of women’s rights in Egypt.

A feminist writer, activist, physician and psychiatrist, she has written many books linking political, economic, sexual, and religious oppression of women and the poor. Her writing has had a deep impact on successive generations of young women and men over the last five decades.

However, Dr Lina ben Mhenni from Tunisia was in Dublin this evening to receive her medal. She is an internet activist, a blogger and lectures in linguistics at Tunis University. During the rule of President Zine el-Abidine ben Ali, she was one of the few bloggers to write using her real name rather than adopting a pseudonym to protect her identity.

She began posting photographs and videos of protests and of injured protesters throughout Tunisia, visited local hospitals and took photographs of activists injured by the police. She continues to play a prominent role among Tunisia’s democracy activists, speaking out against corruption and demanding the release of arrested activists.

President Michael D Higgins speaking at this evening’s presentation in All Hallows’ College (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2012)

I have known President Higgins since 1973, and we have shared many causes and protests. It was a proud moment for Irish peace activists when he presented the prizes this evening, including Caitriona Lawlor, who worked for many years with Sean MacBride, Brendan Butler, a long-time activist on Central American rights, David Hutchinson-Edgar of Irish CND, Roger Cole of the Peace and Neutrality Alliance, Joe Murray of Afri, Tony D’Souza of Pax Christi, and Rob Farmichael, the nonviolence activist.

The evening ended in conversation with President Higgins and the veteran international peace activist, Bruce Kent, who has been a personal friend for almost 40 years.

This evening’s news from Gaza and Israel is a sharp reminder that the world needs peace activists today as much as it ever did.

Drumcondra House, at the heart of All Hallows’ College, in this evening’s lights (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2012)