excerpt – BRIAN OF MUNSTER: THE BOY CHIEFTAIN
(by E.S.Brooks in St Nicholas)
And with this defiance the boy chieftain and ‘the young champions of the tribe of Cas’ went into the woods and fastnesses of County Clare, and for months kept up a fierce guerilla warfare. The Danish tyrants knew neither peace nor rest from his swift and sudden attacks. Much booty of ‘satins and silken cloths, both scarlet and green, pleasing jewels and saddles beautiful and foreign’ did they lose to this active young chieftain, and much tribute of cows and hogs and other possessions did he force from them. So dauntless an outlaw did he become that his name struck terror from Galway Bay to the banks of the Shannon and Lough Derg to the Burren of Clare.