503 
not have been legally married to Gormlaith before that year; and if Do- 
nogh was born in Christian wedlock, he could not have been much more 
than three years old in 1014, at the battle of Clontarf; but he is men- 
tioned by the Four Masters as having been in command of an army in 
the south of Ireland that very year ;* and, after Brian’s death, he seems 
to have lost no time in contesting with his brother Tadhg the succession 
to the crown. Before the year had expired, the two brothers fought a 
battle, in which Donogh was defeated.+ 
The fact, therefore, that there had been matrimonial alliances be- 
tween the Danish kings of Dublin and Malachy’s family is, as I have 
said, very unfairly urged as a proof of that chieftain’s disloyalty. Si- 
milar alliances existed also between the same kings of Dublin and the 
family of Brian. If the Danish King Gluniarn was the son of Ma- 
lachy’s mother, the Danish King Sitric was Brian’s son-in-law, and the 
son of Brian’s mistress, or wife ; and that mistress, or wife, was the wi- 
dow of the Danish King Olaf Cuarain, and the mother of Brian’s son, 
Donogh. Ifit be areproach to King Malachy that he was half-brother 
to the Danish chieftain Gluniarn, it is equally a reproach to Donogh, 
son of Brian, that he was half-brother to the Danish chieftain Sitric. 
Not less unfounded is the insinuation that the weakness and incom- 
petency of Malachy’s government induced the provincial sovereigns of 
Ireland to call upon Brian to take upon himself the crown. Nothing 
can be more contrary to the facts of history. The government of Ma- 
lachy, both before the revolution which dethroned him, and after he had 
resumed the sovereignty, upon Brian’s death, was remarkable for acti- 
vity and vigour. Immediately after the battle of Tara, we read that he 
marched against Dublin: a siege of three days and three nights put him 
in possession of the town and of its costly spoils. He proclaimed liberty 
to all the prisoners and hostages that were found in the fortress, amongst 
whom was Domhnall Claen, King of Leinster; and delivered the north 
of Ireland from the tribute and taxes, which the Danes, by the possession 
of those hostages, were enabled to exact. 
By this time Brian had been declared King of all Munster, or Leth 
Mogha, the southern half of Ireland; and Malachy, alarmed at the rapid 
growth of his power, invaded the territory of the Dal-Cais, the tribe- 
name of Brian’s family, and destroyed the ancient oak-tree under which 
the chieftains of the Dal-Cais were wont to be inaugurated, and which 
stood on the fair-green of Magh Adhair, now Moyre, near Tullagh, in 
the county Clare. 
* From the curious poem quoted by the Four Masters at 1030, in which the three 
“leaps” of Gormflaith, i.e. her three marriages, are spoken of, it seems to follow that she 
was first married to Olaf, then to Malachy, and last to Brian. This squares very well 
with the history. But the Njal’s Saga, at least in Dr. Dasent’s translation, says “‘ Brian 
was the name of the king who first had her to wife,” as if she had been the wife of Brian 
before she was married to Olaf Cuarain. The Latin version, however, does not bear out 
this translation: it simply says that “there was a king, named Brian, whose wife she 
was, although at that time put away by him.”—Havine, 1809, p. 590. 
+ Four Masters, p. 781. 
