Vikings invade Clontarf (again) for battle re-enactment
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Residents in Clontarf, Dublin, woke up this morning to discover they'd been invaded by a horde of Vikings — again.
1,000 years after the last Battle of Clontarf, which shaped Irish history for undreds of years to follow, history buffs joined local residents in St Anne's Park for a re-enactment of the 1,000-year-old battle between the High King Brian Boru, and the alliance of Sitric, Dublin's king, and his Viking allies.
Who's side are you on? Battle of Clontarf Viking Festival- https://t.co/fZO3K1EMes http://t.co/5OBxF2sQwH
— Dublin City Council (@DubCityCouncil) April 19, 2014
Hundreds of combatants took to the park and the makeshift Viking village erected in the public park ahead of the re-enactment.
Battle-weary Viking forces will take the field once more at 4pm, and again tomorrow as a second day of the festival gets under way.
A companion history project, 1014 Retold, is also tweeting the battle's build-up as it happened 1,000 years ago, with the characters played in dramatic fashion - but with real history at its core.
#MaelSechnaill: The news is everywhere. #Sitric's allies have made sail. The pup means to give us a real fight. pic.twitter.com/2MCCLwDdKG
— 1014 Retold (@1014retold) April 18, 2014
The 1014 Retold website has a handy guide to the main characters of the conflict, many of whom are linked by complex family ties.
The Battle resulted in the deaths of about 10,000 men combined - of a force somewhere near 14,000 - and the death of the High King, Brian Boru, and a weakening of the Viking hold on Dublin.
A rehearsal for the re-enactment took place earlier in the week at the Fotevikens Museum in Höllviken, in southern Sweden, as Tourism Ireland took advantage of the event to target the Scandinavian market.
Viking villages springing up in #Clontarf pic.twitter.com/VlRkFyAZ1d
— Clontarf 2014 (@Clontarf2014) April 18, 2014
Other events taking place at the festival include performance pieces, falconry displays, Irish arms demonstrations, storytelling, Viking longboat workshops and Celtic games demonstrations.
A timetable of events can be found online here.
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