500 
from the walls of the city. There, on the battlements, as the ancient 
narrative more than once tells us, stood the Danish women and the gar- 
rison, left for the defence of the city under Sitric, the Danish king, and 
watched from the towers of Dublin the progress of the fight. 
Another minute particular, recorded in the narrative, and probably de- 
rived from the testimony of eye-witnesses, is, that a strong north-easterly 
wind prevailed during the day, asit still very commonly does during the 
month of April, in Dublin, and drove into the eyes of the spectators the 
dust, fragments of hair and clothes, and sparks of fire occasioned by the 
conflict. 
Both the Irish and Icelandic authorities have agreed to give to this 
battle the name of ‘the battle of Brian,” from the Sovereign of Ireland, 
_ who led the Irish forces on the occasion, and who is generally known by 
the soubriquet of Brian Borumha. This name is derived, as some have 
thought, from Beal-Borumha, a fort on the Shannon, not far from Kincora, 
the ancient royal residence of the Kings of Munster; but others, with 
more probability, suppose the title to be derived from the Boroimhe or 
cow-tribute exacted by Brian from the chieftains of Leinster as the pledge 
of their submission, when he assumed the sovereignty of Ireland. 
Brian had been a warrior from his youth up, and had often been 
reduced to great extremity in his predatory expeditions agaist the 
Munster Danes and the tribes of Connaught. When his elder brother, 
Mathgamhain, or Mahon, was treacherously murdered, having been 
betrayed by Donovan, Lord of Hy Figeinte, into the hands of Molloy, 
King of Desmond, and Ivar, King of the Danes of Limerick, Brian be- 
came King of Thomond, or North Munster, and took ample vengeance 
for his brother’s slaughter. Molloy and Donovan were both slain, Li- 
merick twas sacked, and its Danish occupants overthrown with great 
slaughter. This was in the year 978. Soon afterwards Brian became 
King of all Munster, or of Leth Mogha, as the southern half of Ireland 
was called. 
About this time Maelsechlainn, or Malachy, King of Meath, defeated 
the Danes of Dublin with great slaughter, in the battle of Tara, a. p. 
979, and immediately after succeeded to the throne of Ireland in suc- 
cession to Dombnall, son of Muirchertach MacNeill, who had just died. 
Malachy was of the race of Hy Neill, a family from which the Kings of 
Treland had been chosen without a single exception, for upwards of five 
centuries. He was of the southern branch of that family, and it had 
grown intoacustom, from which only one deviation had occurred in nearly 
three hundred years preceding Malachy’s accession, that the Sovereign 
should be chosen alternately from the northern and southern O’Neills. 
His hereditary right to the throne was therefore indisputable, as his 
predecessor had been of the northern branch of the family ; and therefore 
Tighernach, one of our most independent annalists, does not hesitate to 
give the name of rebellion to the revolution which dethroned him, and 
placed Brian in his seat. 
This revolution, the result of might, not of right, was mainly due to 
the jealousy of his northern and more powerful kinsmen. Although they 
— we 
