Princes of Ireland - Edward Rutherfurd [0]
THE PRINCES OF IRELAND
“A sweeping, carefully reconstructed portrait of a nation from birth to midlife crisis …”
—The New York Times
“Rutherfurd conducts a spellbinding tour of ancient Ireland.… Like James Michener and Leon Uris, Rutherfurd does a magnificent job of packaging a crackling good yarn within a digestible overview of complex historical circumstances and events.”
—Booklist
ALSO BY EDWARD RUTHERFURD
Sarum
Russka
London
The Forest
The Rebels of Ireland:
The Dublin Saga
New York
The Princes of Ireland is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
A Ballantine Book
Published by The Random House Publishing Group
Copyright © 2004 by Edward Rutherfurd
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of the Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published by Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, in 2004.
Ballantine and colophon are registered trademarks
of Random House, Inc.
www.ballantinebooks.com
Library of Congress Control Number: 2004097486
eISBN: 978-0-385-51257-2
v3.1_r1
For Susan,
Edward and Elizabeth
CONTENTS
Cover
Other Books by This Author
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Map
PREFACE
PROLOGUE
EMERALD SUN
ONE
DUBH LINN
TWO
TARA
THREE
PATRICK
FOUR
VIKINGS
FIVE
BRIAN BORU
SIX
STRONGBOW
SEVEN
DALKEY
EIGHT
THE PALE
NINE
SILKEN THOMAS
Afterword
Acknowledgments
About the Author
IRELAND
DUBLIN REGION
MEDIEVAL DUBLIN
PREFACE
THIS BOOK IS, first and foremost, a novel. All the characters whose family fortunes the novel follows down the generations are fictitious; but in telling their stories, I have set them amongst people and events that either did exist, or might have done. The historical context, wherever it is known, is given accurately, and where questions of interpretation arise, I have sought either to reflect, or give a balanced view of the opinions of today’s best scholars. From time to time it has been necessary to make small adjustments to complex events in order to aid the narrative; but these adjustments are few and none does any violence to history.
In recent decades, Ireland in general and Dublin in particular, have been very fortunate in the quality of the historical attention they have received. During the extensive research required to write this book, I have been privileged to work with some of Ireland’s most distinguished scholars, who have generously shared their knowledge with me and corrected my texts. Their kind contributions are mentioned in the Acknowledgements. Thanks to the scholarly work of the last quarter century, there has been a reevaluation of certain aspects of Ireland’s history; and as a result, the story that follows may contain a number of surprises for many readers. I have provided a few additional notes in the Afterword at the end of this volume for those curious to know more.
Irish personal names, place names, and technical terms appear throughout in their most simple and familiar forms. Modern books published in Ireland use an accent mark, the fada, to indicate when a vowel is long and certain other forms of spelling to indicate correct pronunciation. To many readers outside Ireland, however, these forms might be confusing, and so they have not been used in the text of this novel. But I have provided a pronunciation guide with the Afterword, and readers uncertain about any word should find it there.
PROLOGUE
EMERALD SUN
LONG AGO. Long before Saint Patrick came. Before the coming of the Celtic tribes. Before the Gaelic language was spoken. At the time of Irish gods who have not even left their names.
So little can be said with certainty; yet facts can be established. In and upon