Although in the main successful, he was slain in battle, according to some, in 1039,[78] or, as others report, in the hour of victory over the Danes at Clontarf, near Dublin, in 1014.[79]
The king, having accepted Christianity, presented, in 1004, a golden votive offering upon the altar of the church at Armagh, and here, in accordance with his dying request, his body was buried after the battle of Clontarf.[80]
This city of Armagh is reputed to have been founded about A.D. 445, by St. Patrick, and to this account is accredited the ecclesiastical pre-eminence which has always enshrined the city, for the Bishop of Armagh is the "Archbishop and Primate of all Ireland" of the Protestant Church, and it is the See city also of the "Primate of Ireland" of the Roman Catholic Church.
Of all the traditional patrons of Irish music, King Brian Boru was the most renowned, and thus in poetry and song his name became identified with the Irish harp.
The minstrelsy of the Irish harper has held sway and been cherished through all the ages by the Irish people, whose temperament may have been affected, or else has been most touchingly expressed, by its strange and mystic cadences. The sweet pathos of these ancient melodies has given tone and inspiration to most of the Irish songs, markedly to those of the sweet singer Moore, whose music has installed in affectionate memory,
"The harp that once through Tara's halls The soul of music shed."
34. The Throne of Queen Victoria in the House of Lords, 1900.
31. Seal of Carrickfergus, 1605.