Cork, like Dublin, is a place of considerable antiquity. It does not
figure in the annals or history of pagan Ireland, but Christian
establishments were founded there very soon after the time of St Patrick.
Its Irish name, and the one by which it is mentioned in all ancient Irish
annals and history is _Corcach Mor Mumhan_, literally, the great swamp of
Munster. A very inappropriate name seemingly, for, although the place
where the city is built might have been a swamp, it never could have been
a big one, as it is a narrow, and by no means a long, valley. It is,
however, clear that the word _mor_--big--was not intended to relate to the
size of the swamp, but to the greatness of either the town or
ecclesiastical establishments that grew up in it.
The earliest notice of Cork that appears in Irish annals is in the still
unpublished "Annals of Inisfallen," where it is stated, under the year
617, that "In this year died Fionnbarre, first bishop of Cork, at Cloyne.
He was buried in his own church at Cork." Under the year 795, the
following curious entry occurs in the same annals:--"In this year the
Danes first appeared cruising on the coast [of Ireland] spying out the
country. Their first attacks were on the ships of the Irish, which they
plundered." The same annals say that Cork, Lismore, and Kill Molaise were
plundered by the Danes in the year 832, and that in 839 they burned Cork;
and that in 915 they plundered Cork, Lismore, and Aghabo. They also state
that in 978 Cork was plundered twice, presumably by the Danes. The
_Chronicon Scottorum_ says that Cork was also plundered by the Danes in
822. It was so often plundered by them that it is hardly to be wondered at
that the annalists should not have been able to keep account of every time
it was harried by the Northmen. But the Danes were not the only parties by
whom the south of Ireland suffered, for we read in the Four Masters, that
in the year 847 Flann, over-king of Ireland, for what reason does not
appear, harried Munster from Killaloe to Cork. They say also that a great
fleet of foreigners (Northmen) arrived in Munster in 1012 and burned Cork.
They were, however, defeated by Cahall, son of Donnell. This fleet had
evidently come to Cork for the purpose of making a diversion in the south
of Ireland, so that the great Danish army, whose headquarters were in
Dublin, and who contemplated the entire conquest of the country, should
not have the men of Munster to oppose them. The Danish army that came to
Cork in 1012 (the correct date seems to be 1013), were not able to give
any assistance to their countrymen at the battle of Clontarf by making a
diversion in Munster, for it would appear that they were wholly destroyed.
There is no record in the Irish annals of the Danes making any attack on
Cork after the battle of Clontarf.
The situation of Cork, like that of Dublin and Belfast, is at the mouth of
a river, and on low-lying land. While the country round the city is
exceedingly fine, it has not, like the country in the neighbourhood of
Dublin and Belfast, any places from which extensive views can be had. The
country round Cork is by no means flat, but there is nothing near it that
could be called a mountain, or even a high hill. It is, however, as
beautiful as any country of its kind could be, with green, rounded
eminences, but not as much wood on them as there should be to make them
look to best advantage. The river between Cork and the Cove, or
Queenstown, as it is now called, is one of the finest six or eight miles
of river scenery to be found anywhere. The people of Cork are proud of it,
as they may well be.
Cork, unfortunately, is not growing as Dublin and Belfast are. There is a
curious belief, partly a prophecy, that it will yet be the capital of
Ireland. "Limerick was, Dublin is, but Cork will be the capital," is
frequently heard in the south of Ireland. So far, there is not much sign
that the southern city will overtake Dublin, nor is it quite clear that
Limerick was ever the principal city of Ireland. It was, however, a very
important place during the greater part of the eleventh century. Limerick
seems to have been in the possession of the Danes for nearly a hundred
years, until Brian Boramha took it from them about the year 970. It
continued to grow as long as his descendants retained political power,
which they did for nearly a century after his death. Giraldus Cambrensis
calls Limerick "a magnificent city," but it must have begun to decline
even before he saw it, about the year 1190, for the O'Briens, or
descendants of Brian Boramha, had by that time lost a great deal of their
political power. Cork has, for at least two centuries, been a more
important place than Limerick.
Some of the streets and public buildings in Cork are very fine, and will
compare favourably with those of any city. But it is evident that the
city was built too far up the river. Cork should be where Queenstown is.
If it were, there would be a chance of its becoming at some future day the
capital of Ireland. It is curious that almost all cities that are built on
rivers, and that were founded in ancient times, are generally at the head
of navigation. This habit of building cities as far up rivers as ships
could go was followed in order to give greater security from attacks by
sea. The farther up a river a city was, the more easily it could be
defended from attacks by sea. In olden times, when the largest ships drew
no more than eight or ten feet of water, Cork was as advantageously
situated for trade where it is as if it were where Queenstown is. But such
is not the case now. This defect of being too far up the river is the only
thing in its situation that is not favourable. It has one of the finest
harbours in Europe, and one of the finest in the world, but the harbour is
too far from the city.
If there is a single place on the whole of the west coast of Europe
especially adapted for the site of a great city, it is the spot on which
Queenstown is built. It was nothing but the constant warfare of ancient
times that prevented Cork from being built there. There is that
magnificent harbour that the mightiest ironclad leviathan that floats can
enter at any state of the tide and be in it in five minutes from the time
she leaves the main ocean. Then there is that splendid site for a great
city on a gentle ascent, where street behind street and terrace behind
terrace could deck the hill-side, and all look down on that glorious
land-locked bay where a thousand ships could anchor.
There cannot be any doubt that with the ever-growing trade and passenger
traffic between Europe and America, both Cork and Queenstown must be
benefitted. Even if an American packet station were established at Galway,
it would hardly interfere seriously with Queenstown or Cork, for harbours
like the Cove are too scarce on the coasts of Europe, and the trade
between Europe and America is too great and increasing too fast to leave
Loch Mahon[17] in the slightest danger of being deserted. As long as ships
navigate the Atlantic they must enter it. Nothing but the establishment of
aerial traffic between Europe and America can ever leave the Cove of Cork
shipless.
The country round Cork is very fine, and there are many splendid and
well-kept gentlemen's seats in its suburbs. It would be hard to find any
city more picturesque in its situation, although built very nearly at the
mouth of a river. It is, more than any large place in Ireland, a city of
hills and hollows. Some of its streets are very steep, rather too much so
for pleasant walking. But this hillyness makes it all the more
picturesque, and makes the drainage all the better. Cork is a beautiful
city, and--surrounded by a beautiful country. If it has not the busy
appearance of Belfast, or the metropolitan appearance of Dublin, it is,
nevertheless, a fine city, and on account of its magnificent harbour, it
has, in all probability, a great and prosperous future before it.
The antiquities of Cork have almost entirely disappeared. It suffered so
much from the Northmen and was so often plundered and burned by them that
it is not to be wondered at that so few of its ancient monuments exist. It
had a fine round tower, of which nothing is left but the foundation. It
was, presumably, the Northmen who destroyed it. Every vestige of the old
church founded by St Finnbar has disappeared long ago. The fact that Cork
was so often plundered by the Danes and other Northmen shows that it must
have been an important place, at least in the matter of churches and
monasteries. The Danes knew that wherever the largest religious
establishments were the most wealth was. This is proved by history and
annals telling us that Armagh, Kildare, Cork, Glendaloch, Downpatrick,
Clonmacnois, and other important religious centres, were most frequently
plundered by them. Just in proportion to the importance of a place in an
ecclesiastical point of view, the more frequently it was plundered by the
Danes. When they began their attacks on Ireland, they seem to have known,
as well as the Irish themselves, where the principal wealth of the country
would be found.
As Cork is the last large place that suffered greatly from the Danes that
shall be mentioned in this work, it cannot be uninteresting or out of
place to give an extract from the Earl of Dunraven's book on ancient Irish
architecture about those terrible Vikings, and the causes that made them a
terror to all the maritime nations of Europe for so many years, more
especially as such an expensive work is not generally read, and not within
reach of the masses: "Dense as is the obscurity in which the cause of the
wanderings and ravages of the Scandinavian Vikings is enveloped, yet the
result of the investigations hitherto made on the subject is, that they
were, in a great measure, consequent on the conquests of Charlemagne in
the north of Germany, and on the barrier which he thereby--as well as by
the introduction of Christianity--set on their onward march. It can hardly
be attributed to accident that, with the gradual strengthening of the
Frankish dominions, the hordes of Northmen descended on the British Isles
in ever-increasing numbers. The policy of Charlemagne in his invasion of
Saxony, and the energy by which he succeeded in driving his enemies beyond
the Elbe and the German Ocean, were manifestly intensified by religious
zeal. The Saxons were still heathens; and the first attack made by the
Frankish King was on the fortress of Eresbourg, where stood the temple of
Irminsul, the great idol of the nation. We read that he laid waste their
temples and broke their idols to pieces.... However it may appear from
ancient authorities that for some centuries before then, the Scandinavians
had occasionally infested the southern shores of Europe; yet in the added
light that is cast by the Irish annals on the subject, we perceive that
from this date their piratical incursions afford evidence not before met
with of preconcerted plan and incessant energy; and these events in the
reign of Charles may lead us to discover what was the strong impulse that
thus tended, in some measure, to condense and concentrate their desultory
warfare. Impelled by some strong, overmastering passion, these hordes of
northern warriors held on from year to year their avenging march; and such
was the fury of their arms that even now, after the lapse of a thousand
years, their deeds are in appalling remembrance throughout Europe, not
only in every city on the sea-shore, or on river, but even in the peasant
traditions of the smallest village."
It is curious, and for the Irish a source of very legitimate pride, that
of all the countries attacked by the Northmen, they got the hardest blows
and the most terrible, as well as the most frequent, defeats in Ireland.
They seem to have made more frequent attacks on it than on any other
country, and to have poured more men into it than into any other country.
This appears not only from Irish annals and history, but from Icelandic
literature, which was the common property of all the Scandinavian nations,
and the only literature in which the doings of the Vikings are recorded by
writers who were nearly contemporary with them. There appears to be more
written about Ireland and its people in the Icelandic Sagas than about any
other country or people the Vikings harried. The terrible defeat the
Northmen suffered at Clontarf in 1014 is fully acknowledged in the
Icelandic Sagas. It must, however, in truth be admitted that that battle,
while it turned out to be a national one, originated in a family quarrel,
and was brought about, as many battles had been brought about before, by a
bad and beautiful woman. If Gormfhlaith and King Brian had not quarrelled,
if Broder had not been desperately enamoured of her, and if she had not
been of the royal blood of the terribly maltreated and so often ravaged
province of Leinster, the battle of Clontarf never would have been fought.
Brian was an elderly man when he became over-king, and was quite willing
to allow the Danes to hold Dublin and other sea-ports as trading points,
for after a time they became traders and carriers. He was willing to let
them alone provided that they let him alone. This is proved by his having
given one of his daughters in marriage to Sitric, the Danish King or
Governor of Dublin. The Danes, knowing they had the entire strength of the
province of Leinster at their back by Brian's quarrel with Gormfhlaith,
who was sister to the King of Leinster, seem, probably for the first time,
to have seriously contemplated the complete conquest of Ireland.
That the Irish suffered some terrible defeats from the Northmen has to be
admitted. In justice to those who compiled the various Irish annals, it
must be said that they always freely acknowledge when the invaders had the
best of it in a battle. It is, however, evident that, taking the almost
continuous fighting between the invaders and the invaded for two hundred
years, or from about the year 814 to the time of the battle of Clontarf in
1014, the net gains of the fighting was decidedly on the side of the
Irish. Many of those well-versed in Irish history think that if Ireland
had been really under the dominion of one sovereign, even as England was
under the later Saxon Kings, the Northmen would certainly have conquered
Ireland and held it as they held, for a time, England, Normandy, and other
countries. Very few of those called Irish chief kings were such except in
name. Their vassals used to lick them as frequently as they licked their
vassals. The Northmen defeated in battle and killed more than one Irish
chief king, but that does not seem to have brought them any nearer the
conquest of the island, for the provincial kings used to fight them on
their own account. The Northmen had too many heads to cut off, and none of
the heads controlled the destinies of the country. The most terrible
defeat that was probably ever inflicted on the Irish by the Northmen was
at the battle of Dublin in 917. The over-king, Niall Glundubh, was killed
in it, and from what the Irish annals say, it would seem that his whole
army was cut to pieces; but the victory was of little use to the invaders,
for the very next year they suffered a defeat from the Irish in Meath, in
which their whole army was destroyed and almost all their leaders slain.
We are told that only enough of the Danes were left alive to bear tidings
of their defeat. How the Irish managed to get the better of the Danes and
at the same time do so much fighting amongst themselves is one of those
historic puzzles the solution of which seems hopeless.
Many thoughtful persons among the Irish regret that Ireland had not been
thoroughly conquered by the Northmen. They say that had it been conquered
by them it would have been united under one supreme ruler, the provincial
divisions would have been obliterated, a strong central government formed,
and intestine wars brought to an end. Such a state of things might have
come to pass; but it seems clear that the Northmen were not capable of
building up a nation. They failed to do it whenever they tried. They had
complete control in England for two generations when they were at the
height of their power, but they failed to keep their grip on England,
although having had the advantage of a large, and what might be called an
indigenous, Scandinavian population north of the Humber. Hardly a trace of
their nearly three hundred years' rule in some Irish cities remain, and in
the entire island all the traces left of their language is to be found in
less than a dozen place names. They became great in Normandy only when
they ceased to be Northmen and mingled their blood with that of the people
whom they had conquered, and became French.
Whatever benefit other countries may have received from the Danes or
Northmen, Ireland received none. To her they were nothing but a curse. If
they had conquered her, they might, in the long run, have benefitted her.
It would be not only difficult, but absolutely impossible, to point out a
single way, except, perhaps, by an admixture of a little new blood, in
which Ireland was benefitted by the visits of the Northmen. In spite of
their very great skill in ship-building and navigation, they introduced
not a single art into Ireland. Confused as the political state of the
country was before they came to it, it was still more confused when they
ceased to be plunderers and became merchants. They had nothing themselves
that could be called literature, and were the greatest enemies that Irish
literature had ever encountered, for the number of books they must have
destroyed is beyond calculation. Not a monastery or church from one end of
Ireland to the other escaped being plundered by them, and most of the
monasteries were plundered _ten times_ during the two hundred years their
plunderings lasted. Iona, though not in Ireland, was an Irish
establishment; it was so often plundered by them, and its entire
population so often killed, that it had to be entirely abandoned in the
ninth century. It became a ruin, and remained such until the Northmen
ceased their raids; its treasures, or what remained of them, were removed
to Kells in Ireland. Nothing can show more plainly the knowledge the
Northmen possessed of the country, and their determination to leave
nothing in it unplundered, than their having plundered the anchorites'
cells on the Skelligs rocks, off the coast of Kerry. It is said that there
is but one spot at which a boat can land on these rocks, and then only on
the very finest and calmest day; but the Northmen found out the
landing-place, plundered the cells, and, of course, killed every one they
found in them.
It is very curious how it came to pass that a people so very brave as the
Northmen undoubtedly were should be so lacking in almost every quality
that goes to form a great, conquering people and builders up of nations.
They never impressed themselves on any nation or province they conquered.
A very large part of the north of England was not only conquered but
settled by them, and three Danish kings reigned in England, yet it
remained Saxon England until the battle of Hastings. In France they not
only lost their language, but lost their identity in less than three
generations, and became absolutely French. They did not even call
themselves Northmen, or Normans; for on the Bayeux Tapestry we find the
legend, _Hic Franci pugnant_, showing plainly that they regarded
themselves as nothing but French. They conquered the greater part of the
island of Sicily, but, as usual, have left hardly a trace of their
occupation in it. It need hardly be repeated that in Ireland, in spite of
their having held and ruled some of its chief cities for three hundred
years, and in spite of their many alliances with Irish chiefs and nobles,
all they have left that in any way shows that they ever set foot on Irish
soil are less than a dozen place names. The Northmen might well be
forgiven for their plunderings and burnings if it were not for the
quantity of books they burned. But for them, ancient Celtic literature
would be so immense that it would be regarded with respect even by those
who would be most hostile to the nation that produced it.
The successful resistance of the Irish against the Northmen is a very
curious historic fact. Of all countries in Europe in the middle ages, it
ought to have been, no matter what might be the valour of its inhabitants,
the most easy of subjugation on account of its political divisions, and
the consequent state of almost continual war that existed among the
provinces. Yet in spite of all, in no part of Europe which the Northmen
attacked, did they encounter such strong and such long-sustained
resistance as in Ireland, in spite of the fact that for many years before
the battle of Clontarf, the province of Leinster, whose soldiers from time
immemorial had been considered the bravest in Ireland, was in alliance
with the invaders. The successful resistance the Irish made against the
Northmen is proved from sources that are neither Scandinavian nor Irish;
for the Norman Chronicle says, "that the Franks, or French, were grateful
to the Irish for the successful resistance they made against the Danes;
and that in the year 848 the Northmen captured Bordeaux and other places
which they burned and laid waste; but that the Scotts (Irish) breaking in
on the Northmen drove them victoriously from their borders." It is
absolutely sickening to read of all the plunderings, murderings, and
burnings committed by the Northmen in Ireland. When we think of all the
similar sort of work the Irish practised on one another, we wonder how it
happened that there were any people left in the island; and we are almost
driven to the conclusion that if it had not been for the extraordinary
fecundity of the race, it would have become depopulated. It was not only
the numbers of Irish that were killed by the Northmen, but also the
numbers that were brought into captivity by them that tended to depopulate
the country.
Under the year 949 the Annals of the Four Masters state that Godfrey, a
Danish king or general, plundered Kells and other places in Meath, and
carried off three thousand persons into captivity, and robbed the country
of an enormous quantity of gold, silver, and wealth of all kinds. That
sort of work had been carried on for nearly two hundred years, and it is a
wonder that the entire country was not utterly ruined.
An interesting as well as gruesome illustration of what Ireland suffered
from Danish raids was revealed some few years ago while workmen were
levelling ground for the erection of a house at Donnybrook, near Dublin.
They unearthed the skeletons of over six hundred people, of almost all
ages; from those of full-grown men to those of babies, all buried in one
grave, and only about eighteen inches under the surface. This vast grave
was close to the banks of the little river Dodder. The Northmen had
evidently gone up the river in their galleys, for at full tide it had
enough of water to float them. By some chance the leader, or one of the
leaders, of the Danes was killed in the foray, for his body was found a
little distance from the grave of the victims. His sword was buried with
him; it was of recognised Danish make, and had a splendid hilt inlaid with
silver. Not a vestige of clothing or ornaments was found on the bodies of
the slain, save a common bronze ring on the finger of one of them.
Everything they had seems to have been taken. A village had evidently
stood in the locality; it was raided by the Danes, the inhabitants all
killed, and everything of value they possessed, even to their clothing,
taken; for if they had been buried in their clothing, which must have been
almost entirely of woollen material, which resists decay for a long time,
some vestige of it would have been discovered. The remains of the victims
of the massacre were carefully examined by the most eminent scientists and
archaeologists of Dublin, among them Dr Wm. Fraser, who wrote an article on
the discovery that may be seen in the transactions of the Royal Irish
Academy. Irish history and annals are silent about this terrible massacre,
and it is hardly to be wondered at that they should not have mentioned it,
for such things were of such frequent occurrence in Ireland during the
time of the Northmen that it was impossible to keep track of them all.
It is hard to agree with the Earl of Dunraven in what he says in the
passage that has been quoted a few pages back, as to the cause of the
invasions and plunderings of the Northmen. The victories of Charlemagne
over the Saxons could scarcely have caused the vast outpourings of
Northmen on southern and western Europe. The Saxons were Germans, pure and
simple; but there seems to have been a very great difference between
Northmen and Germans. They may both have belonged originally to the same
race, and their languages may have been, and undoubtedly were, closely
allied, but they seem to have had very little in common. One was an
essentially seafaring people, and keeps up a love for the sea to the
present day. The other was not a seafaring people, and hardly yet takes
kindly to maritime life. The Norse and German races lived side by side in
England for some centuries, but they lived apart, quite as much apart as
the Celts and Scandinavians lived apart in Ireland. It would rather seem
as if it was want, added to a bold and restless nature, that was the
primary cause of Norsemen's raids on the south-western coasts of Europe.
Their own country was barren, and cold, and unable to support a dense
population. It sometimes happens that people multiply faster than they can
be supported. Such a state of things occurred in Ireland in the early part
of the present century. Not that Ireland could not have supported a much
larger population than it ever contained, provided the social condition of
the country was different; but under the conditions that existed, the
people multiplied beyond their means of support. The same thing may have
occurred in Scandinavia. The people may have been forced by hunger to seek
a living by foul means or fair, somewhere else than in their own country.
Cruel as they were, they were probably not more cruel than any other
people of their time would have been under the same circumstances. It
would seem that it was exhaustion of population in Scandinavia that put an
end to Scandinavian raidings. Its people having become Christians may have
had some effect in softening their manners; but it is certain that it was
not hatred of Christianity that prompted them to plunder Christian
nations. It was love of plunder, intensified, in all probability, by want
and semi-starvation at home. It is, however, very curious that the people
who were once the terror of southern Europe should have become what they
are to-day, and what they have been for some centuries, as peaceable and
as law-abiding nations as there are in the world.