There probably wasn't much talk about marking the new millennium - with a giant spike, a candle in every hut, or otherwise - in the Dublin of 999 AD. Back then, Duibhlinn (as Gaelic-speakers called it) or Dyfflin (as the Norse called it) was the capital of a small pirate and trading kingdom that was too busy establishing and defending itself to organise its citizens into commemorative committees to create structures and events worthy of the occasion.
In fact, Dublin's forefathers spent the final days of the first millennium AD resisting the advances of a petty east Clare chieftain who would later become a self-styled "emperor of the Irish". These advances, however, were far from friendly.
Brian Boru
Late in 999, Mael Morda, king of Leinster, and Sitric Silkbeard, king of Dublin, aligned their forces to resist the influence of the ambitious king of Munster, Brian Boru. The Dublin and Leinster men had fought off attempts at domination from the Ui Neill overkings in Ulster and weren't about to submit to somebody from the south.
On December 30th, 999, battle was joined between the kings of Leinster and Dublin against the forces of the king of Munster at Glenn Mama, near Saggart in Co Dublin. According to Ireland before the Normans by Donncha O Corrain, Brian Boru inflicted "a crushing defeat" on his enemies at Glenn Mama and "followed up this victory by attacking the city of Dublin".
Brian Boru then "spent from the following January to the beginning of February at Dublin. He plundered the city for booty, burned the fortress and expelled Sitric, king of the Norse. Eventually Sitric, who could find no refuge in Ireland, returned, submitted to Brian, gave hostages and was restored to Dublin."
A description of a previous sacking of Limerick in the 12th-century text Cogad Gaeldel re Gallaib - quoted in The Course of Irish History - gives an insight into what could have happened when Brian Boru plundered Dublin in the first days of this millennium.
The quotation goes: "They carried off their jewels and their best property, and their saddles beautiful and foreign, their gold and their silver, their beautifully woven cloth of all colours and of all kinds. The fort and the good town they reduced to a cloud of smoke and to red fire afterwards. The whole of the captives were collected on the hills of Saingel. Every one of them that was fit for war was killed, and every one that was fit for a slave was enslaved."
Dogged struggle
Relations between Brian oru and some of his foes at Glenn Mama worsened again in 1014, leading to a more substantial engagement at the Battle of Clontarf on Good Friday, April 23rd. According to Ireland before the Normans, Clontarf turned into a "long and dogged struggle between almost equally balanced forces.
"Eventually, the Leinstermen and Norse broke and were routed with much slaughter. Losses on both sides were heavy. Brian was killed in his tent by Norsemen fleeing from the scene, whilst his son, Murchad, and most of the more prominent Munster leaders were slain in the battle." Mael Morda was also killed, but Sitric Silkbeard stayed inside the city and survived.
An interesting addendum to Brian Boru's campaigns in Dublin is that the "fortress" he reportedly burnt while plundering the city in January, 1000 might have been that built by the Norse king, Olaf the White, in the 850s when he began construction of a fortified town on a steep ridge overlooking the Liffey where Christ Church and Dublin Castle now stand. This means that Olaf the White's fortified town could be in the area where some historians believe Vikings started a settlement which eventually grew into modern day Dublin.
Wooden streets
The Course of Irish History states that "excavations at Wood Quay have shown that Dublin was a ramparted or walled town" and "a city of wooden streets and wooden houses". Indeed, the excavations at Wood Quay from 1972 to 1978 unearthed the foundations of wood and wattle houses, often built on top of each other and maintaining the same property boundaries over centuries. These excavations also revealed the cramped and unhealthy conditions that Dubliners of the time endured.
But in 1978 the City Fathers decided - against the wishes of some 20,000 Dubliners at the time - to erect Dublin Corporation's Civic Offices at Wood Quay. If the corporation hadn't proceeded with its offices, perhaps Wood Quay would today be the centre of a truly worthwhile millennium project aimed at restoring and revealing the city's roots.