‘Battle of Clontarf’ in Limerick Museum

The recently rediscovered historic painting of The Battle of Clontarf comes home to Brian Boru territory to mark the millennium of his death in 1014. The display over the coming summer months complements the Hunt Museum’s recent Symposium on Brian Boru addressed by well-known medieval scholar Prof Sean Duffy, Fellow of TCD.

Fresh from its recent display at the Casino Marino (near the Clontarf site of the original battle) the very large-scale painting (1826) captures evocatively the bloodshed and scale of battle on that fateful Good Friday 1014. ‘Although a fanciful work from the nineteenth century’ said Museum director Dr Hugh Maguire, ‘the painting nonetheless has a considerable emphasis on accuracy from the sweep of Dublin bay to capturing the slaughter and clamour of a battlefield’.

Formerly in the collection of the Isaacs Art Center, Hawaii, USA, the painting by Hugh Frazer (1795-1865) is now owned by Kildare Partners who have kindly loaned the painting to the Hunt Museum for the summer period. It was originally in a private Irish collection until moved to the USA many decades ago.