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SCANDINAVIAN ANTIQUITIES OF DUBLIN. 21
and Limerick of Ivar ;" !
but of this legend, which BOOK t
apparently originated with Giraldus Cambrensis,
there is no trace whatsoever in the Annals of Ulster,
of Clonmacnois, or of the Four Masters, or in the
Chronicon Scotorum, or in the War of the Gaedhil
with the Gaill, or in any Irish manuscript known to
us. There is no allusion in any of them to the'
building of cities by Aulaf or his followers, or to his
had brothers named Ivar and Sitric. On the
having
contrary, they record the building
of a fortress at
Dublin 8 twelve years before Aulaf came to Ireland,
and do not even mention the name of Sitric until
nearly forty years after, when they record the death
of a
3
Sitric, who was (not the brother, but) the son
of Ivar ; and while we have an uninterrupted succes-
sion of Scandinavian kings in Dublin, there is no
record of any Scandinavian king in Waterford until
903, or in Limerick till 940.
In fact, if we except the interpolated Annals of
Innisfallen, the only Irish authority for stating that
Aulaf had any brothers, is Dudley M'Firbis's " Three
Fragments of Irish History," in which it is said that
he had brothers named Ivar and Oisile, and that, in
a fit of jealousy, he slew the latter. 4
1 GiralduCambrensis,Top.Hib.,
lib. 3, cap.
xliii. Giraldus was Clonmac. 838.
copied by Higden, Polychronicon,
8 Ann. 4 Mast. A.D. 840. Ann.
8 Ibid. A.D. 891
" Sitric, son of
lib. 1, Her. Scrip., voL iii., p. 182; Ivar, was slain by other Norse-
and Higden was avowedly copied
men."
by Keating, Hist, of Ireland; and * Ann. 4 Mast. A.D. 861. "Amh-
M'Geoghegan, Histoire d'Irlande, laeibh, Imhar, and Uailsi, three
vol. i., p. 387. Ware (Ant. IreL, chieftains of the foreigners, and
Lon., 1705, p. 59), also copies from Lorcan, son of Cathal, Lord of
Giraldus the story of the three Meath, plundered the hind of
brothers building the three cities. Flann." Ann. Ult. A.D. 861 f