ich he won from the proud invader." The other, Brian Boroimhe,
commonly known to English writers as Brian Boru, a chieftain of the
royal Dalcassian race of O'Brien, and the most important figure by far
in Irish native history, but one which, like all others, has got so
fogged and dimmed by prejudice and misstatement, that to many people his
name seems hardly to convey any sense of reality at all.

Poor Brian Boru! If he could have guessed that he would have come to be
regarded, even by some who ought to know better, as a sort of giant
Cormoran or Eat-'em-alive-oh! a being out of a fairy tale, whom nobody
is expected to take seriously; nay, as a symbol, as often as not, for
ridiculous and inflated pretension. No one in his own day doubted his
existence; no one thought of laughing at his name. Had they done so,
their laughter would have come to a remarkably summary conclusion!

Brian Boroimhe, Boruma, or Boru--his name is written in all three
ways--was not only a real man, but he was, what was more important, a
real king, and not a mere simulacrum or walking shadow of one, like most
of those who bore the name in Ireland. For once, for the only time as
far as its native history is concerned, there was some one at the helm
who knew how to rule, and who, moreover, did rule. His proceedings were
not, it must be owned, invariably regulated upon any very strict rule of
equity. He meant to be supreme, and to do so it was necessary to wrest
the power from the O'Neills upon the one hand, and from the Danes on the
other, and this he proceeded with the shortest possible delay to do.

He had a hard struggle at first. Munster had been overrun by the Danes
of Limerick, who had defeated his brother, Mahon, king of Munster, and
forced him to pay tribute. Brian himself, scorning to submit to the
tyrants, had taken to the mountains with a small band of followers.
Issuing from this retreat, he with some difficulty induced his brother
once more to confront the aggressors. An important battle was fought at
Sulcost, near Limerick, in the year 968, in which the Danes were
defeated, and fled back in confusion to their walls, the Munster men,
under Brian, following fast at their heels, and entering at the same
time. The Danish town was seized, the fighting men were put to the
sword, the remainder fled or were enslaved.

[Illustration: BASE OF TCAM CROSS.]

Mahon being some years afterwards slain, not by the Danes, but by
certain treacherous M