"We want a nice clean fight. No gouging, no biting." This is our introduction to the Battle of Magh Breagh, which took place in 670 AD, but is being re-enacted before our eyes on a baking Sunday afternoon in Drogheda. "I'd murder a cup of tea," says the woman beside me. "All that gear the warriors have on them - I'd say they're toasted," her friend remarks.
We are sitting in the stands of O'Raghallaigh's GFC grounds, observing men in wool blankets and heavy tunics charge at each other with staves, hatchets and swords. The Irish side is daubed with blue woad, and its opponents, the "evil" Saxons, sport helmets and chain-mail. It all seems like a scene from Braveheart, especially when the two armies charge at each other with bloodcurdling roars and yells.
There is a clang of sword on sword, and a mighty whump when a hatchet falls on broad shield. The women, clad in scarlet and green robes, are at it too, wielding swords, bows and arrows, and long staves. Over the PA system, the narrator tells us that in those days the women always fought alongside their men.
We hold our collective breath as some very convincing-looking killings take place: the field is littered with the bodies of the "dead" and "wounded". Over to one side, an Irish warrior is having his head bandaged. Oh dear - a real casualty.
"He'll need a few stitches," is the verdict. And our attention is drawn back to the field for another dramatic charge.
The Battle of Magh Breagh took place because the Saxon King of Northumbria, big baddie Ecgfirth, landed north of Togher with his army and they raided and plundered all round them from Drogheda to Dublin. Ecgfirth was hoping to find and kill his half-brother Aldfirth, who was being educated in Ireland at the time. Aldfirth had an Irish mother (an O'Neill) and Ecgfirth feared he might lay claim to Ecgfirth's Northumbrian throne. (Today's re-enactment is given a local flavour by the fact that two former Mayors of Drogheda, also brothers, Frank and Malachy Godfrey, play the parts of Ecgfirth and Aldfirth.) Finneachta, the Ard Ri of the time, met the Saxons on the plains of Magh Breagh, but his army was eventually defeated.
"This is the first time for the Society of Irish Re-enactors to re-enact a Saxon battle," explains Dara MacGabhann, Secretary of the Drogheda Battle Festival Committee, and a member of Tuatha na Boinn, the Drogheda-based arm of SIR.
A number of different clans (re-enactors) have travelled to Drogheda for today's battle. The face of Grayson Angus, who is with the Dion tEilean Bris clan in Belfast, is streaked with blue. "It's only make-up. We're not allowed to use real woad because of its hallucinogenic properties." He sports a gleaming steel sword. "We keep the edge of the swords blunt so we can't do too much damage, just bruises." He's been doing battle quite a lot recently. "Re-enacting battles is like football - it has a season, and this is it."
Local poet and warrior, Dermot O'Neill, launched his book of poems, The Warrior Poet, during the festival. Between poetry readings and mock fights, he sells toy shields and hatchets for young would-be warriors; also plaster of paris skulls.
"Get your freshly-dead skulls here!" he jokes. oinn for over a year: "You put on a show for people to give them a sense of history. They can understand better what it was like to be in a clan and to want to protect your people. The east coast of Ireland has a long history of invasions and it is good to make people aware of this."
At another stall, wood carver Clive O Gibne ?? is displaying his Celtic designs, plus his impressive currach, made of "one big cowskin draped over a hazel basket". Recently, he navigated 75 miles of the River Boyne in this traditional vessel - which is normally on display in the visitor centre at Newgrange. Before the battle is re-enacted, all the clans gather in Drogheda's Market Square to march through the town in a parade led by the thumping rhythms of the Drogheda Samba Band. Scouts from St Mary's diocese of Drogheda will act as water bearers during the battle.
"We have to fill up the bottles with water and give the warriors a drink," says Cormac McCashin (10). He has a wooden sword "just in case the British come over. I'll be ready if they try to take a whack at me".
