[Chief authorities for Chaps. VII., VIII, and IX.: Wars of the Gaels with the Galls (i.e. of the Irish with the Danes); Annals of the Four Masters and the other Irish annals; Keating ’s History of Ireland; Haliday’s Scand. Kingd. of Dublin; The Saga or Story of Burnt Nial, translated by Sir George Webbe Dasent].

Towards the close of the eighth century the Danes began to make their descents on the coasts of Europe. They came from Norway, Sweden, Jutland, and in general from the islands and coasts of the Baltic. They deemed piracy the noblest career that a chief could engage in; and they sent forth swarms of daring and desperate marauders, who for two centuries kept the whole of Western Europe in a state of continual terror.

Our records make mention of two distinct races of Galls or Northmen: the Lochlanns, i.e. Norwegians and Swedes, who, as they were fair-haired, were called Finn-Galls or White strangers; and the Banars or Danes of Denmark, who were called Duv-Galls, Black strangers, because they were dark-haired and swarthy. In modern Irish histories the term ‘Danes’ is applied to both indifferently.

The Finn-Galls or Norwegians were the first to arrive. They appeared on the Irish coast for the first time in 795, during the reign of the Irish king Donogh, when they

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plundered Lambay Island - or BecJiVU as it was then called - near Dublin. St. Columba had long before founded a church on this island, which no doubt had now wealth enough to tempt the rapacity of the pirates.

After this period their attacks became frequent. At first they came in small detached parties, and their raids were chiefly confined to the islands, a great many of which were then inhabited by colonies of monks (p.163). But soon, emboldened by success, they fitted out fresh expeditions on a large scale, and often penetrated far inland, burning, plundering, and slaying wherever they came. The first series of invasions terminated in a defeat of the barbarians in 812 by the prince of Owenaght or the district round the Lakes of Killarney. This defeat seems to have been a very decisive one, for it is recorded in the Annals of Eginhard, Charlemagne’s tutor, a.d. 812: ‘The fleet of the Northmen having arrived at Hibernia, the island of the Scots, after a battle had been fought with the Scots, and after no small number of the Norsemen had been slain, they basely took to flight and returned home.’ [1]

Among all this havoc and turmoil we find a few domestic matters of interest to chronicle. King Aed Ordnidhe [Ordnee], who reigned from 797 to 819, on one occasion, in 803, made a hostile incursion to Leinster, and forced Conmach, the primate of Armagh, and all his clergy to attend him. Having, on the march, arrived at a place called Dun-Cum now Rathcore in Meath, the archbishop expostulated with him on the impropriety of bringing the clergy on such expeditions. The king referred the matter to his tutor and chief adviser Fothad (p.161), who, after due deliberation, pronounced judgment exempting the clergy for ever from attending armies in war. He delivered his decision in the form of a short Canon of three verses, which is still extant, whence he has ever since been known as Fothad of the Canon. [2]

The disaster at Killarney seems to have deterred the Danes for a while, and there was an interval of quiet of

1. Quoted in Miss Stokes’s Early Christian Archit. in Ireland, p.149.
2. O’Curry, MS. Mat. 363.

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ten or eleven years. Soon after the accession of Concovar or Conor, who became king in 819, they began another series of inroads, a.d. 823, in which they plundered Cork Cloyne, and Begerin. They destroyed the great monastery of Bangor in Down, broke the shrine of the patron St. Comgall, and massacred the bishop and clergy: and in the same year they ruined and plundered the monastery of Movilla in the same county. During the next ten years

from 823 to 832 - we have an almost unbroken tale of murder and destruction, with an occasional record of spirited and successful resistance. A great number of important churches and monasteries of both north and south were plundered, among them being Taghmon in Wexford, St. Mullin’s in Carlow, Inistioge in Kilkenny, Killevy near Newry, Swords, Glendalough, Dunleer, Slane, Duleek, Lismore, and Cloyne and Innishannon in Cork.

At first the Norsemen had come as mere robbers. They now began to make permanent settlements on several points of the coast, from which they penetrated inland in all directions: and wherever there was a religious establishment likely to afford plunder, there they were sure to appear. They took possession of Limerick and the lower Shannon, from which they plundered the neighbourinodistricts all round, till at last, in 834, Donogh chief of Hv Conaill Gavra, intercepted and routed them at Shanid,’ and it is not known how many of them were slain.’ About the middle of the century they established themselves permanently in Dublin, Limerick, and Waterford, where they built fortresses.

Hitherto there was little combination amonothe Norsemen; but now appeared the most renowned of all their leaders - Turgesius or Thorgils - who united the whole of their scattered forces. There is some reason to believe that this Turgesius was identical with the celebrated chief Eagnar Lodbrog. He came with a fleet to the north of Ireland in 832 - the last year but one of the reign of king Conor - and was immediately acknowledged king of all the foreigners. Soon afterwards three other fleets arrived one of which, sailing up the Lower Bann, took possession

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of Lough Neagh, another anchored in Dundalk Bay, while the third occupied Lough Eee on the Shannon.

Tergesius established himself for a time in Armagh, which he sacked three times in one month; and with much skill he posted parties at important points on the coast, such as Dublin, Limerick, Dundalk and Carlingford. He usurped the see of Armagh and expelled the bishop Forannan, who escaped with St. Patrick’s shrine to Munster, where he remained four years. After committing great ravages in the north, he placed himself at the head of the fleet in Lough Ree; and from this central station he commanded a large part of Leinster and Connaught, and plundered those of the ecclesiastical establishments that lay within reach - Clonmacnoise, Lorrha and Terryglass in Tipperary, and the churches of Iniscaltra in Lough Derg. At Clonmacnoise his queen Ota desecrated St. Kieran’s venerated church by seating herself daily on the high altar, in derision of the sacred place, and there performing some of her pagan rites and giving audience to her visitors.

The Irish princes might indeed have expelled the invaders without much difficulty if they had combined: but that they hardly ever did: on the contrary they fought as bitterly against each other as against the common foe. During the reigns of Hugh Ordnidhe [Ordnee]- 797 to 819 - and of Conor - 819 to 833 - we do not find it recorded that either took any steps to oppose the Danes, though both were engaged in several hostile expeditions against the provincial kings. The most culpable disturber of domestic peace at this time was Felim Mac Criffan king of Munster, of the race of the Owenaghts (p.203), a very warlike and able, but a very unscrupulous man. He laid claim to the throne of Ireland, and made several incursions northwards to enforce his demands, plundering and burning churches and devastating the country almost as ruthlessly as the Danes themselves. But he never once turned his arms against Turgesius, who was at this very time in the full swing of his terrible career. It is asserted by some, on insufficient authority, that this Felim was arch

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bishop of Cashel as well as king of Minister. Some, with better reason, reckon him among the kings of Ireland. Towards the end of his life he retired to a hermitage, where he died in penitence in 847.[1]

After the arrival of the Danes the national character seems to have deteriorated. Chiefs and people, forced continually to fight and kill for their very existence, came to love war for its own sake - to regard it as the chief business of life. Much of the native gentleness and of the respect for peaceful avocations disappeared; and as the people retaliated cruelty for cruelty on their savage invaders, they learned at last to be cruel and relentless to each other. They lost in a great measure the old veneration for schools and monasteries: and now for the first time we are presented with the humiliating spectacle - frequent enough after this- of churches and monasteries burned and ravaged by native chiefs.

Although the Irish made no combined effort, yet the local chiefs often successfully intercepted the robbers in their murderous raids and slaughtered them mercilessly. In 838 the Kinel Connell defeated them at Assaroe; in the same year they were routed by the Dalcassians in Clare on the shore of Lough Derg; and in Meath the southern Hy Neill, under their chief O’Colgan, defeated them and slew their leader Earl Saxulph. At this period a great fair was held every year at Roscrea, which was attended by traders from all parts of Ireland. While this fair was going on in the year 845, a great body of the Norsemen, having quietly made their preparations beforehand, marched suddenly on the town, expecting little resistance and plenty of booty. But the people, having some little notice of their approach, made a hasty preparation, and meeting them as they entered, killed their leader with a great number of the rank and file, and put the whole body to the rout. But these and other victories bore no proportion to the devastation of the Norsemen, and had little effect in restraining them. The whole sea continued

1. See Most Rev. Dr. Healy’s Ireland’s Ancient Schools and Scholars, p.275.

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- as the Irish record expresses it - to vomit floods of foreigners into Erin; they still held their grip on the main strongholds of the coast, from which they swept like a whirlwind through the country; and wherever they went the track they left after them was a belt of desert.

Meantime the tyrant Turgesius continued to tighten his hold on the country. As well as we can judge of his proceedings, it would seem that he hoped to make himself king of Ireland, and that he contemplated the extirpation of Christianity and the establishment of paganism in its place. He ruled for thirteen years as undisputed king of the Danes in Ireland. But so far from building up a kingdom, the only use he made of his power was to ravage and destroy: he never seriously attempted to subjugate the native princes in a body: and his career was at last suddenly cut short by the valour of one of the provincial kings. He was taken prisoner in 845 by Malachi king of Meath, who caused him to be drowned in Lough Owel in Westmeath.

This brave prince succeeded to the throne of Ireland in 846 - as Malachi I - one year after the death of Turgesius. He followed up his success with great vigour, and the Danes now suffered many disastrous defeats, not only by this king, but by several of the provincial rulers. The news of the tyrant’s death seems to have been the signal for a general uprising. In 848 Malachi defeated them at Fore in Westmeath, and slew 700 of them: and in the same year they were routed at Skee-Nechtain, now Carbury Hill, at the source of the Boyne, by Olcovar king of Munster and Lorcan king of Leinster, who slew 1,200 of their chief men, including Tomrar or Tomar the heir to the throne of Norway. They were driven from many of their strongholds, and great numbers were forced to betake themselves to their ships.

Malachi’s successes were so decisive that he sent ambassadors to Charles the Bald king of France, to acquaint him of his victories over the barbarians. This embassy is recorded by a French chronicler: ‘The Scots breaking in upon the Northmen, by God’s help victorious, drive them

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forth from their borders. Whereupon the king of the Scots sends, for the sake of })eace and friendship, legates to Charles with gifts, asking for permission to pass [through France] to Rome. [1]

The foreigners hitherto spoken of were Finn-Galls; who were by this time in possession of the most important seaports and had made Dublin their commercial capital. But now there arrived - in 852 - a great swarm of Danars or Black-Galls at Dublin, and they forthwith attacked the Finn-Galls, defeated them with great slaughter, and plundered their fortress. Soon afterwards these two northern nations, collecting their forces for a determined struggle, encountered each other at Carlingford, where after a sanguinary fight of three days the Finn-Galls were defeated, and, abandoning their ships, fled inland. After this the two nations were sometimes united under one leader, and sometimes quarrelled and fought against each other: but whether united or divided, they never lost an opportunity of ravaging the country. (See note, page 241.)

Aed or Hugh Finnliath, who succeeded Malachi in 860, routed the Danes in several battles, after one of which - on the shore of Lough Foyle (in 86G) - twelve score of their heads were piled in a heap before the king. A little later - in 869 - he defeated them in a battle at Killineer, two miles north-west from Drogheda; where great numbers of them fell, among whom was Carlus son of Amlaff I. king of Dublin. In this battle the Danes were traitorously aided by Hugh’s nephew Flann, king of the Keenaght of Meath, who was killed in the rout after the fight.

Hugh Finnliath was succeeded in 879 by Malachi’s son Flann Sinna, who married Hugh’s widow Mailmara, the daughter of Kenneth Mac Alpine king of Scotland. For 40 years - from 875 to 915 - a period nearly coincident with Flann’s reign, the Danes sent no new swarms to Ireland, and the country was comparatively free from their ravages; though those already in the country held their

1. Hist. Franc. Script., ii. p.524. Quoted by Miss Stokes, Early Christian Archit. in Irel. pp.149, 150; and by Moore, in History of Ireland, ii. 34, p.2.

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ground in their fortresses along the coast, such as Dublin, Waterlbrd, Limerick, and Lough Foyle. But during this time there were serious wars among the Irish themselves.

In the time of Flann Sinna flourished archbishop Cormac Mac Cullenan king of Munster. Very soon after he was crowned king, Munster was invaded and plundered from Gowran to Limerick - in 906 - by the monarch Flann and the king of Leinster. Whereupon Cormac, attended by his chief adviser, Flahertagh, the warlike abbot of Scattery, followed the invaders northward and defeated the monarch on the old battle ground of Moylena; and soon afterwards he routed another army of Flann’s kindred, the Hy Neill, in Roscommon (907).

In the next year (908) Flann in conjunction with the kings of Leinster and Connaught collected a gi-eat army to oppose Cormac, who now, instigated by Flahertagh, demanded tribute from Leinster on the ground that he was by right king of Ireland. This Flahertagh was an obstinate and quarrelsome man, and thwarted the efforts for peace made by friends on both sides. The good king Cormac was unwilling to fight: but he allowed himself to be led by his turbulent counsellor. He had a presentiment that he would be killed; and he made his will, distributing his wealth among various abbeys and churches. The two armies met and fought a terrible battle at Ballaghmoon, two miles north of Carlo w, where the Munstermen were defeated with a loss of 6,000. Towards the end of the battle Cormac was accidentally killed by the fall of his horse: and some common soldiers cut off his head and brought it to Flann. But king Flann received it with tender respect, and had the body buried with great honour at Castledermot. Cormac was of a gentle disposition and loved study and retirement. He was the most learned Irishman of his time, and was deeply versed in the history, literature, and antiquities of his country. The works written by him have already been mentioned (pp. 4, 31).

About the time (916) of the accession of Niall Glunduff (i.e. Niall Black-Knee) son of Hugh Finnliath and suc

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cesser of Flann, Ireland again began to suffer from the Danish irruptions. The Irish now - probably under the influence of this brave and spirited king Niall - showed a disposition to combine against them. The king, in the year of his accession, marched south at the head of a detachment of the Hy Neill to aid the Munstermen; and the combined army fought a battle against the Norsemen in the south of Tipperary - near Slievenamon - in which after great loss on both sides, the Danes were routed. But in this same year they defeated the king of Leinster at a place called Kenn-Fuat near the coast of Leinster, where fifty Irish chiefs fell, with 600 of their men.

In the third year of Niall’s reign a new fleet arrived in Dublin Bay; and the Danish army formed an encampment at Kilmashoge near Rathfarnham. Here they were attacked by the heroic king Niall, and an obstinate and bloody battle was fought (in 919) in which the Irish suffered a disastrous defeat; the king was slain, and with hira fell twelve princes and a great part of the nobles of the north of Ireland. Donogh the son of Flann Sinna succeeded Niall, and in the second year of his reign - in 920 - he avenged the battle of Kilmashoge by defeating and slaughtering the Danes on the plain of Bregia north of Dublin.

During the reign of this king flourished Murkertagh of the Leather Cloaks, son of Niall Glunduffl He was one of the most valiant princes commemorated in Irish history, and waged incessant war against the foreigners. His first recorded exploit was to intercept them on their return from a plundering raid through Ulster in 921, when he cut them all off" except a few who escaped in the darkness of the night Five years later - in 926 - he again routed them and slew 800: and they suffered many other defeats at his hands.

He belonged to the northern Hy Neill, and in accordance with the rule of alternate succession (p.134) he would naturally be the next king, as Donogh was of the southern branch. But in order to silence all opposition to his accession he made a circuit of Ireland in 941 with a

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thousand picked men in the depth of winter, when he knew that his opponents were unprepared to resist. For the purpose of protecting his men from the wintry weather he adopted a plan never thought of before: each man was furnished with a large loose mantle of leather; and hence this prince has ever since been known by the name of Murkertagh of the Leather Cloaks. In this expedition he met with no resistance, and was entirelv successful. He brought away the provincial kings or their sons to his palace at Ailech, where he kept them captive for five months, after which he sent them to king Donogh as a testimony of loyalty and to show that he had no wish to claim the throne during the life of the reigning monarch. This expedition was celebrated in a poem by Cormacan Eges chief poet of Ulster, who accompanied the little army. His poem is still extant, and has been translated and edited by John O’Donovan. Among the captives was Callaghan king of Cashel, a great warrior, celebrated in the romantic literature of that period. But he had none of the noble spirit of the northern chief, for he fought sometimes against the Danes and sometimes in alliance with them, according as he found it answered his own interest.

But Murkertagh was not destined to be king of Ireland. He was killed in 943 in an obscure skirmish at Ardee by Blacar the Dane, dying as he had lived, in conflict with the enemies of his country.

King Congalach who succeeded Donogh in 944 defeated the Norsemen twice at Dublin: on the first occasion - in 943, the year before his accession - he reduced the city to ruin, and carried the Danish inhabitants into bondage, except a few who fled in their ships to the island of Dalkey; and on the second (948), he slew 1,600 of them together with their leader Blacar, the very chief who had killed Murkertagh five years before. Yet the Irish, though often capturing Dublin, never attempted to keep it permanently; and the Danes always regained or were left in possession of it. Eight years later (956) he invaded Leinster - why we are not told. The Leinstermen, when they found themselves unable to expel him, sent word to Amlaff the

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Danish king of Dublin, by whom lie was caught in an ambuscade and slain.

During the reign of Donall O’Neill son of Murkertagh of the Leather Cloaks (956-980), the country continued to suffer as much as ever from the Danes, and there was incessant warfare both with them and among the native kings. And in many of these wars the chiefs were in alliance with the barbarians, fighting against their own countrymen.

Donall was succeeded in 980 by Malachi I, or Malachi the Great as he is often called, the most distinguished king who had reigned for many generations, second only to his great contemporary Brian Boru. The year before his accession he defeated the Danes in a great battle at Tar a, where vast numbers of them were slain, including Ranall son of Amlaff Cuaran the Danish king of Dublin. Following up his success he marched straight on Dublin, which he captured after a siege of three days, took immense booty, and liberated 2,000 captives, among whom was Donall Claen king of Leinster. And Malachi now issued his famous proclamation: ‘Everyone of the Gael who is in the territory of the foreigners in service and bondage, let him go to his own territory in peace and happiness.’ The Four Masters who record this proclamation, add: .‘This captivity was the Babylonian captivity of Ireland: it was next to the captivity of hell.’ The great Danish king of Dublin, Amlaff Cuaran, was so heartbroken by this disaster that he left his kingdom to his son Sitric of the Silken Beard and went on a pilgrimage to Iona, where he died.

We shall now interrupt the regular course of our narrative in order to trace the career of the man who was destined to crush the power of the Danes for ever.

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Chapter VIII: Brian Boru

Brian Boru the son of Kennedy of the Dalgas race (p.203), was born in Kincora in 941. In 964 - while he was still a very young man - his brother Mahon became king of all Munster. At this time the Danes held the chief fortresses of the province, including Limerick, Cork, and Waterford, from which their marauding parties swept continually over the country, murdering and ravaging wherever they came. King Mahon and his brother Brian, finding that they were not strong enough to withstand them openly, and unwilling any longer to endure their tyranny, crossed the Shannon with those of their people who abode on the open plains, and took refuge among the forests and mountain solitudes of Clare. From these retreats they carried on a relentless desultory warfare with the foreigners, during which no quarter was given on either side.

After a time both parties grew tired of these destructive conflicts, and a truce was agreed on between Mahon and the Danish leaders. But this was done against the advice of young Brian, who would have no truce; ‘for however small the injury he might be able to do the foreigners, he preferred it to peace.’ [1] Accordingly with a small band of followers, he betook him again to the hills: and they lived as best they could in huts and caves, enduring great hardships, watching the Danes day and night, and falling on them at every opportunity. But the Danes, collecting an army in South Clare, sent out harassing parties against them day by day. And although Brian succeeded from time to time in slaying great numbers of them, yet his own little band gradually dwindled - either killed in fight or scattered - till at last he was left with only fifteen compauions.

1. The passages marked as quotations, without references, in this chapter and the next, are taken from The Wars of the Gaels with the Galls (of the Irish with the Danes).

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And now the king, Mahon, hearing how matters stood, and fearing for his brother’s safety, visited him in his wild retreat, and tried to persuade him to abandon further resistance as hopeless. But all in vain: the young chief was not to be moved from his purpose. He reproached his brother for making peace with the Danes, and said that neither his father Kennedy nor his grandfather Lorcan would have done so as long as those cruel foreigners held possession of the inheritance of the Dalcassians.

Mahon replied that though that was true, it was now impossible to meet the Danes, so numerous were they, and so fierce and brave in battle, armed with weapons of great excellence, and protected by impenetrable coats of mail. Then why should he lead forth his Dalcassians, as Brian himself had done, only to leave them dead on the battlefield.

Brian answered that it was natural for them all to die, and that death on the battlefield was better than living in slavery. But one thing there was which was neither natural nor hereditary to the Dalcassians, namely, to submit to outrage or insult; and he went on to say that it was a shameful thing that the lands which had been bravely defended from age to age by their forefathers, should now be abandoned to those grim and rude barbarians. Moreover it was not true, he said, that the Danes were invincible in the field: for he had himself often routed them in open fight; and once he had cleared the whole country side of them, from Lough Derg to the Fergus. But his brave followers were too few, so that the foreigners had at last prevailed against them; while Mahon and his people stood idly by and never stretched forth a hand to help them.

This and much more was said; and Mahon was in the end quite won over. Then summoning a general meeting of the Dalcassians, - in the year 968 - he laid the whole case before them, and asked them was it to be peace or war. And to a man they answered war, and demanded to be led once more against the pirates. Mahon approved of the decision; and he and Brian, collecting? all their

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forces, formed an encampment at Cashel, from which they sent expeditions to ravage the Danish settlements all round.

Now when Ivar of Limerick, king of the Munster Danes, heard of this uprising, he was infuriated to madness; for he thought that the province had been thoroughly subdued, and he had never expected further resistance. And he made a mighty gathering of all the Danes of Munster and of the Irish who were in alliance with him, determined to march into Thomond and exterminate the whole Dalcassian race, root a.nd branch. And he remorselessly put to death some of the allied Irish chiefs - allied to him more by force than through friendship - who expressed disapproval of this enterprise. But Molloy king of Desmond and Donovan king of Hy Carbery basely joined and encouraged him, not so much for love of the Danes as through jealousy and hatred of the Dalcassians. And Ivar, bent on vengeance, set out from Limerick with his whole army for the encampment at Cashel.

Meantime all those Dalcassians who were scattered here and there through Ireland at the time, had been flocking towards Cashel at Mahon’s urgent summons, even those serving under O’Neill in Ulster and under king Malachi in Meath. And almost at the last moment they were rejoiced to see a small detachment fully armed marching towards the camp, led by Cahal king of Delvin More, who had come unsolicited to help them against the hated Norsemen.

When news of the advance of the Danish army reached the Dalcassian chiefs, they instantly broke up camp and marched west, determined to meet the enemy half-way; whom they found encamped amid the woods of Sulcoit - now called Sollohod - a level district near the present Limerick junction, twenty miles from Limerick city. We have few details of the battle of Sulcoit. It began at sunrise on a summer morning of the year 968, and lasted till midday, when the foreigners gave way and fled - ‘fled to the hedges and to the valleys and to the solitudes of the great flower-covered plain.’

And now the long pent-up fury of those they had

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outraged and oppressed burst on them, and they were pursued in all directions and ruthlessly killed. The main body fled towards Limerick, and the rout and pursuit continued through the whole evening and night all the way into the city: till at morning dawn both the fugitives and the victors, mixed up in dire confusion, rushed in through the gates. Nor did this end the slaughter; for the Danes were cut down in the streets and houses; and finally the Irish plundered and burned the city. Their turn had. now come, and vengeance was dealt out unsparingly. All the captives were brought to Singland - outside the walls - ‘and every one of them that was fit for war was killed, and every one that was fit for a slave was enslaved.’

After this the Danes of those parts took refuge in Scattery Island, which they made their head-quarters instead of Limerick;• and they placed their women and children in the other islands of the Shannon. Mahon followed up this decisive victory by a series of successful hostilities. He reduced Donovan and Molloy and forced them to give him hostages for their future good behaviour: he defeated the Danes in seven battles, and banished Ivar beyond the sea to Wales; and having crushed all opposition, he ruled for several years, the undisputed sovereign of Munster.

But his uninterrupted success excited the envy and deepened the hatred of Donovan and Molloy; and in conjunction with Ivar the Dane (who had meantime returned from Wales) they laid a base plot for his destruction. Molloy had a motive for the course he took beyond mere personal hatred. There were two great ruling families in Munster, the Owenaghts or Eugenians, descended from Owen More (p.131), and the Dalgas or Dalcassians from Cormac Cas, both sons of Olioll Olum king of Munster in the second century. The Eugenians, now represented by Molloy but in subsequent times by the Mac Carthys, ruled over Desmond or South Munster, while Thomond or North Munster was ruled by the Dalcassians, represented by Mahon and his family, whose descendants after the time of Brian Boru took the familv name of O’Brien. It had been

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for many centuries the custom that the kings of the Eugenian and Dalcassian families should be, alternately, kings of all Munster. The Dalcassian Mahon king of Thomond, was now king of Munster, and once he was out of the way, Molloy’s turn would come next. Accordingly, in 976, Mahon was invited to a friendly conference to Bruree, the residence of Donovan, who on his arrival seized him and sent him to be delivered up to Molloy and his Danish associates. Before proceeding to Bruree, Mahon, as if fearing treachery, had obtained a guarantee of safety from the bishop and clergy of Cork; and now as an additional safeguard, he wore on his breast a well-known venerated reliquary, the Gospel of St. Finnbarr. The guarantee was violated by Donovan when he seized the king; and a worse violation was to follow.

Molloy, having been apprised of the arrest of Mahon, sent forward an escort to meet him in the pass of Barnaderg, [1] with secret instructions to kill him; and in order to lull suspicion, he sent some clergy along with them, who of course knew nothing of the intended murder. Molloy himself remained behind, within view of the pass, but a good way off. When the assassin raised the sword to strike, Mahon, perceiving his intention, flung the Gospel from him lest it might be stained with his blood: so that it lighted on the breast of one of the clergy. And when Molloy saw in the distance the flash of the naked sword, he knew the deed was done; and calling for his horse was about to mount. ‘What wilt thou have me do now?’ asked the priest who was with him, not knowing what had taken place. ‘Cure yonder man if he should come to thee,’ answered Molloy, mocking; and mounting his horse he fled from the place.

The priests who had witnessed the deed fled horror-stricken and told their tale to the bishop; and the news of the murder soon spread abroad. Brian was overwhelmed

1. Barnaderg, now called Redchair, a narrow pass near Ballyorgan on the borders of the counties of Limerick and Cork. There is a doubt about the scene of the murder; three places are named in the old accounts: but I think Barnaderg is the most likely.

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with grief; and he gave expression to his sorrow in an elegy, in which he praised the valiant king and denounced vengeance against his murderers.

The death of Mahon is grievous to me -
The majestic king of Cashel the renowned;
Alas, alas, that he fell not in battle.
Under cover of his broad shield;
Alas that in friendship he trusted
To the treacherous word of Donovan.
It was an evil deed for Molloy
To murder the great and majestic king;
And if my hand retains its power,
He shall not escape my vengeance.
Either I shall fall - fall without dread, without regret -
Or he will meet a sudden death by my hand:
I feel that my heart will burst
If I avenge not our noble king.

But this villainous deed only raised up a still more formidable antagonist, and swift retribution followed. Brian now became king of Thomond: and his first care was to avenge his brother’s murder. He began with Ivar. Surrounding Scattery with a fleet of boats, he forced a landing and slew Ivar and his Danes, after which he ravaged all the islands where the rest of the foreigners had taken refuge after the battle of Sulcoit.

Donovan now becoming alarmed, made alliance with Harold the son of Ivar, and invited him and his Danes to Bruree. But, in 977, Brian made a sudden and rapid inroad into Hy Carbery, Donovan’s territory, captured his fortress at Bruree, and slew Donovan himself, with Harold and a vast number of their followers, both Danes and Irish. It was now Molloy’s turn. Brian sent him a formal challenge to battle, and commanded the envoy to add that no peace would be accepted and no eric for the murdered king - nothing but battle or the surrender of Molloy himself to atone for his crime. Then waiting for a fortnight and having received no reply, he marched south (in 978), and encountered Molloy’s army - composed of Danes and Irish - in a place called Belach-Lechta in Barnaderg, the

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very spot where the great crime had been committed two years before. Molloy was defeated with a loss of 1,200 men; and immediately after the battle he himself was found hiding in a hut, from which he was brought forth and killed without mercy by Murrogh the young son of Brian. Thus were the three murderers dealt with. After this last battle Brian was acknowledged king of all Munster.

But now his influence began to be felt beyond his own province, and other and more powerful antagonists arose against him. While he was in the midst of his victorious career in the south, Melaghlin or Malachi II. ascended the throne of Ireland, in 980, as already stated (p.199); who viewed with jealousy the growing power of the southern king. To assert his own supremacy as Ard-ri, and to humble Brian, he made an inroad into Thomond in 982, and uprooted and destroyed the venerable tree of Magh-Adhair [Moy-Ire] under which the Dalcassian kings had for ages been inaugurated. This was one of the deadliest insults that could be offered to a tribe: and it led to a war of skirmishes and plundering expeditions, which continued with varying fortunes for several years.

During this period, Malachi, while maintaining the struggle against his great opponent, and gaining many victories over other native chiefs, never lost an opportunity of attacking the Danes. In 996 he swooped down on Dublin - then and for long after a Danish city - and plundered it. Among the trophies that he brought away were two heirlooms greatly prized by the Norsemen, the ring or collar of the Norwegian prince Tomar - he who had been killed at Skee-Nechtain 148 years before (p.194) - and the sword of Carlus, who fell in the battle of Killineer in 8G9 (p.195). This is the incident referred to by Moore in the words: ‘When Malachi wore the collar of gold which he won from her proud invader.’ On the other hand, through all this clash of arms, Brian, though sometimes sustaining defeats, steadily advanced in power. At last the two opponents, having crushed all other competitors, found themselves so evenly matched, that they thought it better to come to an

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understanding. In 998 they met amicably at a place on the shore of Lough Ree, and agreed to divide Ireland between them, Malachi to be king of Leth Conn and Brian of Leth Mow.

After this they seem to have united cordially against the common enemy: for we find it stated that in the very year of the treaty, they forced the Danes to give them hostages. The Annals add that the Irish were overjoyed at this - a record with a touch of sadness; for it proves, if indeed proof were needed, how little they were accustomed to see union among their princes.

Mailmora king of Leinster was not pleased with the terms of this peace, which placed him permanently under the jurisdiction of Brian. In the very next year (999) he and the Danes of Dublin revolted: whereupon Brian marched north over the Wicklow highlands intending to blockade Dublin; and on his way he encamped in the valley of Glenmama near Dunlavin, where he was joined by Malachi. The Danes of Dublin, hearing of the advance of the Irish army, determined to intercept them half-way: and marching from the city with Mailmora, came unexpectedly on the camp at Glenmama. Brian and Malachi were well prepared for an attack; and in the terrible battle that ensued the Danes and Leinstermen were totally defeated, and 4,000 of them were slain, including Harold son of Amlaff or Olaf Cuaran, the heir of the Danish sovereignty in Ireland. After the battle Mailmora was found hiding in a yew-tree and was taken prisoner by young Murrogli. Great numbers of the fugitives were killed or drowned in attempting to recross a ford on the Liffey now spanned by the ruined bridge of Horsepass; and in every other direction where they fled they were pursued and cut down.[1] The victorious army marched straight on Dublin and took possession of the Danish fortress. Here they found treasures of immense value; and Brian remained in the city upwards of a month, till

1. For a description of this battlefield see the Rev. John Shearman’s note in the Wars of the Gaels with the Galls, Introd. p.cxiiv.; and Ireland’s Battles and Battlefields, by W. St. J. Joyce, p.5.

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he had reduced the greater part of Leinster to subjection. Then he returned home to Kincora, havmg enriched his followers with the spoils. He did not leave a garrison in Dublin, which in the following year was again taken possession of by the Danes

It seems obvious that Brian began about this time to entertain designs on the monarchy; and this is the part of his career that least bears examination. In order to accomplish his purpose - to enable him to depose Malachi - he made alliance with those who had lately been the bitter enemies both of himself and of his country. He married Gormlaith mother of the king of the Dublin Danes (Sitric of the Silken Beard: p.199) and sister of Mailmora king of Leinster; he gave his own daughter in marriage to Sitric; and he took Mailmora into favour and friendship. And for some time after this he had Danes in his army in all his military expeditions.

Having strengthened himself by these alliances, his next proceeding was to invade Meath, in 1002 - Malachi’s special territory - with all the forces of Leth Mow, in violation of the treaty made four years before; and having marched as far as Tara he sent messengers to Malachi to demand submission or battle. This is designated by Tighernach, ‘the first treacherous turning of Brian against Malachi.’ Malachi having asked and obtained from him a month to consider, went north and endeavoured to induce his relatives the northern Hy Neill to join him in resisting the demand. But they, fearing Brian’s great strength, refused: whereupon he left them indignantly, and riding into the encampment at Tara with merely a small guard of honour, without any guarantee or protection, and telling Brian plainly he would fight if he had been strong enough, he made his submission. He yielded to the inevitable with calmness and dignity, and he was treated by Brian with great respect and consideration. This transaction was considered as an abdication; and Brian was now acknowledged king of Ireland. And from that time (1002) forth Malachi, as king of Meath alone, continued, except on one memorable occasion, his faithful

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adherent, nobly suppressing all feeling of personal injury for the sake of his country.

From Ulster, however, the new king never received more than a forced and unwilling submission. Several times he marched northwards, but with no decisive results. It was in one of these expeditions - in 1004 - that he confirmed the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of Armagh, laid an offering of twenty ounces of gold on the great altar, and caused the entry, already noticed (p.22) to be made in the Book of Armagh. He now prepared to make a still more formidable demonstration, a circuit through those j[1]arts of Ireland whose allegiance he had not yet secured, probably in imitation of the circuit of Murkertagh of the Leather Cloaks (p.198), With a great army composed of the men of Leinster, Munster, and Connaught, and the Danes of Dublin, he marched, in 1005, over the plains of Roscommon, crossed the Curlieu Hills into Sligo, then onwards between Binbulbin and the sea, and passing over the old ford of Ballyshannon beside the classic fall of Assaroe, he traversed the great mountain pass of Barnesmore into Tyrone; next into Eastern Ulster, where he dismissed the main body of his troops. Here he rested for some time with his own Dalcassian followers, and the Ulstermen supplied him with provisions, for which he paid in royal style, in gold, silver, horses, and clothing; after which he returned leisurely south to his home in Kincora.

And now after forty years of incessant warfare, finding himself firmly seated on the throne, he devoted his mind to works of peace. He rebuilt the churches and monasteries that had been destroyed by the Danes, and erected bridges, causeways, and fortresses, all over the country. He founded and restored schools and colleges, and took measures for the repression of crime. The bright picture handed down to us by the annalists, of the peaceful and prosperous state of Ireland during the twelve years that elapsed from Brian’s accession to the battle of Clontarf, is illustrated by the well-known legend that a beautiful young lady, richly dressed, and bearing a ring of priceless value on her wand, traversed the country alone from Tory in the north to the

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Wave of Cleena in the south (p.140), without being molested - a fiction which Moore has embahned in the beautiful song ‘Rich and rare were the gems she wore.’

This account was written by a partisan, an open and devoted admirer of the great and powerful king. But though some allowance must be made for natural and excusable exaggeration, we have good reason to believe that the country enjoyed unusual prosperity under Brian’s firm and vigorous administration.

[This account of the battle of Clontarf is in strict accordance with my Chief authorities: The Wars of the Gaels with the Galls: the Irish Annals; and the story of Burnt Nial, in which there is an independent account of ‘Brian’s battle’ as it is called. The Irish and Norse accounts agree in the main issue, though differing in details.]

Since the battle of Glenmama the Danes had kept quiet, partly because the king’s strong hand held them down, and partly because he adopted a polic}[1] of conciliation and remained in friendly alliance with them. But it was a forced submission; and they only waited for a favourable opportunity to attempt the overthrow of king Brian and the restoration of their former freedom of action. The confederacy that led to the battle of Clontarf was originated however, not by the Danes, but by Mailmora king of Leinster. This great battle, like many another important event, took its immediate rise from a trifling circumstance.

It will be remembered that Brian had admitted Mailmora to friendship, and had married his sister Goi[1]mlaith, mother of Sitric the king of the Dublin Danes. . This woman had been first married to Amlaff Cuaran king of Dublin (p.199), by whom she had Sitric: then to Malachi II. king of Ireland, who after some time repudiated her; and lastly to Brian, by whom she became the mother of Donogh. She is called Kormlada in the Norse

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records. The Saga says of her that she was ‘the fairest of all women, and best gifted in everything that was not in her own power, but it was the talk of men that she did all things ill over which she had any power.’ The Irish annals give no better account of her.

On one occasion Mailmora set out on a visit to Kincora, bringing as a present for the king, from the forest of Figili near Monasterevin, three tall pine trees for masts. They were borne on men’s shoulders, and at a narrow pass through a bog, a dispute arose as to which should take the lead; when Mailmora, in order to settle the matter, put his shoulder under one of the masts, which gave precedence to those that carried it. It happened that he wore a gold-bordered silken tunic which had been given him by Brian, and which he had accepted as a tributary prince (p.65); and in the exertion one of the silver buttons was torn off. On his arrival at Kincora he went to his sister queen Gormlaith and asked her to replace the button. But she, snatching the tunic from his hand, threw it into the fire before his face, and bitterly reproached him for yielding service to Brian, a thing she said that neither his father nor his grandfather would have done.

Soon after, while still smarting under his sister’s stinging rebuke, he happened to be present looking on at a game of chess between Murrogh, Brian’s eldest son, and another chief; and he suggested a move by which Murrogh lost the game. Irritated at this, Murrogh said to him: ‘You also gave the Danes an advice at the battle of Glenmama by which they lost the battle.’ This kindled Mailmora’s anger, and he replied: ‘I will give them advice next time and they will not be defeated’; to which Murrogh bitterly retorted: ‘Then you had better have a yew-tree ready to receive you’ - alluding to the circumstance that Mailmora was found hiding in a yew-tree after the battle of Glenmama (p.207). Mailmora, highly incensed, retired to his bedchamber, and next morning left the palace, without permission, and without taking leave of the king. When this was told to king Brian, he at

1. Burnt Nial, ii. 323. p 2.

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once despatched a messenger after him with a request to return: but the angry prince struck the messenger with the yew horse-rod which he held in his hand,’ and broke the bones of his head; ‘so that the man had to be carried back to the palace from the bridge of Killaloe, where this happened. Some of the household now proposed to pursue Mailmora and bring him back by force: but the king would not consent to this, as it would be a breach of hospitality; and he said he would demand satisfaction at the threshold of Mailmora’s own house.

Mailmora, bent on vengeance, made his way eastwards to his own kingdom; and he immediately summoned his nobles: ‘and he told them that he had received dishonour, and that reproachful words were applied to himself and to all the province.’ Hearing this, the chiefs decided to revolt against Brian; and they sent messengers to O’Neill king of Ulster, to O’Ruarc prince of Brefney, and to the chief of Carbury in Kildare, all of whom promised their aid.

And now the threatened war-cloud broke over the country. The confederates began by attacking Malachi’s kino-dom of Meath, as he was now one of Brian’s adherents. He defended himself successfully for some time: but he was at last defeated at Drinan near Swords by Mailmora and Sitric, with the united armies of Danes and Leinstermen, leaving 200 of his men, including his own son Flann, dead on the field. Mailmora and Sitric followed up this victory by an expedition into the very heart of Meath, which they plundered as far as the monastery of St. Fechin at Fore; and they returned with ‘captives and cattle innumerable,’ some taken in violation of sanctuary from the very termon of the saint. Malachi, finding himself unable to defend his kingdom against so many enemies, sent messengers to Brian to demand the protection to wliich, as a tributary king, he was entitled - ‘to complain that his territory was plundered and his sons killed, and praying him not to permit the Danes, and the Leinstermen, and the men of Brefney, and those of Carbury, and the KinelOwen, to come all together against him.’

Brain had hitherto remained inactive; but moved by

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the representations of the king of Meath, and alarmed at the menacing movements of the Danes and Leinstermen, he now entered into the war. Two distinct expeditions were organised. The king himself, with one, ravaged Ossory, while his son Murrogh, at the head of the other, taking the Leinstermen in the rear, traversed Leinster, devastating and plundering the whole country as far as the monastery of Glendalough; and then marching northwards laden with spoil, he encamped at Kilmainham near Dublin. Here he was joined by his father in the beginning of September (1013), and the combined forces blockaded Dublin. But the attempt to reduce the city was unsuccessful, for the Danish garrison kept within walls and the Irish army ran short of provisions: so that the king was forced to raise the siege at Christmas, and return home to Kincora.

Mailmora and the Danish leaders began actively at the work of mustering forces for the final struggle. ‘They sent ambassadors everywhere around them to gather troops and armies unto them to meet Brian in battle.’ Gormlaith, who was now among her own people - having been discarded by Brian - was no less active than her relatives: for ‘so grim was she against king Brian after their parting that she would gladly have him dead.’ [1] She employed her son, king Sitric, [2] to collect forces. He went first according to her directions to Sigurd earl of the Orkneys, who consented to join the confederacy on two conditions: that in case of success he was to be king of Ireland and have Gormlaith for his queen. Sitric agreed to both without hesitation; and when he returned to Dublin his mother approved of what he had done.[3]

She next directed him to go to the Isle of Man, where there was a fleet of thirty ships under the command of two Vikings, brothers, named Ospak and Broder; and she said to him: ‘Spare nothing to get them into thy quarrel,

1. Burnt Nial, ii. 323.
2. Sitric of the Silken Beard reigned in Dublin from 989 to 1029, when he died on a pilgrimage to Rome. Many of his coins are preserved (Gilbert, Viceroys of Ireland, p.7).
3. Burnt Nial, ii. 327.

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whatever price they ask.’ [1] Broder refused to take any part in the war except on the very conditions already promised to Sigurd, namely, Ireland for his kingdom and Gormlaith for his queen; to which Sitric agreed without the least scruple, stipulating however that the covenant should be kept secret, especially from Sigurd. So Broder promised to be in Dublin on Palm Sunday - the Sunday before Easter - the day fixed on for the meeting of all the confederates. The Saga adds that this ‘Broder had been a Christian man and a mass-deacon by consecration, but he had thrown off his faith and become God’s dastard, and now worshipped heathen fiends: ‘and that he bad a coat of mail on which no steel would bite. He was both tall and strong, and his black locks were so long that he tucked them under his belt. But iiis brother Ospak refused to fight against ‘the good king Brian.’ He made his escape with ten ships, leaving Broder twenty; and arriving at Kincora, he ‘told Brian all that he had learnt, and took baptism, and gave himself over into the king’s hand.’ And Broder sailed for Dublin. [2] This account of the proceedings of Sitric and his mother is wholly taken from the Saga.

The Danish chiefs had strong inducements to take part in this expedition. They had before their eyes the successes of Swein and Canute, who at this very time had

1. Burnt Nial, ii. 328.1.
2. According to the Saga legend, Broder and his men had gloomy forebodings; and as the awful day approached they were disheartened by weird signs and portents. One night they were awakened by a horrible din; and when they sprang from their berths, a shower of boiling blood fell on them so that they had to shelter themselves under their shields; but many were injured, and one man died out of every ship. They slept all that day. Next night again a frightful noise made them all spring to their feet; and they saw swords leap from the scabbards, and spears and axes, wielded by invisible hands, flew around their heads and aimed at their breasts, so that they had much ado to defend themselves: and now also many were injured and one man died out of every ship. They slept that day. The third night they were awakened by a din worse than t)ef ore; and now flocks of ravens with iron claws and beaks flew at them and attacked them, so that they had to defend themselves with swords and shields. But many were injured and one died out of every ship. (Burnt Nial, ii. 330), So to put the matter beyond portent or warning, Broder unmoored his ships and set sail for Ireland.

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made themselves masters of a great part of England; and Sigurd and Broder hoped to establish a similar kingdom for themselves in Ireland.

Returning to the Irish chronicle: there came, among others, the two earls of all the north of Saxon-land (England), namely Broder (the same man as the Broder of the Saga) and Amlaff the son of the king of Lochlann, bringing 2,000 ‘Danmarkians.’ These two are described in the old Irish record as ‘the chiefs of ships and outlaws and Danars of all the west of Europe, having no reverence for God or for man, for church or for sanctuary.’ There came also 1,000 men covered with coats of mail from head to foot: a very formidable phalanx, seeing that the Irish fought as usual in tunics. Envoys were despatched in other directions also: and Norse auxiliaries sailed towards Dublin from Scotland, from the Isles of Shetland, from the Hebrides, from France and Germany, and from the shores of Scandinavia.

While Sitric and the other envoys were thus successfully prosecuting their mission abroad, Mailmora was equally active at home; and by the time all the foreign auxiliaries had joined muster, and Dublin Bay from Edar to the Liffey was crowded with their black ships, he had collected the forces of Leinster and arranged them in three great battalions within and around the walls of Dublin. The Irish monarch had now no time to lose. He collected his forces about the 17th of March, and set out towards Dublin, ‘with all that obeyed him of the men of Ireland’ - ravaging on his way the territories of the Danes and Leinstermen. Having encamped at Kilmainham, he set fire to the Danish districts near Dublin, so that the fierce Norsemen within the city could see Fingall the whole way from Dublin to Howth smoking and blazing. And brooding vengeance, they raised their standards and sallied forth to prepare for battle.

The aged king had resolved to stake all on the coming battle; and with the exception of his son Donogh, every living man of his family stood there to fight by his side - all his sons and nephews, and his grandson Turlogh, a

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youth of fifteen, the son of Murrogh. A few days before, he had sent Donogh with a large body of Dalcassians to devastate Leinster, intending that he should be back in time for battle.

On the evening of Thursday the 22nd of April, 1014, the king got word that the Danes were making preparations to fight next day - Good Friday. They had been made aware of the absence of Donogh. Besides we are told in the Saga that Broder had consulted a pagan oracle, but found little comfort in the answer: that if the battle were fought before Good Friday the heathen host would be utterly routed and all its chiefs slain; but if on Good Friday, then King Brian would fall, but would win the day. Friday, then, Broder determined was to be the day of battle. The good king Brian was very unwilling to fight on that solemn day; but he was not able to avoid it.

On the morning of Friday the 23rd of April, the Irish army began their march from Kilmainham at dawn of day, in three divisions: the van consisted of the Dalcassians commanded by Murrogh: next to these came the men of the rest of Munster under Mothla O’Faelan prince of the Decies: and the forces of Connaught formed the third division, under the command of O’Hyne and 0’Kelly. There were two companies brought by the Great Stewards of Mar and Lennox in Scotland, who were related to the southern Irish, and now came to aid them in their hour of need. The men of Meath - the southern Hy Neill (p.134) - were there also, under Malachi: the northern Hy Neill took no part in the battle.

The Danish and Leinster forces also formed three divisions. In the van were the foreign Danes under the command of Broder and Sigurd; behind these were the Danes of Dublin, commanded by a chief named Duvgall; and the Leinstermen, led by Mailmora, formed the third division. Sitric the king of Dublin was not in the battle: he remained behind to guard the city. We are not told the numbers engaged: but there were probably about 20,000 men each side.

At that time Dublin city, which was held by the Danes,

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lay altogether south of the Liffey, the narrow streets crowding round the Danish fortress which crowned the hill where now stands Dublin Castle. The only way to reach the city from the north side was by Duvgall’s bridge - now the bridge at the foot of Church Street, beside the Four Courts. Northwards the sea flowed in considerably farther than Amiens Street and Abbey Street. Portion of the plain north of Dublin - Drumcondra and its neighbourhood, and on by Phibsborough towards the Liffey - was covered by a piece of natural forest called Tomar’s Wood.

The battle ground extended from about the present Upper Sackville Street to the Tolka and beyond - along the shore towards Clontarf. The Danes stood with their backs to the sea; the Irish on the land side facing them. Malachi and his Meathmen stood at the Irish extreme right, on the high ground probably somewhere about Blessington Street. The hardest fighting appears to have taken place round the fishing-weir on the Tolka, at, or perhaps a little above, the present Ballybough Bridge; and indeed the battle is called in some old Irish authorities, ‘the Battle of the Weir of Clontarf.’

In the march from Kilmainham the venerable monarch rode at the head of the army; but his sons and friends prevailed on him, on account of his age - he was now seventy-three - to leave the chief command to his son Murrogh. When they had come near the place of conflict, the army halted; and the king, holding aloft a crucifix in sight of all, rode from rank to rank and addressed them in a few spirited words. He reminded them that on that day their good Lord had died for them; and he exhorted them to fight bravely for their religion and their country. Then giving the signal for battle he withdrew to his tent in the rear.

Little or no tactics appear to have been employed, except the formation of each army into three divisions. It was simply a fight of man against man, like most battles of those days - a series of hand-to-hand encounters; and the commanders fought side by side with their men. No cavalry were employed.

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On the evening before, a Dane named Platt, one of the 1,000 in armour, ‘the bravest knight of the foreigners, son of the king of Lochlann,’ had challenged any man of the Irish army to single combat; and he was taken up by Donall the Great Steward of Mar. Now stepped forth Platt on the middle space and called out three times, ‘Where is Donall?’ ‘Here I am, villain!’ answered Donall. And they fought in sight of the two armies till both fell, with the sword of each through the heart of the other.

The first divisions to meet were the Dalcassians and the foreign Danes; then the men of Connaught and the Danes of Dublin fell on one another; and the battle soon became general. From early morning till sunset they fought without the least intermission. The thousand Danes in coats of mail were marked out for special attack; and they were all cut to pieces; for their armour was no protection against the terrible battle-axes of the Dalcassians.

The Danish fortress of Dublin, perched on its hill summit, overlooked the field; and Sitric and those with him in the city crowded the parapets, straining their eyes to unravel the details of the terrible conflict. They compared the battle to a party of reapers cutting down corn; and once when Sitric thought he observed the Danes prevailing, he said triumphantly to his wife - king Brian’s daughter (p.208) - ‘Well do the foreigners reap the field: see how they fling the sheaves to the ground!’ ‘The result will be seen at the close of the day,’ answered she quietly; for her heart was with her kindred.

The old chronicle describes Murrogh as dealing fearful havoc. Three several times he rushed with his household troops through the thick press of the furious foreigners, mowing down men to the right and left; for he wielded a heavy sword in each hand, and needed no second blow. At last he came on earl Sigurd whom he found slaughtering the Dalcassians: and here we have an interesting legendary episode from the Saga. Sigurd had a banner which was made by his mother with all her dark art of

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heathen witchcraft. It was in raven’s shape, and whenever the wind blew, then it was as though the raven flapped his wings. It always brought victory to Sigurd, but whoever bore it was doomed to death: now in presence of the Christian host it lost the gift of victory but retained its death-doom for the bearer. And when Murrogh - or Kerthialfad as the Saga calls him [1] - approached, he broke through the ranks of the Norsemen and slew the standard-bearer: and he and Sigurd fought a hard fight. Another man took up the banner, but he was instantly slain by Murrogh, and again there was a hard fight between the two. Sigurd now calls to Thorstein to take the banner, to whom his comrade Asmund said: ‘Don’t bear the banner, for all who bear it shall get their death.’ Sigurd next calls out to Hrafn the Red: ‘Bear thou the banner!’ ‘Bear thy own devil thyself!’ replied Hrafn. Then the earl himself took the banner and put it under his cloak,[1] and again turned on Murrogh. But Murrogh struck off his helmet with a blow of the right hand sword, bursting straps and buckles; and with the other felled him to the earth - dead.

1. Kerthialfad is evidently intended for Terdelhhach or Turlogh, the name of Murrogh’s son, given in the Saga by mistake to the father.
2.Burnt Nial, ii. 336.
3. How Sigurd met his death is told in the Irish Chronicle: the Saga merely says he was pierced through with a spear.
  The Irish had their legends of the battle as well as the Norsemen. The young Dalcassian hero Dunlang O’Hartigan was Murrogh’s dearest comrade, and fought by his side in every tield. And the guardian fairy Eevin of Craglea (p.140) loved Dunlang, and on the evening before the battle she came to him and tried to persuade him to stay away. For she said if he fought next day he was doomed to death: and she offered to bring him away to fairyland - the land of peace and pleasure. But he told her he was resolved to go to battle, even to certain death, rather than abandon Murrogh at the hour of danger. When she found she could not prevail, she gave him a magic cloak, and told him that so long as he wore it, it would make him invisible and keep him from danger, but that if he threw it off he would certainly be killed. Next day, when the battle was raging all round, Murrogh heard the voice of Dunlang over all the din, but could not see him; and he heard tremendous blows, and saw the Danes falling fast just beside him. At last taking breath for a moment he cried out, ‘That voice is the voice, and these are surely the blows, of Dunlang O’Hartigan!’ Whereupon Dunlang, thinking it a disgrace to hide himself from his friends in battle, threw off the cloak; and presently he fell slain at the feet of MuiTogh (Wars of the Gaels n-ith the Galls, p.173: and Feis Tiqhe Chondin, Ossianic Society, p.98).

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Towards evening the Irish made a general and determined attack; and the main body of the Danes at last gave way. ‘Then flight broke out throughout all the host.’ [1] Crowds fled along the level shore between Tom ar’s Wood and the sea, vainly hoping to reach either the ships or Duvgall’s Bridge. But Malachi, who had stood by till this moment, rushed down with his Meathmen and cut off their retreat. When the battle commenced in the morning there was high tide; and now after the long day the tide was again at flood, so that the ships lay beyond reach far out from shore.’ [2] The flying multitude were caught between the Meathmen on the one side and the sea on the other, with the vengeful pursuers close behind; and most of those who escaped the sword were driven into the sea and drowned. The greatest slaughter of the Danes took place during this rout, on the level space now covered with streets from Bally bough Bridge to the Four Courts. This fearful onslaught of Malachi utterly crushed the Danes, and few escaped across Duvgall’s Bridge. [3]

1. Burnt Nial, ii. 336.
2. In the historical tale The Mars of the Gaels with the Galls, from which our account is mainly derived, it is stated that on the day of the battle, the 23rd of April 1014, the tide was at its height at sunrise: ‘They continued fighting from sunrise till evening. For it was at the full tide the foreigners came out to fight the battle in the morning, and the tide had come to the same place again at the close of the day when the foreigners were defeated’ (Wars of the Gaels with the Galls, p.191). When Dr. Todd, who was preparing to edit the work, observed this statement in the old manuscript, he resolved to test its truth; and without stating his object, he put this question to the Rev. Professor Haughton of Trinity College: ‘What was the time of high water in Dublin Bay on the 23rd of April, 1014? Professor Haughton after a laborious calculation, found the time of morning high tide to be half-past 5 o’clock, and of evening tide 55 minutes past 5. Thus the old account was fully corroborated, showing that it must have been originally written by, or taken down from, an eye-witness of the battle. The reader will observe the striking similarity of this incident to that of the solar eclipse of 664 (p.26). Dr. Haughton’s calculation will be found in Dr. Todd’s Introduction, p.xxvi.
3. Keating, as well as the author of the Wars of the Gaels with the Galls, and other Munster writers, say that Malachi, though marching [221] to Clontarf with Brian, stood by with his Meathmen and took no part in the battle. But the Four Masters contradict this. They open their short account of the battle by telling us that Brian and Malachi marched to Dublin, and that the foreigners of the west of Europe assembled against them. Then having partly described the battle and the death of Brian, Murrogh, and many other Irish chiefs, they bring in Malachi for the first time: ‘The [Danish] forces were afterwards routed ... by Malachi from the Tolka to Dublin’ - and then they go on to name the Danish and Leinster chiefs who were slain.
  I had always looked on Malachi - and I do so still - as a magnanimous prince who sacrificed his personal feelings for love of country; and I disbelieved the assertions of the Munster writers as calumnies invented to raise the character of their own great hero. This was also the view of Moore, O’Donovan, and Todd. But O’Curry (Man. and Cust. i. 124) has called attention to a poem written immediately after the battle by Mac Liag, Brian’s chief poet, contained in a portion of the Book of Hy Many, now in the British Museum, which, to say the least, throws a grave doubt on the conduct of Malachi, immediately before and at the battle. The poet is lamenting the death of Brian and of O’Kelly chief of Hy Many, Malachi’s nephew, who fell in the battle. He expresses his sorrow that O’Kelly, whom he greatly loved, did not accept the proposal of Malachi before the battle, who offered him riches in abundance to withdraw from Brian: ‘Malachi of the spears offered to the noble son of his sister as much as he had got from the princely Brian, to refrain from battle, from valour, and the jewels of Erin from wave to wave, with the command of his hosts.’ But O’Kellv replied that the Dalcassians were dearer to him than all others of the Gael, and that he would never betray Brian and Murrogh. The poet mentions nothing of Malachi’s conduct at the battle: it would have been quite out of place to do so, as he was merely bemoaning the fate of his friend O’Kelly; and this omission strengthens the belief in his truthfulness.
  Though the Munster [222] writers strive to blacken Malachi’s character beyond his deserts, and tell us distinctly that he took no part at all in the battle, I fear we cannot altogether set aside their testimony. Carefully weighing all the evidence, the conclusion I come to- very reluctantly- is this: that Malachi came to Clontarf, as the Munster writers say, intending not to fight: that he stood by all day; but that when towards evening he saw the Danes flying in confusion towards Dublin, his better nature and his old hatred of the Danes overcame the memory of his deposition, and he fell on them and slaughtered them. This is quite consistent with the Four Masters’ narrative, especially in view of the word ‘afterwards.’ Brian himself, as we have seen, was not free from stain; and if Malachi on this single occasion weakly yielded for a time to his sense of wrong, we must not let this outweigh the heroic deeds of a long life; and we must remember it was his final onslaught that rendered the issue of the day final and decisive.
 Though no one would think of doubting O’Curry, yet I never felt quite satisfied about this poem till I had gone to the British Museum and copied it with my own hand: and the above account is translated from it direct, not taken secondhand from O’Curry.

[Ed. note: the above lengthy footnote extends from p.220 to 222 in the printed text and is here united for convenience. The actual page-breaks are given above in square brackets as per head of page.]

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The rout was plainly seen by those on the parapets of the fortress; and Sitric’s wife, whose turn of triumph had now come, said to her husband with bitter mockery: ‘It seems to me that the foreigners are making fast for their natural inheritance - the sea: they look like a herd of cows galloping over the plain on a sultry summer day, driven mad by heat and gadflies: but indeed they do not look like cows that wait to be milked!’ Sitric’s brutal answer was a blow on the mouth which broke one of her teeth.

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We have related so far the disasters of the Danes, But the Irish had their disasters also; and dearly did they pay for their great victory.

After the rout of the Danish main body, and when the fortune of the day was decided, scattered parties of Danes, scorning or unable to fly, continued to fight for life with despairing fury at various points over the plain. On one of those groups came Murrogh, still fighting, but so fatigued that he could scarce lift his hands. Anrad the leader of the band,’ the head of valour and bravery of Lochlann,’ dashed at him furiously. But Murrogh, who had dropped his sword, closing on him, grasped him in his arms, and by main strength pulled his armour over his head: then getting him under, he seized the Norseman’s sword and thrust it three times through his body to the very ground. Anrad, writhing in the death agony, plunged his dagger into the prince’s side, inflicting a mortal wound. But the Irish hero had still strength enough left to behead the Dane: and he lived till next morning, when he received the solemn rites of the church.

The heroic boy Turlogh fought valiantly during the day in his father’s division, side by side with his elder relatives. After the battle - late in the evening - he was found drowned at the fishing weir of the Tolka, with his hands entangled in the long hair of a Dane, whom he had pursued into the tide at the time of the great flight.

But the crowning tragedy of the bloody day of Clontart was yet to come. The aged king remained in his tent

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engaged in earnest prayer, while he listened to the din of battle. He had a single attendant, Laiten, who stood at the door to view the field; and close round the tent stood a guard. Once the king asked how the battle fared. ‘The battalions,’ replied Laiten, ‘are mixed together in deadly struggle; and I hear their blows as if a vast multitude were hewing down Tomar’s Wood with heavy axes. I see Murrogh’s banner standing aloft, with the banners of the Dalgas around it.’

Then the king’s cushion was adjusted and he clasped his hands in prayer.

Again, after a time, he made anxious inquiry. ‘They are now mingled so that no living man could distinguish them; and they are all covered with blood and dust, so that a father could scarce know his own son. Many have fallen, but Murrogh’s banner still stands, moving through the battalions.’

‘That is well,’ replied the king: ‘as long as the men of Erin see that standard they will fight with courage and valour.’

The same question a third time towards evening. ‘It is now as if Tomar’s Wood were on fire, and the flames burning and the multitudes hewing down the underwood, leaving the tall trees standing. For the ranks are thinned, and only a few great heroes are left to maintain the fight. The foreigners are now defeated; but the standard of Murrogh has fallen.’

‘Evil are those tidings,’ said the old warrior-king, losing heart at last: ‘if Murrogh lies fallen the valour of the men of Erin is fled, and they shall never again look on a champion like him.’ And again he knelt and prayed.

And now came the great rout; and the guards, thinking all danger past, eagerly joined in the pursuit, so that the king and his attendant were left alone. Then Laiten becoming alarmed, said: ‘Many flying parties of foreigners are around us; let us hasten to the camp where we shall be in safety.’

But the king replied: ‘Retreat becomes us not; and I know that I shall not leave this place alive; for Eevin

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of Craglea, the guardian spirit of my race (p.140), came to me last night and told me I should be slain this day. And what avails me - now in my old age - to survive Murrogh and the other champions of the Dalgas?’

He then spoke his last will to the attendant, giving his property to various religious establishments, and directing as a farewell mark of devotion to the church, that his body should be buried at Armagh: and after this he resumed his prayers.

It happened that Broder, who had fled from the battlefield on finding that his coat of mail had lost its virtue, came with some followers at this very time towards the tent. ‘I see some people approaching,’ said Laiten. ‘What manner of people are they?’ asked the king. ‘Blue and naked people,’ replied the attendant. ‘They are Danes in armour!’ exclaimed the king, and instantly rising from his cushion he drew his sword. Broder at that instant rushed on him with a double-edged battle-axe, but was met by a blow of the heavy sword that cut off both legs, one from the knee and the other from the ankle. But the furious Viking, even while falling, cleft the king’s head with the axe. [1]

After a little time the guards, as if struck by a sudden sense of danger, returned in haste: but too late. They found the king dead, and his slayer stretched by his side dying.

The battle of Clontarf was celebrated all over Europe, and exaggerated accounts of its horrors reached some of the continental chroniclers. Ademarl, the contemporary French annalist of Angouleme, records that it lasted for three days, that all the Norsemen were killed, and that their women threw themselves in crowds into the sea; but there is no foundation for this. The Nial Saga relates the whole story of the battle as a great defeat, and tells of visions and portents seen by the Scandinavian people in their homes in the north, on that fatal Good Friday. In Caithness one of the Norse settlers saw twelve maidens

1 The Saga’s account of the manner of Brian’s death is somewhat different.

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riding into a bower; and when he looked in through a chink he saw them weaving in a loom: ‘Men’s heads were the weights, men’s entrails the warp and weft, a sword was the shuttle, and the reels were arrows’; and while they wove they sang a dreadful song. Then they arose and tore the web asunder, each keeping her own part, and galloped, six north and six south. These were Odin’s Valkyrias or ‘corse-choosers’ who marked out those who were to fall on the battle-field.[1] In Iceland blood burst from a priest’s vestments while he was celebrating Mass. A Norse earl in one of the Isles dreamed that a man who had come from Ireland sang to him:

I can tell of all their struggle,
Sigurd fell in flight of spears,
Brian fell but kept his kingdom,
Ere he lost one drop of blood.’ [2]

The Irish too had their prodigies: the old poet Mac Cosse tells us that at the hour of Brian’s death a well of blood sprang from the earth beside the penitential bed of St. Fechin at Cong, far away on the western border of Erin. [3].

A week after the battle, Hrafn the Ked, who had escaped, brought tidings to the North; and earl Flosi asks him: ‘; What hast thou to tell me of my men?’ ‘They all fell there,’ replied Hrafn. [4]

As to the numbers slain, the records differ greatly. According to the annals of Ulster 7,000 fell on the Danish side and 4,000 on the Irish, which is probably near the truth. Almost all the leaders on both sides were slain, and among them Mailmora, the direct inciter of the battle.

To this day the whole neighbourhood of Clontarf teems with living memorials of the battle. You will see ‘Danesfield,’ ‘Conquer Hill,’ ‘Brian Boru’s Lodge,’ and

1. Burnt Nial, ii. 336. Dasent has given a translation of the song; and Gray has paraphrased it as an English ode - ‘The Fatal Sisters’ - as weird and gloomy as the original.
2. Burnt Nial, ii. 342.
3. O’Curry, Mann, and Cust, i, 119. 4.
4. Burnt Nial, ii. 343.

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many other such names. A fine spring well lias been known from time immemorial as Brian Boru’s Well; but it is now turned into a modern drinking fountain, still known however by the old name. According to some accounts the Dalcassian heroes retired to this well when thirsty and weary at intervals during the day to drink: but this is all modern: there is nothing of it in the old accounts. There are still many mounds where the dead were buried; and one very large one is called ‘Brian Boru’s Mound.’

The battle of Clontarf was the last great struggle between Christianity and heathenism.

The body of king Brian and that of his son Murrogh were conveyed with great solemnity to Armagh, where they were interred in the cathedral, the archbishop and clergy celebrating the obsequies for twelve days.

After the battle the Irish collected their broken battalions and encamped at Kilmainham. On Easter Sunday Donogh entered the camp to find that all was over. He took command, but did not attempt to capture Dublin from Sitric: what his father, four months before, had failed in, he could hardly hope to do in the weakened state of his army. After waiting a few days to rest and bury their dead, he and his Dalcassian clans set out on their homeward march, bringing the wounded on litters. Arriving at Athy they halted; and the men both whole and wounded refreshed themselves in the cool waters of the Barrow.

Here occurred a humiliating incident. Mac Gilla Patrick, prince of Ossory, an old enemy of the Dalcassians, basely taking advantage of their enfeebled state, came forth with his army to attack them. Donogh, making hasty preparations to meet him, gave orders that the wounded and sick men should be placed in the rear with one third of the army for a guard. But those brave men, emaciated and feeble as they were, insisted on taking part in the fight. ‘Let stakes from the neighbouring wood,’ said they,’ be fixed in the ground, and let us be tied to them for support, with our swords in our hands, having

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our wounds bound up with moss, and let two unwounded men stand by each of us, on the right and on the left. Thus will we fight; and our companions will fight the better for seeing us.’ It was done so. And when the Ossorians saw the Dalcassians marshalled in this manner to receive them, they were seized with fear and pity, and refused to attack such resolute and desperate men; so the Dalcassians were at last permitted to depart without fighting. Nevertheless on their southward march Mac Gilla Patrick hung on their rear and killed great numbers of them.

After the battle of Olontarf and the death of Brian, Malachi, by general consent and without any formality, took possession of the throne. He reigned for eight years after and gave evidence of his old vigour by crushing some risings of the Danes - feeble expiring imitations of their ancient ferocious raids - and by gaining several victories over the Leinstermen. Feeling his end approaching, he retired to Cro-Insha, a small island in Lough Ennel, to devote his last days to penitence and prayer. Here in presence of the archbishop of Armagh and other eminent ecclesiastics, he died a most edifying death (1022), in the seventy-third year of his age, leaving behind him a noble record of self-denial, public spirit, and kingly dignity.

The character and career of Brian Boru have been very differently estimated by different writers. His deposition of Malachi is called a rebellion, no doubt with justice, by the great annalist Tighernach, who flourished within half a century of his time. His accession was certainly a revolution. During the preceding 500 years, from Lewy (p.150) to Malachi, there had been forty reigns, including five by two kings conjointly; forty-five kings altogether; and all without exception belonged to the princely Hy Neill family. Now for the first time the old succession was broken. To this interruption some modern writers have attributed, but on insufiicient grounds, most of the subsequent disasters of the country; and they represent Brian as usurping the throne in pursuance of mere personal ambition. On the other hand the southern chroniclers

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have unduly exalted the character of their hero, and to this end they have done their best to blacken the fame of Malachi. No doubt the truth lies between. We must remember that Brian probably saved Ireland from complete subjugation by the Danes, and that he succeeded - or almost succeeded - in combining the whole country in one solid monarchy, what no king before him was able to do. His magnificent conception was to establish a dynasty which should rule Ireland for evermore as one strong undivided kingdom; and he failed because no representative member of his family as able and as stronghanded as himself survived Clontarf. If he gained power by means not always above reproach, he employed it to crush the enemies of his country, and to advance the interests of religion, learning, and good government.

Chapter X: Preparing the Way for the Invader

[Chief authorities: The Irish Annals; Keating’s Hist, of Irel.; Cambrensis Eversus; O’Curry’s MS. Mat., and Mann, and Oust.]

During the century and a half from the death of Malachi II. to the Anglo-Norman invasion, Ireland had no universally acknowledged over-king. To every one there was opposition from some influential quarter or another; which the annalists indicate by the epithet ‘Ri co fressabra, ‘king with opposition,’ commonly applied to the kings who during this time aspired to the sovereignty. During the whole of this period Ireland was in a state of great confusion. The rival claimants waged incessant war with one another; and the annals present a pitiful picture of strife and bloodshed all over the country. What the Saxon Heptarchy was before the time of Egbert, such was Ireland during this dark and troubled interval; and as a natural consequence, it became an easy prey to the invaders when they came.

The annalists tell us that for some years after the death of Malachi (died 1022) there was an interregnum; and

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that the affairs of the kingdom were administered by two learned men, Cuan O’Lochan, a great antiquary and poet, and ‘Corcran the cleric,’ a very holy ecclesiastic who lived chiefly in Lismore. What the functions of these two men were it is not easy to understand. Probably they were in some respects like the presidents of a republic; for we read in the annals of Clonmacnoise that ‘the land was governed like a free state and not like a monarchy by them.’

Not long after the death of Malachi, Donogh king of Munster, son of Brian Boru, finding himself secure on the provincial throne, took steps to claim the sovereignty in succession to his father. He forced Ossory, Leinster, and Meath to give him hostages in token of submission; and later on he obtained the adhesion of Connaught. By some he is ranked among the kings of Ireland; but he never made any attempt on Ulster. Donogh had an elder brother Teige, who in 1023 - the year after the death of Malachi - was treacherously killed by the people of Ely; and some say that Donogh himself instigated the deed in order to secure the crown of Munster; but of this there is no certainty. This Teige left a son, Turlogh O’Brien, who was fostered by Dermot Mac Mailnamo king of Leinster; and these two - foster father and foster son - always lived on terms of friendship and affection.

When Turlogh grew up he claimed the throne of Munster as his right; and he and his foster father waged incessant war on Donogh, believing that the murder of Turlogh’s father was due to him. Donogh, though a powerful prince, was not able to stand against this combination, and gradually lost ground. They defeated him in several battles, and finally succeeded in deposing him; on which Turlogh became king of Munster; and Donogh, now in his old age, took a pilgrim’s staff and fared to Rome, where he died penitently in 1064.

At the time of Donogh’s deposition Dermot of Leinster was the most powerful of the provincial kings, so that he also is reckoned among the kings of Ireland. The most persistent opponent of his claims to the monarchy was

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Conor O’Melaglilin prince of Meatli, the son of Malachi, In the long contention between these two Dermot generally had the upper hand; but he was at last defeated and slain by Conor in a battle fought in 1072 at Ova or Navan in Meath.

Turlogh O’Brien was now free; for during his foster father’s lifetime he had abstained from making any claim outside Munster. Without delay he marched north from Kincora and forced the kings and chiefs of all the other provinces and minor states, except Ulster, to acknowledge his authority. But when he attempted to reduce the Ulstermen they defeated him, in 1075, almost on the threshold of their province - near Ardee - so that he had to make a hasty retreat south.

But Turlogh had in him some of the spirit of his grandfather, and was not easily turned aside from his purpose. He now made deliberate preparations for the complete subjugation of the other provinces, hoping to reduce Ulster in due course. First marching into Connaught, in 1079 he expelled Rory O’Conor. Next year he proceeded to Leinster and forced Meath and Dublin to submit; and having banished the Danish king Godfred, he made his own son Murkertagh or Murtogh king of Dublin. And some say that he ultimately forced Ulster to submit and pay him tribute.

Turlogh is on all hands acknowledged to have been king of Ireland with opposition. What his contemporaries outside of Ireland thought of him may be gathered from a letter written to him by Lanfranc archbishop of Canterbury, in which he is styled ‘Tirdelvac magnificent king of Hibernia,’ and the archbishop says, the Almighty showed great mercy towards the Irish people ‘when he gave your excellency supreme power over that land.’ In 1086 this king died peacefully in Kiucora after a reign of twenty-three years over Munster, and in the fourteenth year of his reign as king of Ireland.

Turlogh’s son Murkertagh O’Brien succeeded as king of Munster. In the assertion of his claim to the throne of Ireland he invaded Leinster, in the year after his acces

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sion, and defeated the Leinstermen in battle under Donall the son of Mac Mailnamo. But lie had a formidable competitor for the sovereignty - Donall O’Loghlan (or Mac Loughlin) king of Ailech (i.e. king of Ulster), who belonged to the northern Hy Neill and who now revived the claims of that princely family. These two men were distinguished for their abilities; and for more than a quarter of a century they contended with varying fortunes for the throne of Ireland.

Donall began the struggle in 1088 by marching southwards; and having forced O’Conor king of Connaught to submit and join him, they both plundered the great Munster plain extending through Tipperary and Limerick, burned Limerick city, and demolished the royal residence of Kincora. Donall then returned in triumph to Ulster, bringing captive many of the Munster chiefs, who were subsequently ransomed by Murkertagh.

In the very next year Murkertagh retaliated in an expedition up the Shannon, plundering remorselessly everything on his route, both church and homestead. But his boats were blocked in the river and his army was repulsed by O’Melaghlin king of Meath, so that he had to abandon his fleet and return to Munster.

The war went on, on all sides, till at length a meeting was held in 1090 on the shore of Lough Neagh by the two principal belligerents - O’Brien and O’Loughlin - with the kings of Meath and Connaught. Here O’Loughlin was acknowledged supreme monarch of the other three kings, and received hostages from them; after which they parted in peace. But the peace was of no long duration; for Murkertagh was determined to be king of all Ireland: and even during the short interval, the fierce broils of the other rulers continued to rage without the least intermission.

Murkertagh made two attempts in the year 1100 to reduce the Ulstermen, one by land and the other by sea with a Danish fleet; but on both occasions he was defeated and driven back by Donall. The next year (1101) he was more successful. With an overwhelming army drawn from the four provinces - Munster, Leinster, Meath, and Con

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naught - he marched through Connaught, crossed the ford of Assaroe, and traversing Innishowen, he destroyed Ailech or Greenan-EUy, the royal palace of the northern Hy Neill - Donall’s residence - in revenge for the destruction of Kincora thirteen years before. And to make the demolition more complete and humiliating, he ordered his soldiers to bring away the very stones of the building, a stone in every provision sack, all the way back to Kincora. Leaving Innishowen he proceeded to Ulidia, where they gave him hostages. He made the whole circuit of Ireland in six weeks without meeting any opposition, and brought hostages from every territory to his home in Eancora.

Some time after this he again marched into Ulster and encamped in Moy-Cova in the west of the present county of Down; but while he himself was temporarily absent, his main army was attacked (1103) by Donall O’Loughlin and routed with prodigious slaughter. In addition to the expeditions related above, Murkertagh marched on several other occasions into the heart of Ulster; and five different times - from 1097 to 1113 - when the hostile armies had confronted each other and were about to engage, the archbishop of Armagh interposed and persuaded the kings to make a truce and separate without bloodshed.

But some other matters besides war worthy of record occurred during this reign. Murkertagh found time to attend to the civil and religious affairs of the country; and he was a munificent patron of the church. Immediately before setting out on his triumphant circuit in 1101, he granted to the church the city of Cashel, one of the old seats of his kingly family, and changed his own chief residence to Limerick, which after that time continued to be the seat of the kings of Thomond. Hanmer relates that in the year 1098 Murkertagh gave William Rufus a number of great oak-trees from the wood of Ostmanstown or Oxmanstown on the north side of Dublin, wherewith was constructed the roof of Westminster Hall.[1]

Murkertagh, like his father, was thought highly of

1. Hanmer’s Chronicle, ed. 1809, p.194.

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abroad. He was on terms of friendship with Henry I. of England; one of his daughters was married to Sigurd son of Magnus, as related below, and another to Arnulf de Montgomery, brother of the earl of Shrewsbury. Anselm archbishop of Canterbury wrote him a letter about certain abuses in the Irish church in which he is styled the ‘glorious king of Ireland.’

Though the Danes in Ireland were now quiet enough, yet the proceedings of Magnus the powerful king of Norway show that the foreign Danes had not quite relinquished the idea of conquering Ireland. In the year 1102 he made a hostile descent on Dublin, but was confronted by Murkertagh with a large army. Deterred by this reception, he did not fight; a peace of one year was made; and Murkertagh gave his daughter in marriage to Magnus’s son Sigurd, the newly appointed king of the Hebrides. At the end of the year Magnus renewed his attempt however, by landing on the coast of Ulster; but he was caught in an ambuscade, and he and his whole party were slain; whereupon those that remained on board sailed away home with the fleet. The body of the Danish king was treated with great respect by the Irish, and was buried in the cathedral of Downpatrick.[1] A circumstance that, on the other hand, indicates the increasing goodwill between the Irish and Danes was the application of the Danes of Man and the Hebrides to Murkertagh (or more probably to his father Turlogh) for a member of his family to be king over them during the minority of their own king. He sent them his nephew Donall O’Brien, who however turned out an intolerable tyrant, and was expelled by his subjects at the end of three years. Another Donall O’Brien, his cousin, ruled the Danes of Dublin about the same time.

The long contest between these two powerful rivals - O’Brien and O’Loughlin - remained undecided to the last, for neither succeeded in completely and finally crushing the other; and they are both spoken of as kings of Ireland, reigning with equal authority, though O’Brien was certainly the more distinguished king. Both ended their days in

1. Four Masters, A.D. 1102 and 1103; Cambr. Evers. ii. 49, 51.

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retirement and penitence. Murkertagh struck down with a wasting sickness retired to the monastery of Lismore in 1114, where having entered the ecclesiastical state, he died in 1119. With him passed away for ever the predominance of the O’Brien family. Donall retired to the monastery of Derry, where he died in 1121.

After the death of Donall there was an interregnum of about fifteen years with no over-king. For the past century the struggle for supremacy had been chiefly between the O’Briens of Munster and the O’Loghlins or Mac Loghlins of Ulster - a branch of the Hy Neill. For the next half-century it was between the O’Neills and the O’Conors of Connaught, ending in the triumph of the O’Conors, till the native monarchy was overthrown for ever by the Anglo-Normans.

For some time past the kings of Connaught had been gradually gaining power and influence. Turlogh O’Conor, who at this time ruled over the province - the king who caused the Cross of Cong to be made in 1123 (p.107) - believing himself strong enough to win the crown of Ireland, determined to reduce the other provinces. He began with Munster, which he considered the most powerful. Since the time of Brian Boru the alternate arrangement described at p.204 had been set aside, and all the kings were of that great monarch’s family. O’Conor, now that the formidable old king Murkertagh O’Brien was off the stage, marching to Glanmire near Cork in 1118, enforced a new arrangement, making Mac Carthy king of Desmond and one of the O’Briens king of Thomond - thus, so far as lay in his power, dividing and weakening the province.

He followed up this exploit by marching in the same year to Dublin, from which he carried off" captive the Dublin king, son of O’Melaghlin prince of Meath. The palace of Kincora had been rebuilt by Murkertagh O’Brien in 1096, a few years after its destruction by Donall O’Loughlin (p.231). O’Conor now turning south and west, again tore it down and hurled all, both wood and stone, into the Shannon.

Notwithstanding the subdivision of Munster, the

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O’Briens proved formidable adversaries, and still retained at least nominal sway over the whole province. One of them - Conor of the Fortress - whom the Four Masters style ‘supreme king of the two provinces of Munster,’ not only disputed O’Conor’s supremacy, but led several successful expeditions into the heart of Connaught. And thus the wretched country continued to be torn by feuds and broils: so that, as the Four Masters express it, Ireland was ‘a trembling sod.’ The good and saintly Celsus, archbishop of Armagh, undertook several journeys through the country endeavouring to make peace, and on one occasion - in 1126 - he remained absent from his see for thirteen months. During the last of these journeys of mercy he died in 1129 at the monastery of Ardpatrick in Limerick, and was buried with great honour and solemnity at Lismore.

Through all this turmoil, Turlogh O’Conor steadily advanced in power, though the O’Briens still valiantly maintained the struggle against him. Turlogh O’Brien who succeeded Conor of the Fortress in 1142 had an army of 9,000 trained men with which he overawed all Munster, made several incursions into Connaught and Leinster, and held his Connaught adversary well in check. At length O’Conor, determined on a final effort to crush him, marched south with an army of the men of Connaught, Meath, and Leinster, these last under their king Dermot Mac Murrogh, of whom more will be heard in next chapter.

The Dalcassian king had meantime been much weakened by the defection of one of his own kinsmen who had joined O’Conor against him; he was indeed driven for a short time from his throne. Returning now from a predatory incursion into Desmond, he was caught at a disadvantage by unexpectedly meeting O’Conor’s great army at a place called Moanmore, which has not been identified, but which is in either Limerick or Tipperary. Here a terrible battle was fought in 1151, in which the southern army was almost annihilated: 7,000 of their men were left dead on the field, with a number of the leading Munster chiefs: the greatest slaughter witnessed in Ireland since

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the day of Clontarf. And tlius all Muuster was brought under the sway of the Connaught king. From this downfall Turlogh O’Brien never recovered.

Murkertagh O’Loghlin or Mac Loghlin, prince of Ailech, was now O’Conor’s only opponent, and a very formidable foe he proved. In the same year of the battle of Moanmore - 1151 - he marched an army south to the Curlieu Hills, threatening an invasion of Connaught, so that O’Conor - now weakened after Moanmore - was forced to send him hostages in token of submission. For the purpose of weakening his adversary O’Loghlin espoused the cause of O’Brien who had been banished to Ulster by O’Conor; and having defeated O’Conor’s forces in course of a successful raid, near Rahan in King’s County (1153), he restored O’Brien to his kingdom of Thomond.

Next year (1154) Turlogh, collecting a great fleet filled with an army of skilled mariners from the sea margin and islands of Connaught, under the command of O’Dowda, sailed northwards and plundered the coasts of Tirconnell and Innishowen. To meet this invasion O’Loghlin hired a Scoto-Danish fleet from the western seaboards of Scotland, and from the Isle of Man; and a fierce naval battle was fought lasting from morning till night, in which the Danish fleet was defeated and captured; but the Irish commander was killed.

King Turlogh O’Conor never relinquished the struggle for supremacy till the day of his death, which occurred in 1156: he is reckoned among the kings of Ireland. He was a man of great ability, and he did not confine his energies wholly to warfare. We have some indication of the bent of his mind as a governor in the record that he built, early in his reign, three great bridges; a work of much merit and utility in those days: two over the Shannon at Athlone and Shannon Harbour, and one over the Suck at Ballinasloe. Besides these he had several wicker bridges constructed. He also caused to be celebrated the ancient fair of Tailltenn (p.89), which had probably fallen into disuse on account of the disturbed state of the country.

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Turlogh was succeeded in 1156 as king of Connaught by his son Rory, or as he is more commonly called, Roderick O’Conor. Not long after his election, this new king marched towards Ulster to assert his claim to be king of Ireland against O’Loghlin; who however met him on the old battle-ground at Ardee and inflicted on him a severe defeat (1159). After this O’Conor acknowledged O’Loghlin’s supremacy and sent him hostages.

And now O’Loghlin was the unquestioned king of Ireland, and might have reigned long had he not committed an act of gross and wanton treachery. In violation of a solemn oath-bound treaty made in presence of the archbishop of Armagh and several of the Ulster princes a year before, he suddenly, without any provocation, seized Mac Dunlevy prince of Dalaradia, with some other chiefs, blinded Mac Dunlevy, and killed the others. This so enraged O’Carroll of Oriell, who had been one of the guarantees in the treaty, that he raised an army against the monarch, and in a battle fought at a place called Letterluin in Armagh in 1166, defeated and slew him.

Roderick O’Conor had now no rival of any consequence; and receiving tokens of submission from many quarters, he was formally and solemnly inaugurated king of Ireland. Two years after (in 1168) he caused the fair of Tailltenn to be celebrated by the people of Leth Conn with all its ancient splendour; and the Four Masters tell us that their horses and cavalry extended all the way from Mullach Aiti, or the Hill of Lloyd, to Tailltenn or Teltown, a distance of seven miles. During his reign occurred the most important events in the history of the country, which will be related in the following chapters.

Though most of the great educational establishments were broken up during the Danish ravages, many rose from their ruins or held their ground, notwithstanding that they were often ravaged both by Danes and natives. Even to the beginning of the twelfth century Ireland still retained some portion of her ancient fame for learning, and we find the schools of Armagh, Lismore, Clonmacnoise,

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Monasterboice, and others still attracting great numbers of students, many of them foreigners.[1] At this time flourished the two great scholars and annalists, Flann of Monasterboice and Tighernach of Clonmacnoise. Many Irishmen also continued to distinguish themselves and to found monasteries on the Continent. Marianus Scotus or Mailbride went from his native Ulster to Germany about 1067, where he became the head of a community of monks at Eatisbon, and had the reputation of being the most learned man of his age.

Many grave abuses had crept into the church during the Danish troubles - nearly all caused by the encroachments of the lay chiefs: but they were all disciplinal irregularities. One grave abuse we find frequently mentioned - the usurpation of bishoprics and abbacies by laymen, who of course did not attempt to discharge any spiritual functions. Before the time of St. Celsus, St. Malachi’s predecessor, eight married laymen had usurped the see of Armagh. [2] We find no indication of any defection in doctrine - of any taint of heresy or schism. The ecclesiatical authorities exerted themselves to correct these abuses; and their solicitude and activity are shown by a number of synods occurring about this time: in the one half-century from 1111 to 1169, eleven synods were held at various centres through the country. St. Malachi O’Morgair archbishop of Armagh, one of the greatest men of the Irish church (died 1148), was especially successful in his endeavours to remove abuses and restore proper discipline.

That religion never lost its hold on the Irish kings and chiefs, even during the time of their bitterest internecine struggles, is shown by the successful interference for peace on several occasions of the archbishop of Armagh, as already mentioned (p.232).

In 1101 Murkertagh O’Brien, who was then looked upon as king of Ireland, having convened a meeting of the clergy and laity of Leth Mow at the royal seat of Cashel, solemnly dedicated that old city to God and St. Patrick, and gave it to the church, as stated, p.232,’ a grant such as

1. Lanigan, iii. 490.
2. Cambrensis Eversus, ed. 1850, ii. 635.

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no king ever made before.’ Ten years later (in 1111) the same Murkertagh caused an important synod, or rather a great national convention, to be hekl at a place called Fidmic-Aengusa near Ushnagh in Westmeath, [1] to prescribe rules and good morals for all, both laity and clergy.’ [2] It was attended by the archbishops of Cashel and Armagh, and by 50 bishops, 300 priests, and 3,000 clergy of inferior orders, as well as by king Murkertagh himself and the chiefs of Leth Mow. Another synod was held about the same time at a place called Rathbrassil, which has not been identified. At this synod the several dioceses all over Ireland were clearly defined; and it was ordained that the lands and revenues allotted to the bishops for their support should be exempted from public tax or tribute. The subdivision into parishes gradually followed. We have seen (p.167) that in old times a chief bishop was appointed to every chief tribe. When the dioceses were marked out therefore they coincided with the districts then occupied by the several chief tribes; and to this day a great many of the old tribal territories are pretty accurately defined by the dioceses - more so than by the counties or baronies. Some believe that the synod of Rathbrassil was the same as that of Fid-mic-Aengusa: this is Dr. Lynch’s opinion,[3] and he is probably right.

The most memorable synod of this period was that held at Kells in 1152, presided over by cardinal Paparo the pope’s legate, which was attended by twentyone bishops besides many abbots and priors and a great number of the inferior clergy. The cardinal had brought the palliums, which the great and good St. Malachi O’Morgair archbishop of Armagh had solicited from the pope some years before. Until this time there had been only two archbishops in Ireland, those of Armagh and Cashel; but at this council Dublin and Tuam were constituted archiepis copal sees; and the cardinal conferred the four palliums on the four archbishops, declaring that the archbishop of Armagh was primate over the others. The several sees to be under each archbishop were also

1. Four Masters, a.d. 1111.
1. Cambrensis Eversus I ii. 53.

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enumerated. There were decrees against simony and usury, both then prevalent all over the Christian world, as well as against other vices and irregularities. It was ordained that tithes should be paid; but this regulation was not fully enforced till after the Anglo-Norman invasion. All the decrees related to discipline and morality: there was no reference - and no need of reference - to points of faith or doctrine.

LIST OF KINGS OF IRELAND
From the beginning of the Christian Era to 1172, with the dates of their ACCESSION.

Conari I. (the Great) began Lugaid (or Lewy) Mac Con 250; to reign about the first; Fergus Dubhdedach (of the; year of the Christian Era.; Black Teeth) 253; Lugaid Riab Derg (Lewy of; Cormac Mac Art or Cormac; the Red Circles) 65; Ulfada (son of Art the; Concobar Abrat Ruad (Conor; Solitary) ....; 254; of the Red Brows) 73; Eochaid (or Achy) Gunnat 277; Crimthann (or Criifan) Nia; Carbery Liffechair (of the; Nair; 71; Lifiey) ....; 279; Carbery Cinncat (Cat-head); 90; Fiacha Sraibtine 297; Feradach Finn Fachtnach .9.5; Colla Huas .... 327; Fiatach Finn; 117; Muredach Tirech 331; Fiacha Finnola .119; Caelbad ....357; Elim Mac Connra 126; Eochaid Muigmedon (Achy Tuathal the Legitimate) 130; Moyvane) ....; 358; Mai Mac Rochride; 160; Crimthan Mor(Criffan More); 366; Fedlimid Rechrmar (Felim; Niall of the Nine Host ages; 379 the Lawgiver) son of Tuathal the Legitimate 164; Dathi [Dauhi] 405; Cathir Mor [Cahirmore]; 174; Laeghaire [Leary]; 428; Conn Cedcathach (the Hundred-fighter) 177; Olioll Molt, son of Dathi 463; S.i Lugaid (or Lewy) son of; Conari Moglama (Conari II.); 212; Laeghaire ....; 483; Art Aenf er (the Solitary) son; N. Murkertach Mac Erca 512; of Conn Cedcathach 220; N. Tuathal Mailgarb 533; S. means Southern Hy Neill: N. Northern Hy Neill (see p.134). 241; S. Diarmaid or Dermot, son of Fergus ervall N. Domnain joint kings,sons 1 N.Fergus j of Murkertachj N. Baitan 1. N. Eocbaid) 30 t kings N. Ainmire [An’mira]N. Baitan .... N. Aed Mac Ainmire, or Hugh son of AinmireS. Aed Slaine 1 joint "| N. Colman Rimid J kings / N. Aed (or Hugh) Uaridnach N. Mailcoba; N. Suibne [Sweeny] MennN. Domnallor Donal],son of Aed Mac Ainmire N. Cellach or Kellach & Conall Cail, joint kings, Aed ] S. Diarmaid J g J S, Sechnasach, son of Blathmac S. Cennfaelad [Kenfaila], son of Blathmac S. Finachta Fledach (the Festive) .... N. Longsech; N. Congal .... N. Fergal .... S. Fogartach Mac Neill S. Cioneth (or Kenneth) the son of IrgalachN. Flathbertach or Flahertagh ..... N. Aed (or Hugh) Allan, son of King FergalS. Domnall or Donall, son of Murcad N. Niall Frassach (i.e. of the Showers) ....; 544 565 566 568 571 572 598 603 611 614 627 641 656 664 671 674 694 704 711 722 724 727 734 743 763; S. Donncad or Donogh; N. Aed (or Hugh) Ordnee, son of Niall Frassach; S. Concobhar or Conor; N. Niall Caillne S. Mailsechlann or Malachi I.; N. Aed (or Hugh) Finnliath; S. Flann Sinna (of the Shannon); N. Niall Glunduff; S. Donncad or Donogh S. Congalach N. Domnall O’Neill, son of Murkertagh of the Leather Cloaks .... S. Mailsechlann or Malachi II Brian Borama, or Boruma, or Boru .... S. Mailsechlann or Malachi II. (resumes)A.D. 770 797 819 833 846 863 879 916 919 944 956 980 1002 1014; Kings ’with Opposition.; Donncad or Donogh, son of Brian Boru Diarmaid Mac Mail-nam-bo (Dermot Mac Mailnamo) of the race of CahirmoreTurlogh O’Brien of the Dalgas; Murkertach or Murtogh O’Brien .... N. Donall O’Loghlann(Both reckoned as kings of Ireland.) Turloch O ’Conor N. Murkertagh O’Loghlann Rory or Roderick O’Conor 102 1064 1072 1086 1086 1136 1151 1166.

The following short statement will give some idea of the wholesale destruction wrought by the Danes among the seats of learning and piety in Ireland, during the two centuries comprised in Chapters VII. and VIII

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Armagh: sacked and pillaged three times in one month by Turgesins, in or about 832: ravaged and plundered in 839, 850, 873, 876, 890 (when the Danes carried off 719 persons into captivity), 893, 895, 898, 914, 919, 926, 931, 943, 995, 1012, and 1021 (when the whole city was burned, with churches and books).
Glendalough: plundered and devastated in 830, 833, 886, 977, 982, 984, 985, 1016.
Clonard: plundered and devastated in 838, 887, 888, 996, 1012, 1016, 1020.
Clonmacnoise: plundered in 838 (with the whole line of religious houses along the Shannon): again four times in nine years ending 845; and at frequent intervals afterwards.

Besides the above and those already named in Chapter VII, the ecclesiastical establishments at the following places were ravaged, nearly all of them frequently; and it will be seen that neither distance nor seclusion was any protection: lona; Inishmurray in Sligo; Clonenagh; Killeigh; Ardbraccan; Birr; Seirkieran; Derry; Donaghpatrick; Downpatrick; Clones; Darinis; Skellig Kock off Kerry; Timolin; Scattery Island; Dunderrow; Kilmolash; Slane; Mungret; Louth; the two Clonferts; Movilla; Killeedy; Devenish; Ferns; Freshford; Aghaboe; Durrow; Eosscarbery; Kenmare; Finglas; Emly; Kells; Clondalkin; and many others too numerous to be mentioned here. In the Annals and in the Wars of the Gaels with the Galls, in addition to these details, we find numerous records such as these: ‘[On one occasion] they plundered the greater part of the churches of Erin’: ‘Magh Bregh was plundered by them, both country and churches’: ‘They destroyed all the churches of Hy Conaill,’ &c. On all these occasions numbers of people were killed or carried off into slavery; every valuable thing was plundered; and all books within reach were destroyed, by being either burned or ‘drowned’ - i.e. thrown into water.

The wonder is that any trace of learning or civilisation was left in the country.

After Part I. of this book had been printed, a work was published to which the reader’s attention must be directed: Silva Gadelica, 2 vols, by Standish Hayes O’Grady. The first volume contains Irish text of 31 pieces, viz. 4 Lives of Saints and 27 Tales, including many of those I have mentioned in Part I. chaps, ii. and v. Second volume, translations - accurate and in pure English - of the pieces in the first volume, with notes. This is the most scholarly and valuable work illustrative of the ancient romantic literature of Ireland that has yet appeared.