A Conversation for Brian Boru - Overlord of All Ireland

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Post 1

Is mise Duncan

I'm not sure Brian Boru would have worn plate armour, he would be very unlikely to have had a crown, and would certainly not have had 3 lions on his shield....but that's just me being picky, I suppose smiley - winkeye


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Post 2

Phil

I did also wonder where those three lions passant came from.


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Post 3

Pastey

It does seem a little odd, doesn't it?smiley - smiley

It's a great article though.

smiley - fish


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Post 4

Is mise Duncan

Agreed its a good article - I shall have to cross-reference it from my Howth article.


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Post 5

Spirit

After searching long and hard on the net, I found a very old (probably drawn well over 100 years ago) 'artist's depiction' of Brian Boru. Rather than spend a couple of hours doing intensive research into the costume/iconography/symbols/shields etc etc of that time I opted for the quickest and easiest way to do an illustration for this article - which was to base it on that artist's depiction. I am glad to have feedback and did wonder about the armour and shield etc, and given the lions it does suggest the artist's depiction was done by a patriotic englishman, but honestly I didn't have time to do a thorough research into a topic for which I could find no adequate visual references. I hope that explains it. Thanks for the input, though - if you have a suggestion as to an alternate image for Brian Boru, or can educate me with visual references for the costume etc of that time I would be happy to hear them smiley - smiley Spirit


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Post 6

Wolfman, Zaphodista :X (soon to be Zarquon again, or maybe not)

Thanks for the compliments! As for the picture, I too am baffled. I think they based it on a picture I included in the original article which was supposedly the official portrait of him. It did have a small undecorative crown (nothing like this one) but his clothing appeared to be bearskin and it was only a bust portrait; they didn't get the shield from there. My guess is the editors just wanted to make him look like what they thought a warrior-king should look like. I'm happy it got a picture in the first place, so I won't complain.


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Post 7

Spirit

Interesting - I'm the artist who did that picture and I never saw the original picture you included with your article. Can you point me to it please? The images aren't down to the editors - they simply let us know which articles are to be featured and we go from there. Thanks smiley - smiley Spirit


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Post 8

Wolfman, Zaphodista :X (soon to be Zarquon again, or maybe not)

Spirit must have posted while I was writing my own post. Disregard what I said (except for the "thank you" of course).


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Post 9

Wolfman, Zaphodista :X (soon to be Zarquon again, or maybe not)

LOL You did it again! I forget where I found the original copy of the picture but I copied it to my own website. (I know, I know, you're not supposed to do that, but I knew they wouldn't use it in the approved entry anyway.) I'm not sure if it's still there or not but if it is it would be at http://www.angelfire.com/scifi/zarquon/boru.jpg At least I think it would.


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Post 10

mryan

The three lions passant are the family crest of the McMahon family (or my line of it at least) anyhow, they are usually silver on a red background. And Brian Boru's brother was named Mahon, so possibly that's where that came from?


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Post 11

Wolfman, Zaphodista :X (soon to be Zarquon again, or maybe not)

Hmm, I was afraid it would do that. I think my Angelfire account has exceeded the disk space limit, so all of the older images don't show up. I think I have it on my hard drive though. I'll upload it later today and then let you know.


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Post 12

Spirit

Thanks, but there's nothing there smiley - sadface If you do manage to find it then let me know and if I find time I'll redo it, as it's always good to represent things as accurately as possible - when possible.


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Post 13

Is mise Duncan

I have seen the image from which this came, complete with 3 lions and curvy shield but...the 3 lions is the heraldic shield of the "O'brians" which means descendents of Brian....and I am not convinced that plate armour was in use at that stage in history...and the Celtic shield was round...


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Post 14

Demon Drawer

Indeed it was round. And Plate armour came with the Plantagenets I believe. I saw the original icture now sadly losst it was like many I have seen from the period in museums over here.


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Post 15

Wolfman, Zaphodista :X (soon to be Zarquon again, or maybe not)

This whole controversy on the crest is very interesting. I must confess, I'm not very familiar with the particular crests of the Irish clans. Anyway, I found the picture I was looking for and uploaded it to my new website. It's been a while since I last saw it so I was mistaken about a couple things. The clothing is not bearskin. It appears to be the skin of deer or another similar animal. But that's hardly significant. I no longer think it is an "official" portrait as it was obviously painted long after his death, as anyone can see from the style of the painting. Still, I think it is probably much more realistic to how he really would have dressed. Here it is: [Broken link removed by Moderator]


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Post 16

jbliqemp...

Hm. When I subbed this, I noted the import link to the picture at the top, but didn't include it in the article, as I'm not supposed to link to pictures (~non-permanent) off of h2g2. Then I checked the link and found it was lost.

Ah, well. I tried.

-jb


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Post 17

Spirit

Thanking you for that Zarquon! Just to let you know - I had to reload the url as I was originally given a message stating that they're sorry but they don't allow hotlinking to their site from other sites - just for your info. Thanks again for the more accurate pic.


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Post 18

Spirit

No prob - sorted now. But perhaps when subbing if there is a link to an image that might be useful for reference (particularly for an article which is of something from a rather remote time in history), could you let the editors know and ask them to inform the artists? Cheers.


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Post 19

jbliqemp...

I had linked the picture in the article; in a short paragraph of important information that could be relevant to the article, but I that I wasn't sure whether to include. The picture was pushed off the angelfire site, and so didn't appear; it wasn't there.

-jb


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Post 20

boru18

Brian Bóruma mac Cennétig is a man of great ledgend he is my ancestory and i have studied his history and truth be told that the three lions on his sheild represent the fact that he admired old culture and lions were a sign of great strength in rome and thats what they stand for it is also the clan o'briens sheild thats my clan by the way.


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