Lion of Ireland

Lion of Ireland (1981) Morgan Llywelyn

Lion of Ireland recounts the story of Brian Boru, one of the greatest kings of Ireland. He sought to unite all the small kingdoms and dispose of the petty rivalries that allowed the Norsemen to repeatedly plunder Irish cities.

This was an interesting book–I love historical novels and fantasies, and Morgan Llywellyn is very good at them.

But. About a third of the way through this book I found myself wishing it would hurry up and end. I finished the book, but I read rather quickly through the last third, glossing over detail.

Part of the frustration may have been Gormlaith. I didn’t like her, and by the time she meets Brian, any attempts to humanize her have come far too late.

I do realize that she was working with history here, so there wasn’t a lot she could necessarily do with the fact that I didn’t like Gormlaith, but I guess I found the attempt to redeem Gormlaith jolting and annoying. I didn’t like her, and I didn’t see how any good could come of her. So why were we bothering with her so much?

It was, unsurprisingly, a sad book. To say that “everybody dies” wouldn’t be too far fetched. I was expecting Brian to die at the end of the book–after all, this is the story of his life so the book should end in his death–it was just depressing to watch everyone else die along the way. Again, I know that when dealing with historical figures you can’t just have someone live if they didn’t actually live, but… jeesh. So don’t pick this book up if you’re in the mood for a happy ending.

I liked some of the characters very much, especially Brian, which is why I kept reading the book. But as I said, I really disliked Gormlaith and just didn’t want to read about her. The storytelling was good, but I found it odd that some threads were started and then dropped. For instance, I kept wondering what happened to Donogh’s siblings and what happened to Niamh.

I also found it difficult to judge how much time was passing. I kept finding myself surprised at how your or how old Brian was, because I kept losing track of his age. It wasn’t a huge problem, but it was distracting.

So, it was a good story, with interesting characters, but there were flaws that caused problems for me, especially in the second half of the book. If you like books about historical Ireland, you’ll like this book, although you may not love it, but I definitely prefer other of Morgan Llywelyn’s books, particularly 1916.
Rating: 6/10

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