****OT****
Happy St. Patrick's Day, victor. Perhaps you will give the thread an OT treat and elaborate with some little known poop on Brian ...
LEADERS & SUCCESS
Irish King Brian Boru: How A Celtic Chief Turned Groups Of Warring Clans Into A Nation
Date: 3/17/99
Author: James V. O'Connor for IBD
Everybody wanted Ireland. Marauding bands of Danes, Normans and Vikings battered the island's shores constantly. Among the native Celts, groups of clans vied for the island, which is slightly smaller than South Carolina.
Brian Boru wanted Ireland as well. But he didn't want it as the warring pieces it was in the 10th century: He wanted it as a united country - under his rule.
The son of a Celtic chieftain, Boru grew up watching his father in battle. He studied fighting techniques and practiced with swords, spears and bows and arrows.
Although his drilling was intense, Boru thought he'd get his edge by following a bit of advice his father gave him: Be the first to the battlefield and the last to leave.
He took the advice to heart. Boru (c. 926-1014) spent nearly eight decades relentlessly pursuing his goal until he ruled all of Ireland.
From the start of his career, as king of Northern Munster, he always held his ground. That was in marked contrast to his brother Mahoun, who ruled in neighboring Munster.
Both kingdoms were regularly plundered by Vikings. Mahoun preferred to settle amicably with the Vikings and share the spoils. But Boru decided that too much negotiation with an enemy would leave his kingdom vulnerable. Rather than take the Vikings at their word, he looked at their past. Time and again, they'd preferred pillaging to peacemaking.
Turned The Tables
Boru decided to use the Vikings' approach on them. Boru persuaded Mahoun to join armies and attack head-on. The joint forces assaulted the Vikings mercilessly.
The plan worked. The brothers vanquished the marauders in 960 and boosted their own treasury.
Boru planned carefully for war, paying attention to the smallest details. He held numerous mock battles to keep his men in peak condition. He looked for weak spots so he could strengthen them.
He allowed no cronyism. When he called his troops to muster, he'd look for the best soldiers. After he spotted the strongest, most skilled and most respected men, he'd promote them to leadership. That earned him loyalty among his lieutenants, and by selecting the best men, he helped ensure his instructions would be carried out to the letter.
His strategies helped him defeat the Danes in Limerick, adding to his reputation as a determined warrior. Boru used that reputation to his advantage. He made sure that news of his feat in Limerick went far and wide. The more people knew about his victories, he reasoned, the more people would want to join him.
Although the strategy worked for the most part, word of his strength sparked a revolt among those who didn't want to be dominated by him. His former allies, the Eoghanist clans, withdrew their support, murdered his brother Mahoun and sided with the Danes.
To prevent any other clans from leaving the fold, Boru acted quickly. He and his troops chased the Eoghanists to the Shannon Islands. They had nowhere to go from there, and he conquered them.
Boru understood that people followed him because of his ability and that they needed to believe he was the strongest ruler in Ireland. Toward that end, after he beat the Eoghanists, Boru had his son take their leader, Moalmua, to the site where Mahoun was slain. There his son executed Moalmua.
The message? Betray Boru, and suffer the consequences.
After conquering the southern half of Ireland in 984, Boru realized that he'd have to maintain key strategic positions to conquer the north. In 999 he occupied the city of Dublin.
Steps 1 and 2: He kept the city through the winter by blocking key routes into it and destroying all his enemy's posts around the city.
Step 3: To ensure hostile clans wouldn't attack, he invited members of each to Dublin. Once there, Boru held them captive until they swore allegiance to him.
As his kingdom grew, Boru became an astute diplomat and constantly forged new alliances through marriage, wrote Roger C. Newman in ''Brian Boru: King of Ireland.''
He united the kingdom in 1002.
He developed a thirst for education while studying at a monastery in his youth. There he found inspiration reading about the great military leaders of Europe, especially Julius Caesar and Charlemagne. He analyzed the tactics of his warrior predecessors and applied them in military planning throughout his career, as in his conquest of Dublin.
Valued Learning
As Ireland's ruler, he endowed monasteries and schools, and sent people throughout Europe to recover the thousands of books that had been plundered from Ireland.
He also invited European scholars to chronicle his exploits.
For Boru, ''Learning was prized and second only to prowess at arms,'' said Frederick Schweitzer, a professor of Irish history at Manhattan College in New York. ''The preservation and recital of the epic stories was very important to Boru.''
Boru was 88 during the Battle of Clontarf in 1014, the decisive engagement the united Irish fought against the Danes. While he was too old to fight, he knew that his presence would inspire his troops.
''On your valor rests the hopes of your country today; and what surer grounds can they rest upon?'' Boru asked his troops, according to Conor O'Kelly in ''The Clanns of Ireland.'' ''Let every heart then be the throne of confidence and courage.''
The troops took his words to heart. The battle, four miles north of modern Dublin, was so fierce that ''the trees wept blood, and the nearby River Tolka turned red,'' O'Kelly wrote.
Boru was killed by a retreating Danish leader who ''opened his head with his battle axe,'' according to M.F. Cusack in ''Irish History.'' He'd followed his father's advice and was the last to leave the battlefield. |
