As promised, if a little late, my next blog on the adoption of the first surnames by the Irish. For this blog I have used the wonderful genealogies drawn up by my old history tutor, Professor Francis John Byrne, that appear at the end of his book, Irish Kings and High-Kings.

On Good Friday 23rd April 1014 a major and very hard fought battle was fought north of the Hiberno-Norse city of Dublin, on the level plain of Clontarf. On one side was King Brian Boru, king of Munster and High-King of Ireland, with the forces of his province and a few allies, and on the other a coalition of Dublin and Leinster rebels with Scandinavian warriors from the islands of Orkney and Man, led by Sigurd Hlodvisson, the jarl of Orkney.