Page 133 - Demo

Chapter Four 133
So died, the immortal hero and great prince of the Dalcassians in the omega of his great- est victory. Side by side with his son Murrough, Brian Boru, “the Augustus of the West
of Europe,” as the Annals of the Four Masters describe him, this man of whom it was said that he ‘had like a Patriot Prince reduced the common enemy, restored the liberty of the subject and employed his time and abilities for the public good, commanded in more en- gagements than Julius Caesar; distinguished himself in all of them with amazing intrepid- ity and even fought up to the character of a hero in romance,’ was buried in either a stone or marble coin with great pomp, procession and ceremony at Armagh. It is recorded that ‘Ireland, while rejoicing for her delivery from the Danish power, sorrowed deep for the loss of one of her greatest kings.’
‘He was perhaps the greatest ‘realist’ Ireland has known’, wrote Mrs Stopford Green in her History of the Irish Free State to 1014, ‘At all times keeping pace with a changing world. His sense of realities taught him how far he could go and when to draw back. Warrior as he was by the hard training of his youth, where any peace was possible his one object was to avoid ighting. The true dignity of his character, and his single devotion to his country’s salvation, may be measured by the fact that in all the changing circumstances of his life we do not ind a case in which personal humiliation or personal ambition was to him of any account.’
O Where Kincora, is Brian the Great?
And where is the beauty that once was thine? O where are the princes and nobles that sate At the feast in thy halls and drank the red wine! Where, O Kincora?