2016: a jamboree or a real challenge?

This weekend thousands of re-enactors, that wonderful blend of the theatrical, the fantastic, the historical, the childish and the borderline weird, will imagine themselves heroic defenders of the fatherland as they mark the 1,000th anniversary of the Battle of Clontarf.

The victors — our side of course — will drive their co-actors into the sea, or as close to the waves rolling onto Dollymount strand as the boundary walls of Dublin’s St Anne’s Park, the site of the battle re-enactment, might allow. Undoubtedly the event will be a great success, especially as the right side — our side of course — is guaranteed victory at every performance. There will not be a Russell Crowe-led Gladiator-style refutation of history in Clontarf this weekend. Or at least history as is commonly and comfortably embraced in Ireland.

That certainty stands even if the anniversary has reopened the debate about who was who, what was what and what the objectives of Brian Boru’s forces, Irish troops and mercenaries augmented by some Scandinavians, really were.