 CHAPTER 1 THE DANISH INVASION Hugh VI, surnamed Orney, succeeded to the throne vacant by the death of Donna I, AD 797, and reigned twenty-two years. Connor II succeeded, AD 819, and reigned fourteen years. Nile III, called from the place of his death Nile of Callan, reigned thirteen years. Malachy I succeeded, AD 845, and reigned fifteen years. Hugh VII succeeded and reigned sixteen years, dying AD 877. Flann, surnamed Flann of the Shannon, succeeded at the latter date and reigned for thirty-eight years, far into the tenth century. Of these six kings whose reigns averaged twenty years each we may remark that not one died by violence if we accept, perhaps, Nile of Callan, drowned in the river of that name in a generous effort to save the life of one of his own servants. Though no former princes had ever encountered dangers equal to these, yet in no previous century was the person of the ruler so religiously respected. If this was evident in one or two instances only it would be idle to lay much stress upon it. But when we find the same truth holding good of several successive reigns it is not too much to attribute it to that wide diffusion of Christian morals which we have pointed out as the characteristic of the two preceding centuries. The kings of this age owed their best protection to the purer ethics which overflowed from Arma and Bangor and Lismore, and if we find here after the regicide habits of former times partially revived it will only be after the new paganism, the paganism of interminable anti-Christian invasions, had recovered the land and extinguished the beacon lights of the three first Christian centuries. The enemy, who were now to assault the religious and civil institutions of the Irish, must be admitted to possess many great military qualities. They certainly exhibit in the very highest degree the first of all military virtues, unconquerable courage. Let us say cheerfully that history does not present in all its volumes a braver race of men than the Scandinavians of the ninth century. In most respects they closely resembled the Gothic tribes who, whether starting into historic life on the Exine or the Danube, or faintly heard of by the Latins from far off Baltic, filled with constant alarm the Roman statesmen of the fourth century. Nor can the invasions of what we may call the maritime Goths be better introduced to the reader than by a rapid sketch of the previous triumphs of their kindred tribes over the Roman Empire. It was in the year of our lord 378 that these long-dreaded barbarians defeated the Emperor Valens in the Plain of Andree and Opel, and as early as 404, 26 years after their first victory in Eastern Europe, they had taken and burned great Rome herself. Again and again, in 410, in 455, and in 472 they captured and plundered the imperial city. In the same century they had established themselves in Burgundy, in Spain, and in Northern Africa. In the next, another branch of the Gothic stock twice took Rome, and yet another founded the Lombard Kingdom in northern Italy. With these Goths thus for a time masters of the Roman Empire, whose genius and temper has entered so deeply into all subsequent civilization, war was considered the only pursuit worthy of men. According to their ideas of human freedom, that sacred principle was supposed to exist only in force and by force. They had not the faintest conception, and at first received with unbounded scorn the Christian doctrine of the unity of the human race, the privileges and duties annexed to Christian baptism, and the sublime ideal of the Christian Republic. But they were very far from being so cruel or so faithless as their enemies represented them. They were even better than they cared to represent themselves. And they had amongst them men of highest capacity and energy, well worth it to be the founders of new nations. Alaric, Attila, and Gensaric were fierce and unmerciful, it is true. But their acts are not all written in blood. They had their better moments and higher purposes in the intervals of battle. And the genius for civil government of the Gothic race was in the very beginning demonstrated by such rulers as Theodoric in Italy and Clovis in Gaul. The rearguard of this irresistible barbaric invasion was now about to break in upon Europe by a new route, instead of the long land marches by which they had formerly concentrated from the distant Baltic and from the tributaries of the Danube on the capital of the Roman Empire. Instead of the tedious expeditions striking across the continent, hewing their paths through dense forests, arrested by rapid rivers and difficult mountains, the last northern invaders of Europe had sufficiently advanced in the arts of shipbuilding and navigation to strike boldly into the open sea and commence their new conquests among the Christian islands of the West. The defenders of Roman power and Christian civilization in the 5th and 6th centuries were arrayed against a warlike but pastoral people encumbered with their women and children. The defenders of the same civilization in the British islands in the 9th and 10th centuries were contending with kindred tribes who had substituted maritime arts and habits for the pastoral arts and habits of the companions of Attila and Theodoric. The Gothic invasion of Roman territory in the earlier period was, with the single exception of the naval expedition of Gensaric from his new African kingdom, a continental war, and notwithstanding the partiality of Gensaric for his fleet as an arm of offense and defense, his companions and successors abandoned the ocean as an uncongenial element. The only parallel for the new invasion, of which we are now to speak, is to be found in the history and fortunes of the Saxons of the 5th century, first the Allies and afterwards the conquerors of part of Britain. But even their descendants in England had not kept pace, either in the arts of navigation or in thirst for adventure with their distant relatives, who remained two centuries later among the friths and rocks of Scandinavia. The first appearance of these invaders on the Irish and British coasts occurred in 794. Their first descent on Ireland was at Rathlin Island, which may be called the Outpost of Arran, towards the north. Their second attempt, AD 797, was at a point much more likely to arouse attention, at Scurries, off the coast of Meath, now Dublin. In 803 and again in 806 they attacked and plundered the Holy Iona. But it was not until a dozen years later they became really formidable. In 818 they landed at health, and the same year and probably the same party sacked the sacred edifices in the estuary of the slainy, by them afterwards called Wexford. In 820 they plundered Cork, and in 824, most startling blow of all, they sacked and burned the schools of Bangor. The same year they revisited Iona and put to death many of its inmates, destroyed Movil, received a severe check in Le Cal, near Strenford Lough, one of their favorite stations. Another party fared better in a land foray and ossery, where they defeated those who endeavored to arrest their progress, and carried off a rich booty. In 830 and 831 their ravages were equally felt in Leinster, in Meath, and in Ulster, and besides many prisoners of princely rank they plundered the primatial city of Arma for the first time in the years 832. The names of their chief captains at this period are carefully preserved by those who had so many reasons to remember them, and we now begin to hear of the Ivar's, Olyf's, and Citrix strangely intermingled with the Hughes, Niles, Connors, and Phelims who contended with them in battle or in diplomacy. It was not till the middle of this century, AD 837, that they undertook to fortify Dublin, Limerick, and some other harbors which they had seized, to winter in Ireland, and declare their purpose to be the complete conquest of the country. The earliest of these expeditions seemed to have been annual visitations, and as the northern winter sets in about October, and the Baltic is seldom navigable before May, the summer was the season of their depredations. Awaiting the breaking up of the ice, the intrepid adventurers assembled annually, upon the islands in the Categette, or on the coast of Norway, awaiting the favourable moment of departure. Here they beguiled their time between the heathen rites they rendered to their gods, their wild bacchanal festivals, and the equipment of their galleys. The largest ship built in Norway, and probably in the north, before the 11th century had 34 banks of ores. The largest class of vessel carried from 100 to 120 men. The Great Fleet which invaded Ireland at 837 counted 120 vessels, which, if of average size for such long voyages, would give a total force of some 6,000 men. As the whole population of Denmark, in the region of Knut, who died in 1035, is estimated at 800,000 souls, we may judge from their fleets how large a portion of the men were engaged in these paradical pursuits. The ships on which they prided themselves so highly were flat bottom craft, with little or no keel, the sides of wicker work, covered with strong hides. They were impelled either by sails or ores as the changes of the weather allowed, with favourable winds they often made the voyage in three days. As if to favour their designs, the north and northwest blast blows for a hundred days of the year over the sea they had to traverse. When land was made in some safe estuary, their galleys were drawn up on shore, a convenient distance beyond High Watermark, where they formed a rude camp, watch fires were lighted, sentinel set, and the fearless adventurers slept as soundly as if under their own roofs, in their own country. Their revels after victory, or on returning to their homes, were as boisterous as their lives. In food they looked more to quantity than quality, and one of their most determined prejudices against Christianity was that it did not sanction the eating of horse flesh. An exhilarating beer made from heath or from the spruce tree was their principal beverage, and the recital of their own adventures or the national songs of the scalds were their most cherished amusement. Many of the Vikings were themselves scalds and excelled, as might be expected, in the composition of war songs. The pagan belief of this formidable race was in harmony with all their thoughts and habits, and the exact opposite of Christianity. In the beginning of time, according to their tradition, there was neither heaven nor earth, but only universal chaos, and a bottomless abyss, where dwells surter in an element of unquenchable fire. The generation of their gods proceeded amid the darkness and void from the union of heat and moisture, until Odin and the other children of Asa Thor, or the earth, slew Ymer, or the evil one, and created the material universe out of his lifeless remains. These heroic conquerors also collected the sparks of eternal fire flying about in the abyss and fixed them as stars in the firmament. In addition, they erected in the Far East, Asgard, the city of the gods. On the extreme shore of the oceans stood Utgard, the city of Nor and his giants. And the wars of these two cities, of their gods and giants, fill the first and most obscure ages of the Scandinavian legend. The human race had as yet no existence until Odin created a man and woman, Ask and Embla, out of two pieces of wood, ash and elm, thrown upon the beach by the waves of the sea. Of all the gods of Asgard, Odin was the first in place in power. From his throne he saw everything that happened on the earth, unless anything should escape his knowledge. Two ravens, spirit and memory, sat on his shoulders, and whispered in his ears whatever they had seen in their daily excursions round the world. Night was a divinity and the father of day, who traveled alternately throughout space with two celebrated steeds called Shining Mane and Frost Mane. Frigga was the daughter and wife of Odin, the mother of Thor, the Mars, and of the beautiful Balder, the Apollo, of Asgard. The other gods were of inferior rank to these, and answered to the lesser divinities of Greece and Rome. Neord was the Neptune and Frigga, daughter of Neord, was the Venus of the North. Heimdall, the Watchman of Asgard, whose duty it was to prevent the rebellious giants scaling by surprise the walls of the celestial city, dwelt under the end of the rainbow. His vision was so perfect he could discern objects one hundred leagues distant, either by night or day, and his ear was so fine he could hear the wool growing on the sheep, and the grass springing in the meadows. The Hall of Odin, which had five hundred forty gates, was the abode of heroes who had fought bravest in battle. Here they were fed with the lard of a wild boar which became whole every night, though devoured every day, and drank endless cups of hydra-mell, drawn from the udder of an inexhaustible she-goat, and served out to them by the nymphs who had counted the slain in cups which were made of the skulls of their enemies. When they were wearied of such enjoyments, the sprites of the brave exercised themselves in single combat, hacked each other to pieces on the floor of Valhalla, resumed their former shape, and returned to their lard and their hydra-mell. Believing firmly in this system, looking forward with undoubting faith to such an eternity, the Scandinavians were zealous to serve their gods according to their creed. Their rude hill altars gave way as they increased in numbers and wealth to spacious temples at Uppsala, Ledra, Tronheim, and other towns and ports. They had three great festivals, one at the beginning of February in honor of Thor, one in Spring in honor of Odin, and one in Summer in honor of the fruitful daughter of Njord. The ordinary sacrifices were animals and birds, but every ninth year there was a great festival at Uppsala, at which the kings and nobles were obliged to appear in person, and to make valuable offerings. Wizards and sorcerers, male and female, haunted the temples in good and ill winds, length of life, and success in war were spiritual commodities bought and sold. Ninety-nine human victims were offered at the great Uppsala festival, and in all emergencies such sacrifices were considered most acceptable to the gods. Captives and slaves were at first selected, but in many cases princes did not spare their subjects nor fathers their own children. The power of a priesthood who could always enforce such a system must have been unbounded and irresistible. The active pursuits of such a population were necessarily maritime. In their short summer such crops as they planted ripened rapidly, but their chief sustenance was animal food and the fish that abounded in their waters. The artisans in highest repute among them were the shipwrights and smiths. The hammer and anvil were held in the highest honor, and of this class the armorers held the first place. The kings of the north had no standing armies, but their leges were summoned to war by an arrow in pagan times and a cross after their conversion. Their chief dependence was an infantry which they formed into wedge-like columns and so, clashing their shields and singing hymns to Odin, they advanced against their enemies. Different divisions were differently armed. Some were the short, two-edged sword and a heavy battle-axe, others with the sling, the javelin, and the bow. The shield was long in light, commonly of wood and leather but for the chiefs, ornamented with brass, with silver and even with gold. Locking the shields together formed a rampart which it was not easy to break. In bad weather the concave shield seems to have served the purpose of our umbrella. In sea-fights the vanquished often escaped by swimming ashore on their shields. Armour many of them wore. The berserkers or champions were so called from always engaging bear of defensive armour. Such were the men, the arms and the creed against which the Irish of the Ninth Age, after three centuries of exemption from foreign war, were called upon to combat. A people, one-third of whose youth and manhood had embraced the ecclesiastical state and all whose tribes now profess the religion of peace, mercy and forgiveness, were called to wrestle with a race whose religion was one of blood and whose beatitude was to be in proportion to the slaughter they made while on earth. The Northmen hated Christianity as a rival religion and despised it as an effeminate one. He was the soldier of Odin, the elect of Valhalla, and he felt that the offering most acceptable to his Sanguinary gods was the blood of those religionists who denied their existence and executed their revelation. The points of attack, therefore, were almost invariably the great seats of learning and religion. There, too, was to be found the largest bulk of the portable wealth of the country in richly adorned altars, jeweled chalices, and shrines of saints. The ecclesiastical map is the map of their campaigns in Ireland, and it is to avenge or save these innumerable sacred places as countless as the saints of the last three centuries that the Christian population have deroused themselves year after year, hurrying to a hundred points at the same time. To the better and nobler spirits the war becomes a veritable crusade, and many of those slain in single-hearted defense of their altars may well be accounted martyrs. But a war so protracted and so devastating will be found in the sequel to foster and strengthen many of the worst vices, as well as some of the best virtues of our humanity. The early events were few and ill-known. During the reign of Hugh the Sixth, who died in 819, their hostile visits were few and far between. His successors, Connor II and Nile III, were destined to be less fortunate in this respect. During the reign of Connor, Cork, Lismore, Dundalk, Banger, and Armagh were all surprised, plundered, and abandoned by the Gentiles as they were usually called in Irish annals. And with the exception of two skirmishes in which they were worsted on the coasts of Down and Wexford, they seemed to have escaped with impunity. At Banger they shook the bones of the revered founder out of the costly shrine before carrying it off. On their first visit to Kildare they contented themselves with taking the gold and silver ornaments of the Tomb of St. Bridget without desecrating the relics. Their main attraction at Armagh was the same, but there the relics seemed to have escaped. When in 830 the Brotherhood of Iona apprehended their return, they carried into Ireland for greater safety the relics of St. Column Kill. Hence it came that most of the memorials of St. Patrick, Bridget, and Column Kill were afterwards united at Down Patrick. While these deplorable sacrileges, too rapidly executed perhaps to be often either prevented or punished, were taking place, Connor the King had on his hand a war of succession, waged by the ableist of his contemporaries, Felham, King of Munster, who continued during this in the subsequent reign to maintain a species of rival monarchy in Munster. It seems clear enough that the abandonment of Tara, as the seat of authority, greatly aggravated the internal weakness of the Malaysian constitution. While overcentralization is to be dreaded as the worst tendency of imperial power, it is certain that the want of a sufficient centralization has proved as fatal, on the other hand, to the independence of many nations. And anarchical usages once admitted we see from the experience of the German Empire and the Italian Republics how almost impossible it is to apply a remedy. In the case before us, when the Irish kings abandoned the old, mensal domain and betook themselves to their own patrimony, it was inevitable that their influence and authority over the southern tribes should diminish and disappear. Ileach, in the far north, could never be to them what Tara had been. The charm of conservatism, the halo of ancient glory, could not be transferred. Whenever, therefore, ambitious and able princes arose in the south, they found the border tribes rife for backing their pretensions against the northern dynasty. The Bards, too, plied their craft, reviving the memory of former times, when Heber the Fair divided Aaron equally with Heraman, and when Eugene Moore divided at a second time with Khan of the Hundred Battles. Phelan, the son of Crimthon, the contemporary of Khan of the Second, and Nile III, during the whole term of their rule was the Resolute Asserter of these pretensions, and the Bards of his own province do not hesitate to confer on him the high title of Ardray. As a punishment for adhering to the High Nile dynasty, or for some other offence, this Christian king, in rivalry with the Gentiles, plundered Kildare, Borough, and Clomacnois, the latter perhaps presiding with Cano in the dispute as to whether the present county of Clare belonged to Cano or Munster. Twice he met in conference with the monarch at Beir and at Clonkery. At another time he swept the plain of Meeth and held temporary court in the royal wrath of Tara. With all his vices lie united an extraordinary energy, and during his time no Danish settlement was established on the southern rivers. Shortly before his decease, AD 846, he resigned his crown and retired from the world, devoting the short remainder of his days to penance and mortification. What we know of his ambition and ability makes us regret that he ever appeared upon the scene, or that he had not been born of that dominant family, who alone were accustomed to give kings to the whole country. King Connor died, AD 833, and was succeeded by Nile III, sir named Nile of Callan. The military events of this last reign are so intimately bound up with the more brilliant career of the next ruler, M'Glahan or Maliki I, that we must reserve them for the introduction to the next chapter. Chapter 2 of A Popular History of Ireland, Book II This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Reading by Mary Rodey. A Popular History of Ireland. From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics. Book II by Thomas Darcy McGee. Chapter 2 Kings of the Ninth Century Continued Nile III. Maliki I. Hugh VII. When in the year 833 Nile III received the usual homage and hostages, which ratified his title of Ardrich, the northern invasion had clearly become the greatest danger that ever yet had threatened the institutions of Errin. Attacks at first predatory and provincial had so encouraged the gentile leaders of the second generation that they began to concert measures and combine plans for conquest and colonization. To the Vikings of Norway, the fertile island with which they were now so familiar, whose woods were bent with the autumnal load of acorns, masts, and nuts, and filled with numerous herds of swine, their favorite food, whose pleasant meadows were well stored with beaves and oxen, whose winter was often as mild as their northern summer, and whose waters were as fruitful in fish as their own Lofoden fritz. To these men this was a prize worth fighting for, and for it they fought long and desperately. King Nial inherited a disputed sovereignty from his predecessor, and the southern analysts say he did homage to Phelan of Munster, while those of the north, and with them the majority of historians, reject this statement as exaggerated and untrue. He certainly experienced continual difficulty in maintaining his supremacy not only from the Prince of Casual, but from lords of lesser grade, like those of Usiri and Ulidia, so that we may say, while he had the title of King of Ireland, he was, in fact, King of No More than Leothcon, or the northern half. The central province, Miath, long deserted by the monarchs, had run wild into independence, and was parceled out between two or three chiefs, descendants of the same common ancestor as the kings, but distinguished from them by the tribe name of the southern High Nial. Of these heads of new houses, by far the ablest and most famous was Melachlyn, who dwelt near Malingar, and lorded it over Western Miath, a name with which we shall become better acquainted presently. It does not clearly appear that Melachlyn was one of those who actively resisted the prerogatives of this monarch, though others of the southern High Nial did at first reject his authority, and were severely punished for their insubordination the year after his assumption of power. In the fourth year of Nial III, AD 837, arrived the great Norwegian fleet of 120 sail whose commanders first attempted, on a combined plan, the conquest of Errin. Sixty of the ships entered the Boin, the other sixty, the Liffey. This formidable force, according to all Irish accounts, was soon after united under one leader, who is known in our annals as Turges, but of whom no trace can be found under that name in the chronicles of the Northmen. Every effort to identify him in the records of his native land has hitherto failed, so that we are forced to conclude that he must have been one of those wandering sea-kings whose fame was won abroad and whose story, ending in defeat, yet entailing no dynastic consequences on his native land, possessed no national interest for the authors of the old Norse sagas. To do all the Scandinavian chroniclers justice, in cases which come directly under their notice, they acknowledge defeat as frankly as they claim victory proudly. Equal praise may be given to the Irish analysts in recording the same events, whether at first or second hand. In relation to the campaigns and sway of Turgesios, the difficulty we experience in separating what is true from what is exaggerated or false is not created for us by the analysts, but by the bards and storytellers, some of whose inventions, adopted by Combransis, have been too readily received by subsequent writers. For all the acts of national importance with which his name can be intelligibly associated, we prefer to follow in this, as in other cases, the same sober historians who condensed the events of years and generations into the shortest space and the most matter-of-fact expression. If we were to receive the chronology while rejecting the embellishments of the bards, Turgesios must have first come to Ireland with one of the expeditions of the year 820, since they speak of him as having been the scourge of the country for 17 years, before he assumed the command of the forces landed from the fleet of 837, nor is it unreasonable to suppose that an accurate knowledge of the country acquired by years of previous warfare with its inhabitants may have been one of the grounds upon which the chief command was conferred on Turgesios. This knowledge was soon put to account, Dublin was taken possession of, and a strong fort, according to the Scandinavian method, was erected on the hill where now stands the castle. This fort, and the harbor beneath it, were to be the rendezvous and arsenal for all future operations against Leinster, and the foundation of foreign power then laid continued in foreign hands with two or three brief intervals until transferred to the Anglo-Norman chivalry three centuries and a half later. Similar lodgement was made at Waterford, and a third was attempted at Limerick, but at this period without success, the Danish fort at the latter point is not thought older than the year 855. But Turgesios, if indeed the independent acts of contemporary and even rival chiefs be not too often attributed to him, was not content with fortifying the estuaries of some principal rivers. He established inland centers of operation of which the cardinal one was on Loughry, the expansion of the Shannon, north of Athlone. Another was at a point called Lindvaukeil on Loughniach. On both these waters were stationed fleets of boats constructed for that service and communicating with the forts on shore. On the eastern border of Loughry, in the midst of its meadows, stood Clonmuck noise, rich with the offerings and endowments of successive generations. Here, three centuries before, in the heart of the desert, St Kieran had erected, with his own hands, a rude sylvan cell, where, according to the allegory of tradition, the first monks who joined him were the fox, the wolf, and the bear. But time had wrought wonders on that hallowed ground, and a group of churches, at one time as many as ten in number, were gathered within two or three acres round its famous schools and presiding cathedral. Here it was Turgesios made his usual home, and from the high altar of the cathedral his unbelieving queen was accustomed to issue her imperious mandates in his absence. Here, for nearly seven years, this conqueror and his concert exercised their far-spread and terrible power. According to the custom of their own country, a custom attributed to Odin as its author, they exacted from every inhabitant subject to their sway a piece of money annually, the forfeit for the non-payment of which was the loss of the nose, hence called nose-money. Their other exactions were a union of their own northern imposts, with those levied by the chiefs whose authority they had superseded, but whose prerogatives they asserted for themselves. Free quarters for their soldiery, and a system of inspection extending to every private relation of life were the natural expedience of a tyranny so odious. On the ecclesiastical order especially, their yoke bore with peculiar weight, since, although avowed pagans, they permitted no religious house to stand unless under an abbot, or at least an erinoc, or treasurer, of their approval. Such is the complete scheme of oppression presented to us, that it can only be likened to a monstrous spiderweb spread from the center of the island over its fairest and most populous districts. Glendaloch, Ferns, Castledermid, and Kildare in the east, Lismore, Cork, Klornfert in the southern country, Dondalk, Bangor, Derry, and Armach in the north, all groaned under this triumphant despot, or his colleagues. In the meanwhile, King Niel seems to have struggled resolutely with the difficulties of his lot, and in every interval of insubordination to have struck boldly at the common enemy. But the tide of success for the first few years after 837 ran strongly against him. The joint hosts from the Liffey and the Boyne swept the rich plains of Miath, and in an engagement at Inverna-Bark, the present Bray, gave such a complete defeat to the southern high Nial clans, as prevented them making head again in the field until some summers were passed and gone. In this campaign, Saxolvi, who is called the chief of the foreigners, was slain, and to him, therefore, if to any commander in chief, Toghesius must have succeeded. The shores of all the inland lakes were favorite sites for the wraths and churches, and the beautiful country around Loch Erne shared the fury ordeal which blazed on Loch Ri and Loch Nihach. In 839, the men of Canot also suffered a defeat equal to that experienced by those of Miath in the previous campaign, but more unfortunate than the Methians. They lost their leader and other chiefs on the field. In 840, ferns and cork were given to the flames, and the fort at Lindwaukeel, or Maheralinn, poured out its ravages in every direction over the adjacent country, sweeping off flocks, herds, and prisoners, laymen, and ecclesiastics to their ships. The northern depredators counted among their captives several bishops and learned men, of whom the Abbot of Coher and the Lord of Galtrim are mentioned by name. Their equally active colleagues of Dublin and Waterford took captive Hugh, Abbot of Clonach, and Foranon, Archbishop of Armach, who had fled southwards with many of the relics of the Metropolitan Church, escaping from one danger only to fall into another a little farther off. These prisoners were carried into Munster, where Abbot Hugh suffered martyrdom at their hands, but the Archbishop, after being carried to their fleet at Limerick, seems to have been rescued or ransomed, as we find him dying in peace at Armach in the next rain. The martyrs of these melancholy times were very numerous, but the exact particulars being so often unrecorded, it is impossible to present the reader with an intelligible account of their persons and sufferings. When the Anglo-Normans taunted the Irish that their church had no martyrs to boast of, they must have forgotten the exploits of their Norse kingsmen about the middle of the century. But the hour of retribution was fast coming round, and the native tribes, unbound, divided, confused, and long unused to foreign war, were fast recovering their old martial experience and something like a politic sense of the folly of their border feuds. Nothing perhaps so much tended to arouse and combine them together as the capture of the successor of St. Patrick, with all his relics, and his imprisonment among a pagan host in Irish waters. National humiliation could not much farther go, and as we read we pause, prepared for either alternative, mute submission or a brave uprising. King Niall seems to have been in this memorable year, 843, defending as well as he might his ancestral province, Ulster, against the ravagers of Loch Niall, and still another party whose ships flocked into Loch Swilly. In the ancient plain of Moines, watered by the Little River Finn, the present barony of Rappo, he encountered the enemy, and according to the annals, a countless number fell, victory being with Niall. In the same year, or the next, Torgheseus was captured by Milachlan, Lord of Westmiath, apparently by stratagem, and put to death by the rather novel process of drowning. The bardic tale told to Cambrenseys, or parodied by him from an old Greek legend, of the death by which Torgheseus died is of no historical authority. According to this tale, the tyrant of Loch Rhee conceived a passion for the fair daughter of Milachlan, and demanded her of her father, who, fearing to refuse, affected to grant the infamous request, but dispatched in her stead to the place of asignation twelve beardless youths, habited as maidens, to represent his daughter and her attendants. By these maskers the Norwegian and his boon companions were assassinated after they had drank to excess and laid aside their arms and armor. For all this superstructure of romance there is neither groundwork nor license in the facts themselves, beyond this that Torgheseus was evidently captured by some clever stratagem. We hear of no battle in Miath or elsewhere against him immediately preceding the event, nor is it likely that a secondary prince, as Milachlan, then was, could have hazarded an engagement with the powerful master of Loch Rhee. If the local traditions of West Miath may be trusted, where Cumbarences is rejected, the Norwegian and Irish principles in the tragedy of Loch Owell were on visiting terms just before the denouement, and many curious particulars of their peaceful but suspicious intercourse used to be related by the modern storytellers around Castle Pollard. The anecdote of the rookery, of which Milachlan complained, and the remedy for which his visitors suggested to be to cut down the trees and the rooks would fly, has a suspicious look of the tall poppies of the Roman and Grecian legend. Two things only do we know for certain about the matter. Firstly, that Turgisius was taken and drowned in Loch Owell in the year 843 or 844, and secondly, that this catastrophe was brought about by the agency and order of his neighbor Milachlan. The victory of Moines and the death of Turgisius were followed by some local successes against other fleets and garrisons of the enemy. Those of Loch Rhee seemed to have abandoned their fort and fought their way, gaining in their retreat the only military advantage of that year towards Sligo, where some of their vessels had collected to bear them away. Their colleagues of Dublin, undeterred by recent reverses, made their annual foray southward into Ossary in 844, and immediately we find King Neal moving up from the north to the same scene of action. In that district he met his death in an effort to save the life of Aguila, or common servant. The river of Calan, being greatly swollen, the Aguila, in attempting to find a ford, was swept away in its turbid torrent. The king entreated someone to go to his rescue, but as no one obeyed he generously plunged in himself and sacrificed his own life in endeavouring to preserve one of his humblest followers. He was in the fifty-fifth year of his age and the thirteenth of his reign, and in some traits of character reminded men of his grandfather the devout Neal of the showers. The Bards have celebrated the justice of his judgments, the goodness of his heart, and the comeliness of his brunette bright face. He left a son of age to succeed him, and who ultimately did become Ardrich, yet the present popularity of Melachlan of Miaeth triumphed over every other interest, and he was raised to the monarchy, the first of his family who had yet attained that honour. Hugh, the son of Neal, sank for a time into the rank of a provincial prince, before the ascendant star of the captor of Turgessius, and is usually spoken of during this reign as Hugh of Iliac. He has found towards its close, as if impatient of the succession, employing the arms of the common enemy to ravage the ancient mensal land of the kings of Errin, and otherwise harassing the last days of his successful rival. Melachlan, or Malachy the first, sometimes called of the Shannon from his patrimony along that river, brought back again the sovereignty to the centre, and in happier days might have become the second founder of Tara. But it was plain enough then, and it is tolerably so still, that this was not to be an age of restoration. The kings of Ireland, after this time, says the quaint old translator of the annals of Clonmachnois, had little good of it, down to the days of King Brian. It was, in fact, a perpetual struggle for self-preservation, the first duty of all governments, as well as the first law of all nature. The powerful action of the gentile forces upon an originally ill-centralized, and recently much-abused constitution, seemed to render it possible that every new archery would prove the last. Under the pressure of such a deluge, all ancient institutions were shaken to their foundations, and the venerable authority of religion itself, like a hermit in a mountain torrent, was contending for the hope of escape or existence. We must not, therefore, amid the din of the conflicts through which we are to pass, condemn without stint or qualification those princes who were occasionally driven, as some of them were driven, to the last resort, the employment of foreign mercenaries, and those mercenaries often anti-Christians, to preserve some show of native government and kingly authority, grant that in some of them the use of such allies and agents cannot be justified on any plea or pretext of state necessity, where base ends or unpatriotic motives are clear or credible, such treason to country cannot be too heartily condemned. But it is, indeed, far from certain that such were the motives in all cases, or that such ought to be our conclusion in any, in the absence of sufficient evidence to that effect. Though the genteel power had experienced towards the close of the last reign such severe reverses, yet it was not in the nature of the men of Norway to abandon a prize which was once so nearly being their own. The fugitives who escaped, as well as those who remained within the strong ramparts of Waterford and Dublin, urged the fitting out of new expeditions to avenge their slaughtered countrymen and prosecute the conquest. But defeat still followed on defeat. In the first year of Malaki they lost twelve hundred men in a disastrous action near Castle Dermot, with Alcobar the prince-bishop of Castle, and in the same or the next season they were defeated with the loss of seven hundred men by Malaki at Fork in Mieff. In the third year of Malaki, however, a new northern expedition arrived in a hundred and forty vessels which, according to the average capacity of the longships of that age, must have carried with them from seven thousand to ten thousand men. Fortunately for the assailed, this fleet was composed of what they called Black Gentiles or Danes, as distinguished from their predecessors the Fair Gentiles or Norwegians. A quarrel arose between the adventurers of the two nations as to the possession of the few remaining fortresses, especially of Dublin, and an engagement was fought along the Liffey which lasted for three days. The Danes finally prevailed, driving the Norwegians from their stronghold and cutting them off from their ships. The new northern leaders are named Unloff or Orloff, Citric, Sigurd, and Ivar, the first of the Danish earls who established themselves at Dublin, Waterford, and Limerick, respectively. Though the immediate result of the arrival of the great fleet of eight hundred and forty-seven relieved for the moment the worst apprehensions of the invaded, and enabled them to rally their means of defense, yet as Denmark had more than doubled the population of Norway, it brought them into direct collision with a more formidable power than that from which they had been so lately delivered. The tactics of both nations were the same. No sooner had they established themselves on the ruins of their predecessors in Dublin than the Danish forces entered East Miath under the guidance of Kenneth, a local lord, and overran the ancient mensal from the sea to the Shannon. One of their first exploits was burning alive two hundred and sixty prisoners in the tower of Teroit in the island of Loch Gawar near Dunshoglan. The next year his allies having withdrawn from the neighborhood, Kenneth was taken by King Malakies' men and the traitor himself drowned in a sack in the Little River Nanny which divides the two baronies of Dulik. This death penalty by drowning seems to have been one of the useful hints which the Irish picked up from their invaders. During the remainder of this reign the Gentile War resumed much of its old local and guerrilla character, the provincial chiefs and the artery occasionally employing bands of one nation of the invaders to combat the other and even to suppress their native rivals. The only pitched battle of which we hear is that of the two planes near Coolstown, King's County, in the second last year of Malakie, A.D. 859, in which his usual good fortune attended the King. The greater part of his reign was occupied as always must be the case with the founder of a new line in coercing into obedience his former peers. On this business he made two expeditions into Munster and took hostages from all the tribes of the Eugenian race. With the same object he held a conference with all the chiefs of Ulster, Hugh of Iliac only being absent at Armagh in the fourth year of his reign and a general face or assembly of all the orders of Ireland at Wrath Hugh in West Miath in his thirteenth year, A.D. 857. He found, notwithstanding his victories and his early popularity, that there are always those ready to turn from the setting to the rising sun, and towards the end of his reign he was obliged to defend his camp near Armagh by force from a night assault of the discontented Prince of Iliac, who also ravaged his patrimony almost at the moment he lay on his deathbed. Malachy I departed this life on the thirteenth day of November, A.D. 860, having reigned sixteen years. Mournful as the news to the Ga'el exclaims the Iliac bard, red wine spilled into the valley, Errin's monarch has died. And the lament contrasts his stately form as he rode the white stallion with the striking reverse when his only horse this day, that is the beer on which his body was born to the churchyard, is drawn behind two oxen. The restless Prince of Iliac now succeeded as Hugh the Seventh, and possessed the perilous honor he so much coveted for sixteen years, the same span that had been allotted his predecessor. The beginning of this reign was remarkable for the novel design of the Danes, who marched out in great force and set themselves busily to breaking open the ancient mounds in the cemetery of the pagan kings beside the boine in hope of finding buried treasure. The three Earls, Olaf, Citric, and Ivar, are said to have been present while their gold hunters broke into, in succession, the mounds-covered cave of the wife of Goban at Drogida, the cave of the shepherd of Elkmar at Douth, the cave of the field of Aldai at Nugrange, and the similar cave at Noth. What they found in these huge cairns of the Old Tuatha is not related, but Roman coins of Valentinian and Theodosius, and torques and armlets of gold have been discovered by accident within their precincts, and an enlightened modern curiosity has not explored them in vain in the higher interests of history and science. In the first two years of his reign, Hugh VII was occupied in securing the hostages of his suffragons. In the third, he swept the remaining Danish and Norwegian garrisons out of Ulster, and defeated a newly arrived force on the borders of Loch Foyle. The next, the Danish Earls went on a foray into Scotland, and no exploit is to be recorded. In his sixth year, Hugh, with one thousand chosen men of his own tribe, and the aid of Silmeri, O'Connor's, of Canot, attacked and defeated a force of five thousand Danes with their Leinster allies, near Dublin at a place supposed to be identical with Kiladeri. Earl Olaf lost his son, and Eren her Roydamna, or heir apparent, on this field, which was much celebrated by the bards of Ulster and of Canot. Amongst those who fell was Flaan, son of Conning, chief of the district which included the plundered cemeteries fighting on the side of the plunderers. The mother of Flaan was one of those who composed quite trains on the event of the battle, and her lines are a natural and affecting alternation from joy to grief, joy for the triumph of her brother and her country, and grief for the loss of her self-willed, bore-like son. Olaf, the Danish leader, avenged in the next campaign the loss of his son by a successful descent on Armar, once again rising from its ruins. He put to the sword one thousand persons, and left a primatial city lifeless, charred, and desolate. In the next ensuing year the monarch chastised the Leinster allies of the Danes, traversing their territory with fire and sword from Dublin to the border town of Garon. This seems to have been the last of his notable exploits in arms. He died on the twentieth of November, eight hundred and seventy-six, and is lamented by the Bards as a generous, wise, staid man. These praises belong, if it all deserved, to his old age. Flaan, son of Malachi I, and surnamed like his father of the Shannon, succeeded in the year eight hundred and seventy-seven of the annals of the Four Masters, or, more accurately, the year eight hundred and seventy-nine of our common era. He enjoyed the very unusual reign of thirty-eight years. Some of the domestic events of his time are of so unprecedented a character, and the period embraced is so considerable that we must devote to it a separate chapter. A popular history of Ireland, book two. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. A popular history of Ireland, from the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics, book two by Thomas Darcy McGee. CHAPTER III. RAIN OF Flaan of the Shannon, eighty-eight seventy-nine sixteen. Midway in the rain we are called upon to contemplate falls the centenary of the first invasion of Ireland by the Northmen. Let us admit that the scenes of that century are stirring and stimulating. Two gallant races of men, in all points, strongly contrasted, contend for the most beautiful part of the open field, for the possession of a beautiful and fertile island. Let us admit that the Malaysian Irish themselves invaders and conquerors of an older date may have had no right to declare the era of colonization closed for their country, while its best harbors were without ships and leagues of its best land were without inhabitants. Yet what gives to the contest its lofty and fearful interest is that the foreigners who come so far and fight so bravely for their prize are a pagan people drunk with the evil spirit of one of the most anti-Christian forms of human error. And what is still worse and still more to be lamented, it is becoming, after the experience of a century, plainer and plainer, that the Christian natives, while defending with unfaltering courage their beloved country, are yet descending more and more to the moral level of their assailants without the apology of their paganism. Degenerate civilization may be a worse element for truth to work in than original barbarism, and therefore, as we enter on the second century of this struggle, we begin to fear for the Christian Irish, not from the arms or the valor, but from the contact and example of the unbelievers. This it is necessary to premise before presenting to the reader a secession of bishops who lead armies to battle, of abbots whose voice is still for war, of treacherous tactics and savage punishments, of the almost total disruption of the last links of that federal bond, which though light as air were strong as iron, before the charm of inviolability had been taken away from the ancient constitution. We begin to discern in this reign that royal marriages have much to do with war and politics. Hugh, the late king, left a widow, named Melmara, follower of Mary, daughter to Kenneth Malpin, king of the Caledonian Scots. This lady, Flaan, married. The mother of Flaan was the daughter of Dungal, Prince of Ossary, so that, to the contemporary lords of that borderland, the monarch stood in relation of cousin. A compact seems to have been entered into in the past reign that the Roy Domna, or successor, should be chosen alternately from the northern and southern high Nial. And subsequently, when Nial, son of his predecessor, assumed that onerous rank, Flaan gave him his daughter Gormley, celebrated for her beauty, her talents, and her heartlessness in marriage. From these several family ties, uniting him so closely with Ossary, with the Scots, and with his successor, much of the wars and politics of Flaan's Siona's reign take their cast in complexion. A still more fruitful source of new complication was the co-equal power acquired through a long series of aggressions by the kings of Casual. Their rivalry with the monarchy, from the beginning of the eighth till the end of the tenth century, was a constant cause of intrigues, coalitions, and wars, reminding us of the constant rivalry of Athens with Sparta, of Genoa with Venice. This kingship of Casual, according to the Munster Law of Secession, the will of Alild ought to have alternated regularly between the descendants of his sons, Eugene Moore and Karmic Cas, the Eugenians and the Dalcassians. But the families of the former kindred were, for many centuries, the more powerful of the two, and frequently set at naught the testamentary law of their common ancestor, leaving the tribe of Cas but the borderland of Thomund, from which they had sometimes to pay tribute to Crucian and at others to Casual. In the ninth century the competition among the Eugenian houses, of which were too many of two nearly equal strength, seems to have suggested a new expedient, with the view of permanently setting aside the will of Alild. This was, to confer the kingship when vacant, on whoever happened to be Bishop of Emily or of Casual, or on some other leading ecclesiastical dignitary, always provided that he was of Eugenian descent, a qualification easily to be met with, since the great seas and abacus seas were now filled, for the most part, by the sons of the neighboring chiefs. In this way we find Ken Fallad, Felim, and Elkabar in this century, styled Prince Bishops or Prince Abbots. The principal domestic difficulty of Flonciona's reign followed from the elevation of Cormac, son of Coulinan, from the sea of Emily to the throne of Casual. Cormac, a scholar and, as became his calling, a man of peace, was thus by virtue of his accession the representative of the old quarrel between his predecessors and the dominant race of kings. All Munster asserted that it was never the intention of their common ancestors to subject the southern half of Aaron to the sway of the north, that Eber and Owen Moore had resisted such pretensions when advanced by Eremhan and Khan of the Hundred Battles, that the Esker from Dublin to Galway was the true division, and that even admitting the title of the Hal Nial King as Ardrig, all the tribes south of the Esker, whether in Lentster or Canot, still owed tribute by ancient rite to Casual. Their antiquaries had their own version in the Book of Rites, which countenanced these claims to co-equal domination, and their bards drew inspiration from the same high pretensions. Party spirit ran so high that tales and prophecies were invented to show how St. Patrick had laid his curse on Terra, and promised a minion to Casual and to Dublin in its stead. All Lentster, except the lordship of Ossary, identical with the present diocese of the same name, was held by the Brehans of Casual to be tributary to their king, and this borura, or tribute, abandoned by the monarchs at the intercession of St. Mulling, was claimed for the Munster rulers as an inseparable adjunct of their southern kingdom. The first act of flanciona, on his secession, was to dash into Munster, demanding hostages at the point of the sword, and sweeping over both Thelmond and Desmond with irresistible force, from Clare to Cork. With equal promptitude he marched through every territory of Ulster, securing by the pledges of their heirs and tonists the chiefs of the elder tribes of the High Niall. So effectually did he consider his power established over the provinces that he is said to have boasted to one of his hostages that he would, with no other attendance than his own servants, play a game of chess on Thirl's Green without fear of interruption. Carrying out this foolish wager he accordingly went to his game at Thirl's, and was very properly taken prisoner for his temerity, and made to pay a smart ransom to his captors. So runs the tale which, whether true or fictitious, is not without its moral. Flandr experienced greater difficulty with the tribes of Canot, nor was it till the thirteenth year of his reign, eight ninety-two, that Cathol, their prince, came into his house in Miethe, under the protection of the clergy of Clawn McNoise, and made peace with him. A brief interval of repose seems to have been vouchsafed to this prince in the last years of the century, but a storm was gathering over Cathol, and the high pretensions of the Eugenian line were again to be put to the hazard of battle. Cormac, the prince-bishop, began his rule over Munster in the year nine hundred of our common era, and passed some years in peace after his accession. If we believe his panagyrists the land over which he bore sway was filled with divine grace and worldly prosperity, and with order so unbroken that the Cathol needed no cowherd, and the flocks no shepherd, so long as he was king. Himself an antiquary and a lover of learning, it seems but natural that many books were written and many schools opened by his liberality. During this enviable interval, counselors of less pacific mood than their studious master were not wanting to stimulate his sense of kingly duty, by urging him to assert the claim of Munster to the tribute of the southern half of Aron. As an antiquary himself, Cormac must have been bred up in undoubting belief in the justice of that claim, and must have given judgment in favor of its antiquity and validity before his accession. These dicta of his own were now quoted with emphasis, and he was besought to enforce, by all the means within his reach, the learned judgments he himself had delivered. The most active advocate of a recourse to arms was Flaherty, Abbot of Scattery in the Shannon, himself an Eugenian, and the Kinsmen of Cormac. After many objections, the peaceful prince-bishop allowed himself to be persuaded, and in the year 907 he took up his line of march, in the fortnight of the harvest, from Cacheal to World Gaurin, at the head of all the Armon of Munster. Lorcan, son of Lactna, and grandfather of Brian, commanded the Dalcassians under Cormac, and Olio, lord of Dacys, and the warlike Abbot of Scattery, led on the other divisions. The monarch marched southward to meet his assailants, with his own proper troops, and the contingents of Canot under Cathol, prince of that province, and those of Lenster under the lead of Kerbal, their king. Both armies met at Balakmun in the southern corner of Kildare, not far from the present town of Carlow, and both fought with most heroic bravery. The Munster forces were utterly defeated, the lords of Dacys, of Firmoy, of General Miki, and of Cary, the Abbot of Cork, and Kennedy, and Cormac himself, with six thousand men, fell on the Insanguin field. The losses of the victors are not specified, but the six thousand, we may hope, included the total of the slain on both sides. Flaunet once improved the opportunity of victory by advancing into Ossary, and establishing his cousin Dermid, son of Kerbal, over that territory. This Dermid, who appears to have been banished by Munster intrigues, had long resided with his royal cousin, previous to the battle, from which he was probably the only one that derived any solid advantage. As to the Abbot Flaherty, the instigator of this ill-fated expedition, he escaped from the Conquerors, and, safe in his island sanctuary, gave himself up for a while to penitential rigors. The worldly spirit, however, was not dead in his breast, and after the decease of Cormac's nest successor, he emerged from his cell, and was elevated to the kingship of Casual. In the earlier and middle years of this long reign, the invasions from the Baltic had diminished both in force and in frequency. This is to be accounted for from the fact that during its entire length it was contemporaneous with the reign of Herald, the fair-hared King of Norway, the scourge of the sea-keens. This more fortunate Charles XII, born in 853, died at the age of 81, after sixty years of almost unbroken successes over all his Danish, Swedish, and Insular enemies. It is easy to comprehend, by reference to his exploits upon the Baltic, the absence of the usual northern force from the Irish waters during his lifetime, and that of his contemporary, Flann of the Shannon. Yet the race of the sea- kings was not extinguished by the fair-haired Herald's victories over them at home. Several of them permanently abandoned their native coasts never to return, and recruited their colonies, already so numerous, in the Orkneys, Scotland, England, Ireland, and the Isle of Man. In 885 Flann was repulsed in an attack on Dublin, in which repulsed the abbots of Kildare and Kildalki were slain. In the year 890 Aliak was surprised and plundered by Danes for the first time, and Armax shared its fate. In 887, 888, and 891 three minor victories were gained over separate hordes, in Mayo, at Waterford, and at Oolidia, down. In 897 Dublin was taken for the first time in sixty years, its chiefs put to death, while its garrison fled in their ships beyond sea. But in the first quarter of the tenth century, better fortune begins to attend the Danish cause. A new generation enters on the scene, who dread no more the long arm of the aged stricken Herald, nor respect the treaties which bound their predecessors in Britain to the great Alfred. In 912 Waterford received from sea a strong reinforcement, and about the same date, or still earlier, Dublin, from which they had been expelled in 897, was again in their possession. In 913, and for several subsequent years, the southern garrisons continued their ravages in Munster, where the warlike Abbot of Scattery found a more suitable object for the employment of its baller than that which brought him with the studious Carmack to the fatal field of Balagmun. The closing days of Flann of the Shannon were embittered and darkened by the unnatural rebellion of his sons, Connor and Dunnig, and his successor, Niall, surnamed Blackney, Glundub, the husband of his daughter Gormley. These children were by his second marriage with Gormley, daughter of that son of Canang, whose name has already appeared in connection with the plundered sepulchres upon the Boyne. At the age of three score and upwards, Flann is frequently obliged to protect by recourse to arms his mencil lands in Mieth, their favorite point of attack, or to defend some faithful adherent, whom these unnatural princes sought to oppress. The daughter of Flann, thus wedded to a husband in arms against her father, seems to have been as little dutiful as his sons. We have Elegiac stanzas by her on the death of two of her husbands and of one of her sons, but none on the death of her father, although this form of tribute to the departed, by those skilled in such compositions, seems to have been as usual as the ordinary prayers for the dead. At length in the thirty-seventh year of his reign, and the sixty-eighth of his age, King Flann was at the end of his sorrows. As became the prevailing character of his life, he died peacefully in a religious house at Canay in Kildare, on the eighth of June in the year nine-sixteen of the Common Era. The Bards praise his fine shape and august mean as well as his pleasant and hospitable private habits. Like all the kings of his race he seems to have been brave enough, but he was no lover of war for war's sake, and the only great engagement in his long reign was brought on by enemies who left him no option but to fight. His munificence rebuilt the cathedral of Clon McNoise, with the cooperation of Cullman, the Abbot, the year after the battle of Balakmoon, nine-o-eight, for which age it was the largest and finest stone church in Ireland. His charity and chivalry both revolted at the cruel excesses of war, and when the head of Cormac of Casual was presented to him after his victory, he rebuked those who rejoiced over his rival's fall, kissed the reverend lifts of the dead, and ordered the relics to be delivered, as Cormac had himself wielded, to the church of Castle Dermot for Christian burial. These traits of character, not less than his family afflictions, and the generally peaceful tenor of his long life, have endeared to many the memory of the flan of the Shannon. Chapter 4 of A Popular History of Ireland, Book II This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Leon Meyer. A Popular History of Ireland, from the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics, Book II, by Thomas Darcy McGee. Chapter 4 Kings of the Tenth Century Neil IV. Donald II. Kongal III. Donald IV. Neil IV, surnamed Black Knee, succeeded his father-in-law, Flan of the Shannon, A.D. 916, and in the third year of his reign fell in an assault on Dublin. Donald II, son of Flan Shiona, reigned for twenty-five years, Kongal III succeeded, and was slain and ambushed by the Dublin Danes, in the twelfth year of his reign, A.D. 956. Donald IV, in the twenty-fourth year of his reign, died at Armagh, A.D. 979. Which four reigns bring us to the period of the accession of Malachy II as Ardrey, and the entrance of Brian Buru on the national stage as King of Cashel, and competitor for the monarchy? The reign of Neil, Black Knee, was too brief to be memorable for any other event than his heroic death in battle. The Danes, having recovered Dublin, and strengthened its defenses, Neil, it is stated, was incited by his confessor, the Abbot of Bangor, to attempt their re-expulsion. Accordingly, in October 919, he marched towards Dublin, with a numerous host. Connor, son of the late King and Roidamna, the Lords of Eurydia, Down, Oriel, Louth, Bria, East Meath, and other chiefs, with their clans accompanying him. Citric and Ivar, sons of the first Danish leaders in Ireland, marched out to meet them. And, near Wrath Farnam, on the daughter, a battle was fought, in which the Irish were utterly defeated in their monarch's slain. This Neil left a son named Merkertac, who, according to the compact entered into, between the northern and southern High Neil, became the Roidamna of the next reign, and the most successful leader against the Danes since the time of Malachy I. He was the stepson of the poetic Lady Gormley, whose lot it was to have been married in succession to the King of Munster, the King of Linster, and the Monarch. Her first husband was Cormac, son of Coulinan, before he entered Holy Orders, her second, Kerbal of Linster, and her third, Neil, Blackknee. She was an accomplished poetess, besides being the daughter, wife, and mother of kings. Yet, after the death of Neil, she begged from door to door, and no one had pity on her fallen state. By what vices she had thus estranged from her every kinsman, and every dependent, we are left to imagine. But that such was her misfortune, at the time her brother was Monarch, and her stepson, successor, we learned from the annals, which record her penance and death under the date of 948. The defeat sustained near Rath Farnam, by the late King, was amply avenged in the first year of the new Ard Rhee, A.D. 920, when the Dublin Danes, having marched out, taken and burned Kells, in Meath, were on their return through the plain of Bria, attacked and routed with unprecedented slaughter. There fell on the nobles of the Norsemen there, say the old analysts, as many as fell of the nobles and plebeians of the Irish, at Ath Cleath, Dublin. The Northern Hydre, however, was not left headless. Godfrey, grandson of Ivar, and Tomar, son of Alghee, took command at Dublin and Limerick, infusing new life into the remnant of their race. The youthful son of the late King, soon after at the head of a strong force, A.D. 921, compelled Godfrey to retreat from Ulster, to his ships, and to return by sea to Dublin. This was Merkertac, only called by the Allegeic Bards, the Hector of the West, and for his heroic achievements, not undeserving to be named after the gallant defender of Troy. Merkertac first appears in our annals at the year 921, and disappears in the thick of the battle in 938. His whole career covers seventeen years. His position throughout was subordinate and expectant, for King Dono outlived his heir. But there are few names in any age of the history of his country more worthy of historical honour than his. While Dono was king in name, Merkertac was king in fact. On him devolved the burden of every negotiation and the brunt of every battle. Unlike his ancestor, Hugh of Iliac, in opposition to Dono's ancestor, Malachy I, he never attempts to counteract the king, or to harass him in his patrimony. He rather does what is right and needful himself, leaving Dono to claim the credit if he be so minded. True, a coolness and a quarrel arises between them, and even a challenge of battle is exchanged. But better councils prevail, peace is restored, and the king and the roidamna march as one man against the common enemy. It has been said of another, but not wholly dissimilar form of government, that crown princes are always in opposition. If this saying holds good of father and son, as occupant and expectant of a throne, how much more likely is it to be true of a successor and a principal, chosen from different dynasties, with a view to combine, or at worst to balance, conflicting hereditary interests? In the conduct of Merkertac we admire in turn his many shining personal qualities, which even tasteless penegyric cannot hide, and the prudence, self-denial, patience and perseverance with which he awaits his day of power. Unhappily, for one every way so worthy of it, that day never arrived. At no former period, not even at the height of the tyranny of Turgitius, was a capable prince more needed in Aron. The new generation of Northmen were again upon all the estuaries and inland waters of the island. In the years 923, 924 and 925, their light-armored vessels swarmed on Locke-Erne, Locke-Rey, and other lakes, spreading flame and terror on every side. Clon-McNoise and Kildare, slowly recovering from former pillage, were again left empty and in ruins. Merkertac, the base of whose early operations was his own patrimony in Elster, attacked near Nuri, a northern division under the command of the son of Godfrey, A.D. 926, and left 800 dead on the field. The escape of the remnant was only secured by Godfrey, marching rapidly to the relief and covering the retreat. His son lay with the dead. In the years 933 at Sleeve-Bema, in his own province, Merkertac won a third victory, and in 936 taking political advantage of the result of the great English battle of Brunonburg, which had so seriously diminished the Danish strength, the Roydamna, in company with the king, assaulted Dublin, expelled its garrison, leveled its fortress, and left the dwellings of the Northmen in ashes. From Dublin they proceeded southward, through Lindster and Munster, and after taking hostages of every tribe, Dono returned to his methion home and Merkertac to Iliac. While resting in his own fort, A.D. 939, he was surprised by a party of Danes, and carried off to their ships. But, says the old translator of the annals of Clen McNoyce, he made a good escape from them, as it was God's will. The following season he redoubled his efforts against the enemy. Attacking them on their own element, he ravaged their settlements on the Scottish coasts, and among the isles of the N.C. Gaul, the Hebrides, returned, laden with spoils, and hailed with acclamations as the liberator of his people. Of the same age with Merkertac, the reigning prince at Cashel was Kellacan, one of the heroes of the latter bards and storytellers of the south. The romantic tales of his capture by the Danes, and captivity in their flute at Dundock, of the love which Citrix's wife bore him, and of his gallant rescue by the Daukassians and Eugenians, have no historical sanction. He was often both at war and at peace with the foreigners of Cork and Limerick, and did not hesitate more than once to employ their arms for the maintenance of his own supremacy. But his only authentic captivity was as a hostage in the hands of Merkertac. While the latter was absent on his expedition to N.C. Gaul, Kellacan fell upon the D.C. and Osaurians, and inflicted severe chastisement upon them, alleging as his provocation that they had given hostages to Merkertac, and acknowledged him as Roydamna of all Aran, in contempt of the co-equal rites of Cashel. When Merkertac returned from his scotch expedition and heard what had occurred, and on what pretext Kellacan had acted, he assembled at Iliac all the branches of the northern high Neal, for whom this was cause indeed. Out of those he selected one thousand chosen men, whom he provided, among other equipments, with those leathern coats which lent a sobriquet to his name, and with these ten hundred heroes he set out, strong in his popularity and his alliances, to make a circuit of the entire island, A.D. 940. He departed from Iliac, says his bard, whose itinerary we have, keeping his left hand to the sea. Dublin, once more rebuilt, acknowledged his title, and Citric, one of his lords, went with him as hostage for Earl Blacare and his countrymen. Linster surrendered him Lorcan, its king, Kellacan of Cashel, overawed by his superior fortune, advised his own people not to resist by force, and consented to become himself the hostage for all Munster. In Connit, Connor, for whom the O'Connor's take their family name, son of the Prince, came voluntarily to his camp, and was received with open arms. Kellacan alone was submitted to the indignity of wearing a fetter. With these distinguished hostages Merkertac and his leather-cloak ten hundred returned to Iliac, where for five months they spent a season of unbounded rejoicing. In the following year the Roydamna transferred the hostages to King Dono as his Suzerain, thus setting the highest example of obedience from the highest place. He might now look abroad over all the tribes of Aaron, and feel himself without a rival among his countrymen. He stood at the very summit of his good fortune, when the Danes of Dublin, reinforced from abroad, after his circuit, renewed their old plundering practices. They marched north at the close of Winter under Earl Blecaire, their destination evidently being Arma. Merkertac, with some troops hastily collected, disputed their passage at the Fort of Ardee. An engagement ensued on Saturday the 4th of March, 943, in which the noble Roydamna fell. King Dono, to whose reign his vigorous spirit has given its main historical importance, survived him but a twelve-month. The monarch died in the bed of repose, his destined successor in the thick of battle. The death of the brave and beloved Merkertac filled all Aaron with grief and rage, and as King Dono was too old to avenge his destined successor, that duty devolved on Kongol, the new Roydamna. In the year after the fatal action at Ardee, Kongol, with Bran, king of Lindster, and Kellac, heir of Lindster, assaulted and took Dublin, and wreaked a terrible revenge for the nation's loss. The women, children, and plebeians were carried off captive. The greater part of the garrison were put to the sword, but a portion escaped in their vessels to their fortress on Docky, an island in the Bay of Dublin. This was the third time within a century that Dublin had been rid of its foreign yoke, and yet, as the Gaelic Irish would not themselves dwell in fortified towns, the site remained open and unoccupied to be rebuilt as often as it might be retaken. The gallant Kongol, the same year, succeeded on the death of Dono to the sovereignty, and so soon as he had secured his seat and surrounded it with sufficient hostages, he showed that he could not only avenge the death, but imitate the glorious life of him whose place he held. Two considerable victories in his third and fourth years increased his fame and rejoiced the hearts of his countrymen. The first was one at Slain, aided by the Lord of Brefney, O'Rourke, and by Olaf the Crooked, a northern chief. The second was fought at Dublin, 947, in which Blockhair, the victor at R.D., and sixteen hundred of his men were slain. Thus was the death of Mercurtak finally avenged. It is very remarkable that the first conversions to Christianity among the Danes of Dublin should have taken place immediately after these successive defeats in 948. Nor, although quite willing to impute the best and most disinterested motives to these first neophytes, can we shut our eyes to the fact that no change of life such as we might reasonably look for accompanied their change of religion. Godfried, son of Citric, and successor of Blockhair, who professed himself a Christian in 948, plundered and destroyed the churches of East Meath in 949, burnt one hundred and fifty persons in the oratory of Drummery, and carried off as captives three thousand persons. If the tree is to be judged by its fruits, this first year's growth of the new faith is rather alarming. It compels us to disbelieve the sincerity of Godfried, at least, and the fighting men who wrought these outrages and sacrilegies. It forces us to rank them with the incorrigible heathens, who boasted that they had twenty times received the sacrament of baptism, and valued it for the twenty white robes which had been presented to them on those occasions. Still, we must endeavor hereafter, when we can, to distinguish Christian from pagan Danes, and those of Irish birth, sons of the first comers, from the foreign born kinsmen of their ancestors. Between these two classes there grew a gulf of feeling and experience, which a common language and common dangers only partially bridged over. Not seldom the interests and inclinations of the Irish-born Dane, especially if a true Christian, were at open variance with the interests and designs of the new arrivals from Denmark, and it is generally, if not invariably, with the former that the Lindster and other Irish princes enter into coalitions for common political purposes. The remainder of the reign of Kongal is one vigorous battle. The lord of Brafny, who had fought beside him on the hill of Slain, advanced his claim to be recognized Rødamna, and this being denied broke out into rebellion and harassed his patrimony. Donald, son of Merkertac, and grandson of Neal, the first who took the name of Uai Neal, or O'Neal, disputed these pretensions of the lord of Brafny, carried his boat's overland from Iliac to Loughern in Firmana, and Lough Otter and Cavern, attacked the lake islands, where the treasure and hostages of Brafny were kept, and carried them off to his own fortress. The warlike and indefatigable king was in the field summer and winter, enforcing his authority on monster and connet, and battling with the foreign garrisons between times. No former ard ree had a severe struggle with the insubordinate elements which beset him from first to last. His end was sudden, but not inglorious. In returning from the chariot races at Curra of Kildare, he was surprised and slain in an ambuscade laid for him by Godfreyd at a place on the banks of the Liffey called Tyraris or Tyraris House. By his side, fighting bravely, fell the lords of Teffia and Ferard, two of his nephews, and others of his personal attendance and companions. The Dublin Danes had in their turn a day of rejoicing and of revenge for the defeats they had suffered at Congol's hands. This reign is not only notable for the imputed first conversion of the Danes to Christianity, but also for the general adoption of family names. Hitherto we have been enabled to distinguish clansmen only by tribe names, formed by prefixing hy, kennel, syl, munter, dal, or some synonymous term, meaning race, kindred, sept, district, or part, to the proper name of a remote common ancestor, as hy, kneel, kennel, kennel, syl, munter, dal, and dal, but the great tribes now begin to break into families, and we are hereafter to know particular houses by distinct hereditary surnames as O'Neill, O'Connor, MacMurro, and McCarthy. Yet the whole body of relatives are often spoken of by the old tribal title, which, unless exceptions are named, is supposed to embrace all the descendants of the old connection to whom it was once common. At first this alternate use of tribe and family names may confuse the reader, for it is rather puzzling to find a MacLachlan with the same paternal ancestor as an O'Neill, and a MacMayan of Thalmond as an O'Brien. But the difficulty disappears with use and familiarity, and though the number and variety of newly coined names cannot be at once committed to memory, the story itself gains in distinctness by the change. In the year 955, Donald O'Neill, son of the brave and beloved Merc-Attack, was recognized as Ard-Rie, by the recognized number of provinces without recourse to coercion. But it was not to be expected that any Ard-Rie should, at this period of his country's fortunes, reign long in peace. War was then the business of the king, the first art he had to learn, and the first to practice. Warfare in Ireland had not been a stationary science since the arrival of the Norwegians and their successors, the Danes. Something they may have acquired from the natives, and in turn the natives were not slow to copy whatever seemed most effective in their tactics. Donald IV was the first to imitate their habit of employing armed boats on their inland lakes. He even improved on their example by carrying these boats with him overland, and launching them wherever he needed their cooperation. As we have already seen him do in his expedition against Brefney, while Roy Damna, and as we find him doing again in the seventh year of his reign when he carried his boats overland from Arma to West Meath, in order to employ them on Loch Enil, near Mullengar. He was at this time engaged in making his first royal visitation of the provinces, upon which he spent two months in Lindster, with all his forces, coerced the monster chiefs by fire and sword into obedience, and severely punished the insubordination of Fergal O'Rourke, king of Connit. His fleet upon Loch Enil, and his severities generally while in their patrimony, so exasperated the powerful families of the southern High Neal, the elder of which was now known as O'Malachlan, that on the first opportunity they leagued with the Dublin Danes, under their leader Olof the Crooked, A.D. 966, and drove King Donald out of Lindster and Meath, pursuing him across the Fuade, almost to the walls of Iliac. But the brave tribes of Turkannal and Turroan rallied to his support, and he pressed south upon the insurgents of Meath and Dublin. West Meath he rapidly overran, and planted a garrison in every cantred from the Shannon to Kells. In the campaigns which now succeeded each other, without truce or pause, for nearly a dozen years, the Lindster people generally sympathized with and assisted those of West Meath and Olof of Dublin, who recruited his ranks by the junction of the Lachmans, a war-like tribe from Enseagal, the Hebrides. Osary, on the other hand, acted with the monarch, and the son of its tainist, A.D. 974, was slain before Dublin, by Olof and his Lindster allies, with twenty-six hundred men, of Osary and Ulster. The campaign of 978 was still more eventful. The Lindster men quarreled with their Danish allies, who had taken their king captive, and in an engagement at Bilan, near Othay, defeated their forces with the loss of the heir of Lindster, the lords of Kinsla, Leah and Morit, and other chiefs. King Donald had no better fortune at Kilmoun, in Meath, the same season, where he was utterly routed by the same force, with the laws of Ardgal, heir of Eulidia, and Kenneth, lord of Turkannal. But for the victories gained about the same period in Munster, by Mahon and Brian, the sons of Kennedy, over the Danes of Limerick, of which we shall speak more fully hereafter, the balance of victory would have strongly inclined towards the Northmen at this stage of the contest. A leader, second in fame and in services, only to Brian, was now putting forth his energies against the common enemy in Meath. This was Malachlan, better known afterwards as Malachy II, son of Donald, son of King Donald, and therefore great grandson to his namesake, Malachy I. He had lately attained to the command of his tribe, and he resolved to earn the honors which were in store for him, as successor to the sovereignty. In the year 979 the Danes of Dublin and the Isles marched in unusual strength into Meath, under the command of Randall, son of Olaf the Crooked, and Connell, the order of Ath Cleath, Dublin. Malachy, with his allies, gave them battle near Terra, and achieved a complete victory. Earl Randall and the order were left dead on the field, with, it is reported, five thousand of the foreigners. On the Irish side fell the heir of Blinster, the lord of Morgallion and his son, the lords of Furtola and Cremorn, and a host of their followers. The engagement in true Homeric spirit had been suspended on three successive nights, and renewed three successive days. It was a genuine pitched battle, a trial of main strength, each party being equally confident of victory. The results were most important, and most gratifying to the national pride. Malachy, accompanied by his friend, the lord of Eulidia, down, moved rapidly on Dublin, which, in its panic, yielded to all his demands. The king of Blinster and two thousand other prisoners were given up to him without ransom. The Danish Earl solemnly renounced all claims to tribute or fine from any of the dwellers without their own walls. Malachy remained in the city three days, dismantled its fortresses, and carried off its hostages and treasure. The unfortunate Olaf the Crooked fled beyond seas, and died at Iona in exile and a Christian. In the same year, and in the midst of universal rejoicing, Donald the Fourth died peacefully and piously at Arma in the twenty-fourth year of his reign. He was succeeded by Malachy, who was his sister's son, and in whom all the promise of the lamented mercantac seemed to revive. The story of Malachy the Second is so interwoven with the still more illustrious career of Brian Boru, that it will not lose an interest by being presented in detail. But before entering on the rivalry of these great men, we must again remark on the altered position which the Northmen of this age hold to the Irish from that which existed formerly. A century and a half had now elapsed since their first settlement in the seaports, especially of the eastern and southern provinces. More than one generation of their descendants had been born on the banks of the Liffey, the Shannon, and the Shure. Many of them had married into Irish families, had learned the language of the country, and embraced its religion. When Limerick was taken by Brian, Ivar its Danish lord, fled for sanctuary to Scattery Island, and when Dublin was taken by Malachy the Second, Olof the Crooked fled to Iona. Intermarriages with the highest Gaelic families became frequent after their conversion to Christianity. The mother of Malachy, after his father's death, had married Olof of Dublin, by whom she had a son, named Gluniarin, irony from his armor, who was thus half brother to the king. It is natural enough to find him the ally of Malachy, a few years later against Ivar of Waterford, and curious enough to find Ivar's son called Gilla Patrick, the servant of Patrick. Calican of Casual had married a Danish and Citric of the Silkenbeard, an Irish lady. That all the Northmen were not, even in Ireland, converted in one generation is evident. Those of N. C. Gall were still, perhaps, pagans. Those of Orkney's and of Denmark, who came to the battle of Klantarf in the beginning of the next century, chose to fight on Good Friday under the advice of their heathen oracles. The first half of the eleventh century, the age of St. Olaf and of Canute, is the era of the establishment of Christianity among the Scandinavians, and hence the necessity for distinguishing between those who came to Ireland direct from the Baltic, from those who, born in Ireland and bred up in the Christian faith, had as much to apprehend from such an invasion as the Celts themselves. CHAPTER V. RAIN OF MALAKAI II Meliglien, or Malachi II, fifth in direct descent from Malachi I, the founder of the southern Hynial dynasty, was in his thirtieth year when, A.D. 780, he succeeded to the monarchy. He had just achieved the mighty victory of Tara when the death of his predecessor opened his way to the throne, and seldom did more brilliant dawn usher in a more eventful day than that which fate held in store for this victor king. None of his predecessors, not even his ancestor and namesake, had ever been able to use the high language of his noble proclamation when he announced on his accession, let all the Irish who are suffering servitude in the land of the stranger return home to their respective houses, and enjoy themselves in gladness and in peace. In obedience to this edict, and the power to enforce it, established by the victory at Tara, two thousand captives, including the king of Lenster and the prince of Aliyak, were returned to their homes. The hardest task of every odd rig of this and the previous century had been to circumscribe the ambition of the kings of Kassel within provincial bounds. Whoever ascended the southern throne, whether the warlike Felim or the learned Cormac, we have seen the same policy adopted by them all. The descendants of Heber had tired of the long ascendancy of the race of Haraman, and the desertion of Tara, by making that ascendancy still more strikingly provincial, had increased their antipathy. It was a struggle for supremacy between north and south, a contest of two geographical parties, an effort to efface the real or fancy dependency of one half of the island on the will of the other. The southern Hainial dynasty, springing up as a third power upon the methian bank of the Shannon, and balancing itself between the contending parties, might perhaps have given a new center to the whole system. Malachi the second was in the most favorable position possible to have done so, had he not had to contend with a rival, his equal in battle and superior in council, in the person of Brian, the son of Kennedy of Kinkora. The rise to sovereign rank of the house of Kinkora, the O'Brien's, is one of the most striking episodes of the tenth century. Descending, like most of the leading families of the south, from Olild, the Kland Algais had long been excluded from the throne of Kassel, by successive coalitions of their elder brethren, the Eugenians. Lactna and Lorcan, the grandfather and father of Kennedy, intrepid and able men, had strengthened their tribe by wise and vigorous measures, so that the former was able to claim the succession, apparently with success. Kennedy had himself been a claimant for the same honor, the alternate provision in the will of Olild, against Kellacon Kassel, A.D. 940-2, but at the convention held at Glenworth, on the river Fouquian, for the selection of King, the aged mother of Kellacon addressed his rival in a quatrain, beginning, Kennedy, Cuss, revere the law, which induced him to abandon his pretensions. This prince, usually spoken of by the Bards as the chaste Kennedy, died in the year 950, leaving behind him four or five out of the twelve sons, with whom he had been blessed. Most of the others had fallen in Danish battles, three in the same campaign, nine forty-three, and probably in the same field. There appear in after scenes, Mayhan, who became King of Kassel, Ekterna, who was Chief of Thelmand, under Mayhan, Marken, an Ecclesiastic, and Brian, born in 941, the Benjamin of the household. Mayhan proved himself, as Prince and Captain, every way worthy of his inheritance. He advanced from victory to victory over his enemies, foreign and domestic. In 960 he claimed the Throne of Munster, which claim he enforced by royal visitation five years later. In the latter year he rescued Clan McNoise from the Danes, and in 968 defeated the same enemy with a loss of several thousand men as Silcoid. This great blow he followed up by the sack of Limerick, from which he bore off a large quantity of gold and silver and jewels. In these, and in all his expeditions, from a very early age, he was attended by Brian, to whom he acted not only as a brother and prince, but as a tutor in arms. Fortune had accompanied him in all his undertakings. He had expelled his most intractable rival, Malloy, son of Bran, Lord of Desmond. His rule was acknowledged by the Northmen of Dublin and Cork, who opened their fortresses to him, and served under his banner. He carried all the hostages of Munster to his house, which had never before worn so triumphant an aspect. But family greatness begets family pride, and pride begets envy and hatred. The Eugenian families, who now found themselves overshadowed by the brilliant career of the sons of Kennedy, conspired against the life of Mayhan, who from his too confiding nature fell easily into their trap. Malloy, son of Brian, by the advice of Ivar, the Danish Lord of Limerick, proposed to meet Mayhan in friendly conference at the house of Donovan, a Eugenian chief whose wreath was at Rury on the river Mag. The safety of each person was guaranteed by the Bishop of Cork, the mediator on the occasion. Mayhan proceeded unsuspeciously to the conference, where he was suddenly seized by order of his treacherous host, and carried into the neighboring mountains of Nakhinrioyn. Here a small force, placed for the purpose by the conspirators, had orders promptly to dispatch their victim. But the foul deed was not done unwitnessed. Two priests of the Bishop of Cork followed the Prince, who, when arrested, snatched up the gospel of St. Barry, on which Malloy was to have sworn his fealty. As the swords of the assassins were aimed at his heart, he held up the gospel for a protection, and his blood spouting out stained the sacred scriptures. The priests taking up the blood-stained volume fled to their bishop, spreading the horrid story as they went. The venerable successor of St. Barry wept bitterly and uttered a prophecy concerning the future fate of the murderers, a prophecy which was very speedily fulfilled. This was in the year nine seventy-six, three or four years before the battle of Tera and the accession of Malachi. When the news of his noble-hearted brother's murder was brought to Brian at Kinkora, he was seized with the most violent grief. His favorite harp was taken down, and he sang the death-song of Mahon, recounting all the glorious actions of his life. His anger flashed out through his tears as he wildly chanted, My heart shall burst within my breast, unless I avenge this great king. They shall forfeit life for this valdeed, or I must perish by violent death. But the climax of this lament was that Mahon had not fallen in battle behind the shelter of his shield, rather than trust in the treacherous words of Donovan. Brian was now in his thirty-fifth year, was married, and had several children. Morag, his eldest, was able to bear arms and shared in his ardor and ambition. His first effort, says an old chronicle, was directed against Donovan's allies, the Danes of Limerick, and he slew Ivar their king and two of his sons. These conspirators, for seeing their fate, had retired into the holy isle of Scattery, but Brian slew them between the horns of the altar. For this violation of the sanctuary, considering his provocation, he was little blamed. He next turned his rage against Donovan, who had called to his aid the Danish townsmen of Desmond. Brian, says the analyst of Innisfallen, gave them battle where Olif and his Danes and Donovan and his Irish forces were cut off. After that battle, Brian sent a challenge to Malloy of Desmond, according to the custom of that age, to meet him in arms near Makrum, where the usual coalition, Danes and Irish, were against him. He completely routed the enemy, and his son Morag, then but a lad, killed the murderer of his uncle Mahon with his own hand. Malloy was buried on the north side of the mountain where Mahon was murdered and interred. On Mahon the southward sun shone full and fair, but on the grave of his assassin, the black shadow of the northern sky rested always. Such was the tradition which all Munster piously believed. After this victory over Malloy, son of Brian, AD 978, Brian was universally acknowledged king of Munster, and until Malachi had won the battle of Terra, was justly considered the first Irish captain of his age. Malachi, in the first year of his reign, having received the hostages of the Danes of Dublin, having liberated the Irish prisoners and secured the unity of his own territory, had his attention drawn, naturally enough, towards Brian's movements. Whether Brian had refused him homage, or that his revival of the old claim to the half-kingdom was his offence, or from whatever immediate cause, Malachi marched southwards, enforcing homage as he went. Entering Thomond he plundered the Delcassians, and marching to the mounted Adair, where under an old oak the kings of Thomond had long been inaugurated, he caused it to be dug from the earth with its roots, and cut into pieces. This act of Malachi's certainty bespeaks an embittered and aggressive spirit, and the provocation must indeed have been grievous to palliate so barbarous an action. But we are not informed what the provocation was. At the time Brian was in ossery enforcing his tribute, the next year we find him seizing the person of Gilopatric, lord of ossery, and soon after he burst into myath, avenging with fire and sword the wanton destruction of his ancestral oak. Thus were these two powerful princes openly embroiled with each other. We have no desire to dwell on all the details of their struggle, which continued for fully twenty years. About the year 987 Brian was practically king of half Ireland, and having the power, though not the title, he did not suffer any part of it to lie waste. His activity was incapable of exhaustion. In ossery, in lester, in canot, his voice and his arm were felt everywhere. But a divided authority was of necessity so favorable to invasion that the Danish power began to loom up to its old proportions. Citric, with the silken beard, one of the ablest of Danish leaders, was then at Dublin, and his occasional incursions were so formidable that they produced what probably nothing else could have done, an alliance between Brian and Malachi, which lasted for three years and was productive of the best consequences. Thus in 997 they imposed their yoke on Dublin, taking hostages and jewels from the foreigners. Reinforcements arriving from the north, the indomitable Danes proceeded to plunder Lester, but were routed by Brian and Malachi at Glen Mama, in Wicklow, with the loss of six thousand men and all their chief captains. Immediately after this victory the two kings, according to the annals, entered into Dublin, and the fort thereof, and there remained seven nights, and at their departure took all the gold, silver, hangings, and other precious things that were there with them, burnt the town, broke down the fort, and banished Citric from Dense. 80, 999. The next three years of Brian's life are the most complex in his career. After resting a night in Mjeth, with Malachi, he proceeded with his forces towards Arman, nominally on a pilgrimage, but really as it would seem, to extend his party. He remained in the sacred city a week, and presented ten ounces of gold at the Cathedral Altar. The Archbishop Marian received him with a distinction due to so eminent a guest, and a record of his visit, in which he estyled, Imperator of the Irish, was entered in the Book of St. Patrick. He, however, got no hostages in the north, but on his march southward he learned that the Danes had returned to Dublin, were rebuilding the city and fort, and were ready to offer submission and hostages to him, while refusing both to Malachi. Here Brian's eagerness for supremacy misled him. He accepted the hostages, joined the foreign forces to his own, and even gave his daughter in marriage to Citric of the Silken Beard. Immediately he broke with Malachi, and with his new allies and son-in-law marched into Mjeth in hostile array. Malachi, however, stood his defense, attacked and defeated Brian's advance guard of Danish horse, and the latter unwilling, apparently, to push matters to extremes, retired as he came, without battle or hostage or spoil of any kind. But his design of securing the monarchy was not for an instant abandoned, and by combined diplomacy and force he affected his end. His whole career would have been incomplete without the last and highest conquest over every rival. Patiently but surely he had gathered influence and authority, by arms, by gifts, by connections on all sides. He had propitiated the chief families of Canot by his first marriage with Mora, daughter of Ohayne, and his second marriage with Duvchalve, daughter of O'Connor. He had obtained one of the daughters of Godwin, the powerful Earl of Kent, for his second son, had given a daughter to the Prince of Scots, and another to the Danish King of Dublin. Malachi, in diplomatic skill, in foresight and in tenacity of purpose, was greatly inferior to Brian, though in personal gallantry and other princely qualities, every way his equal. He was of a hospitable, outspoken, enjoying disposition as we gather for many characteristic anecdotes. He has spoken of as being generally computed the best horsemen in those parts of Europe, and as one who delighted to ride a horse that was never broken, handled or ridden until the age of seven years. From an ancient story, which represents him as giving his revenues for a year to one of the court poets, and then fighting him with a headless staff to compel the poet to return them, it would appear that his good humor and perfusion were equal to his horsemanship. Finding Brian's influence still on the increase west of the Shannon, Malachi, in the year of our Lord one thousand, threw two bridges across the Shannon, one at Athelone, the other at the present Lansborough. This he did with the consent and assistance of O'Connor, but the issue was, as usual, he made the bridges and Brian profited by them. While Malachi was at Athelone, superintending the work, Brian arrived with the great force recruited from all quarters except Ulster, including Danish men at Armour. At Athelone was held the conference so memorable in our annals, in which Brian gave his rival the alternative of a pitched battle within a stated time or abdication. According to the southern annulus, first a month and afterwards a year were allowed the monarch to make his choice. At the expiration of the time Brian marched into Miethe and encamped at Terra, where Malachi, having vainly endeavored to secure the alliance of the northern high Nial in the interval, came and submitted to Brian without safeguard or surety. The unmade monarch was accompanied by a guard of twelve-score horsemen, and on his arrival proceeded straight to the tent of his successor. Here the rivals contended in courtesy as they had often done in arms, and when they separated, Brian, as Lord Paramount, presented Malachi as many horses as he had horsemen in his train when he came to visit him. This event happened in the year one thousand and one, when Brian was in his sixtieth and Malachi in his fifty-third year. There were present in the assembly all the princes and chiefs of the Irish, except the Prince of Eliach, and the Lords of Oriel, Ulidia, Tyroën, and Tyre-Cunnel, who were equally unwilling to assist Malachi or to acknowledge Brian. What is still more remarkable is the presence in this national assembly of the Danish Lords of Dublin, Carmen, Wexford, Waterford, and Quirk, whom Brian at this time was trying hard to conciliate by gifts and alliance. End of chapter five