CHAPTER I.

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A Popular

History of Ireland:

from the

Earliest Period

to the

Emancipation of the Catholics

by Thomas D'Arcy McGee

PUBLISHERS' PREFACE.

Ireland, lifting herself from the dust, drying her tears, and proudly

demanding her legitimate place among the nations of the earth, is a

spectacle to cause immense progress in political philosophy.

Behold a nation whose fame had spread over all the earth ere the flag

of England had come into existence. For 500 years her life has been

apparently extinguished. The fiercest whirlwind of oppression that ever

in the wrath of God was poured upon the children of disobedience had

swept over her. She was an object of scorn and contempt to her

subjugator. Only at times were there any signs of life—an occasional

meteor flash that told of her olden spirit—of her deathless race.

Degraded and apathetic as this nation of Helots was, it is not strange

that political philosophy, at all times too Sadducean in its

principles, should ask, with a sneer, "Could these dry bones live?" The

fulness of time has come, and with one gallant sunward bound the "old

land" comes forth into the political day to teach these lessons, that

Right must always conquer Might in the end—that by a compensating

principle in the nature of things, Repression creates slowly, but

certainly, a force for its overthrow.

Had it been possible to kill the Irish Nation, it had long since ceased

to exist. But the transmitted qualities of her glorious children, who

were giants in intellect, virtue, and arms for 1500 years before Alfred

the Saxon sent the youth of his country to Ireland in search of

knowledge with which to civilize his people,—the legends, songs, and

dim traditions of this glorious era, and the irrepressible piety,

sparkling wit, and dauntless courage of her people, have at last

brought her forth like. Lazarus from the tomb. True, the garb of the

prison or the cerements of the grave may be hanging upon her, but

"loose her and let her go" is the wise policy of those in whose hands

are her present destinies.

A nation with such a strange history must have some great work yet to

do in the world. Except the Jews, no people has so suffered without

dying.

The History of Ireland is the most interesting of records, and the

least known. The Publishers of this edition of D'Arcy McGee's excellent

and impartial work take advantage of the awakening interest in Irish

literature to present to the public a book of _high-class history_, as

cheap as _largely circulating romance_. A sale as large as that of a

popular romance is, therefore, necessary to pay the speculation. That

sale the Publishers expect. Indeed, as truth is often stranger than

fiction, so Irish history is more romantic than romance. How Queen

Scota unfurled the Sacred Banner. How Brian and Malachy contended for

empire. How the "Pirate of the North" scourged the Irish coast. The

glories of Tara and the piety of Columba. The cowardice of James and

the courage of Sarsfield. How Dathi, the fearless, sounded the Irish

war-cry in far Alpine passes, and how the Geraldine forayed Leinster.

The deeds of O'Neil and O'Donnell. The march of Cromwell, the

destroying angel. Ireland's sun sinking in dim eclipse. The dark night

of woe in Erin for a hundred years. '83—'98—'48—'68. Ireland's sun

rising in glory. Surely the Youth of Ireland will find in their

country's records romance enough!

The English and Scotch are well read in the histories of their country.

The Irish are, unfortunately, not so; and yet, what is English or

Scottish history to compare with Irish? Ireland was a land of saints

and scholars when Britons were painted savages. Wise and noble laws,

based upon the spirit of Christianity, were administered in Erin, and

valuable books were written ere the Britons were as far advanced in

civilization as the Blackfeet Indians. In morals and intellect, in

Christianity and civilization, in arms, art, and science, Ireland shone

like a star among the nations when darkness enshrouded the world. And

she nobly sustained civilization and religion by her missionaries and

scholars. The libraries and archives of Europe contain the records of

their piety and learning. Indeed the echoes have scarcely yet ceased to

sound upon our ears, of the mighty march of her armed children over the

war-fields of Europe, during that terrible time when England's cruel

law, intended to destroy the spirit of a martial race, precipitated an

armed torrent of nearly 500,000 of the flower of the Irish youth into

foreign service. Irish steel glittered in the front rank of the most

desperate conflicts, and more than once the ranks of England went down

before "the Exiles," in just punishment for her terrible penal code

which excluded the Irish soldier from his country's service.

It was the Author's wish to educate his countrymen in their national

records. If by issuing a cheap edition the present Publishers carry out

to any extent that wish, it will be to them a source of satisfaction.

It is impossible to conclude this Preface without an expression of

regret at the dark and terrible fate which overtook the high-minded,

patriotic, and distinguished Irishman, Thomas D'Arcy McGee. He was a

man who loved his country well; and when the contemptible squabbles and

paltry dissensions of the present have passed away, his name will be a

hallowed memory, like that of Emmet or Fitzgerald, to inspire men with

high, ideals of patriotism and devotion.

CAMERON & FERGUSON.

[Note: From 1857 until his death, McGee was active in Canadian

politics. A gifted speaker and strong supporter of Confederation, he is

regarded as one of Canada's fathers of Confederation. On April 7, 1868,

after attending a late-night session in the House of Commons, he was

shot and killed as he returned to his rooming house on Sparks Street in

Ottawa. It is generally believed that McGee was the victim of a Fenian

plot. Patrick James Whelan was convicted and hanged for the crime,

however the evidence implicating him was later seen to be suspect.]

CONTENTS

BOOK I.

CHAPTER I.—The First Inhabitants

CHAPTER II.—The First Ages

CHAPTER III.—Christianity Preached at Tara—The Result

CHAPTER IV.—The Constitution, and how the Kings kept it

CHAPTER V.—Reign of Hugh II.—The Irish Colony in Scotland obtains

its Independence

CHAPTER VI.—Kings of the Seventh Century

CHAPTER VII.—Kings of the Eighth Century

CHAPTER VIII.—What the Irish Schools and Saints did in the Three First

Christian Centuries

BOOK II.

CHAPTER I.—The Danish Invasion

CHAPTER II.—Kings of the Ninth Century (Continued)—Nial

III.—Malachy I.—Hugh VII

CHAPTER III.—Reign of Flan "of the Shannon" (A.D. 879 to 916)

CHAPTER IV.—Kings of the Tenth Century—Nial IV.—Donogh

II.—Congal III.—Donald IV

CHAPTER V.—Reign of Malachy II. and Rivalry of Brian

CHAPTER VI.—Brian, Ard-Righ—Battle of Clontarf

CHAPTER VII.—Effects of the Rivalry of Brian and Malachy on the Ancient

Constitution

CHAPTER VIII.—Latter Days of the Northmen in Ireland

BOOK III.

CHAPTER I.—The Fortunes of the Family of Brian

CHAPTER II.—The Contest between the North and South—Rise of the

Family of O'Conor

CHAPTER III.—Thorlogh More O'Conor—Murkertach of

Aileach—Accession of Roderick O'Conor

CHAPTER IV.—State of Religion and Learning among the Irish previous to

the Anglo-Norman Invasion

CHAPTER V.—Social Condition of the Irish previous to the Norman Invasion

CHAPTER VI.—Foreign Relations of the Irish previous to the Anglo-Norman

Invasion

BOOK IV.

CHAPTER I.—Dermid McMurrogh's Negotiations and Success—The First

Expedition of the Normans into Ireland

CHAPTER II.—The Arms, Armour and Tactics of the Normans and Irish

CHAPTER III.—The First Campaign of Earl Richard—Siege of

Dublin—Death of King Dermid McMurrogh

CHAPTER IV.—Second Campaign of Earl Richard—Henry II. in Ireland

CHAPTER V.—From the Return of Henry II. to England till the Death of Earl

Richard and his principal Companions

CHAPTER VI.—The Last Years of the Ard-Righ, Roderick O'Conor

CHAPTER VII.—Assassination of Hugh de Lacy—John "Lackland" in

Ireland—Various Expeditions of John de Courcy—Death of Conor

Moinmoy, and Rise of Cathal, "the Red-Handed" O'Conor—Close of the Career

of De Courcy and De Burgh

CHAPTER VIII.—Events of the Thirteenth Century—The Normans in

Connaught

CHAPTER IX.—Events of the Thirteenth Century—The Normans in Munster

and Leinster

CHAPTER X.—Events of the Thirteenth Century—The Normans in Meath

and Ulster

CHAPTER XI.—Retrospect of the Norman Period in Ireland—A Glance at

the Military Tactics of the Times—No Conquest of the Country in the

Thirteenth Century

CHAPTER XII.—State of Society and Learning in Ireland during the Norman

Period

BOOK V.

CHAPTER I.—The Rise of "the Red Earl"—Relations of Ireland and

Scotland

CHAPTER II.—The Northern Irish enter into Alliance with King Robert

Bruce—Arrival and First Campaign of Edward Bruce

CHAPTER III.—Bruce's Second Campaign and Coronation at Dundalk—The

Rising in Connaught—Battle of Athenry—Robert Bruce in Ireland

CHAPTER IV.—Battle of Faughard and Death of King Edward

Bruce—Consequences of his Invasion—Extinction of the Earldom of

Ulster—Irish Opinion of Edward Bruce

BOOK VI.

CHAPTER I.—Civil War in England—Its Effects on the

Anglo-Irish—The Knights of St. John—General Desire of the

Anglo-Irish to Naturalize themselves among the Native Population—A Policy

of Non-Intercourse between the Races Resolved on in England

CHAPTER II.—Lionel, Duke of Clarence, Lord Lieutenant—The Penal

Code of Race—"The Statute of Kilkenny," and some of its Consequences

CHAPTER III.—Art McMurrogh, Lord of Leinster—First Expedition of

Richard II. of England to Ireland

CHAPTER IV.—Subsequent Proceedings of Richard II.—Lieutenancy and

Death of the Earl of March—Second Expedition of Richard against Art

McMurrogh—Change of Dynasty in England

CHAPTER V.—Parties within "the Pale"—Battles of Kilmainham and

Killucan—Sir John Talbot's Lord Lieutenancy

CHAPTER VI.—Acts of the Native Princes—Subdivision of Tribes and

Territories—Anglo-Irish Towns under Native Protection—Attempt of

Thaddeus O'Brien, Prince of Thomond, to Restore the Monarchy—Relations of

the Races in the Fifteenth Century

CHAPTER VII.—Continued Division and Decline of "the English

Interest"—Richard, Duke of York, Lord Lieutenant—Civil War again in

England—Execution of the Earl of Desmond—Ascendancy of the

Kildare Geraldines

CHAPTER VIII.—The Age and Rule of Gerald, Eighth Earl of

Kildare—The Tide begins to turn for the English Interest—The

Yorkist Pretenders, Simnel and Warbeck—Poyning's Parliament—Battles

of Knockdoe and Monabraher

CHAPTER IX.—State of Irish and Anglo—Irish Society during the

Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries

CHAPTER X.—State of Religion and Learning during the Fourteenth and

Fifteenth Centuries

BOOK VII.

CHAPTER I.—Irish Policy of Henry the Eighth during the Lifetime of

Cardinal Wolsey

CHAPTER II.—The Insurrection of Silken Thomas—The Geraldine

League—Administration of Lord Leonard Gray

CHAPTER III.—Sir Anthony St. Leger, Lord Deputy—Negotiations of

the Irish Chiefs with James the Fifth of Scotland—First Attempts to

Introduce the Protestant Reformation—Opposition of the

Clergy—Parliament of 1541—The Protectors of the Clergy

Excluded—State of the Country—The Crowns United-Henry the Eighth

Proclaimed at London and Dublin

CHAPTER IV.—Adhesion of O'Neil, O'Donnell, and O'Brien—A new

Anglo-Irish Peerage—New Relations of Lord and Tenant—Bishops

appointed by the Crown—Retrospect

BOOK VIII.

CHAPTER I.—Events of the Reign of Edward Sixth

CHAPTER II.—Events of the Reign of Philip and Mary

CHAPTER III.—Accession of Queen Elizabeth—Parliament of

1560—The Act of Uniformity—Career and Death of John O'Neil "the

Proud"

CHAPTER IV.—Sir Henry Sidney's Deputyship—Parliament of

1569—The Second "Geraldine League"—Sir James Fitzmaurice

CHAPTER V.—The "Undertakers" in Ulster and Leinster—Defeat and

Death of Sir James Fitzmaurice

CHAPTER VI.—Sequel of the Second Geraldine League—Plantation of

Munster—Early Career of Hugh O'Neil, Earl of Tyrone—Parliament of

1585

CHAPTER VII.—Battle of Glenmalure—Sir John Perrott's

Administration—The Spanish Armada—Lord Deputy

Fitzwilliam—Escape of Hugh Roe O'Donnell from Dublin Castle—The

Ulster Confederacy formed

CHAPTER VIII.—The Ulster Confederacy—Feagh Mac Hugh

O'Byrne—Campaign of 1595—Negotiations, English and

Spanish—Battle of the Yellow Ford—Its Consequences

CHAPTER IX.—Essex's Campaign of 1599—Battle of the Curlieu

Mountains—O'Neil's Negotiations with Spain—Mountjoy Lord Deputy

CHAPTER X.—Mountjoy's Administration—Operations in Ulster and

Munster—Carew's "Wit and Cunning"—Landing of Spaniards in the

South—Battle of Kinsale—Death of O'Donnell in Spain

CHAPTER XI.—The Conquest of Munster—Death of Elizabeth, and

Submission of O'Neil—"The Articles of Mellifont"

CHAPTER XII.—State of Religion and Learning during the Reign of Elizabeth

BOOK IX.

CHAPTER I.—James I.—Flight of the Earls—Confiscation of

Ulster—Penal Laws—Parliamentary Opposition

CHAPTER II.—Last years of James—Confiscation of the Midland

Counties—Accession of Charles I.—Grievances and

"Graces"—Administration of Lord Strafford

CHAPTER III.—Lord Stafford's Impeachment and Execution—Parliament

of 1639-'41—The Insurrection of 1641—The Irish Abroad

CHAPTER IV.—The Insurrection of 1641

CHAPTER V.—The Catholic Confederation—Its Civil Government and

Military Establishment

CHAPTER VI.—The Confederate War—Campaign of 1643—The

Cessation

CHAPTER VII.—The Cessation and its Consequences

CHAPTER VIII.—Glamorgan's Treaty—The New Nuncio

Rinuccini—O'Neil's Position—The Battle of Benburb

CHAPTER IX.—From the Battle of Benburb till the Landing of Cromwell at

Dublin

CHAPTER X.—Cromwell's Campaign—1649-1650

CHAPTER XI.—Close of the Confederate War

CHAPTER XII.—Ireland under the Protectorate—Administration of

Henry Cromwell—Death of Oliver

BOOK X.

CHAPTER I.—Reign of Charles II.

CHAPTER II.—Reign of Charles II. (Concluded)

CHAPTER III.—The State of Religion and Learning in Ireland during the

Seventeenth Century

CHAPTER IV.—Accession of James II.—Tyrconnell's Administration

CHAPTER V.—King James to Ireland—Irish Parliament of 1689

CHAPTER VI.—The Revolutionary War—Campaign of 1639—Sieges of

Derry and Enniskillen

CHAPTER VII.—The Revolutionary War—Campaign of 1690—Battle

of the Boyne—Its Consequences—the Sieges of Athlone and Limerick

CHAPTER VIII.—The Winter of 1690-91

CHAPTER IX.—The Revolutionary War—Campaign of 1691—Battle of

Aughrim—Capitulation of Limerick

CHAPTER X.—Reign of King William

CHAPTER XI.—Reign of Queen Anne

CHAPTER XII.—The Irish Soldiers Abroad, during the Reigns of William and

Anne

BOOK XI.

CHAPTER I.—Accession of George I.—Swift's Leadership

CHAPTER II.—Reign of George II.—Growth of Public Spirit—The

"Patriot" Party—Lord Chesterfield's Administration

CHAPTER III.—The Last Jacobite Movement—The Irish Soldiers

Abroad—French Expedition under Thurot, or O'Farrell

CHAPTER IV.—Reign of George II. (Concluded)—Malone's Leadership

CHAPTER V.—Accession of George III.—Flood's

Leadership—Octennial Parliaments Established

CHAPTER VI.—Flood's Leadership—State of the Country between 1760

and 1776

CHAPTER VII.—Grattan's Leadership—"Free Trade" and the Volunteers

CHAPTER VIII.—Grattan's Leadership—Legislative and Judicial

Independence Established

CHAPTER IX.—The Era of Independence—First Period

CHAPTER X.—The Era of Independence—Second Period

CHAPTER XI.—The Era of Independence—Third Period—Catholic

Relief Bill of 1793

CHAPTER XII.—The Era of Independence—Effects of the French

Revolution in Ireland—Secession of Grattan, Curran, and their Friends,

from Parliament, in 1797

CHAPTER XIII.—The United Irishmen

CHAPTER XIV.—Negotiations with France and Holland—The Three

Expeditions Negotiated by Tone and Lewines

CHAPTER XV.—The Insurrection of 1798

CHAPTER XVI.—The Insurrection of 1798—The Wexford Insurrection

CHAPTER XVII.—The Insurrection elsewhere—Fate of the Leading United

Irishmen

CHAPTER XVIII.—Administration of Lord Cornwallis—Before the Union

CHAPTER XIX.—Last Session of the Irish Parliament—The Legislative

Union of Great Britain and Ireland

BOOK XII.

CHAPTER I.—After the Union—Death of Lord Clare—Robert

Emmet's Emeute

CHAPTER II.—Administration of Lord Hardwick (1801 to 1806), and of the

Duke of Bedford (1806 to 1808)

CHAPTER III.—Administration of the Duke of Richmond (1807 to 1813)

CHAPTER IV.—O'Connell's Leadership—1813 to 1821

CHAPTER V.—Retrospect of the State of Religion and Learning during the

Reign of George III

CHAPTER VI.—The Irish Abroad, during the Reign of George III

CHAPTER VII.—O'Connell's Leadership—The Catholic

Association—1821 to 1825

CHAPTER VIII.—O'Connell's Leadership—The Clare

Election—Emancipation of the Catholics

HISTORY OF IRELAND

BOOK I.

CHAPTER I.

THE FIRST INHABITANTS.

Ireland is situated in the North Atlantic, between the degrees

fifty-one and a half and fifty-five and a half North, and five and a

quarter and ten and a third West longitude from Greenwich. It is the

last land usually seen by ships leaving the Old World, and the first by

those who arrive there from the Northern ports of America. In size it

is less than half as large as Britain, and in shape it may be compared

to one of those shields which we see in coats-of-arms, the four

Provinces—Ulster, Connaught, Leinster, and Munster—representing the

four quarters of the shield.

Around the borders of the country, generally near the coast, several

ranges of hills and mountains rear their crests, every Province having

one or more such groups. The West and South have, however, the largest

and highest of these hills, from the sides of all which descend

numerous rivers, flowing in various directions to the sea. Other rivers

issue out of large lakes formed in the valleys, such as the Galway

river which drains Lough Corrib, and the Bann which carries off the

surplus waters of Lough Neagh (_Nay_). In a few districts where the

fall for water is insufficient, marshes and swamps were long ago

formed, of which the principal one occupies nearly 240,000 acres in the

very heart of the country. It is called "the Bog of Allen," and, though

quite useless for farming purposes, still serves to supply the

surrounding district with fuel, nearly as well as coal mines do in

other countries.

In former times, Ireland was as well wooded as watered, though hardly a

tree of the primitive forest now remains. One of the earliest names

applied to it was "the wooded Island," and the export of timber and

staves, as well as of the furs of wild animals, continued, until the

beginning of the seventeenth century, to be a thriving branch of trade.

But in a succession of civil and religious wars, the axe and the torch

have done their work of destruction, so that the age of most of the

wood now standing does not date above two or three generations back.

Who were the first inhabitants of this Island, it is impossible to say,

but we know it was inhabited at a very early period of the world's

lifetime—probably as early as the time when Solomon the Wise, sat in

Jerusalem on the throne of his father David. As we should not

altogether reject, though neither are we bound to believe, the wild and

uncertain traditions of which we have neither documentary nor

monumental evidence, we will glance over rapidly what the old Bards and

Story-tellers have handed down to us concerning Ireland before it

became Christian.

The _first_ story they tell is, that about three hundred years after

the Universal Deluge, Partholan, of the stock of Japhet, sailed down

the Mediterranean, "leaving Spain on the right hand," and holding

bravely on his course, reached the shores of the wooded western Island.

This Partholan, they tell us, was a double parricide, having killed his

father and mother before leaving his native country, for which horrible

crimes, as the Bards very morally conclude, his posterity were fated

never to possess the land. After a long interval, and when they were

greatly increased in numbers, they were cut off to the last man, by a

dreadful pestilence.

The story of the _second_ immigration is almost as vague as that of the

first. The leader this time is called Nemedh, and his route is

described as leading from the shores of the Black Sea, across what is

now Russia in Europe, to the Baltic Sea, and from the Baltic to

Ireland. He is said to have built two royal forts, and to have "cleared

twelve plains of wood" while in Ireland. He and his posterity were

constantly at war, with a terrible race of Formorians, or Sea Kings,

descendants of Ham, who had fled from northern Africa to the western

islands for refuge from their enemies, the sons of Shem. At length the

Formorians prevailed, and the children of the second immigration were

either slain or driven into exile, from which some of their posterity

returned long afterwards, and again disputed the country, under two

different denominations.

The _Firbolgs_ or Belgae are the _third_ immigration. They were

victorious under their chiefs, the five sons of Dela, and divided the

island into five portions. But they lived in days when the earth—the

known parts of it at least—was being eagerly scrambled for by the

overflowing hosts of Asia, and they were not long left in undisputed

possession of so tempting a prize. Another expedition, claiming descent

from the common ancestor, Nemedh, arrived to contest their supremacy.

These last—the _fourth_ immigration—are depicted to us as accomplished

soothsayers and necromancers who came out of Greece. They could quell

storms; cure diseases; work in metals; foretell future events; forge

magical weapons; and raise the dead to life; they are called the

_Tuatha de Danans_, and by their supernatural power, as well as by

virtue of "the Lia Fail," or fabled "stone of destiny," they subdued

their Belgic kinsmen, and exercised sovereignty over them, till they in

turn were displaced by the Gaelic, or _fifth_ immigration.

This fifth and final colony called themselves alternately, or at

different periods of their history, _Gael_, from one of their remote

ancestors; _Milesians_, from the immediate projector of their

emigration; or _Scoti_, from Scota, the mother of Milesius. They came

from Spain under the leadership of the sons of Milesius, whom they had

lost during their temporary sojourn in that country. In vain the

skilful _Tuatha_ surrounded themselves and their coveted island with

magic-made tempest and terrors; in vain they reduced it in size so as

to be almost invisible from sea; Amergin, one of the sons of Milesius,

was a Druid skilled in all the arts of the east, and led by his wise

counsels, his brothers countermined the magicians, and beat them at

their own weapons. This Amergin was, according to universal usage in

ancient times, at once Poet, Priest, and Prophet; yet when his warlike

brethren divided the island between them, they left the Poet out of

reckoning. He was finally drowned in the waters of the river Avoca,

which is probably the reason why that river has been so suggestive of

melody and song ever since.

Such are the stories told of the _five_ successive hordes of

adventurers who first attempted to colonize our wooded Island. Whatever

moiety of truth may be mixed up with so many fictions, two things are

certain, that long before the time when our Lord and Saviour came upon

earth, the coasts and harbours of Erin were known to the merchants of

the Mediterranean, and that from the first to the fifth Christian

century, the warriors of the wooded Isle made inroads on the Roman

power in Britain and even in Gaul. Agricola, the Roman governor of

Britain in the reign of Domitian—the first century—retained an Irish

chieftain about his person, and we are told by his biographer that an

invasion of Ireland was talked of at Rome. But it never took place; the

Roman eagles, although supreme for four centuries in Britain, never

crossed the Irish Sea; and we are thus deprived of those Latin helps to

our early history, which are so valuable in the first period of the

histories of every western country, with which the Romans had anything

to do.

CHAPTER II.

THE FIRST AGES.

Since we have no Roman accounts of the form of government or state of

society in ancient Erin, we must only depend on the Bards and

Story-tellers, so far as their statements are credible and agree with

each other. On certain main points they do agree, and these are the

points which it seems reasonable for us to take on their authority.

As even brothers born of the same mother, coming suddenly into

possession of a prize, will struggle to see who can get the largest

share, so we find in those first ages a constant succession of armed

struggles for power. The petty Princes who divided the Island between

them were called _Righ_, a word which answers to the Latin _Rex_ and

French _Roi_; and the chief king or monarch was called _Ard-Righ_, or

High-King. The eldest nephew, or son of the king, was the usual heir of

power, and was called the _Tanist_, or successor; although any of the

family of the Prince, his brothers, cousins, or other kinsmen, might be

chosen _Tanist_, by election of the people over whom he was to rule.

One certain cause of exclusion was personal deformity; for if a Prince

was born lame or a hunchback, or if he lost a limb by accident, he was

declared unfit to govern. Even after succession, any serious accident

entailed deposition, though we find the names of several Princes who

managed to evade or escape this singular penalty. It will be observed

besides of the _Tanist_, that the habit of appointing him seems to have

been less a law than a custom; that it was not universal in all the

Provinces; that in some tribes the succession alternated between a

double line of Princes; and that sometimes when the reigning Prince

obtained the nomination of a _Tanist_, to please himself, the choice

was set aside by the public voice of the clansmen. The successor to the

Ard-Righ, or Monarch, instead of being simply called _Tanist_, had the

more sounding title of _Roydamna_, or King-successor.

The chief offices about the Kings, in the first ages, were all filled

by the Druids, or Pagan Priests; the _Brehons_, or Judges, were usually

Druids, as were also the _Bards_, the historians of their patrons. Then

came the Physicians; the Chiefs who paid tribute or received annual

gifts from the Sovereigns, or Princes; the royal stewards; and the

military leaders or Champions, who, like the knights of the middle

ages, held their lands and their rank at court, by the tenure of the

sword. Like the feudal _Dukes_ of France, and _Barons_ of England,

these military nobles often proved too powerful for their nominal

patrons, and made them experience all the uncertainty of reciprocal

dependence. The Champions play an important part in all the early

legends. Wherever there is trouble you are sure to find them. Their

most celebrated divisions were the warriors of the _Red Branch_—that is

to say, the Militia of Ulster; the _Fiann_, or Militia of Leinster,

sometimes the royal guard of Tara, at others in exile and disgrace; the

_Clan-Degaid_ of Munster, and the _Fiann_ of Connaught. The last force

was largely recruited from the Belgic race who had been squeezed into

that western province, by their Milesian conquerors, pretty much as

Cromwell endeavoured to force the Milesian Irish into it, many hundred

years afterwards. Each of these bands had its special heroes; its

Godfreys and Orlandos celebrated in song; the most famous name in

Ulster was Cuchullin: so called from _cu_, a hound, or watch-dog, and

_Ullin_, the ancient name of his province. He lived at the dawn of the

Christian era. Of equal fame was Finn, the father of Ossian, and the

Fingal of modern fiction, who flourished in the latter half of the

second century. Gall, son of Morna, the hero of Connaught (one of the

few distinguished men of Belgic origin whom we hear of through the

Milesian bards), flourished a generation earlier than Finn, and might

fairly compete with him in celebrity, if he had only had an Ossian to

sing his praises.

The political boundaries of different tribes expanded or contracted

with their good or ill fortune in battle. Immigration often followed

defeat, so that a clan, or its offshoot is found at one period on one

part of the map and again on another. As _surnames_ were not generally

used either in Ireland or anywhere else, till after the tenth century,

the great families are distinguishable at first, only by their tribe or

clan names. Thus at the north we have the Hy-Nial race; in the south

the Eugenian race, so called from Nial and Eoghan, their mutual

ancestors.

We have already compared the shape of Erin to a shield, in which the

four Provinces represented the four quarters. Some shields have also

_bosses_ or centre-pieces, and the federal province of MEATH was the

_boss_ of the old Irish shield. The ancient Meath included both the

present counties of that name, stretching south to the Liffey, and

north to Armagh. It was the mensal demesne, or "board of the king's

table:" it was exempt from all taxes, except those of the Ard-Righ, and

its relations to the other Provinces may be vaguely compared to those

of the District of Columbia to the several States of the North American

Union. ULSTER might then be defined by a line drawn from Sligo Harbour

to the mouth of the Boyne, the line being notched here and there by the

royal demesne of Meath; LEINSTER stretched south from Dublin

triangle-wise to Waterford Harbour, but its inland line, towards the

west, was never very well defined, and this led to constant border wars

with Munster; the remainder of the south to the mouth of the Shannon

composed MUNSTER; the present county of Clare and all west of the

Shannon north to Sligo, and part of Cavan, going with CONNAUGHT. The

chief seats of power, in those several divisions, were TARA, for

federal purposes; EMANIA, near Armagh, for Ulster; LEIGHLIN, for

Leinster; CASHEL, for Munster; and CRUCHAIN, (now Rathcrogan, in

Roscommon,) for Connaught.

How the common people lived within these external divisions of power it

is not so easy to describe. All histories tell us a great deal of

kings, and battles, and conspiracies, but very little of the daily

domestic life of the people. In this respect the history of Erin is

much the same as the rest; but some leading facts we do know. Their

religion, in Pagan times, was what the moderns call _Druidism_, but

what they called it themselves we now know not. It was probably the

same religion anciently professed by Tyre and Sidon, by Carthage and

her colonies in Spain; the same religion which the Romans have

described as existing in great part of Gaul, and by their accounts, we

learn the awful fact, that it sanctioned, nay, demanded, human

sacrifices. From the few traces of its doctrines which Christian zeal

has permitted to survive in the old Irish language, we see that _Belus_

or "Crom," the god of fire, typified by the sun, was its chief

divinity—that two great festivals were held in his honour on days

answering to the first of May and last of October. There were also

particular gods of poets, champions, artificers and mariners, just as

among the Romans and Greeks. Sacred groves were dedicated to these

gods; Priests and Priestesses devoted their lives to their service; the

arms of the champion, and the person of the king were charmed by them;

neither peace nor war was made without their sanction; their own

persons and their pupils were held sacred; the high place at the king's

right hand and the best fruits of the earth and the waters were theirs.

Old age revered them, women worshipped them, warriors paid court to

them, youth trembled before them, princes and chieftains regarded them

as elder brethren. So numerous were they in Erin, and so celebrated,

that the altars of Britain and western Gaul, left desolate by the Roman

legions, were often served by hierophants from Erin, which, even in

those Pagan days, was known to all the Druidic countries as the "Sacred

Island." Besides the princes, the warriors, and the Druids, (who were

also the Physicians, Bards and Brehons of the first ages,) there were

innumerable petty chiefs, all laying claim to noble birth and blood.

They may be said with the warriors and priests to be the only freemen.

The _Bruais_, or farmers, though possessing certain legal rights, were

an inferior caste; while of the Artisans, the smiths and armorers only

seem to have been of much consideration. The builders of those

mysterious round towers, of which a hundred ruins yet remain, may also

have been a privileged order. But the mill and the loom were servile

occupations, left altogether to slaves taken in battle, or purchased in

the market-places of Britain. The task of the herdsman, like that of

the farm-labourer, seems to have devolved on the bondsmen, while the

_quern_ and the shuttle were left exclusively in the hands of the

bondswomen.

We need barely mention the names of the first Milesian kings, who were

remarkable for something else than cutting each other's throats, in

order to hasten on to the solid ground of Christian tunes. The

principal names are: Heber and Heremhon, the crowned sons of Milesians;

they at first divided the Island fairly, but Heremhon soon became

jealous of his brother, slew him in battle, and established his own

supremacy. Irial the Prophet was King, and built seven royal

fortresses; Tiern'mass; in his reign the arts of dyeing in colours were

introduced; and the distinguishing of classes by the number of colours

they were permitted to wear, was decreed. Ollamh ("the Wise")

established the Convention of Tara, which assembled habitually every

ninth year, but might be called oftener; it met about the October

festival in honour of Beleus or _Crom_; Eocaid invented or introduced a

new species of wicker boats, called _cassa_, and spent much of his time

upon the sea; a solitary queen, named Macha, appears in the succession,

from whom Armagh takes its name; except Mab, the mythological Queen of

Connaught, she is the sole female ruler of Erin in the first ages; Owen

or Eugene Mor ("the Great") is remembered as the founder of the notable

families who rejoice in the common name of Eugenians; Leary, of whom

the fable of Midas is told with variations; Angus, whom the after

Princes of Alba (Scotland) claimed as their ancestor; Eocaid, the tenth

of that name, in whose reign are laid the scenes of the chief

mythological stories of Erin—such as the story of Queen Mab—the story

of the Sons of Usna; the death of Cuchullin (a counterpart of the

Persian tale of Roostam and Sohrab); the story of Fergus, son of the

king; of Connor of Ulster; of the sons of Dari; and many more. We next

meet with the first king who led an expedition abroad against the

Romans in Crimthan, surnamed _Neea-Naari_, or Nair's Hero, from the

good genius who accompanied him on his foray. A well-planned

insurrection of the conquered Belgae, cut off one of Crimthan's

immediate successors, with all his chiefs and nobles, at a banquet

given on the Belgian-plain (Moybolgue, in Cavan); and arrested for a

century thereafter Irish expeditions abroad. A revolution and a

restoration followed, in which Moran the Just Judge played the part of

Monk to _his_ Charles II., Tuathal surnamed "the Legitimate." It was

Tuathal who imposed the special tax on Leinster, of which, we shall

often hear—under the title of _Borooa_, or Tribute. "The Legitimate"

was succeeded by his son, who introduced the Roman _Lex Talionis_ ("an

eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth") into the Brehon code; soon

after, the Eugenian families of the south, strong in numbers, and led

by a second Owen More, again halved the Island with the ruling race,

the boundary this time being the _esker_, or ridge of land which can be

easily traced from Dublin west to Galway. Olild, a brave and able

Prince, succeeded in time to the southern half-kingdom, and planted his

own kindred deep and firm in its soil, though the unity of the monarchy

was again restored under Cormac Ulla, or _Longbeard_. This Cormac,

according to the legend, was in secret a Christian, and was done to

death by the enraged and alarmed Druids, after his abdication and

retirement from the world (A.D. 266). He had reigned full forty years,

rivalling in wisdom, and excelling in justice the best of his

ancestors. Some of his maxims remain to us, and challenge comparison

for truthfulness and foresight with most uninspired writings.

Cormac's successors during the same century are of little mark, but in

the next the expeditions against the Roman outposts were renewed with

greater energy and on an increasing scale. Another Crimthan eclipsed

the fame of his ancestor and namesake; Nial, called "of the Hostages,"

was slain on a second or third expedition into Gaul (A.D. 405), while

Dathy, nephew and successor to Nial, was struck dead by lightning in

the passage of the Alps (A.D. 428). It was in one of Nial's Gallic

expeditions that the illustrious captive was brought into Erin, for

whom Providence had reserved the glory of its conversion to the

Christian faith—an event which gives a unity and a purpose to the

history of that Nation, which must always constitute its chief

attraction to the Christian reader.

CHAPTER III.

CHRISTIANITY PREACHED AT TARA—THE RESULT.

The conversion of a Pagan people to Christianity must always be a

primary fact in their history. It is not merely for the error it

abolishes or the positive truth it establishes that a national change

of faith is historically important, but for the complete revolution it

works in every public and private relation. The change socially could

not be greater if we were to see some irresistible apostle of Paganism

ariving from abroad in Christian Ireland, who would abolish the

churches, convents, and Christian schools; decry and bring into utter

disuse the decalogue, the Scriptures and the Sacraments; efface all

trace of the existing belief in One God and Three Persons, whether in

private or public worship, in contracts, or in courts of law; and

instead of these, re-establish all over the country, in high places and

in every place, the gloomy groves of the Druids, making gods of the sun

and moon, the natural elements, and man's own passions, restoring human

sacrifices as a sacred duty, and practically excluding from the

community of their fellows, all who presumed to question the divine

origin of such a religion. The preaching of Patrick effected a

revolution to the full as complete as such a counter-revolution in

favour of Paganism could possibly be, and to this thorough revolution

we must devote at least one chapter before going farther.

The best accounts agree that Patrick was a native of Gaul, then subject

to Rome; that he was carried captive into Erin on one of King Nial's

returning expeditions; that he became a slave, as all captives of the

sword did, in those iron times; that he fell to the lot of one Milcho,

a chief of Dalriada, whose flocks he tended for seven years, as a

shepherd, on the mountain called Slemish, in the present county of

Antrim. The date of Nial's death, and the consequent return of his last

expedition, is set down in all our annals at the year 405; as Patrick

was sixteen years of age when he reached Ireland, he must have been

born about the year 390; and as he died in the year 493, he would thus

have reached the extraordinary, but not impossible age of 103 years.

Whatever the exact number of his years, it is certain that his mission

in Ireland commenced in the year 432, and was prolonged till his death,

sixty-one years afterwards. Such an unprecedented length of life, not

less than the unprecedented power, both popular and political, which he

early attained, enabled him to establish the Irish Church, during his

own time, on a basis so broad and deep, that neither lapse of ages, nor

heathen rage, nor earthly temptations, nor all the arts of Hell, have

been able to upheave its firm foundations. But we must not imagine that

the powers of darkness abandoned the field without a struggle, or that

the victory of the cross was achieved without a singular combination of

courage, prudence, and determination—God aiding above all.

If the year of his captivity was 405 or 406, and that of his escape or

manumission seven years later (412 or 413), twenty years would

intervene between his departure out of the land of his bondage, and his

return to it clothed with the character and authority of a Christian

Bishop. This interval, longer or shorter, he spent in qualifying

himself for Holy Orders or discharging priestly duties at Tours, at

Lerins, and finally at Rome. But always by night and day he was haunted

by the thought of the Pagan nation in which he had spent his long years

of servitude, whose language he had acquired, and the character of

whose people he so thoroughly understood. These natural retrospections

were heightened and deepened by supernatural revelations of the will of

Providence towards the Irish, and himself as their apostle. At one

time, an angel presented him, in his sleep, a scroll bearing the

superscription, "the voice of the Irish;" at another, he seemed to hear

in a dream all the unborn children of the nation crying to him for help

and holy baptism. When, therefore, Pope Celestine commissioned him for

this enterprise, "to the ends of the earth," he found him not only

ready but anxious to undertake it.

When the new Preacher arrived in the Irish Sea, in 432, he and his

companions were driven off the coast of Wicklow by a mob, who assailed

them with showers of stones. Running down the coast to Antrim, with

which he was personally familiar, he made some stay at Saul, in Down,

where he made few converts, and celebrated Mass in a barn; proceeding

northward he found himself rejected with scorn by his old master,

Milcho, of Slemish. No doubt it appeared an unpardonable audacity in

the eyes of the proud Pagan, that his former slave should attempt to

teach him how to reform his life and order his affairs. Returning again

southward, led on, as we must believe, by the Spirit of God, he

determined to strike a blow against Paganism at its most vital point.

Having learned that the monarch, Leary (_Laeghaire_), was to celebrate

his birthday with suitable rejoicings at Tara, on a day which happened

to fall on the eve of Easter, he resolved to proceed to Tara on that

occasion, and to confront the Druids in the midst of all the princes

and magnates of the Island. With this view he returned on his former

course, and landed from his frail barque at the mouth of the Boyne.

Taking leave of the boatmen, he desired them to wait for him a certain

number of days, when, if they did not hear from him, they might

conclude him dead, and provide for their own safety. So saying he set

out, accompanied by the few disciples he had made, or brought from

abroad, to traverse on foot the great plain which stretches from the

mouth of the Boyne to Tara. If those sailors were Christians, as is

most likely, we can conceive with what anxiety they must have awaited

tidings of an attempt so hazardous and so eventful.

The Christian proceeded on his way, and the first night of his journey

lodged with a hospitable chief, whose family he converted and baptized,

especially marking out a fine child named Beanen, called by him

Benignus, from his sweet disposition; who was destined to be one of his

most efficient coadjutors, and finally his successor in the Primatial

see of Armagh. It was about the second or third day when, travelling

probably by the northern road, poetically called "the Slope of the

Chariots," the Christian adventurers came in sight of the roofs of

Tara. Halting on a neighbouring eminence they surveyed the citadel of

Ancient Error, like soldiers about to assault an enemy's stronghold.

The aspect of the royal hill must have been highly imposing. The

building towards the north was the Banquet Hall, then thronged with the

celebrants of the King's birth-day, measuring from north to south 360

feet in length by 40 feet wide. South of this hall was the King's Rath,

or residence, enclosing an area of 280 yards in diameter, and including

several detached buildings, such as the house of Cormac, and the house

of the hostages. Southward still stood the new rath of the reigning

king, and yet farther south, the rath of Queen Mab, probably

uninhabited even then. The intervals between the buildings were at some

points planted, for we know that magnificent trees shaded the well of

Finn, and the well of Newnaw, from which all the raths were supplied

with water. Imposing at any time, Tara must have looked its best at the

moment Patrick first beheld it, being in the pleasant season of spring,

and decorated in honour of the anniversary of the reigning sovereign.

One of the religious ceremonies employed by the Druids to heighten the

solemnity of the occasion, was to order all the fires of Tara and Meath

to be quenched, in order to rekindle them instantaneously from a sacred

fire dedicated to the honour of their god. But Patrick, either

designedly or innocently, anticipated this striking ceremony, and lit

his own fire, where he had encamped, in view of the royal residence. A

flight of fiery arrows, shot into the Banqueting Hall, would not have

excited more horror and tumult among the company there assembled, than

did the sight of that unlicensed blaze in the distance. Orders were

issued to drag the offender against the laws and the gods of the Island

before them, and the punishment in store for him was already decreed in

every heart. The Preacher, followed by his trembling disciples,

ascended "the Slope of the Chariots," surrounded by menacing minions of

the Pagan law, and regarded with indignation by astonished spectators.

As he came he recited Latin Prayers to the Blessed Trinity, beseeching

their protection and direction in this trying hour. Contrary to

courteous custom no one at first rose to offer him a seat. At last a

chieftain, touched with mysterious admiration for the stranger, did him

that kindness. Then it was demanded of him, why he had dared to violate

the laws of the country, and to defy its ancient gods. On this text the

Christian Missionary spoke. The place of audience was in the open air,

on that eminence, the home of so many kings, which commands one of the

most agreeable prospects in any landscape. The eye of the inspired

orator, pleading the cause of all the souls that hereafter, till the

end of time, might inhabit the land, could discern within the

spring-day horizon, the course of the Blackwater and the Boyne before

they blend into one; the hills of Cavan to the far north; with the

royal hill of Tailtean in the foreground; the wooded heights of Slane

and Skreen, and the four ancient roads, which led away towards the four

subject Provinces, like the reins of empire laid loosely on their

necks. Since the first Apostle of the Gentiles had confronted the

subtle Paganism of Athens, on the hill of Mars, none of those who

walked in his steps ever stood out in more glorious relief than

Patrick, surrounded by Pagan Princes, and a Pagan Priesthood, on the

hill of Tara.

The defence of the fire he had kindled, unlicensed, soon extended into

wider issues. Who were the gods against whom he had offended? Were they

true gods or false? They had their priests: could they maintain the

divinity of such gods, by argument, or by miracle? For his God, he,

though unworthy, was ready to answer, yea, right ready to die. His God

had become man, and had died for man. His name alone was sufficient to

heal all diseases; to raise the very dead to life. Such, we learn from

the old biographers, was the line of Patrick's argument. This sermon

ushered in a controversy. The king's guests, who had come to feast and

rejoice, remained to listen and to meditate. With the impetuosity of

the national character—with all its passion for debate—they rushed into

this new conflict, some on one side, some on the other. The daughters

of the king and many others—the Arch-Druid himself—became convinced and

were baptized. The missionaries obtained powerful protectors, and the

king assigned to Patrick the pleasant fort of Trim, as a present

residence. From that convenient distance, he could readily return at

any moment, to converse with the king's guests and the members of his

household.

The Druidical superstition never recovered the blow it received that

day at Tara. The conversion of the Arch-Druid and the Princesses, was,

of itself, their knell of doom. Yet they held their ground during the

remainder of this reign—twenty-five years longer (A.D. 458). The king

himself never became a Christian, though he tolerated the missionaries,

and deferred more and more every year to the Christian party. He

sanctioned an expurgated code of the laws, prepared under the direction

of Patrick, from which every positive element of Paganism was rigidly

excluded. He saw, unopposed, the chief idol of his race, overthrown on

"the Plain of Prostration," at Sletty. Yet withal he never consented to

be baptized; and only two years before his decease, we find him

swearing to a treaty, in the old Pagan form—"by the Sun, and the Wind,

and all the Elements." The party of the Druids at first sought to stay

the progress of Christianity by violence, and even attempted, more than

once, to assassinate Patrick. Finding these means ineffectual they

tried ridicule and satire. In this they were for some time seconded by

the Bards, men warmly attached to their goddess of song and their lives

of self-indulgence. All in vain. The day of the idols was fast verging

into everlasting night in Erin. Patrick and his disciples were

advancing from conquest to conquest. Armagh and Cashel came in the wake

of Tara, and Cruachan was soon to follow. Driven from the high places,

the obdurate Priests of Bel took refuge in the depths of the forest and

in the islands of the sea, wherein the Christian anchorites of the next

age were to replace them. The social revolution proceeded, but all that

was tolerable in the old state of things, Patrick carefully engrafted

with the new. He allowed much for the habits and traditions of the

people, and so made the transition as easy, from darkness into the

light, as Nature makes the transition from night to morning. He seven

times visited in person every mission in the kingdom, performing the

six first "circuits" on foot, but the seventh, on account of his

extreme age, he was borne in a chariot. The pious munificence of the

successors of Leary, had surrounded him with a household of princely

proportions. Twenty-four persons, mostly ecclesiastics, were chosen for

this purpose: a bell-ringer, a psalmist, a cook, a brewer, a

chamberlain, three smiths, three artificers, and three embroiderers are

reckoned of the number. These last must be considered as employed in

furnishing the interior of the new churches. A scribe, a shepherd to

guard his flocks, and a charioteer are also mentioned, and their proper

names given. How different this following from the little boat's crew,

he had left waiting tidings from Tara, in such painful apprehension, at

the mouth of the Boyne, in 432. Apostolic zeal, and unrelaxed

discipline had wrought these wonders, during a lifetime prolonged far

beyond the ordinary age of man.

The fifth century was drawing to a close, and the days of Patrick were

numbered. Pharamond and the Franks had sway on the Netherlands; Hengist

and the Saxons on South Britain; Clovis had led his countrymen across

the Rhine into Gaul; the Vandals had established themselves in Spain

and North Africa; the Ostrogoths were supreme in Italy. The empire of

barbarism had succeeded to the empire of Polytheism; dense darkness

covered the semi-Christian countries of the old Roman empire, but

happily daylight still lingered in the West. Patrick, in good season,

had done his work. And as sometimes, God seems to bring round His ends,

contrary to the natural order of things, so the spiritual sun of Europe

was now destined to rise in the West, and return on its light-bearing

errand towards the East, dispelling in its path, Saxon, Frankish, and

German darkness, until at length it reflected back on Rome herself, the

light derived from Rome.

On the 17th of March, in the year of our Lord 493, Patrick breathed his

last in the monastery of Saul, erected on the site of that barn where

he had first said Mass. He was buried with national honours in the

Church of Armagh, to which he had given the Primacy over all the

churches of Ireland; and such was the concourse of mourners, and the

number of Masses offered for his eternal repose, that from the day of

his death till the close of the year, the sun is poetically said never

to have set—so brilliant and so continual was the glare of tapers and

torches.

CHAPTER IV.

THE CONSTITUTION, AND HOW THE KINGS KEPT IT.

We have fortunately still existing the main provisions of that

constitution which was prepared under the auspices of Saint Patrick,

and which, though not immediately, nor simultaneously, was in the end

accepted by all Erin as its supreme law. It is contained in a volume

called "the Book of Rights," and in its printed form (the Dublin

bilingual edition of 1847), fills some 250 octavo pages. This book may

be said to contain the original institutes of Erin under her Celtic

Kings: "the Brehon laws," (which have likewise been published), bear

the same relation to "the Book of Rights," as the Statutes at large of

England, or the United States, bear to the English Constitution in the

one case, or to the collective Federal and State Constitutions in the

other. Let us endeavour to comprehend what this ancient Irish

Constitution was like, and how the Kings received it, at first.

There were, as we saw in the first chapter, beside the existing four

Provinces, whose names are familiar to every one, a fifth principality

of Meath. Each of the Provinces was subdivided into chieftainries, of

which there were at least double or treble as many as there are now

counties. The connection between the chief and his Prince, or the

Prince and his monarch, was not of the nature of feudal obedience; for

the fee-simple of the soil was never supposed to be vested in the

sovereign, nor was the King considered to be the fountain of all

honour. The Irish system blended the aristocratic and democratic

elements more largely than the monarchical. Everything proceeded by

election, but all the candidates should be of noble blood. The Chiefs,

Princes, and Monarchs, so selected, were bound together by certain

customs and tributes, originally invented by the genius of the Druids,

and afterwards adopted and enforced by the authority of the Bishops.

The tributes were paid in kind, and consisted of cattle, horses,

foreign-born slaves, hounds, oxen, scarlet mantles, coats of mail,

chess-boards and chess-men, drinking cups, and other portable articles

of value. The quantity in every case due from a King to his

subordinate, or from a subordinate to his King—for the gifts and grants

were often reciprocal—is precisely stated in every instance. Besides

these rights, this constitution defines the "prerogatives" of the five

Kings on their journeys through each other's territory, their accession

to power, or when present in the General Assemblies of the Kingdom. It

contains, besides, a very numerous array of "prohibitions"—acts which

neither the Ard-Righ nor any other Potentate may lawfully do. Most of

these have reference to old local Pagan ceremonies in which the Kings

once bore a leading part, but which were now strictly prohibited;

others are of inter-Provincial significance, and others, again, are

rules of personal conduct. Among the prohibitions of the monarch the

first is, that the sun must never rise on him in his bed at Tara; among

his prerogatives he was entitled to banquet on the first of August, on

the fish of the Boyne, fruit from the Isle of Man, cresses from the

Brosna river, venison from Naas, and to drink the water of the well of

Talla: in other words, he was entitled to eat on that day, of the

produce, whether of earth or water, of the remotest bounds, as well as

of the very heart of his mensal domain. The King of Leinster was

"prohibited" from upholding the Pagan ceremonies within his province,

or to encamp for more than a week in certain districts; but he was

"privileged" to feast on the fruits of Almain, to drink the ale of

Cullen, and to preside over the games of Carman, (Wexford.) His

colleague of Munster was "prohibited" from encamping a whole week at

Killarney or on the Suir, and from mustering a martial host on the

Leinster border at Gowran; he was "privileged" to pass the six weeks of

Lent at Cashel (in free quarters), to use fire and force in compelling

tribute from north Leinster; and to obtain a supply of cattle from

Connaught, at the time "of the singing of the cuckoo." The Connaught

King had five other singular "prohibitions" imposed on him—evidently

with reference to some old Pagan rites—and his "prerogatives" were

hostages from Galway, the monopoly of the chase in Mayo, free quarters

in Murrisk, in the same neighbourhood, and to marshal his border-host

at Athlone to confer with the tribes of Meath. The ruler of Ulster was

also forbidden to indulge in such superstitious practices as observing

omens of birds, or drinking of a certain fountain "between two

darknesses;" his prerogatives were presiding at the games of Cooley,

"with the assembly of the fleet;" the right of mustering his border

army in the plains of Louth; free quarters in Armagh for three nights

for his troops before setting out on an expedition; and to confine his

hostages in Dunseverick, a strong fortress near the Giant's Causeway.

Such were the principal checks imposed upon the individual caprice of

Monarchs and Princes; the plain inference from all which is, that under

the Constitution of Patrick, a Prince who clung to any remnant of

ancient Paganism, might lawfully be refused those rents and dues which

alone supported his dignity. In other words, disguised as it may be to

us under ancient forms, "the Book of Rights" establishes Christianity

as the law of the land. All national usages and customs, not

conflicting with this supreme law, were recognized and sanctioned by

it. The internal revenues in each particular Province were modelled

upon the same general principle, with one memorable exception—the

special tribute which Leinster paid to Munster—and which was the cause

of more bloodshed than all other sources of domestic quarrel combined.

The origin of this tax is surrounded with fable, but it appears to have

arisen out of the reaction which took place, when Tuathal, "the

Legitimate," was restored to the throne of his ancestors, after the

successful revolt of the Belgic bondsmen. Leinster seems to have clung

longest to the Belgic revolution, and to have submitted only after

repeated defeats. Tuathal, therefore, imposed on that Province this

heavy and degrading tax, compelling its Princes not only to render him

and his successors immense herds of cattle, but also 150 male and

female slaves, to do the menial offices about the palace of Tara. With

a refinement of policy, as far-seeing as it was cruel, the proceeds of

the tax were to be divided one-third to Ulster, one-third to Connaught,

and the remainder between the Queen of the Monarch and the ruler of

Munster. In this way all the other Provinces became interested in

enforcing this invidious and oppressive enactment upon Leinster which,

of course, was withheld whenever it could be refused with the smallest

probability of success. Its resistance, and enforcement, especially by

the kings of Munster, will be found a constant cause of civil war, even

in Christian times.

The sceptre of Ireland, from her conversion to the time of Brian, was

almost solely in the hands of the northern Hy-Nial, the same family as

the O'Neills. All the kings of the sixth and seventh centuries were of

that line. In the eighth century (from 709 to 742), the southern

annalists style Cathal, King of Munster, Ard-Righ; in the ninth century

(840 to 847), they give the same high title to Felim, King of Munster;

and in the eleventh century Brian possessed that dignity for the twelve

last years of his life, (1002 to 1014). With these exceptions, the

northern Hy-Nial, and their co-relatives of Meath, called the southern

Hy-Nial, seem to have retained the sceptre exclusively in their own

hands, during the five first Christian centuries. Yet on every

occasion, the ancient forms of election, (or procuring the adhesion of

the Princes), had to be gone through. Perfect unanimity, however, was

not required; a majority equal to two-thirds seems to have sufficed. If

the candidate had the North in his favour, and one Province of the

South, he was considered entitled to take possession of Tara; if he

were a Southern, he should be seconded either by Connaught or Ulster,

before he could lawfully possess himself of the supreme power. The

benediction of the Archbishop of Armagh, seems to have been necessary

to confirm the choice of the Provincials. The monarchs, like the petty

kings, were crowned or "made" on the summit of some lofty mound

prepared for that purpose; an hereditary officer, appointed to that

duty, presented him with a white wand perfectly straight, as an emblem

of the purity and uprightness which should guide all his decisions,

and, clothed with his royal robes, the new ruler descended among his

people, and solemnly swore to protect their rights and to administer

equal justice to all. This was the civil ceremony; the solemn blessing

took place in a church, and is supposed to be the oldest form of

coronation service observed anywhere in Christendom.

A ceremonial, not without dignity, regulated the gradations of honour,

in the General Assemblies of Erin. The time of meeting was the great

Pagan Feast of Samhain, the 1st of November. A feast of three days

opened and closed the Assembly, and during its sittings, crimes of

violence committed on those in attendance were punished with instant

death. The monarch himself had no power to pardon any violator of this

established law. The _Chiefs_ of territories sat, each in an appointed

seat, under his own shield; the seats being arranged by order of the

Ollamh, or Recorder, whose duty it was to preserve the muster-roll,

containing the names of all the living nobles. The _Champions_, or

leaders of military bands, occupied a secondary position, each sitting

under his own shield. Females and spectators of an inferior rank were

excluded; the Christian clergy naturally stepped into the empty places

of the Druids, and were placed immediately next the monarch.

We shall now briefly notice the principal acts of the first Christian

kings, during the century immediately succeeding St. Patrick's death.

Of OLLIOL, who succeeded Leary, we cannot say with certainty that he

was a Christian. His successor, LEWY, son of Leary, we are expressly

told was killed by lightning (A.D. 496), for "having violated the law

of Patrick"—that is, probably, for having practised some of those Pagan

rites forbidden to the monarchs by the revised constitution. His

successor, MURKERTACH, son of Ere, was a professed Christian, though a

bad one, since he died by the vengeance of a concubine named Sheen,

(that is, _storm_,) whom he had once put away at the instance of his

spiritual adviser, but whom he had not the courage—though brave as a

lion in battle—to keep away (A.D. 527). TUATHAL, "the Rough," succeeded

and reigned for seven years, when he was assassinated by the tutor of

DERMID, son of Kerbel, a rival whom he had driven into exile. DERMID

immediately seized on the throne (A.D. 534), and for twenty eventful

years bore sway over all Erin. He appears to have had quite as much of

the old leaven of Paganism in his composition—at least in his youth and

prime—as either Lewy or Leary. He kept Druids about his person,

despised "the right of sanctuary" claimed by the Christian clergy, and

observed, with all the ancient superstitious ceremonial, the national

games at Tailteen. In his reign, the most remarkable event was the

public curse pronounced on Tara, by a Saint whose sanctuary the

reckless monarch had violated, in dragging a prisoner from the very

horns of the altar, and putting him to death. For this offence—the

crowning act of a series of aggressions on the immunities claimed by

the clergy—the Saint, whose name was Ruadan, and the site of whose

sanctuary is still known as Temple-Ruadan in Tipperary, proceeded to

Tara, accompanied by his clergy, and, walking round the royal rath,

solemnly excommunicated the monarch, and anathematized the place. The

far-reaching consequences of this awful exercise of spiritual power are

traceable for a thousand years through Irish history. No king after

Dermid resided permanently upon the hill of Tara. Other royal houses

there were in Meath—at Tailteen, at the hill of Usna, and on the margin

of the beautiful Lough Ennell, near the present Castlepollard, and at

one or other of these, after monarchs held occasional court; but those

of the northern race made their habitual home in their own patrimony

near Armagh, or on the celebrated hill of Aileach. The date of the

malediction which left Tara desolate is the year of our Lord, 554. The

end of this self-willed semi-Pagan (Dermid) was in unison with his

life; he was slain in battle by Black Hugh, Prince of Ulster, two years

after the desolation of Tara.

Four kings, all fierce competitors for the succession, reigned and

fell, within ten years of the death of Dermid, and then we come to the

really interesting and important reign of Hugh the Second, which lasted

twenty-seven years (A.D. 566 to 593), and was marked by the

establishment of the Independence of the Scoto-Irish Colony in North

Britain, and by other noteworthy events. But these twenty-seven years

deserve a chapter to themselves.

CHAPTER V.

REIGN OF HUGH II.—THE IRISH COLONY IN SCOTLAND OBTAINS ITS

INDEPENDENCE.

Twenty-seven years is a long reign, and the years of King-Hugh II. were

marked with striking events. One religious and one political

occurrence, however, threw all others into the shade—the conversion of

the Highlands and Islands of Scotland (then called Alba or Albyn by the

Gael, and Caledonia by the Latins), and the formal recognition, after

an exciting controversy, of the independence of the Milesian colony in

Scotland. These events follow each other in the order of time, and

stand partly in the relation of cause and effect.

The first authentic Irish immigration into Scotland seems to have taken

place about the year of our Lord 258. The pioneers crossed over from

Antrim to Argyle, where the strait is less than twenty-five miles wide.

Other adventurers followed at intervals, but it is a fact to be

deplored, that no passages in our own, and in all other histories, have

been so carelessly kept as the records of emigration. The movements of

rude masses of men, the first founders of states and cities, are

generally lost in obscurity, or misrepresented by patriotic zeal.

Several successive settlements of the Irish in Caledonia can be faintly

traced from the middle of the third till the beginning of the sixth

century. About the year 503, they had succeeded in establishing a

flourishing principality among the cliffs and glens of Argyle. The

limits of their first territory cannot be exactly laid down; but it

soon spread north into Rosshire, and east into the present county of

Perth. It was a land of stormy friths and fissured headlands, of deep

defiles and snowy summits. "'Tis a far cry to Lough Awe," is still a

lowland proverb, and Lough Awe was in the very heart of that old Irish

settlement.

The earliest emigrants to Argyle were Pagans, while the latter were

Christians, and were accompanied by priests, and a bishop, Kieran, the

son of the carpenter, whom, from his youthful piety and holy life, as

well as from the occupation followed by his father, is sometimes

fancifully compared to our Lord and Saviour himself. Parishes in

Cantyre, in Islay, and in Carrick, still bear the name of St. Kieran as

patron. But no systematic attempt—none at least of historic memory—was

made to convert the remoter Gael and the other races then inhabiting

Alba—the Picts, Britons, and Scandinavians, until the year of our era,

565, Columba or COLUMBKILL, a Bishop of the royal race of Nial,

undertook that task, on a scale commensurate with its magnitude. This

celebrated man has always ranked with Saint Patrick and Saint Bridget

as the most glorious triad of the Irish Calendar. He was, at the time

he left Ireland, in the prime of life—his 44th year. Twelve companions,

the apostolic number, accompanied him on his voyage. For thirty-four

years he was the legislator and captain of Christianity in those

northern regions. The King of the Picts received baptism at his hands;

the Kings of the Scottish colony, his kinsmen, received the crown from

him on their accession. The islet of I., or Iona, as presented to him

by one of these princes. Here he and his companions built with their

own hands their parent-house, and from this Hebridean rock in after

times was shaped the destinies, spiritual and temporal, of many tribes

and kingdoms.

The growth of Iona was as the growth of the grain of mustard seed

mentioned in the Gospel, even during the life of its founder. Formed by

his teaching and example, there went out from it apostles to Iceland,

to the Orkneys, to Northumbria, to Man, and to South Britain. A hundred

monasteries in Ireland looked to that exiled saint as their patriarch.

His rule of monastic life, adopted either from the far East, from the

recluses of the Thebaid, or from his great contemporary, Saint

Benedict, was sought for by Chiefs, Bards, and converted Druids.

Clients, seeking direction from his wisdom, or protection through his

power, were constantly arriving and departing from his sacred isle. His

days were divided between manual labour and the study and transcribing

of the Sacred Scriptures. He and his disciples, says the Venerable

Bede, in whose age Iona still flourished, "neither thought of nor loved

anything in _this_ world." Some writers have represented Columbkill's

_Culdees_, (which in English means simply "Servants of God,") as a

married clergy; so far is this from the truth, that we now know, no

woman was allowed to land on the island, nor even a cow to be kept

there, for, said the holy Bishop, "wherever there is a cow there will

be a woman, and wherever there is a woman there will be mischief."

In the reign of King Hugh, three domestic questions arose of great

importance; one was the refusal of the Prince of Ossory to pay tribute

to the Monarch; the other, the proposed extinction of the Bardic Order,

and the third, the attempt to tax the Argyle Colony. The question

between Ossory and Tara, we may pass over as of obsolete interest, but

the other two deserve fuller mention:

The Bards—who were the Editors, Professors, Registrars and

Record-keepers—the makers and masters of public opinion in those days,

had reached in this reign a number exceeding 1,200 in Meath and Ulster

alone. They claimed all the old privileges of free quarters on their

travels and freeholdings at home, which were freely granted to their

order when it was in its infancy. Those chieftains who refused them

anything, however extravagant, they lampooned and libelled, exciting

their own people and other princes against them. Such was their

audacity, that some of them are said to have demanded from King Hugh

the royal brooch, one of the most highly prized heirlooms of the

reigning family. Twice in the early part of this reign they had been

driven from the royal residence, and obliged to take refuge in the

little principality of Ulidia (or Down); the third time the monarch had

sworn to expel them utterly from the kingdom. In Columbkill, however,

they were destined to find a most powerful mediator, both from his

general sympathy with the Order, being himself no mean poet, and from

the fact that the then Arch-Poet, or chief of the order, Dallan

Forgaill, was one of his own pupils.

To settle this vexed question of the Bards, as well as to obtain the

sanction of the estates to the taxation of Argyle, King Hugh called a

General Assembly in the year 590. The place of meeting was no longer

the interdicted Tara, but for the monarch's convenience a site farther

north was chosen—the hill of Drom-Keth, in the present county of Derry.

Here came in rival state and splendour the Princes of the four

Provinces, and other principal chieftains. The dignitaries of the

Church also attended, and an occasional Druid was perhaps to be seen in

the train of some unconverted Prince. The pretensions of the

mother-country to impose a tax upon her Colony, were sustained by the

profound learning and venerable name of St. Colman, Bishop of Dromore,

one of the first men of his Order.

When Columbkill "heard of the calling together of that General

Assembly," and of the questions to be there decided, he resolved to

attend, notwithstanding the stern vow of his earlier life, never to

look on Irish soil again. Under a scruple of this kind, he is said to

have remained blindfold, from his arrival in his fatherland, till his

return to Iona. He was accompanied by an imposing train of attendants;

by Aidan, Prince of Argyle, so deeply interested in the issue, and a

suite of over one hundred persons, twenty of them Abbots or Bishops.

Columbkill spoke for his companions; for already, as in Bede's time,

the Abbots of Iona exercised over all the clergy north of the Humber,

but still more directly north of the Tweed, a species of supremacy

similar to that which the successors of St. Benedict and St. Bernard

exercised, in turn, over Prelates and Princes on the European

Continent.

When the Assembly was opened the holy Bishop of Dromore stated the

arguments in favour of Colonial taxation with learning and effect. Hugh

himself impeached the Bards for their licentious and lawless lives.

Columbkill defended both interests, and, by combining both, probably

strengthened the friends of each. It is certain that he carried the

Assembly with him, both against the monarch and those of the resident

clergy, who had selected Colman as their spokesman. The Bardic Order

was spared. The doctors, or master-singers among them, were prohibited

from wandering from place to place; they were assigned residence with

the chiefs and princes; their losel attendants were turned over to

honest pursuits, and thus a great danger was averted, and one of the

most essential of the Celtic institutions being reformed and regulated,

was preserved. Scotland and Ireland have good reason to be grateful to

the founder of Iona, for the interposition that preserved to us the

music, which is now admitted to be one of the most precious

inheritances of both countries.

The proposed taxation Columbkill strenuously and successfully resisted.

Up to this time, the colonists had been bound only to furnish a

contingent force, by land and sea, when the King of Ireland went to

war, and to make them an annual present called "chief-rent."

From the Book of Rights we learn that (at least at the time the

existing transcript was made) the Scottish Princes paid out of Alba,

seven shields, seven steeds, seven bondswomen, seven bondsmen, and

seven hounds all of the same breed. But the "chief-rent," or "eric for

kindly blood," did not suffice in the year 590 to satisfy King Hugh.

The colony had grown great, and, like some modern monarchs, he proposed

to make it pay for its success. Columbkill, though a native of Ireland,

and a prince of its reigning house, was by choice a resident of

Caledonia, and he stood true to his adopted country. The Irish King

refused to continue the connection on the old conditions, and declared

his intention to visit Alba himself to enforce the tribute due;

Columbkill, rising in the Assembly, declared the Albanians "for ever

free from the yoke," and this, adds an old historian, "turned out to be

the fact." From the whole controversy we may conclude that Scotland

never paid political tribute to Ireland; that their relation was that

rather of allies, than of sovereign and vassal; that it resembled more

the homage Carthage paid to Tyre, and Syracuse to Corinth, than any

modern form of colonial dependence; that a federal connection existed

by which, in time of war, the Scots of Argyle, and those of Hibernia,

were mutually bound to aid, assist, and defend each other. And this

natural and only connection, founded in the blood of both nations,

sanctioned by their early saints, confirmed by frequent intermarriage,

by a common language and literature, and by hostility to common

enemies, the Saxons, Danes, and Normans, grew into a political bond of

unusual strength, and was cherished with affection by both nations,

long ages after the magnates assembled at Drom-Keth had disappeared in

the tombs of their fathers.

The only unsettled question which remained after the Assembly at

Drom-Keth related to the Prince of Ossory. Five years afterwards (A.D.

595), King Hugh fell in an attempt to collect the special tribute from

all Leinster, of which we have already heard something, and shall, by

and by, hear more. He was an able and energetic ruler, and we may be

sure "did not let the sun rise on him in his bed at Tara," or anywhere

else. In his time great internal changes were taking place in the state

of society. The ecclesiastical order had become more powerful than any

other in the state. The Bardic Order, thrice proscribed, were finally

subjected to the laws, over which they had at one time insolently

domineered. Ireland's only colony—unless we except the immature

settlement in the Isle of Man, under Cormac Longbeard—was declared

independent of the parent country, through the moral influence of its

illustrious Apostle, whose name many of its kings and nobles were of

old proud to bear—_Mal-Colm_, meaning "servant of Columb," or

Columbkill. But the memory of the sainted statesman who decreed the

separation of the two populations, so far as claims to taxation could

be preferred, preserved, for ages, the better and far more profitable

alliance, of an ancient friendship, unbroken by a single national

quarrel during a thousand years.

A few words more on the death and character of this celebrated man,

whom we are now to part with at the close of the sixth, as we parted

from Patrick at the close of the fifth century. His day of departure

came in 596. Death found him at the ripe age of almost fourscore,

_stylus_ in hand, toiling cheerfully over the vellum page. It was the

last night of the week when the presentiment of his end came strongly

upon him. "This day," he said to his disciple and successor, Dermid,

"is called the day of rest, and such it will be for me, for it will

finish my labours." Laying down the manuscript, he added, "let Baithen

finish the rest." Just after Matins, on the Sunday morning, he

peacefully passed away from the midst of his brethren.

Of his tenderness, as well as energy of character, tradition, and his

biographers have recorded many instances. Among others, his habit of

ascending an eminence every evening at sunset, to look over towards the

coast of his native land. The spot is called by the islanders to this

day, "the place of the back turned upon Ireland." The fishermen of the

Hebrides long believed they could see their saint flitting over the

waves after every new storm, counting the islands to see if any of them

had foundered. It must have been a loveable character of which such

tales could be told and cherished from generation to generation.

Both Education and Nature had well fitted Columbkill to the great task

of adding another realm to the empire of Christendom. His princely

birth gave him power over his own proud kindred; his golden eloquence

and glowing verse—the fragments of which still move and delight the

Gaelic scholar—gave him fame and weight in the Christian schools which

had suddenly sprung up in every glen and island. As prince, he stood on

equal terms with princes; as poet, he was affiliated to that

all-powerful Bardic Order, before whose awful anger kings trembled, and

warriors succumbed in superstitious dread. A spotless soul, a

disciplined body, an indomitable energy, an industry that never

wearied, a courage that never blanched, a sweetness and courtesy that

won all hearts, a tenderness for others that contrasted strongly with

his rigour towards himself—these were the secrets of the success of

this eminent missionary—these were the miracles by which he

accomplished the conversion of so many barbarous tribes and Pagan

Princes.

CHAPTER VI.

KINGS OF THE SEVENTH CENTURY.

THE five years of the sixth century, which remained after the death of

Hugh II., were filled by Hugh III., son of Dermid, the semi-Pagan. Hugh

IV. succeeded (A.D. 599) and reigned for several years; two other

kings, of small account, reigned seven years; Donald II. (A.D. 624)

reigned sixteen years; Connall and Kellach, brothers, (A.D. 640)

reigned jointly sixteen years; they were succeeded (A.D. 656) by Dermid

and Blathmac, brothers, who reigned jointly seven years; Shanasagh, son

of the former, reigned six years; Kenfala, four; Finnacta, "the

hospitable," twenty years, and Loingsech (A.D. 693) eight years.

Throughout this century the power of the Church was constantly on the

increase, and is visible in many important changes. The last armed

struggle of Druidism, and the only invasion of Ireland by the

Anglo-Saxons, are also events of the civil history of the seventh

century.

The reign, of Donald II. is notable for the passing away of most of

those saintly men, the second generation of Irish abbots and bishops;

for the foundation of the celebrated school of Lismore on the Munster

Blackwater; and the battle of Moira, in the present county of Down. Of

the school and the saints we shall speak hereafter; the battle deserves

more immediate mention.

The cause of the battle was the pretension of the petty Prince of

Ulidia, which comprised little more than the present county of Down, to

be recognised as Prince of all Ulster. Now the Hy-Nial family, not only

had long given monarchs to all Ireland, but had also the lion's share

of their own Province, and King Donald as their head could not permit

their ascendency to be disputed. The ancestors of the present

pretender, Congal, surnamed "the squint-eyed," had twice received and

cherished the licentious Bards when under the ban of Tara, and his

popularity with that still powerful order was one prop of his ambition.

It is pretty clear also that the last rally of Druidism against

Christianity took place behind his banner, on the plain of Moira. It

was the year 637, and preparations had long gone on on both sides for a

final trial of strength. Congal had recruited numerous bands of Saxons,

Britons, Picts and Argyle Scots, who poured into the harbours of Down

for months, and were marshalled on the banks of the Lagan, to sustain

his cause. The Poets of succeeding ages have dwelt much in detail on

the occurrences of this memorable day. It was what might strictly be

called a pitched battle, time and place being fixed by mutual

agreement. King Donald was accompanied by his Bard, who described to

him, as they came in sight, the several standards of Congal's host, and

who served under them. Conspicuous above all, the ancient banner of the

Red Branch Knights-"a yellow lion wrought on green satin"—floated over

Congal's host. On the other side the monarch commanded in person,

accompanied by his kinsmen, the sons of Hugh III. The red hand of

Tirowen, the cross of Tirconnell, the eagle and lion of Innishowen, the

axes of Fanad, were in his ranks, ranged closely round his own

standard. The cause of the Constitution and the Church prevailed, and

Druidism mourned its last hope extinguished on the plains of Moira, in

the death of Congal, and the defeat of his vast army. King Donald

returned in triumph to celebrate his victory at Emania and to receive

the benediction of the Church at Armagh.

The sons of Hugh III., Dermid and Blathmac, zealous and pious Christian

princes, survived the field of Moira and other days of danger, and

finally attained the supreme power—A.D. 656. Like the two kings of

Sparta they reigned jointly, dividing between them the labours and

cares of State. In their reign, that terrible scourge, called in Irish,

"the yellow plague," after ravaging great part of Britain, broke out

with undiminished virulence in Erin (A.D. 664). To heighten the awful

sense of inevitable doom, an eclipse of the sun occurred concurrently

with the appearance of the pestilence on the first Sunday in May. It

was the season when the ancient sun-god had been accustomed to receive

his annual oblations, and we can well believe that those whose hearts

still trembled at the name of Bel, must have connected the eclipse and

the plague with the revolution in the national worship, and the

overthrow of the ancient gods on that "plain of prostration," where

they had so long received the homage of an entire people. Among the

victims of this fearful visitation—which, like the modern cholera,

swept through all ranks and classes of society, and returned in the

same track for several successive seasons—were very many of those

venerated men, the third and fourth generation of the Abbots and

Bishops. The Munster King, and many of the chieftain class shared the

common lot. Lastly, the royal brothers fell themselves victims to the

epidemic, which so sadly signalizes their reign.

The only conflicts that occurred on Irish soil with a Pictish or an

Anglo-Saxon force—if we except those who formed a contingent of

Congal's army at Moira—occurred in the time of the hospitable Finnacta.

The Pictish force, with their leaders, were totally defeated at

Rathmore, in Antrim (A.D. 680), but the Anglo-Saxon expedition (A.D.

684) seems not to have been either expected or guarded against. As

leading to the mention of other interesting events, we must set this

inroad clearly before the reader.

The Saxons had now been for four centuries in Britain, the older

inhabitants of which—Celts like the Gauls and Irish—they had cruelly

harassed, just as the Milesian Irish oppressed their Belgic

predecessors, and as the Normans, in turn, will be found oppressing

both Celt and Saxon in England and Ireland. Britain had been divided by

the Saxon leaders into eight separate kingdoms, the people and princes

of several of which were converted to Christianity in the fifth, sixth,

and seventh century, though some of them did not receive the Gospel

before the beginning of the eighth. The Saxons of Kent and the Southern

Kingdoms generally were converted by missionaries from France or Rome,

or native preachers of the first or second Christian generation; those

of Northumbria recognise as their Apostles St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert,

two Fathers from Iona. The Kingdom of Northumbria, as the name implies,

embraced nearly all the country from the Humber to the Pictish border.

York was its capital, and the seat of its ecclesiastical primacy,

where, at the time we speak of, the illustrious Wilfrid was

maintaining, with a wilful and unscrupulous king, a struggle not unlike

that which Becket maintained with Henry II. This Prince, Egfrid by

name, was constantly engaged in wars with his Saxon cotemporaries, or

the Picts and Scots. In the summer of 683 he sent an expedition under

the command of Beort, one of his earls, to ravage the coast of

Leinster. Beort landed probably in the Boyne, and swept over the rich

plain of Meath with fire and sword, burning churches, driving off herds

and flocks, and slaughtering the clergy and the husbandmen. The piety

of an after age saw in the retribution which overtook Egfrid the

following year, when he was slain by the Picts and Scots, the judgment

of Heaven, avenging the unprovoked wrongs of the Irish. His Scottish

conquerors, returning good for evil, carried his body to Iona, where it

was interred with all due honour.

Iona was now in the zenith of its glory. The barren rock, about three

miles in length, was covered with monastic buildings, and its cemetery

was already adorned with the tombs of saints and kings. Five successors

of Columbkill slept in peace around their holy Founder, and a sixth,

equal in learning and sanctity to any who preceded him, received the

remains of King Egfrid from the hands of his conquerors. This was Abbot

Adamnan, to whom Ireland and Scotland are equally indebted for his

admirable writings, and who might almost dispute with Bede himself, the

title of Father of British History. Adamnan regarded the fate of

Egfrid, we may be sure, in the light of a judgment on him for his

misdeeds, as Bede and British Christians very generally did. He

learned, too, that there were in Northumbria several Christian

captives, carried off in Beort's expedition and probably sold into

slavery. Now every missionary that ever went out from Iona, had taught

that to reduce Christians to slavery was wholly inconsistent with a

belief in the doctrines of the Gospel. St. Aidan, the Apostle of

Northumbria, had refused the late Egfrid's father absolution, on one

occasion, until he solemnly promised to restore their freedom to

certain captives of this description. In the same spirit Adamnan

voluntarily undertook a journey to York, where Aldfrid (a Prince

educated in Ireland, and whose "Itinerary" of Ireland we still have)

now reigned. The Abbot of Iona succeeded in his humane mission, and

crossing over to his native land, he restored sixty of the captives to

their homes and kindred. While the liberated exiles rejoiced on the

plain of Meath, the tent of the Abbot of Iona was pitched on the rath

of Tara—a fact which would seem to indicate that already, in little

more than a century since the interdict had fallen on it, the edifices

which made so fine a show in the days of Patrick were ruined and

uninhabitable. Either at Tara, or some other of the royal residences,

Adamnan on this visit procured the passing of a law, (A.D. 684,)

forbidding women to accompany an army to battle, or to engage

personally in the conflict. The mild maternal genius of Christianity is

faithfully exhibited in such a law, which consummates the glory of the

worthy successor of Columbkill. It is curious here to observe that it

was not until another hundred years had past—not till the beginning of

the ninth century—that the clergy were "exempt" from military service.

So slow and patient is the process by which Christianity infuses itself

into the social life of a converted people!

The long reign of FINNACTA, the hospitable, who may, for his many other

virtues, be called also the pious, was rendered farther remarkable in

the annals of the country by the formal abandonment of the special tax,

so long levied upon, and so long and desperately resisted by, the men

of Leinster. The all-powerful intercessor in this case was Saint

Moling, of the royal house of Leinster, and Bishop of Fernamore (now

Ferns). In the early part of his reign Finnacta seems not to have been

disposed to collect this invidious tax by force; but, yielding to other

motives, he afterwards took a different view of his duty, and marched

into Leinster to compel its payment. Here the holy Prelate of Ferns met

him, and related a Vision in which he had been instructed to demand the

abolition of the impost. The abolition, he contended, should not be

simply a suspension, but final and for ever. The tribute was, at this

period, enormous; 15,000 head of cattle annually. The decision must

have been made about the time that Abbot Adamnan was in Ireland, (A.D.

684,) and that illustrious personage is said to have been opposed to

the abolition. Abolished it was, and though its re-enactment was often

attempted, the authority of Saint Moling's solemn settlement, prevented

it from being re-enforced for any length of time, except as a political

or military infliction.

Finnacta fell in battle in the 20th year of his long and glorious

reign; and is commemorated as a saint in the Irish calendar. St. Moling

survived him three years, and St. Adamnan, so intimately connected with

his reign, ten years. The latter revisited Ireland in 697, under the

short reign of Loingsech, and concerned himself chiefly in endeavouring

to induce his countrymen to adopt the Roman rule, as to the tonsure,

and the celebration of Easter. On this occasion there was an important

Synod of the Clergy, under the presidency of Flan, Archbishop of

Armagh, held at Tara. Nothing could be more natural than such an

assembly in such a place, at such a period. In every recorded instance

the power of the clergy had been omnipotent in politics for above a

century. St. Patrick had expurgated the old constitution; St. Ruadan's

curse drove the kings from Tara; St. Columbkill had established the

independence of Alba, and preserved the Bardic Order; St. Moling had

abolished the Leinster tribute. If their power was irresistible in the

sixth and especially in the seventh centuries, we must do these

celebrated Abbots and Bishops the justice to remember that it was

always exercised against the oppression of the weak by the strong, to

mitigate the horrors of war, to uphold the right of sanctuary (the

_Habeus Corpus_ of that rude age), and for the maintenance and spread

of sound Christian principles.

CHAPTER VII.

KINGS OF THE EIGHTH CENTURY.

The kings of the eighth century are Congal II. (surnamed Kenmare), who

reigned seven years; Feargal, who reigned ten years; Forgartah,

Kenneth, Flaherty, respectively one, four, and seven years; Hugh V.

(surnamed Allan), nine years; Donald III., who reigned (A.D. 739-759)

twenty years; Nial II. (surnamed Nial of the Showers), seven years; and

Donogh I., who reigned thirty-one years, A.D. 766-797. The obituaries

of these kings show that we have fallen on a comparatively peaceful

age, since of the entire nine, but three perished in battle. One

retired to Armagh and one to Iona, where both departed in the monastic

habit; the others died either of sickness or old age.

Yet the peaceful character of this century is but comparative, for in

the first quarter (A.D. 722), we have the terrible battle of Almain,

between Leinster and the Monarch, in which 30,000 men were stated to

have engaged, and 7,000 to have fallen. The Monarch who had double the

number of the Leinster Prince, was routed and slain, _apropos_ of which

we have a Bardic tale told, which almost transports one to the far

East, the simple lives and awful privileges of the Hindoo Brahmins. It

seems that some of King FEARGAL's army, in foraging for their fellows,

drove off the only cow of a hermit, who lived in seclusion near a

solitary little chapel called Killin. The enraged recluse, at the very

moment the armies were about to engage, appeared between them,

regardless of personal danger, denouncing ruin and death to the

monarch's forces. And in this case, as in others, to be found in every

history, the prophecy, no doubt, helped to produce its own fulfilment.

The malediction of men dedicated to the service of God, has often

routed hosts as gallant as were marshalled on the field of Almain.

FEARGAL'S two immediate successors met a similar fate—death in the

field of battle—after very brief reigns, of which we have no great

events to record.

FLAHERTY, the next who succeeded, after a vigorous reign of seven

years, withdrew from the splendid cares of a crown, and passed the long

remainder of his life—thirty years—in the habit of a monk at Armagh.

The heavy burthen which he had cheerfully laid down, was taken up by a

Prince, who combined the twofold character of poet and hero. HUGH V.

(surnamed Allan), the son of FEARGAL, of whom we have just spoken, was

the very opposite of his father, in his veneration for the privileges

of holy persons and places. His first military achievement was

undertaken in vindication of the rights of those who were unable by

arms to vindicate their own. Hugh Roin, Prince of the troublesome

little principality of Ulidia (Down), though well stricken in years and

old enough to know better, in one of his excursions had forcibly

compelled the clergy of the country through which he passed to give him

free quarters, contrary to the law everywhere existing. Congus, the

Primate, jealous of the exemptions of his order, complained of this

sacrilege in a poetic message addressed to Hugh Allan, who, as a

Christian and a Prince, was bound to espouse his quarrels. He marched

into the territory of the offender, defeated him in battle, cut off his

head on the threshold of the Church of Faughard, and marched back

again, his host chanting a war song composed by their leader.

In this reign died Saint Gerald of Mayo, an Anglo-Saxon Bishop, and

apparently the head of a colony of his countrymen, from whom that

district is ever since called "Mayo of the Saxons." The name, however,

being a general one for strangers from Britain about that period, just

as Dane became for foreigners from the Baltic in the next century, is

supposed to be incorrectly applied: the colony being, it is said,

really from Wales, of old British stock, who had migrated rather than

live under the yoke of their victorious Anglo-Saxon Kings. The

descendants of these Welshmen are still to be traced, though intimately

intermingled with the original Belgic and later Milesian settlers in

Mayo, Sligo, and Galway—thus giving a peculiar character to that

section of the country, easily distinguishable from all the rest.

Although Hugh Allan did not imitate his father's conduct towards

ecclesiastics, he felt bound by all-ruling custom to avenge his

father's death. In all ancient countries the kinsmen of a murdered man

were both by law and custom the avengers of his blood. The members of

the Greek _phratry_, of the Roman _fatria_, or _gens_, of the Germanic

and Anglo-Saxon _guild_, and of the mediaeval sworn _commune_, were all

solemnly bound to avenge the blood of any of their brethren, unlawfully

slain. So that the repulsive repetition of reprisals, which so disgusts

the modern reader in our old annals, is by no means a phenomenon

peculiar to the Irish state of society. It was in the middle age and in

early times common to all Europe, to Britain and Germany, as well as to

Greece and Rome. It was, doubtless, under a sense of duty of this sort

that Hugh V. led into Leinster a large army (A.D. 733), and the day of

Ath-Senaid fully atoned for the day of Almain. Nine thousand of the men

of Leinster were left on the field, including most of their chiefs; the

victorious monarch losing a son, and other near kinsmen. Four years

later, he himself fell in an obscure contest near Kells, in the plain

of Meath. Some of his quartrains have come down to us, and they breathe

a spirit at once religious and heroic—such as must have greatly

endeared the Prince who possessed it to his companions in arms. We are

not surprised, therefore, to find his reign a favourite epoch with

subsequent Bards and Storytellers.

The long and prosperous reign of Donald III. succeeded (A.D. 739 to

759). He is almost the only one of this series of Kings of whom it can

be said that he commanded in no notable battle. The annals of his reign

are chiefly filled with ordinary accidents, and the obits of the

learned. But its literary and religious record abounds with bright

names and great achievements, as we shall find when we come to consider

the educational and missionary fruits of Christianity in the eighth

century. While on a pilgrimage to Durrow, a famous Columbian foundation

in Meath, and present King's County, Donald III. departed this life,

and in Durrow, by his own desire, his body was interred.

Nial II. (surnamed of the Showers), son to FEARGAL and brother of the

warrior-Bard, Hugh V., was next invested with the white wand of

sovereignty. He was a prince less warlike and more pious than his elder

brother. The _soubriquet_ attached to his name is accounted for by a

Bardic tale, which represents him as another Moses, at whose prayer

food fell from heaven in time of famine. Whatever "showers" fell or

wonders were wrought in his reign, it is certain that after enjoying

the kingly office for seven years, Nial resigned, and retired to Iona,

there to pass the remainder of his days in penance and meditation.

Eight years he led the life of a monk in that sacred Isle, where his

grave is one of those of "the three Irish Kings," still pointed out in

the cemetery of the Kings. He is but one among several Princes, his

cotemporaries, who had made the same election. We learn in this same

century, that Cellach, son of the King of Connaught, died in Holy

Orders, and that Bec, Prince of Ulidia, and Ardgall, son of a later

King of Connaught, had taken the "crostaff" of the pilgrim, either for

Iona or Armagh, or some more distant shrine. Pilgrimages to Rome and to

Jerusalem seem to have been begun even before this time, as we may

infer from St. Adamnan's work on the situation of the Holy Places, of

which Bede gives an abstract.

The reign of Donogh I. is the longest and the last among the Kings of

the eighth century (A.D. 776 to 797). The Kings of Ireland had now not

only abandoned Tara, but one by one, the other royal residences in

Meath as their usual place of abode. As a consequence a local

sovereignty sprung up in the family of O'Melaghlin, a minor branch of

the ruling race. This house developing its power so unexpectedly, and

almost always certain to have the national forces under the command of

a Patron Prince at their back, were soon involved in quarrels about

boundaries, both with Leinster and Munster. King Donogh, at the outset

of his reign, led his forces into both principalities, and without

battle received their hostages. Giving hostages—generally the sons of

the chiefs—was the usual form of ratifying any treaty. Generally also,

the Bishop of the district, or its most distinguished ecclesiastic, was

called in as witness of the terms, and both parties were solemnly sworn

on the relics of Saints—the Gospels of the Monasteries or Cathedrals—or

the croziers of their venerated founders. The breach of such a treaty

was considered "a violation of the relics of the saint," whose name had

been invoked, and awful penalties were expected to follow so heinous a

crime. The hostages were then carried to the residence of the King, to

whom they were entrusted, and while the peace lasted, enjoyed a parole

freedom, and every consideration due to their rank. If of tender age

they were educated with the same care as the children of the household.

But when war broke out their situation was always precarious, and

sometimes dangerous. In a few instances they had even been put to

death, but this was considered a violation of all the laws both of

hospitality and chivalry; usually they were removed to some strong

secluded fort, and carefully guarded as pledges to be employed,

according to the chances and changes of the war. That Donogh preferred

negotiation to war, we may infer by his course towards Leinster and

Munster, in the beginning of his reign, and his "kingly parlee" at a

later period (A.D. 783) with FIACHNA, of Ulidia, son of that

over-exacting Hugh Roin, whose head was taken from his shoulders at the

Church door of Faughard. This "kingly parlee" was held on an island off

the Methian shore, called afterwards "King's Island." But little good

came of it. Both parties still held their own views, so that the

satirical poets asked what was the use of the island, when one party

"would not come upon the land, nor the other upon the sea?" However, we

needs must agree with King Donogh, that war is the last resort, and is

only to be tried when all other means have failed.

Twice during this reign the whole island was stricken with panic, by

extraordinary signs in the heavens, of huge serpents coiling themselves

through the stars, of fiery bolts flying like shuttles from one side of

the horizon to the other, or shooting downward directly to the earth.

These atmospheric wonders were accompanied by thunder and lightning so

loud and so prolonged that men hid themselves for fear in the caverns

of the earth. The fairs and markets were deserted by buyers and

sellers; the fields were abandoned by the farmers; steeples were rent

by lightning, and fell to the ground; the shingled roofs of churches

caught fire and burned whole buildings. Shocks of earthquake were also

felt, and round towers and cyclopean masonry were strewn in fragments

upon the ground. These visitations first occurred in the second year of

Donogh, and returned again in 783. When, in the next decade, the first

Danish descent was made on the coast of Ulster (A.D. 794), these signs

and wonders were superstitiously supposed to have been the precursors

of that far more terrible and more protracted visitation.

The Danes at first attracted little notice, but in the last year of

Donogh (A.D. 797) they returned in greater force, and swept rapidly

along the coast of Meath; it was reserved for his successors of the

following centuries to face the full brunt of this new national danger.

But before encountering the fierce nations of the north, and the stormy

period they occupy, let us cast back a loving glance over the

world-famous schools and scholars of the last two centuries. Hitherto

we have only spoken of certain saints, in connection with high affairs

of state. We must now follow them to the college and the cloister, we

must consider them as founders at home, and as missionaries abroad;

otherwise how could we estimate all that is at stake for Erin and for

Christendom, in the approaching combat with the devotees of Odin,—the

deadly enemies of all Christian institutions?

CHAPTER VIII.

WHAT THE IRISH SCHOOLS AND SAINTS DID IN THE THREE FIRST CHRISTIAN

CENTURIES.

We have now arrived at the close of the third century, from the death

of Saint Patrick, and find ourselves on the eve of a protracted

struggle with the heathen warriors of Scandinavia; it is time,

therefore, to look back on the interval we have passed, and see what

changes have been wrought in the land, since its kings, instead of

waiting to be attacked at home, had made the surrounding sea "foam with

the oars" of their outgoing expeditions.

The most obvious change in the condition of the country is traceable in

its constitution and laws, into every part of which, as was its wont

from the beginning, the spirit of Christianity sought patiently to

infuse itself. We have already spoken of the expurgation of the

constitution, which prohibited the observance of Pagan rites to the

kings, and imposed on them instead, certain social obligations. This

was a first change suggested by Saint Patrick, and executed mainly by

his disciple, Saint Benignus. We have seen the legislative success

which attended the measures of Columbkill, Moling, and Adamnan; in

other reforms of minor importance the paramount influence of the

clerical order may be easily traced.

But it is in their relation as teachers of human and divine science

that the Irish Saints exercised their greatest power, not only over

their own countrymen, but over a considerable part of Europe. The

intellectual leadership of western Europe—the glorious ambition of the

greatest nations—has been in turn obtained by Italy, France, Britain

and Germany. From the middle of the sixth to the middle of the eighth

century, it will hardly be disputed that that leadership devolved on

Ireland. All the circumstances of the sixth century helped to confer it

upon the newly converted western isle; the number of her schools, and

the wisdom, energy, and zeal of her masters, retained for her the proud

distinction for two hundred years. And when it passed away from her

grasp, she might still console herself with the grateful reflection

that the power she had founded and exercised, was divided among British

and continental schools, which her own _alumni_ had largely contributed

to form and establish. In the northern Province, the schools most

frequented were those of Armagh, and of Bangor, on Belfast lough; in

Meath, the school of Clonard, and that of Clomnacnoise, (near Athlone);

in Leinster, the school of Taghmon (_Ta-mun_), and Beg-Erin, the former

near the banks of the Slaney, the latter in Wexford harbour; in

Munster, the school of Lismore on the Blackwater, and of Mungret (now

Limerick), on the Shannon; in Connaught, the school of "Mayo of the

Saxons," and the schools of the Isles of Arran. These seats of learning

were almost all erected on the banks of rivers, in situations easy of

access, to the native or foreign student; a circumstance which proved

most disastrous to them when the sea kings of the north began to find

their way to the shores of the island. They derived their

maintenance—not from taxing their pupils—but in the first instance from

public endowments. They were essentially free schools; not only free as

to the lessons given, but the venerable Bede tells us they supplied

free bed and board and books to those who resorted to them from abroad.

The Prince and the Clansmen of every principality in which a school was

situated, endowed it with a certain share—often an ample one—of the

common land of the clan. Exclusive rights of fishery, and exclusive

mill-privileges seem also to have been granted. As to timber for

building purposes and for fuel, it was to be had for carrying and

cutting. The right of quarry went with the soil, wherever building

stone was found. In addition to these means of sustenance, a portion of

the collegiate clergy appeared to have discharged missionary duty, and

received offerings of the produce of the land. We hear of periodical

_quests_ or collections made for the sustenance of these institutions,

wherein the learned Lectors and Doctors, no doubt, pleaded their claims

to popular favour, with irresistible eloquence. Individuals, anxious to

promote the spread of religion and of science, endowed particular

institutions out of their personal means; Princes, Bishops, and pious

ladies, contributed to enlarge the bounds and increase the income of

their favourite foundations, until a generous emulation seems to have

seized on all the great families as well as on the different Provinces,

as to which could boast the most largely attended schools, and the

greatest number of distinguished scholars. The love of the _alma

mater_—that college patriotism which is so sure a sign of the

noble-minded scholar—never received more striking illustration than

among the graduates of those schools. Columbkill, in his new home among

the Hebrides, invokes blessings on blessings, on "the angels" with whom

it was once his happiness to walk in Arran, and Columbanus, beyond the

Alps, remembers with pride the school of Bangor—the very name of which

inspires him with poetic rapture.

The buildings, in which so many scholars were housed and taught, must

have been extensive. Some of the schools we have mentioned were, when

most flourishing, frequented by one, two, three, and even, at some

periods, as many as seven thousand scholars. Such a population was

alone sufficient to form a large village; and if we add the requisite

number of teachers and attendants, we will have an addition of at least

one-third to the total. The buildings seem to have been separately of

no great size, but were formed into streets, and even into something

like wards. Armagh was divided into three parts—_trian-more_ (or the

town proper), _trian-Patrick_, the Cathedral close, and

_trian-Sassenagh_, the Latin quarter, the home of the foreign students.

A tall sculptured Cross, dedicated to some favourite saint, stood at

the bounds of these several wards, reminding the anxious student to

invoke their spiritual intercession as he passed by. Early hours and

vigilant night watches had to be exercised to prevent conflagrations in

such village-seminaries, built almost wholly of wood, and roofed with

reeds or shingles. A Cathedral, or an Abbey Church, a round tower, or a

cell of some of the ascetic masters, would probably be the only stone

structure within the limits. To the students, the evening star gave the

signal for retirement, and the morning sun for awaking. When, at the

sound of the early bell, two or three thousand of them poured into the

silent streets and made their way towards the lighted Church, to join

in the service of matins, mingling, as they went or returned, the

tongues of the Gael, the Cimbri, the Pict, the Saxon, and the Frank, or

hailing and answering each other in the universal language of the Roman

Church, the angels in Heaven must have loved to contemplate the union

of so much perseverance with so much piety.

The lives of the masters, not less than their lessons, were studied and

observed by their pupils. At that time, as we gather from every

authority, they were models of simplicity. One Bishop is found,

erecting with his own hands, the _cashel_ or stone enclosure which

surrounded his cell; another is labouring in the field, and gives his

blessing to his visitors, standing between the stilts of the plough.

Most ecclesiastics work occasionally either in wood, in bronze, in

leather, or as scribes. The decorations of the Church, if not the

entire structure, was the work of those who served at the altar. The

tabernacle, the rood-screen, the ornamental font; the vellum on which

the Psalms and Gospels were written; the ornamented case which

contained the precious volume, were often of their making. The music

which made the vale of Bangor resound as if inhabited by angels, was

their composition; the hymns that accompanied it were their own. "It is

a poor Church that has no music," is one of the oldest Irish proverbs;

and the _Antiphonarium_ of Bangor, as well as that of Armagh, remains

to show that such a want was not left unsupplied in the early Church.

All the contemporary schools were not of the same grade nor of equal

reputation. We constantly find a scholar, after passing years in one

place, transferring himself to another, and sometimes to a third and a

fourth. Some masters were, perhaps, more distinguished in human

Science; others in Divinity. Columbkill studied in two or three

different schools, and _visited_ others, perhaps as disputant or

lecturer—a common custom in later years. Nor should we associate the

idea of under-age with the students of whom we speak. Many of them,

whether as teachers or learners, or combining both characters together,

reached middle life before they ventured as instructors upon the world.

Forty years is no uncommon age for the graduate of those days, when as

yet the discovery was unmade, that all-sufficient wisdom comes with the

first trace of down upon the chin of youth.

The range of studies seems to have included the greater part of the

collegiate course of our own times. The language of the country, and

the language of the Roman Church; the languages of Scripture—Greek and

Hebrew; the logic of Aristotle, the writings of the Fathers, especially

of Pope Gregory the Great—who appears to have been a favourite author

with the Irish Church; the defective Physics of the period;

Mathematics, Music, and Poetical composition went to complete the

largest course. When we remember that all the books were manuscripts;

that even paper had not yet been invented; that the best parchment was

equal to so much beaten gold, and a perfect MS. was worth a king's

ransom, we may better estimate the difficulties in the way of the

scholar of the seventh century. Knowing these facts, we can very well

credit that part of the story of St. Columbkill's banishment into

Argyle, which turns on what might be called a copyright dispute, in

which the monarch took the side of St. Finian of Clonard, (whose

original MSS. his pupil seems to have copied without permission,) and

the Clan-Conal stood up, of course, for their kinsman. This dispute is

even said to have led to the affair of Culdrum, in Sligo, which is

sometimes mentioned as "the battle of the book." The same tendency of

the national character which overstocked the Bardic Order, becomes

again visible in its Christian schools; and if we could form anything

like an approximate census of the population, anterior to the northern

invasions, we would find that the proportion of ecclesiastics was

greater than has existed either before or since in any Christian

country. The vast designs of missionary zeal drew off large bodies of

those who had entered Holy Orders; still the numbers engaged as

teachers in the great schools, as well as of those who passed their

lives in solitude and contemplation, must have been out of all modern

proportion to the lay inhabitants of the Island.

The most eminent Irish Saints of the fifth century were St. Ibar, St.

Benignus and St. Kieran, of Ossory; in the sixth, St. Bendan, of

Clonfert; St. Brendan, of Birr; St. Maccartin, of Clogher; St. Finian,

of Moville; St. Finbar, St. Cannice, St. Finian, of Clonard; and St.

Jarlath, of Tuam; in the seventh century, St. Fursey, St. Laserian,

Bishop of Leighlin; St. Kieran, Abbot of Clonmacnoise; St. Comgall,

Abbot of Bangor; St. Carthage, Abbot of Lismore; St. Colman, Bishop of

Dromore; St. Moling, Bishop of Ferns; St. Colman Ela, Abbot; St.

Cummian, "the White;" St. Finian, Abbot; St. Gall, Apostle of

Switzerland; St. Fridolin, "the Traveller;" St. Columbanus, Apostle of

Burgundy and Lombardy; St. Killian, Apostle of Franconia; St.

Columbkill, Apostle of the Picts; St. Cormac, called "the Navigator;"

St. Cuthbert; and St. Aidan, Apostle of Northumbria. In the eighth

century the most illustrious names are St. Cataldus, Bishop of

Tarentum; St. Adamnan, Abbot of Iona; St. Rumold, Apostle of Brabant;

Clement and Albinus, "the Wisdom-seekers;" and St. Feargal or

Virgilius, Bishop of Saltzburgh. Of holy women in the same ages, we

have some account of St. Samthan, in the eighth century; of St. Bees,

St. Dympna and St. Syra, in the seventh century, and of St. Monina, St.

Ita of Desies, and St. Bride, or Bridget, of Kildare, in the sixth. The

number of conventual institutions for women established in those ages,

is less easily ascertained than the number of monastic houses for men;

but we may suppose them to have borne some proportion to each other,

and to have even counted by hundreds. The veneration in which St.

Bridget was held during her life, led many of her countrywomen to

embrace the religious state, and no less than fourteen _Saints_, her

namesakes, are recorded. It was the custom of those days to call all

holy persons who died in the odour of sanctity, _Saints_, hence

national or provincial tradition venerates very many names, which the

reader may look for in vain, in the Roman calendar.

The intellectual labours of the Irish schools, besides the task of

teaching such immense numbers of men of all nations on their own soil,

and the missionary conquests to which I have barely alluded, were

diversified by controversies, partly scientific and partly

theological—such as the "Easter Controversy," the "Tonsure

Controversy," and that maintained by "Feargal the Geometer," as to the

existence of the Antipodes.

The discussion, as to the proper time of observing Easter, which had

occupied the doctors of the Council of Nice in the fourth century, was

raised in Ireland and in Britain early in the sixth, and complete

uniformity was not established till far on in the eighth. It occupied

the thoughts of several generations of the chief men of the Irish

Church, and some of their arguments still fortunately survive, to

attest their learning and tolerance, as well as their zeal. St. Patrick

had introduced in the fifth century the computation of time then

observed in Gaul, and to this custom many of the Irish doctors rigidly

adhered, long after the rest of Christendom had agreed to adopt the

Alexandrian computation. Great names were found on both sides of the

controversy: Columbanus, Finian, and Aidan, for adhering exactly to the

rule of St. Patrick; Cummian, the White, Laserian and Adamnan, in

favour of strict agreement with Rome and the East. Monks of the same

Monastery and Bishops of the same Province maintained opposite opinions

with equal ardour and mutual charity. It was a question of discipline,

not a matter of faith; but it involved a still greater question,

whether national churches were to plead the inviolability of their

local usages, even on points of discipline, against the sense and

decision of the Universal Church.

In the year of our Lord 630, the Synod of Leighlin was held, under the

shelter of the ridge of Leinster, and the presidency of St. Laserian.

Both parties at length agreed to send deputies to Rome, as "children to

their mother," to learn her decision. Three years later, that decision

was made known, and the midland and southern dioceses at once adopted

it. The northern churches, however, still held out, under the lead of

Armagh and the influence of Iona, nor was it till a century later that

this scandal of celebrating Easter on two different days in the same

church was entirely removed. In justification of the Roman rule, St.

Cummian, about the middle of the seventh century, wrote his famous

epistle to Segenius, Abbot of Iona, of the ability and learning of

which all modern writers from Archbishop Usher to Thomas Moore, speak

in terms of the highest praise. It is one of the few remaining

documents of that controversy. A less vital question of discipline

arose about the tonsure. The Irish shaved the head in a semicircle from

temple to temple, while the Latin usage was to shave the crown, leaving

an external circle of hair to typify the crown of thorns. At the

conference of Whitby (A.D. 664) this was one of the subjects of

discussion between the clergy of Iona, and those who followed the Roman

method—but it never assumed the importance of the Easter controversy.

In the following century an Irish Missionary, Virgilius, of Saltzburgh,

(called by his countrymen "Feargal, the Geometer,") was maintaining in

Germany against no less an adversary than St. Boniface, the sphericity

of the earth and the existence of antipodes. His opponents endeavoured

to represent him, or really believed him to hold, that there were other

men, on our earth, for whom the Redeemer had not died; on this ground

they appealed to Pope Zachary against him; but so little effect had

this gross distortion of his true doctrine at Rome, when explanations

were given, that Feargal was soon afterwards raised to the See of

Saltzburgh, and subsequently canonized by Pope Gregory IX. In the ninth

century we find an Irish geographer and astronomer of something like

European reputation in Dicuil and Dungal, whose treatises and epistles

have been given to the press. Like their compatriot, Columbanus, these

accomplished men had passed their youth and early manhood in their own

country, and to its schools are to be transferred the compliments paid

to their acquirements by such competent judges as Muratori, Latronne,

and Alexander von Humboldt. The origin of the scholastic

philosophy—which pervaded Europe for nearly ten centuries—has been

traced by the learned Mosheim to the same insular source. Whatever may

now be thought of the defects or shortcomings of that system, it

certainly was not unfavourable either to wisdom or eloquence, since

among its professors may be reckoned the names of St. Thomas and St.

Bernard.

We must turn away our eyes from the contemplation of those days in

which were achieved for Ireland the title of the land of saints and

doctors. Another era opens before us, and we can already discern the

long ships of the north, their monstrous beaks turned towards the holy

Isle, their sides hung with glittering shields and their benches

thronged with fair-haired warriors, chanting as they advance the fierce

war songs of their race. Instead of the monk's familiar voice on the

river banks we are to hear the shouts of strange warriors from a

far-off country; and for matin hymn and vesper song, we are to be beset

through a long and stormy period, with sounds of strife and terror, and

deadly conflict.

BOOK II.

CHAPTER I.

THE DANISH INVASION.

Hugh VI., surnamed Ornie, succeeded to the throne vacant by the death

of Donogh I. (A.D. 797), and reigned twenty-two years; Conor II.

succeeded (A.D. 819), and reigned fourteen years; Nial III. (called

from the place of his death Nial of Callan), reigned thirteen years;

Malachy I. succeeded (A.D. 845), and reigned fifteen years; Hugh VII.

succeeded and reigned sixteen years (dying A.D. 877); Flan (surnamed

Flan of the Shannon) succeeded at the latter date, and reigned for

thirty-eight years, far into the tenth century. Of these six kings,

whose reigns average twenty years each, we may remark that not one died

by violence, if we except perhaps Nial of Callan, drowned in the river

of that name in a generous effort to save the life of one of his own

servants. Though no former princes had ever encountered dangers equal

to these—yet in no previous century was the person of the ruler so

religiously respected. If this was evident in one or two instances

only, it would be idle to lay much stress upon it; but when we find the

same truth holding good of several successive reigns, it is not too

much to attribute it to that wide diffusion of Christian morals, which

we have pointed out as the characteristic of the two preceding

centuries. The kings of this age owed their best protection to the

purer ethics which overflowed from Armagh and Bangor and Lismore; and

if we find hereafter the regicide habits of former times partially

revived, it will only be after the new Paganism—the Paganism of

interminable anti-Christian invasions—had recovered the land, and

extinguished the beacon lights of the three first Christian centuries.

The enemy, who were now to assault the religious and civil institutions

of the Irish, must be admitted to possess many great military

qualities. They certainly exhibit, in the very highest degree, the

first of all military virtues—unconquerable courage. Let us say

cheerfully, that history does not present in all its volumes a braver

race of men than the Scandinavians of the ninth century. In most

respects they closely resembled the Gothic tribes, who, whether

starting into historic life on the Euxine or the Danube, or faintly

heard of by the Latins from the far off Baltic, filled with constant

alarm the Roman statesmen of the fourth century; nor can the invasions

of what we may call the maritime Goths be better introduced to the

reader than by a rapid sketch of the previous triumphs of their kindred

tribes over the Roman Empire.

It was in the year of our Lord 378 that these long-dreaded barbarians

defeated the Emperor Valens in the plain of Adrianople, and as early as

404—twenty-six years after their first victory in Eastern Europe—they

had taken and burned great Rome herself. Again and again—in 410, in

455, and in 472—they captured and plundered the Imperial City. In the

same century they had established themselves in Burgundy, in Spain, and

in Northern Africa; in the next, another branch of the Gothic stock

twice took Rome; and yet another founded the Lombard Kingdom in

Northern Italy. With these Goths thus for a time masters of the Roman

Empire, whose genius and temper has entered so deeply into all

subsequent civilization, war was considered the only pursuit worthy of

men. According to their ideas of human freedom, that sacred principle

was supposed to exist only in force and by force; they had not the

faintest conception, and at first received with unbounded scorn the

Christian doctrine of the unity of the human race, the privileges and

duties annexed to Christian baptism, and the sublime ideal of the

Christian republic. But they were very far from being so cruel or so

faithless as their enemies represented them; they were even better than

they cared to represent themselves. And they had amongst them men of

the highest capacity and energy, well worthy to be the founders of new

nations. Alaric, Attila, and Genseric, were fierce and unmerciful it is

true; but their acts are not all written in blood; they had their

better moments and higher purposes in the intervals of battle; and the

genius for civil government of the Gothic race was in the very

beginning demonstrated by such rulers as Theodoric in Italy and Clovis

in Gaul. The rear guard of this irresistible barbaric invasion was now

about to break in upon Europe by a new route; instead of the long land

marches by which they had formerly concentrated from the distant Baltic

and from the tributaries of the Danube, on the capital of the Roman

empire; instead of the tedious expeditions striking across the

Continent, hewing their paths through dense forests, arrested by rapid

rivers and difficult mountains, the last northern invaders of Europe

had sufficiently advanced in the arts of shipbuilding and navigation to

strike boldly into the open sea and commence their new conquests among

the Christian islands of the West. The defenders of Roman power and

Christian civilization in the fifth and sixth centuries, were arrayed

against a warlike but pastoral people encumbered with their women and

children; the defenders of the same civilization, in the British

Islands in the ninth and tenth centuries, were contending with kindred

tribes, who had substituted maritime arts and habits for the pastoral

arts and habits of the companions of Attila and Theodoric. The Gothic

invasion of Roman territory in the earlier period was, with the single

exception of the naval expeditions of Genseric from his new African

Kingdom, a continental war; and notwithstanding the partiality of

Genseric for his fleet, as an arm of offence and defence, his

companions and successors abandoned the ocean as an uncongenial

element. The only parallel for the new invasion, of which we are now to

speak, is to be found in the history and fortunes of the Saxons of the

fifth century, first the allies and afterwards the conquerors of part

of Britain. But even their descendants in England had not kept pace,

either in the arts of navigation or in thirst for adventure, with their

distant relatives, who remained two centuries later among the friths

and rocks of Scandinavia.

The first appearance of these invaders on the Irish and British coasts

occurred in 794. Their first descent on Ireland was at Rathlin island,

which may be called the outpost of Erin, towards the north; their

second attempt (A.D. 797) was at a point much more likely to arouse

attention—at Skerries, off the coast of Meath (now Dublin); in 803, and

again in 806, they attacked and plundered the holy Iona; but it was not

until a dozen years later they became really formidable. In 818 they

landed at Howth; and the same year, and probably the same party, sacked

the sacred edifices in the estuary of the Slaney, by them afterwards

called Wexford; in 820 they plundered Cork, and in 824—most startling

blow of all—they sacked and burned the schools of Bangor. The same year

they revisited Iona; and put to death many of its inmates; destroyed

Moville; received a severe check in Lecale, near Strangford lough (one

of their favourite stations). Another party fared better in a land

foray into Ossory, where they defeated those who endeavoured to arrest

their progress, and carried off a rich booty. In 830 and 831, their

ravages were equally felt in Leinster, in Meath, and in Ulster, and

besides many prisoners of princely rank, they plundered the primatial

city of Armagh for the first time, in the year 832. The names of their

chief captains, at this period, are carefully preserved by those who

had so many reasons to remember them; and we now begin to hear of the

Ivars, Olafs, and Sitricks, strangely intermingled with the Hughs,

Nials, Connors, and Felims, who contended with them in battle or in

diplomacy. It was not till the middle of this century (A.D. 837) that

they undertook to fortify Dublin, Limerick, and some other harbours

which they had seized, to winter in Ireland, and declare their purpose

to be the complete conquest of the country.

The earliest of these expeditions seem to have been annual visitations;

and as the northern winter sets in about October, and the Baltic is

seldom navigable before May, the summer was the season of their

depredations. Awaiting the breaking up of the ice, the intrepid

adventurers assembled annually upon the islands in the Cattegat or on

the coast of Norway, awaiting the favourable moment of departure. Here

they beguiled their time between the heathen rites they rendered to

their gods, their wild bacchanal festivals, and the equipment of their

galleys. The largest ship built in Norway, and probably in the north,

before the eleventh century, had 34 banks of oars. The largest class of

vessel carried from 100 to 120 men. The great fleet which invaded

Ireland in 837 counted 120 vessels, which, if of average size for such

long voyages, would give a total force of some 6,000 men. As the whole

population of Denmark, in the reign of Canute who died in 1035, is

estimated at 800,000 souls, we may judge from their fleets how large a

portion of the men were engaged in these piratical pursuits. The ships

on which they prided themselves so highly were flat-bottomed craft,

with little or no keel, the sides of wicker work, covered with strong

hides. They were impelled either by sails or oars as the changes of the

weather allowed; with favourable winds they often made the voyage in

three days. As if to favour their designs, the north and north-west

blast blows for a hundred days of the year over the sea they had to

traverse. When land was made, in some safe estuary, their galleys were

drawn up on shore, a convenient distance beyond highwater mark, where

they formed a rude camp, watch-fires were lighted, sentinels set, and

the fearless adventurers slept as soundly as if under their own roofs,

in their own country. Their revels after victory, or on returning to

their homes, were as boisterous as their lives. In food they looked

more to quantity than quality, and one of their most determined

prejudices against Christianity was that it did not sanction the eating

of horse flesh. An exhilarating beer, made from heath, or from the

spruce tree, was their principal beverage, and the recital of their own

adventures, or the national songs of the Scalds, were their most

cherished amusement. Many of the Vikings were themselves Scalds, and

excelled, as might be expected, in the composition of war songs.

The Pagan belief of this formidable race was in harmony with all their

thoughts and habits, and the exact opposite of Christianity. In the

beginning of time, according to their tradition, there was neither

heaven nor earth, but only universal chaos and a bottomless abyss,

where dwelt Surtur in an element of unquenchable fire. The generation

of their gods proceeded amid the darkness and void, from the union of

heat and moisture, until Odin and the other children of Asa-Thor, or

the Earth, slew Ymer, or the Evil One, and created the material

universe out of his lifeless remains. These heroic conquerors also

collected the sparks of eternal fire flying about in the abyss, and

fixed them as stars in the firmament. In addition, they erected in the

far East, Asgard, the City of the Gods; on the extreme shore of the

ocean stood Utgard, the City of Nor and his giants, and the wars of

these two cities, of their gods and giants, fill the first and most

obscure ages of the Scandinavian legend. The human race had as yet no

existence until Odin created a man and woman, Ask and Embla, out of two

pieces of wood (ash and elm), thrown upon the beach by the waves of the

sea.

Of all the gods of Asgard, Odin was the first in place and power; from

his throne he saw everything that happened on the earth; and lest

anything should escape his knowledge, two ravens, Spirit and Memory,

sat on his shoulders, and whispered in his ears whatever they had seen

in their daily excursions round the world. Night was a divinity and the

father of Day, who travelled alternately throughout space, with two

celebrated steeds called Shining-mane and Frost-mane. Friga was the

daughter and wife of Odin; the mother of Thor, the Mars, and of the

beautiful Balder, the Apollo, of Asgard. The other gods were of

inferior rank to these, and answered to the lesser divinities of Greece

and Rome. Niord was the Neptune, and Frega, daughter of Niord, was the

Venus of the North. Heimdall, the watchman of Asgard, whose duty it was

to prevent the rebellious giants scaling by surprise the walls of the

celestial city, dwelt under the end of the rainbow; his vision was so

perfect he could discern objects 100 leagues distant, either by night

or day, and his ear was so fine he could hear the wool growing on the

sheep, and the grass springing in the meadows.

The hall of Odin, which had 540 gates, was the abode of heroes who had

fought bravest in battle. Here they were fed with the lard of a wild

boar, which became whole every night, though devoured every day, and

drank endless cups of hydromel, drawn from the udder of an

inexhaustible she-goat, and served out to them by the Nymphs, who had

counted the slain, in cups which were made of the skulls of their

enemies. When they were wearied of such enjoyments, the sprites of the

Brave exercised themselves in single combat, hacked each other to

pieces on the floor of Valhalla, resumed their former shape, and

returned to their lard and their hydromel.

Believing firmly in this system—looking forward with undoubting faith

to such an eternity—the Scandinavians were zealous to serve their gods

according to their creed. Their rude hill altars gave way as they

increased in numbers and wealth, to spacious temples at Upsala, Ledra,

Tronheim, and other towns and ports. They had three great festivals,

one at the beginning of February, in honour of Thor, one in Spring, in

honour of Odin, and one in Summer, in honour of the fruitful daughter

of Niord. The ordinary sacrifices were animals and birds; but every

ninth year there was a great festival at Upsala, at which the kings and

nobles were obliged to appear in person, and to make valuable

offerings. Wizards and sorcerers, male and female, haunted the temples,

and good and ill winds, length of life, and success in war, were

spiritual commodities bought and sold. Ninety-nine human victims were

offered at the great Upsala festival, and in all emergencies such

sacrifices were considered most acceptable to the gods. Captives and

slaves were at first selected; but, in many cases, princes did not

spare their subjects, nor fathers their own children. The power of a

Priesthood, who could always enforce such a system, must have been

unbounded and irresistible.

The active pursuits of such a population were necessarily maritime. In

their short summer, such crops as they planted ripened rapidly, but

their chief sustenance was animal food and the fish that abounded in

their waters. The artizans in highest repute among them were the

shipwrights and smiths. The hammer and anvil were held in the highest

honour; and of this class, the armorers held the first place. The kings

of the North had no standing armies, but their lieges were summoned to

war by an arrow in Pagan times, and a cross after their conversion.

Their chief dependence was in infantry, which they formed into

wedge-like columns, and so, clashing their shields and singing hymns to

Odin, they advanced against their enemies. Different divisions were

differently armed; some with a short two-edged sword and a heavy

battle-axe; others with the sling, the javelin, and the bow. The shield

was long and light, commonly of wood and leather, but for the chiefs,

ornamented with brass, with silver, and even with gold. Locking the

shields together formed a rampart which it was not easy to break; in

bad weather the concave shield seems to have served the purpose of our

umbrella; in sea-fights the vanquished often escaped by swimming ashore

on their shields. Armour many of them wore; the Berserkers, or

champions, were so called from always engaging, _bare_ of defensive

armour.

Such were the men, the arms, and the creed, against which the Irish of

the ninth age, after three centuries of exemption from foreign war,

were called upon to combat. A people, one-third of whose youth and

manhood had embraced the ecclesiastical state, and all whose tribes now

professed the religion of peace, mercy, and forgiveness, were called to

wrestle with a race whose religion was one of blood, and whose

beatitude was to be in proportion to the slaughter they made while on

earth. The Northman hated Christianity as a rival religion, and

despised it as an effeminate one. He was the soldier of Odin, the elect

of Valhalla; and he felt that the offering most acceptable to his

sanguinary gods was the blood of those religionists who denied their

existence and execrated their revelation. The points of attack,

therefore, were almost invariably the great seats of learning and

religion. There, too, was to be found the largest bulk of the portable

wealth of the country, in richly adorned altars, jewelled chalices, and

shrines of saints. The ecclesiastical map is the map of their campaigns

in Ireland. And it is to avenge or save these innumerable sacred

places—as countless as the Saints of the last three centuries—that the

Christian population have to rouse themselves year after year, hurrying

to a hundred points at the same time. To the better and nobler spirits

the war becomes a veritable crusade, and many of those slain in

single-hearted defence of their altars may well be accounted

martyrs—but a war so protracted and so devastating will be found, in

the sequel, to foster and strengthen many of the worst vices as well as

some of the best virtues of our humanity.

The early events are few and ill-known. During the reign of Hugh VI.,

who died in 819, their hostile visits were few and far between; his

successors, Conor II. and Nial III., were destined to be less fortunate

in this respect. During the reign of Conor, Cork, Lismore, Dundalk,

Bangor and Armagh, were all surprised, plundered, and abandoned by "the

Gentiles," as they are usually called in Irish annals; and with the

exception of two skirmishes in which they were worsted on the coasts of

Down and Wexford, they seem to have escaped with impunity. At Bangor

they shook the bones of the revered founder out of the costly shrine

before carrying it off; on their first visit to Kildare they contented

themselves with taking the gold and silver ornaments of the tomb of St.

Bridget, without desecrating the relics; their main attraction at

Armagh was the same, but there the relics seemed to have escaped. When,

in 830, the brotherhood of Iona apprehended their return, they carried

into Ireland, for greater safety, the relics of St. Columbkill. Hence

it came that most of the memorials of SS. Patrick, Bridget, and

Columbkill, were afterwards united at Downpatrick.

While these deplorable sacrileges, too rapidly executed perhaps to be

often either prevented or punished, were taking place, Conor the King

had on his hand a war of succession, waged by the ablest of his

contemporaries, Felim, King of Munster, who continued during this and

the subsequent reign to maintain a species of rival monarchy in

Munster. It seems clear enough that the abandonment of Tara, as the

seat of authority, greatly aggravated the internal weakness of the

Milesian constitution. While over-centralization is to be dreaded as

the worst tendency of imperial power, it is certain that the want of a

sufficient centralization has proved as fatal, on the other hand, to

the independence of many nations. And anarchical usages once admitted,

we see from the experience of the German Empire, and the Italian

republics, how almost impossible it is to apply a remedy. In the case

before us, when the Irish Kings abandoned the old mensal domain and

betook themselves to their own patrimony, it was inevitable that their

influence and authority over the southern tribes should diminish and

disappear. Aileach, in the far North, could never be to them what Tara

had been. The charm of conservatism, the halo of ancient glory, could

not be transferred. Whenever, therefore, ambitious and able Princes

arose in the South, they found the border tribes rife for backing their

pretensions against the Northern dynasty. The Bards, too, plied their

craft, reviving the memory of former times, when Heber the Fair divided

Erin equally with Heremon, and when Eugene More divided it a second

time with Con of the Hundred Battles. Felim, the son of Crimthan, the

contemporary of Conor II. and Nial III., during the whole term of their

rule, was the resolute assertor of these pretensions, and the Bards of

his own Province do not hesitate to confer on him the high title of

_Ard-Righ_. As a punishment for adhering to the Hy-Nial dynasty, or for

some other offence, this Christian king, in rivalry with "the

Gentiles," plundered Kildare, Burrow, and Clonmacnoise—the latter

perhaps for siding with Connaught in the dispute as to whether the

present county of Clare belonged to Connaught or Munster. Twice he met

in conference with the monarch at Birr and at Cloncurry—at another time

he swept the plain of Meath, and held temporary court in the royal rath

of Tara. With all his vices lie united an extraordinary energy, and

during his time, no Danish settlement was established on the Southern

rivers. Shortly before his decease (A.D. 846) he resigned his crown and

retired from the world, devoting the short remainder of his days to

penance and mortification. What we know of his ambition and ability

makes us regret that he ever appeared upon the scene, or that he had

not been born of that dominant family, who alone were accustomed to

give kings to the whole country.

King Conor died (A.D. 833), and was succeeded by Nial III., surnamed

Nial of Callan. The military events of this last reign are so

intimately bound up with the more brilliant career of the next

ruler—Melaghlin, or Malachy I.—that we must reserve them for the

introduction to the next chapter.

CHAPTER II.

KINGS OF THE NINTH CENTURY (CONTINUED)—NIAL III.—MALACHY I.—HUGH VII.

When, in the year 833, Nial III. received the usual homage and

hostages, which ratified his title of _Ard-Righ_, the northern invasion

had clearly become the greatest danger that ever yet had threatened the

institutions of Erin. Attacks at first predatory and provincial had so

encouraged the Gentile leaders of the second generation that they began

to concert measures and combine plans for conquest and colonization. To

the Vikings of Norway the fertile Island with which they were now so

familiar, whose woods were bent with the autumnal load of acorns, mast,

and nuts, and filled with numerous herds of swine—their favourite

food—whose pleasant meadows were well stored with beeves and oxen,

whose winter was often as mild as their northern summer, and whose

waters were as fruitful in fish as their own Lofoden friths; to these

men, this was a prize worth fighting for; and for it they fought long

and desperately.

King Nial inherited a disputed sovereignty from his predecessor, and

the Southern annalists say he did homage to Felim of Munster, while

those of the North—and with them the majority of historians—reject this

statement as exaggerated and untrue. He certainly experienced continual

difficulty in maintaining his supremacy, not only from the Prince of

Cashel, but from lords of lesser grade—like those of Ossory and Ulidia;

so that we may say, while he had the title of King of Ireland, he was,

in fact, King of no more than Leath-Con, or the Northern half. The

central Province, Meath, long deserted by the monarchs, had run wild

into independence, and was parcelled out between two or three chiefs,

descendants of the same common ancestor as the kings, but distinguished

from them by the tribe-name of "the _Southern_ Hy-Nial." Of these heads

of new houses, by far the ablest and most famous was Melaghlin, who

dwelt near Mullingar, and lorded it over western Meath; a name with

which we shall become better acquainted presently. It does not clearly

appear that Melaghlin was one of those who actively resisted the

prerogatives of this monarch, though others of the Southern Hy-Nial did

at first reject his authority, and were severely punished for their

insubordination, the year after his assumption of power.

In the fourth year of Nial III. (A.D. 837), arrived the great Norwegian

fleet of 120 sail, whose commanders first attempted, on a combined

plan, the conquest of Erin. Sixty of the ships entered the Boyne; the

other sixty the Liffey. This formidable force, according to all Irish

accounts, was soon after united under one leader, who is known in our

Annals as _Turgeis_ or _Turgesius_, but of whom no trace can be found,

under that name, in the chronicles of the Northmen. Every effort to

identify him in the records of his native land has hitherto failed—so

that we are forced to conclude that he must have been one of those

wandering sea-kings, whose fame was won abroad, and whose story, ending

in defeat, yet entailing no dynastic consequences on his native land,

possessed no national interest for the authors of the old Norse Sagas.

To do all the Scandinavian chroniclers justice, in cases which come

directly under their notice, they acknowledge defeat as frankly as they

claim victory proudly. Equal praise may be given to the Irish annalists

in recording the same events, whether at first or second-hand. In

relation to the campaigns and sway of Turgesius, the difficulty we

experience in separating what is true from what is exaggerated or

false, is not created for us by the annalists, but by the bards and

story-tellers, some of whose inventions, adopted by _Cambrensis_, have

been too readily received by subsequent writers. For all the acts of

national importance with which his name can be intelligibly associated,

we prefer to follow in this as in other cases, the same sober

historians who condense the events of years and generations into the

shortest space and the most matter of fact expression.

If we were to receive the chronology while rejecting the embellishments

of the Bards, Turgesius must have first come to Ireland with one of the

expeditions of the year 820, since they speak of him as having been

"the scourge of the country for seventeen years," before he assumed the

command of the forces landed from the fleet of 837. Nor is it

unreasonable to suppose that an accurate knowledge of the country,

acquired by years of previous warfare with its inhabitants, may have

been one of the grounds upon which the chief command was conferred on

Turgesius. This knowledge was soon put to account; Dublin was taken

possession of, and a strong fort, according to the Scandinavian method,

was erected on the hill where now stands the Castle. This fort and the

harbour beneath it were to be the _rendezvous_ and arsenal for all

future operations against Leinster, and the foundation of foreign power

then laid, continued in foreign hands, with two or three brief

intervals, until transferred to the Anglo-Norman chivalry, three

centuries and a half later. Similar lodgment was made at Waterford, and

a third was attempted at Limerick, but at this period without success;

the Danish fort at the latter point is not thought older than the year

855. But Turgesius—if, indeed, the independent acts of cotemporary and

even rival chiefs be not too often attributed to him—was not content

with fortifying the estuaries of some principal rivers; he established

inland centres of operation, of which the cardinal one was on Lough

Ree, the expansion of the Shannon, north of Athlone; another was at a

point called Lyndwachill, on Lough Neagh. On both these waters were

stationed fleets of boats, constructed for that service, and

communicating with the forts on shore. On the eastern border of Lough

Ree, in the midst of its meadows, stood Clonmacnoise, rich with the

offerings and endowments of successive generations. Here, three

centuries before, in the heart of the desert, St. Kieran had erected

with his own hands a rude sylvan cell, where, according to the allegory

of tradition, "the first monks who joined him," were the fox, the wolf,

and the bear; but time had wrought wonders on that hallowed ground, and

a group of churches—at one time, as many as ten in number—were gathered

within two or three acres, round its famous schools, and presiding

Cathedral. Here it was Turgesius made his usual home, and from the high

altar of the Cathedral his unbelieving Queen was accustomed to issue

her imperious mandates in his absence. Here, for nearly seven years,

this conqueror and his consort exercised their far-spread and terrible

power. According to the custom of their own country—a custom attributed

to Odin as its author—they exacted from every inhabitant subject to

their sway—a piece of money annually, the forfeit for the non-payment

of which was the loss of the nose, hence called "nose-money." Their

other exactions were a union of their own northern imposts, with those

levied by the chiefs whose authority they had superseded, but whose

prerogatives they asserted for themselves. Free quarters for their

soldiery, and a system of inspection extending to every private

relation of life, were the natural expedients of a tyranny so odious.

On the ecclesiastical order especially their yoke bore with peculiar

weight, since, although avowed Pagans, they permitted no religious

house to stand, unless under an Abbot, or at least an _Erenach_ (or

Treasurer) of their approval. Such is the complete scheme of oppression

presented to us, that it can only be likened to a monstrous spider-web

spread from the centre of the Island over its fairest and most populous

districts. Glendalough, Ferns, Castle-Dermid, and Kildare in the east;

Lismore, Cork, Clonfert, in the southern country; Dundalk, Bangor,

Derry, and Armagh in the north; all groaned under this triumphant

despot, or his colleagues. In the meanwhile King Nial seems to have

struggled resolutely with the difficulties of his lot, and in every

interval of insubordination to have struck boldly at the common enemy.

But the tide of success for the first few years after 837 ran strongly

against him. The joint hosts from the Liffey and the Boyne swept the

rich plains of Meath, and in an engagement at Invernabark (the present

Bray) gave such a complete defeat to the southern Hy-Nial clans as

prevented them making head again in the field, until some summers were

past and gone. In this campaign Saxolve, who is called "the chief of

the foreigners," was slain; and to him, therefore, if to any

commander-in-chief, Turgesius must have succeeded. The shores of all

the inland lakes were favourite sites for Raths and Churches, and the

beautiful country around Lough Erne shared the fiery ordeal which

blazed on Lough Ree and Lough Neagh. In 839 the men of Connaught also

suffered a defeat equal to that experienced by those of Meath in the

previous campaign; but more unfortunate than the Methians, they lost

their leader and other chiefs on the field. In 840, Ferns and Cork were

given to the flames, and the fort at Lyndwachill, or Magheralin, poured

out its ravages in every direction over the adjacent country, sweeping

off flocks, herds, and prisoners, laymen and ecclesiastics, to their

ships. The northern depredators counted among their captives "several

Bishops and learned men," of whom the Abbot of Clogher and the Lord of

Galtrim are mentioned by name. Their equally active colleagues of

Dublin and Waterford took captive, Hugh, Abbot of Clonenagh, and

Foranan, Archbishop of Armagh, who had fled southwards with many of the

relics of the Metropolitan Church, escaping from one danger only to

fall into another a little farther off. These prisoners were carried

into Munster, where Abbot Hugh suffered martyrdom at their hands, but

the Archbishop, after being carried to their fleet at Limerick, seems

to have been rescued or ransomed, as we find him dying in peace at

Armagh in the next reign. The martyrs of these melancholy times were

very numerous, but the exact particulars being so often unrecorded it

is impossible to present the reader with an intelligible account of

their persons and sufferings. When the Anglo-Normans taunted the Irish

that their Church had no martyrs to boast of, they must have forgotten

the exploits of their Norse kinsmen about the middle of this century.

But the hour of retribution was fast coming round, and the native

tribes, unbound, divided, confused, and long unused to foreign war,

were fast recovering their old martial experience, and something like a

politic sense of the folly of their border feuds. Nothing perhaps so

much tended to arouse and combine them together as the capture of the

successor of Saint Patrick, with all his relics, and his imprisonment

among a Pagan host, in Irish waters. National humiliation could not

much farther go, and as we read we pause, prepared for either

alternative—mute submission or a brave uprising. King Nial seems to

have been in this memorable year, 843, defending as well as he might

his ancestral province—Ulster—against the ravagers of Lough Neagh, and

still another party whose ships flocked into Lough Swilly. In the

ancient plain of Moynith, watered by the little river Finn, (the

present barony of Raphoe,) he encountered the enemy, and according to

the Annals, "a countless number fell"—victory being with Nial. In the

same year, or the next, Turgesius was captured by Melaghlin, Lord of

Westmeath, apparently by stratagem, and put to death by the rather

novel process of drowning. The Bardic tale told to _Cambrensis_, or

parodied by him from an old Greek legend, of the death by which

Turgesius died, is of no historical authority. According to this tale,

the tyrant of Lough Ree conceived a passion for the fair daughter of

Melaghlin, and demanded her of her father, who, fearing to refuse,

affected to grant the infamous request, but despatched in her stead, to

the place of assignation, twelve beardless youths, habited as maidens,

to represent his daughter and her attendants; by these maskers the

Norwegian and his boon companions were assassinated, after they had

drank to excess and laid aside their arms and armour. For all this

superstructure of romance there is neither ground-work nor license in

the facts themselves, beyond this, that Turgesius was evidently

captured by some clever stratagem. We hear of no battle in Meath or

elsewhere against him immediately preceding the event; nor, is it

likely that a secondary Prince, as Melaghlin then was, could have

hazarded an engagement with the powerful master of Lough Ree. If the

local traditions of Westmeath may be trusted, where _Cambrensis_ is

rejected, the Norwegian and Irish principals in the tragedy of Lough

Owel were on visiting terms just before the denouement, and many

curious particulars of their peaceful but suspicious intercourse used

to be related by the modern story-tellers around Castle-pollard. The

anecdote of the rookery, of which Melaghlin complained, and the remedy

for which his visitor suggested to be "to cut down the trees and the

rooks would fly," has a suspicious look of the "tall poppies" of the

Roman and Grecian legend; two things only do we know for certain about

the matter: _firstly_, that Turgesius was taken and drowned in Lough

Owel in the year 843 or 844; and _secondly_, that this catastrophe was

brought about by the agency and order of his neighbour, Melaghlin.

The victory of Moynith and the death of Turgesius were followed by some

local successes against other fleets and garrisons of the enemy. Those

of Lough Ree seem to have abandoned their fort, and fought their way

(gaining in their retreat the only military advantage of that year)

towards Sligo, where some of their vessels had collected to bear them

away. Their colleagues of Dublin, undeterred by recent reverses, made

their annual foray southward into Ossory, in 844, and immediately we

find King Nial moving up from the north to the same scene of action. In

that district he met his death in an effort to save the life of a

_gilla_, or common servant. The river of Callan being greatly swollen,

the _gilla_, in attempting to find a ford, was swept away in its turbid

torrent. The King entreated some one to go to his rescue, but as no one

obeyed he generously plunged in himself and sacrificed his own life in

endeavouring to preserve one of his humblest followers. He was in the

55th year of his age and the 13th of his reign, and in some traits of

character reminded men of his grandfather, the devout Nial "of the

Showers." The Bards have celebrated the justice of his judgments, the

goodness of his heart, and the comeliness of his "brunette-bright

face." He left a son of age to succeed him, (and who ultimately did

become _Ard-Righ_,) yet the present popularity of Melaghlin of Meath

triumphed over every other interest, and he was raised to the

monarchy—the first of his family who had yet attained that honour.

Hugh, the son of Nial, sank for a time into the rank of a Provincial

Prince, before the ascendant star of the captor of Turgesius, and is

usually spoken of during this reign as "Hugh of Aileach." He is found

towards its close, as if impatient of the succession, employing the

arms of the common enemy to ravage the ancient mensal land of the kings

of Erin, and otherwise harassing the last days of his successful rival.

Melaghlin, or Malachy I. (sometimes called "of the Shannon," from his

patrimony along that river), brought back again the sovereignty to the

centre, and in happier days might have become the second founder of

Tara. But it was plain enough then, and it is tolerably so still, that

this was not to be an age of restoration. The kings of Ireland after

this time, says the quaint old translator of the Annals of

Clonmacnoise, "had little good of it," down to the days of King Brian.

It was, in fact, a perpetual struggle for self-preservation—the first

duty of all governments, as well as the first law of all nature. The

powerful action of the Gentile forces, upon an originally

ill-centralized and recently much abused Constitution, seemed to render

it possible that every new Ard-Righ would prove the last. Under the

pressure of such a deluge all ancient institutions were shaken to their

foundations; and the venerable authority of Religion itself, like a

Hermit in a mountain torrent, was contending for the hope of escape or

existence. We must not, therefore, amid the din of the conflicts

through which we are to pass, condemn without stint or qualification

those Princes who were occasionally driven—as some of them _were_

driven—to that last resort, the employment of foreign mercenaries (and

those mercenaries often anti-Christians,) to preserve some show of

native government and kingly authority. Grant that in some of them the

use of such allies and agents cannot be justified on any plea or

pretext of state necessity; where base ends or unpatriotic motives are

clear or credible, such treason to country cannot be too heartily

condemned; but it is indeed far from certain that such were the motives

in _all_ cases, or that such ought to be our conclusion in any, in the

absence of sufficient evidence to that effect.

Though the Gentile power had experienced towards the close of the last

reign such severe reverses, yet it was not in the nature of the men of

Norway to abandon a prize which was once so nearly being their own. The

fugitives who escaped, as well as those who remained within the strong

ramparts of Waterford and Dublin, urged the fitting out of new

expeditions, to avenge their slaughtered countrymen and prosecute the

conquest. But defeat still followed on defeat; in the first year of

Malachy, they lost 1,200 men in a disastrous action near Castle Dermot,

with Olcobar the Prince-bishop of Cashel; and in the same or the next

season they were defeated with the loss of 700 men, by Malachy, at

Fore, in Meath. In the third year of Malachy, however, a new northern

expedition arrived in 140 vessels, which, according to the average

capacity of the long-ships of that age, must have carried with them

from 7,000 to 10,000 men. Fortunately for the assailed, this fleet was

composed of what they called _Black_-Gentiles, or Danes, as

distinguished from their predecessors, the _Fair_-Gentiles, or

Norwegians. A quarrel arose between the adventurers of the two nations

as to the possession of the few remaining fortresses, especially of

Dublin; and an engagement was fought along the Liffey, which "lasted

for three days;" the Danes finally prevailed, driving the Norwegians

from their stronghold, and cutting them off from their ships. The new

Northern leaders are named Anlaf, or Olaf, Sitrick (Sigurd?) and Ivar;

the first of the Danish Earls, who established themselves at Dublin,

Waterford and Limerick respectively. Though the immediate result of the

arrival of the great fleet of 847 relieved for the moment the worst

apprehensions of the invaded, and enabled them to rally their means of

defence, yet as Denmark had more than double the population of Norway,

it brought them into direct collision with a more formidable power than

that from which they had been so lately delivered. The tactics of both

nations were the same. No sooner had they established themselves on the

ruins of their predecessors in Dublin, than the Danish forces entered

East-Meath, under the guidance of Kenneth, a local lord, and overran

the ancient mensal, from the sea to the Shannon. One of their first

exploits was burning alive 260 prisoners in the tower of Treoit, in the

island of Lough Gower, near Dunshaughlin. The next year, his allies

having withdrawn from the neighbourhood, Kenneth was taken by King

Malachy's men, and the traitor himself drowned in a sack, in the little

river Nanny, which divides the two baronies of Duleek. This

death-penalty by drowning seems to have been one of the useful hints

which the Irish picked up from their invaders.

During the remainder of this reign the Gentile war resumed much of its

old local and guerrilla character, the Provincial chiefs, and the

Ard-Righ, occasionally employing bands of one nation of the invaders to

combat the other, and even to suppress their native rivals. The only

pitched battle of which we hear is that of "the Two Plains" (near

Coolestown, King's County), in the second last year of Malachy (A.D.

859), in which his usual good fortune attended the king. The greater

part of his reign was occupied, as always must be the case with the

founder of a new line, in coercing into obedience his former peers. On

this business he made two expeditions into Munster, and took hostages

from all the tribes of the Eugenian race. With the same object he held

a conference with all the chiefs of Ulster, Hugh of Aileach only being

absent, at Armagh, in the fourth year of his reign, and a General

_Feis_, or Assembly of all the Orders of Ireland, at Rathugh, in

West-Meath, in his thirteenth year (A.D. 857). He found,

notwithstanding his victories and his early popularity, that there are

always those ready to turn from the setting to the rising sun, and

towards the end of his reign he was obliged to defend his camp, near

Armagh, by force, from a night assault of the discontented Prince of

Aileach; who also ravaged his patrimony, almost at the moment he lay on

his death-bed. Malachy I. departed this life on the 13th day of

November, (A.D. 860), having reigned sixteen years. "Mournful is the

news to the Gael!" exclaims the elegiac Bard! "Red wine is spilled into

the valley! Erin's monarch has died!" And the lament contrasts his

stately form as "he rode the white stallion," with the striking reverse

when, "his only horse this day"—that is the bier on which his body was

borne to the churchyard—"is drawn behind two oxen."

The restless Prince of Aileach now succeeded as Hugh VII., and

possessed the perilous honour he so much coveted for sixteen years, the

same span that had been allotted to his predecessor. The beginning of

this reign was remarkable for the novel design of the Danes, who

marched out in great force, and set themselves busily to breaking open

the ancient mounds in the cemetery of the Pagan kings, beside the

Boyne, in hope of finding buried treasure. The three Earls, Olaf,

Sitrick, and Ivar, are said to have been present, while their

gold-hunters broke into in succession the mound-covered cave of the

wife of Goban, at Drogheda, the cave of "the Shepherd of Elcmar," at

Dowth, the cave of the field of Aldai, at New Grange, and the similar

cave at Knowth. What they found in these huge cairns of the old

_Tuatha_ is not related; but Roman coins of Valentinian and Theodosius,

and torques and armlets of gold, have been discovered by accident

within their precincts, and an enlightened modern curiosity has not

explored them in vain, in the higher interests of history and science.

In the first two years of his reign, Hugh VII. was occupied in securing

the hostages of his suffragans; in the third he swept the remaining

Danish and Norwegian garrisons out of Ulster, and defeated a newly

arrived force on the borders of Lough Foyle; the next the Danish Earls

went on a foray into Scotland, and no exploit is to be recorded; in his

sixth year, Hugh, with 1,000 chosen men of his own tribe and the aid of

the Sil-Murray (O'Conor's) of Connaught, attacked and defeated a force

of 5,000 Danes with their Leinster allies, near Dublin at a place

supposed to be identical with Killaderry. Earl Olaf lost his son, and

Erin her _Roydamna_, or heir-apparent, on this field, which was much

celebrated by the Bards of Ulster and of Connaught. Amongst those who

fell was Flan, son of Conaing, chief of the district which included the

plundered cemeteries, fighting on the side of the plunderers. The

mother of Flan was one of those who composed quatrains on the event of

the battle, and her lines are a natural and affecting alternation from

joy to grief—joy for the triumph of her brother and her country, and

grief for the loss of her self-willed, warlike son. Olaf, the Danish

leader, avenged in the next campaign the loss of his son, by a

successful descent on Armagh, once again rising from its ruins. He put

to the sword 1,000 persons, and left the primatial city lifeless,

charred, and desolate. In the next ensuing year the monarch chastised

the Leinster allies of the Danes, traversing their territory with fire

and sword from Dublin to the border town of Gowran. This seems to have

been the last of his notable exploits in arms. He died on the 20th of

November, 876, and is lamented by the Bards as "a generous, wise, staid

man." These praises belong—if at all deserved—to his old age.

Flan, son of Malachy I. (and surnamed like his father "of the

Shannon"), succeeded in the year 877, of the Annals of the Four

Masters, or more accurately the year 879 of our common era. He enjoyed

the very unusual reign of thirty-eight years. Some of the domestic

events of his time are of so unprecedented a character, and the period

embraced is so considerable, that we must devote to it a separate

chapter.

CHAPTER III.

REIGN OF FLAN "OF THE SHANNON" (A.D. 879 TO 916).

Midway in the reign we are called upon to contemplate, falls the

centenary of the first invasion of Ireland by the Northmen. Let us

admit that the scenes of that century are stirring and stimulating; two

gallant races of men, in all points strongly contrasted, contend for

the most part in the open field, for the possession of a beautiful and

fertile island. Let us admit that the Milesian-Irish, themselves

invaders and conquerors of an older date, may have had no right to

declare the era of colonization closed for their country, while its

best harbours were without ships, and leagues of its best land were

without inhabitants; yet what gives to the contest its lofty and

fearful interest, is, that the foreigners who come so far and fight so

bravely for the prize, are a Pagan people, drunk with the evil spirit

of one of the most anti-Christian forms of human error. And what is

still worse, and still more to be lamented, it is becoming, after the

experience of a century, plainer and plainer, that the Christian

natives, while defending with unfaltering courage their beloved

country, are yet descending more and more to the moral level of their

assailants, without the apology of their Paganism. Degenerate

civilisation may be a worse element for truth to work in than original

barbarism; and, therefore, as we enter on the second century of this

struggle, we begin to fear for the Christian Irish, _not_ from the arms

or the valour, but from the contact and example of the unbelievers.

This, it is necessary to premise, before presenting to the reader a

succession of Bishops who lead armies to battle, of Abbots whose voice

is still for war, of treacherous tactics and savage punishments; of the

almost total disruption of the last links of that federal bond, which,

"though light as air were strong as iron," before the charm of

inviolability had been taken away from the ancient constitution.

We begin to discern in this reign that royal marriages have much to do

with war and politics. Hugh, the late king, left a widow, named

Maelmara ("follower of Mary"), daughter to Kenneth M'Alpine, King of

the Caledonian Scots: this lady Flan married. The mother of Flan was

the daughter of Dungal, Prince of Ossory, so that to the cotemporary

lords of that borderland the monarch stood in the relation of cousin. A

compact seems to have been entered into in the past reign, that the

_Roydamna_, or successor, should be chosen alternately from the

Northern and Southern Hy-Nial; and, subsequently, when Nial, son of his

predecessor, assumed that onerous rank, Flan gave him his daughter

Gormley, celebrated for her beauty, her talents, and her heartlessness,

in marriage. From these several family ties, uniting him so closely

with Ossory, with the Scots, and with his successor, much of the wars

and politics of Flan Siona's reign take their cast and complexion. A

still more fruitful source of new complications was the co-equal power,

acquired through a long series of aggressions, by the kings of Cashel.

Their rivalry with the monarchy, from the beginning of the eighth till

the end of the tenth century, was a constant cause of intrigues,

coalitions, and wars, reminding us of the constant rivalry of Athens

with Sparta, of Genoa with Venice. This kingship of Cashel, according

to the Munster law of succession, "the will of Olild," ought to have

alternated regularly between the descendants of his sons, Eugene More

and Cormac Cas—the Eugenians and Dalcassians. But the families of the

former kindred were for many centuries the more powerful of the two,

and frequently set at nought the testamentary law of their common

ancestor, leaving the tribe of Cas but the border-land of Thomond, from

which they had sometimes to pay tribute to Cruachan, and at others to

Cashel. In the ninth century the competition among the Eugenian

houses—of which too many were of too nearly equal strength—seems to

have suggested a new expedient, with the view of permanently setting

aside the will of Olild. This was, to confer the kingship when vacant,

on whoever happened to be Bishop of Emly or of Cashel, or on some other

leading ecclesiastical dignitary, always provided that he was of

Eugenian descent; a qualification easily to be met with, since the

great sees and abbacies were now filled, for the most part, by the sons

of the neighbouring chiefs. In this way we find Cenfalad, Felim, and

Olcobar, in this century, styled Prince-Bishops or Prince-Abbots. The

principal domestic difficulty of Flan Siona's reign followed from the

elevation of Cormac, son of Cuillenan, from the see of Emly to the

throne of Cashel.

Cormac, a scholar, and, as became his calling, a man of peace, was

thus, by virtue of his accession, the representative of the old quarrel

between his predecessors and the dominant race of kings. All Munster

asserted that it was never the intention of their common ancestors to

subject the southern half of Erin to the sway of the north; that Eber

and Owen More had resisted such pretensions when advanced by Eremhon

and Conn of the Hundred Battles; that the _esker_ from Dublin to Galway

was the true division, and that, even admitting the title of the

Hy-Nial king as Ard-Righ, all the tribes south of the _esker_, whether

in Leinster or Connaught, still owed tribute by ancient right to

Cashel. Their antiquaries had their own version in of "the Book of

Rights," which countenanced these claims to co-equal dominion, and

their Bards drew inspiration from the same high pretensions. Party

spirit ran so high that tales and prophecies were invented to show how

St. Patrick had laid his curse on Tara, and promised dominion to Cashel

and to Dublin in its stead. All Leinster, except the lordship of

Ossory—identical with the present diocese of the same name-was held by

the _Brehons_ of Cashel to be tributary to their king; and this

_Borooa_ or tribute, abandoned by the monarchs at the intercession of

Saint Moling, was claimed for the Munster rulers as an inseparable

adjunct of their southern kingdom.

The first act of Flan Siona, on his accession, was to dash into

Munster, demanding hostages at the point of the sword, and sweeping

over both Thomond and Desmond with irresistible force, from Clare to

Cork. With equal promptitude he marched through every territory of

Ulster, securing, by the pledges of their heirs and _Tanists_, the

chiefs of the elder tribes of the Hy-Nial. So effectually did he

consider his power established over the provinces, that he is said to

have boasted to one of his hostages, that he would, with no other

attendants than his own servants, play a game of chess on Thurles

Green, without fear of interruption. Carrying out this foolish wager,

he accordingly went to his game at Thurles, and was very properly taken

prisoner for his temerity, and made to pay a smart ransom to his

captors. So runs the tale, which, whether true or fictitious, is not

without its moral. Flan experienced greater difficulty with the tribes

of Connaught, nor was it till the thirteenth year of his reign (892)

that Cathal, their Prince, "came into his house," in Meath, "under the

protection of the clergy" of Clonmacnoise, and made peace with him. A

brief interval of repose seems to have been vouchsafed to this Prince,

in the last years of the century; but a storm was gathering over

Cashel, and the high pretensions of the Eugenian line were again to be

put to the hazard of battle.

Cormac, the Prince-Bishop, began his rule over Munster in the year 900

of our common era, and passed some years in peace, after his accession.

If we believe his panegyrists, the land over which he bore sway, "was

filled with divine grace and worldly prosperity," and with order so

unbroken, "that the cattle needed no cowherd, and the flocks no

shepherd, so long as he was king." Himself an antiquary and a lover of

learning, it seems but natural that "many books were written, and many

schools opened," by his liberality. During this enviable interval,

councillors of less pacific mood than their studious master were not

wanting to stimulate his sense of kingly duty, by urging him to assert

the claim of Munster to the tribute of the southern half of Erin. As an

antiquary himself, Cormac must have been bred up in undoubting belief

in the justice of that claim, and must have given judgment in favour of

its antiquity and validity, before his accession. These _dicta_ of his

own were now quoted with emphasis, and he was besought to enforce, by

all the means within his reach, the learned judgments he himself had

delivered. The most active advocate of a recourse to arms was Flaherty,

Abbot of Scattery, in the Shannon, himself an Eugenian, and the kinsman

of Cormac. After many objections, the peaceful Prince-Bishop allowed

himself to be persuaded, and in the year 907 he took up his line of

march, "in the fortnight of the harvest," from Cashel toward Gowran, at

the head of all the armament of Munster. Lorcan, son of Lactna, and

grandfather of Brian, commanded the Dalcassians, under Cormac; and

Oliol, lord of Desies, and the warlike Abbot of Scattery, led on the

other divisions. The monarch marched southward to meet his assailants,

with his own proper troops, and the contingents of Connaught under

Cathel, Prince of that Province, and those of Leinster under the lead

of Kerball, their king. Both armies met at Ballaghmoon, in the southern

corner of Kildare, not far from the present town of Carlow, and both

fought with most heroic bravery. The Munster forces were utterly

defeated; the Lords of Desies, of Fermoy, of Kinalmeaky, and of Kerry,

the Abbots of Cork and Kennity, and Cormac himself, with 6,000 men,

fell on the ensanguined field. The losses of the victors are not

specified, but the 6,000, we may hope, included the total of the slain

on both sides. Flan at once improved the opportunity of victory by

advancing into Ossory, and establishing his cousin Dermid, son of

Kerball, over that territory. This Dermid, who appears to have been

banished by Munster intrigues, had long resided with his royal cousin,

previous to the battle, from which he was probably the only one that

derived any solid advantage. As to the Abbot Flaherty, the instigator

of this ill-fated expedition, he escaped from the conquerors, and, safe

in his island sanctuary, gave himself up for a while to penitential

rigours. The worldly spirit, however, was not dead in his breast, and

after the decease of Cormac's next successor, he emerged from his cell,

and was elevated to the kingship of Cashel.

In the earlier and middle years of this long reign, the invasions from

the Baltic had diminished both in force and in frequency. This is to be

accounted for from the fact, that during its entire length it was

contemporaneous with the reign of Harold, "the Fair-haired" King of

Norway, the scourge of the sea-kings. This more fortunate Charles XII.,

born in 853, died at the age of 81, after sixty years of almost

unbroken successes, over all his Danish, Swedish, and insular enemies.

It is easy to comprehend, by reference to his exploits upon the Baltic,

the absence of the usual northern force from the Irish waters, during

his lifetime, and that of his cotemporary, Flan of the Shannon. Yet the

race of the sea-kings was not extinguished by the fair-haired Harold's

victories over them, at home. Several of them permanently abandoned

their native coasts never to return, and recruited their colonies,

already so numerous, in the Orkneys, Scotland, England, Ireland, and

the Isle of Man. In 885, Flan was repulsed in an attack on Dublin, in

which repulse the Abbots of Kildare and Kildalkey were slain; in the

year 890, Aileach was surprised and plundered by Danes, for the first

time, and Armagh shared its fate; in 887, 888, and 891, three minor

victories were gained over separate hordes, in Mayo, at Waterford, and

in Ulidia (Down). In 897, Dublin was taken for the first time in sixty

years, its chiefs put to death, while its garrison fled in their ships

beyond sea. But in the first quarter of the tenth century, better

fortune begins to attend the Danish cause. A new generation enters on

the scene, who dread no more the long arm of the age-stricken Harold,

nor respect the treaties which bound their predecessors in Britain to

the great Alfred. In 912, Waterford received from sea a strong

reinforcement, and about the same date, or still earlier, Dublin, from

which they had been expelled in 897, was again in their possession. In

913, and for several subsequent years, the southern garrisons continued

their ravages in Munster, where the warlike Abbot of Scattery found a

more suitable object for the employment of his valour than that which

brought him, with the studious Cormac, to the fatal field of

Ballaghmoon.

The closing days of Flan of the Shannon were embittered and darkened by

the unnatural rebellion of his sons, Connor and Donogh, and his

successor, Nial, surnamed _Black-Knee_ (_Glundubh_), the husband of his

daughter, Gormley. These children were by his second marriage with

Gormley, daughter of that son of Conaing, whose name has already

appeared in connection with the plundered sepulchres upon the Boyne. At

the age of three score and upwards Flan is frequently obliged to

protect by recourse to arms his mensal lands in Meath—their favourite

point of attack—or to defend some faithful adherent whom these

unnatural Princes sought to oppress. The daughter of Flan, thus wedded

to a husband in arms against her father, seems to have been as little

dutiful as his sons. We have elegiac stanzas by her on the death of two

of her husbands and of one of her sons, but none on the death of her

father: although this form of tribute to the departed, by those skilled

in such compositions, seems to have been as usual as the ordinary

prayers for the dead.

At length, in the 37th year of his reign, and the 68th of his age, King

Flan was at the end of his sorrows. As became the prevailing character

of his life, he died peacefully, in a religious house at Kyneigh, in

Kildare, on the 8th of June, in the year 916, of the common era. The

Bards praise his "fine shape" and "august mien," as well as his

"pleasant and hospitable" private habits. Like all the kings of his

race he seems to have been brave enough: but he was no lover of war for

war's-sake, and the only great engagement in his long reign was brought

on by enemies who left him no option but to fight. His munificence

rebuilt the Cathedral of Clonmacnoise, with the co-operation of Colman,

the Abbot, the year after the battle of Ballaghmoon (908); for which

age, it was the largest and finest stone Church in Ireland. His charity

and chivalry both revolted at the cruel excesses of war, and when the

head of Cormac of Cashel was presented to him after his victory, he

rebuked those who rejoiced over his rival's fall, kissed reverently the

lips of the dead, and ordered the relics to be delivered, as Cormac had

himself willed it, to the Church of Castledermot, for Christian burial.

These traits of character, not less than his family afflictions, and

the generally peaceful tenor of his long life, have endeared to many

the memory of Flan of the Shannon.

CHAPTER IV.

KINGS OF THE TENTH CENTURY; NIAL IV.; DONOGH II.; CONGAL III.; DONALD

IV.

Nial IV. (surnamed _Black-Knee_) succeeded his father-in-law, Flan of

the Shannon (A.D. 916), and in the third year of his reign fell in an

assault on Dublin; Donogh II., son of Flan Siona, reigned for

twenty-five years; Congal III. succeeded, and was slain in an ambush by

the Dublin Danes, in the twelfth year of his reign (A.D. 956); Donald

IV., in the twenty-fourth year of his reign, died at Armagh, (A.D.

979); which four reigns bring us to the period of the accession of

Malachy II. as _Ard-Righ_, and the entrance of Brian Boru, on the

national stage, as King of Cashel, and competitor for the monarchy.

The reign of Nial _Black-Knee_ was too brief to be memorable for any

other event than his heroic death in battle. The Danes having recovered

Dublin, and strengthened its defences, Nial, it is stated, was incited

by his confessor, the Abbot of Bangor, to attempt their re-expulsion.

Accordingly, in October, 919, he marched towards Dublin, with a

numerous host; Conor, son of the late king and _Roydamna_; the lords of

Ulidia (Down), Oriel (Louth), Breagh (East-Meath), and other chiefs,

with their clans accompanying him. Sitrick and Ivar, sons of the first

Danish leaders in Ireland, marched out to meet them, and near

Rathfarnham, on the Dodder, a battle was fought, in which the Irish

were utterly defeated and their monarch slain. This Nial left a son

named Murkertach, who, according to the compact entered into between

the Northern and Southern Hy-Nial, became the _Roydamna_ of the next

reign, and the most successful leader against the Danes, since the time

of Malachy I. He was the step-son of the poetic Lady Gormley, whose lot

it was to have been married in succession to the King of Munster, the

King of Leinster, and the Monarch. Her first husband was Cormac, son of

Cuilenan, before he entered holy orders; her second, Kerball of

Leinster, and her third, Nial _Black-Knee_. She was an accomplished

poetess, besides being the daughter, wife, and mother of king's, yet

after the death of Nial she "begged from door to door," and no one had

pity on her fallen state. By what vices she had thus estranged from her

every kinsman, and every dependent, we are left to imagine; but that

such was her misfortune, at the time her brother was monarch, and her

step-son successor, we learn from the annals, which record her penance

and death, under the date of 948.

The defeat sustained near Rathfarnham, by the late king, was amply

avenged in the first year of the new _Ard-Righ_ (A.D. 920), when the

Dublin Danes, having marched out, taken and burned Kells, in Meath,

were on their return through the plain of Breagh, attacked and routed

with unprecedented slaughter. "There fell of the nobles of the Norsemen

here," say the old Annalists, "as many as fell of the nobles and

plebeians of the Irish, at Ath-Cliath" (Dublin). The Northern Hydra,

however, was not left headless. Godfrey, grandson of Ivar, and Tomar,

son of Algi, took command at Dublin, and Limerick, infusing new life

into the remnant of their race. The youthful son of the late king, soon

after at the head of a strong force (A.D. 921), compelled Godfrey to

retreat from Ulster, to his ships, and to return by sea to Dublin. This

was Murkertach, fondly called by the elegiac Bards, "the Hector of the

West," and for his heroic achievements, not undeserving to be named

after the gallant defender of Troy. Murkertach first appears in our

annals at the year 921, and disappears in the thick of the battle in

938. His whole career covers seventeen years; his position throughout

was subordinate and expectant—for King Donogh outlived his heir: but

there are few names in any age of the history of his country more

worthy of historical honour than his. While Donogh was king in name,

Murkertach was king in fact; on him devolved the burden of every

negotiation, and the brunt of every battle. Unlike his ancestor, Hugh

of Aileach, in his opposition to Donogh's ancestor, Malachy I., he

never attempts to counteract the king, or to harass him in his

patrimony. He rather does what is right and needful himself, leaving

Donogh to claim the credit, if he be so minded. True, a coolness and a

quarrel arises between them, and even "a challenge of battle" is

exchanged, but better councils prevail, peace is restored, and the king

and the _Roydamna_ march as one man against the common enemy. It has

been said of another but not wholly dissimilar form of government, that

Crown-Princes are always in opposition; if this saying holds good of

father and son, as occupant and expectant of a throne, how much more

likely is it to be true of a successor and a principal, chosen from

different dynasties, with a view to combine, or at worst to balance,

conflicting hereditary interests? In the conduct of Murkertach, we

admire, in turn, his many shining personal qualities, which even

tasteless panegyric cannot hide, and the prudence, self-denial,

patience, and preservance with which he awaits his day of power.

Unhappily, for one every way so worthy of it, that day never arrived!

At no former period,—not even at the height of the tyranny of

Turgesius,—was a capable Prince more needed in Erin. The new generation

of Northmen were again upon all the estuaries and inland waters of the

Island. In the years 923-4 and 5, their light armed vessels swarmed on

Lough Erne, Lough Ree, and other lakes, spreading flame and terror on

every side. Clonmacnoise and Kildare, slowly recovering from former

pillage, were again left empty and in ruins. Murkertach, the base of

whose early operations was his own patrimony in Ulster, attacked near

Newry a Northern division under the command of the son of Godfrey (A.D.

926), and left 800 dead on the field. The escape of the remnant was

only secured by Godfrey marching rapidly to their relief and covering

the retreat. His son lay with the dead. In the years 933, at Slieve

Behma, in his own Province, Murkertach won a third victory; and in 936,

taking political advantage of the result of the great English battle of

Brunanburgh, which had so seriously diminished the Danish strength, the

Roydamna, in company with the King, assaulted Dublin, expelled its

garrison, levelled its fortress, and left the dwellings of the Northmen

in ashes. From Dublin they proceeded southward, through Leinster and

Munster, and after taking hostages of every tribe, Donogh returned to

his Methian home and Murkertach to Aileach. While resting in his own

fort (A.D. 939), he was surprised by a party of Danes, and carried off

to their ships, but, says the old translator of the Annals of

Clonmacnoise, "he made a good escape from them, as it was God's will."

The following season he redoubled his efforts against the enemy.

Attacking them on their own element, he ravaged their settlements on

the Scottish coasts and among the isles of Insi-Gall (the Hebrides),

returned laden with spoils, and hailed with acclamations as the

liberator of his people.

Of the same age with Murkertach, the reigning Prince at Cashel was

Kellachan, one of the heroes of the latter Bards and Story-tellers of

the South. The romantic tales of his capture by the Danes, and

captivity in their fleet at Dundalk, of the love which Sitrick's wife

bore him, and of his gallant rescue by the Dalcassians and Eugenians,

have no historical sanction. He was often both at war and at peace with

the foreigners of Cork and Limerick, and did not hesitate more than

once to employ their arms for the maintenance of his own supremacy; but

his only authentic captivity was, as a hostage, in the hands of

Murkertach. While the latter was absent, on his expedition to

Insi-Gall, Kellachan fell upon the Deisi and Ossorians, and inflicted

severe chastisement upon them-alleging, as his provocation, that they

had given hostages to Murkertach, and acknowledged him as _Roydamna_ of

all Erin, in contempt of the co-equal rights of Cashel. When Murkertach

returned from his Scotch expedition, and heard what had occurred, and

on what pretext Kellachan had acted, he assembled at Aileach all the

branches of the Northern Hy-Nial, for whom this was cause, indeed. Out

of these he selected 1000 chosen men, whom he provided, among other

equipments, with those "leathern coats," which lent a _soubriquet_ to

his name; and with these "ten hundred heroes," he set out—strong in his

popularity and his alliances—to make a circuit of the entire island

(A.D. 940). He departed from Aileach, says his Bard, whose Itinerary we

have, "keeping his left hand to the sea;" Dublin, once more rebuilt,

acknowledged his title, and Sitrick, one of its lords, went with him as

hostage for Earl Blacair and his countrymen; Leinster surrendered him

Lorcan, its King; Kellachan, of Cashel, overawed by his superior

fortune, advised his own people not to resist by force, and consented

to become himself the hostage for all Munster. In Connaught, Conor,

(from whom the O'Conors take their family name), son of the Prince,

came voluntarily to his camp, and was received with open arms.

Kellachan alone was submitted to the indignity of wearing a fetter.

With these distinguished hostages, Murkertach and his leather-cloaked

"ten hundred" returned to Aileach, where, for five months, they spent a

season of unbounded rejoicing. In the following year, the _Roydamna_

transferred the hostages to King Donogh, as his _suzerain_, thus

setting the highest example of obedience from the highest place. He

might now look abroad over all the tribes of Erin, and feel himself

without a rival among his countrymen. He stood at the very summit of

his good fortune, when the Danes of Dublin, reinforced from abroad,

after his "Circuit," renewed their old plundering practices. They

marched north, at the close of winter, under Earl Blacair, their

destination evidently being Armagh. Murkertach, with some troops

hastily collected, disputed their passage at the ford of Ardee. An

engagement ensued on Saturday, the 4th of March, 943, in which the

noble _Roydamna_ fell. King Donogh, to whose reign his vigorous spirit

has given its main historical importance, survived him but a

twelvemonth; the Monarch died in the bed of repose; his destined

successor in the thick of battle.

The death of the brave and beloved Murkertach filled all Erin with

grief and rage, and as King Donogh was too old to avenge his destined

successor, that duty devolved on Congal, the new _Roydamna_. In the

year after the fatal action at Ardee, Congal, with Brann, King of

Leinster, and Kellach, heir of Leinster, assaulted and took Dublin, and

wreaked a terrible revenge for the nation's loss. The "women, children,

and plebeians," were carried off captive; the greater part of the

garrison were put to the sword; but a portion escaped in their vessels

to their fortress on Dalkey, an island in the bay of Dublin. This was

the third time within a century that Dublin had been rid of its foreign

yoke, and yet as the Gaelic-Irish would not themselves dwell in

fortified towns, the site remained open and unoccupied, to be rebuilt

as often as it might be retaken. The gallant Congal, the same year,

succeeded on the death of Donogh to the sovereignty, and, so soon as he

had secured his seat, and surrounded it with sufficient hostages, he

showed that he could not only avenge the death, but imitate the

glorious life of him whose place he held. Two considerable victories in

his third and fourth years increased his fame, and rejoiced the hearts

of his countrymen: the first was won at Slane, aided by the Lord of

Breffni (O'Ruarc), and by Olaf the Crooked, a northern chief. The

second was fought at Dublin (947), in which Blacair, the victor at

Ardee, and 1,600 of his men were slain. Thus was the death of

Murkertach finally avenged.

It is very remarkable that the first conversions to Christianity among

the Danes of Dublin should have taken place immediately after these

successive defeats—in 948. Nor, although quite willing to impute the

best and most disinterested motives to these first neophytes, can we

shut our eyes to the fact that no change of life, such as we might

reasonably look for, accompanied their change of religion. Godfrid, son

of Sitrick, and successor of Blacair, who professed himself a Christian

in 948, plundered and destroyed the churches of East-Meath in 949,

burnt 150 persons in the oratory of Drumree, and carried off as

captives 3,000 persons. If the tree is to be judged by its fruits, this

first year's growth of the new faith is rather alarming. It compels us

to disbelieve the sincerity of Godfrid, at least, and the fighting men

who wrought these outrages and sacrileges. It forces us to rank them

with the incorrigible heathens who boasted that they had twenty times

received the Sacrament of Baptism, and valued it for the twenty white

robes which had been presented to them on those occasions. Still, we

must endeavour hereafter, when we can, to distinguish Christian from

Pagan Danes, and those of Irish birth, sons of the first comers, from

the foreign-born kinsmen of their ancestors. Between these two classes

there grew a gulf of feeling and experience, which a common language

and common dangers only partially bridged over. Not seldom the

interests and inclinations of the Irish-born Dane, especially if a true

Christian, were at open variance with the interests and designs of the

new arrivals from Denmark, and it is generally, if not invariably, with

the former, that the Leinster and other Irish Princes enter into

coalitions for common political purposes. The remainder of the reign of

Congal is one vigorous battle. The Lord of Breffni, who had fought

beside him on the hill of Slane, advanced his claim to be recognised

_Roydamna_, and this being denied, broke out into rebellion and

harassed his patrimony. Donald, son of Murkertach, and grandson of

Nial, (the first who took the name of _Uai-Nial_, or O'Neill), disputed

these pretensions of the Lord of Breffni; carried his boats overland

from Aileach to Lough Erne in Fermanagh, and Lough Oughter in Cavan;

attacked the lake-islands, where the treasure and hostages of Breffni

were kept, and carried them off to his own fortress. The warlike and

indefatigable king was in the field summer and winter enforcing his

authority on Munster and Connaught, and battling with the foreign

garrisons between times. No former Ard-Righ had a severer struggle with

the insubordinate elements which beset him from first to last. His end

was sudden, but not inglorious. In returning from the chariot-races at

the Curragh of Kildare, he was surprised and slain in an ambuscade laid

for him by Godfrid at a place on the banks of the Liffey called Tyraris

or Teeraris house. By his side, fighting bravely, fell the lords of

Teffia and Ferrard, two of his nephews, and others of his personal

attendants and companions. The Dublin Danes had in their turn a day of

rejoicing and of revenge for the defeats they had suffered at Congal's

hands.

This reign is not only notable for the imputed first conversion of the

Danes to Christianity, but also for the general adoption of family

names. Hitherto, we have been enabled to distinguish clansmen only by

tribe-names formed by prefixing _Hy_, _Kinnel_, _Sil_, _Muintir_,

_Dal_, or some synonymous term, meaning race, kindred, sept, district,

or part, to the proper name of a remote common ancestor, as Hy-Nial,

Kinnel-Connel, Sil-Murray, Muintir-Eolais, Dal-g Cais, and Dal-Riada.

But the great tribes now begin to break into families, and we are

hereafter to know particular houses, by distinct hereditary surnames,

as O'Neill, O'Conor, MacMurrough, and McCarthy. Yet, the whole body of

relatives are often spoken of by the old tribal title, which, unless

exceptions are named, is supposed to embrace all the descendants of the

old connection to whom it was once common. At first this alternate use

of tribe and family names may confuse the reader—for it _is_ rather

puzzling to find a MacLoughlin with the same paternal ancestor as an

O'Neill, and a McMahon of Thomond as an O'Brien, but the difficulty

disappears with use and familiarity, and though the number and variety

of newly-coined names cannot be at once committed to memory, the story

itself gains in distinctness by the change.

In the year 955, Donald O'Neill, son of the brave and beloved

Murkertach, was recognised as Ard-Righ, by the required number of

Provinces, without recourse to coercion. But it was _not_ to be

expected that any Ard-Righ should, at this period of his country's

fortunes, reign long in peace. War was then the business of the King;

the first art he had to learn, and the first to practise. Warfare in

Ireland had not been a stationary science since the arrival of the

Norwegians and their successors, the Danes. Something they may have

acquired from the natives, and in turn the natives were not slow to

copy whatever seemed most effective in their tactics. Donald IV. was

the first to imitate their habit of employing armed boats on the inland

lakes. He even improved on their example, by carrying these boats with

him overland, and launching them wherever he needed their co-operation;

as we have already seen him do in his expedition against Breffni, while

_Roydamna_, and as we find him doing again, in the seventh year of his

reign, when he carried his boats overland from Armagh to West-Meath in

order to employ them on Loch Ennell, near Mullingar. He was at this

time engaged in making his first royal visitation of the Provinces,

upon which he spent two months in Leinster, with all his forces,

coerced the Munster chiefs by fire and sword into obedience, and

severely punished the insubordination of Fergal O'Ruarc, King of

Connaught. His fleet upon Loch Ennell, and his severities generally

while in their patrimony, so exasperated the powerful families of the

Southern Hy-Nial (the elder of which was now known as O'Melaghlin),

that on the first opportunity they leagued with the Dublin Danes, under

their leader, Olaf "the Crooked" (A.D. 966), and drove King Donald out

of Leinster and Meath, pursuing him across Slieve-Fuaid, almost to the

walls of Aileach. But the brave tribes of Tyrconnell and Tyrowen

rallied to his support, and he pressed south upon the insurgents of

Meath and Dublin; West-Meath he rapidly overran, and "planted a

garrison in every cantred from the Shannon to Kells," In the campaigns

which now succeeded each other, without truce or pause, for nearly a

dozen years, the Leinster people generally sympathised with and

assisted those of West-Meath, and Olaf, of Dublin, who recruited his

ranks by the junction of the Lagmans, a warlike tribe, from Insi-Gall

(the Hebrides). Ossory, on the other hand, acted with the monarch, and

the son of its Tanist (A.D. 974) was slain before Dublin, by Olaf and

his Leinster allies, with 2,600 men, of Ossory and Ulster. The campaign

of 978 was still more eventful: the Leinster men quarrelled with their

Danish allies, who had taken their king captive, and in an engagement

at Belan, near Athy, defeated their forces, with the loss of the heir

of Leinster, the lords of Kinsellagh, Lea and Morett, and other chiefs.

King Donald had no better fortune at Killmoon, in Meath, the same

season, where he was utterly routed by the same force, with the loss of

Ardgal, heir of Ulidia, and Kenneth, lord of Tyrconnell. But for the

victories gained about the same period in Munster, by Mahon and Brian,

the sons of Kennedy, over the Danes of Limerick, of which we shall

speak more fully hereafter, the balance of victory would have strongly

inclined towards the Northmen at this stage of the contest.

A leader, second in fame and in services only to Brian, was now putting

forth his energies against the common enemy, in Meath. This was

Melaghlin, better known afterwards as Malachy II., son of Donald, son

of King Donogh, and, therefore, great-grandson to his namesake, Malachy

I. He had lately attained to the command of his tribe—and he resolved

to earn the honours which were in store for him, as successor to the

sovereignty. In the year 979, the Danes of Dublin and the Isles marched

in unusual strength into Meath, under the command of Rannall, son of

Olaf the Crooked, and Connail, "the Orator of Ath-Cliath," (Dublin).

Malachy, with his allies, gave them battle near Tara, and achieved a

complete victory. Earl Rannall and the Orator were left dead on the

field, with, it is reported, 5,000 of the foreigners. On the Irish side

fell the heir of Leinster, the lord of Morgallion and his son; the

lords of Fertullagh and Cremorne, and a host of their followers. The

engagement, in true Homeric spirit, had been suspended on three

successive nights, and renewed three successive days. It was a genuine

pitched battle—a trial of main strength, each party being equally

confident of victory. The results were most important, and most

gratifying to the national pride. Malachy, accompanied by his friend,

the lord of Ulidia (Down), moved rapidly on Dublin, which, in its

panic, yielded to all his demands. The King of Leinster and 2,000 other

prisoners were given up to him without ransom. The Danish Earls

solemnly renounced all claims to tribute or fine from any of the

dwellers without their own walls. Malachy remained in the city three

days, dismantled its fortresses, and carried off its hostages and

treasure. The unfortunate Olaf the Crooked fled beyond seas, and died

at Iona, in exile, and a Christian. In the same year, and in the midst

of universal rejoicing, Donald IV. died peacefully and piously at

Armagh, in the 24th year of his reign. He was succeeded by Malachy, who

was his sister's son, and in whom all the promise of the lamented

Murkertach seemed to revive.

The story of Malachy II. is so interwoven with the still-more

illustrious career of Brian _Borooa_, that it will not lose in interest

by being presented in detail. But before entering on the rivalry of

these great men, we must again remark on the altered position which the

Northmen of this age hold to the Irish from that which existed

formerly. A century and a half had now elapsed since their first

settlement in the seaports, especially of the eastern and southern

Provinces. More than one generation of their descendants had been born

on the banks of the Liffey, the Shannon, and the Suir. Many of them had

married into Irish families, had learned the language of the country,

and embraced its religion. When Limerick was taken by Brian, Ivar, its

Danish lord, fled for sanctuary to Scattery Island, and when Dublin was

taken by Malachy II., Olaf the Crooked fled to Iona. Inter-marriages

with the highest Gaelic families became frequent, after their

conversion to Christianity. The mother of Malachy, after his father's

death, had married Olaf of Dublin, by whom she had a son, named

_Gluniarran (Iron-Knee_, from his armour), who was thus half-brother to

the King. It is natural enough to find him the ally of Malachy, a few

years later, against Ivar of Waterford; and curious enough to find

Ivar's son called Gilla-Patrick—servant of Patrick. Kellachan of Cashel

had married a Danish, and Sitrick "of the Silken beard," an Irish lady.

That all the Northmen were not, even in Ireland, converted in one

generation, is evident. Those of Insi-Gall were still, perhaps, Pagans;

those of the Orkneys and of Denmark, who came to the battle of Clontarf

in the beginning of the next century, chose to fight on Good Friday

under the advice of their heathen Oracles. The first half of the

eleventh century, the age of Saint Olaf and of Canute, is the era of

the establishment of Christianity among the Scandinavians, and hence

the necessity for distinguishing between those who came to Ireland,

direct from the Baltic, from those who, born in Ireland and bred up in

the Christian faith, had as much to apprehend from such an invasion, as

the Celts themselves.

CHAPTER V.

REIGN OF MALACHY II. AND RIVALRY OF BRIAN.

Melaghlin, or Malachy II., fifth in direct descent from Malachy I. (the

founder of the Southern Hy-Nial dynasty), was in his thirtieth year

when (A.D. 980) he succeeded to the monarchy. He had just achieved the

mighty victory of Tara when the death of his predecessor opened his way

to the throne; and seldom did more brilliant dawn usher in a more

eventful day than that which Fate held in store for this victor-king.

None of his predecessors, not even his ancestor and namesake, had ever

been able to use the high language of his "noble Proclamation," when he

announced on his accession—"Let all the Irish who are suffering

servitude in the land of the stranger return home to their respective

houses and enjoy themselves in gladness and in peace." In obedience to

this edict, and the power to enforce it established by the victory at

Tara, 2,000 captives, including the King of Leinster and the Prince of

Aileach, were returned to their homes.

The hardest task of every Ard-Righ of this and the previous century had

been to circumscribe the ambition of the kings of Cashel within

Provincial bounds. Whoever ascended the southern throne—whether the

warlike Felim or the learned Cormac—we have seen the same policy

adopted by them all. The descendants of Heber had tired of the long

ascendancy of the race of Heremon, and the desertion of Tara, by making

that ascendancy still more strikingly Provincial, had increased their

antipathy. It was a struggle for supremacy between north and south; a

contest of two geographical parties; an effort to efface the real or

fancied dependency of one-half the island on the will of the other. The

Southern Hy-Nial dynasty, springing up as a third power upon the

Methian bank of the Shannon, and balancing itself between the

contending parties, might perhaps have given a new centre to the whole

system; Malachy II. was in the most favourable position possible to

have done so, had he not had to contend with a rival, his equal in

battle and superior in council, in the person of Brian, the son of

Kennedy, of Kincorra.

The rise to sovereign rank of the house of Kincorra (the O'Briens), is

one of the most striking episodes of the tenth century. Descending,

like most of the leading families of the South, from Olild, the Clan

Dalgais had long been excluded from the throne of Cashel, by successive

coalitions of their elder brethren, the Eugenians. Lactna and Lorcan,

the grandfather and father of Kennedy, intrepid and able men, had

strengthened their tribe by wise and vigorous measures, so that the

former was able to claim the succession, apparently with success.

Kennedy had himself been a claimant for the same honour, the alternate

provision in the will of Olild, against Kellachan Cashel (A.D. 940-2),

but at the Convention held at Glanworth, on the river Funcheon, for the

selection of king, the aged mother of Kellachan addressed his rival in

a quatrain, beginning—

"Kennedi Cas revere the law!"

which induced him to abandon his pretensions. This Prince, usually

spoken of by the Bards as "the chaste Kennedy," died in the year 950,

leaving behind him four or five out of twelve sons, with whom he had

been blessed. Most of the others had fallen in Danish battles—three in

the same campaign (943), and probably in the same field. There appear

in after scenes, Mahon, who became King of Cashel; Echtierna, who was

chief of Thomond, under Mahon; Marcan, an ecclesiastic, and Brian, born

in 941, the Benjamin of the household. Mahon proved himself, as Prince

and Captain, every way worthy of his inheritance. He advanced from

victory to victory over his enemies, foreign and domestic. In 960 he

claimed the throne of Munster, which claim he enforced by royal

visitation five years later. In the latter year, he rescued

Clonmacnoise from the Danes, and in 968 defeated the same enemy, with a

loss of several thousand men at Sulchoid. This great blow he followed

up by the sack of Limerick, from which "he bore off a large quantity of

gold, and silver, and jewels." In these, and all his expeditions, from

a very early age, he was attended by Brian, to whom he acted not only

as a brother and prince, but as a tutor in arms. Fortune had

accompanied him in all his undertakings. He had expelled his most

intractable rival—Molloy, son of Bran, lord of Desmond; his rule was

acknowledged by the Northmen of Dublin and Cork, who opened their

fortresses to him, and served under his banner; he carried "all the

hostages of Munster to his house," which had never before worn so

triumphant an aspect. But family greatness begets family pride, and

pride begets envy and hatred. The Eugenian families who now found

themselves overshadowed by the brilliant career of the sons of Kennedy,

conspired against the life of Mahon, who, from his too confiding

nature, fell easily into their trap. Molloy, son of Bran, by the advice

of Ivar, the Danish lord of Limerick, proposed to meet Mahon in

friendly conference at the house of Donovan, an Eugenian chief, whose

rath was at Bruree, on the river Maigue. The safety of each person was

guaranteed by the Bishop of Cork, the mediator on the occasion. Mahon

proceeded unsuspiciously to the conference, where he was suddenly

seized by order of his treacherous host, and carried into the

neighbouring mountains of Knocinreorin. Here a small force, placed for

the purpose by the conspirators, had orders promptly to despatch their

victim. But the foul deed was not done unwitnessed. Two priests of the

Bishop of Cork followed the Prince, who, when arrested, snatched up

"the Gospel of St. Barry," on which Molloy was to have sworn his

fealty. As the swords of the assassins were aimed at his heart, he held

up the Gospel for a protection, and his blood spouting out, stained the

Sacred Scriptures. The priests, taking up the blood-stained volume,

fled to their Bishop, spreading the horrid story as they went. The

venerable successor of St. Barry "wept bitterly, and uttered a prophecy

concerning the future fate of the murderers;" a prophecy which was very

speedily fulfilled.

This was in the year 976, three or four years before the battle of Tara

and the accession of Malachy. When the news of his noble-hearted

brother's murder was brought to Brian, at Kinkora, he was seized with

the most violent grief. His favourite harp was taken down, and he sang

the death-song of Mahon, recounting all the glorious actions of his

life. His anger flashed out through his tears, as he wildly chanted

"My heart shall burst within my breast,

Unless I avenge this great king;

They shall forfeit life for this foul deed

Or I must perish by a violent death."

But the climax of his lament was, that Mahon "had not fallen in battle

behind the shelter of his shield, rather than trust in the treacherous

words of Donovan." Brian was now in his thirty-fifth year, was married,

and had several children. Morrogh, his eldest, was able to bear arms,

and shared in his ardour and ambition. "His first effort," says an old

Chronicle, "was directed against Donovan's allies, the Danes of

Limerick, and he slew Ivar their king, and two of his sons." These

conspirators, foreseeing their fate, had retired into the holy isle of

Scattery, but Brian slew them between "the horns of the altar." For

this violation of the sanctuary, considering his provocation, he was

little blamed. He next turned his rage against Donovan, who had called

to his aid the Danish townsmen of Desmond. "Brian," says the Annalist

of Innisfallen, "gave them battle where Auliffe and his Danes, and

Donovan and his Irish forces, were all cut off." After that battle,

Brian sent a challenge to Molloy, of Desmond, according to the custom

of that age, to meet him in arms near Macroom, where the usual

coalition, Danes and Irish, were against him. He completely routed the

enemy, and his son Morrogh, then but a lad, "killed the murderer of his

uncle Mahon with his own hand." Molloy was buried on the north side of

the mountain where Mahon was murdered and interred; on Mahon the

southward sun shone full and fair; but on the grave of his assassin,

the black shadow of the northern sky rested always. Such was the

tradition which all Munster piously believed. After this victory over

Molloy, son of Bran (A.D. 978), Brian was universally acknowledged King

of Munster, and until Malachy had won the battle of Tara, was justly

considered the first Irish captain of his age.

Malachy, in the first year of his reign, having received the hostages

of the Danes of Dublin, having liberated the Irish prisoners and

secured the unity of his own territory, had his attention drawn,

naturally enough, towards Brian's movements. Whether Brian had refused

him homage, or that his revival of the old claim to the half-kingdom

was his offence, or from whatever immediate cause, Malachy marched

southwards, enforcing homage as he went. Entering Thomond he plundered

the Dalcassians, and marching to the mound at Adair, where, under an

old oak, the kings of Thomond had long been inaugurated, he caused it

to be "dug from the earth with its roots," and cut into pieces. This

act of Malachy's certainly bespeaks an embittered and aggressive

spirit, and the provocation must, indeed, have been grievous to

palliate so barbarous an action. But we are not informed what the

provocation was. At the time Brian was in Ossory enforcing his tribute;

the next year we find him seizing the person of Gilla-Patrick, Lord of

Ossory, and soon after he burst into Meath, avenging with fire and

sword the wanton destruction of his ancestral oak.

Thus were these two powerful Princes openly embroiled with each other.

We have no desire to dwell on all the details of their struggle, which

continued for fully twenty years. About the year 987, Brian was

practically king of half Ireland, and having the power, (though not the

title,) he did not suffer any part of it to lie waste. His activity was

incapable of exhaustion; in Ossory, in Leinster, in Connaught, his

voice and his arm were felt everywhere. But a divided authority was of

necessity so favourable to invasion, that the Danish power began to

loom up to its old proportions. Sitrick, "with the silken beard," one

of the ablest of Danish leaders, was then at Dublin, and his occasional

incursions were so formidable, that they produced (what probably

nothing else could have done) an alliance between Brian and Malachy,

which lasted for three years, and was productive of the best

consequences. Thus, in 997, they imposed their yoke on Dublin, taking

"hostages and jewels" from the foreigners. Reinforcements arriving from

the North, the indomitable Danes proceeded to plunder Leinster, but

were routed by Brian and Malachy at Glen-Mama, in Wicklow, with the

loss of 6,000 men and all their chief captains. Immediately after this

victory the two kings, according to the Annals, "entered into Dublin,

and the fort thereof, and there remained seven nights, and at their

departure took all the gold, silver, hangings, and other precious

things that were there with them, burnt the town, broke down the fort,

and banished Sitrick from thence" (A.D. 999).

The next three years of Brian's life are the most complex in his

career. After resting a night in Meath, with Malachy, he proceeded with

his forces towards Armagh, nominally on a pilgrimage, but really, as it

would seem, to extend his party. He remained in the sacred city a week,

and presented ten ounces of gold, at the Cathedral altar. The

Archbishop Marian received him with the distinction due to so eminent a

guest, and a record of his visit, in which he is styled "Imperator of

the Irish," was entered in the book of St. Patrick. He, however, got no

hostages in the North, but on his march southward, he learned that the

Danes had returned to Dublin, were rebuilding the City and Fort, and

were ready to offer submission and hostages to him, while refusing both

to Malachy. Here Brian's eagerness for supremacy misled him. He

accepted the hostages, joined the foreign forces to his own, and even

gave his daughter in marriage to Sitrick of "the silken beard."

Immediately he broke with Malachy, and with his new allies and

son-in-law, marched into Meath in hostile array. Malachy, however,

stood to his defence; attacked and defeated Brian's advance guard of

Danish horse, and the latter, unwilling apparently to push matters to

extremities, retired as he came, without "battle, or hostage, or spoil

of any kind."

But his design of securing the monarchy was not for an instant

abandoned, and, by combined diplomacy and force, he effected his end.

His whole career would have been incomplete without that last and

highest conquest over every rival. Patiently but surely he had gathered

influence and authority, by arms, by gifts, by connections on all

sides. He had propitiated the chief families of Connaught by his first

marriage with More, daughter of O'Heyne, and his second marriage with

Duvchalvay, daughter of O'Conor. He had obtained one of the daughters

of Godwin, the powerful Earl of Kent, for his second son; had given a

daughter to the Prince of Scots, and another to the Danish King of

Dublin.

Malachy, in diplomatic skill, in foresight, and in tenacity of purpose,

was greatly inferior to Brian, though in personal gallantry and other

princely qualities, every way his equal. He was of a hospitable,

out-spoken, enjoying disposition, as we gather from many characteristic

anecdotes. He is spoken of as "being generally computed the best

horseman in those parts of Europe;" and as one who "delighted to ride a

horse that was never broken, handled, or ridden, until the age of seven

years." From an ancient story, which represents him as giving his

revenues for a year to one of the Court Poets and then fighting him

with a "headless staff" to compel the Poet to return them, it would

appear that his good humour and profusion were equal to his

horsemanship. Finding Brian's influence still on the increase west of

the Shannon, Malachy, in the year of our Lord 1000, threw two bridges

across the Shannon, one at Athlone, the other at the present

Lanesborough. This he did with the consent and assistance of O'Conor,

but the issue was as usual—he made the bridges, and Brian profited by

them. While Malachy was at Athlone superintending the work, Brian

arrived with a great force recruited from all quarters (except Ulster),

including Danish men-in-armour. At Athlone was held the conference so

memorable in our annals, in which Brian gave his rival the alternative

of a pitched battle, within a stated time, or abdication. According to

the Southern Annalists, first a month, and afterwards a year, were

allowed the Monarch to make his choice. At the expiration of the time

Brian marched into Meath, and encamped at Tara, where Malachy, having

vainly endeavoured to secure the alliance of the Northern Hy-Nial in

the interval, came and submitted to Brian without safeguard or surety.

The unmade monarch was accompanied by a guard "of twelve score

horsemen," and on his arrival, proceeded straight to the tent of his

successor. Here the rivals contended in courtesy, as they had often

done in arms, and when they separated, Brian, as Lord Paramount,

presented Malachy as many horses as he had horsemen in his train when

he came to visit him. This event happened in the year 1001, when Brian

was in his 60th and Malachy in his 53rd year. There were present at the

Assembly all the princes and chiefs of the Irish, except the Prince of

Aileach, and the Lords of Oriel, Ulidia, Tyrowen and Tyrconnell, who

were equally unwilling to assist Malachy or to acknowledge Brian. What

is still more remarkable is, the presence in this national assembly of

the Danish Lords of Dublin, Carmen (Wexford), Waterford and Cork, whom

Brian, at this time, was trying hard to conciliate by gifts and

alliances.

CHAPTER VI.

BRIAN, ARD-RIGH—BATTLE OF CLONTARF.

By the deposition of Malachy II., and the transfer of supreme power to

the long-excluded line of Heber, Brian completed the revolution which

Time had wrought in the ancient Celtic constitution. He threw open the

sovereignty to every great family as a prize to be won by policy or

force, and no longer an inheritance to be determined by usage and law.

The consequences were what might have been expected. After his death

the O'Conors of the west competed with both O'Neills and O'Briens for

supremacy, and a chronic civil war prepared the path for Strongbow and

the Normans. The term "Kings with Opposition" is applied to nearly all

who reigned between Brian's time and Roderick O'Conor's, meaning,

thereby, kings who were unable to secure general obedience to their

administration of affairs.

During the remainder of his life, Brian wielded with accustomed vigour

the supreme power. The Hy-Nials were, of course, his chief difficulty.

In the year 1002, we find him at Ballysadare, in Sligo, challenging

their obedience; in 1004, we find him at Armagh "offering twenty ounces

of gold on Patrick's altar," staying a week there and receiving

hostages; in 1005, he marched through Connaught, crossed the river Erne

at Ballyshannon, proceeded through Tyrconnell and Tyrowen, crossed the

Bann into Antrim, and returned through Down and Dundalk, "about

Lammas," to Tara. In this and the two succeeding years, by taking

similar "circuits," he subdued Ulster, without any pitched battle, and

caused his authority to be feared and obeyed nearly as much at the

Giant's Causeway as at the bridge of Athlone. In his own house of

Kinkora, Brian entertained at Christmas 3,000 guests, including the

Danish Lords of Dublin and Man, the fugitive Earl of Kent, the young

King of Scots, certain Welsh Princes, and those of Munster, Ulster,

Leinster and Connaught, beside his hostages. At the same time Malachy,

with the shadow, of independence, kept his unfrequented court in

West-Meath, amusing himself with wine and chess and the taming of

unmanageable horses, in which last pursuit, after his abdication, we

hear of his breaking a limb. To support the hospitalities of Kinkora,

the tributes of every province were rendered in kind at his gate, on

the first day of November. Connaught sent 800 cows and 800 hogs; Ulster

alone 500 cows, and as many hogs, and "sixty loads of iron;" Leinster

300 bullocks, 300 hogs, and 300 loads of iron; Ossory, Desmond, and the

smaller territories, in proportion; the Danes of Dublin 150 pipes of

wine, and the Danes of Limerick 365 of red wine. The Dalcassians, his

own people, were exempt from all tribute and taxation—while the rest of

Ireland was thus catering for Kinkora.

The lyric Poets, in their nature courtiers and given to enjoyment,

flocked, of course, to this bountiful palace. The harp was seldom

silent night or day, the strains of panegyric were as prodigal and

incessant as the falling of the Shannon over Killaloe. Among these

eulogiums none is better known than that beautiful allegory of the poet

McLaig, who sung that "a young lady of great beauty, adorned with

jewels and costly dress, might perform unmolested a journey on foot

through the Island, carrying a straight wand, on the top of which might

be a ring of great value." The name of Brian was thus celebrated as in

itself a sufficient protection of life, chastity, and property, in

every corner of the Island. Not only the Poets, but the more exact and

simple Annalists applaud Brian's administration of the laws, and his

personal virtues. He laboured hard to restore the Christian

civilization, so much defaced by two centuries of Pagan warfare. To

facilitate the execution of the laws he enacted the general use of

surnames, obliging the clans to take the name of a common ancestor,

with the addition of "Mac," or "O"—words which signify "of," or "son

of," a forefather. Thus, the Northern Hy-Nials divided into O'Neils,

O'Donnells, McLaughlins, &c.; the Sil-Murray took the name of O'Conor,

and Brian's own posterity became known as O'Briens. To justice he added

munificence, and of this the Churches and Schools of the entire Island

were the recipients. Many a desolate shrine he adorned, many a bleak

chancel he hung with lamps, many a long silent tower had its bells

restored. Monasteries were rebuilt, and the praise of God was kept up

perpetually by a devoted brotherhood. Roads and bridges were repaired

and several strong stone fortresses were erected, to command the passes

of lakes and rivers. The vulnerable points along the Shannon, and the

Suir, and the lakes, as far north as the Foyle, were secured by forts

of clay and stone. Thirteen "royal houses" in Munster alone are said to

have been by him restored to their original uses. What increases our

respect for the wisdom and energy thus displayed, is the fact, that the

author of so many improvements, enjoyed but five short years of peace,

after his accession to the Monarchy. His administrative genius must

have been great when, after a long life of warfare, he could apply

himself to so many works of internal improvement and external defence.

In the five years of peace just spoken of (from 1005 to 1010), Brian

lost by death his second wife, a son called Donald, and his brother

Marcan, called in the annals "head of the clergy of Munster;" Hugh, the

son of Mahon, also died about the same period. His favourite son and

heir, Morrogh, was left, and Morrogh had, at this time, several

children. Other sons and daughters were also left him, by each of his

wives, so that there was every prospect that the posterity for whom he

had so long sought the sovereignty of Ireland, would continue to

possess it for countless generations. But God disposes of what man only

proposes!

The Northmen had never yet abandoned any soil on which they had once

set foot, and the policy of conciliation which the veteran King adopted

in his old age, was not likely to disarm men of their stamp. Every

intelligence of the achievements of their race in other realms

stimulated them to new exertions and shamed them out of peaceful

submission. Rollo and his successors had, within Brian's lifetime,

founded in France the great dukedom of Normandy; while Sweyn had swept

irresistibly over England and Wales, and prepared the way for a Danish

dynasty. Pride and shame alike appealed to their warlike compatriots

not to allow the fertile Hibernia to slip from their grasp, and the

great age of its long-dreaded king seemed to promise them an easier

victory than heretofore was possible. In 1012 we find Brian at Lough

Foyle repelling a new Danish invasion, and giving "freedom to Patrick's

Churches;" the same year, an army under Morrogh and another under

Malachy was similarly engaged in Leinster and Meath; the former

carrying his arms to Kilmainham, on the south side of Dublin, the other

to Howth, on the north; in this year also "the Gentiles," or Pagan

Northmen, made a descent on Cork, and burned the city, but were driven

off by the neighbouring chiefs.

The great event, however, of the long war which had now been waged for

full two hundred years between the men of Erin and the men of

Scandinavia was approaching. What may fairly be called the last field

day of Christianity and Paganism on Irish soil, was near at hand. A

taunt thrown out over a game of chess, at Kinkora, is said to have

hastened this memorable day. Maelmurra, Prince of Leinster, playing or

advising on the game, made, or recommended, a false move, upon which

Morrogh, son of Brian, observed, it was no wonder his friends, the

Danes, (to whom he owed his elevation,) were beaten at Glen-Mama, if he

gave them advice like that. Maelmurra, highly incensed by this

allusion—all the more severe for its bitter truth—arose, ordered his

horse, and rode away in haste. Brian, when he heard it, despatched a

messenger after the indignant guest, begging him to return, but

Maelmurra was not to be pacified, and refused. We next hear of him as

concerting with certain Danish agents, always open to such

negotiations, those measures which led to the great invasion of the

year 1014, in which the whole Scanian race, from Anglesea and Man,

north to Norway, bore an active share.

These agents passing over to England and Man, among the Scottish isles,

and even to the Baltic, followed up the design of an invasion on a

gigantic scale. Suibne, Earl of Man, entered warmly into the

conspiracy, and sent the "war arrow" through all those "out-islands"

which obeyed him as Lord. A yet more formidable potentate, Sigurd, of

the Orkneys, next joined the league. He was the fourteenth Earl of

Orkney of Norse origin, and his power was, at this period, a balance to

that of his nearest neighbour, the King of Scots. He had ruled since

the year 996, not only over the Orkneys, Shetland, and Northern

Hebrides, but the coasts of Caithness and Sutherland, and even Ross and

Moray rendered him homage and tribute. Eight years before the battle of

Clontarf, Malcolm II., of Scotland, had been feign to purchase his

alliance, by giving him his daughter in marriage, and the Kings of

Denmark and Norway treated with him on equal terms. The hundred

inhabited isles which lie between Yell and Man,—isles which after their

conversion contained "three hundred churches and chapels"—sent in their

contingents, to swell the following of the renowned Earl Sigurd. As his

fleet bore southward from Kirkwall it swept the subject coast of

Scotland, and gathered from every lough its galleys and its fighting

men. The rendezvous was the Isle of Man, where Suibne had placed his

own forces under the command of Brodar or Broderick, a famous leader

against the Britons of Wales and Cornwall. In conjunction with Sigurd,

the Manxmen sailed over to Ireland, where they were joined, in the

Liffey, by Carl Canuteson, Prince of Denmark, at the head of 1400

champions clad in armour. Sitrick of Dublin stood, or affected to

stand, neutral in these preparations, but Maelmurra of Leinster had

mustered all the forces he could command for such an expedition. He was

himself the head of the powerful family of O'Byrne, and was followed in

his alliances by others of the descendants of Cahir More. O'Nolan and

O'More, with a truer sense of duty, fought on the patriotic side.

Brian had not been ignorant of the exertions which were made during the

summer and winter of the year 1013, to combine an overwhelming force

against him. In his exertions to meet force with force, it is

gratifying to every believer in human excellence to find him actively

supported by the Prince whom he had so recently deposed. Malachy,

during the summer of 1013, had, indeed, lost two sons in skirmishes

with Sitrick and Maelmurra, and had, therefore, his own personal wrongs

to avenge; but he cordially co-operated with Brian before those

occurrences, and now loyally seconded all his movements. The Lords of

the southern half-kingdom—the Lords of Desies, Fermoy, Inchiquin,

Corca-Baskin, Kinalmeaky, Kerry, and the Lords of Hy-Many and

Hy-Fiachra, in Connaught, hastened to his standard. O'More and O'Nolan

of Leinster, and Donald, Steward of Marr, in Scotland, were the other

chieftains who joined him before Clontarf, besides those of his own

kindred. None of the Northern Hy-Nial took part in the battle—they had

submitted to Brian, but they never cordially supported him.

Clontarf, the lawn or meadow of bulls, stretches along the

crescent-shaped north strand of Dublin harbour, from the ancient

salmon-weir at Ballyboght bridge, towards the promontory of Howth. Both

horns of the crescent were held by the enemy, and communicated with his

ships: the inland point terminating in the roofs of Dublin, and the

seaward marked by the lion-like head of Howth. The meadow land between

sloped gently upward and inward from the beach, and for the myriad

duels which formed the ancient battle, no field could present less

positive vantage-ground to combatants on either side. The invading

force had possession of both wings, so that Brian's army, which had

first encamped at Kilmainham, must have crossed the Liffey higher up,

and marched round by the present Drumcondra in order to reach the

appointed field. The day seems to have been decided on by formal

challenge, for we are told Brian did not wish to fight in the last week

of Lent, but a Pagan oracle having assured victory to Brodar, one of

the northern leaders, if he engaged on a Friday, the invaders insisted

on being led to battle on that day. And it so happened that, of all

Fridays in the year, it fell on the Friday before Easter: that awful

anniversary when the altars of the Church are veiled throughout

Christendom, and the dark stone is rolled to the door of the mystic

sepulchre.

The forces on both sides could not have fallen short of twenty thousand

men. Under Carl Canuteson fought "the ten hundred in armour," as they

are called in the Irish annals, or "the fourteen hundred," as they are

called in northern chronicles; under Brodar, the Manxmen and the Danes

of Anglesea and Wales; under Sigurd, the men of Orkney and its

dependencies; under Maelmurra, of Leinster, his own tribe, and their

kinsmen of Offally and Cullen—the modern Kildare and Wicklow; under

Brian's son, Morrogh, were the tribes of Munster; under the command of

Malachy, those of Meath; under the Lord of Hy-Many, the men of

Connaught; and the Stewart of Marr had also his command. The engagement

was to commence with the morning, so that, as soon as it was day,

Brian, Crucifix in hand, harangued his army. "On this day Christ died

for _you_!" was the spirit-stirring appeal of the venerable Christian

King. At the entreaty of his friends, after this review, he retired to

his tent, which stood at some distance, and was guarded by three of his

aids. Here, he alternately prostrated himself before the Crucifix, or

looked out from the tent door upon the dreadful scene that lay beyond.

The sun rose to the zenith and took his way towards the west, but still

the roar of the battle did not abate. Sometimes as their right hands

swelled with the sword-hilts, well-known warriors might be seen falling

back to bathe them, in a neighbouring spring, and then rushing again

into the melee. The line of the engagement extended from the

salmon-weir towards Howth, not less than a couple of miles, so that it

was impossible to take in at a glance the probabilities of victory.

Once during the heat of the day one of his servants said to Brian, "A

vast multitude are moving towards us." "What sort of people are they?"

inquired Brian. "They are green-naked people." said the attendant.

"Oh!" replied the king, "they are the Danes in armour!" The utmost fury

was displayed on all sides. Sigurd, Earl of Orkney, fell by Thurlogh,

grandson of Brian; and Anrud, one of the captains of the men in armour,

by the hand of his father, Morrogh; but both father and son perished in

the dreadful conflict; Maelmurra of Leinster, with his lords, fell on

one side, and Conaing, nephew of Brian, O'Kelly, O'Heyne, and the

Stewart of Marr, on the other. Hardly a nobly-born man escaped, or

sought to escape. The ten hundred in armour, and three thousand others

of the enemy, with about an equal number of the men of Ireland, lay

dead upon the field. One division of the enemy were, towards sunset,

retreating to their ships, when Brodar, the Viking, perceiving the tent

of Brian, standing apart, without a guard, and the aged king on his

knees before the Crucifix, rushed in, cut him down with a single blow,

and then continued his flight. But he was overtaken by the guard, and

despatched by the most cruel death they could devise. Thus, on the

field of battle, in the act of prayer, on the day of our Lord's

Crucifixion, fell the Christian King in the cause of native land and

Holy Cross. Many elegies have been dedicated to his memory, and not the

least noble of these strains belong to his enemies. In death as in life

he was still Brian "of the tributes."

The deceased hero took his place at once in history, national and

foreign. On hearing of his death, Maelmurra, Archbishop of Armagh, came

with his clergy to Swords, in Meath, and conducted the body to Armagh,

where, with his son and nephew and the Lord of Desies, he was solemnly

interred "in a new tomb." The fame of the event went out through all

nations. The chronicles of Wales, of Scotland, and of Man; the annals

of Ademar and Marianus; the Sagas of Denmark and the Isles all record

the event. In "the Orcades" of Thormodus Torfaeus, a wail over the

defeat of the Islesmen is heard, which they call

"Orkney's woe and Randver's bane."

The Norse settlers in Caithness saw terrific visions of Valhalla "the

day after the battle." In the NIALA SAGA a Norwegian prince is

introduced as asking after his men, and the answer is, "they were all

killed." Malcolm of Scotland rejoiced in the defeat and death of his

dangerous and implacable neighbour. "Brian's battle," as it is called

in the Sagas, was, in short, such a defeat as prevented any general

northern combination for the subsequent invasion of Ireland. Not that

the country was entirely free from their attacks till the end of the

eleventh century, but from the day of Clontarf forward, the long

cherished Northern idea of a conquest of Ireland, seems to have been

gloomily abandoned by that indomitable people.

CHAPTER VII.

EFFECTS OF THE RIVALRY OF BRIAN AND MALACHY ON THE ANCIENT

CONSTITUTION.

If a great battle is to be accounted lost or won, as it affects

principles rather than reputations, then Brian lost at Clontarf. The

leading ideas of his long and political life were, evidently,

centralization and an hereditary monarchy. To beat back foreign

invasion, to conciliate and to enlist the Irish-born Danes under his

standard, were preliminary steps. For Morrogh, his first-born, and for

Morrogh's descendants, he hoped to found an hereditary kinship after

the type universally copied throughout Christendom. He was not ignorant

of what Alfred had done for England, Harold for Norway, Charlemagne for

France, and Otho for Germany; and it was inseparable from his imperial

genius to desire to reign in his posterity, long after his own brief

term of sway should be for ever ended. A new centre of royal authority

should be established on the banks of the great middle river of the

island—itself the best bond of union, as it was the best highway of

intercourse; the Dalgais dynasty should there flourish for ages, and

the descendants of Brian of the Tributes, through after centuries,

eclipse the glory of the descendants of Nial of the Hostages. It is

idle enough to call the projector of such a change an usurper and a

revolutionist. Usurper he clearly was not, since he was elevated to

power by the action of the old legitimate electoral principle;

revolutionist he was not, because his design was defeated at Clontarf,

in the death of his eldest son and grandson. Not often have three

generations of Princes of the same family been cut off on the same

field; yet at Clontarf it so happened. Hence, when Brian fell, and his

heir with him, and his heir's heir, the projected Dalgais dynasty, like

the Royal Oak at Adair, was cut down and its very roots destroyed. For

a new dynasty to be left suddenly without indisputable heirs is ruinous

to its pretensions and partizans. And in this the event of the battle

proved destructive to the Celtic Constitution. Not from the

Anglo-Norman invasion, but from the day of Clontarf we may date the

ruin of the old electoral monarchy. The spell of ancient authority was

effectually broken and a new one was to be established. Time, which was

indispensable, was not given. No Prince of the blood of Brian succeeded

immediately to himself. On Clontarf Morrogh, and Morrogh's heir fell,

in the same day and hour. The other sons of Brian had no direct title

to the succession, and, naturally enough, the deposed Malachy resumed

the rank of monarch, without the consent of Munster, but _with_ the

approval of all the Princes, who had witnessed with ill-concealed envy

the sudden ascendancy of the sons of Kennedy. While McLaig was

lamenting for Brian, by the cascade of Killaloe, the Laureat of Tara,

in an elegy over a lord of Breffni, was singing—

"Joyful are the race of Conn after Brian's

Fall, in the battle of Clontarf."

A new dynasty is rarely the work of one able man. Designed by genius,

it must be built up by a succession of politic Princes, before it

becomes an essential part of the framework of the State. So all history

teaches—and Irish history, after the death of Brian, very clearly

illustrates that truth. Equally true is it that when a nation breaks up

of itself, or from external forces, and is not soon consolidated by a

conqueror, the most natural result is the aggrandizement of a few great

families. Thus it was in Rome when Julius was assassinated, and in

Italy, when the empire of the west fell to pieces of its own weight.

The kindred of the late sovereign will be sure to have a party, the

chief innovators will have a party, and there is likely to grow up a

third or moderate party. So it fell out in Ireland. The Hy-Nials of the

north, deprived of the succession, rallied about the Princes of Aileach

as their head. Meath, left crownless, gave room to the ambition of the

sons of Malachy, who, under the name of O'Melaghlin, took provincial

rank. Ossory, like Issachar, long groaning beneath the burdens of Tara

and of Cashel, cruelly revenged on the Dalgais, returning from

Clontarf, the subjection to which Mahon and Brian had forcibly reduced

that borderland. The Eugenians of Desmond withdrew in disgust from the

banner of Donogh O'Brien, because he had openly proclaimed his

hostility to the alternate succession, and left his surviving clansmen

an easy prey to the enraged Ossorians. Leinster soon afterwards passed

from the house of O'Byrne to that of McMurrogh. The O'Briens maintained

their dominant interest in the south; as, after many local struggles,

the O'Conors did in the west. For a hundred and fifty years, after the

death of Malachy II., the history of Ireland is mainly the history of

these five families, O'Neils, O'Melaghlins, McMurroghs, O'Briens and

O'Conors. And for ages after the Normans enter on the scene, the same

provincialized spirit, the same family ambitions, feuds, hates, and

coalitions, with some exceptional passages, characterize the whole

history. Not that there will be found any want of heroism, or piety, or

self-sacrifice, or of any virtue or faculty, necessary to constitute a

state, save and except the _power of combination_, alone. Thus, judged

by what came after him, and what was happening in the world abroad,

Brian's design to re-centralize the island, seems the highest dictate

of political wisdom, in the condition to which the Norwegian and Danish

wars had reduced it, previous to his elevation to the monarchy. Malachy

II.—of the events of whose second reign some mention will be made

hereafter—held the sovereignty after Brian's death, until the year

1023, when he died an edifying death in one of the islands of Lough

Ennel, near the present Mullingar. He is called, in the annals of

Clonmacnoise, "the last king of Ireland, of Irish blood, that had the

crown." An ancient quatrain, quoted by Geoffrey Keating, is thus

literally translated:

"After the happy Melaghlin

Son of Donald, son of Donogh,

Each noble king ruled his own tribe

But Erin owned no sovereign Lord."

The annals of the eleventh and twelfth centuries curiously illustrate

the workings of this "anarchical constitution"—to employ a phrase first

applied to the Germanic Confederation. "After Malachy's death," says

the quaint old Annalist of Clonmacnoise, "this kingdom was without a

king 20 years, during which time the realm was governed by two learned

men; the one called Con O'Lochan, a well learned temporal man, and

chief poet of Ireland; the other Corcran Claireach, a devout and holy

man that was anchorite of all Ireland, whose most abiding was at

Lismore. The land was governed like a free state, and not like a

monarchy by them." Nothing can show the headlessness of the Irish

Constitution in the eleventh century clearer than this interregnum. No

one Prince could rally strength enough to be elected, so that two

Arbitrators, an illustrious Poet and a holy Priest, were appointed to

take cognizance of national causes. The associating together of a

Priest and a layman, a southerner and a northerner, is conclusive proof

that the bond of Celtic unity, frittered away during the Danish period,

was never afterwards entirely restored. Con O'Lochan having been killed

in Teffia, after a short jurisdiction, the holy Corcran exercised his

singular jurisdiction, until his decease, which happened at Lismore,

(A.D. 1040.) His death produced a new paroxysm of anarchy, out of which

a new organizer arose among the tribes of Leinster. This was Dermid,

son of Donogh, who died (A.D. 1005), when Dermid must have been a mere

infant, as he does not figure in the annals till the year 1032, and the

acts of young Princes are seldom overlooked in Gaelic Chronicles. He

was the first McMurrogh who became King of Leinster, that royalty

having been in the O'Byrne family, until the son of Maelmurra, of

Clontarf, was deposed by O'Neil in 1035, and retired to a monastery in

Cologne, where he died in 1052. In 1036 or 1037 Dermid captured Dublin

and Waterford, married the grand-daughter of Brian, and by '41 was

strong enough to assume the rank of ruler of the southern half-kingdom.

This dignity he held with a strong and warlike hand thirty years, when

he fell in battle, at Ova, in Meath. He must have been at that time

full threescore years and ten. He is described by the elegiac Bards as

of "ruddy complexion," "with teeth laughing in danger," and possessing

all the virtues of a warrior-king; "whose death," adds the lamentation,

"brought scarcity of peace" with it, so that "there will not be peace,"

"there will not be armistice," between Meath and Leinster. It may well

be imagined that every new resort to the two-third test, in the

election of Ard-Righ, should bring "scarcity of peace" to Ireland. We

can easily understand the ferment of hope, fear, intrigue, and passion,

which such an occasion caused among the great rival families. What

canvassing there was in Kinkora and Cashel, at Cruachan and Aileach,

and at Fernamore! What piecing and patching of interests, what libels

on opposing candidates, what exultation in the successful, what

discontent in the defeated camp!

The successful candidate for the southern half-kingdom after Dermid's

death was Thorlogh, grandson of Brian, and foster-son of the late

ruler. In his reign, which lasted thirty-three years, the political

fortunes of his house revived. He died in peace at Kinkora (A.D. 1087),

and the war of succession again broke out. The rival candidates at this

period were Murrogh O'Brien, son of the late king, whose ambition was

to complete the design of Brian, and Donald, Prince of Aileach, the

leader of the Northern Hy-Nials. Two abler men seldom divided a country

by their equal ambition. Both are entered in the annals as "Kings of

Ireland," but it is hard to discover that, during all the years of

their contest, either of them submitted to the other. To chronicle all

the incidents of the struggle would take too much space here; and, as

was to be expected, a third party profited most by it; the West came

in, in the person of O'Conor, to lord it over both North and South, and

to add another element to the dynastic confusion.

This brief abstract of our civil affairs after the death of Brian,

presents us with the extraordinary spectacle of a country without a

constitution working out the problem of its stormy destiny in despite

of all internal and external dangers. Everything now depended on

individual genius and energy; nothing on system, usage, or

prescription. Each leading family and each province became, in turn,

the head of the State. The supreme title seems to have been fatal for a

generation to the family that obtained it, for in no case is there a

lineal descent of the crown. The prince of Aileach or Kinkora naturally

preferred his permanent patrimony to an uncertain tenure of Tara; an

office not attached to a locality became, of course, little more than

an arbitrary title. Hence, the titular King of Ireland might for one

lifetime reign by the Shannon, in the next by the Bann, in a third, by

Lough Corrib. The supremacy, thus came to be considered a merely

personal appurtenance, was carried about in the old King's tent, or on

the young King's crupper, deteriorating and decaying by every

transposition it underwent. Herein, we have the origin of Irish

disunion with all its consequences, good, bad, and indifferent.

Are we to blame Brian for this train of events against which he would

have provided a sharp remedy in the hereditary principle? Or, on the

other hand, are we to condemn Malachy, the possessor of legitimate

power, if he saw in that remedy only the ambition of an aspiring family

already grown too great? Theirs was in fact the universal struggle of

reform and conservatism; the reformer and the heirs of his work were

cut off on Clontarf; the abuses of the elective principle continued

unrestrained by ancient salutary usage and prejudice, and the land

remained a tempting prey to such Adventurers, foreign or native, as

dare undertake to mould power out of its chaotic materials.

CHAPTER VIII.

LATTER DAYS OF THE NORTHMEN IN IRELAND.

Though Ireland dates the decay of Scandinavian power from Good Friday,

1014, yet the North did not wholly cease to send forth its warriors,

nor were the shores of the Western Island less tempting to them than

before. The second year after the battle of Clontarf, Canute founded

his Danish dynasty in England, which existed in no little splendour

during thirty-seven years. The Saxon line was restored by Edward "the

Confessor;" in the forty-third year of the century, only to be

extinguished for ever by the Norman conquest twenty-three years later.

Scotland, during the same years was more than once subject to invasion

from the same ancient enemy. Malcolm II., and the brave usurper

Macbeth, fought several engagements with the northern leaders, and

generally with brilliant success. By a remarkable coincidence, the

Scottish chronicles also date the decadence of Danish power on their

coasts from 1014, though several engagements were fought in Scotland

after that year.

Malachy II. had promptly followed up the victory of Clontarf by the

capture of Dublin, the destruction of its fort, and the exemplary

chastisement of the tribes of Leinster, who had joined Maelmurra as

allies of the Danes. Sitrick himself seems to have eluded the

suspicions and vengeance of the conquerors by a temporary exile, as we

find in the succession of the Dublin Vikings, "one Hyman, an usurper,"

entered as ruling "part of a year while Sitrick was in banishment." His

family interest, however, was strong among the native Princes, and

whatever his secret sympathies may have been, he had taken no active

part against them in the battle of Clontarf. By his mother, the Lady

Gormley of Offally, he was a half O'Conor; by marriage he was

son-in-law of Brian, and uterine brother of Malachy. After his return

to Dublin, when, in 1018, Brian, son of Maelmurra, fell prisoner into

his hands, as if to clear himself of any lingering suspicion of an

understanding with that family, he caused his eyes to be put out—a

cruel but customary punishment in that age. This act procured for him

the deadly enmity of the warlike mountaineers of Wicklow, who, in the

year 1022, gave him a severe defeat at Delgany. Even this he outlived,

and died seven years later, the acknowledged lord of his town and

fortress, forty years after his first accession to that title. He was

succeeded by his son, grandson, and great-grandson during the remaining

half century.

The kingdom of Leinster, in consequence of the defeat of Maelmurra, the

incapacity of Brian, and the destruction of other claimants of the same

family, passed to the family of McMurrogh, another branch of the same

ancestry. Dermid, the first and most distinguished King of Leinster of

this house, took Waterford (A.D. 1037), and so reduced its strength,

that we find its hosts no longer formidable in the field. Those of

Limerick continued their homage to the house of Kinkora, while the

descendants of Sitrick recognised Dermid of Leinster as their

sovereign. In short, all the Dano-Irish from thenceforward began to

knit themselves kindly to the soil, to obey the neighbouring Princes,

to march with them to battle, and to pursue the peaceful calling of

merchants, upon sea. The only peculiarly _Danish_ undertaking we hear

of again, in our Annals, was the attempt of a united fleet, equipped by

Dublin, Wexford, and Waterford, in the year 1088, to retake Cork from

the men of Desmond, when they were driven with severe loss to their

ships. Their few subsequent expeditions were led abroad, into the

Hebrides, the Isle of Man, or Wales, where they generally figure as

auxiliaries or mercenaries in the service of local Princes. They appear

in Irish battles only as contingents to the native armies—led by their

own leaders and recognized as a separate, but subordinate force. In the

year 1073, the Dublin Danes did homage to the monarch Thorlogh, and

from 1095, until his death (A.D. 1119), they recognized no other lord

but Murkertach More O'Brien; this king, at their own request, had also

nominated one of his family as Lord of the Danes and Welsh of the Isle

of Man.

The wealth of these Irish-Danes, before and after the time of Brian,

may be estimated by the annual tribute which Limerick paid to that

Prince—a pipe of red wine for every day in the year. In the year 1029,

Olaf, son of Sitrick, of Dublin, being taken prisoner by O'Regan, the

Lord of East-Meath, paid for his ransom—"twelve hundred cows, seven

score British horses, three score ounces of gold!" sixty ounces of

white silver as his "fetter-ounce;" the sword of Carlus, besides the

usual legal fees, for recording these profitable formalities.

Being now Christians, they also began to found and endow churches, with

the same liberality with which their Pagan fathers had once enriched

the temples of Upsala and Trondheim. The oldest religious foundations

in the seaports they possessed owe their origin to them; but even as

Christians, they did not lose sight of their nationality. They

contended for, and obtained Dano-Irish Bishops, men of their own race,

speaking their own speech, to preside over the sees of Dublin,

Waterford, and Limerick. When the Irish Synods or Primates asserted

over them any supervision which they were unwilling to admit—except in

the case of St. Malachy—they usually invoked the protection of the See

of Canterbury, which, after the Norman conquest of England, became by

far the most powerful Archbishopric in either island.

In the third quarter of this century there arose in the Isle of Man a

fortunate leader, who may almost be called the last of the sea kings.

This was Godard _Crovan_ (the white-handed), son of an Icelandic

Prince, and one of the followers of Harald Harfagar and Earl Tosti, in

their invasion of Northumbria (A.D. 1066). Returning from the defeat of

his chiefs, Godard saw and seized upon Man as the centre of future

expeditions of his own, in the course of which he subdued the Hebrides,

divided them with the gallant Somerled (ancestor of the MacDonalds of

the Isles), and established his son Lagman (afterwards put to death by

King Magnus _Barefoot_) as his viceroy in the Orkneys and Shetlands.

The weakened condition of the Danish settlement at Dublin attracted his

ambition, and where he entered as a mediator he remained as a master.

In the succession of the Dublin Vikings he is assigned a reign of ten

years, and his whole course of conquest seems to have occupied some

twenty years (A.D. 1077 to 1098). At length the star of this Viking of

the Irish sea paled before the mightier name of a King of Norway, whose

more brilliant ambition had a still shorter span. The story of this

_Magnus_ (called, it is said, from his adoption of the Scottish kilt,

Magnus _Barefoot_) forms the eleventh Saga in "the Chronicles of the

Kings of Norway." He began to reign in the year 1093, and soon after

undertook an expedition to the south, "with many fine men, and good

shipping." Taking the Orkneys on his way, he sent their Earls prisoners

to Norway, and placed his own son, Sigurd, in their stead. He overran

the Hebrides, putting Lagman, son of Godard Crovan, to death. He spared

only "the holy Island," as Iona was now called, even by the Northmen,

and there, in after years, his own bones were buried. The Isles of Man

and Anglesea, and the coast of Wales, shared the same fate, and thence

he retraced his course to Scotland, where, borne in his galley across

the Isthmus of Cantyre, to fulfil an old prophecy, he claimed

possession of the land on both sides of Loch Awe. It was while he

wintered in the Southern Hebrides, according to the Saga, that he

contracted his son Sigurd with the daughter of Murkertach O'Brien,

called by the Northmen "Biadmynia." In summer he sailed homeward, and

did not return southward till the ninth year of his reign (A.D. 1102),

when his son, Sigurd, had come of age, and bore the title of "King of

the Orkneys and Hebrides." "He sailed into the west sea," says the

Saga, "with the finest men who could be got in Norway. All the powerful

men of the country followed him, such as Sigurd Hranesson, and his

brother Ulf, Vidkunner Johnsson, Dag Eliffsson, Sorker of Sogn, Eyvind

Olboge, the king's marshal, and many other great men." On the

intelligence of this fleet having arrived in Irish waters, according to

the annals, Murkertach and his allies marched in force to Dublin,

where, however, Magnus "made peace with them for one year," and

Murkertach "gave his daughter to Sigurd, with many jewels and gifts."

That winter Magnus spent with Murkertach at Kinkora, and "towards

spring both kings went westward with their army all the way to Ulster."

This was one of those annual visitations which kings, whose authority

was not yet established, were accustomed to make. The circuit, as

usual, was performed in about six weeks, after which the Irish monarch

returned home, and Magnus went on board his fleet at Dublin, to return

to Norway. According to the Norse account he landed again on the coast

of Ulidia (Down), where he expected "cattle for ship-provision," which

Murkertach had promised to send him, but the Irish version would seem

to imply that he went on shore to seize the cattle perforce. It

certainly seems incredible that Murkertach should send cattle to the

shore of Strangford Lough, from the pastures of Thomond, when they

might be more easily driven to Dublin, or the mouth of the Boyne. "The

cattle had not made their appearance on the eve of Bartholomew's Mass"

(August 23rd, A.D. 1103), says the Saga, so "when the sun rose in the

sky, King Magnus himself went on shore with the greater part of his

men. King Magnus," continues the scald, "had a helmet on his head; a

red shield, in which was inlaid a gilded lion; and was girt with the

sword Legbiter, of which the hilt was of ivory, and the hand grip wound

about with gold thread; and the sword was extremely sharp. In his hand

he had a short spear, and a red silk short cloak over his coat, on

which both before and behind was embroidered a lion, in yellow silk;

and all men acknowledged that they had never seen a brisker, statelier

man." A dust cloud was seen far inland, and the Northmen fell into

order of battle. It proved, however, by their own account to be the

messengers with the promised supply of cattle; but, after they came up,

and while returning to the shore, they were violently assailed on all

sides by the men of Down. The battle is described, with true Homeric

vigour, by Sturleson. "The Irish," he says, "shot boldly; and although

they fell in crowds, there came always two in place of one." Magnus,

with most of his nobles, were slain on the spot, but Vidkunner Johnsson

escaped to the shipping, "with the King's banner and the sword

Legbiter." And the Saga of Magnus Barefoot concludes thus: "Now when

King Sigurd heard that his father had fallen, he set off immediately,

leaving the Irish King's daughter behind, and proceeded in autumn, with

the whole fleet directly to Norway." The annalists of Ulster barely

record the fact, that "Magnus, King of Lochlan and the Isles, was slain

by the Ulidians, with a slaughter of his people about him, while on a

predatory excursion." They place the event in the year 1104.

Our account with the Northmen may here be closed. Borne along by the

living current of events, we leave them behind, high up on the remoter

channels of the stream. Their terrible ravens shall flit across our

prospect no more. They have taken wing to their native north, where

they may croak yet a little while over the cold and crumbling altars of

Odin and Asa Thor. The bright light of the Gospel has penetrated even

to those last haunts of Paganism, and the fierce but not ungenerous

race, with which we have been so long familiar, begin to change their

natures under its benign influence.

Although both the scalds and chroniclers of the North frequently refer

to Ireland as a favourite theatre of their heroes, we derive little

light from those of their works which have yet been made public. All

connection between the two races had long ceased, before the first

scholars of the North began to investigate the earlier annals of their

own country, and then they were content with a very vague and general

knowledge of the western Island, for which their ancestors had so

fiercely contended throughout so many generations. The oldest maps,

known in Scandinavia, exhibit a mere outline of the Irish coast, with a

few points in the interior; fiords, with Norse names, are shown,

answering to Loughs Foyle, Swilly, Larne, Strang_ford_, and

Carling_ford_; the Provincial lines of Ulster and of Connaught are

rudely traced; and the situation of Enniskillen, Tara, Dublin,

Glendaloch, Water_ford_, Limer_ick_, and Swer_wick_, accurately laid

down. It is thought that all those places ending in _wick_ or _ford_,

on the Irish map, are of Scandinavian origin; as well as the names of

the islets, Skerries, Lambey, and Saltees. Many noble families, as the

Plunkets, McIvers, Archbolds, Harolds, Stacks, Skiddies, Cruises, and

McAuliffes, are derived from the same origin.

During the contest we have endeavoured to describe, three hundred and

ten years had passed since the warriors of Lochlin first landed on the

shores of Erin. Ten generations, according to the measured span of

adult life, were born, and trained to arms and marshalled in battle,

since the enemy, "powerful on sea," first burst upon the shield-shaped

Isle of Saints. At the close of the eighth century we cast back a

grateful retrospect on the Christian ages of Ireland. Can we do so now,

at the close of the eleventh? Alas! far from it. Bravely and in the

main successfully as the Irish have borne themselves, they come out of

that cruel, treacherous, interminable war with many rents and stains in

that vesture of innocence in which we saw them arrayed at the close of

their third Christian century. Odin has not conquered, but all the

worst vices of warfare—its violence, its impiety, discontent,

self-indulgence, and contempt for the sweet paths of peace and mild

counsels of religion—these must and did remain, long after Dane and

Norwegian have for ever disappeared!

BOOK III.

WAR OF SUCCESSION.

CHAPTER I.

THE FORTUNES OF THE FAMILY OF BRIAN.

The last scene of the Irish monarchy, before it entered on the

anarchical period, was not destitute of an appropriate grandeur. It was

the death-bed scene of the second Malachy, the rival, ally, and

successor of the great Brian. After the eventful day of Clontarf he

resumed the monarchy, without opposition, and for eight years he

continued in its undisturbed enjoyment. The fruitful land of Meath

again gave forth its abundance, unscourged by the spoiler, and beside

its lakes and streams the hospitable Ard-Righ had erected, or restored,

three hundred fortified houses, where, as his poets sung, shelter was

freely given to guests from the king of the elements. His own favourite

residence was at Dunnasciath ("the fort of shields"), in the north-west

angle of Lough Ennel, in the present parish of Dysart. In the eighth

year after Clontarf—the summer of 1022—the Dublin Danes once again

ventured on a foray into East-Meath, and the aged monarch marched to

meet them. At Athboy he encountered the enemy, and drove them, routed

and broken, out of the ancient mensal land of the Irish kings.

Thirty days after that victory he was called on to confront the

conqueror of all men, even Death. He had reached the age of

seventy-three, and he prepared to meet his last hour with the zeal and

humility of a true Christian. To Dunnasciath repaired Amalgaid,

Archbishop of Armagh, the Abbots of Clonmacnoise and of Durrow, with a

numerous train of the clergy. For greater solitude, the dying king was

conveyed into an island of the lake opposite his fort—then called

Inis-Cro, now Cormorant Island—and there, "after intense penance," on

the fourth of the Nones of September precisely, died Malachy, son of

Donald, son of Donogh, in the fond language of the bards, "the pillar

of the dignity and nobility of the western world:" and "the seniors of

all Ireland sung masses, hymns, psalms, and canticles for the welfare

of his soul."

"This," says the old Translator of the Clonmacnoise Annals, "was the

last king of Ireland of Irish blood, that had the crown; yet there were

seven kings after without crown, before the coming in of the English."

Of these seven subsequent kings we are to write under the general title

of "the War of Succession." They are called Ard-Righ _go Fresabra_,

that is, kings opposed, or unrecognised, by certain tribes, or

Provinces. For it was essential to the completion of the title, as we

have before seen, that when the claimant was of Ulster, he should have

Connaught and Munster, or Leinster and Munster, in his obedience: in

other words, he should be able to command the allegiance of two-thirds

of his suffragans. If of Munster, he should be equally potent in the

other Provinces, in order to rank among the recognised kings of Erin.

Whether some of the seven kings subsequent to Malachy II., who assumed

the title, were not fairly entitled to it, we do not presume to say; it

is our simpler task to narrate the incidents of that brilliant war of

succession, which occupies almost all the interval between the Danish

and Anglo-Norman invasions. The chaunt of the funeral Mass of Malachy

was hardly heard upon Lough Ennel, when Donogh O'Brien despatched his

agents, claiming the crown from the Provincial Princes. He was the

eldest son of Brian by his second marriage, and his mother was an

O'Conor, an additional source of strength to him, in the western

Province. It had fallen to the lot of Donogh, and his elder brother,

Teigue or Thaddeus, to conduct the remnant of the Dalcassians from

Clontarf to their home. Marching through Ossory, by the great southern

road, they were attacked in their enfeebled state by the lord of that

brave little border territory, on whom Brian's hand had fallen with

heavy displeasure. Wounded as many of them were, they fought their way

desperately towards Cashel, leaving 150 men dead in one of their

skirmishes. Of all who had left the Shannon side to combat with the

enemy, but 850 men lived to return to their homes.

No sooner had they reached Kinkora, than a fierce dispute arose,

between the friends of Teigue and Donogh, as to which should reign over

Munster. A battle ensued, with doubtful result, but by the intercession

of the Clergy this unnatural feud was healed, and the brothers reigned

conjointly for nine years afterwards, until Teigue fell in an

engagement in Ely (Queen's County), as was charged and believed, by the

machinations of his colleague and brother. Thorlogh, son of Teigue, was

the foster-son, and at this time the guest or hostage of Dermid of

Leinster, the founder of the McMurrogh family, which had now risen into

the rank justly forfeited by the traitor Maelmurra. When he reached

man's age he married the daughter of Dermid, and we shall soon hear of

him again asserting in Munster the pretensions of the eldest surviving

branch of the O'Brien family.

The death of his brother and of Malachy within the same year, proved

favourable to the ambition of Donogh O'Brien. All Munster submitted to

his sway; Connaught was among the first to recognise his title as

Ard-Righ. Ossory and Leinster, though unwillingly, gave in their

adhesion. But Meath refused to recognise him, and placed its government

in commission, in the hands of Con O'Lochan, the arch-poet, and

Corcran, the priest, already more than once mentioned. The country,

north of Meath, obeyed Flaherty O'Neil, of Aileach, whose ambition, as

well as that of all his house, was to restore the northern supremacy,

which had continued unbroken, from the fourth to the ninth century.

This Flaherty was a vigorous, able, and pious Prince, who held stoutly

on to the northern half-kingdom. In the year 1030 he made the frequent

but adventurous pilgrimage to Rome, from which he is called, in the

pedigree of his house, _an Trostain_, or the cross-bearer.

The greatest obstacle, however, to the complete ascendency of Donogh,

arose in the person of his nephew, now advanced to manhood. Thorlogh

O'Brien possessed much of the courage and ability of his grandfather,

and he had at his side, a faithful and powerful ally in his

foster-father, Dermid, of Leinster. Rightly or wrongly, on proof or on

suspicion, he regarded his uncle as his father's murderer, and he

pursued his vengeance with a skill and constancy worthy of _Hamlet_. At

the time of his father's death, he was a mere lad—in his fourteenth

year. But, as he grew older, he accompanied his foster-father in all

his expeditions, and rapidly acquired a soldier's fame. By marriage

with Dervorgoil, daughter of the Lord of Ossory, he strengthened his

influence at the most necessary point; and what, with so good a cause

and such fast friends as he made in exile, his success against his

uncle is little to be wondered at. Leinster and Ossory, which had

temporarily submitted to Donogh's claim, soon found good pretexts for

refusing him tribute, and a border war, marked by all the usual

atrocities, raged for several successive seasons. The contest, is

relieved, however, of its purely civil character, by the capture of

Waterford, still Danish, in 1037, and of Dublin, in 1051. On this

occasion, Dermid, of Leinster, bestowed the city on his son Morrogh

(grandfather of Strongbow's ally), to whom the remnant of its

inhabitants, as well as their kinsmen in Man, submitted for the time

with what grace they could.

The position of Donogh O'Brien became yearly weaker. His rival had

youth, energy, and fortune on his side. The Prince of Connaught finally

joined him, and thus, a league was formed, which overcame all

opposition. In the year 1058, Donogh received a severe defeat at the

base of the Galtees; and although he went into the house of O'Conor the

same year, and humbly submitted to him, it only postponed his day of

reckoning. Three years after O'Conor took Kinkora, and Dermid, of

Leinster, burned Limerick, and took hostages as far southward as Saint

Brendan's hill (Tralee). The next year Donogh O'Brien, then fully

fourscore years of age, weary of life and of the world, took the

cross-staff, and departed on a pilgrimage to Rome, where he died soon

after, in the monastery of St. Stephen. It is said by some writers that

Donogh brought with him to Rome and presented to the Pope, Alexander

II., the crown of his father—and from this tradition many theories and

controversies have sprung. It is not unlikely that a deposed monarch

should have carried into exile whatever portable wealth he still

retained, nor that he should have presented his crown to the Sovereign

Pontiff before finally quitting the world. But as to conferring with

the crown, the sovereignty of which it was once an emblem, neither

reason nor religion obliges us to believe any such hypothesis.

Dermid of Leinster, upon the banishment of Donogh, son of Brian (A.D.

1063), became actual ruler of the southern half-kingdom and nominal

Ard-Righ, "with opposition." The two-fold antagonism to this Prince,

came, as might be expected from Conor, son of Malachy, the head of the

southern Hy-Nial dynasty, and from the chiefs of the elder dynasty of

the North. Thorlogh O'Brien, now King of Cashel, loyally repaid, by his

devoted adherence, the deep debt he owed in his struggles and his early

youth to Dermid. There are few instances in our Annals of a more

devoted friendship than existed between these brave and able Princes

through all the changes of half a century. No one act seems to have

broken the life-long intimacy of Dermid and Thorlogh; no cloud ever

came between them; no mistrust, no distrust. Rare and precious felicity

of human experience! How many myriads of men have sighed out their

souls in vain desire for that best blessing which Heaven can bestow, a

true, unchanging, unsuspecting friend!

To return: Conor O'Melaghlin could not see, without deep-seated

discontent, a Prince of Leinster assume the rank which his father and

several of his ancestors had held. A border strife between Meath and

Leinster arose not unlike that which had been waged a few years before

for the deposition of Donogh, between Leinster and Ossory on the one

part, and Munster on the other. Various were the encounters, whose

obscure details are seldom preserved to us. But the good fortune of

Dermid prevailed in all, until, in the year 1070, he lost Morrogh, his

heir, by a natural death at Dublin, and Gluniarn, another son, fell in

battle with the men of Meath. Two years later, in the battle of Ova, in

the same territory, and against the same enemy, Dermid himself fell,

with the lord of Forth, and a great host of Dublin Danes and Leinster

men. The triumph of the son of Malachy, and the sorrow and anger of

Leinster, were equally great. The bards have sung the praise of Dermid

in strains which history accepts: they praise his ruddy aspect and

laughing teeth; they remember how he upheld the standard of war, and

none dared contend with him in battle; they denounce vengeance on Meath

as soon as his death-feast is over—a vengeance too truly pursued.

As a picture of the manners and habits of thought in those tunes, the

fate of Conor, son of Melaghlin, and its connection with the last

illness and death of Thorlogh O'Brien, are worthy of mention. Conor was

treacherously slain, the year after the battle of Ova, in a parley with

his own nephew, though the parley was held under the protection of the

_Bachall-Isa_, or Staff, of Christ, the most revered relic of the Irish

Church. After his death, his body was buried in the great Church of

Clonmacnoise, in his own patrimony. But Thorlogh O'Brien perhaps, from

his friendship for Dermid, carried off his head, as the head of an

enemy, to Kinkora. When it was placed in his presence in his palace, a

mouse ran out from the dead man's head, and under the king's mantle,

which occasioned him such a fright that he grew suddenly sick, his hair

fell off, and his life was despaired of. It was on Good Friday that the

buried head was carried away, and on Easter Sunday, it was tremblingly

restored again, with two rings of gold as a peace offering to the

Church. Thus were God and Saint Kieran vindicated. Thorlogh O'Brien

slowly regained his strength, though Keating, and the authors he

followed, think he was never the same man again, after the fright he

received from the head of Conor O'Melaghlin. He died peaceably and full

of penitence, at Kinkora, on the eve of the Ides of July, A.D. 1086,

after severe physical suffering. He was in the 77th year of his age,

the 32nd of his rule over Munster, and the 13th—since the death of

Dermid of Leinster—in his actual sovereignty of the southern half, and

nominal rule of the whole kingdom. He was succeeded by his son

Murkertach, or Murtogh, afterwards called _More_, or the great.

We have thus traced to the third generation the political fortunes of

the family of Brian, which includes so much of the history of those

times. That family had become, and was long destined to remain, the

first in rank and influence in the southern half-kingdom. But internal

discord in a great house, as in a great state, is fatal to the

peaceable transmission of power. That "acknowledged right of birth" to

which a famous historian attributes "the peaceful successions" of

modern Europe, was too little respected in those ages, in many

countries of Christendom—and had no settled prescription in its favour

among the Irish. Primogeniture and the whole scheme of feudal

dependence seems to have been an essential preparative for modern

civilization: but as Ireland had escaped the legions of Rome, so she

existed without the circle of feudal organization. When that system did

at length appear upon her soil it was embodied in an invading host, and

patriot zeal could discern nothing good, nothing imitable in the laws

and customs of an enemy, whose armed presence in the land was an insult

to its inhabitants. Thus did our Island twice lose the discipline which

elsewhere laid the foundation of great states: once in the Roman, and

again in the Feudal era.

CHAPTER II.

THE CONTEST BETWEEN THE NORTH AND SOUTH—RISE OF THE FAMILY OF O'CONOR.

Four years before the death of Thorlogh O'Brien, a Prince destined to

be the life-long rival of his great son, had succeeded to the kingship

of the northern tribes. This was Donald, son of Ardgall, Prince of

Aileach, sometimes called "O" and sometimes "Mac" Laughlin. Donald had

reached the mature age of forty when he succeeded in the course of

nature to his father, Ardgall, and was admitted the first man of the

North, not only in station but for personal graces and accomplishments;

for wisdom, wealth, liberality, and love of military adventure.

Murkertach, or Murtogh O'Brien, was of nearly the same age as his

rival, and his equal, if not superior in talents, both for peace and

war. During the last years of his father's reign and illness, he had

been the real ruler of the south, and had enforced the claims of Cashel

on all the tribes of Leath Mogha, from Dublin to Galway. In the year

1094, by mutual compact, brought about through the intercession of the

Archbishop of Armagh and the great body of the clergy, north and

south—and still more perhaps by the pestilence and famine which raged

at intervals during the last years of the eleventh century—this ancient

division of the midland _asker_, running east and west, was solemnly

restored by consent of both parties, and Leath Mogha and Leath Conn

became for the moment independent territories. So thoroughly did the

Church enter into the arrangement, that, at the Synod of Rath-Brazil,

held a few years later, the seats of the twelve Bishops of the southern

half were grouped round the Archbishop of Cashel, while the twelve of

the northern half were ranged round the Archbishop of Armagh. The

Bishops of Meath, the ancient mensal of the monarchy, seem to have

occupied a middle station between the benches of the north and south.

Notwithstanding the solemn compact of 1094, Murtogh did not long cease

to claim the title, nor to seek the hostages of all Ireland. As soon as

the fearful visitations with which the century had closed were passed

over, he resumed his warlike forays, and found Donald of Aileach

nothing loath to try again the issue of arms. Each prince, however,

seems to have been more anxious to coerce or interest the secondary

chiefs in his own behalf than to meet his rival in the old-style

pitched battle. Murtogh's annual march was usually along the Shannon,

into Leitrim, thence north by Sligo, and across the Erne and Finn into

Donegal and Derry. Donald's annual excursion led commonly along the

Bann, into Dalriada and Ulidia, Whence by way of Newry, across the

Boyne, into Meath, and from West-Meath into Munster. In one of these

forays, at the very opening of the twelfth century, Donald surprised

Kinkora in the absence of its lord, razed the fort and levelled the

buildings to the earth. But the next season the southern king paid him

back in kind, when he attacked and demolished Aileach, and caused each

of his soldiers to carry off a stone of the ruin in his knapsack. "I

never heard of the billeting of grit stones," exclaims a bard of those

days, "though I have heard of the billeting of soldiers: but now we see

the stones of Aileach billeted on the horses of the King of the West!"

Such circuits of the Irish kings, especially in days of opposition,

were repeated with much regularity. They seem to have set out commonly

in May—or soon after the festival of Easter—and when the tour of the

island was made, they occupied about six weeks in duration. The precise

number of men who took part in these visitations is nowhere stated, but

in critical times no prince, claiming the perilous honour of

_Ard-Righ_, would be likely to march with less than from five to ten

thousand men. The movements of such a multitude must have been attended

with many oppressions and inconveniences; their encampment for even a

week in any territory must have been a serious burthen to the resident

inhabitants, whether hostile or hospitable. Yet this was one inevitable

consequence of the breaking up of the federal centre at Tara. In

earlier days, the _Ard-Righ_, on his election, or in an emergency, made

an armed procession through the island. Ordinarily, however, his

suffragans visited him, and not he them; all Ireland went up to Tara to

the _Feis_, or to the festivals of Baaltine and Samhain. Now that there

was no Tara to go to, the monarch, or would-be monarch, found it

indispensable to show himself often, and to exercise his authority in

person, among every considerable tribe in the island. To do justice to

Murtogh O'Brien, he does not appear to have sought occasions of

employing force when on these expeditions, but rather to have acted the

part of an armed negotiator. On his return from the demolition of

Aileach (A.D. 1101), among other acts of munificence, he, in an

assembly of the clergy of Leath Mogha, made a solemn gift of the city

of Cashel, free of all rents and dues, to the Archbishop and the

Clergy, for ever. His munificence to churches, and his patronage of

holy men, were eminent traits in this Prince's character. And the

clergy of that age were eminently worthy of the favours of such

Princes. Their interposition frequently brought about a truce between

the northern and southern kings. In the year 1103, the hostages of both

were placed in custody with Donald, Archbishop of Armagh, to guarantee

a twelvemonth's peace. But the next season the contest was renewed.

Murtogh besieged Armagh for a week, which Donald of Aileach

successfully defended, until the siege was abandoned. In a subsequent

battle the northern force defeated one division of Murtogh's allies in

Iveagh, under the Prince of Leinster, who fell on the field, with the

lords of Idrone, Ossory, Desies, Kerry, and the Dublin Danes. Murtogh

himself, with another division of his troops, was on an incursion into

Antrim when he heard of this defeat. The northern visitors carried off

among other spoils the royal tent and standard, a trophy which gave new

bitterness on the one side, and new confidence on the other. Donald,

the good Archbishop, the following year (A.D. 1105) proceeded to

Dublin, where Murtogh was, or was soon expected, to renew the previous

peace between North and South, but he fell suddenly ill soon after his

arrival, and caused himself to be carried homewards in haste. At a

church by the wayside, not far from Dublin, he was anointed and

received the viaticum. He survived, however, to reach Armagh, where he

expired on the 12th day of August. Kellach, latinized Celsus, his

saintly successor, was promoted to the Primacy, and solemnly

consecrated on Saint Adamnan's day following—the 23rd of September,

1105.

Archbishop Celsus, whose accession was equally well received in Munster

as in Ulster, followed in the footsteps of his pious predecessor, in

taking a decided part with neither Leath Mogha nor Leath Conn. When, in

the year 1110, both parties marched to Slieve-Fuaid, with a view to a

challenge of battle, Celsus interposed between them the

_Bachall-Isa_—and a solemn truce followed; again, three years later,

when they confronted each other in Iveagh, in Down, similar success

attended a similar interposition. Three years later Murtogh O'Brien was

seized with so severe an illness, that he became like to a living

skeleton, and though he recovered sufficiently to resume the exercise

of authority he never regained his full health. He died in a spiritual

retreat, at Lismore, on the 4th of the Ides of March, A.D. 1119, and

was buried at Killaloe. His great rival, Donald of Leath Conn, did not

long survive him: he died at Derry, also in a religious house, on the

5th of the Ides of February, A.D. 1121.

While these two able men were thus for more than a quarter of a century

struggling for the supremacy, a third power was gradually strengthening

itself west of the Shannon, destined to profit by the contest, more

than either of the principals. This was the family of O'Conor, of

Roscommon, who derived their pedigree from the same stock as the

O'Neils, and their name from Conor, an ancestor, who ruled over

Connaught, towards the end of the ninth century. Two or three of their

line before Conor had possessed the same rank and title, but it was by

no means regarded as an adjunct of the house of Rathcrogan, before the

time at which we have arrived. Their co-relatives, sometimes their

rivals, but oftener their allies, were the O'Ruarcs of Breffny,

McDermots of Moylurg, the O'Flahertys of _Iar_ or West Connaught, the

O'Shaughnessys, O'Heynes, and O'Dowdas. The great neighbouring family

of O'Kelly had sprung from a different branch of the far-spreading

Gaelic tree. At the opening of the twelfth century, Thorlogh More

O'Conor, son of Ruari of the Yellow Hound, son of Hugh of the Broken

Spear, was the recognised head of his race, both for valour and

discretion. By some historians he is called the half-brother of Murtogh

O'Brien, and it is certain that he was the faithful ally of that

powerful prince. In the early stages of the recent contest between

North and South, Donald of Aileach had presented himself at Rathcrogan,

the residence of O'Conor, who entertained him for a fortnight, and gave

him hostages; but Connaught finally sided with Munster, and thus, by a

decided policy, escaped being ground to powder, as corn is ground

between the mill-stones. But the nephew and successor of Murtogh was

not prepared to reciprocate to Connaught the support it had rendered to

Munster, but rather looked for its continuance to himself. Conor

O'Brien, who became King of Munster in 1120, resisted all his life the

pretensions of any house but his own to the southern half-kingdom, and

against a less powerful or less politic antagonist, his energy and

capacity would have been certain to prevail. The posterity of Malachy

in Meath, as well as the Princes of Aileach, were equally hostile to

the designs of the new aspirant. One line had given three, another

seven, another twenty kings to Erin—but who had ever heard of an

_Ard-Righ_ coming out of Connaught? 'Twas so they reasoned in those

days of fierce family pride, and so they acted. Yet Thorlogh, son of

Ruari, son of Hugh, proved himself in the fifteen years' war, previous

to his accession (1021 to 1136), more than a match for all his enemies.

He had been chief of his tribe since the year 1106, and from the first

had begun to lay his far forecasting plans for the sovereignty. He had

espoused the cause of the house of O'Brien, and had profited by that

alliance. Nor were all his thoughts given to war. He had bridged the

river Suca at Ballinasloe, and the Shannon at Athlone and Shannon

harbour, and the same year these works were finished (1120 or '21) he

celebrated the ancient games at Tailtean, in assertion of his claim to

the monarchy. His main difficulty was the stubborn pride of Munster,

and the valour and enterprise of Conor O'Brien, surnamed Conor "of the

fortresses." Of the years following his assertion of his title, few

passed without war between those Provinces. In 1121 and 1127, Thorlogh

triumphed in the south, took hostages from Lismore to Tralee, and

returned home exultingly; a few years later the tide turned, and Conor

O'Brien was equally victorious against him, in the heart of his own

country. Thorlogh played off in the south the ancient jealousy of the

Eugenian houses against the Dalcassians, and thus weakened both, to his

own advantage. In the year 1126 he took Dublin and raised his son to

the lordship, as Dermid of Leinster, and Thorlogh O'Brien had done

formerly: marching southward he encamped in Ormond, from Lammas to St.

Bridget's day, and overran Munster with his troops in all directions,

taking Cork, Cashel, Ardfinnan, and Tralee. Celsus, the holy Primate of

Armagh, deploring the evils of this protracted year, left his peaceful

city, and spent thirteen months in the south and west, endeavouring to

reconcile, and bind over to the peace, the contending kings. In these

days the Irish hierarchy performed, perhaps, their highest part—that of

peacemakers and preachers of good will to men. When in 1132 and '33 the

tide had temporarily turned against Thorlogh, and Conor O'Brien had

united Munster, Leinster, and Meath, against him, the Archbishop of

Tuam performed effectually the office of mediator, preserving not only

his own Province, but the whole country from the most sanguinary

consequences. In the year 1130, the holy Celsus had rested from his

labours, and Malachy, the illustrious friend of St. Bernard, was

nominated as his successor. At the time he was absent in Munster, as

the Vicar of the aged Primate, engaged in a mission of peace, when the

crozier and the dying message of his predecessor were delivered to him.

He returned to Armagh, where he found that Maurice, son of Donald, had

been intruded as Archbishop in the _interim_, to this city peace,

order, and unity, were not even partially restored, until two years

later—A.D., 1132.

The reign of Thorlogh O'Conor over Leath Mogha, or as Ard-Righ "with

opposition," is dated by the best authorities from the year 1136. He

was then in his forty-eighth year, and had been chief of his tribe from

the early age of eighteen. He afterwards reigned for twenty years, and

as those years, and the early career of his son Roderick are full of

instruction, in reference to the events which follow, we must relate

them somewhat in detail. We again beg the reader to observe the

consequences of the destruction of the federal bond among the Irish;

how every province has found an ambitious dynasty of its own, which

each contends shall be supreme; how the ambition of the great families

grows insatiable as the ancient rights and customs decay; how the law

of Patrick enacted in the fifth century is no longer quoted or

regarded; how the law of the strong hand alone decides the quarrel of

these proud, unyielding Princes.

CHAPTER III.

THORLOGH MORE O'CONOR—MURKERTACH OF AILEACH—ACCESSION OF RODERICK

O'CONOR.

The successful ambition of Thorlogh O'Conor had thus added, as we have

seen in the last chapter, a fifth dynasty to the number of competitors

for the sovereignty. And if great energy and various talents could

alone entitle a chief to rule over his country, this Prince well

merited the obedience of his cotemporaries. He is the first of the

latter kings who maintained a regular fleet at sea; at one time we find

these Connaught galleys doing service on the coast of Cork, at another

co-operating with his land forces, in the harbour of Derry. The year of

his greatest power was the fifteenth of his reign (A.D. 1151), when his

most signal success was obtained over his most formidable antagonists.

Thorlogh O'Brien, King of Munster, successor to Conor of the

fortresses, had on foot, in that year, an army of three battalions (or

_caths_), each battalion consisting of 3,000 men, with which force he

overawed some, and compelled others of the southern chiefs to withdraw

their homage from his western namesake. The latter, uniting to his own

the forces of Meath, and those of Leinster, recently reconciled to his

supremacy, marched southward, and, encamping at Glanmire, received the

adhesion of such Eugenian families as still struggled with desperation

against the ascendency of the O'Briens. With these forces he

encountered, at Moanmore, the army of the south, and defeated them,

with the enormous loss of 7,000 men—a slaughter unparalleled throughout

the war of succession. Every leading house in North Munster mourned the

loss of either its chief or its tanist; some great families lost three,

five, or seven brothers on that sanguinary day. The household of

Kinkora was left without an heir, and many a near kinsman's seat was

vacant in its hospitable hall. The O'Brien himself was banished into

Ulster, where, from Murkertach, Prince of Aileach, he received the

hospitality due to his rank and his misfortunes, not without an

ulterior politic view on the part of the Ulster Prince. In this battle

of Moanmore, Dermid McMurrogh, King of Leinster, of whom we shall hear

hereafter, fought gallantly on the side of the victor. In the same

year—but whether before or after the Munster campaign is uncertain—an

Ulster force having marched into Sligo, Thorlogh met them near the

Curlew mountains, and made peace with their king. A still more

important interview took place the next year in the plain, or _Moy_,

between the rivers Erne and Drowse, near the present Ballyshannon. On

the _Bachall-Isa_ and the relics of Columbkill, Thorlogh and Murkertach

made a solemn peace, which is thought to have included the recognition

of O'Conor's supremacy. A third meeting was had during the summer in

Meath, where were present, beside the Ard-Righ, the Prince of Aileach,

Dermid of Leinster, and other chiefs and nobles. At this conference

they divided Meath into east and west, between two branches of the

family of Melaghlin. Part of Longford and South Leitrim were taken from

Tiernan O'Ruarc, lord of Breffni, and an angle of Meath, including

Athboy and the hill of Ward, was given him instead. Earlier in the same

year, King Thorlogh had divided Munster into three parts, giving

Desmond to MacCarthy, Ormond to Thaddeus O'Brien, who had fought under

him at Moanmore, and leaving the remainder to the O'Brien, who had only

two short years before competed with him for the sovereignty. By these

subdivisions the politic monarch expected to weaken to a great degree

the power of the rival families of Meath and Munster. It was an

arbitrary policy which could originate only on the field of battle, and

could be enforced only by the sanction of victory. Thorlogh O'Brien,

once King of all Munster, refused to accept a mere third, and carrying

away his jewels and valuables, including the drinking horn of the great

Brian, he threw himself again on the protection of Murkertach of

Aileach. The elder branch of the family of O'Melaghlin were equally

indisposed to accept half of Meath, where they had claimed the whole

from the Shannon to the sea. To complicate still more this tangled web,

Dermid, King of Leinster, about the same time (A.D. 1153), eloped with

Dervorgoil, wife of O'Ruarc of Breffni, and daughter of O'Melaghlin,

who both appealed to the monarch for vengeance on the ravager. Up to

this date Dermid had acted as a steadfast ally of O'Conor, but when

compelled by the presence of a powerful force on his borders to restore

the captive, or partner of his guilt, he conceived an enmity for the

aged king, which he extended, with increased virulence, to his son and

successor.

What degree of personal criminality to attach to this elopement it is

hard to say. The cavalier in the case was on the wintry side of fifty,

while the lady had reached the mature age of forty-four. Such examples

have been, where the passions of youth, surviving the period most

subject to their influence, have broken out with renewed frenzy on the

confines of old age. Whether the flight of Dermid and Dervorgoil arose

from a mere criminal passion, is not laid down with certainty in the

old Annals, though national and local tradition strongly point to that

conclusion. The Four Masters indeed state that after the restoration of

the lady she "returned to O'Ruarc," another point wanting confirmation.

We know that she soon afterwards retired to the shelter of Mellifont

Abbey, where she ended her days towards the close of the century, in

penitence and alms-deeds.

Murtogh of Aileach now became master of the situation. Thorlogh was old

and could not last long; Dermid of Leinster was for ever estranged from

him; the new arbitrary divisions, though made with the general consent,

satisfied no one. With a powerful force he marched southward, restored

to the elder branch of the O'Melaghlins the whole of Meath, defeated

Thaddeus O'Brien, obliterated Ormond from the map, restored the old

bounds of Thomond and Desmond, and placed his guest, the banished

O'Brien, on the throne of Cashel. A hostile force, under Roderick

O'Conor, was routed, and retreated to their own territory. The next

year (A.D. 1154) was signalized by a fierce naval engagement between

the galleys of King Thorlogh and those of Murtogh, on the coast of

Innishowen. The latter, recruited by vessels hired from the Gael and

Galls of Cantire, the Arran Isles, and Man, were under the command of

MacScellig; the Connaught fleet was led by O'Malley and O'Dowda. The

engagement, which lasted from the morning till the evening, ended in

the repulse of the Connaught fleet, and the death of O'Dowda. The

occurrence is remarkable as the first general sea-fight between vessels

in the service of native Princes, and as reminding us forcibly of the

lessons acquired by the Irish during the Danish period.

During the two years of life—which remained to King Thorlogh O'Conor,

he had the affliction of seeing the fabric of power, which had taken

him nearly half a century to construct, abridged at many points, by his

more vigorous northern rival. Murtogh gave law to territories far south

of the ancient _esker_. He took hostages from the Danes of Dublin, and

interposed in the affairs of Munster. In the year 1156, the closing

incidents which signalized the life of Thorlogh More, was a new peace

which he made between the people of Breffni, Meath, and Connaught, and

the reception of hostages from his old opponent, the restored O'Brien.

While this new light of prosperity was shining on his house, he passed

away from this life, on the 13th of the Kalends of June, in the 68th

year of his age, and the 50th of his government. By his last will he

bequeathed to the clergy numerous legacies, which are thus enumerated

by Geoffrey Keating: "namely, four hundred and forty ounces of gold,

and forty marks of silver; and all the other valuable treasures he

possessed, both cups and precious stones, both steeds and cattle and

robes, chess-boards, bows, quivers, arrows, equipments, weapons,

armour, and utensils." He was interred beside the high altar of the

Cathedral of Clonmacnoise, to which he had been in life and in death a

munificent benefactor.

The Prince of Aileach now assumed the title of Monarch, and after some

short-lived opposition from Roderick O'Conor, his sovereignty was

universally acknowledged. From the year 1161 until his death, he might

fairly be called Ard-Righ, without opposition, since the hostages of

all Ireland were in those last five years in his hands. These hostages

were retained at the chief seat of power of the northern dynasty, the

fortress of Aileach, which crowns a hill nearly a thousand feet high,

at the head of Lough Swilly. To this stronghold the ancestor of Murtogh

had removed early in the Danish period, from the more exposed and more

ancient Emania, beside Armagh. On that hill-summit the ruins of Aileach

may still be traced, with its inner wall twelve feet thick, and its

three concentric ramparts, the first enclosing one acre, the second

four, and the last five acres. By what remains we can still judge of

the strength of the stronghold which watched over the waters of Lough

Swilly like a sentinel on an outpost. No Prince of the Northern Hy-Nial

had for two centuries entered Aileach in such triumph or with so many

nobles in his train, as did Murtogh in the year 1161, But whether the

supreme power wrought a change for the worse in his early character, or

that the lords of Ulster had begun to consider the line of Conn as

equals rather than sovereigns, he was soon involved in quarrels with

his own Provincial suffragans which ended in his defeat and death. Most

other kings of whom we have read found their difficulties in rival

dynasties and provincial prejudices; but this ruler, when most freely

acknowledged abroad, was disobeyed and defeated at home. Having taken

prisoner the lord of Ulidia (Down), with whom he had previously made a

solemn peace, he ordered his eyes to be put out, and three of his

principal relatives to be executed. This and other arbitrary acts so

roused the lords of Leath Conn, that they formed a league against him,

at the head of which stood Donogh O'Carroll, lord of Oriel, the next

neighbour to the cruelly ill-treated chief of Ulidia. In the year 1166,

this chief, with certain tribes of Tyrone and North Leitrim, to the

number of three battalions (9,000 men), attacked the patrimony of the

monarch—that last menace and disgrace to an Irish king. Murtogh with

his usual valour, but not his usual fortune, encountered them in the

district of the Fews, with an Inferior force, chiefly his own

tribesmen. Even these deserted him on the eve of the battle, so that he

was easily surprised and slain, only thirteen men falling in the

affray. This action, of course, is unworthy the name of a battle, but

resulting in the death of the monarch, it became of high political

importance.

Roderick O'Conor, son of Thorlogh More, was at this period in the tenth

year of his reign over Connaught, and the fiftieth year of his age.

Rathcrogan, the chief seat of his jurisdiction, had just attained to

the summit of its glory. The site of this now almost forgotten palace

is traceable in the parish of Elphin, within three miles of the modern

village of Tulsk. Many objects contributed to its interest and

importance in Milesian times. There were the _Naasteaghna_, or place of

assembly of the clans of Connaught, "the Sacred Cave," which in the

Druidic era was supposed to be the residence of a god, and the _Relig

na Righ_—the venerable cemetery of the Pagan kings of the West, where

still the red pillar stone stood over the grave of Dathy, and many

another ancient tomb could be as clearly distinguished. The relative

importance of Rathcrogan we may estimate by the more detailed

descriptions of the extent and income of its rivals—Kinkora and

Aileach. In an age when Roscommon alone contained 470 fortified _duns_,

over all which the royal rath presided; when half the tributes of the

island were counted at its gate, it must have been the frequent

_rendezvous_ of armies, the home of many guests, the busy focus of

intrigue, and the very elysium of bards, story-tellers, and mendicants.

In an after generation, Cathal, the red-handed O'Conor, from some

motive of policy or pleasure, transferred the seat of government to the

newly-founded Ballintober: in the lifetime of Thorlogh More, and the

first years of Roderick, when the fortunes of the O'Conors were at

their full, Rathcrogan was the co-equal in strength and in splendour of

Aileach and Kinkora.

Advancing directly from this family seat, on the first tidings of

Murtogh's death, Roderick presented himself before the walls of Dublin,

which opened its gates, accepted his stipend of four thousand head of

cattle, and placed hostages for its fidelity in his hands. He next

marched rapidly to Drogheda, with an auxiliary force of Dublin Danes,

and there O'Carroll, lord of Oriel (Louth), came into his camp, and

rendered him homage. Retracing his steps he entered Leinster, with an

augmented force, and demanded hostages from Dermid McMurrogh. Thirteen

years had passed since his father had taken up arms to avenge the rape

of Dervorgoil, and had earned the deadly hatred of the abductor. That

hatred, in the interim, had suffered no decrease, and sooner than

submit to Roderick, the ravager burned his own city of Ferns to the

ground, and retreated into his fastnesses. Roderick proceeded

southward, obtained the adhesion of Ossory and Munster; confirming

Desmond to McCarthy, and Thomond to O'Brien. Returning to Leinster, he

found that Tiernan O'Ruarc had entered the province, at the head of an

auxiliary army, and Dermid, thus surrounded, deserted by most of his

own followers, outwitted and overmatched, was feign to seek safety in

flight beyond seas (A.D. 1168). A solemn sentence of banishment was

publicly pronounced against him by the assembled Princes, and Morrogh,

his cousin, commonly called Morrogh _na Gael_, or "of the Irish," to

distinguish him from Dermid _na Gall_, or "of the Stranger," was

inaugurated in his stead. From Morrogh _na Gael_ they took seventeen

hostages, and so Roderick returned rejoicing to Rathcrogan, and O'Ruarc

to Breffni, each vainly imagining that he had heard the last of the

dissolute and detested King of Leinster.

CHAPTER IV.

STATE OF RELIGION AND LEARNING AMONG THE IRISH, PREVIOUS TO THE

ANGLO-NORMAN INVASION.

At the end of the eighth century, before entering on the Norwegian and

Danish wars, we cast a backward glance on the Christian ages over which

we had passed; and now again we have arrived at the close of an era,

when a rapid retrospect of the religious and social condition of the

country requires to be taken.

The disorganization of the ancient Celtic constitution has already been

sufficiently described. The rise of the great families, and their

struggles for supremacy, have also been briefly sketched. The

substitution of the clan for the race, of pedigree for patriotism, has

been exhibited to the reader. We have now to turn to the inner life of

the people, and to ascertain what substitutes they found in their

religious and social condition, for the absence of a fixed

constitutional system, and the strength and stability which such a

system confers.

The followers of Odin, though they made no proselytes to their horrid

creed among the children of St. Patrick, succeeded in inflicting many

fatal wounds on the Irish Church. The schools, monasteries, and

nunneries, situated on harbours or rivers, or within a convenient march

of the coast, were their first objects of attack; teachers and pupils

were dispersed, or, if taken, put to death, or, escaping, were driven

to resort to arms in self-defence. Bishops could no longer reside in

their sees, nor anchorites in their cells, unless they invited

martyrdom; a fact which may, perhaps, in some degree account for the

large number of Irish ecclesiastics, many of them in episcopal orders,

who are found, in the ninth century, in Gaul and Germany, at Rheims,

Mentz, Ratisbon, Fulda, Cologne, and other places, already Christian.

But it was not in the banishment of masters, the destruction of

libraries and school buildings, the worst consequences of the Gentile

war were felt. Their ferocity provoked retaliation in kind, and

effaced, first among the military class, and gradually from among all

others, that growing gentleness of manners and clemency of temper,

which we can trace in such princes as Nial of the Showers and Nial of

Callan. "A change in the national spirit is the greatest of all

revolutions;" and this change the Danish and Norwegian wars had

wrought, in two centuries, among the Irish.

The number of Bishops in the early Irish Church was greatly in excess

of the number of modern dioceses. From the eighth to the twelfth

century we hear frequently of _Episcopi Vagantes_, or itinerant, and

_Episcopi Vacantes_, or unbeneficed Bishops; the Provincial Synods of

England and Gaul frequently had to complain of the influx of such

Bishops into their country. At the Synod held near the Hill of Usny, in

the year 1111, fifty Bishops attended, and at the Synod of Rath-Brazil,

seven years later, according to Keating, but twenty-five were present.

To this period, then, when Celsus was Primate and Legate of the Holy

See, we may attribute the first attempted reduction of the Episcopal

body to something like its modern number; but so far was this salutary

restriction from being universally observed that, at the Synod of Kells

(A.D. 1152), the hierarchy had again risen to thirty-four, exclusive of

the four Archbishops. Three hundred priests, and three thousand

ecclesiastics are given as the number present at the first-mentioned

Synod.

The religious orders, probably represented by the above proportion of

three thousand ecclesiastics to three hundred [secular] priests had

also undergone a remarkable revolution. The rule of all the early Irish

monasteries and convents was framed upon an original constitution,

which St. Patrick had obtained in France from St. Martin of Tours, who

in turn had copied after the monachism of Egypt and the East. It is

called by ecclesiastical writers the Columban rule, and was more rigid

in some particulars than the rule of St. Benedict, by which it was

afterwards supplanted. Amongst other restrictions it prohibited the

admission of all unprofessed persons within the precincts of the

monastery—a law as regards females incorporated in the Benedictine

constitution; and it strictly enjoined silence on the professed—a

discipline revived by the brethren of La Trappe. The primary difference

between the two orders lay perhaps in this, that the Benedictine made

study and the cultivation of the intellect subordinate to manual labour

and implicit obedience, while the Columban Order attached more

importance to the acquisition of knowledge and missionary enterprise.

Not that this was their invariable, but only their peculiar

characteristic: a deep-seated love of seclusion and meditation often,

intermingled with this fearless and experimental zeal. It was not to be

expected in a century like the ninth, especially when the Benedictine

Order was overspreading the West, that its milder spirit should not act

upon the spirit of the Columban rule. It was, in effect, more social,

and less scientific, more a wisdom to be acted than to be taught. Armed

with the syllogism, the Columbites issued out of their remote island,

carrying their strongly marked personality into every controversy and

every correspondence. In Germany and Gaul, their system blazed up in

Virgilius, in Erigena, and Macarius, and then disappeared in the

calmer, slower, but safer march of the Benedictine discipline. By a

reform of the same ancient order, its last hold on native soil was

loosened when, under the auspices of St. Malachy, the Cistercian rule

was introduced into Ireland the very year of his first visit to

Clairvaux (A.D. 1139). St. Mary's Abbey, Dublin, was the first to adopt

that rule, and the great monastery of Mellifont, placed under the

charge of the brother of the Primate, sprung up in Meath, three years

later. The Abbeys of Bective, Boyle, Baltinglass, and Monasternenagh,

date from the year of Malachy's second journey to Rome, and death at

Clairvaux—A.D. 1148. Before the end of the century, the rule was

established at Fermoy, Holycross, and Odorney; at Athlone and Knockmoy;

at Newry and Assaroe, and in almost every tribe-land of Meath and

Leinster. It is usually but erroneously supposed that the Cistercian

rule came in with the Normans; for although many houses owed their

foundation to that race, the order itself had been naturalized in

Ireland a generation before the first landing of the formidable allies

of Dermid on the coast of Wexford. The ancient native order had

apparently fulfilled its mission, and long rudely lopped and shaken by

civil commotions and Pagan war, it was prepared to give place to a new

and more vigorous organization of kindred holiness and energy.

As the horrors of war disturbed continually the clergy from their

sacred calling, and led many of them, even Abbots and Bishops, to take

up arms, so the yoke of religion gradually loosened and dropped from

the necks of the people. The awe of the eighth century for a Priest or

Bishop had already disappeared in the tenth, when Christian hands were

found to decapitate Cormac of Cashel, and offer his head as a trophy to

the Ard-Righ. In the twelfth century the Archbishop and Bishops of

Connaught, bound to the Synod of Trim, were fallen upon by the Kern of

Carbre the Swift, before they could cross the Shannon, their people

beaten and dispersed and two of them killed. In the time of Thorlogh

More O'Conor, a similar outrage was offered by Tiernan O'Ruarc to the

Archbishop of Armagh, and one of his ecclesiastics was killed in the

assault. Not only for the persons of ministers of religion had the

ancient awe and reverence disappeared, but even for the sacred

precincts of the Sanctuary. In the second century of the war with the

Northmen we begin to hear of churches and cloisters plundered by native

chiefs, who yet called themselves Christians, though in every such

instance our annalists are careful to record the vengeance of Heaven

following swift on sacrilege. Clonmacnoise, Kildare, and Lismore, were

more than once rifled of their wealth by impious hands, and given over

to desolation and burning by so-called Christian nobles and soldiers!

It is some mitigation of the dreadful record thus presented to be

informed—as we often are—especially in the annals of the twelfth

century, that the treasures so pillaged were not the shrines of saints

nor the sacred ornaments of the altar, but the temporal wealth of

temporal proprietors, laid up in churches as places of greatest

security.

The estates of the Church were, in most instances, farmed by laymen,

called _Erenachs_, who, in the relaxation of all discipline, seem to

have gradually appropriated the lands to themselves, leaving to the

Clergy and Bishops only periodical dues and the actual enclosure of the

Church. This office of Erenach was hereditary, and must have presented

many strong temptations to its occupants. It is indeed certain that the

Irish Church was originally founded on the broadest voluntaryism, and

that such was the spirit of all its most illustrious fathers. "Content

with food and raiment," says an ancient Canon attributed to St.

Patrick, "reject the gifts of the wicked beside, seeing that the lamb

takes only that with which it is fed." Such, to the letter, was the

maxim which guided the conduct of Colman and his brethren, of whom Bede

makes such honourable mention, in the third century after the preaching

of St. Patrick. But the munificence of tribes and Princes was not to be

restrained, and to obviate any violation of the revered canons of the

apostle, laymen, as treasurers and stewards over the endowments of the

Church, were early appointed. As those possessions increased, the

desire of family aggrandizement proved too much for the Erenachs not

only of Armagh, but of most other sees, and left the clergy as

practically dependent on free-will offerings, as if their Cathedrals or

Convents had never been endowed with an acre, a mill, a ferry, or a

fishery. The free offerings were, however, always generous, and

sometimes munificent. When Celsus, on his elevation to the Primacy,

made a tour of the southern half-kingdom, he received "seven cows and

seven sheep, and half an ounce of silver from every cantred [hundred]

in Munster." The bequests were also a fruitful source of revenue to the

principal foundations; of the munificence of the monarchs we may form

some opinion by what has been already recorded of the gifts left to

churches by Thorlogh More O'Conor.

The power of the clerical order, in these ages of Pagan warfare, had

very far declined from what it was, when Adamnan caused the law to be

enacted to prevent women going to battle, when Moling obtained the

abolition of the Leinster tribute, and Columbkill the recognition of

Scottish independence. Truces made in the presence of the highest

dignitaries, and sworn to on the most sacred relics, were frequently

violated, and often with impunity. Neither excommunication nor public

penance were latterly inflicted as an atonement for such perjury: a

fine or offering to the Church was the easy and only mulct on the

offender. When we see the safeguard of the Bishop of Cork so flagrantly

disregarded by the assassins of Mahon, son of Kennedy, and the solemn

peace of the year 1094 so readily broken by two such men as the Princes

of the North and the South, we need no other proofs of the decadence of

the spiritual authority in that age of Irish history.

And the morals of private life tell the same sad tale. The facility

with which the marriage tie was contracted and dissolved is the

strongest evidence of this degeneracy. The worst examples were set in

the highest stations, for it is no uncommon incident, from the ninth

century downwards, to find our Princes with more than one wife living,

and the repudiated wife married again to a person of equal or superior

rank. We have the authority of Saint Anselm and Saint Bernard, for the

existence of grave scandal and irregularities of life among the clergy,

and we can well believe that it needed a generation of Bishops, with

all the authority and all the courage of Saint Celsus, Saint Malachy,

and Saint Lawrence, to rescue from ruin a Priesthood and a people, so

far fallen from the bright example of their ancestors. That the

reaction towards a better life had strongly set in, under their

guidance, we may infer from the horror with which, in the third quarter

of the twelfth century, the elopement of Dermid and Dervorgoil was

regarded by both Princes and People. A hundred years earlier, that

event would have been hardly noticed in the general disregard of the

marriage tie, but the frequent Synods, and the holy lives of the

reforming Bishops, had already revived the zeal that precedes and

ensures reformation.

Primate Malachy died at Clairvaulx, in the arms of Saint Bernard, in

the year 1148, after having been fourteen years Archbishop of Armagh

and ten years Bishop of Down and Conor. His episcopal life, therefore,

embraced the history of that remarkable second quarter of the century,

in which the religious reaction fought its first battles against the

worst abuses. The attention of Saint Bernard, whose eyes nothing

escaped, from Jerusalem to the farthest west, was drawn ten years

before to the Isle of Saints, now, in truth, become an Isle of Sinners.

The death of his friend, the Irish Primate, under his own roof, gave

him a fitting occasion for raising his accusing voice—a voice that

thrilled the Alps and filled the Vatican—against the fearful degeneracy

of that once fruitful mother of holy men and women. The attention of

Rome was thoroughly aroused, and immediately after the appearance of

the Life of Saint Malachy, Pope Eugenius III.—himself a monk of

Clairvaulx—despatched Cardinal Papiron, with legantine powers, to

correct abuses, and establish a stricter discipline. After a tour of

great part of the Island, the Legate, with whom was associated

Gilla-Criost, or Christianus, Bishop of Lismore, called the great Synod

of Kells, early in the year after his arrival (March, 1152), at which

simony, usury, concubinage, and other abuses, were formally condemned,

and tithes were first decreed to be paid to the secular clergy. Two new

Archbishoprics, Dublin and Tuam, were added to Armagh and Cashel,

though not without decided opposition from the Primates both of Leath

Mogha and Leath Conn, backed by those stern conservatives of every

national usage, the Abbots of the Columban Order. The _pallium_, or

Roman cape, was, by this Legate, presented to each of the Archbishops,

and a closer conformity with the Roman ritual was enacted. The four

ecclesiastical Provinces thus created were in outline nearly identical

with the four modern Provinces. Armagh was declared the metropolitan

over all; Dublin, which had been a mere Danish borough-see, gained most

in rank and influence by the new arrangement, as Glendalough, Ferns,

Ossory, Kildare and Leighlin, were declared subject to its presidency.

We must always bear in mind the picture drawn of the Irish Church by

the inspired orator of Clairvaulx, when judging of the conduct of Pope

Adrian IV., who, in the year 1155—the second of his Pontificate—granted

to King Henry II. of England, then newly crowned, his Bull authorising

the invasion of Ireland. The authenticity of that Bull is now

universally admitted; and both its preamble and conditions show how

strictly it was framed in accordance with St. Bernard's accusation. It

sets forth that for the eradication of vice, the implanting of virtue,

and the spread of the true faith, the Holy Father solemnly sanctions

the projected invasion; and it attaches as a condition, the payment of

Peter's pence, for every house in Ireland. The bearer of the Bull, John

of Salisbury, carried back from Rome a gold ring, set with an emerald

stone, as a token of Adrian's friendship, or it may be, his

subinfeudation of Henry. As a title, however powerless in modern times

such a Bull might prove, it was a formidable weapon of invasion with a

Catholic people, in the twelfth century. We have mainly referred to it

here, however, as an illustration of how entirely St. Bernard's

impeachment of the Irish Church and nation was believed at Rome, even

after the salutary decrees of the Synod of Kells had been promulgated.

The restoration of religion, which was making such rapid progress

previous to the Norman invasion, was accompanied by a relative revival

of learning. The dark ages of Ireland are not those of the rest of

Europe—they extend from the middle of the ninth century to the age of

Brian and Malachy II. This darkness came from the North, and cleared

away rapidly after the eventful day of Clontarf. The first and most

natural direction which the revival took was historical investigation,

and the composition of Annals. Of these invaluable records, the two of

highest reputation are those of Tigernach (Tiernan) O'Broin, brought

down to the year of his own death, A.D. 1088, and the chronicle of

Marianus Scotus, who died at Mentz, A.D. 1086. Tiernan was abbot of

Clonmacnoise, and Marian is thought to have been a monk of that

monastery, as he speaks of a superior called Tigernach, under whom he

had lived in Ireland. Both these learned men quote accurately the works

of foreign writers; both give the dates of eclipses, in connection with

historical events for several centuries before their own time; both

show a familiarity with Greek and Latin authors. _Marianus_ is the

first writer by whom the name _Scotia Minor_ was given to the Gaelic

settlement in Caledonia, and his chronicle was an authority mainly

relied on in the disputed Scottish succession in the time of Edward I.

of England. With _Tigernach_, he may be considered the founder of the

school of Irish Annalists, which flourished in the shelter of the great

monasteries, such as Innisfallen, Boyle and Multifernan; and culminated

in the great compilation made by "the Four Masters" in the Abbey of

Donegal.

Of the Gaelic metrical chroniclers, Flann of the Monastery, and

Gilla-Coeman; of the Bards McLiag and McCoisse; of the learned

professors and lectors of Lismore and Armagh—now restored for a season

to studious days and peaceful nights, we must be content with the

mention of their names. Of Lismore, after its restoration, an old

British writer has left us this pleasant and happy picture. "It is," he

says, "a famous and holy city, half of which is an asylum, into which

no woman dares enter; but it is full of cells and monasteries; and

religious men in great abundance abide there."

Such was the promise of better days, which cheered the hopes of the

Pastors of the Irish, when the twelfth century had entered on its third

quarter. The pious old Gaelic proverb, which says, "on the Cross the

face of Christ was looking westwards—," was again on the lips and in

the hearts of men, and though much remained to be done, much had been

already done, and done under difficulties greater than any that

remained to conquer.

CHAPTER V.

SOCIAL CONDITION OF THE IRISH PREVIOUS TO THE NORMAN INVASION.

The total population of Ireland, when the Normans first entered it, can

only be approximated by conjecture. Supposing the whole force with

which Roderick and his allies invested the Normans in Dublin, to be, as

stated by a cotemporary writer, some 50,000 men, and that that force

included one-fourth of all the men of the military age in the country;

and further, supposing the men of military age to bear the proportion

of one-fifth to the whole number of inhabitants, this would give a

total population of about one million. Even this conjecture is to be

taken with great diffidence and distrust, but, for the sake of

clearness, it is set down as a possible Irish census, towards the close

of the twelfth century.

This population was divided into two great classes, the _Saer-Clanna_,

or free tribes, chiefly, if not exclusively, of Milesian race; and the

_Daer-Clanna_, or unfree tribes, consisting of the descendants of the

subjugated older races, or of clans once free, reduced to servitude by

the sword, or of the posterity of foreign mercenary soldiers. Of the

free clans, the most illustrious were those of whose Princes we have

traced the record—the descendants of Nial in Ulster and Meath, of

Cathaeir More in Leinster, of Oliold in Munster, and of Eochaid in

Connaught. An arbitrary division once limited the free clans to six in

the southern half-kingdom, and six in the north; and the unfree also to

six. But Geoffrey Keating, whose love of truth was quite as strong as

his credulity in ancient legends—and that is saying much—disclaimed

that classification, and collected his genealogies from principal

heads—branching out into three families of tribes, descended from Eber

Finn, one from Ir, and four from Eremhon, sons of Milesians of Spain;

and ninth tribe sprung from Ith, granduncle to the sons of Milesius.

The principal Eberian families' names were McCarthy, O'Sullivan,

O'Mahony, O'Donovan, O'Brien, O'Dea, O'Quin, McMahon (of Clare),

McNamara, O'Carroll (of Ely), and O'Gara; the Irian families were

Magennis, O'Farrall, and O'Conor (of Kerry); the posterity of Eremhon

branched out into the O'Neils, O'Donnells, O'Dohertys, O'Gallahers,

O'Boyles, McGeoghegans, O'Conors (of Connaught), O'Flahertys, O'Heynes,

O'Shaughnessys, O'Clerys, O'Dowdas, McDonalds (of Antrim), O'Kellys,

Maguires, Kavanaghs, Fitzpatricks, O'Dwyers, and O'Conors (of Offally).

The chief families of Ithian origin were the O'Driscolls, O'Learys,

Coffeys, and Clancys. Out of the greater tribes many subdivisions arose

from time to time, when new names were coined for some intermediate

ancestor; but the farther enumeration of these may be conveniently

dispensed with.

The _Daer-Clanna_, or unfree tribes, have left no history. Under the

despotism of the Milesian kings, it was high treason to record the

actions of the conquered race; so that the Irish Belgae fared as badly

in this respect, at the hands of the Milesian historians, as the latter

fared in after times from the chroniclers of the Normans. We only know

that such tribes were, and that their numbers and physical force more

than once excited the apprehension of the children of the conquerors.

What proportion they bore to the _Saer-Clanna_ we have no positive data

to determine. A fourth, a fifth, or a sixth, they may have been; but

one thing is certain, the jealous policy of the superior race never

permitted them to reascend the plane of equality, from which they had

been hurled, at the very commencement of the Milesian ascendency.

In addition to the enslaved by conquest and the enslaved by crime,

there were also the enslaved by purchase. From the earliest period,

slave dealers from Ireland had frequented Bristol, the great British

slave market, to purchase human beings. Christian morality, though it

may have mitigated the horrors of this odious traffic, did not at once

lead to its abolition. In vain Saint Wulfstan preached against it in

the South, as Saint Aidan had done long before him in the North of

England. Files of fair-haired Saxon slaves, of both sexes, yoked

together with ropes, continued to be shipped at Bristol, and bondmen

and bondwomen continued to be articles of value—exchanged between the

Prince and his subordinates, as stipend or tribute. The King of Cashel

alone gave to the chief of the Eugenians, as part of his annual

stipend, ten bondmen and ten women; to the lord of Bruree, seven pages

and seven bondwomen; to the lord of Deisi, eight slaves of each sex,

and seven female slaves to the lord of Kerry; among the items which

make up the tribute from Ossory to Cashel are ten bondmen and ten grown

women; and from the Deisi, eight bondmen and eight "brown-haired"

women. The annual exchanges of this description, set down as due in the

Book of Rights, would require the transfer of several hundreds of

slaves yearly, from one set of masters to another. Cruelties and

outrages must have been inseparable from the system, and we can hardly

wonder at the sweeping decree by which the Synod of Armagh (A.D. 1171)

declared all the English slaves in Ireland free to return to their

homes, and anathematized the whole inhuman traffic. The fathers of that

council looked upon the Norman invasion as a punishment from Heaven on

the slave trade; for they believed in their purity of heart, that power

_is_ transferred from one nation to another, because of injustices,

oppressions, and divers deceits.

The purchased slaves and unfree tribes tilled the soil, and practised

the mechanic arts. Agriculture seems first to have been lifted into

respectability by the Cistercian Monks, while spinning, weaving, and

almost every mechanic calling, if we except the scribe, the armorer,

and the bell-founder, continued down to very recent tunes to be held in

contempt among the Gael. A brave man is mentioned as having been a

"weaving woman's son," with much the same emphasis as Jeptha is spoken

of as the son of an Harlot. Mechanic wares were disposed of at those

stated gatherings, which combined popular games, chariot races for the

nobles, and markets for the merchants. A Bard of the tenth or eleventh

century, in a desperate effort to vary the usual high-flown

descriptions of the country, calls it "Erin of the hundred fair

greens,"—a very graphic, if not a very poetic illustration.

The administration of justice was an hereditary trust, committed to

certain judicial families, who held their lands, as the Monks did, by

virtue of their profession. When the posterity of the Brehon, or Judge

failed, it was permitted to adopt from the class of students, a male

representative, in whom the judicial authority was perpetuated: the

families of O'Gnive and O'Clery in the North, of O'Daly in Meath,

O'Doran in Leinster, McEgan in Munster, Mulconry or Conroy in

Connaught, were the most distinguished Brehon houses. Some

peculiarities of the Brehon law, relating to civil succession and

sovereignty, such as the institution of Tanistry, and the system of

stipends and tributes, have been already explained; parricide and

murder were in latter ages punished with death; homicide and rape by

_eric_ or fine. There were, besides, the laws of gavelkind or division

of property among the members of the clan; laws relating to boundaries;

sumptuary laws regulating the dress of the various castes into which

society was divided; laws relating to the planting of trees, the

trespass of cattle, and billeting of troops. These laws were either

written in detail, or consisted of certain acknowledged ancient maxims

of which the Brehon made the application in each particular case,

answering to what we call "Judge-made law." Of such ancient tracts as

composed the Celtic code, an immense number have, fortunately survived,

even to this late day, and we may shortly expect a complete digest of

all that are now known to exist, in a printed and imperishable form,

from the hands of native scholars, every way competent to the task.

The commerce of the country, in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, was

largely in the hands of the Christian Hiberno-Danes, of the eastern and

southern coast. By them the slave trade with Bristol was mostly

maintained, and the Irish oak, with which William Rufus roofed

Westminster Abbey, was probably rafted by them in the Thames. The

English and Welsh coasts, at least, were familiar to their pilots, and

they combined, as was usual in that age, the military with the

mercantile character. In 1142, and again in 1165, a troop of Dublin

Danes fought under Norman banners against the brave Britons of Cambria,

and in the camps of their allies, sung the praises of the fertile

island of the west. The hundred fairs of Erin—after their conversion

and submission to native authority—afforded them convenient markets for

disposing of the commodities they imported from abroad.

The Gaelic mind, long distracted by the din of war from the purifying

and satisfying influences of a Christian life, naturally fell back upon

the abandoned, half-forgotten superstitions of the Pagan period.

Preceding every fresh calamity, we hear of signs and wonders, of

migratory lakes disappearing in a night, of birds and wolves speaking

with human voices, of showers of blood falling in the fields, of a

whale with golden teeth stranded at Carlingford, of cloud ships, with

their crews, seen plainly sailing in the sky. One of the marvels of

this class is thus gravely entered in our Annals, under the year

1054—"A steeple of fire was seen in the air over Rossdala, on the

Sunday of the festival of St. George, for the space of five hours;

innumerable black birds passed into and out of it, and one large bird

in the middle of them; and the little birds went under his wings when

they went into the steeple. They came out and raised up a greyhound

that was in the middle of the town aloft in the air, and let it drop

down again, so that it died immediately; and they took up three cloaks

and two shirts, and let them drop down in the same manner. The wood on

which these birds perched fell under them; and the oak tree on which

they perched shook with its roots in the earth." In many other

superstitions of the same age we see the latent moral sentiment, as

well as the over-excited imagination of the people. Such is the story

of the stolen jewels of Clonmacnoise, providentially recovered in the

year 1130. The thief in vain endeavoured to escape out of the country,

from Cork, Lismore, and Waterford, "but no ship into which he entered

found a wind to sail, while all the other ships did." And the

conscience stricken thief declared, in his dying confession, that he

used to see Saint Kieran "stopping with his crozier, every ship into

which he entered." It was also an amiable popular illusion that

abundant harvests followed the making of peace, the enacting of

salutary laws, and the accession of a King who loved justice; and

careful entry is made in our chronicles of every evidence of this

character.

The literature of the masses of the people was pretty equally composed

of the legends of the Saints and the older Ossianic legend, so much

misunderstood and distorted by modern criticism. The legends of the

former class were chiefly wonders wrought by the favourite Saints of

the district or the island, embellished with many quaint fancies and

tagged out with remnants of old Pagan superstition. St. Columbkill and

St. Kieran were, most commonly, the heroes of those tales, which,

perhaps, were never intended by their authors to be seriously believed.

Such was the story of the great founder of Iona having transformed the

lady and her maid, who insulted him on his way to Drom-Keth, into two

herons, who are doomed to hover about the neighbouring ford till the

day of doom; and such that other story of "the three first monks" who

joined St. Kieran in the desert, being a fox, a badger, and a bear, all

endowed with speech, and all acting a part in the legend true to their

own instincts. Of higher poetic merit is the legend of the voyage of

St. Brendan over the great sea, and how the birds which sung vespers

for him in the groves of the Promised Land were inhabited by human

souls, as yet in a state of probation waiting for their release!

In the Ossianic legend we have the common stock of Oriental ideas—the

metamorphosis of guilty wives and haughty concubines into dogs and

birds; the speaking beasts and fishes; the enchanted swans, originally

daughters of Lir; the boar of Ben Bulben, by which the champion,

Diarmid, was slain; the Phoenix in the stork of Inniskea, of which

there never was but one, yet that one perpetually reproduced itself;

the spirits of the wood, and the spirits inhabiting springs and

streams; the fairy horse; the sacred trees; the starry influences.

Monstrous and gigantic human shapes, like the Jinns of the Arabian

tales, occasionally enter into the plot, and play a midnight part,

malignant to the hopes of good men. At their approach the earth is

troubled, the moon is overcast, gusts of storm are shaken out from the

folds of their garments, the watch dogs and the war dogs cower down, in

camp and rath, and whine piteously, as if in pain.

The variety of grace, and peculiarities of organization, with which, if

not the original, certainly the Christianized Irish imagination,

endowed and equipped the personages of the fairy world, were of almost

Grecian delicacy. There is no personage who rises to the sublime height

of Zeus, or the incomparable union of beauty and wisdom in Pallas

Athene: what forms Bel, or Crom, or Bride, the queen of Celtic song,

may have worn to the pre-Christian ages we know not, nor can know; but

the minor creations of Grecian fancy, with which they peopled their

groves and fountains, are true kindred of the brain, to the innocent,

intelligent, and generally gentle inhabitants of the Gaelic Fairyland.

The _Sidhe_, a tender, tutelary spirit, attached herself to heroes,

accompanied them in battle, shrouded them with invisibility, dressed

their wounds with more than mortal skill, and watched over them with

more than mortal love; the _Banshee_, a sad, Cassandra-like spirit,

shrieked her weird warning in advance of death, but with a prejudice

eminently Milesian, watched only over those of pure blood, whether

their fortunes abode in hovel or hall. The more modern and grotesque

personages of the Fairy world are sufficiently known to render

description unnecessary.

Two habitual sources of social enjoyment and occupation with the Irish

of those days were music and chess. The harp was the favourite

instrument, but the horn or trumpet, and the pibroch or bagpipe, were

also in common use. Not only professional performers, but men and women

of all ranks, from the humblest to the highest, prided themselves on

some knowledge of instrumental music. It seems to have formed part of

the education of every order, and to have been cherished alike in the

palace, the shieling, and the cloister. "It is a poor church that has

no music," is a Gaelic proverb, as old, perhaps, as the establishment

of Christianity in the land; and no house was considered furnished

without at least one harp. Students from other countries, as we learn

from _Giraldus_, came to Ireland for their musical education in the

twelfth century, just as our artists now visit Germany and Italy with

the same object in view.

The frequent mention of the game of chess, in ages long before those at

which we have arrived, shows how usual was that most intellectual

amusement. The chess board was called in Irish _fithcheall_, and is

described in the Glossary of Cormac, of Cashel, composed towards the

close of the ninth century, as quadrangular, having straight spots of

black and white. Some of them were inlaid with gold and silver, and

adorned with gems. Mention is made in a tale of the twelfth century of

a "man-bag of woven brass wire." No entire set of the ancient men is

now known to exist, though frequent mention is made of "the brigade or

family of chessmen," in many old manuscripts. Kings of bone, seated in

sculptured chairs, about two inches in height, have been found, and

specimens of them engraved in recent antiquarian publications.

It only remains to notice, very briefly, the means of locomotion which

bound and brought together this singular state of society. Five great

roads, radiating from Tara, as a centre, are mentioned in our earliest

record; the road _Dala_ leading to Ossory, and so on into Munster; the

road _Assail_, extending western through Mullingar towards the Shannon;

the road _Cullin_, extending towards Dublin and Bray; the exact route

of the northern road, _Midhluachra_, is undetermined; _Slighe Mor_, the

great western road, followed the course of the _esker_, or hill-range,

from Tara to Galway. Many cross-roads are also known as in common use

from the sixth century downwards. Of these, the Four Masters mention,

at various dates, not less than forty, under their different local

names, previous to the Norman invasion. These roads were kept in

repair, according to laws enacted for that purpose, and were traversed

by the chiefs and ecclesiastics in _carbads_, or chariots; a main road

was called a _slighe_ (_sleigh_), because it was made for the free

passage of two chariots—"i.e. the chariot of a King and the chariot of

a Bishop." Persons of that rank were driven by an _ara_, or charioteer,

and, no doubt, made a very imposing figure. The roads were legally to

be repaired at three seasons, namely, for the accommodation of those

going to the national games, at fair-time, and in time of war. Weeds

and brushwood were to be removed, and water to be drained off; items of

road-work which do not give us a very high idea of the comfort or

finish of those ancient highways.

Such, faintly seen from afar, and roughly sketched, was domestic life

and society among our ancestors, previous to the Anglo-Norman invasion,

in the reign of King Roderick O'Conor.

CHAPTER VI.

FOREIGN RELATIONS OF THE IRISH PREVIOUS TO THE ANGLO-NORMAN INVASION.

The relations of the Irish with other nations, notwithstanding the

injurious effects of their War of Succession on national unity and

reputation, present several points of interest. After the defeat of

Magnus Barefoot, we may drop the Baltic countries out of the map of the

relations of Ireland. Commencing, therefore, at the north of the

neighbouring island—which, in its entirety, they sometimes called

_Inismore_—the most intimate and friendly intercourse was always upheld

with the kingdom of Scotland. Bound together by early ecclesiastical

and bardic ties, confronting together for so many generations a common

enemy, those two countries were destined never to know an international

quarrel. About the middle of the ninth century (A.D. 843), when the

Scoto-Irish in Caledonia had completely subdued the Picts and other

ancient tribes, the first national dynasty was founded by Kenneth

McAlpine. The constitution given by this Prince to the whole country

seems to have been a close copy of the Irish—it embraced the laws of

Tanistry and succession, and the whole Brehon code, as administered in

the parent state. The line of Kenneth may be said to close with Donald

Bane, brother of Malcolm III., who died in 1094, and not only his

dynasty but his system ended with that century. Edgar, Alexander I.,

and David I., all sons of Malcolm III., were educated in England among

the victorious Normans, and in the first third of the twelfth century,

devoted themselves with the inauspicious aid of Norman allies, to the

introduction of Saxon settlers and the feudal system, first into the

lowlands, and subsequently into Moray-shire. This innovation on their

ancient system, and confiscation of their lands, was stoutly resisted

by the Scottish Gael. In Somerled, lord of the Isles, and ancestor of

the Macdonalds, they found a powerful leader, and Somerled found Irish

allies always ready to assist him, in a cause which appealed to all

their national prejudices. In the year 1134, he led a strong force of

Irish and Islesmen to the assistance of the Gaelic insurgents, but was

defeated and slain, near Renfrew, by the royal troops, under the

command of the Steward of Scotland. During the reigns of William the

Lion, Alexander II., and Alexander III., the war of systems raged with

all its fierceness, and in nearly all the great encounters Irish

auxiliaries, as was to be expected, were found on the side of the

Gaelic race and Gaelic rights. Nor did this contest ever wholly cease

in Scotland, until the last hopes of the Stuart line were extinguished

on the fatal field of Culloden, where Irish captains formed the battle,

and Irish blood flowed freely, intermingled with the kindred blood of

Highlanders and Islesmen.

The adoption of Norman usages, laws, and tactics, by the Scottish

dynasties of the twelfth and succeeding centuries, did not permanently

affect the national relations of Ireland and Scotland. It was otherwise

with regard to England. We have every reason to believe—we have the

indirect testimony of every writer from Bede to Malmsbury—that the

intercourse between the Irish and Saxons, after the first hostility

engendered by the cruel treatment of the Britons had worn away, became

of the most friendly character. The "Irish" who fought at Brunanburgh

against Saxon freedom were evidently the natural allies of the

Northmen, the Dano-Irish of Dublin, and the southern seaports. The

commerce of intelligence between the islands was long maintained; the

royalty of Saxon England had more than once, in times of domestic

revolution, found a safe and desired retreat in the western island. The

fair Elgiva and the gallant Harold had crossed the western waves in

their hour of need. The fame of Edward the Confessor took such deep

hold on the Irish mind that, three centuries after his death, his

banner was unfurled and the royal leopards laid aside to facilitate the

march of an English King, through the fastnesses of Leinster. The

Irish, therefore, were not likely to look upon the establishment of a

Norman dynasty, in lieu of the old Saxon line, as a matter of

indifference. They felt that the Norman was but a Dane disguised in

armour. It was true he carried the cross upon his banner, and claimed

the benediction of the successor of St. Peter; true also he spoke the

speech of France, and claimed a French paternity; but the lust for

dominion, the iron self-will, the wily devices of strategy, bespoke the

Norman of the twelfth, the lineal descendant of the Dane of the tenth

century. When, therefore, tidings reached Ireland of the battle of

Hastings and the death of Harold, both the apprehensions and the

sympathies of the country were deeply excited. Intelligence of the

coronation of William the Conqueror quickly followed, and emphatically

announced to the Irish the presence of new neighbours, new dangers, and

new duties.

The spirit with which our ancestors acted towards the defeated Saxons,

whatever we may think of its wisdom, was, at least, respectable for

decision and boldness. Godwin, Edmund, and Magnus, sons of Harold, had

little difficulty in raising in Ireland a numerous force to co-operate

with the Earls Edwin and Morcar, who still upheld the Saxon banner.

With this force, wafted over in sixty-six vessels, they entered the

Avon, and besieged Bristol, then the second commercial city of the

kingdom. But Bristol held out, and the Saxon Earls had fallen back into

Northumberland, so the sons of Harold ran down the coast, and tried

their luck in Somersetshire with a better prospect. Devonshire and

Dorsetshire favoured their cause; the old Britons of Cornwall swelled

their ranks, and the rising spread like flame over the west. Eadnoth, a

renegade Saxon, formerly Harold's Master of Horse, despatched by

William against Harold's sons, was defeated and slain. Doubling the

Land's End, the victorious force entered the Tamar, and overran South

Devon. The united garrisons of London, Winchester, and Salisbury, were

sent against them, under the command of the martial Bishop of

Coutances; while a second force advanced along the Tamar, under Brian,

heir of the Earl of Brittany, who routed them with a loss of 2,000 men,

English, Welsh, and Irish. The sons of Harold retreated to their

vessels with all their booty, and returned again into Ireland, where

they vanish from history. Such, in the vale of Tamar, was the first

collision of the Irish and Normans, and as the race of Rollo never

forgot an enemy, nor forewent a revenge, we may well believe that, even

thus early, the invasion of Ireland was decided upon. Meredith Hanmer

relates in his Chronicle that William Rufus, standing on a high rock,

and looking towards Ireland said: "I will bring hither my ships, and

pass over and conquer that land;" and on these words of the son of the

Conqueror being repeated to Murkertach O'Brien, he replied: "Hath the

King in his great threatening said _if it please God?_" and when

answered "No;" "Then," said the Irish monarch, "I fear him not, since

he putteth his trust in man and not in God."

Ireland, however, was destined to be reached through Wales, and along

that mountain coast we early find Norman castles and Norman ships. It

was the special ambition of William Rufus to add the principality to

the conquests of his father, and the active sympathy of the Welsh with

the Saxons on their inland border gave him pretexts enough. A bitter

feud between North and South Wales hastened an invasion, in which

Robert Fitz-Aymon and his companions played, by anticipation, the parts

of Strongbow and Fitz-Stephen, in the invasion of Ireland.

The struggle, commenced under them, was protracted through the reign of

Rufus, who led an army in person (A.D. 1095) against the Welsh, but

with little gain and less glory. As an after thought he adopted the

device of his father, (followed, too, in Ireland by Henry II.,) of

partitioning the country among the most enterprising nobles, gravely

accepting their homage in advance of possession, and authorizing them

to maintain troops at their own charges, for making good his grant of

what never belonged to him. Robert Fitz-Aymon did homage for Glamorgan,

Bernard Newmarch for Brecknock, Roger de Montgomery for Cardigan, and

Gilbert de Clare for Pembroke: the best portions of North Wales were

partitioned between the Mortimers, Latimers, De Lacys, Fitz-Alans, and

Montgomerys. Rhys, Prince of Cambria, with many of his nobles, fell in

battle defending bravely his native hills; but Griffith, son of Rhys,

escaped into Ireland, from which he returned some twenty years later,

and recovered by arms and policy a large share of his ancestral

dominions. In the reign of Henry I. (A.D. 1110), a host of Flemings,

driven from their own country by an inundation of the sea, were planted

upon the Welsh marches, from which they soon swarmed into all the

Cambrian glens and glades. The industry and economy of this new people,

in peaceful times, seemed almost inconsistent with their stubborn

bravery in battle; but they demonstrated to the Welsh, and afterwards

to the Irish, that they could handle the halbert as well as throw the

shuttle; that men of trade may on occasion prove themselves capable men

of war.

The Norman Kings of England were not insensible to the fact that the

Cymric element in Wales, the Saxon element in England, and the Gaelic

element in Scotland, were all more agreeable to the Irish than the race

of Rollo and William. They were not ignorant that Ireland was a refuge

for their victims and a recruiting ground for their enemies. They knew,

furthermore, that most of the strong points on the Irish coast, from

the Shannon to the Liffey, were possessed by Christian Northmen kindred

to themselves. They knew that the land was divided within itself,

weakened by a long war of succession; groaning under the ambition of

five competitors for the sovereignty; and suffering in reputation

abroad under the invectives of Saint Bernard, and the displeasure of

Rome. More tempting materials for intrigue, or fairer opportunities of

aggrandizement, nowhere presented themselves, and it was less want of

will than of leisure from other and nearer contests, which deferred

this new invasion for a century after the battle of Hastings.

While that century was passing over their heads, an occasional

intercourse, not without its pleasing incidents, was maintained between

the races. In the first year of the twelfth, Arnulph de Montgomery,

Earl of Chester, obtained a daughter of Murkertach O'Brien in marriage;

the proxy on the occasion being Gerald, son of the Constable of

Windsor, and ancestor of the Geraldines. Murkertach, according to

Malmsbury, maintained a close correspondence with Henry I., for whose

advice he professed great deference. He was accused of aiding the

rebellion of the Montgomerys against that Prince; and if at one time he

did so, seems to have abandoned their alliance, when threatened with

reprisals on the Irish engaged in peaceful commerce with England. The

argument used on this occasion seems to be embodied in the question of

Malmsbury—and has since become familiar—"What would Ireland do," says

the old historian, "if the merchandize of England were not carried to

her shores?"

The estimation in which the Irish Princes were held in the century

preceding the invasion, at the Norman Court, may be seen in the style

of Lanfranc and Anselm, when addressing the former King Thorlogh, and

the latter King Murkertach O'Brien. The first generation of the

conquerors had passed away before the second of these epistles was

written. In the first, the address runs—"Lanfrancus, a sinner, and the

unworthy Bishop of the Holy Church of Dover, to the illustrious

Terdelvacus, King of Ireland, blessing," &c., &c.; and the epistle of

Anselm is addressed—"To Muriardachus, by the grace of God, glorious

King of Ireland, Anselm, servant of the Church of Canterbury, greeting

health and salvation," &c., &c. This was the tone of the highest

ecclesiastics in England towards the ruler of Ireland, in the reigns of

William I. and Henry I., and equally obsequious were the replies of the

Irish Princes.

After the death of Henry I., nineteen years of civil war and anarchy

diverted the Anglo-Normans from all other objects. In the year 1154,

however, Henry of Anjou succeeded to the throne, on which he was

destined to act so important a part. He was born in Anjou in the year

1133, and married at eighteen the divorced wife of the King of France.

Uniting her vast dominions to his own patrimony, he became the lord of

a larger part of France than was possessed by the titular king. In his

twenty-first year he began to reign in England, and in his thirty-fifth

he received the fugitive Dermid of Leinster, in some camp or castle of

Aquitaine, and took that outlaw, by his own act, under his protection.

The centenary of the victory of Hastings had just gone by, and it

needed only this additional agent to induce him to put into execution a

plan which he must have formed in the first months of his reign, since

the Bull he had procured from Pope Adrian, bears the date of that

year—1154. The return from exile, and martyrdom of Beckett, disarranged

and delayed the projects of the English King; nor was he able to lead

an expedition into Ireland until four years after his reception of the

Leinster fugitive in France.

Throughout the rest of Christendom—if we except Rome—the name of

Ireland was comparatively little known. The commerce of Dublin,

Limerick, and Galway, especially in the article of wine, which was

already largely imported, may have made those ports and their merchants

somewhat known on the coasts of France and Spain. But we have no

statistics of Irish commerce at that early period. Along the Rhine and

even upon the Danube, the Irish missionary and the Irish schoolmaster

were still sometimes found. The chronicle of Ratisbon records with

gratitude the munificence of Conor O'Brien, King of Munster, whom it

considers the founder of the Abbey of St. Peter in that city. The

records of the same Abbey credit its liberal founder with having sent

large presents to the Emperor Lothaire, in aid of the second crusade

for the recovery of the Holy Land. Some Irish adventurers joined in the

general European hosting to the plains of Palestine, but though neither

numerous nor distinguished enough to occupy the page of history, their

_glibs_ and _cooluns_ did not escape the studious eye of him who sang

Jerusalem Delivered and Regained.

BOOK IV.

THE NORMANS IN IRELAND.

CHAPTER I.

DERMID McMURROGH'S NEGOTIATIONS AND SUCCESS—THE FIRST EXPEDITION OF THE

NORMANS INTO IRELAND.

The result of Dermid McMurrogh's interview with Henry II., in

Aquitaine, was a royal letter, addressed to all his subjects,

authorizing such of them as would, to enlist in the service of the

Irish Prince. Armed alone with this, the expelled adulterer, chafing

for restoration and revenge, retraced his course to England. He was at

this time some years beyond three score, but the snows of age had no

effect in cooling his impetuous blood; his stature is described as

almost gigantic; his voice loud and harsh; his features stern and

terrible. His cruel and criminal character we already know. Yet it is

but just here to recall that much of the horror and odium which has

accumulated on his memory is posthumous and retrospective. Some of his

cotemporaries were no better in their private lives than he was; but

then they had no part in bringing in the Normans. Talents both for

peace and war he certainly had, and there was still a feeling of

attachment, or at least of regret, cherished towards him among the

people of his patrimony.

Dermid proceeded at once to seek the help he so sorely needed, upon the

marches of Chester, in the city of Bristol, and at the court of the

Prince of North Wales. At Bristol he caused King Henry's letter to be

publicly read, and each reading was accompanied by ample promises of

land and recompense to those disposed to join in the expedition—but all

in vain. From Bristol he proceeded to make the usual pilgrimage to the

shrine of St. David, the Apostle of Wales, and then he visited the

Court of Griffith ap Rhys, Prince of North Wales, whose family ties

formed a true Welsh triad among the Normans, the Irish, and the Welsh.

He was the nephew of the celebrated Nest or Nesta, the Helen of the

Welsh, whose blood flowed in the veins of almost all the first Norman

adventurers in Ireland, and whose story is too intimately interwoven

with the origin of many of the highest names of the Norman-Irish to be

left untold.

She was, in her day, the loveliest woman of Cambria, and perhaps of

Britain, but the fabled mantle of Tregau, which, according to her own

mythology, will fit none but the chaste, had not rested on the white

shoulders of Nesta, the daughter of Rhys ap Tudor. Her girlish beauty

had attracted the notice of Henry I., to whom she bore Robert Fitz-Roy

and Henry Fitz-Henry, the former the famous Earl of Gloucester, and the

latter the father of two of Strongbow's most noted companions.

Afterwards, by consent of her royal paramour, she married Gerald,

constable of Pembroke, by whom she had Maurice Fitzgerald, the common

ancestor of the Kildare and Desmond Geraldines. While living with

Gerald at Pembroke, Owen, son of Cadogan, Prince of Powis, hearing of

her marvellous beauty at a banquet given by his father at the Castle of

Aberteivi, came by night to Pembroke, surprised the Castle, and carried

off Nesta and her children into Powis. Gerald, however, had escaped,

and by the aid of his father-in-law, Rhys, recovered his wife and

rebuilt his castle (A.D. 1105). The lady survived this husband, and

married a second time, Stephen, constable of Cardigan, by whom she had

Robert Fitzstephen, and probably other children. One of her daughters,

Angharad, married David de Barri, the father of Giraldus and Robert de

Barri; another, named after herself, married Bernard of Newmarch, and

became the father of the Fitz-Bernard, who accompanied Henry II. In the

second and third generations this fruitful Cambrian vine, grafted on

the Norman stock, had branched out into the great families of the

Carews, Gerards, Fitzwilliams, and Fitzroys, of England and Wales, and

the Geraldines, Graces, Fitz-Henries, and Fitz-Maurices, of Ireland.

These names will show how entirely the expeditions of 1169 and 1170

were joint-stock undertakings with most of the adventurers; Cambria,

not England, sent them forth; it was a family compact; they were

brothers in blood as well as in arms, those comely and unscrupulous

sons, nephews, and grand-sons of Nesta!

When the Leinster King reached the residence of Griffith ap Rhys, near

St. David's, he found that for some personal or political cause he held

in prison his near kinsman, Robert, son of Stephen, who had the

reputation of being a brave and capable knight. Dermid obtained the

release of Robert, on condition of his embarking in the Irish

enterprise, and he found in him an active recruiting agent, alike among

Welsh, Flemings, and Normans. Through him Maurice Fitzgerald, the de

Barris, and Fitz-Henrys, and their dependents, were soon enlisted in

the adventure. The son of Griffith ap Rhys, who may be mentioned along

with these knights, his kinsmen, and whom the Irish annalists consider

the most important person of the first expedition—their pillar of

battle—also resolved to accompany them, with such forces as he could

enlist.

But a still more important ally waited to treat with Dermid, on his

return to Bristol. This was Richard de Clare, called variously from his

castles or his county, Earl of Strigul and Chepstow, or Earl of

Pembroke. From the strength of his arms he was nicknamed Strongbow, and

in our Annals he is usually called Earl Richard, by which title we

prefer hereafter to distinguish him. His father, Gilbert de Clare, was

descended from Richard of Normandy, and stood no farther removed in

degree from that Duke than the reigning Prince. For nearly forty years

under Henry I. and during the stormy reign of King Stephen, he had been

Governor of Pembroke, and like all the great Barons played his game

chiefly to his own advantage. His castle at Chepstow was one of the

strongest in the west, and the power he bequeathed to his able and

ambitious son excited the apprehensions of the astute and suspicious

Henry II. Fourteen years of this King's reign had passed away, and Earl

Richard had received no great employments, no new grants of land, no

personal favours from his Sovereign. He was now a widower, past middle

age, condemned to a life of inaction such as no true Norman could long

endure. Arrived at Bristol, he read the letter of Henry, and heard from

Dermid the story of his expulsion and the grounds on which he vested

his hopes of restoration. A consultation ensued, at which it is

probable the sons of Nesta assisted, as it was there agreed that the

town of Wexford, with two cantreds of land adjoining it, should be

given to them. The pay of the archers and men-at-arms, and the duration

of their service, were also determined. Large grants of land were

guaranteed to all adventurers of knightly rank, and Earl Richard was to

marry the King's daughter and succeed him in the sovereignty of

Leinster.

Having by such lavish promises enlisted this powerful Earl and those

adventurous knights, Dermid resolved to pass over in person with such

followers as were already equipped, in order to rally the remnant of

his adherents. The Irish Annals enter this return under the year 1167,

within twelvemonths or thereabouts from the time of his banishment; by

their account he came back, accompanied by a fleet of strangers whom

they called Flemings, and who were probably hired soldiers of that

race, then easily to be met with in Wales. The Welsh Prince already

mentioned seems to have accompanied him personally, as he fell by his

side in a skirmish the following year. Whatever this force may have

amounted to, they landed at Glascarrig point, and wintered—probably

spent the Christmas—at Ferns. The more generally received account of

Dermid's landing alone, and disguised, and secretly preparing his

plans, under shelter of the Austin Friary at Ferns, must be rejected,

if we are still to follow those trite but trustworthy guides, whom we

have so many reasons to confide in. The details differ in many very

important particulars from those usually received, as we shall

endeavour to make clear in a few words.

Not only do they bring Dermid over with a fleet of Flemings, of whom

the natives made "small account," but dating that event before the

expiration of the year 1167, at least sixteen months must have elapsed

between the return of the outlaw and the arrival of the Normans. By

allowing two years instead of one for the duration of his banishment,

the apparent difficulty as to time would be obviated, for his return

and Fitzstephen's arrival would follow upon each other in the spring

and winter of the same year. The difficulty, however, is more apparent

than real. A year sufficed for the journey to Aquitaine and the Welsh

negotiations. Another year seems to have been devoted with equal art

and success to resuscitating a native Leinster party favourable to his

restoration. For it is evident from our Annals that when Dermid showed

himself to the people after his return, it was simply to claim his

patrimony—Hy-Kinsellagh—and not to dispute the Kingdom of Leinster with

the actual ruler, _Murrogh na Gael_. By this pretended moderation and

humility, he disarmed hostility and lulled suspicion asleep. Roderick

and O'Ruarc did indeed muster a host against him, and some of their

cavalry and Kernes skirmished with the troops in his service at

Kellistown, in Carlow, when six were killed on one side and twenty-five

on the other, including the Welsh Prince already mentioned; afterwards

Dermid emerged from his fastnesses, and entering the camp of O'Conor,

gave him seven hostages for the ten cantreds of his patrimony; and to

O'Ruarc he gave "one hundred ounces of gold for his _eineach_"—that is,

as damages for his criminal conversation with Devorgoil. During the

remainder of the year 1168, Dermid was left to enjoy unmolested the

moderate territory which he claimed, while King Roderick was engaged in

enforcing his claims on the North and South, founding lectorships at

Armagh, and partitioning Meath between his inseparable colleague,

O'Ruarc, and himself. He celebrated, in the midst of an immense

multitude, the ancient national games at Tailtin, he held an assembly

at Tara, and distributed magnificent gifts to his suffragans. Roderick

might have spent the festival of Christmas, 1168, or of Easter, 1169,

in the full assurance that his power was firmly established, and that a

long succession of peaceful days were about to dawn upon Erin. But he

was destined to be soon and sadly undeceived.

In the month of May, a little fleet of Welsh vessels, filled with armed

men, approached the Irish shore, and Robert Fitzstephen ran into a

creek of the bay of Bannow, called by the adventurers, from the names

of two of their ships, Bag-and-Bun. Fitzstephen had with him thirty

knights, sixty esquires, and three hundred footmen. The next day he was

joined by Maurice de Prendergast, a Welsh gentleman, with ten knights

and sixty archers. After landing they reconnoitred cautiously, but saw

neither ally nor enemy—the immediate coast seemed entirely deserted.

Their messenger despatched to Dermid, then probably at Ferns, in the

northern extremity of the county, must have been absent several anxious

days, when, much to their relief, he returned with Donald, the son of

Dermid, at the head of 500 horsemen. Uniting their troops, Donald and

Fitzstephen set out for Wexford, about a day's march distant, and the

principal town in that angle of the island which points towards Wales.

The tradition of the neighbourhood says they were assailed upon the way

by a party of the native population, who were defeated and dispersed.

Within ten days or a fortnight of their landing, they were drawn up

within sight of the walls of Wexford, where they were joined by Dermid,

who obviously did not come unattended to such a meeting. What

additional force he may have brought up is nowhere indicated; that he

was not without followers or mercenaries, we know from the mention of

the Flemings in his service, and the action of Kellistown in the

previous year. The force that had marched from Bannow consisted, as we

have seen, of 500 Irish horse under his son Donald, surnamed

_Kavanagh_; 30 knights, 60 esquires, and 300 men-at-arms under

Fitzstephen; 10 knights and 60 archers under Prendergast; in all,

nobles or servitors, not exceeding 1,000 men. The town, a place of

considerable strength, could muster 2,000 men capable of bearing arms,

nor is it discreditable to its Dano-Irish artizans and seamen that they

could boast no captain equal to Fitzstephen or Donald Kavanagh. What a

town multitude could do they did. They burned down an exposed suburb,

closed their gates, and manned their walls. The first assault was

repulsed with some loss on the part of the assailants, and the night

past in expectation of a similar conflict on the morrow. In the early

morning the townsmen could discern that the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass

was being offered in the camp of their besiegers as a preparative for

the dangers of the day. Within the walls, however, the clergy exercised

all their influence to spare the effusion of blood, and to bring about

an accommodation. Two Bishops who were in the town especially advised a

surrender on honourable terms, and their advice was taken. Four of the

principal citizens were deputed to Dermid, and Wexford was yielded on

condition of its rights and privileges, hitherto existing, being

respected. The cantreds immediately adjoining the town on the north and

east were conferred on Fitzstephen according to the treaty made at

Bristol, and he at once commenced the erection of a fortress on the

rock of Carrig, at the narrowest pass on the river Slaney. Strongbow's

uncle, Herve, was endowed with two other cantreds, to the south of the

town, now known as the baronies of Forth and Bargey, where the

descendants of the Welsh and Flemish settlers then planted are still to

be found in the industrious and sturdy population, known as Flemings,

Furlongs, Waddings, Prendergasts, Barrys, and Walshes. Side by side

with them now dwell in peace the Kavanaghs, Murphys, Conors, and

Breens, whose ancestors so long and so fiercely disputed the intrusion

of these strangers amongst them.

With some increase of force derived from the defenders of Wexford,

Dermid, at the head of 3000 men, including all the Normans, marched

into the adjoining territory of Ossory, to chastise its chief, Donogh

Fitzpatrick, one of his old enemies. This campaign appears to have

consumed the greater part of the summer of the year, and ended with the

submission of Ossory, after a brave but unskilful resistance. The

tidings of what was done at Wexford and in Ossory had, however, roused

the apprehension of the monarch Roderick, who appointed a day for a

national muster "of the Irish" at the Hill of Tara. Thither repaired

accordingly the monarch himself, the lords of Meath, Oriel, Ulidia,

Breffni, and the chiefs of the farther north. With this host they

proceeded to Dublin, which they found as yet in no immediate danger of

attack; and whether on this pretext or some other, the Ulster chiefs

returned to their homes, leaving Roderick to pursue, with the aid of

Meath and Breffni only, the footsteps of McMurrogh. The latter had

fallen back upon Ferns, and had, under the skilful directions of

Fitzstephen, strengthened the naturally difficult approaches to that

ancient capital, by digging artificial pits, by felling trees, and

other devices of Norman strategy. The season, too, must have been

drawing nearly to a close, and the same amiable desire to prevent the

shedding of Christian blood, which characterized all the clergy of this

age, again subserved the unworthy purposes of the traitor and invader.

Roderick, after a vain endeavour to detach Fitzstephen from Dermid and

to induce him to quit the country, agreed to a treaty with the Leinster

King, by which the latter acknowledged his supremacy as monarch, under

the ancient conditions, for the fulfilment of which he surrendered to

him his son Conor as hostage. By a secret and separate agreement Dermid

bound himself to admit no more of the Normans into his service—an

engagement which he kept as he did all others, whether of a public or a

private nature. After the usual exchange of stipends and tributes,

Roderick returned to his home in the west; and thus, with the treaty of

Ferns, ended the comparatively unimportant but significant campaign of

the year 1169.

CHAPTER II.

THE ARMS, ARMOUR AND TACTICS OF THE NORMANS AND IRISH.

This would seem to be the proper place to point out the peculiarities

in arms, equipment, and tactics, which gave the first Normans those

military advantages over the Irish and Dano-Irish, which they had

hitherto maintained over the Saxons, Welsh and Scots. In instituting

such a comparison, we do not intend to confine it strictly to the age

of Strongbow and Dermid; the description will extend to the entire

period from the arrival of Fitzstephen to the death of Richard, Earl of

Ulster—from 1169 to 1333—a period of five or six generations, which we

propose to treat of in the present book. After this Earl's decease, the

Normans and Irish approximated more closely in all their customs, and

no longer presented those marked contrasts which existed in their

earlier intercourse and conflicts with each other. The armour of the

first adventurers, both for man and horse, excited the wonder, the

sarcasms, and the fears of the Irish. No such equipments had yet been

seen in that country, nor indeed in any other, where the Normans were

still strangers. As the Knights advanced on horseback, in their metal

coating, they looked more like iron cylinders filled with flesh and

blood, than like lithe and limber human combatants. The man-at-arms,

whether Knight or Squire, was almost invariably mounted; his war-horse

was usually led, while he rode a hackney, to spare the _destrier_. The

body armour was a hauberk of netted iron or steel, to which were joined

a hood, sleeves, breeches, hose and sabatons, or shoes, of the same

material. Under the hauberk was worn a quilted gambeson of silk or

cotton, reaching to the knees; over armour, except when actually

engaged, all men of family wore costly coats of satin, velvet, cloth of

gold or cloth of silver, emblazoned with their arms. The shields of the

thirteenth century were of triangular form, pointed at the bottom; the

helmet conical, with or without bars; the beaver, vizor and plate

armour, were inventions of a later day. Earls, Dukes, and Princes, wore

small crowns upon their helmets; lovers wore the favours of their

mistresses; and victors the crests of champions they had overthrown.

The ordinary weapons of these cavaliers were sword, lance, and knife;

the demi-launce, or light horsemen, were similarly armed; and a force

of this class, common in the Irish wars, was composed of mounted

cross-bow men, and called from the swift, light _hobbies_ they rode,

Hobiler-Archers. Besides many improvements in arms and manual exercise,

the Normans perfected the old Roman machines and engines used in

sieges. The scorpion was a huge cross-bow, the catapults showered

stones to a great distance; the ballista discharged flights of darts

and arrows. There were many other varieties of stone-throwing

machinery; "the war-wolf" was long the chief of projectile machines, as

the ram was of manual forces. The power of a battering-ram of the

largest size, worked by a thousand men, has been proven to be equal to

a point-blank shot from a thirty-six pounder. There were moveable

towers of all sizes and of many names: "the sow" was a variety which

continued in use in England and Ireland till the middle of the

seventeenth century. The divisions of the cavalry were: first, the

_Constable's_ command, some twenty-five men; next, the _Banneret_ was

entitled to unfurl his own colours with consent of the Marshal, and

might unite under his pennon one or more constabularies; the _Knight_

led into the field all his retainers who held of him by feudal tenure,

and sometimes the retainers of his squires, wards, or valets, and

kinsmen. The laws of chivalry were fast shaping themselves into a code

complete and coherent in all its parts, when these iron-clad, inventive

and invincible masters of the art of war first entered on the invasion

of Ireland.

The body of their followers in this enterprise, consisting of Flemish,

Welsh, and Cornish archers, may be best described by the arms they

carried. The irresistible cross-bow was their main reliance. Its shot

was so deadly that the Lateran Council, in 1139, strictly forbade its

employment among Christian enemies. It combined with its stock, or bed,

wheel, and trigger, almost all the force of the modern musket, and

discharged square pieces of iron, leaden balls, or, in scarcity of

ammunition, flint stones. The common cross-bow would kill, point blank,

at forty or fifty yards distance, and the best improved at fully one

hundred yards. The manufacture of these weapons must have been

profitable, since their cost was equal, in the relative value of money,

to that of the rifle, in our times. In the reign of Edward II. each

cross-bow, purchased for the garrison of Sherborne Castle, cost 3

shillings and 8 pence; and every hundred of _quarrels_—the ammunition

just mentioned—1 shilling and 6 pence. Iron, steel, and wood, were the

materials used in the manufacture of this weapon.

The long-bow had been introduced into England by the Normans, who are

said to have been more indebted to that arm than any other, for their

victory at Hastings. To encourage the use of the long-bow many statutes

were passed, and so late as the time of the Stuarts, royal commissions

were issued for the promotion of this national exercise. Under the

early statutes no archer was permitted to practise at any standing mark

at less than "eleven score yards distant;" no archer under twenty-four

years of age was allowed to shoot twice from the same stand-point;

parents and masters were subject to a fine of 6 shillings and 8 pence

if they allowed their youth, under the age of seventeen, "to be without

a bow and two arrows for one month together;" the walled towns were

required to set up their butts, to keep them in repair, and to turn out

for target-practice on holidays, and at other convenient times. Aliens

residing in England were forbidden the use of this weapon—a jealous

precaution showing the great importance attached to its possession. The

usual length of the bow—which was made of yew, witch-hazel, ash, or

elm—was about six feet; and the arrow, about half that length. Arrows

were made of ash, feathered with part of a goose's wing, and barbed

with iron or steel. In the reign of Edward III., a painted bow cost 1

shilling and 6 pence, a white bow, 1 shilling; a sheaf of steel-tipped

arrows (24 to the sheaf), 1 shilling and 2 pence, and a sheaf of _non

accerata_ (the blunt sort), 1 shilling. The range of the long-bow, at

its highest perfection, was, as we have seen, "eleven score yards,"

more than double that of the ordinary cross-bow. The common sort of

both these weapons carried about the same distance—nearly 100 yards.

The natural genius of the Normans for war had been sharpened and

perfected by their campaigns in France and England, but more especially

in the first and second Crusades. All that was to be learned of

military science in other countries—all that Italian skill, Greek

subtlety, or Saracen invention could teach, they knew and combined into

one system. Their feudal discipline, moreover, in which the youth who

entered the service of a veteran as page, rose in time to the rank of

esquire and bachelor-at-arms, and finally won his spurs on some

well-contested field, was eminently favourable to the training and

proficiency of military talents. Not less remarkable was the skill they

displayed in seizing on the strong and commanding points of

communication within the country, as we see at this day, from the sites

of their old Castles, many of which must have been, before the

invention of gunpowder, all but impregnable.

The art of war, if art it could in their case be called, was in a much

less forward stage among the Irish in the twelfth and thirteenth

centuries than amongst the Normans. Of the science of fortification

they perhaps knew no more than they had learned in their long struggle

with the Danes and Norwegians. To render roads impassable, to

strengthen their islands by stockades, to hold the naturally difficult

passes which connect one province or one district with another—these

seem to have been their chief ideas of the aid that valour may derive

from artificial appliances. The fortresses of which we hear so

frequently, during and after the Danish period, and which are

erroneously called _Danes'-forts_, were more numerous than formidable

to such enemies as the Normans. Some of these earth-and-stone-works are

older than the Milesian invasion, and of Cyclopean style and strength.

Those of the Milesians are generally of larger size, contain much more

earth, and the internal chambers are of less massive masonry. They are

almost invariably of circular form, and the largest remaining specimens

are the Giant's Ring, near Belfast; the fort at Netterville, which

measures 300 paces in circumference round the top of the embankment;

the Black Rath, on the Boyne, which measures 321 paces round the outer

wall of circumvallation; and the King's Rath, at Tara, upwards of 280

in length. The height of the outer embankment in forts of this size

varied from fifteen to twenty feet; this embankment was usually

surrounded by a fosse; within the embankment there was a platform,

depressed so as to leave a circular parapet above its level. Many of

these military raths have been found to contain subterranean chambers

and circular winding passages, supposed to be used as granaries and

armories. They are accounted capable of containing garrisons of from

200 to 500 men; but many of the fortresses mentioned from age to age in

our annals were mere private residences, enclosing within their outer

and inner walls space enough for the immediate retainers and domestics

of the chief. Although coats of mail are mentioned in manuscripts long

anterior to the Norman invasion, the Irish soldiers seem seldom or

never to have been completely clothed in armour. Like the northern

_Berserkers_, they prided themselves in fighting, if not naked, in

their orange coloured shirts, dyed with saffron. The helmet and the

shield were the only defensive articles of dress; nor do they seem to

have had trappings for their horses. Their favourite missile weapon was

the dart or javelin, and in earlier ages the sling. The spear or lance,

the sword, and the sharp, short-handled battle-axe, were their

favourite manual weapons. Their power with the battle-axe was

prodigious; _Giraldus_ says they sometimes lopped off a horseman's leg

at a single blow, his body falling over on the other side. Their

bridle-bits and spurs were of bronze, as were generally their spear

heads and short swords. Of siege implements, beyond the torch and the

scaling-ladder, they seem to have had no knowledge, and to have desired

none. The Dano-Irish alone were accustomed to fortify and defend their

towns, on the general principles, which then composed the sum of what

was known in Christendom of military engineering. Quick to acquire in

almost every department of the art, the native Irish continued till the

last obstinately insensible to the absolute necessity of learning how

modern fortifications are constructed, defended, and captured; a

national infatuation, of which we find melancholy evidence in every

recurring native insurrection.

The two divisions of the Irish infantry were the _galloglass_, or

heavily armed foot soldier, called _gall_, either as a mercenary, or

from having been equipped after the Norman method, and the _kerne_, or

light infantry. The horsemen were men of the free tribes, who followed

their chief on terms almost of equality, and who, except his immediate

retainers, equipped and foraged for themselves. The highest unit of

this force was a _Cath_, or battalion of 3,000 men; but the subdivision

of command and the laws which established and maintained discipline

have yet to be recovered and explained. The old Spanish "right of

insurrection" seems to have been recognized in every chief of a free

tribe, and no Hidalgo of old Spain, for real or fancied slight, was

ever more ready to turn his horse's head homeward than were those

refractory lords, with whom Roderick O'Conor and his successors, in the

front of the national battle, had to contend or to co-operate.

CHAPTER III.

THE FIRST CAMPAIGN OF EARL RICHARD—SIEGE OF DUBLIN—DEATH OF KING DERMID

McMURROGH.

The campaigns of 1168 and 1169 had ended prosperously for Dermid in the

treaty of Ferns. By that treaty he had bound himself to bring no more

Normans into the country, and to send those already in his service back

to their homes. But in the course of the same autumn or winter, in

which this agreement was solemnly entered into, he welcomed the arrival

at Wexford—of Maurice Fitzgerald—son of the fair Nesta by her first

husband—and immediately employed this fresh force, consisting of 10

knights, 30 esquires, and 100 footmen, upon a hosting which harried the

open country about Dublin, and induced the alarmed inhabitants to send

hostages into his camp, bearing proffers of allegiance and amity. As

yet he did not feel in force sufficient to attack the city, for, if he

had been, his long cherished vengeance against its inhabitants would

not have been postponed till another season.

In the meantime he had written most urgent letters to Earl Richard to

hasten his arrival, according to the terms agreed upon at Bristol. That

astute and ambitious nobleman had been as impatiently biding his time

as Dermid had been his coming. Knowing the jealous sovereign under whom

he served, he had gone over to France to obtain Henry's sanction to the

Irish enterprise, but had been answered by the monarch, in oracular

phrases, which might mean anything or nothing. Determined, however, to

interpret these doubtful words in his own sense, he despatched his

vanguard early in the spring of the year 1170, under the command of his

uncle Herve and a company of 10 knights and 70 archers, under Raymond,

son of William, lord of Carew, elder brother of Maurice Fitzgerald, and

grandson of Nesta. In the beginning of May, Raymond, nicknamed _le

gros_, or the Fat, entered Waterford harbour, and landed eight miles

below the city, under the rock of Dundonolf, on the east, or Wexford

side. Here they rapidly threw up a camp to protect themselves against

attack, and to hold the landing place for the convenience of the future

expedition. A tumultuous body of natives, amounting, according to the

Norman account, to 3,000 men, were soon seen swarming across the Suir

to attack the foreigners. They were men of Idrone and Desies, under

their chiefs, O'Ryan and O'Phelan, and citizens of Waterford, who now

rushed towards the little fortress, entirely unprepared for the long

and deadly range of the Welsh and Flemish crossbows. Thrown into

confusion by the unexpected discharge, in which every shot from behind

the ramparts of turf brought down its man, they wavered and broke;

Raymond and Herve then sallied out upon the fugitives, who were fain to

escape, as many as could, to the other side of the river, leaving 500

prisoners, including 70 chief citizens of Waterford behind them. These

were all inhumanly massacred, according to _Giraldus_, the eulogist of

all the Geraldines, by the order of Herve, contrary to the entreaties

of Raymond. Their legs were first violently broken, and they were then

hurled down the rocks into the tide. Five hundred men could not well be

so captured and put to death by less than an equal number of hands, and

we may, therefore, safely set down that number as holding the camp of

Dundonolf during the summer months of the year.

Earl Richard had not completed his arrangements until the month of

August—so that his uncle and lieutenant had to hold the post they had

seized for fully three months, awaiting his arrival in the deepest

anxiety. At last, leaving his castle in Pembroke, he marched with his

force through North Wales, by way of St. David's to Milford Haven—"and

still as he went he took up all the best chosen and picked men he could

get." At Milford, just as he was about to embark, he received an order

from King Henry forbidding the expedition. Wholly disregarding this

missive he hastened on board with 200 knights and 1,200 infantry in his

company, and on the eve of St. Bartholomew's Day (August 23rd), landed

safely under the earthwork of Dundonolf, where he was joyfully received

by Raymond at the head of 40 knights, and a corresponding number of

men-at-arms. The next day the whole force, under the Earl, "who had all

things in readiness" for such an enterprise, proceeded to lay siege to

Waterford. Malachy O'Phelan, the brave lord of Desies, forgetting all

ancient enmity against his Danish neighbours, had joined the townsmen

to assist in the defence. Twice the besieged beat back the assailants,

until Raymond perceiving at an angle of the wall the wooden props upon

which a house rested, ordered them to be cut away, on which the house

fell to the ground, and a breach was effected. The men-at-arms then

burst in, slaughtering the inhabitants without mercy. In the tower,

long known as Reginald's, or the ring tower, O'Phelan and Reginald, the

Dano-Irish chief, held out until the arrival of King Dermid, whose

intercession procured them such terms as led to their surrender. Then,

amid the ruins of the burning city, and the muttered malediction of its

surviving inhabitants, the ill-omened marriage of Eva McMurrogh with

Richard de Clare was gaily celebrated, and the compact entered into at

Bristol three years before was perfected.

The marriage revelry was hardly over when tidings came from Dublin that

Asculph MacTorcall, its Danish lord, had, either by the refusal of the

annual tribute, or in some other manner, declared his independence of

Dermid, and invoked the aid of the monarch Roderick, in defence of that

city. Other messengers brought news that Roderick had assumed the

protection of Dublin, and was already encamped at the head of a large

army at Clondalkin, with a view of intercepting the march of the

invaders from the south. The whole Leinster and Norman force, with the

exception of a troop of archers left to garrison Waterford, were now

put in motion for the siege of the chief city of the Hibernicized

descendants of the Northmen. Informed of Roderick's position, which

covered Dublin on the south and west, Dermid and Richard followed

boldly the mountain paths and difficult roads which led by the secluded

city of Glendalough, and thence along the coast road from Bray towards

the mouth of the Liffey, until they arrived unexpectedly within the

lines of Roderick, to the amazement and terror of the townsmen.

The force which now, under the command-in-chief of Dermid, sat down to

the siege of Dublin, was far from being contemptible. For a year past

he had been recognized in Leinster as fully as any of his predecessors,

and had so strengthened his military position as to propose nothing

short of the conquest of the whole country. His choice of a line of

march sufficiently shows how thoroughly he had overcome the former

hostility of the stubborn mountaineers of Wicklow. The exact numbers

which he encamped before the gates of Dublin are nowhere given, but on

the march from Waterford, the vanguard, led by Milo de Cogan, consisted

of 700 Normans and "an Irish battalion," which, taken literally, would

mean 3,000 men, under Donald _Kavanagh_; Raymond the Fat followed "with

800 British;" Dermid led on "the chief part of the Irish" (number not

given), in person; Richard commanded the rear-guard, "300 British and

1,000 Irish soldiers." Altogether, it is not exorbitant to conjecture

that the Leinster Prince led to the siege of Dublin an army of about

10,000 native troops, 1,500 Welsh and Flemish archers, and 250 knights.

Except the handful who remained with Fitzstephen to defend his fort at

Carrick, on the Slaney, and the archers left in Waterford, the entire

Norman force in Ireland, at this time, were united in the siege. Of the

foreign knights many were eminent for courage and capacity, both in

peace and war. The most distinguished among them were Maurice

Fitzgerald, the common ancestor of the Geraldines of Desmond and

Kildare; Raymond the Fat, ancestor of the Graces of Ossory; the two

Fitz-Henries, grandsons of Henry I., and the fair Nesta; Walter de

Riddlesford, first Baron of Bray; Robert de Quincy, son-in-law and

standard-bearer to Earl Richard; Herve, uncle to the Earl, and Gilbert

de Clare, his son; Milo de Cogan, the first who entered Dublin by

assault, and its first Norman governor; the de Barries, and de

Prendergast. Other founders of Norman-Irish houses, as the de Lacies,

de Courcies, le Poers, de Burgos, Butlers, Berminghams, came not over

until the landing of Henry II., or still later, with his son John.

The townsmen of Dublin had every reason, from their knowledge of

Dermid's cruel character, to expect the worst at his hands and those of

his allies. The warning of Waterford was before them, but besides this

they had a special cause of apprehension, Dermid's father having been

murdered in their midst, and his body ignominiously interred with the

carcase of a dog. Roderick having failed to intercept him, the

citizens, either to gain time or really desiring to arrive at an

accommodation, entered into negotiations. Their ambassador for this

purpose was Lorcan, or Lawrence O'Toole, the first Archbishop of the

city, and its first prelate of Milesian origin. This illustrious man,

canonized both by sanctity and patriotism, was then in the thirty-ninth

year of his age, and the ninth of his episcopate. His father was lord

of Imayle and chief of his clan; his sister had been wife of Dermid and

mother of Eva, the prize-bride of Earl Richard. He himself had been a

hostage with Dermid in his youth, and afterwards Abbot of Glendalough,

the most celebrated monastic city of Leinster. He stood, therefore, to

the besieged, being their chief pastor, in the relation of a father; to

Dermid, and strangely enough to Strongbow also, as brother-in-law and

uncle by marriage. A fitter ambassador could not be found.

Maurice Regan, the "_Latiner_," or Secretary of Dermid, had advanced to

the walls, and summoned the city to surrender, and deliver up "30

pledges" to his master, their lawful Prince. Asculph, son of Torcall,

was in favour of the surrender, but the citizens could not agree among

themselves as to hostages. No one was willing to trust himself to the

notoriously untrustworthy Dermid. The Archbishop was then sent out on

the part of the citizens to arrange the terms in detail. He was

received with all reverence in the camp, but while he was deliberating

with the commanders without, and the townsmen were anxiously awaiting

his return, Milo de Cogan and Raymond the Fat, seizing the opportunity,

broke into the city at the head of their companies, and began to put

the inhabitants ruthlessly to the sword. They were soon followed by the

whole force eager for massacre and pillage. The Archbishop hastened

back to endeavour to stay the havoc which was being made of his people.

He threw himself before the infuriated Irish and Normans, he

threatened, he denounced, he bared his own breast to the swords of the

assassins. All to little purpose; the blood fury exhausted itself

before peace settled over the city. Its Danish chief, Asculph, with

many of his followers, escaped to their ships, and fled to the Isle of

Man and the Hebrides in search of succour and revenge. Roderick,

unprepared to besiege the enemy who had thus outmarched and outwitted

him at that season of the year—it could not be earlier than

October—broke up his encampment at Clondalkin, and retired to

Connaught. Earl Richard having appointed de Cogan his governor of

Dublin, followed on the rear of the retreating _Ard-Righ_, at the

instigation of McMurrogh, burning and plundering the churches of Kells,

Clonard and Slane, and carrying off the hostages of East-Meath.

Though Dermid seemed to have forgotten altogether the conditions of the

treaty of Ferns, yet not so Roderick. When he reached Athlone he caused

Conor, son of Dermid, and the son of Donald _Kavanagh_, and the son of

Dermid's fosterer, who had been given him as hostages for the

fulfilment of that treaty, so grossly violated in every particular, to

be beheaded. Dermid indulged in impotent vows of vengeance against

Roderick, when he heard of these executions which his own perjuries had

provoked; he swore that nothing short of the conquest of Connaught in

the following spring would satisfy his revenge, and he sent the

Ard-Righ his defiance to that purport. Two other events of military

consequence marked the close of the year 1170. The foreign garrison of

Waterford was surprised and captured by Cormac McCarthy, Prince of

Desmond, and Henry II. having prohibited all intercourse between his

lieges and his disobedient subject, Earl Richard, the latter had

despatched Raymond the Fat, with the most humble submission of himself

and his new possessions to his Majesty's decision. And so with Asculph,

son of Torcall, recruiting in the isles of Insi-Gall, Lawrence, the

Archbishop, endeavouring to unite the proud and envious Irish lords

into one united phalanx, and Roderick, preparing for the new year's

campaign, the winter of 1170-'71, came, and waned, and went.

One occurrence of the succeeding spring may most appropriately be

dismissed here—the death of the wretched and odious McMurrogh. This

event happened, according to _Giraldus_, in the kalends of May. The

Irish Annals surround his death-bed with all the horrors appropriate to

such a scene. He became, they say, "putrid while living," through the

miracles of St. Columbcille and St. Finian, whose churches he had

plundered; "and he died at Fernamore, without making a will, without

penance, without the body of Christ, without unction, as his evil deeds

deserved." We have no desire to meditate over the memory of such a man.

He, far more than his predecessor, whatever that predecessor's crimes

might have been, deserved to have been buried with a dog.

CHAPTER IV.

SECOND CAMPAIGN OF EARL RICHARD—HENRY II. IN IRELAND.

The campaign of the year 1171 languished from a variety of causes. At

the very outset, the invaders lost their chief patron, who had been so

useful to them. During the siege of Dublin, in the previous autumn, the

townsmen of Wexford, who were in revolt, had, by stratagem, induced

Robert Fitzstephen to surrender his fort at Carrick, and had imprisoned

him in one of the islands of their harbour. Waterford had been

surprised and taken by Cormac McCarthy, Prince of Desmond, and

Strongbow, alarmed by the proclamation of Henry, knew hardly whether to

consider himself outlaw, subject, or independent sovereign.

Raymond the Fat had returned from his embassy to King Henry, with no

comfortable tidings. He had been kept day after day waiting the

pleasure of the King, and returned with sentences as dubious in his

mouth, as those on which Earl Richard had originally acted. It was

evidently not the policy of Henry to abandon the enterprise already so

well begun, but neither was it his interest or desire that any subject

should reap the benefit, or erect an independent power, upon his mere

permission to embark in the service of McMurrogh. Herve, the Earl's

uncle, had been despatched as ambassador in Raymond's place, but with

no better success. At length, Richard himself, by the advice of all his

counsellors, repaired to England, and waited on Henry at Newenham, in

Gloucestershire. At first he was ignominiously refused an audience, but

after repeated solicitations he was permitted to renew his homage. He

then yielded in due form the city of Dublin, and whatever other

conquests he claimed, and consented to hold his lands in Leinster, as

chief tenant from the crown: in return for which he was graciously

forgiven the success that had attended his adventure, and permitted to

accompany the King's expedition, in the ensuing autumn.

Before Strongbow's departure for England three unsuccessful attempts

had been made for the expulsion of the Norman garrison from Dublin.

They were unfortunately not undertaken in concert, but rather in

succession. The first was an attempt at surprising the city by Asculph

MacTorcall, probably relying on the active aid of the inhabitants of

his own race. He had but "a small force," chiefly from the isles of

Insi-Gall and the Orkneys. The Orcadians were under the command of a

warrior called John the Furious or Mad, the last of those wild

Berserkers of the North, whose valour was regarded in Pagan days as a

species of divine frenzy. This redoubted champion, after a momentary

success, was repulsed by Milo and Richard de Cogan, and finally fell by

the hand of Walter de Riddlesford. Asculph was taken prisoner, and,

avowing boldly his intention never to desist from attempting to recover

the place, was put to death. The second attack has been often described

as a regular investment by Roderick O'Conor, at the head of all the

forces of the Island, which was only broken up in the ninth week of its

duration, by a desperate sally on the part of the famished garrison.

Many details and episodes, proper to so long a beleaguerment, are given

by _Giraldus_, and reproduced by his copyists. We find, however, little

warrant for these passages in our native annals, any more than for the

antithetical speeches which the same partial historian places in the

mouths of his heroes. The Four Masters limit the time to "the course of

a fortnight." Roderick, according to their account, was accompanied by

the lords of Breffni and Oriel only; frequent skirmishes and conflicts

took place; an excursion was made against the Leinster Allies of the

Normans, "to cut down and burn the corn of the Saxons." The surprise by

night of the monarch's camp is also duly recorded; and that the enemy

carried off "the provisions, armour, and horses of Roderick." By which

sally, according to _Giraldus_, Dublin having obtained provisions

enough for a year, Earl Richard marched to Wexford, "taking the higher

way by Idrone," with the hope to deliver Fitzstephen. But the Wexford

men having burned their suburbs, and sent their goods and families into

the stockaded island, sent him word that at the first attack they would

put Fitzstephen and his companions to death. The Earl, therefore, held

sorrowfully on his way to Waterford, where, leaving a stronger force

than the first garrison, to which he had entrusted it, he sailed for

England to make his peace with King Henry. The third attempt on Dublin

was made by the lord of Breffni during the Earl's absence, and when the

garrison were much reduced; it was equally unsuccessful with those

already recorded. De Cogan displayed his usual courage, and the lord of

Breffni lost a son and some of his best men in the assault.

It was upon the marches of Wales that the Earl found King Henry busily

engaged in making preparations for his own voyage into Ireland. He had

levied on the landholders throughout his dominions an escutage or

commutation for personal service, and the Pipe roll, which contains his

disbursements for the year, has led an habitually cautious writer to

infer "that the force raised for the expedition was much more numerous

than has been represented by historians." During the muster of his

forces he visited Pembroke, and made a progress through North Wales,

severely censuring those who had enlisted under Strongbow, and placing

garrisons of his own men in their castles. At Saint David's he made the

usual offering on the shrine of the Saint and received the

hospitalities of the Bishop. All things being in readiness, he sailed

from Milford Haven, with a fleet of 400 transports, having on board

many of the Norman nobility, 500 knights, and an army usually estimated

at 4,000 men at arms. On the 18th of October, 1171, he landed safely at

Crook, in the county of Waterford, being unable, according to an old

local tradition, to sail up the river from adverse winds. As one

headland of that harbour is called _Hook_, and the other _Crook_, the

old adage, "by hook or by crook," is thought to have arisen on this

occasion.

In Henry's train, beside Earl Richard, there came over Hugh de Lacy,

some time Constable of Chester; William, son of Aldelm, ancestor of the

Clanrickardes; Theobald Walter, ancestor of the Butlers; Robert le

Poer, ancestor of the Powers; Humphrey de Bohun, Robert Fitz-Barnard,

Hugh de Gundeville, Philip de Hastings, Philip de Braos, and many other

cavaliers whose names were renowned throughout France and England. As

the imposing host formed on the sea side, a white hare, according to an

English chronicler, leapt from a neighbouring hedge, and was

immediately caught and presented to the King as an omen of victory.

Prophecies, pagan and Christian—quatrains fathered on Saint Moling and

triads attributed to Merlin—were freely showered in his path. But the

true omen of his success he might read for himself, in a constitution

which had lost its force, in laws which had ceased to be sacred, and in

a chieftain race, brave indeed as mortal men could be, but envious,

arrogant, revengeful, and insubordinate. For their criminal indulgence

of these demoniacal passions a terrible chastisement was about to fall

on them, and not only on them, but also, alas! on their poor people.

The whole time passed by Henry II. in Ireland was from the 18th

October, 1171, till the 17th of April following, just seven months. For

the first politician of his age, with the command of such troops, and

so much treasure, these seven months could not possibly be barren of

consequences. Winter, the season of diplomacy, was seldom more

industriously or expertly employed. The townsmen of Wexford, aware of

his arrival as soon as it had taken place, hastened to make their

submission and to deliver up to him their prisoner, Robert Fitzstephen,

the first of the invaders. Henry, affecting the same displeasure

towards Fitzstephen he did for all those who had anticipated his own

expedition, ordered him to be fettered and imprisoned in Reginald's

tower. At Waterford he also received the friendly overtures of the

lords of Desies and Ossory, and probably some form of feudal submission

was undergone by those chiefs. Cormac, Prince of Desmond, followed

their example, and soon afterwards Donald O'Brien of Thomond met him on

the banks of the Suir, not far from Cashel, made his peace, and agreed

to receive a Norman garrison in his Hiberno-Danish city of Limerick.

Having appointed commanders over these and other southern garrisons,

Henry proceeded to Dublin, where a spacious cage-work palace, on a lawn

without the city, was prepared for winter quarters. Here he continued

those negotiations with the Irish chiefs, which we are told were so

generally successful. Amongst others whose adhesion he received,

mention is made of the lord of Breffni, the most faithful follower the

Monarch Roderick could count. The chiefs of the Northern Hy-Nial

remained deaf to all his overtures, and though Fitz-Aldelm and de Lacy,

the commissioners despatched to treat with Roderick, are said to have

procured from the deserted _Ard-Righ_ an act of submission, it is

incredible that a document of such consequence should have been allowed

to perish. Indeed, most of the confident assertions about submissions

to Henry are to be taken with great caution; it is quite certain he

himself, though he lived nearly twenty years after his Irish

expedition, never assumed any Irish title whatever. It is equally true

that his successor, Richard I., never assumed any such title, as an

incident of the English crown. And although Henry in the year 1185

created his youngest son, John _Lackland_, "lord of Ireland," it was

precisely in the same spirit and with as much ground of title as he had

for creating Hugh de Lacy, Lord of Meath, or John de Courcy, Earl of

Ulster. Of this question of title we shall speak more fully hereafter,

for we do not recognize any English sovereign as _King_ of Ireland,

previous to the year 1541; but it ought surely to be conclusive

evidence, that neither had Henry claimed the crown, nor had the Irish

chiefs acknowledged him as their _Ard-Righ_, that in the two authentic

documents from his hand which we possess, he neither signs himself

_Rex_ nor _Dominus Hibernioe_. These documents are the Charter of

Dublin, and the Concession of Glendalough, and their authenticity has

never been disputed.

After spending a right merry Christmas with Norman and Milesian guests

in abundance at Dublin, Henry proceeded to that work of religious

reformation, under plea of which he had obtained the Bill of Pope

Adrian, seventeen years before, declaring such an expedition undertaken

with such motives, lawful and praiseworthy. Early in the new year, by

his desire, a synod was held at Cashel, where many salutary decrees

were enacted. These related to the proper solemnization of marriage;

the catechising of children before the doors of churches; the

administration of baptism in baptismal or parish churches; the

abolition of _Erenachs_ or lay Trustees of church property, and the

imposition of tithes, both of corn and cattle. By most English writers

this synod is treated as a National Council, and inferences are thence

drawn of Henry's admitted power over the clergy of the nation. There

is, however, no evidence that the Bishops of Ulster or Connaught were

present at Cashel, but strong negative testimony to the contrary. We

read under the date of the same year in the Four Masters, that a synod

of the clergy and laity of Ireland was convened at Tuam by Roderick

O'Conor and the Archbishop Catholicus O'Duffy. It is hardly possible

that this meeting could be in continuation or in concord with the

assembly convoked at the instance of Henry.

Following quickly upon the Cashel Synod, Henry held a "Curia Regis" or

Great Court at Lismore, in which he created the offices of Marshal,

Constable, and Seneschal for Ireland. Earl Richard was created the

first Lord Marshal; de Lacy, the first Lord Constable. Theobald,

ancestor of the Ormond family, was already chief Butler, and de Vernon

was created the first high Steward or Seneschal. Such other order as

could be taken for the preservation of the places already captured, was

not neglected. The surplus population of Bristol obtained a charter of

Dublin to be held of Henry and his heirs, "with all the same liberties

and free customs which they enjoyed at Bristol." Wexford was committed

to the charge of Fitz-Aldelm, Waterford to de Bohun, and Dublin to de

Lacy. Castles were ordered to be erected in the towns and at other

points, and the politic king, having caused all those who remained

behind to renew their homage in the most solemn form, sailed on Easter

Monday from Wexford Haven, and on the same day, landed at Port-Finan in

Wales. Here he assumed the Pilgrim's staff, and proceeded humbly on

foot to St. David's, preparatory to meeting the Papal Commissioners

appointed to inquire into Beckett's murder.

It is quite apparent that had Henry landed in Ireland at any other

period of his life except in the year of the martyrdom of the renowned

Archbishop of Canterbury, while the wrath of Rome was yet hanging

poised in the air, ready to be hurled against him, he would not have

left the work he undertook but half begun. The nett result of his

expedition, of his great fleet, mighty army, and sagacious counsels,

was the infusion of a vast number of new adventurers (most of them of

higher rank and better fortunes than their precursors), into the same

old field. Except the garrisons admitted into Limerick and Cork, and

the displacing of Strongbow's commandants by his own at Waterford,

Wexford, and Dublin, there seems to have been little gained in a

military sense. The decrees of the Synod of Cashel would, no doubt,

stand him in good stead with the Papal legates as evidences of his

desire to enforce strict discipline, even on lands beyond those over

which he actually ruled. But, after all, harassed as he was with

apprehensions of the future, perhaps no other Prince could have done

more in a single winter in a strange country than Henry II. did for his

seven months' sojourn in Ireland.

CHAPTER V.

FROM THE RETURN OF HENRY II. TO ENGLAND TILL THE DEATH OF EARL

RICHARD AND HIS PRINCIPAL COMPANIONS.

The Ard-Righ Roderick, during the period of Henry the Second's stay in

Ireland, had continued west of the Shannon. Unsupported by his

suffragans, many of whom made peace with the invader, he attempted no

military operation, nor had Henry time sufficient to follow him into

his strongholds. It was reserved for this ill-fated, and, we cannot but

think, harshly judged monarch, to outlive the first generation of the

invaders of his country, and to close a reign which promised so

brightly at the beginning, in the midst of a distracted, war-spent

people, having preserved through all vicissitudes the title of

sovereign, but little else that was of value to himself or others.

Among the guests who partook of the Christmas cheer of King Henry at

Dublin, we find mention of Tiernan O'Ruarc, the lord of Breffni and

East-Meath. For the Methian addition to his possessions, Tiernan was

indebted to his early alliance with Roderick, and the success of their

joint arms. Anciently the east of Meath had been divided between the

four families called "the four tribes of Tara," whose names are now

anglicized O'Hart, O'Kelly, O'Connelly, and O'Regan. Whether to balance

the power of the great West-Meath family of O'Melaghlin, or because

these minor tribes were unable to defend themselves successfully,

Roderick, like his father, had partitioned Meath, and given the seaward

side a new master in the person of O'Ruarc. The investiture of Hugh de

Lacy by King Henry with the seignory of the same district, led to a

tragedy, the first of its kind in our annals, but destined to be the

prototype of an almost indefinite series, in which the gainers were

sometimes natives, but much oftener Normans.

O'Ruarc gave de Lacy an appointment at the hill of Ward, near Athboy,

in the year 1173, in order to adjust their conflicting claims upon

East-Meath. Both parties naturally guarded against surprise, by having

in readiness a troop of armed retainers. The principals met apart on

the summit of the hill, amid the circumvallations of its ancient fort;

a single unarmed interpreter only was present. An altercation having

arisen, between them, O'Ruarc lost his temper, and raised the

battle-axe, which all our warriors carried in those days, as the

gentlemen of the last century did their swords; this was the signal for

both troops of guards to march towards the spot. De Lacy, in attempting

to fly, had been twice felled to the earth, when his followers, under

Maurice Fitzgerald and Griffith, his nephew, came to his rescue, and

assailed the chief of Breffni. It was now Tiernan's turn to attempt

escaping, but as he mounted his horse the spear of Griffith brought him

to the earth mortally wounded, and his followers fled. His head was

carried in triumph to Dublin, where it was spiked over the northern

gate, and his body was gibbeted on the northern wall, with the feet

uppermost. Thus, a spectacle of intense pity to the Irish, did these

severed members of one of their most famous nobles remain exposed on

that side of the stronghold of the stranger which looks towards the

pleasant plains of Meath and the verdant uplands of Cavan.

The administration of de Lacy was now interrupted by a summons to join

his royal master, sore beset by his own sons in Normandy. The Kings of

France and Scotland were in alliance with those unnatural Princes, and

their mother, Queen Eleanor, might he called the author of their

rebellion. As all the force that could be spared from Ireland was

needed for the preservation of Normandy, de Lacy hastened to obey the

royal summons, and Earl Richard, by virtue of his rank of Marshal, took

for the moment the command in chief. Henry, however, who never

cordially forgave that adventurer, first required his presence in

France, and when alarmed by ill news from Ireland, he sent him back to

defend the conquests already made, he associated with him in the

supreme command—though not apparently in the civil administration—the

gallant Raymond _le gros_. And it was full time for the best head and

the bravest sword among the first invaders to return to their work—a

task not to be so easily achieved as many confident persons then

believed, and as many ill-informed writers have since described it.

During the early rule of de Lacy, Earl Richard had established himself

at Ferns, assuming, to such of the Irish as adhered to him, the

demeanour of a king. After Dermid's death, he styled himself, in utter

disregard of Irish law, "Prince of Leinster," in virtue of his wife. He

proceeded to create feudal dignitaries, placing at their head, as

Constable of Leinster, Robert de Quincy, to whom he gave his daughter,

by his first wife, in marriage. At this point the male representatives

of King Dermid came to open rupture with the Earl. Donald _Kavanagh_,

surnamed "the Handsome," and by the Normans usually spoken of as

"Prince" Donald, could scarcely be expected to submit to an

arrangement, so opposed to all ancient custom, and to his own

interests. He had borne a leading part in the restoration of his

father, but surely not to this end—the exclusion of the male

succession. He had been one of King Henry's guests during the Christmas

holidays of the year 1172, and had rendered him some sort of homage, as

Prince of Leinster. Henry, ever ready to raise up rivals to Strongbow,

seems to have received him into favour, until Eva, the Earl's wife,

proved, both in Ireland and England, that Donald and his brother Enna,

were born out of wedlock, and that there was no direct male heir of

Dermid left, after the execution of Conor, the hostage put to death by

King Roderick. To English notions this might have been conclusive

against Donald's title, but to the Irish, among whom the electoral

principle was the source of all chieftainry, it was not so. A large

proportion of the patriotic Leinstermen—what might be called the native

party—adhered to Donald _Kavanagh_, utterly rejecting the title derived

through the lady Eva.

Such conflicting interests could only be settled by a resort to force,

and the bloody feud began by the Earl executing at Ferns one of

Donald's sons, held by him as a hostage. In an expedition against

O'Dempsey, who also refused to acknowledge his title, the Earl lost, in

the campaign of 1173, his son-in-law, de Quincy, several other knights,

and the "banner of Leinster." The following year we read in the

Anglo-Irish Annals of Leinster, that King Donald's men, being moved

against the Earl's men, made a great slaughter of English. Nor was this

the worst defeat he suffered in the same year—1174. Marching into

Munster he was encountered in a pitched battle at Thurles by the troops

of the monarch Roderick, under command of his son, Conor, surnamed

_Moinmoy_, and by the troops of Thomond, under Donald More O'Brien.

With Strongbow were all who could be spared of the garrison of Dublin,

including a strong detachment of Danish origin. Four knights and seven

hundred (or, according to other accounts, seventeen hundred) men of the

Normans were left dead on the field. Strongbow retreated with the

remnant of his force to Waterford, but the news of the defeat having

reached that city before him, the townspeople ran to arms and put his

garrison of two hundred men to the sword. After encamping for a month

on an island without the city, and hearing that Kilkenny Castle was

taken and razed by O'Brien, he was feign to return to Dublin as best he

could.

His fortunes at the close of this campaign, were at their lowest ebb.

The loss of de Quincy and the defeat of Thurles had sorely shaken his

military reputation. His jealousy of that powerful family connexion,

the Geraldines, had driven Maurice Fitzgerald and Raymond the Fat to

retire in disgust into Wales. Donald Kavanagh, O'Dempsey, and the

native party in Leinster, set him at defiance, and his own troops

refused to obey the orders of his uncle Herve, demanding to be led by

the more popular and youthful Raymond. To add to his embarrassments,

Henry summoned him to France in the very crisis of his troubles, and he

dared not disobey that jealous and exacting master. He was, however,

not long detained by the English King. Clothed with supreme authority,

and with Raymond for his lieutenant, he returned to resume the work of

conquest. To conciliate the Geraldines, he at last consented to give

his sister Basilia in marriage to the brilliant captain, on whose sword

so much depended. At the same time Alina, the widow of de Quincy, was

married to the second son of Fitzgerald, and Nesta Fitzgerald was

united to Raymond's former rival, Herve. Thus, bound together, fortune

returned in full tide to the adventurers. Limerick, which had been

taken and burned to the water's edge by Donald O'Brien after the battle

of Thurles, was recaptured and fortified anew; Waterford was more

strongly garrisoned than ever; Donald _Kavanagh_ was taken off,

apparently by treachery (A.D. 1175), and all seemed to promise the

enjoyment of uninterrupted power to the Earl. But his end was already

come. An ulcer in his foot brought on a long and loathsome illness,

which terminated in his death, in the month of May, 1176, or 1177. He

was buried in Christ Church, Dublin, which he had contributed to

enlarge, and was temporarily succeeded in the government of the Normans

by his lieutenant and brother-in-law, Raymond. By the Lady Eva he left

one daughter, Isabel, married at the age of fourteen to William

Marshall, Earl of Pembroke, who afterwards claimed the proprietary of

Leinster, by virtue of this marriage. Lady Isabel left again five

daughters, who were the ancestresses of the Mortimers, Braces, and

other historic families of England and Scotland. And so the blood of

Earl Richard and his Irish Princess descended for many generations to

enrich other houses and ennoble other names than his own.

Strongbow is described by _Giraldus_, whose personal sketches, of the

leading invaders form the most valuable part of his book, as less a

statesman than a soldier, and more a soldier than a general. His

complexion was freckled, his neck slender, his voice feminine and

shrill, and his temper equable and uniform. His career in Ireland was

limited to seven years in point of time, and his resources were never

equal to the task he undertook. Had they been so, or had he not been so

jealously counteracted by his suzerain, he might have founded a new

Norman dynasty on as solid a basis as William, or as Rollo himself had

done.

Raymond and the Geraldines had now, for a brief moment, the supreme

power, civil and military, in their own hands. In his haste to take

advantage of the Earl's death, of which he had privately been informed

by a message from his wife, Raymond left Limerick in the hands of

Donald More O'Brien, exacting, we are told, a solemn oath from the

Prince of Thomond to protect the city, which the latter broke before

the Norman garrisons were out of sight of its walls. This story, like

many others of the same age, rests on the uncertain authority of the

vain, impetuous and passionate _Giraldus_. Whether the loss of Limerick

discredited him with the king, or the ancient jealousy of the first

adventurers prevailed in the royal councils, Henry, on hearing of

Strongbow's death, at once despatched as Lord Justice, William

Fitz-Aldelm de Burgo, first cousin to Hubert de Burgo, Chief Justiciary

of England, and, like Fitz-Aldelm, descended from Arlotta, mother of

William the Conqueror, by Harlowen de Burgo, her first husband. From

him have descended the noble family of de Burgo, or Burke, so

conspicuous in the after annals of our island. In the train of the new

Justiciary came John de Courcy, another name destined to become

historical, but before relating his achievements, we must conclude the

narrative so far as regards the first set of adventurers.

Maurice Fitzgerald, the common ancestor of the Earls of Desmond and

Kildare, the Knights of Glyn, of Kerry, and of all the Irish

Geraldines, died at Wexford in the year 1177. Raymond the Fat,

superseded by Fitz-Aldelm, and looked on coldly by the King, retired to

his lands in the same county, and appears only once more in arms—in the

year 1182—in aid of his uncle, Robert Fitzstephen. This premier invader

had been entrusted by the new ruler with the command of the garrison of

Cork, as Milo de Cogan had been with that of Waterford, and both had

been invested with equal halves of the principality of Desmond. De

Cogan, Ralph, son of Fitzstephen, and other knights had been cut off by

surprise, at the house of one McTire, near Lismore, in 1182, and all

Desmond was up in arms for the expulsion of the foreign garrisons.

Raymond sailed from Wexford to the aid of his uncle, and succeeded in

relieving the city from the sea. But Fitzstephen, afflicted with grief

for the death of his son, and worn down with many anxieties, suffered

the still greater loss of his reason. From thenceforth, we hear no more

of either uncle or nephew, and we may therefore account this the last

year of Robert Fitzstephen, Milo de Cogan, and Raymond _le gros_. Herve

de Montmorency, the ancient rival of Raymond, had three years earlier

retired from the world, to become a brother in the Monastery of the

Holy Trinity, at Canterbury. His Irish estates passed to his brother

Geoffrey, who subsequently became Justiciary of the Normans in Ireland,

the successful rival of the Marshals, and founder of the Irish title of

Mountmorres. The posterity of Raymond survived in the noble family of

Grace, Barons of Courtstown, in Ossory. It is not, therefore, strictly

true, what Geoffrey Keating and the authors he followed have

asserted—that the first Normans were punished by the loss of posterity

for the crimes and outrages they had committed, in their various

expeditions.

Let us be just even to these spoilers of our race. They were fair

specimens of the prevailing type of Norman character. Indomitable

bravery was not their only virtue. In patience, in policy, and in

rising superior to all obstacles and reverses, no group of conquerors

ever surpassed Strongbow and his companions. Ties of blood and

brotherhood in arms were strong between them, and whatever unfair

advantages they allowed themselves to take of their enemy, they were in

general constant and devoted in their friendships towards each other.

Rivalries and intrigues were not unknown among them, but generous

self-denial, and chivalrous self-reliance were equally as common. If it

had been the lot of our ancestors to be effectually conquered, they

could hardly have yielded to nobler foes. But as they proved themselves

able to resist successfully the prowess of this hitherto invincible

race, their honour is augmented in proportion to the energy and genius,

both for government and war, brought to bear against them.

Neither should we overstate the charge of impiety. If the invaders

broke down and burned churches in the heat of battle, they built better

and costlier temples out of the fruits of victory. Christ Church,

Dublin, Dunbrody Abbey, on the estuary of Waterford, the Grey Friars'

Abbey at Wexford, and other religious houses long stood, or still

stand, to show that although the first Norman, like the first Dane,

thirsted after spoil, and lusted after land, unlike the Dane, he

created, he enriched, he improved, wherever he conquered.

CHAPTER VI.

THE LAST YEARS OF THE ARD-RIGH, RODERICK O'CONOR.

The victory of Thurles, in the year 1174, was the next important

military event, as we have seen, after the raising of the second siege

of Dublin, in the first campaign of Earl Richard. It seems

irreconcilable, with the consequences of that victory, that Ambassadors

from Roderick should be found at the Court of Henry II. before the

close of the following year: but events personal to both sovereigns

will sufficiently explain the apparent anomaly.

The campaign of 1174, so unfavourable to Henry's subjects in Ireland,

had been most fortunate for his arms in Normandy. His rebellious sons,

after severe defeats, submitted, and did him homage; the King of France

had gladly accepted his terms of peace; the King of Scotland, while in

duress, had rendered him fealty as his liege man; and Queen Eleanor,

having fallen into his power, was a prisoner for life. Tried by a

similar unnatural conspiracy in his own family, Roderick O'Conor had

been less fortunate in coercing them into obedience. His eldest son,

Murray, claimed, according to ancient custom, that his father should

resign in his favour the patrimonial Province, contenting himself with

the higher rank of King of Ireland. But Roderick well understood that

in his days, with a new and most formidable enemy established in the

old Danish strongholds, with the Constitution torn to shreds by the war

of succession, his only real power was over his patrimony; he refused,

therefore, the unreasonable request, and thus converted some of his own

children into enemies. Nor were there wanting Princes, themselves

fathers, who abetted this household treason, as the Kings of France and

Scotland had done among the sons of Henry II. Soon after the battle of

Thurles, the recovery of Limerick, and the taking of Kilkenny, Donald

More O'Brien, lending himself to this odious intrigue, was overpowered

and deposed by Roderick, but the year next succeeding having made

submission he was restored by the same hand which had cast him down. It

was, therefore, while harassed by the open rebellion of his eldest son,

and while Henry was rejoicing in his late success, that Roderick

despatched to the Court of Windsor Catholicus, Archbishop of Tuam,

Concors, Abbot of St. Brendan's, and Laurence, Archbishop of Dublin,

whose is styled in these proceedings, "Chancellor of the Irish King,"

to negotiate an alliance with Henry, which would leave him free to

combat against his domestic enemies. An extraordinary treaty, agreed

upon at Windsor, about the feast of Michaelmas, 1175, recognized

Roderick's sovereignty over Ireland, the cantreds and cities actually

possessed by the subjects of Henry excepted; it subinfeudated his

authority to that of Henry, after the manner lately adopted towards

William, King of Scotland; the payment of a merchantable hide of every

tenth hide of cattle was agreed upon as an annual tribute, while the

minor chiefs were to acknowledge their dependence by annual presents of

hawks and hounds. This treaty, which proceeded on the wild assumption

that the feudal system was of force among the free clans of Erin, was

probably the basis of Henry's grant of the Lordship of Ireland to his

son, John _Lackland_, a few years later; it was solemnly approved by a

special Council, or Parliament, and signed by the representatives of

both parties.

Among the signers we find the name of the Archbishop of Dublin, who,

while in England, narrowly escaped martyrdom from the hands of a

maniac, while celebrating Mass at the tomb of St. Thomas. Four years

afterwards, this celebrated ecclesiastic attended at Rome, with

Catholicus of Tuam, and the Prelates of Lismore, Limerick, Waterford,

and Killaloe, the third general council of Lateran, where they were

received with all honour by Pope Alexander III. From Rome he returned

with legantine powers which he used with great energy during the year

1180. In the autumn of that year, he was entrusted with the delivery to

Henry II. of the son of Roderick O'Conor, as a pledge for the

fulfilment of the treaty of Windsor, and with other diplomatic

functions. On reaching England, he found the king had gone to France,

and following him thither, he was seized with illness as he approached

the Monastery of Eu, and with a prophetic foretaste of death, he

exclaimed as he came in sight of the towers of the Convent, "Here shall

I make my resting-place." The Abbot Osbert and the monks of the Order

of St. Victor received him tenderly, and watched his couch for the few

days he yet lingered. Anxious to fulfil his mission, he despatched

David, tutor of the son of Roderick, with messages to Henry, and

awaited his return with anxiety. David brought him a satisfactory

response from the English King, and the last anxiety only remained. In

death, as in life, his thoughts were with his country. "Ah, foolish and

insensible people!" he exclaimed in his latest hours, "what will become

of you? Who will relieve your miseries? Who will heal you?" When

recommended to make his last will, he answered, with apostolic

simplicity—"God knows, out of all my revenues, I have not a single coin

to bequeath." And thus on the 11th day of November, 1180, in the 48th

year of his age, under the shelter of a Norman roof, surrounded by

Norman mourners, the Gaelic statesman-saint departed out of this life,

bequeathing—one more canonized memory to Ireland and to Rome.

The prospects of his native land were, at that moment, of a cast which

might well disturb the death-bed of the sainted Laurence. Fitz-Aldelm,

advanced to the command at Dublin in 1177, had shown no great capacity

for following up the conquest. But there was one among his followers

who, unaffected by his sluggish example, and undeterred by his jealous

interference, resolved to push the outposts of his race into the heart

of Ulster. This was John de Courcy, Baron of Stoke Courcy, in

Somersetshire, a cavalier of fabulous physical strength, romantic

courage, and royal descent. When he declared his settled purpose to be

the invasion of Ulster, he found many spirits as discontented with

Fitz-Aldelm's inaction as himself ready to follow his banner. His

inseparable brother-in-arms, Sir Almaric of St. Laurence, his relative,

Jourdain de Courcy, Sir Robert de la Poer, Sir Geoffrey and Walter de

Marisco, and other Knights to the number of twenty, and five hundred

men at arms, marched with him out of Dublin. Hardly had they got beyond

sight of the city, when they were attacked by a native force, near

Howth, where Saint Laurence laid in victory the foundation of that

title still possessed by his posterity. On the fifth day, they came by

surprise upon the famous ecclesiastical city of Downpatrick, one of the

first objects of their adventure. An ancient prophecy had foretold that

the place would be taken by a chief with birds upon his shield, the

bearings of de Courcy, mounted on a white horse, which de Courcy

happened to ride. Thus the terrors of superstition were added to the

terrors of surprise, and the town being entirely open, the Normans had

only to dash into the midst of its inhabitants. But the free clansmen

of Ulidia, though surprised, were not intimidated. Under their lord

Rory, son of Dunlevy, they rallied to expel the invader. Cardinal

Vivian, the Papal Legate, who had just arrived from Man and Scotland,

on the neighbouring coast, proffered his mediation, and besought de

Courcy to withdraw from Down. His advice was peremptorily rejected, and

then he exhorted the Ulidians to fight bravely for their rights. Five

several battles are enumerated as being fought, in this and the

following year, between de Courcy and the men of Down, Louth, and

Antrim, sometimes with success, at others without it, always with heavy

loss and obstinate resistance.

The barony of Lecale, in which Downpatrick stands, is almost a

peninsula, and the barony of the Ardes on the opposite shore of

Strangford Lough is nearly insulated by Belfast Lough, the Channel, and

the tides of Strangford. With the active co-operation from the sea of

Godred, King of Man, (whose daughter Africa he had married), de

Courcy's hold on that coast became an exceedingly strong one. A ditch

and a few towers would as effectually enclose Lecale and the Ardes from

any landward attack, as if they were a couple of well-walled cities.

Hence, long after "the Pale" ceased to extend beyond the Boyne, and

while the mountain passes from Meath into Ulster were all in native

hands, these two baronies continued to be succoured and strengthened by

sea, and retained as English possessions. Reinforced from Dublin and

from Man after their first success, de Courcy's companions stuck to

their castle-building about the shores of Strangford Lough, while he

himself made incursions into the interior, by land or by sea, fighting

a brisk succession of engagements at Newry, in Antrim, at Coleraine,

and on the eastern shore of Lough Foyle.

At the time these operations were going forward in Ulster, Milo de

Cogan quitted Dublin on a somewhat similar expedition. We have already

said that Murray, eldest son of Roderick, had claimed, according to

ancient usage, the O'Conor patrimony, his father being Ard-Righ; and

had his claim refused. He now entered into a secret engagement with de

Cogan, whose force is stated by _Giraldus_ at 500 men-at-arms, and by

the Irish annalists as "a great army." With the smaller force he left

Dublin, but marching through Meath, was joined at Trim by men from the

garrisons de Lacy had planted in East-Meath. So accompanied, de Cogan

advanced on Roscommon, where he was received by the son of Roderick

during the absence of the Ard-Righ on a visitation among the glens of

Connemara. After three days spent in Roscommon, these allies marched

across the plain of Connaught, directed their course on Tuam, burning

as they went Elphin, Roskeen, and many other churches. The western

clansmen everywhere fell back before them, driving off their herds and

destroying whatever they could not remove. At Tuam they found

themselves in the midst of a solitude without food or forage, with an

eager enemy swarming from the west and the south to surround them. They

at once decided to retreat, and no time was to be lost, as the Kern

were already at their heels. From Tuam to Athleague, and from Athleague

to their castles in East-Meath, fled the remnant of de Cogan's

inglorious expedition. Murray O'Conor being taken prisoner by his own

kinsmen, his eyes were plucked out as the punishment of his treason,

and Conor Moinmoy, the joint-victor with Donald O'Brien over Strongbow

at Thurles, became the _Roydamna_ or successor of his father.

But fresh dissensions soon broke out between the sons and grandsons of

Roderick, and the sons of his brother Thurlogh, in one of whose deadly

conflicts sixteen Princes of the Sil-Murray fell. Both sides looked

beyond Connaught for help; one drew friends from the northern O'Neills,

another relied on the aid of O'Brien. Conor Moinmoy, in the year 1186,

according to most Irish accounts, banished his father into Munster, but

at the intercession of the Sil-Murray, his own clan allowed him again

to return, and assigned him a single cantred of land for his

subsistence. From this date we may count the unhappy Roderick's

retirement from the world.

Near the junction of Lough Corrib with Lough Mask, on the boundary line

between Mayo and Galway, stands the ruins of the once populous

monastery and village of Cong. The first Christian kings of Connaught

had founded the monastery, or enabled St. Fechin to do so by their

generous donations. The father of Roderick had enriched its shrine by

the gift of a particle of the true Cross, reverently enshrined in a

reliquary, the workmanship of which still excites the admiration of the

antiquaries. Here Roderick retired in the 70th year of his age, and for

twelve years thereafter—until the 29th day of November, 1198, here he

wept and prayed, and withered away. Dead to the world, as the world to

him, the opening of a new grave in the royal corner at Clonmacnoise was

the last incident connected with his name, which reminded Connaught

that it had lost its once prosperous Prince, and Ireland, that she had

seen her last Ard-Righ, according to the ancient Milesian Constitution.

Powerful Princes of his own and other houses the land was destined to

know for many generations, before its sovereignty was merged in that of

England, but none fully entitled to claim the high-sounding, but often

fallacious title, of Monarch of all Ireland.

The public character of Roderick O'Conor has been hardly dealt with by

most modern writers. He was not, like his father, like Murkertach

O'Brien, Malachy II., Brian, Murkertach of the leathern cloaks, or

Malachy I., eminent as a lawgiver, a soldier, or a popular leader. He

does not appear to have inspired love, or awe, or reverence, into those

of his own household and patrimony, not to speak of his distant

cotemporaries. He was probably a man of secondary qualities, engulfed

in a crisis of the first importance. But that he is fairly chargeable

with the success of the invaders—or that there was any very

overwhelming success to be charged up to the time of his enforced

retirement from the world—we have failed to discover. From Dermid's

return until his retreat to Cong, seventeen years had passed away.

Seventeen campaigns, more or less energetic and systematic, the Normans

had fought. Munster was still in 1185—when John Lackland made his

memorable exit and entrance on the scene—almost wholly in the hands of

the ancient clans. Connaught was as yet without a single Norman

garrison. Hugh de Lacy returning to the government of Dublin, in 1179,

on Fitz-Aldelm's recall, was more than half _Hibernicized_ by marriage

with one of Roderick's daughters, and the Norman tide stood still in

Meath. Several strong fortresses were indeed erected in Desmond and

Leinster, by John Lackland and by de Courcy, in his newly won northern

territory. Ardfinan, Lismore, Leighlin, Carlow, Castledermot, Leix,

Delvin, Kilkay, Maynooth and Trim, were fortified; but considering who

the Anglo-Normans were, and what they had done elsewhere, even these

very considerable successes may be correctly accounted for without

overcharging the memory of Roderick with folly and incapacity. That he

was personally brave has not been questioned. That he was politic—or at

least capable of conceiving the politic views of such a statesman as

St. Laurence O'Toole, we may infer from the rank of Chancellor which he

conferred, and the other negotiations which he entrusted to that great

man. That he maintained his self-respect as a sovereign, both in

abstaining from visiting Henry II. under pretence of hospitality at

Dublin, and throughout all his difficult diplomacy with the Normans, we

are free to conclude. With the Normans for foes—with a decayed and

obsolete national constitution to patch up—with nominal subordinates

more powerful than himself—with rebellion staring him in the face out

of the eyes of his own children—Roderick O'Conor had no ordinary part

to play in history. The fierce family pride of our fathers and the

vices of their political system are to be deplored and avoided; let us

not make the last of their national kings the scape-goat for all his

cotemporaries and all his predecessors.

CHAPTER VII.

ASSASSINATION OF HUGH DE LACY—JOHN "LACKLAND" IN IRELAND—VARIOUS

EXPEDITIONS OF JOHN DE COURCY—DEATH OF CONOR MOINMOY, AND RISE OF

CATHAL, "THE RED-HANDED" O'CONOR—CLOSE OF THE CAREER OF DE COURCY AND

DE BURGH.

Hugh de Lacy, restored to the supreme authority on the recall of

Fitz-Aldelm in 1179, began to conceive hopes, as Strongbow had done, of

carving out for himself a new kingdom. After the assassination of

O'Ruarc already related, he assumed without further parley the titles

of Lord of Meath and Breffni. To these titles, he added that of Oriel

or Louth, but his real strength lay in Meath, where his power was

enhanced by a politic second marriage with Rose, daughter of O'Conor.

Among the Irish he now began to be known as King of the foreigners, and

some such assumption of royal authority caused his recall for a few

months in the year 1180, and his substitution by de Courcy and Philip

de Broasa, in 1184. But his great qualities caused his restoration a

third time to the rank of Justiciary for Henry, or Deputy for John,

whose title of "Lord of Ireland" was bestowed by his father, at a

Parliament held at Oxford, in 1177.

This founder of the Irish de Lacys is described by _Giraldus_, who knew

him personally, as a man of Gallic sobriety, ambitious, avaricious, and

lustful, of small stature, and deformed shape, with repulsive features,

and dark, deep-set eyes. By the Irish of the midland districts he was

bitterly detested as a sacrilegious spoiler of their churches and

monasteries, and the most powerful among their invaders. The murder of

O'Ruarc, whose title of Breffni he had usurped, was attributed to a

deep-laid design; he certainly shared the odium with the advantage that

ensued from it. Nor was his own end unlike that of his rival. Among

other sites for castles, he had chosen the foundations of the ancient

and much venerated monastery of Durrow, planted by Columbcille, seven

centuries before, in the midst of the fertile region watered by the

Brosna. This act of profanity was fated to be his last, for, while

personally superintending the work, O'Meyey, a young man of good birth,

and foster-brother to a neighbouring chief of Teffia, known as

_Sionnach_, or "the Fox," struck off his head with a single blow of his

axe and escaped into the neighbouring forest of Kilclare during the

confusion which ensued. De Lacy left issue—two sons, Hugh and Walter,

by his first wife, and a third, William _Gorm_, by his second—of whom,

and of their posterity, we shall have many occasions to make mention.

In one of the intervals of de Lacy's disfavour, Prince John, surnamed

_Sans-terre_, or "lack-land," was sent over by his father to strengthen

the English interest in Ireland. He arrived in Waterford, accompanied

by a fleet of sixty ships, on the last of March, 1185, and remained in

the country till the following November. If anything could excuse the

levity, folly and misconduct of the Prince on this expedition, it would

be his youth;—he was then only eighteen. But Henry had taken every

precaution to ensure success to his favourite son. He was preceded into

Ireland by Archbishop Cuming, the English successor of St. Laurence;

the learned Glanville was his legal adviser; John de Courcy was his

lieutenant, and the eloquent, but passionate and partial _Giraldus

Cambrensis_, his chaplain and tutor. He had, however, other companions

more congenial to his age and temper, young noblemen as froward and as

extravagant as himself; yet, as he surpassed them all in birth and

rank, so he did in wickedness and cruelty of disposition. For age he

had no reverence, for virtue no esteem, neither truth towards man, nor

decency towards woman. On his arrival at Waterford, the new Archbishop

of Dublin, John de Courcy, and the principal Norman nobles, hastened to

receive him. With them came also certain Leinster chiefs, desiring to

live at peace with the new Galls. When, according to the custom of the

country, the chiefs advanced to give John the kiss of peace, their

venerable age was made a mockery by the young Prince, who met their

proffered salutations by plucking at their beards. This appears to have

been as deadly an insult to the Irish as it is to the Asiatics, and the

deeply offended guests instantly quitted Waterford. Other follies and

excesses rapidly transpired, and the native nobles began to discover

that a royal army encumbered, rather than led by such a Prince, was not

likely to prove itself invincible. In an idle parade from the Suir to

the Liffey, from the Liffey to the Boyne, and in issuing orders for the

erection of castles, (some of which are still correctly and others

erroneously called King John's Castles,) the campaign months of the

year were wasted by the King of England's son. One of these castles, to

which most importance was attached, Ardfinan on the Suir, was no sooner

built than taken by Donald More O'Brien, on midsummer day, when four

knights and its other defenders were slain. Another was rising at

Lismore, on the Blackwater, under the guardianship of Robert Barry, one

of the brood of Nesta, when it was attacked and Barry slain. Other

knights and castellans were equally unfortunate; Raymond Fitz-Hugh fell

at Leighlin, another Raymond in Idrone, and Roger le Poer in Ossory. In

Desmond, Cormac McCarthy besieged Theobald, ancestor of the Butlers in

Cork, but this brave Prince—the worthy compeer of O'Brien—was cut off

"in a parlee by them of Cork." The Clan-Colman, or O'Melaghlins, had

risen in West-Meath to reclaim their own, when Henry, not an hour too

soon, recalled his reckless son, and entrusted, for the last time, the

command to Hugh de Lacy, whose fate has been already related.

In the fluctuations of the power of the invaders after the death of de

Lacy, and during the next reign in England, one steadfast name appears

foremost among the adventurers—that of the gallant giant, de Courcy,

the conqueror of the Ards of Down. Not only in prowess, but also in

piety, he was the model of all the knighthood of his time. We are told

that he always carried about his person a copy of the prophecies

attributed to Columbcille, and when, in the year 1186, the relics of

the three great saints, whose dust sanctifies Downpatrick, were

supposed to be discovered by the Bishop of Down in a dream, he caused

them to be translated to the altar-side with all suitable reverence.

Yet all his devotions and pilgrimages did not prevent him from pushing

on the work of conquest whenever occasion offered. His plantation in

Down had time to take root from the unexpected death of Donald, Prince

of Aileach, in an encounter with the garrison of one of the new

castles, near Newry. (A.D. 1188.) The same year he took up the

enterprise against Connaught, in which Milo de Cogan had so signally

failed, and from which even de Lacy had, for reasons of his own,

refrained. The feuds of the O'Conor family were again the pretext and

the ground of hope with the invaders, but Donald More O'Brien,

victorious on the Suir and the Shannon, carried his strong succours to

Conor _Moinmoy_ on the banks of the Suca, near the present Ballinasloe,

and both powers combined marched against de Courcy. Unprepared for this

junction, the Norman retreated towards Sligo, and had reached

Ballysadare, when Flaherty, Lord of Tyrconnell (Donegal), came against

them from the opposite point, and thus placed between two fires, they

were forced to fly through the rugged passes of the Curlieu mountains,

skirmishing as they went. The only incidents which signalized this

campaign on their side was the burning of Ballysadare and the plunder

of Armagh; to the Irish it was creditable for the combinations it

occasioned. It is cheering in the annals of those desultory wars to

find a national advantage gained by the joint action of a Munster, a

Connaught, and an Ulster force.

The promise of national unity held out by the alliance of O'Brien and

O'Conor, in the years 1188-'89, had been followed up by the adhesion of

the lords of Breffni, Ulidia, or Down, the chiefs of the Clan-Colman,

and McCarthy, Prince of Desmond. But the assassination of Conor

Moinmoy, by the partizans of his cousins, extinguished the hopes of the

country, and the peace of his own province. The old family feuds broke

out with new fury. In vain the aged Roderick emerged from his convent,

and sought with feeble hand to curb the fiery passions of his tribe; in

vain the Archbishops of Armagh and of Tuam interposed their spiritual

authority, A series of fratricidal contests, for which history has no

memory and no heart, were fought out between the warring branches of

the family during the last ten years of the century, until by virtue of

the strong-arm, Cathal _Crovdearg_, son of Turlogh More, and younger

brother of Roderick, assumed the sovereignty of Connaught about the

year 1200.

In the twelve years which intervened between the death of _Moinmoy_ and

the establishment of the power of Cathal _Crovdearg_ O'Conor, the

Normans had repeated opportunities for intervention in the affairs of

Connaught. William de Burgh, a powerful Baron of the family of

Fitz-Aldelm, the former Lord Justice, sided with the opponents of

Cathal, while de Courcy, and subsequently the younger de Lacy, fought

on his side. Once at least these restless Barons changed allies, and

fought as desperately against their former candidate for the succession

as they had before fought for him. In one of these engagements, the

date assigned to which is the year 1190, Sir Armoric St. Laurence,

founder of the Howth family, at the head of a numerous division, is

said to have been cut off with all his troop. But the fortune of war

frequently shifted during the contest. In the year 1199, Cathal

_Crovdearg_, with his allies de Lacy and de Courcy, was utterly

defeated at Kilmacduagh, in the present county of Galway, and were it

not that the rival O'Conor was sorely defeated, and trodden to death in

the route which ensued, three years later, Connaught might never have

known the vigorous administration of her "red-handed" hero.

The early career of this able and now triumphant Prince, as preserved

to us by history and tradition, is full of romantic incidents. He is

said to have been born out of wedlock, and that his mother, while

pregnant of him, was subject to all the cruel persecutions and magical

torments the jealous wife of his father could invent. No sooner was he

born than he became an object of hatred to the Queen, so that mother

and child, after being concealed for three years in the sanctuaries of

Connaught, had to fly for their lives into Leinster. In this exile,

though early informed of his origin, he was brought up among the

labourers in the field, and was actually engaged, sickle in hand,

cutting the harvest, when a travelling _Bollscaire_, or newsman from

the west, related the events which enabled him to return to his native

province. "Farewell sickle," he exclaimed, casting it from him—"now for

the sword." Hence "Cathal's farewell to the rye" was long a proverbial

expression for any sudden change of purpose or of condition. Fortune

seems to have favoured him in most of his undertakings. In a storm upon

Lough Ree, when a whole fleet foundered and its warrior crew perished,

he was one of seven who were saved. Though in some of his early battles

unsuccessful, he always recovered his ground, kept up his alliances,

and returned to the contest. After the death of the celebrated Donald

More O'Brien (A.D. 1194), he may certainly be considered the first

soldier and first diplomatist among the Irish. Nor was his lot cast on

more favoured days, nor was he pitted against less able men than those

with whom the brave King of Munster—the stoutest defender of his

fatherland—had so honourably striven. Fortunate it was for the renown

of the Gael, that as one star of the race set over Thomond, another of

equal brilliancy rose to guide them in the west.

With the end of the century, the career of Cathal's allies, de Courcy

and de Burgh, may be almost said to have ended. The obituary of the

latter bears the date of 1204. He had obtained large grants from King

John of lands in Connaught—if he could conquer them—which his vigorous

descendants, the Burkes of Clanrickarde, did their best to accomplish.

De Courcy, warring with the sons of de Lacy, and seeking refuge among

the clansmen of Tyrone, disappears from the stage of Irish affairs. He

is said to have passed on to England, and ended his days in prison, a

victim to the caprice or jealousy of King John. Many tales are told of

his matchless intrepidity. His indirect descendants, the Barons of

Kinsale, claim the right to wear their hats before the King in

consequence of one of these legends, which represents him as the

champion Knight of England, taken from, a dungeon to uphold her honour

against a French challenger. Other tales as ill authenticated are

founded on his career, which, however, in its literal truth, is

unexcelled for hardihood and adventure, except, perhaps, by the

cotemporaneous story of the lion-hearted Richard, whom he closely

resembled. The title of Earl of Ulster, created for de Courcy in 1181,

was transferred in 1205, by royal patent, to Walter de Lacy, whose only

daughter Maud brought it in the year 1264 to Walter de Burgh, lord of

Connaught, from whose fourth female descendant it passed in 1354, by

her marriage with Lionel, Duke of Clarence, into the royal family of

England.

CHAPTER VIII.

EVENTS OF THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY—THE NORMANS IN CONNAUGHT.

Ireland, during the first three quarters of the thirteenth century,

produced fewer important events, and fewer great men, than in the

thirty last years of the century preceding. From the side of England,

she was subjected to no imminent danger in all that interval. The reign

of John ending in 1216, and that of Henry III. extending till 1271,

were fully occupied with the insurrections of the Barons, with French,

Scotch, and Welsh wars, family feuds, the rise and fall of royal

favourites, and all those other incidents which naturally, befall in a

state of society where the King is weak, the aristocracy strong and

insolent, and the commons disunited and despised. During this period

the fusion of Norman, Saxon, and Briton went slowly on, and the next

age saw for the first time a population which could be properly called

English. "Do you take me for an Englishman?" was the last expression of

Norman arrogance in the reign of King John; but the close of the reign

of Henry III., through the action of commercial and political causes,

saw a very different state of feeling growing up between the

descendants of the races which contended for mastery under Harold and

William. The strongly marked Norman characteristics lingered in Ireland

half a century later, for it is usually the case that traits of caste

survive longest in colonies and remote provinces. In Richard de Burgo,

commonly called the Red Earl of Ulster, all the genius and the vices of

the race of Rollo blazed out over Ireland for the last time, and with

terrible effect.

During the first three quarters of the century, our history, like that

of England, is the history of a few great houses; nation there is,

strictly speaking, none. It will be necessary, therefore, to group

together the acts of two or three generations of men of the same name,

as the only method of finding our way through the shifting scenes of

this stormy period.

The power of the great Connaught family of O'Conor, so terribly shaken

by the fratricidal wars and unnatural alliances of the sons and

grandsons of Roderick, was in great part restored by the ability and

energy of Cathal _Crovdearg_. In his early struggles for power he was

greatly assisted by the anarchy which reigned among the English nobles.

Mayler Fitz-Henry, the last of Strongbow's companions, who rose to such

eminence, being Justiciary in the first six years of the century, was

aided by O'Conor to besiege William de Burgo in Limerick, and to

cripple the power of the de Lacys in Meath. In the year 1207, John

Gray, Bishop of Norwich, was sent over, as more likely to be impartial

than any ruler personally interested in the old quarrels, but during

his first term of office, the interdict with which Innocent III. had

smitten England, hung like an Egyptian darkness over the Anglo-Norman

power in Ireland. The native Irish, however, were exempt from its

enervating effects, and Cathal O'Conor, by the time King John came over

in person—in the year 1210—to endeavour to retrieve the English

interest, had warred down all his enemies, and was of power sufficient

to treat with the English sovereign as independently as Roderick had

done with Henry II. thirty-five years before. He personally conferred

with John at Dublin, as the O'Neil and other native Princes did; he

procured from the English King the condemnation of John de Burgo, who

had maintained his father's claims on a portion of Connaught, and he

was formally recognised, according to the approved forms of Norman

diplomacy, as seized of the whole of Connaught, in his own right.

The visit of King John, which lasted from the 20th of June till the

25th of August, was mainly directed to the reduction of those

intractable Anglo-Irish Barons whom Fitz-Henry and Gray had proved

themselves unable to cope with. Of these the de Lacys of Meath were the

most obnoxious. They not only assumed an independent state, but had

sheltered de Braos, Lord of Brecknock, one of the recusant Barons of

Wales, and refused to surrender him on the royal summons. To assert his

authority, and to strike terror into the nobles of other possessions,

John crossed the channel with a prodigious fleet—in the Irish annals

said to consist of 700 sail. He landed at Crook, reached Dublin, and

prepared at once to subdue the Lacys. With his own army, and the

co-operation of Cathal O'Conor, he drove out Walter de Lacy, Lord of

Meath, who fled to his brother, Hugh de Lacy, since de Courcy's

disgrace, Earl of Ulster. From Meath into Louth John pursued the

brothers, crossing the lough at Carlingford with his ships, which must

have coasted in his company. From Carlingford they retreated, and he

pursued to Carrickfergus, and from that fortress, unable to resist a

royal fleet and navy, they fled into Man or Scotland, and thence

escaped in disguise into France. With their guest de Braos, they

wrought as gardeners in the grounds of the Abbey of Saint Taurin

Evreux, until the Abbot, having discovered by their manners the key to

their real rank, negotiated successfully with John for their

restoration to their estates. Walter agreed to pay a fine of 2,500

marks for his lordship in Meath, and Hugh 4,000 marks for his

possessions in Ulster. Of de Braos we have no particulars; his

high-spirited wife and children were thought to have been starved to

death by order of the unforgiving tyrant in one of his castles. The de

Lacys, on their restoration, were accompanied to Ireland by a nephew of

the Abbot of St. Taurin, on whom they conferred an estate and the

honour of knighthood.

The only other acts of John's sojourn in Ireland was his treaty with

O'Conor, already mentioned, and the mapping out, on paper, of the

intended counties of Oriel (or Louth), Meath, Dublin, Kildare,

Kilkenny, Katherlough (or Carlow), Wexford, Waterford, Cork, Kerry,

Limerick, and Tipperary, as the only districts in which those he

claimed as his subjects had any possessions. He again installed the

Bishop of Norwich as his justiciary or lieutenant, who, three years,

later, was succeeded by Henry de Londres, the next Archbishop of

Dublin, and he again (A.D. 1215), by Geoffrey de Marisco, the last of

John's deputies. In the year 1216, Henry III., an infant ten years of

age, succeeded to the English throne, and the next dozen years the

history of the two islands is slightly connected, except by the

fortunes of the family of de Burgh, whose head, Hubert de Burgh, the

Chief Justiciary, from the accession of the new King, until the first

third of the century had closed, was in reality the Sovereign of

England. Among his other titles he held that of Lord of Connaught,

which he conveyed to his relative, Richard de Burgo, the son or

grandson of William Fitz-Aldelm de Burgo, about the year 1225. And this

brings us to relate how the house of Clanrickarde rose upon the flank

of the house of O'Conor, and after holding an almost equal front for

two generations, finally overshadowed its more ancient rival.

While Cathal _Crovdearg_ lived, the O'Conor's held their own, and

rather more than their own, by policy or arms. Not only did his own

power suffer no diminution, but he more than once assisted the Dalgais

and the Eugenians to expel their invaders from North and South Munster,

and to uphold their ancient rights and laws. During the last years of

John's reign that King and his Barons were mutually too busy to set

aside the arrangement entered into in 1210. In the first years of Henry

it was also left undisturbed by the English court. In 1221 we read that

the de Lacys, remembering, no doubt, the part he had played in their

expulsion, endeavoured to fortify Athleague against him, but the

veteran King, crossing the Shannon farther northward, took them in the

rear, compelled them to make peace, and broke down their Castle. This

was almost the last of his victories. In the year 1213 we read in the

Annals of "an awful and heavy shower which fell over Connaught," and

was held to presage the death of its heroic King. Feeling his hour had

come, this Prince, to whom are justly attributed the rare union of

virtues, ardour of mind, chastity of body, meekness in prosperity,

fortitude under defeat, prudence in civil business, undaunted bravery

in battle, and a piety of life beyond all his cotemporaries—feeling the

near approach of death, retired to the Abbey of Knockmoy, which he had

founded and endowed, and there expired in the Franciscan habit, at an

age which must have bordered on fourscore. He was succeeded by his son,

Hugh O'Conor, "the hostages of Connaught being in his house" at the

time of his illustrious father's death.

No sooner was Cathal _Crovdearg_ deceased than Hubert de Burgo procured

the grants of the whole Province, reserving only five cantreds about

Athlone for a royal garrison to be made to Richard de Burgo, his

nephew. Richard had married Hodierna, granddaughter to Cathal, and

thus, like all the Normans, though totally against the Irish custom,

claimed a part of Connaught in right of his wife. But in the sons of

Cathal he found his equal both in policy and arms, and with the fall of

his uncle at the English court (about the year 1233), Feidlim O'Conor,

the successor of Hugh, taking advantage of the event, made interest at

the Court of Henry III. sufficient to have his overgrown neighbour

stripped of some of his strongholds by royal order. The King was so

impressed with O'Conor's representations that he wrote peremptorily to

Maurice Fitzgerald, second Lord Offally, then his deputy, "to root out

that barren tree planted in Offally by Hubert de Burgh, in the madness

of his power, and not to suffer it to shoot forth." Five years later,

Feidlim, in return, carried some of his force, in conjunction with the

deputy, to Henry's aid in Wales, though, as their arrival was somewhat

tardy, Fitzgerald was soon after dismissed on that account.

Richard de Burgo died in attendance on King Henry in France (A.D.

1243), and was succeeded by his son, Walter de Burgo, who continued,

with varying fortunes, the contest for Connaught with Feidlim, until

the death of the latter, in the Black Abbey of Roscommon, in the year

1265. Hugh O'Conor, the son and successor of Feidlim, continued the

intrepid guardian of his house and province during the nine years he

survived his father. In the year 1254, by marriage with the daughter of

de Lacy, Earl of Ulster, that title had passed into the family of de

Burgh, bringing with it, for the time, much substantial, though

distant, strength. It was considered only a secondary title, and as the

eldest son of the first de Lacy remained Lord of Meath, while the

younger took de Courcy's forfeited title of Ulster, so, in the next

generation, did the sons of this Walter de Burgh, until death and time

reunited both titles in the same person. Walter de Burgh died in the

year 1271, in the Castle of Galway; his great rival, Feidlim O'Conor,

in 1274, was buried in the Abbey of Boyle. The former is styled King of

the English of Connaught by the Irish Annalists, who also speak of

Feidlim as "the most triumphant and the most feared (by the invaders)

of any King that had been in Connaught before his time." The relative

position of the Irish and English in that Province, towards the end of

this century, may be judged by the fact, that of the Anglo-Normans

summoned by Edward I. to join him in Scotland in 1299, but two, Richard

de Burgo and Piers de Bermingham, Baron of Athenry, had then

possessions in Connaught. There were Norman Castles at Athlone, at

Athenry, at Galway, and perhaps at other points; but the natives still

swayed supreme over the plains of Rathcrogan, the plains of Boyle, the

forests and lakes of Roscommon, and the whole of _Iar_, or West

Connaught, from Lough Corrib to the ocean, with the very important

exception of the castle and port of Galway. A mightier de Burgo than

any that had yet appeared was to see in his house, in the year 1286,

"the hostages of all Connaught;" but his life and death form a distinct

epoch in our story and must be treated separately.

CHAPTER IX.

EVENTS OF THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY—THE NORMANS IN MUNSTER AND LEINSTER.

We have already told the tragic fate of the two adventurers—Fitzstephen

and de Cogan—between whom the whole of Desmond was first partitioned by

Henry II. But there were not wanting other claimants, either by

original grant from the crown, by intermarriage with Irish, or

Norman-Irish heiresses, or new-comers, favourites of John or of Henry

III., or of their Ministers, enriched at the expense of the native

population. Thomas, third son of Maurice Fitzgerald, claimed partly

through his uncle Fitzstephen, and partly through his marriage with the

daughter of another early adventurer, Sir William Morrie, whose vast

estates on which his descendants were afterwards known as Earls of

Desmond, the White Knight, the Knight of Glyn, and the Knight of Kerry.

Robert de Carew and Patrick de Courcy claimed as heirs general to de

Cogan. The de Mariscoes, de Barris, and le Poers, were not extinct; and

finally Edward I., soon after his accession, granted the whole land of

Thomond to Thomas de Clare, son of the Earl of Gloucester, and

son-in-law of Maurice, third Baron of Offally. A contest very similar

to that which was waged in Connaught between the O'Conors and de Burghs

was consequently going on in Munster at the same time, between the old

inhabitants and the new claimants, of all the three classes just

indicated.

The principality of Desmond, containing angles of Waterford and

Tipperary, with all Cork and Kerry, seemed at the beginning of the

thirteenth century in greatest danger of conquest. The O'Callaghans,

Lords of Cinel-Aedha, in the south of Cork, were driven into the

mountains of Duhallow, where they rallied and held their ground for

four centuries; the O'Sullivans, originally settled along the Suir,

about Clonmel, were forced towards the mountain seacoast of Cork and

Kerry, where they acquired new vigour in the less fertile soil of Beare

and Bantry. The native families of the Desies, from their proximity to

the port of Waterford, were harassed and overrun, and the ports of

Dungarvan, Youghal, and Cork, being also taken and garrisoned by the

founder of the earldom of Desmond, easy entrance and egress by sea

could always be obtained for his allies, auxiliaries, and supplies. It

was when these dangers were darkening and menacing on every side that

the family of McCarthy, under a succession of able and vigorous chiefs,

proved themselves worthy of the headship of the Eugenian race. Cormac

McCarthy, who had expelled the first garrison from Waterford, ere he

fell in a parley before Cork, had defeated the first enterprises of

Fitzstephen and de Cogan; he left a worthy son in Donald na Curra, who,

uniting his own co-relations, and acting in conjunction with O'Brien

and O'Conor, retarded by his many exploits the progress of the invasion

in Munster. He recovered Cork and razed King John's castle at

Knockgraffon on the Suir. He left two surviving sons, of whom the

eldest, Donald _Gott_, or the Stammerer, took the title of _More_, or

Great, and his posterity remained princes of Desmond, until that title

merged in the earldom of Glencare (A.D. 1565); the other, Cormac, after

taking his brother prisoner compelled him to acknowledge him as lord of

the four baronies of Carbury. From this Cormac the family of McCarthy

Reagh descended, and to them the O'Driscolls, O'Donovans, O'Mahonys,

and other Eugenian houses became tributary. The chief residence of

McCarthy Reagh was long fixed at Dunmanway; his castles were also at

Baltimore, Castlehaven, Lough-Fyne, and in Inis-Sherkin and Clear

Island. The power of McCarthy More extended at its greatest reach from

Tralee in Kerry to Lismore in Waterford. In the year 1229, Dermid

McCarthy had peaceable possession of Cork, and founded the Franciscan

Monastery there. Such was his power, that, according to Hamner and his

authorities, the Geraldines "dare not for twelve years put plough into

the ground in Desmond." At last, another generation rose, and fierce

family feuds broke out between the branches of the family. The Lord of

Carbury now was Fineen, or Florence, the most celebrated man of his

name, and one whose power naturally encroached upon the possession of

the elder house. John, son of Thomas Fitzgerald of Desmond, seized the

occasion to make good the enormous pretension of his family. In the

expedition which he undertook for this purpose, in the year 1260, he

was joined by the Justiciary, William Dene, by Walter de Burgo, Earl of

Ulster, by Walter de Riddlesford, Baron of Bray, by Donnel Roe, a chief

of the hostile house of McCarthy. The Lord of Carbury united under his

standard the chief Eugenian families, not only of the Coast, but even

of McCarthy More's principality, and the battle was fought with great

ferocity at Callan-Glen, near Kenmare, in Kerry. There the

Anglo-Normans received the most complete defeat they had yet

experienced on Irish ground. John Fitz-Thomas, his son Maurice, eight

barons, fifteen knights, and "countless numbers of common soldiers were

slain." The Monastery of Tralee received the dead body of its founder

and his son, while Florence McCarthy, following up his blow, captured

and broke down in swift succession all the English castles in his

neighbourhood, including those of Macroom, Dunnamark, Dunloe, and

Killorglin. In besieging one of these castles, called Ringrone, the

victorious chief, in the full tide of conquest, was cut off, and his

brother, called the _Atheleireach_ (or suspended priest), succeeded to

his possessions. The death of the victor arrested the panic of the

defeat, but Munster saw another generation before her invaders had

shaken off the depression of the battle of Callan-glen.

Before the English interest had received this severe blow in the south,

a series of events had transpired in Leinster, going to show that its

aspiring barons had been seized with the madness which precedes

destruction. William, Earl Marshal and Protector of England during the

minority of Henry III., had married Isabella, the daughter of Strongbow

and granddaughter of Dermid, through whom he assumed the title of Lord

of Leinster. He procured the office of Earl Marshal of

Ireland—originally conferred on the first de Lacy—for his own nephew,

and thus converted the de Lacys into mortal enemies. His son and

successor Richard, having made himself obnoxious, soon after his

accession to that title, to the young King, or to Hubert de Burgh, was

outlawed, and letters were despatched to the Justiciary, Fitzgerald, to

de Burgo, de Lacy, and other Anglo-Irish lords, if he landed in

Ireland, to seize his person, alive or dead, and send it to England.

Strong in his estates and alliances, the young Earl came; while his

enemies employed the wily Geoffrey de Mountmorres to entrap him into a

conference, in order to his destruction. The meeting was appointed for

the first day of April, 1234, and while the outlawed Earl was

conversing with those who had invited him, an affray began among their

servants by design, he himself was mortally wounded and carried to one

of Fitzgerald's castles, where he died. He was succeeded in his Irish

honours by three of his brothers, who all died without heirs male.

Anselme, the last Earl Marshal of his family, dying in 1245, left five

co-heiresses, Maud, Joan, Isabel, Sybil, and Eva, between whom the

Irish estates—or such portions of them in actual possession—were

divided. They married respectively the Earls of Norfolk, Suffolk,

Gloucester, Ferrers, and Braos, or Brace, Lord of Brecknock, in whose

families, for another century or more, the secondary titles were

Catherlogh, Kildare, Wexford, Kilkenny, and Leix,—those five districts

being supposed, most absurdly, to have come into the Marshal family,

from the daughter of Strongbow. The false knights and dishonoured

nobles concerned in the murder of Richard Marshal were disappointed of

the prey which had been promised them—the partition of his estates. And

such was the horror which the deed excited in England, that it hastened

the fall of Hubert de Burgh, though Maurice Fitzgerald, of

Offally—ancestor of the Kildare family—having cleared himself of all

complicity in it by oath—was continued as Justiciary for ten years

longer. In the year 1245, for his tardiness in joining the King's army

in Wales, he was succeeded by the false-hearted Geoffrey de

Mountmorres, who held the office till 1247. During the next twenty-five

years, about half as many Justices were placed and displaced, according

to the whim of the successive favourites at the English Court. In 1252,

Prince Edward, afterwards Edward I., was appointed with the title of

Lord Lieutenant, but never came over. Nor is there in the series of

rulers we have numbered, with, perhaps, two exceptions, any who have

rendered their names memorable by great exploits, or lasting

legislation. So little inherent power had the incumbents of the highest

office—unless when, they employed their own proper forces in their

sovereign's name—that we read without surprise, how the bold

mountaineers of Wicklow, at the opening of the century (A.D. 1209)

slaughtered the Bristolians of Dublin, engaged at their archery in

Cullenswood, and at the close of it, how "one of the Kavanaghs, of the

blood of McMurrogh, living at Leinster," "displayed his standards

within sight of the city." Yet this is commonly spoken of as a country

overrun by a few score Norman Knights, in a couple of campaigns!

The maintenance of the conquest was in these years less the work of the

King's Justices than of the great houses. Of these, two principally

profited, by the untimely felling of that great tree which overshadowed

all others in Leinster, the Marshals. The descendants of the eldest son

of Maurice Fitzgerald clung to their Leinster possessions, while their

equally vigorous cousins pushed their fortunes in Desmond. Maurice,

grandson of Maurice, and second Baron of Offally, from the year 1229 to

the year 1246, was three times Lord Justice. "He was a valiant Knight,

a very pleasant man, and inferior to none in the kingdom," by Matthew

Paris's account. He introduced the Franciscan and Dominican orders into

Ireland, built many castles, churches, and abbeys at Youghal, at Sligo,

at Armagh, at Maynooth, and in other places. In the year 1257, he was

wounded in single combat by O'Donnell, Lord of Tyrconnell, near Sligo,

and died soon after in the Franciscan habit in Youghal. He left his

successor so powerful, that in the year 1264, there being a feud

between the Geraldines and de Burghs, he seized the Lord Justice and

the whole de Burgh party at a conference at Castledermot, and carried

them to his own castles of Lea and Dunamase as prisoners. In 1272, on

the accidental death of the Lord Justice Audley, by a fall from his

horse, "the council" elected this the third Baron of Offally in his

stead.

The family of Butler were of slower growth, but of equal tenacity with

the Geraldines. They first seem to have attached themselves to the

Marshals, for whom they were indebted for their first holding in

Kilkenny. At the Conference of Castledermot, Theobald Butler, the

fourth in descent from the founder of the house, was numbered among the

adherents of de Burgh, but a few years later we find him the ally of

the Geraldines in the invasion of Thomond. In the year 1247, the title

of Lord of Carrick had been conferred on him, which in 1315 was

converted into Earl of Carrick, and this again into that of Ormond. The

Butlers of this house, when they had attained their growth of power,

became the hereditary rivals of the Kildare Geraldines, whose earldom

dates from 1316, as that of Ormond does from 1328, and Desmond from

1329.

The name of Maurice, the third Baron of Offally, and uncle of John, the

first Earl of Kildare, draws our attention naturally to the last

enterprise of his life—the attempt to establish his son-in-law, Thomas

de Clare, in possession of Thomond. The de Clares, Earls of Gloucester,

pretended a grant from Henry II. of the whole of Thomond, as their

title to invade that principality; but their real grant was bestowed by

Edward I., in the year 1275. The state of the renowned patrimony of

Brian had long seemed to invite such an aggression. Murtogh, son of

Donnell More, who succeeded his father in 1194, had early signalized

himself by capturing the castles of Birr, Kinnetty, Ballyroane and

Lothra, in Leix, and razing them to the ground. But these castles were

reconstructed in 1213, when the feuds between the rival

O'Briens—Murtogh and Donogh Cairbre—had paralyzed the defence force of

Thomond. It was, doubtless, in the true divide-and-conquer spirit, that

Henry the Third's advisers confirmed to Donogh the lordship of Thomond

in 1220, leaving to his elder brother the comparatively barren title of

King of Munster. Both brothers, by alternately working on their hopes

and fears, were thus for many years kept in a state of dependence on

the foreigner. One gleam of patriotic virtue illumines the annals of

the house of O'Brien, during the first forty years of the century—when,

in the year 1225, Donogh Cairbre assisted Felim O'Conor to resist the

Anglo-Norman army, then pouring over Connaught, in the quarrel of de

Burgh. Conor, the son of Donogh, who succeeded his father in the year

1242, animated by the example of his cotemporaries, made successful war

against the invaders of his Province, more especially in the year 1257,

and the next year; attended with O'Conor the meeting at Beleek, on the

Erne, where Brian O'Neil was acknowledged, by both the Munster and the

Connaught Prince, as _Ard-Righ_. The untimely end of this attempt at

national union will be hereafter related; meantime, we proceed to

mention that, in 1260, the Lord of Thomond defeated the Geraldines and

their Welsh auxiliaries, at Kilbarran, in Clare. He was succeeded the

following season by his son, Brian Roe, in whose time Thomas de Clare

again put to the test of battle his pretensions to the lordship of

Thomond.

It was in the year 1277, that, supported by his father-in-law, the

Kildare Fitzgerald, de Clare marched into Munster, and sought an

interview with the O'Brien. The relation of gossip, accounted sacred

among the Irish, existed between them, but Brien Roe, having placed

himself credulously in the hands of his invaders, was cruelly drawn to

pieces between two horses. All Thomond rose in arms, under Donogh, son

of Brian, to revenge this infamous murder. Near Ennis the Normans met a

terrible defeat, from which de Clare and Fitzgerald fled for safety

into the neighbouring Church of Quin. But Donogh O'Brien burned the

Church over their heads, and forced them to surrender at discretion.

Strange to say they were held to ransom, on conditions, we may suppose,

sufficiently hard. Other days of blood were yet to decide the claims of

the family of de Clare. In 1287, Turlogh, then the O'Brien, defeated an

invasion similar to the last, in which Thomas de Clare was slain,

together with Patrick Fitzmaurice of Kerry, Richard Taafe, Richard

Deriter, Nicholas Teeling, and other knights, and Gerald, the fourth

Baron of Offally, brother-in-law to de Clare, was mortally wounded.

After another interval, Gilbert de Clare, son of Thomas, renewed the

contest, which he bequeathed to his brother Richard. This Richard,

whose name figures more than his brother's in the events of his time,

made a last effort, in the year 1318, to make good the claims of his

family. On the 5th of May, in that year, he fell in battle against

McCarthy and O'Brien, and there fell with him Sir Thomas de Naas, Sir

Henry Capell, Sir James and Sir John Caunton, with four other knights,

and a proportion of men-at-arms. From thenceforth that proud offshoot

of the house of Gloucester, which, at its first settling in Munster,

flourished as bravely as the Geraldines themselves, became extinct in

the land.

Such were the varying fortunes of the two races in Leinster and

Munster, and such the men who rose and fell. We must now turn to the

contest as maintained at the same period in Meath and Ulster.

CHAPTER X.

EVENTS OF THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY—THE NORMANS IN MEATH AND ULSTER.

We may estimate the power of the de Lacy family in the second

generation, from the fact that their expulsion required a royal army

and navy, commanded by the King in person, to come from England.

Although pardoned by John, the brothers took care never to place

themselves in that cowardly tyrant's power, and they observed the same

precaution on the accession of his son, until well assured that he did

not share the antipathy of his father. After their restoration the

Lacys had no rivals among the Norman-Irish except the Marshal family,

and though both houses in half a century became extinct, not so those

they had planted or patronized, or who claimed from them collaterally.

In Meath the Tuites, Cusacks, Flemings, Daltons, Petits, Husseys,

Nangles, Tyrrells, Nugents, Verdons, and Gennevilles, struck deep into

the soil. The co-heiresses, Margaret and Matilda de Lacy, married Lord

Theobald de Verdon and Sir Geoffrey de Genneville, between whom the

estate of their father was divided; both these ladies dying without

male issue, the lordship was, in 1286, claimed by Richard de Burgo,

Earl of Ulster, whose mother was their cousin-germain. But we are

anticipating time.

No portion of the island, if we except, perhaps, Wexford and the shores

of Strangford Lough, was so thoroughly castellated as the ancient Meath

from the sea to the Shannon. Trim, Kells and Durrow were the strongest

holds; there were keeps or castles at Ardbraccan, Slane, Rathwyre,

Navan, Skreen, Santry, Clontarf, and Castleknock—for even these places,

almost within sight of Dublin, were included in de Lacy's original

grant. None of these fortresses could have been more than a few miles

distant from the next, and once within their thick-ribbed walls, the

Norman, Saxon, Cambrian, or Danish serf or tenant might laugh at the

Milesian arrows and battle-axes without. With these fortresses, and

their own half-Irish origin and policy, the de Lacys, father and son,

held Meath for two generations in general subjection. But the

banishment of the brothers in 1210, and the death of Walter of Meath,

presented the family of O'Melaghlin and the whole of the Methian tribes

with opportunities of insurrection not to be neglected. We read,

therefore, under the years 1211, '12 and '13, that Art O'Melaghlin and

Cormac, his son, took the castles of Killclane, Ardinurcher, Athboy,

and Smerhie, killing knights and wardens, and enriching themselves with

booty; that the whole English of Ireland turned out _en masse_ to the

rescue of their brethren in Meath; that the castles of Birr, Durrow,

and Kinnetty were strengthened against Art, and a new one erected at

Clonmacnoise. After ten years of exile, the banished de Lacys returned,

and by alliance with O'Neil, no less than their own prowess, recovered

all their former influence. Cormac, son of Art, left a son and

successor also named Art, who, we read at the year 1264, gave the

English of Meath a great defeat upon the Brosna, where he that was not

slain was drowned. Following the blow, he burned their villages and

broke the castles of the stranger throughout Devlin, Calry, and Brawny,

and replaced in power over them the McCoghlans, Magawleys, and

O'Breens, from whom he took hostages according to ancient custom. Two

years afterwards he repulsed Walter de Burgh at Shannon harbour,

driving his men into the river, where many of them perished. At his

death (A.D. 1283) he is eulogized for having destroyed seven-and-twenty

English castles in his lifetime. From these exploits he was called Art

_na Caislean_, a remarkable distinction, when we remember that the

Irish were, up to this time, wholly unskilled in besieging such

strongholds as the Norman engineers knew so well how to construct. His

only rival in Meath in such meritorious works of destruction was Conor,

son of Donnell, and O'Melaghlin of East-Meath, or _Bregia_, whose death

is recorded at the year 1277, "as one of the three men in Ireland" whom

the midland English most feared.

From the ancient mensal the transition is easy to the north. The

border-land of Breffni, whose chief was the first of the native nobles

that perished by Norman perfidy, was at the beginning of the century

swayed by Ulgarg O'Rourke. Of Ulgarg we know little, save that in the

year 1231 he "died on his way to the river Jordan"—a not uncommon

pilgrimage with the Irish of those days. Nial, son of Congal,

succeeded, and about the middle of the century we find Breffni divided

into two lordships, from the mountain of Slieve-an-eiran eastward, or

Cavan, being given to Art, son of Cathal, and from the mountain

westward, or Leitrim, to Donnell, son of Conor, son of Tiernan, de

Lacy's victim. This subdivision conduced neither to the strengthening

of its defenders nor to the satisfaction of O'Conor, under whose

auspices it was made. Family feuds and household treasons were its

natural results for two or three generations; in the midst of these

broils two neighbouring families rose into greater importance, the

O'Reillys in Cavan and the Maguires in Fermanagh. Still, strong in

their lake and mountain region, the tribes of Breffni were

comparatively unmolested by foreign enemies, while the stress of the

northern battle fell upon the men of Tyrconnell and Tyrone, of Oriel

and of the coast country, from Carlingford to the Causeway.

The borders of Tyrconnell and Tyrone, like every other tribe-land, were

frequently enlarged or contracted, according to the vigour or weakness

of their chiefs or neighbours. In the age of which we now speak,

Tyrconnell extended from the Erne to the Foyle, and Tyrone from the

Foyle to Lough Neagh, with the exception of the extreme north of Berry

and Antrim, which belonged to the O'Kanes. It was not till the

fourteenth century that the O'Neils spread their power east of Lough

Neagh, over those baronies of Antrim long known as north and south

_Clan-Hugh-Buidhe_, (Clandeboy.) North Antrim was still known as

Dalriada, and South Antrim and Down, as Ulidia. Oriel, which has been

usually spoken of in this history as Louth, included angles of Monaghan

and Armagh, and was anciently the most extensive lordship in Ulster.

The chieftain families of Tyrconnell were the O'Donnells; of Tyrone,

the O'Neils and McLaughlins; of Dalriada, O'Kanes, O'Haras, and

O'Shields; of Ulidia, the Magennis of Iveagh and the Donlevys of Down;

of Oriel, the McMahons and O'Hanlons. Among these populous tribes the

invaders dealt some of their fiercest blows, both by land and sea, in

the thirteenth century. But the north was fortunate in its chiefs; they

may fairly contest the laurel with the O'Conors, O'Briens and McCarthys

of the west and south.

In the first third of the century, Hugh O'Neil, who succeeded to the

lordship of Tyrone in 1198, and died in 1230, was cotemporary with

Donnell More O'Donnell, who, succeeding to the lordship of Tyrconnell

in 1208, died in 1241, after an equally long and almost equally

distinguished career. Melaghlin O'Donnell succeeded Donnell More from

'41 to '47, Godfrey from '48 to '57, and Donnell Oge from 1257 to 1281,

when he was slain in battle. Hugh O'Neil was succeeded in Tyrone by

Donnell McLaughlin, of the rival branch of the same stock, who in 1241

was subdued by O'Donnell, and the ascendancy of the family of O'Neil

established in the person of Brian, afterwards chosen King of Ireland,

and slain at Down. Hugh Boy, or the Swarthy, was elected O'Neil on

Brian's death, and ruled till the year 1283, when he was slain in

battle, as was his next successor, Brian, in the year 1295. These names

and dates are worthy to be borne in mind, because on these two great

houses mainly devolved the brunt of battle in their own province.

These northern chiefs had two frontiers to guard or to assail: the

north-eastern, extending from the glens of Antrim to the hills of

Mourne, and the southern stretching from sea to sea, from Newry to

Sligo. This country was very assailable by sea; to those whose castles

commanded its harbours and rivers, the fleets of Bristol, Chester, Man,

and Dublin could always carry supplies and reinforcements. By the

interior line one road threaded the Mourne mountains, and deflected

towards Armagh, while another, winding through west Breffni, led from

Sligo into Donegal by the cataract of Assaroe,—the present

Ballyshannon. Along these ancient lines of communication, by fords, in

mountain passes, and near the landing places for ships, the struggle

for the possession of that end of the Island went on, at intervals,

whenever large bodies of men could be spared from garrisons and from

districts already occupied.

In the year 1210, we find that there was an English Castle at

Cael-uisge, now Castle-Caldwell, on Lough Erne, and that it was broke

down and its defenders slain by Hugh O'Neil and Donald More O'Donnell

acting together. After this event we have no trace of a foreign force

in the interior of Ulster for several years. Hugh O'Neil, who died in

1230, is praised by the Bards for "never having given hostages,

pledges, or tributes to English or Irish," which seems a compliment

well founded. During several years following that date the war was

chiefly centred in Connaught, and the fighting men of the north who

took part in it were acting as allies to the O'Conors. Donald More

O'Donnell had married a daughter of Cathal Crovdearg, so that ties of

blood, as well as neighbouring interests, united these two great

families. In the year 1247, an army under Maurice Fitzgerald, then Lord

Justice, crossed the Erne in two divisions, one above and the other at

Ballyshannon. Melaghlin O'Donnell was defending the passage of the

river when he was taken unexpectedly in the rear by those who had

crossed higher up, and thus was defeated and slain. Fitzgerald then

ravaged Tyrconnell, set up a rival chief O'Canavan, and rebuilt the

Castle at Cael-uisge, near Beleek. Ten years afterwards Godfrey

O'Donnell, the successor of Melaghlin, avenged the defeat at

Ballyshannon, in the sanguinary battle of Credran, near Sligo, where

engaging Fitzgerald in single combat, he gave him his death-stroke.

From wounds received at Credran, Godfrey himself, after lingering

twelve months in great suffering, died. But his bodily afflictions did

not prevent him discharging all the duties of a great Captain; he razed

a second time the English Castle on Lough Erne, and stoutly protected

his own borders against the pretensions of O'Neil, being carried on his

bier in the front of the battle of Lough Swilly in 1258.

It was while Tyrconnell was under the rule of this heroic soldier that

the unfortunate feud arose between the O'Neils and O'Donnells. Both

families, sprung from a common ancestor, of equal antiquity and equal

pride, neither would yield a first place to the other. "Pay me my

tribute," was O'Neil's demand; "I owe you no tribute, and if I did—-"

was O'Donnell's reply. The O'Neil at this time—Brian—aspiring to

restore the Irish sovereignty in his own person, was compelled to begin

the work of exercising authority over his next neighbour. More than one

border battle was the consequence, not only with Godfrey, but with

Donnell Oge, his successor. In the year 1258, Brian was formally

recognized by O'Conor and O'Brien as chief of the kingdom, in the

conference of Cael-uisge, and two years later, at the battle of Down,

gallantly laid down his life, in defence of the kingdom he claimed to

govern. In this most important battle no O'Donnell is found fighting

with King Brian, though immediately afterwards we find Donnell Oge of

Tyrconnell endeavouring to subjugate Tyrone, and active afterwards in

the aid of his cousins, the grandsons of Cathal Crovdearg, in

Connaught.

The Norman commander in this battle was Stephen de Longespay, then Lord

Justice, Earl of Salisbury in England, and Count de Rosman in France.

His marriage with the widow of Hugh de Lacy and daughter of de

Riddlesford connected him closely with Irish affairs, and in the battle

of Down he seems to have had all the Anglo-Irish chivalry, "in gold and

iron," at his back. With King Brian O'Neil fell, on that crimson day,

the chiefs of the O'Hanlons, O'Kanes, McLaughlins, O'Gormlys, McCanns,

and other families who followed his banner. The men of Connaught

suffered hardly less than those of Ulster. McDermott, Lord of Moylurgh,

Cathal O'Conor, O'Gara, McDonogh, O'Mulrony, O'Quinn, and other chiefs

were among the slain. In Hugh _Bwee_ O'Neil the only hope of the house

of Tyrone seemed now to rest; and his energy and courage were all taxed

to the uttermost to retain the place of his family in the Province,

beating back rapacious neighbours on the one hand, and guarding against

foreign enemies on the other. For twelve years, Hugh _Bwee_ defended

his lordship against all aggressors. In 1283, he fell at the hands of

the insurgent chiefs of Oriel and Breffni, and a fierce contest for the

succession arose between his son Brian and Donald, son of King Brian

who fell at Down. A contest of twelve years saw Donald successful over

his rival (A.D. 1295), and his rule extended from that period until

1325, when he died at Leary's lake, in the present diocese of Clogher.

It was this latter Donnell or Donald O'Neil, who, towards the end of

his reign, addressed to Pope John XXII. (elected to the pontificate in

1316) that powerful indictment against the Anglo-Normans, which has

ever since remained one of the cardinal texts of our history. It was

evidently written after the unsuccessful attempt, in which Donald was

himself a main actor, to establish Edward Bruce on the throne of

Ireland. That period we have not yet reached, but the merciless

character of the warfare waged against the natives of the country could

hardly have been aggravated by Bruce's defeat. "They oblige us by open

force," says the Ulster Prince, "to give up to them our houses and our

lands, and to seek shelter like wild beasts upon the mountains, in

woods, marshes, and caves. Even there we are not secure against their

fury; they even envy us those dreary and terrible abodes; they are

incessant and unremitting in their pursuit after us, endeavouring to

chase us from among them; they lay claim to every place in which they

can discover us with unwarranted audacity and injustice; they allege

that the whole kingdom belongs to them of right, and that an Irishman

has no longer a right to remain in his own country."

After specifying in detail the proofs of these and other general

charges, the eloquent Prince concludes by uttering the memorable vow

that the Irish "will not cease to fight against and among their

invaders until the day when they themselves, for want of power, shall

have ceased to do us harm, and that a Supreme Judge shall have taken

just vengeance on their crimes, which we firmly hope will sooner or

later come to pass."

CHAPTER XI.

RETROSPECT OF THE NORMAN PERIOD IN IRELAND—A GLANCE AT THE MILITARY

TACTICS OF THE TIMES—NO CONQUEST OF THE COUNTRY IN THE THIRTEENTH

CENTURY.

Though the victorious and protracted career of Richard de Burgh, the

"Red Earl" of Ulster, might, without overstraining, be included in the

Norman period, yet, as introductory to the memorable advent and

election of King Edward Bruce, we must leave it for the succeeding

book. Having brought down the narrative, as regards all the provinces,

to the end of the first century, from the invasion, we must now cast a

backward glance on the events of that hundred years before passing into

the presence of other times and new combinations.

"There were," says _Giraldus Cambriensis_, "three sundry sorts of

servitors which served in the realm of Ireland, Normans, Englishmen,

and the Cambrians, which were the first conquerors of the land: the

first were in most credit and estimation, the second next, but the last

were not accounted or regarded of." "The Normans," adds the author,

"were very fine in their apparel, and delicate in their diets; they

could not feed but upon dainties, neither could their meat digest

without wine at each meal; yet would they not serve in the marches or

any remote place against the enemy, neither would they lie in garrison

to keep any remote castle or fort, but, would be still about their

lord's side to serve and guard his person; they would be where they

might be full and have plenty; they could talk and brag, swear, and

stare, and, standing in their own reputation, disdain all others." This

is rather the language of a partizan than of an historian; of one who

felt and spoke for those, his own kinsmen many of them, who, he

complains, although the first to enter on the conquest, were yet held

in contempt and disdain, "and only new-comers called to council."

The Normans were certainly the captains in every campaign from Robert

Fitzstephen to Stephen de Longespay. They made the war, and they

maintained it. In the rank and file, and even among the knighthood, men

of pure Welsh, English, and Flemish and Danish blood, may be singled

out, but each host was marshalled by Norman skill, and every defeat was

borne with Norman fortitude. It may seem strange, then, that these

greatest masters of the art of war, as waged in the middle ages,

invincible in England, France, Italy, and the East, should, after a

hundred years, be no nearer to the conquest of Ireland than they were

at the end of the tenth year.

The main causes of the fluctuations of the war were, no doubt, the

divided military command, and the frequent change of their civil

authorities. They had never marched or colonized before without their

Duke or King at their head, and in their midst. One supreme chief was

necessary to keep to any common purpose the minds of so many proud,

intractable nobles. The feuds of the de Lacys with the Marshals, of the

Geraldines with the de Burghs, broke out periodically during the

thirteenth century, and were naturally seized upon, by the Irish as

opportunities for attacking either or both. The secondary nobles and

all the adventurers understood their danger and its cause, when they

petitioned Henry II. and Henry III. so often and so urgently as they

did, that a member of the royal family might reside permanently in

Ireland, to exercise the supreme authority, military and civil.

The civil administration of the colonists passing into different hands

every three or four years, suffered from the absence of permanent

authority. The law of the marches was, of necessity, the law of the

strong hand, and no other. But _Cambrensis_, whose personal prejudices

are not involved in this fact, describes the walled towns as filled

with litigation in his time. "There was," he says, "such _lawing_ and

vexation, that the veteran was more troubled in _lawing_ within the

town than he was in peril at large with the enemy." This being the

case, we must take with great caution the bold assertions so often made

of the zeal with which the natives petitioned the Henrys and Edwards

that the law of England might be extended to them. Certain Celts whose

lands lay within or upon the marches, others who compounded with their

Norman invaders, a chief or prince, hard pressed by domestic enemies,

may have wished to be in a position to quote Norman law against Norman

spoilers, but the popular petitions which went to England, beseeching

the extension of its laws to Ireland, went only from the townsmen of

Dublin, and the new settlers in Leinster or Meath, harassed and

impoverished by the arbitrary jurisdiction of manorial courts, from

which they had no appeal. The great mass of the Irish remained as

warmly attached to their Brehon code down to the seventeenth century as

they were before the invasion of Norman or Dane. It may sound barbarous

to our ears that, according to that code, murder should be compounded

by an _eric_, or fine; that putting out the eyes should be the usual

punishment of treason; that maiming should be judiciously inflicted for

sundry offences; and that the land of a whole clan should be equally

shared between the free members of that clan. We are not yet in a

position to form an intelligent opinion upon the primitive

jurisprudence of our ancestors, but the system itself could not have

been very vicious which nourished in the governed such a thirst for

justice, that, according to one of their earliest English law

reformers, they were anxious for its execution, even against

themselves.

The distinction made in the courts of the adventurers against natives

of the soil, even when long domiciled within their borders, was of

itself a sufficient cause of war between the races. In the eloquent

letter of the O'Neil to Pope John XXII.—written about the year 1318—we

read, that no man of Irish origin could sue in an English court; that

no Irishman, within the marches, could make a legal will; that his

property was appropriated by his English neighbours; and that the

murder of an Irishman was not even a felony punishable by fine. This

latter charge would appear incredible, if we had not the record of more

than one case where the homicide justified his act by the plea that his

victim was a mere native, and where the plea was held good and

sufficient.

A very vivid picture of Hiberno-Norman town-life in those days is

presented to us in an old poem, on the "Entrenchment of the Town of

Ross," in the year 1265. We have there the various trades and

crafts-mariners, coat-makers, fullers, cloth-dyers and sellers,

butchers, cordwainers, tanners, hucksters, smiths, masons, carpenters,

arranged by guilds, and marching to the sound of flute and tabor, under

banners bearing a fish and platter, a painted ship, and other "rare

devices." On the walls, when finished, cross-bows hung, with store of

arrows ready to shoot; when the city horn sounded twice, burgess and

bachelor vied with each other in warlike haste. In time of peace the

stranger was always welcome in the streets; he was free to buy and sell

without toll or tax, and to admire the fair dames who walked the quiet

ramparts, clad in mantles of green, or russet, or scarlet. Such is the

poetic picture of the town of Ross in the thirteenth century; the poem

itself is written in Norman-French, though evidently intended for

popular use, and the author is called "Friar Michael of Kildare." It is

pretty evident from this instance, which is not singular, that a

century after the first invasion, the French language was still the

speech of part, if not the majority, of these Hiberno-Norman townsmen.

So walls, and laws, and language arose, a triple barrier between the

races. That common religion which might be expected to form a strong

bond between them had itself to adopt a twofold organization.

Distinctions of nationality were carried into the Sanctuary and into

the Cloister. The historian _Giraldus_, in preaching at Dublin against

the alleged vices of the native Clergy, sounded the first note of a

long and bitter controversy. He was promptly answered from the same

pulpit on the next occasion by Albin O'Mulloy, the patriot Abbot of

Baltinglass. In one of the early Courts or Parliaments of the

Adventurers, they decreed that no Monastery in those districts of which

they had possession, should admit any but natives of England, as

novices,—a rule which, according to O'Neil's letter, was faithfully

acted upon by English Dominicans, Franciscans, Benedictines, and

regular canons. Some of the great Cistercian houses on the marches, in

which the native religious predominated, adopted a retaliatory rule,

for which they were severely censured by the general Chapter of their

Order. But the length to which this feud was carried may be imagined by

the sweeping charge O'Neil brings against "Brother Symon, a relative of

the Bishop of Coventry," and other religious of his nation, who openly

maintained, he says, that the killing of a mere Irishman was no murder.

When this was the feeling on one side, or was believed to be the

feeling, we cannot wonder that the war should have been renewed as

regularly as the seasons. No sooner was the husbandman in the field

than the knight was upon the road. Some peculiarities of the wars of

those days gleam out at intervals through the methodic indifference to

detail of the old annals, and reveal to us curious conditions of

society. In the Irish country, where castle-building was but slowly

introduced, we see, for example, that the usual storage for provisions,

in time of war, was in churches and churchyards. Thus de Burgh, in his

expedition to Mayo, in 1236, "left neither rick nor basket of corn in

the large churchyard of Mayo, or in the yard of the Church of Saint

Michael the Archangel, and carried away eighty baskets out of the

churches themselves." When we read, therefore, as we frequently do, of

both Irish and Normans plundering churches in the land of their

enemies, we are not to suppose the plunder of the sanctuary. Popularly

this seizing the supplies of an enemy on consecrated ground was

considered next to sacrilege; and well it was for the fugitives in the

sanctuary in those iron times that it should be so considered. Yet not

the less is it necessary for us to distinguish a high-handed military

measure from actual sacrilege, for which there can be no apology, and

hardly any earthly atonement.

In their first campaigns the Irish had one great advantage over the

Normans in their familiarity with the country. This helped them to

their first victories. But when the invaders were able to set up rival

houses against each other, and to secure the co-operation of natives,

the advantage was soon equalized. Great importance was attached to the

intelligence and good faith of the guides, who accompanied every army,

and were personally consulted by the leaders in determining their

march. A country so thickly studded with the ancient forest, and so

netted with rivers (then of much greater volume than since they have

been stripped of their guardian woods), afforded constant occasion for

the display of minute local knowledge. To miss a pass or to find a ford

might determine a campaign, almost as much as the skill of the chief,

or the courage of the battalion.

The Irish depended for their knowledge of the English towns and castles

on their daring _spies_, who continually risked their necks in

acquiring for their clansmen such needful information. This perilous

duty, when undertaken by a native for the benefit of his country, was

justly accounted highly honourable. Proud poets, educated in all the

mysteries of their art, and even men of chieftain rank, did not

hesitate to assume disguises and act the patriot spy. One of the most

celebrated spies of this century was Donogh Fitzpatrick, son of the

Lord of Ossory, who was slain by the English in 1250. He was said to be

"one of the three men" most feared by the English in his day. "He was

in the habit of going about to reconnoitre their market towns," say the

Annalists, "in various disguises." An old quatrain gives us a list of

some of the parts he played when in the towns of his enemies—

"He is a carpenter, he is a turner.

My nursling is a bookman.

He is selling wine and hides

Where he sees a gathering."

An able captain, as well as an intrepid spy, he met his fate in acting

out his favourite part, "which," adds our justice-loving Four Masters,

"was a retaliation due to the English, for, up to that time, he had

killed, burned, and destroyed many of them."

Of the equipments and tactics of the belligerents we get from our

Annals but scanty details. The Norman battalion, according to the usage

of that people, led by the marshal of the field, charged, after the

archers had delivered their fire. But these wars had bred a new mounted

force, called hobiler-archers, who were found so effective that they

were adopted into all the armies of Europe. Although the bow was never

a favourite weapon with the Irish, particular tribes seem to have been

noted for its use. We hear in the campaigns of this century of the

archers of Breffni, and we may probably interpret as referring to the

same weapon, Felim O'Conor's order to his men, in his combat with the

sons of Roderick at Drumraitte (1237), "not to shoot but to come to a

close fight." It is possible, however, that this order may have

reference to the old Irish weapon, the javelin or dart. The pike, the

battle-axe, the sword, and skein, or dagger, both parties had in

common, though their construction was different. The favourite

tactique, on both sides, seems to have been the old military expedient

of outflanking an enemy, and attacking him simultaneously in front and

rear. Thus, in the year 1225, in one of the combats of the O'Conors,

when the son of Cathal _Crovdearg_ endeavoured to surround Turlogh

O'Conor, the latter ordered his recruits to the van, and Donn Oge

Magheraty, with some Tyronian and other soldiers to cover the rear, "by

which means they escaped without the loss of a man." The flank movement

by which the Lord Justice Fitzgerald carried the passage of the Erne

(A.D. 1247) against O'Donnell, according to the Annalists, was

suggested to Fitzgerald by Cormac, the grandson of Roderick O'Conor. By

that period in their intercourse the Normans and Irish had fought so

often together that their stock of tactical knowledge must have been,

from experience, very much common property. In the eyes of the Irish

chiefs and chroniclers, the foreign soldiers who served with them were

but hired mercenaries. They were sometimes repaid by the plunder of the

country attacked, but usually they received fixed wages for the length

of time they entered. "Hostages for the payment of wages" are

frequently referred to, as given by native nobles to these foreign

auxiliaries. The chief expedient for subsisting an army was driving

before them herds and flocks; free quarters for men and horses were

supplied by the tenants of allied chiefs within their territory, and

for the rest, the simple outfit was probably not very unlike that of

the Scottish borderers described by Froissart, who cooked the cattle

they captured in their skins, carrying a broad plate of metal and a

little bag of oatmeal trussed up behind the saddle.

One inveterate habit clung to the ancient race, even until long after

the times of which we now speak—their unconquerable prejudice against

defensive armour. Gilbride McNamee, the laureate to King Brian O'Neil,

gives due prominence to this fact in his poem on the death of his

patron in the battle of Down (A.D. 1260). Thus sings the northern bard—

"The foreigners from London,

The hosts from Port-Largy *

Came in a bright green body,

In gold and iron armour.

"Unequal they engage in the battle,

The foreigners and the Gael of Tara,

_Fine linen shirts on the race of Conn_,

And the strangers _one mass of iron_."

[Footnote: Port-Largy, Waterford.]

With what courage they fought, these scorners of armour, their

victories of Ennis, of Callanglen, and of Credran, as well as their

defeats at the Erne and at Down, amply testify. The first hundred years

of war for native land, with their new foes, had passed over, and

three-fourths of the _Saer Clanna_ were still as free as they had ever

been. It was not reserved even for the Norman race—the conquest of

Innisfail!

CHAPTER XII.

STATE OF SOCIETY AND LEARNING IN IRELAND DURING THE NORMAN PERIOD.

We have already spoken of the character of the war waged by and against

the Normans on Irish soil, and as war was then almost every man's

business, we may be supposed to have described all that is known of the

time in describing its wars. What we have to add of the other pursuits

of the various orders of men into which society was divided, is neither

very full nor very satisfactory.

The rise, fall, and migrations of some of the clans have been already

alluded to. In no age did more depend on the personal character of the

chief than then. When the death of the heroic Godfrey left the free

clansmen of Tyrconnell without a lord to lead them to battle, or rule

them in peace, the Annalists represent them to us as meeting in great

perplexity, and engaged "in making speeches" as to what was to be done,

when suddenly, to their great relief, Donnell Oge, son of Donnell More,

who had been fostered in Alba (Scotland), was seen approaching them.

Not more welcome was Tuathal, the well-beloved, the restorer of the

Milesian monarchy, after the revolt of the _Tuatha_. He was immediately

elected chief, and the emissaries of O'Neil, who had been waiting for

an answer to his demand of tribute, were brought before him. He

answered their proposition by a proverb expressed in the Gaelic of

Alba, which says that "every man should possess his own country," and

Tyrconnell armed to make good this maxim.

The Bardic order still retained much of their ancient power, and all

their ancient pride. Of their most famous names in this period we may

mention Murray O'Daly of Lissadil, in Sligo, Donogh O'Daly of Finvarra,

sometimes called Abbot of Boyle, and Gilbride McNamee, laureate to King

Brian O'Neil. McNamee, in lamenting the death of Brian, describes

himself as defenceless, and a prey to every spoiler, now that his royal

protector is no more. He gave him, he tells us, for a poem on one

occasion, besides gold and raiment, a gift of twenty cows. On another,

when he presented him a poem, he gave in return twenty horned cows, and

a gift still more lasting, "the blessing of the King of Erin." Other

chiefs, who fell in the same battle, and to one of whom, named Auliffe

O'Gormley, he had often gone "on a visit of pleasure," are lamented

with equal warmth by the bard. The poetic Abbot of Boyle is himself

lamented in the Annals as the Ovid of Ireland, as "a poet who never had

and never will have an equal." But the episode which best illustrates

at once the address and the audacity of the bardic order is the story

of Murray O'Daly of Lissadil, and Donnell More O'Donnell, Lord of

Tyrconnell.

In the year 1213, O'Donnell despatched Finn O'Brollaghan, his _Aes

graidh_ or Steward, to collect his tribute in Connaught, and Finn,

putting up at the house of O'Daly, near Drumcliff, and being a plebeian

who knew no better, began to wrangle with the poet. The irritable

master of song, seizing a sharp axe, slew the steward on the spot, and

then to avoid O'Donnell's vengeance fled into Clanrickarde. Here he

announced himself by a poem addressed to de Burgh, imploring his

protection, setting forth the claims of the Bardic order on all

high-descended heroes, and contending that his fault was but venial, in

killing a clown, who insulted him. O'Donnell pursued the fugitive to

Athenry, and de Burgh sent him away secretly into Thomond. Into

Thomond, the Lord of Tyrconnell marched, but O'Brien sent off the Bard

to Limerick. The enraged Ulsterman appeared at the gates of Limerick,

when O'Daly was smuggled out of the town, and "passed from hand to

hand," until he reached Dublin. The following spring O'Donnell appeared

in force before Dublin, and demanded the fugitive, who, as a last

resort, had been sent for safety into Scotland. From the place of his

exile he addressed three deprecatory poems to the offended Lord of

Tyrconnell, who finally allowed him to return to Lissadil in peace, and

even restored him to his friendship.

The introduction of the new religious orders—Dominicans, Franciscans,

and the order for the redemption of Captives into Ireland, in the first

quarter of this century gradually extinguished the old Columban and

Brigintine houses. In Leinster they made way most rapidly; but Ulster

clung with its ancient tenacity to the Columban rule. The Hierarchy of

the northern half-kingdom still exercised a protectorate over Iona

itself, for we read, in the year 1203, how Kellagh, having erected a

monastery in the middle of Iona, in despite of the religious, that the

Bishops of Derry and Raphoe, with the Abbots of Armagh and Derry and

numbers of the Clergy of the North of Ireland, passed over to Iona,

pulled down the unauthorized monastery, and assisted at the election of

a new Abbot. This is almost the last important act of the Columban

order in Ireland. By the close of the century, the Dominicans had some

thirty houses, and the Franciscans as many more, whether in the walled

towns or the open country. These monasteries became the refuge of

scholars, during the stormy period we have passed, and in other days

full as troubled, which were to come. Moreover, as the Irish student,

like all others in that age, desired to travel from school to school,

these orders admitted him to the ranks of widespread European

brotherhoods, from whom he might always claim hospitality. Nor need we

reject as anything incredible the high renown for scholarship and

ability obtained in those times by such men as Thomas Palmeran of Naas,

in the University of Paris; by Peter and Thomas Hibernicus in the

University of Naples, in the age of Aquinas; by Malachy of Ireland, a

Franciscan, Chaplain to King Edward II. of England, and Professor at

Oxford; by the Danish Dominican, Gotofrid of Waterford; and above all,

by John Scotus of Down, the subtle doctor, the luminary of the

Franciscan schools, of Paris and Cologne. The native schools of Ireland

had lost their early ascendancy, and are no longer traceable in our

annals; but Irish scholarship, when arrested in its full development at

home, transferred its efforts to foreign Universities, and there

maintained the ancient honour of the country among the studious

"nations" of Christendom. Among the "nations" involved in the college

riots at Oxford, in the year 1274, we find mention of the Irish, from

which fact it is evident there must have been a considerable number of

natives of that country, then frequenting the University.

The most distinguished native ecclesiastics of this century were

Matthew O'Heney, Archbishop of Cashel, originally a Cistercian monk,

who died in retirement at Holy Cross in 1207; Albin O'Mulloy, the

opponent of _Giraldus_, who died Bishop of Ferns in 1222; and Clarus

McMailin, Erenach of Trinity Island, Lough Key—if an _Erenach_ may be

called an ecclesiastic. It was O'Heney made the Norman who said the

Irish Church had no martyrs, the celebrated answer, that now men had

come into the country who knew so well how to make martyrs, that

reproach would soon be taken away. He is said to have written a life of

Saint Cuthbert of Lindisfarne, and we know that he had legantine powers

at the opening of the century. The _Erenach_ of Lough Key, who

flourished in its second half, plays an important part in all the

western feuds and campaigns; his guarantee often preserved peace and

protected the vanquished. Among the church-builders of his age, he

stands conspicuous. The ordinary churches were indeed easily built,

seldom exceeding 60 or 70 feet in length, and one half that width, and

the material still most in use was, for the church proper, timber. The

towers, cashels, or surrounding walls, and the cells of the religious,

as well as the great monasteries and collegiate and cathedral churches,