MANY of the princes of Leinster, more especially the MacMurroughs (MacMurro) were generally, in some measure, allied to the Danes, and fought with them against their own countrymen. After several years of warfare, a peace was, at length, patched up with the MacMurrough, and he became a guest of King Brian at Kinkora. In those days chess was the national game of the Irish princes and chiefs, and while engaged in it with the Leinster guest, Prince Murrough (Murro), Brian’s eldest son, in a fit of anger, hurled a taunt at the former in regard to his recent alliance with the invaders of his country. This action was, of course, rude, and even brutal, on the part of Prince Murrough, although MacMurrough had been guilty of treasonable offences. The Leinster potentate rose immediately from the table at which they were playing, pale from rage, and, in a loud voice, called for his horse and retainers. He was obeyed at once and left the palace. The wise King Brian, on learning of the quarrel and departure, sent messengers after the King of Leinster to bring him back, but his anger was so great that he would not listen to their representations, so that they went back without him to Kinkora. MacMurrough immediately re-allied himself with the Danes, and so the flames of war were rekindled with a vengeance. Many other princes and chiefs of Leinster made common cause with their king and his foreign allies. Reinforcements for the latter poured into Ireland from Scandinavia, from Britain, from the neighboring islands, from every spot of earth on which an invader could be mustered—all inflamed against Ireland, and all expecting to wipe King Brian and his army from the Irish soil. But Brian had his allies, too; the armies of Munster, Connaught, part of Ulster, and most of the heroic clans of Leinster flocked to his standard, the latter led by the ever-faithful Malachy and his tributary chiefs. All of the MacMurrough interest, as already stated, sided with the Danes. A majority of the Ulster princes, jealous of Brian’s fame and supreme power, held back from his support, but did not join the common enemy. Brian was now an old man, and even his bold son, Murrough, the primary cause of the new trouble, was beyond middle age. The hostile armies hurried toward Dublin, the principal Danish stronghold, and on Good Friday morning, April 23, 1014, were face to face on the sands of Clontarf, which slope down to Dublin Bay. We have no correct account of the numbers engaged, but there were, probably, not less than thirty thousand men—large armies for those remote days—on each side. It was a long and a terrible battle, for each army appeared determined to conquer or die. Under King Brian commanded Prince Murrough and his five brothers: Malachy, Kian, Prince of Desmond, or South Munster; Davoren, of the same province; O’Kelly, Prince of Hy-Many, East Connaught; O’Heyne, the Prince of Dalaradia, and the Stewards of Mar and Lennox in Scotland.