STORY OF IRELAND By A. M. Sullivan

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STORY OF IRELAND

By A. M. Sullivan

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INTRODUCTORY

From the Atlas and Cyclopedia of Ireland (1900)

« Preface | Title Page | Contents »

HOW WE LEARN THE FACTS OF EARLY HISTORY.

IT may occur to my young friends, that, before I begin my narration, I ought to explain how far or by what means any one now living can correctly ascertain and narrate the facts of very remote history. The reply is, that what we know of history anterior to the keeping of written records is derived from the traditions handed down "by word of mouth" from generation to generation. We may safely assume that the commemoration of important events by this means was, at first, unguarded or unregulated by any public authority, and accordingly led to much confusion, exaggeration, and corruption; but we have positive and certain information that at length steps were taken to regulate these oral communications, and guard them as far as possible from corruption. The method most generally adopted for perpetuating them was to compose them into historical chants or verse-histories, which were easily committed to memory, and were recited on all public or festive occasions. When written records began to be used, the events thus commemorated were set down in the regular chronicles. Several of these latter, in one shape or another, are still in existence. From these we chiefly derive our knowledge, such as it is, of the ancient history of Erinn.

It is, however, necessary to remember that all history of very early or remote times, unless what is derived from the narratives of Holy Writ, is clouded, to a greater or lesser degree, with doubt and obscurity, and is, to a greater or lesser degree, a hazy mixture of probable fact and manifest fable. When writing was unknown, and before measures were taken to keep the oral traditions with exactitude and for a public purpose, and while yet events were loosely handed down by unregulated "hearsay" which, no one was charged to guard from exaggeration and corruption, some of the facts thus commemorated became gradually distorted, until, after great lapse of time, whatever was described as marvelously wonderful in the past was set down as at least partly supernatural and the long dead heroes whose prowess had become fabulously exaggerated came to be regarded as demi-gods. It is thus as regards the early history of ancient Rome and Greece. It is thus with the early history of Ireland, and indeed of all other European countries.

It would, however, be a great blunder for any one to conclude that because some of those old mists of early tradition contain such gross absurdities, they contain no truths at all. Investigation is every day more and more clearly establishing the fact that, shrouded in some of the most absurd of those fables of antiquity there are most indisputable and valuable truths of history.

[Fairlie]

STORY OF IRELAND

By A. M. Sullivan

PREFACE

From the Atlas and Cyclopedia of Ireland (1900)

« Title Page | Contents | Introduction »

THIS little book is written for young people. It does not pretend to the serious character of a History of Ireland. It does not claim to be more than a compilation from the many admirable works which have been published by painstaking and faithful historians. It is an effort to interest the young in the subject of Irish history, and attract them to its study.

I say so much in deprecation of the stern judgment of learned critics. I say it furthermore and chiefly by way of owning my obligations to those authors the fruits of whose researches have been availed of so freely by me. To two of these in particular, Mr. M'Gee and Mr. Haverty, I am deeply indebted. In several instances, even where I have not expressly referred to my authority, I have followed almost literally the text supplied by them. If I succeed in my design of interesting my young fellow-countrymen in the subject of Irish history, I recommend them strongly to follow it up by reading the works of the two historians whom I have mentioned. They possess this immeasurable advantage over every other previously published history of Ireland that in them the authors were able to avail themselves of the rich stores of material brought to light by the lamented O'Curry and O'Donovan, by Todd, Greaves, Wilde, Meehan, Gilbert, and others. These revelations of authentic history, inaccessible or unknown to previous history writers, not only throw a flood of light upon many periods of our history, heretofore darkened and obscured, but may be said to have given to many of the most important events in our annals an aspect totally new, and in some instances the reverse of that commonly assigned to them. Mr. Haverty's book is Irish history clearly and faithfully traced, and carefully corrected by recent invaluable archaelogical discoveries; Mr. M'Gee's is the only work of the kind accessible to our people which is yet more than a painstaking and reliable record of events. It rises above mere chronicling, and presents to the reader the philosophy of history, assisting him to view great movements and changes in their comprehensive totality, and to understand the principles which underlay, promoted, guided, or controlled them.

In all these, however, the learned and gifted authors have aimed high. They have written for adult readers. Mine is an humble, but I trust it may prove to be a no less useful, aim. I desire to get hold of the young people, and not to offer them a learned and serious "history," which might perhaps be associated in their minds with school tasks and painful efforts to remember; but to have a pleasant talk with them about Ireland; to tell them its story, after the manner of simple storytellers; not confusing their minds with a mournful series of feuds, raids, and slaughters, merely for the sake of noting them; or with essays upon the state of agriculture or commerce, religion or science, at particular periods�all of which they will find instructive when they grow to an age to comprehend and be interested in more advanced works. I desire to do for our young people that which has been well done for the youth of England by numerous writers. I desire to interest them in their country; to convince them that its history is no wild, dreary, and uninviting monotony of internecine slaughter, but an entertaining and instructive narrative of stirring events, abounding in episodes, thrilling, glorious, and beautiful.

I do not take upon myself the credit of being the first to remember that "the Child is father of the Man." The Rev. John O'Hanlon's admirable "Catechism of Irish History" has already well appreciated that fact. I hope there will follow many beside myself to cater for the amusement and instruction of the young people. They deserve more attention than has hitherto been paid them by our Irish book-writers. In childhood or boyhood to-day, there rapidly approaches for them a to-morrow, bringing manhood, with its cares, duties, responsibilities. When we who have preceded them shall have passed away forever, they will be the men on whom Ireland must depend. They will make her future. They will guide her destinies. They will guard her honor. They will defend her life. To the service of this "Irish Nation of the future" I devote the following pages, confident my young friends will not fail to read aright the lesson taught by "The Story of Ireland."

DUBLIN, August 15, 1867.

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STORY OF IRELAND

By A. M. Sullivan

CHAPTER I.

From the Atlas and Cyclopedia of Ireland (1900)

« Contents | Chapter II. »

HOW THE MILESIANS SOUGHT AND FOUND "THE PROMISED ISLE" AND CONQUERED IT.

THE earliest settlement or colonization of Ireland, of which there is tolerably precise and satisfactory information, was that by the sons of Miledh or Milesius, from whom the Irish are occasionally styled Milesians. There are abundant evidences that at least two or three "waves" of colonization had long previously reached the island; but it is not very clear whence they came. Those first settlers are severally known in history as the Partholanians, the Nemedians, the Firbolgs, and the Tuatha de Danaans. These latter, the Tuatha de Danaans, who immediately preceded the Milesians, possessed a civilization and a knowledge of "arts and sciences" which, limited as we may be sure it was, greatly amazed the earlier settlers (whom they had subjected) by the results it produced. To the Firbolgs (the more early settlers) the wonderful things done by the conquering newcomers, and the wonderful knowledge they displayed, could only be the results of supernatural power. Accordingly they set down the Tuatha de Danaans as "magicians," an idea which the Milesians, as we shall presently see, also adopted.

The Firbolgs seem to have been a pastoral race; the Tuatha de Danaans were more of a manufacturing and commercial people. The soldier Milesian came, and he ruled over all.

The Milesian colony reached Ireland from Spain,[1] but they were not Spaniards. They were an eastern people who had tarried in that country on their way westward, seeking, they said, an island promised to the posterity of their ancestor, Gadelius. Moved by this mysterious purpose to fulfill their destiny, they had passed from land to land, from the shores of Asia across the wide expanse of southern Europe, bearing aloft through all their wanderings the Sacred Banner, which symbolized to them at once their origin and their mission, the blessing and the promise given to their race. This celebrated standard, the "Sacred Banner of the Milesians," was a flag on which was represented a dead serpent and the rod of Moses; a device to commemorate forever among the posterity of Gadelius the miracle by which his life had been saved. The story of this event, treasured with singular pertinacity by the Milesians, is told as follows in their traditions, which so far I have been following:

While Gadelius, being yet a child, was sleeping one day, he was bitten by a poisonous serpent. His father—Niul, a younger son of the king of Scythia—carried the child to the camp of the Israelites, then close by, where the distracted parent with tears and prayers implored the aid of Moses. The inspired leader was profoundly touched by the anguish of Niul. He laid the child down, and prayed over him; then he touched with his rod the wound, and the boy arose healed. Then, say the Milesians, the man of God promised or prophesied for the posterity of the young prince, that they should inhabit a country in which no venomous reptile could live, an island which they should seek and find in the track of the setting sun.

It was not, however, until the third generation subsequently that the descendants and people of Gadelius are found setting forth on their prophesied wanderings; and of this migration itself—of the adventures and fortunes of the Gadelian colony in its journeyings—the history would make a volume. At length we find them tarrying in Spain, where they built a city, Brigantia, and occupied and ruled a certain extent of territory. It is said that Ith (pronounced "Eeh"), uncle of Milesius, an adventurous explorer, had, in his cruising northward of the Brigantian coast, sighted the Promised Isle, and landing to explore it, was attacked by the inhabitants (Tuatha de Danaans), and mortally wounded ere he could regain his ship. He died at sea on the way homeward. His body was reverentially preserved and brought back to Spain by his son, Lui (spelled Lugaid),[2] who had accompanied him, and who now summoned the entire Milesian host to the last stage of their destined wanderings—to avenge the death of Ith, and occupy the Promised Isle. The old patriarch himself, Miledh, had died before Lui arrived; but his sons all responded quickly to the summons; and the widowed queen, their mother, Scota, placed herself at the head of the expedition, which soon sailed in thirty galleys for "the isle they had seen in dreams." The names of the sons of Milesius who thus sailed for Ireland were, Heber the Fair, Amergin, Heber the Brown, Colpa, Ir, and Heremon; and the date of this event is generally supposed to have been about fourteen hundred years before the birth of our Lord.

At that time Ireland, known as Innis Ealga (the Noble Isle) was ruled over by three brothers, Tuatha de Danaan princes, after whose wives (who were three sisters) the island was alternately called, Eire, Banba (or Banva), and Fiola (spelled Fodhla), by which names Ireland is still frequently styled in national poems. Whatever difficulties or obstacles besot the Milesians in landing they at once attributed to the "necromancy" of the Tuatha de Danaans, and the old traditions narrate amusing stories of the contest between the resources of magic and the power of valor. When the Milesians could not discover land where they thought to sight it, they simply agreed that the Tuatha de Danaans had by their black arts rendered it invisible. At length they descried the island, its tall blue hills touched by the last beams of the setting sun, and from the galleys there arose a shout of joy; Innisfail, the Isle of Destiny, was found![3] But lo, next morning the land was submerged, until only a low ridge appeared above the ocean. A device of the magicians, say the Milesians. Nevertheless they reached the shore and made good their landing. The "magician" inhabitants, however, stated that this was not a fair conquest by the rules of war; that they had no standing army to oppose the Milesians; but if the newcomers would again take to their galleys, they should, if able once more to effect a landing, be recognized as masters of the isle by the laws of war.

The Milesians did not quite like the proposition. They feared much the "necromancy" of the Tuatha de Danaans. It had cost them trouble enough already to get their feet upon the soil, and they did not greatly relish the idea of having to begin it all over again. They debated the point, and it was resolved to submit the case to the decision of Amergin, who was the Ollav (the Learned Man, Lawgiver, or Seer) of the expedition. Amergin, strange to say, decided on the merits against his own brothers and kinsmen, and in favor of the Tuatha de Danaans. Accordingly, with scrupulous obedience to his decision, the Milesians relinquished all they had so far won. They re-embarked in their galleys, and, as demanded, withdrew "nine waves off from the shore." Immediately a hurricane, raised, say their versions, by the spells of the magicians on shore, burst over the fleet, dispersing it in all directions. Several of the princes and chiefs and their wives and retainers were drowned. The Milesians paid dearly for their chivalrous acquiescence in the rather singular proposition of the inhabitants indorsed by the decision of Amergin. When they did land next time, it was not in one combined force, but in detachments widely separated; some at the mouth of the Boyne; others on the Kerry coast. A short but fiercely contested campaign decided the fate of the kingdom. In the first great pitched battle, which was fought in a glen a few miles south of Tralee,[4] the Milesians were victorious. But they lost the aged Queen-Mother, Scota, who fell amidst the slain, and was buried beneath a royal cairn in Glen Scohene, close by. Indeed the queens of ancient Ireland figure very prominently in our history, as we shall learn as we proceed. In the final engagement, which was fought at Tailtan in Meath, between the sons of Milesius and the three Tuatha de Danaan kings, the latter were utterly and finally defeated, and were themselves slain. And with their husbands, the three brothers, there fell upon that dreadful day, when crown and country, home and husband, all were lost to them, the three sisters, Queens Eire, Banva, and Fiola!

« Contents | Chapter II. »

NOTES

[1] The settled Irish account; but this is also disputed by theorists who contend that all the waves of colonization reached Ireland from the continent across Britain.

[2] Here let me at the outset state, once for all, that I have decided, after mature consideration, to spell most of the Irish names occurring in our annals according to their correct pronunciation or sound, and not according to their strictly correct orthography in the Irish language and typography. I am aware of all that may fairly be said against this course, yet consider the weight of advantage to be on its side. Some of our Irish names are irretrievably Anglicized in the worst form—uncouth and absurd. Choosing therefore between difficulties and objections, I have decided to rescue the correct pronunciation in this manner; giving, besides, with sufficient frequency, the correct orthography.

[3] In Moore's "Melodies" the event here related is made the subject of the following verses:

"They came from a land beyond the sea,
And now o'er the western main
Set sail, in their good ships, gallantly,
From the sunny land of Spain.
'Oh, where's the Isle we've seen in dreams,
Our destin'd home or grave?'
Thus sung they as, by the morning's beams,
They swept the Atlantic wave.

"And, lo, where afar o'er ocean shines
A sparkle of radiant green,
As though in that deep lay emerald mines,
Whose light through the wave was seen.
''Tis Innisfail—'tis Innisfail!'
Rings o'er the echoing sea;
While, bending to heav'n, the warriors hail
That home of the brave and free.

"Then turn'd they unto the Eastern wave,
Where now their Day-God's eye
A look of such sunny omen gave
As lighted up sea and sky.
Nor frown was seen through sky or sea,
Nor tear o'er leaf or sod,
When first on their Isle of Destiny
Our great forefathers trod."

[4] All that I have been here relating is a condensation of traditions, very old, and until recently little valued or credited by historical theorists. Yet singular corroborations have been turning up daily, establishing the truth of the main facts thus handed down. Accidental excavations a few years since in the glen which tradition has handed down as the scene of this battle more than three thousand years ago, brought to light full corroboration of this fact, at least, that a battle of great slaughter was ought upon the exact spot some thousands of years ago....

[Fairlie]

STORY OF IRELAND

By A. M. Sullivan

CHAPTER II.

From the Atlas and Cyclopedia of Ireland (1900)

« Chapter I. | Contents | Chapter III. »

HOW IRELAND FARED UNDER THE MILESIAN DYNASTY.

IT is unnecessary to follow through their details the proceedings of the Milesian princes in the period immediately subsequent to the landing. It will suffice to state that in a comparatively brief time they subdued the country, entering, however, into regular pacts, treaties, or alliances with the conquered but not powerless Firbolgs and Tuatha de Danaans. According to the constitution under which Ireland was governed for more than a thousand years, the population of the island were distinguished in two classes—the Free Clans, and the Unfree Clans; the former being the descendants of the Milesian legions, the latter the descendants of the subjected Tuatha de Danaans and Firbolgs. The latter were allowed certain rights and privileges, and to a great extent regulated their own internal affairs; but they could not vote in the selection of a sovereign, nor exercise any other of the attributes of full citizenship without special leave. Indeed, those subject populations occasioned the conquerors serious trouble by their hostility from time to time for centuries afterward.

The sovereignty of the island was jointly vested in, or assumed by, Heremon and Heber, the Romulus and Remus of ancient Ireland. Like these twin brothers, who, seven hundred years later on, founded Rome, Heber and Heremon quarreled in the sovereignty. In a pitched battle fought between them Heber was slain, and Heremon remained sole ruler of the island. For more than a thousand years the dynasty thus established reigned in Ireland, the scepter never passing out of the family of Milesius in the direct line of descent, unless upon one occasion (to which I shall more fully advert at the proper time) for the brief period of less than twenty years. The Milesian sovereigns appear to have exhibited considerable energy in organizing the country and establishing what we may call "institutions," some of which have been adopted or copied with improvements and adaptations by the most civilized governments of the present day; and the island advanced in renown for valor, for wealth, for manufactures, and for commerce.

By this, however, my young readers are not to suppose that anything like the civilization of our times, or even faintly approaching that to which ancient Greece and Rome afterward attained, prevailed at this period in Ireland. Not so. But, compared with the civilization of its own period in northern and Western Europe, and recollecting how isolated and how far removed Ireland was from the great center and source of colonization and civilization in the East, the civilization of pagan Ireland must be admitted to have been proudly eminent. In the works remaining to us of the earliest writers of ancient Rome, we find references to Ireland that attest the high position it then held in the estimation of the most civilized and learned nations of antiquity. From our own historians we know that more than fifteen hundred years before the birth of our Lord, gold mining and smelting, and artistic working in the precious metals, were carried on to a great extent in Ireland. Numerous facts might be adduced to prove that a high order of political, social, industrial, and intellectual intelligence prevailed in the country. Even in an age which was rudely barbaric elsewhere all over the world, the superiority of intellect over force, of the scholar over the soldier, was not only recognized but decreed by leglislation in Ireland! We find in the Irish chronicles that in the reign of Eochy the First (more than a thousand years before Christ) society was classified into seven grades, each marked by the number of colors in its dress, and that in this classification men of learning, i.e., eminent scholars, or savants as they would now be called, were by law ranked next to royalty.

But the most signal proof of all, attesting the existence in Ireland at that period of a civilization marvelous for its time, was the celebrated institution of the Feis Tara, or Triennial Parliament of Tara, one of the first formal parliaments or legislative assemblies of which we have record.[1] This great national legislative assembly was instituted by an Irish monarch, whose name survives as a synonym of wisdom and justice, Ollav Fiola, who reigned as Ard-Ri of Erinn about one thousand years before the birth of Christ. To this assembly were regularly summoned:

Firstly—All the subordinate royal princes or chieftains;

Secondly—Ollavs and bards, judges, scholars, and historians; and

Thirdly—Military commanders.

We have in the old records the most precise accounts of the formalities observed at the opening and during the sitting of the assembly, from which we learn that its proceedings were regulated with admirable order and conducted with the greatest solemnity.

Nor was the institution of "triennial parliaments" the only instance in which this illustrious Irish monarch, two thousand eight hundred years ago, anticipated to a certain extent the forms of constitutional government of which the nineteenth century is so proud. In the civil administration of the kingdom the same enlightened wisdom was displayed. He organized the country into regular prefectures. "Over every cantred," says the historian, "he appointed a chieftain, and over every townland a kind of prefect or secondary chief, all being the officials of the king of Ireland." After a reign of more than forty years, this "true Irish king" died at an advanced age, having lived to witness long the prosperity, happiness, and peace which his noble efforts had diffused all over the realm. His real name was Eochy the Fourth, but he is more familiarly known in history by the title or soubriquet of "Ollav Fiola," that is, the "Ollav," or lawgiver, pre-eminently of Ireland, or "Fiola."

Though the comparative civilization of Ireland at this remote time was so high, the annals of the period disclose the usual recurrence of wars for the throne between rival members of the same dynasty, which early and mediaeval European history in general exhibits. Heading over the history of ancient Ireland, as of ancient Greece, Home, Assyria, Gaul, Britain, or Spain, one is struck by the number of sovereigns who fell by violent deaths, and the fewness of those who ended their reigns otherwise. But those were the days when between kings and princes chiefs and warriors, the sword was the ready arbiter that decided all causes, executed all judgments, avenged all wrongs, and accomplished all. ambitions. Moreover, it is essential to bear in, mind that the kings of those times commanded and led their own armies, not merely in theory or by "legal fiction,"but in reality and fact;, and that personal participation in the battle and prowess in the field were expected and were requisite on the part of the royal commander. Under such circumstances one can easily perceive how it came to pass, naturally and inevitably, that the battlefield became ordinarily the deathbed of the king. In those early times the kings who did not fall by the sword, in fair battle or unfair assault, were the exceptions everywhere. Yet it is a remarkable fact, that we find the average duration of the reigns of Irish monarchs, for fifteen hundred or two thousand years after the Milesian dynasty ascended the throne, was as long as that of most European reigns in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. Several of the Milesian sovereigns enjoyed reigns extending to over thirty years; some to fifty years. Many of them were highly accomplished and learned men, liberal patrons of arts, science, and commerce; and as one of them, fourteen hundred years before the Christian era, instituted regularly convened parliaments, so we find others of them instituting orders of knighthood and Companionships of Chivalry long before we hear of their establishment elsewhere.

The Irish kings of this period, as well as during the first ten centuries of the Christian age, in frequent instances intermarried with the royal families of other countries—Spain, Gaul, Britain, and Alba; and the commerce and manufactures of Ireland were, as the early Latin writers acquaint us, famed in all the marts and ports of Europe.

« Chapter I. | Contents | Chapter III. »

NOTES

[1] The Amphictyonic Council did not by any means partake to a like extent of the nature and character of a parliament....

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STORY OF IRELAND

By A. M. Sullivan

CHAPTER III.

From the Atlas and Cyclopedia of Ireland (1900)

« Chapter II. | Contents | Chapter IV. »

HOW THE UNFREE CLANS TRIED A REVOLUTION; AND WHAT CAME OF IT. HOW THE ROMANS THOUGHT IT VAIN TO ATTEMPT A CONQUEST OF IRELAND.

DURING those fifteen hundred years preceding the Christian era, the other great nations of Europe, the Romans and the Greeks, were passing, by violent changes and bloody convulsions, through nearly every conceivable form of government—republics, confederations, empires, kingdoms, limited monarchies, despotisms, consulates, etc. During the like period (fifteen centuries) the one form of government, a limited monarchy, and the one dynasty, the Milesian, ruled in Ireland. The monarchy was elective, but elective out of the eligible members of the established or legitimate dynasty.

Indeed the principle of "legitimacy," as it is sometimes called in our times—the hereditary right of a ruling family or dynasty—seems from the earliest ages to have been devotedly, I might almost say superstitiously, held by the Irish. Wars for the crown, and violent changes of rulers, were always frequent enough; but the wars and the changes were always between members of the ruling family or "blood royal;" and the two or three instances to the contrary that. occur are so singularly strong in their illustration of the fact to which I have adverted, that I will cite one of them here.

The Milesians and the earlier settlers never completely fused. Fifteen hundred years after the Milesian landing, the Firbolgs, the Tuatha de Danaans, and the Milesians were still substantially distinct races or classes, the first being agriculturists or tillers of the soil, the second manufacturers and merchants, the third soldiers. and rulers. The exactions and oppressions of" the ruling classes at one time became so grievous that in the reign succeeding that of Creivan the Second, who was the ninety-ninth Milesian monarch of Ireland, a widespread conspiracy was organized for the overthrow and extirpation of the Milesian princes and aristocracy. After three years of secret preparation, everything being ready, the royal and noble Milesian families, one and all, were invited to a "monster meeting" for games, exhibitions, feastings, etc., on the plain of Knock Ma, in the county of Galway. The great spectacle had lasted nine days, when suddenly the Milesians were set upon by the Attacotti (as the Latin chroniclers called the conspirators), and massacred to a man. Of the royal line there escaped, however, three princes, children yet unborn. Their mothers, wives of" Irish princes, were the daughters respectively of the kings of Scotland, Saxony, and Brittany. They succeeded in escaping into Albion, where, the three young princes were born and educated. The successful conspirators raised to the throne Carbry the First, who reigned five years, during which time, say the chronicles, the country was. a prey to every misfortune; the earth refused to yield, the cattle gave no milk, the trees bore no fruit, the waters had no fish, and "the oak [1] had but one acorn." Carbry was succeeded by his son, Moran, whose name deservedly lives in Irish history as "Moran the Just." He refused to wear the crown, which belonged, he said, to the royal line that had been so miraculously preserved; and he urged that the rightful princes, who by this time had grown to man's estate, should be recalled. Moran's powerful pleading commended itself readily to the popular conscience, already disquieted by the misfortunes and evil omens which, as the people read them, had fallen upon the land since the legitimate line had been so dreadfully cut down. The young princes were recalled from exile, and one of them, Faradah the Righteous, was, amid great rejoicing, elected king of Ireland. Moran was appointed chief judge of Erinn, and under his administration of justice the land long presented a scene of peace, happiness, and contentment. To the gold chain of office which Moran wore on the judgment seat, the Irish for centuries subsequently attached supernatural powers. It was said that it would tighten around the neck of the judge if he was unjustly judging a cause! The dawn of Christianity found the Romans masters of nearly the whole of the known world. Britain, after a short struggle, succumbed, and eventually learned to love the yoke. Gaul, after a gallant effort, was also overpowered and held as a conquered province. But upon Irish soil the Roman eagles were never planted. Of Ireland, or Ierne, as they called it, of its great wealth and amazing beauty of scenery and richness of soil, the all-conquering Romans heard much. But they had heard also that the fruitful and beautiful island was peopled by a soldier race, and, judging them by the few who occasionally crossed to Alba to help their British neighbors, and whose prowess and skill the imperial legions had betimes to prove, the conquest of Ierne was wisely judged by the Romans to be a work better not attempted.

The early centuries of the Christian era may be considered the period pre-eminently of pagan bardic or legendary fame in Ireland. In this, which we may call the "Ossianic" period, lived Cuhal or Cumhal, father of the celebrated Fin Mac Cumhal, and commander of the great Irish legion called the Fiana Erion, or Irish militia. The Ossianic poems [2] recount the most marvelous stories of Fin and Fiana Erion, which stories are compounds of undoubted facts and manifest fictions, the prowess of the heroes being in the course of time magnified into the supernatural, and the figures and poetic allegories of the earlier bards gradually coming to be read as realities. Some of these poems are gross, extravagant, and absurd. Others of them are of rare beauty, and are, moreover, valuable for the insight they give, though obliquely, into the manners and customs, thoughts, feelings, guiding principles, and moving passions of the ancient Irish.

« Chapter II. | Contents | Chapter IV. »

NOTES

[1] Such was the deep faith the Irish had in the principle of legitimacy in a dynasty! This characteristic of nearly all the Celtic nations survives in all its force in the Jacobite Relics of Ireland, the outbursts of Irish national feeling seventeen hundred years subsequently. Ex. gr. Compare the above taken from an old chronicle of the period, with the well-known Jacobite song translated from the Irish by Callanan:

"No more the cuckoo hails the spring;
No more the woods with stanch hounds ring;
The sun scarce lights the sorrowing day,
Since the rightful prince is far away."

[2] So called from their author, Oisin, or Ossian, the warrior poet, son of Fin, and grandson of Cuhal....

[Fairlie]

STORY OF IRELAND

By A. M. Sullivan

CHAPTER IV.

From the Atlas and Cyclopedia of Ireland (1900)

« Chapter III. | Contents | Chapter V. »

BARDIC TALES OF ANCIENT ERINN——-"THE SORROWFUL FATE OF THE CHILDREN OF USNA. "

ONE of the oldest, and perhaps the most famous, of all the great national history-poems or bardic tales of the ancient Irish, is called "The Fate of the Children of Usna," the incidents of which belong to the period preceding by half a century the Christian era, or anno mundi 3960. Indeed it was always classified by the bards as one of "The Three Sorrowful Tales of Erinn." Singularly enough, the story contains much less poetic fiction, and keeps much closer to the simple facts of history, than do several of the poems of Ossian's time, written much later on. From the highly dramatic and tragic nature of the events related, one can well conceive that, clad in the beautiful idiom of the Irish tongue and told in the fanciful language of poetry, "The Story of the Children of Usnach" was calculated to win a prominent place among the bardic recitals of the pagan Irish. A semi-fanciful version of it has been given in English at great length by Dr. Ferguson in the "Hibernian Nights' Entertainment;" but the story is variously related by other narrators. As it may, perhaps, be interesting to my young readers, I summarize the various versions here as the only specimen I mean to give of the semi-imaginative literature of the pagan Irish:

"When Conor Mac Nessa was reigning king of Ulidia, and Eochy the Tenth was Ard-Ri of Erinn, it happened one day that Conor had deigned to be present at a feast which was given at the house of Felemi, son of the laureate of Ulster. "While the festivities were going on, it came to pass that the wife of the host gave birth to a daughter; and the infant being brought into the presence of the king and the other assembled guests, all saw that a beauty more than natural had been given to the child. In the midst of remark and marvel on all hands at the circumstance, Kavaiee, the chief Druid of the Ulidians, cried out with a loud voice and prophesied that through the infant before them there would come dark woe and misfortune to Ulster, such as the land had not known for years. When the warriors heard this, they all demanded that the child should instantly be put to death. But Conor interposed and forbade the deed. "I," said the king, "will myself take charge of this beautiful child of destiny. I shall have her reared where no evil can befall through her or to her, and in time she may become a wife for me." Then the chief Druid, Kavaiee, named the child Deirdri, which means alarm or danger. Conor placed the infant under the charge of a nurse or attendant, and subsequently a female tutor, in a residence situated in a district which no foot of man was allowed to tread; so that Deirdri had grown to the age of woman before she saw a human form other than those of her female attendants. And the maiden was beautiful beyond aught that the eye of man had ever beheld.

Meanwhile, at the court of the Ulidian king was a young noble named Naeisi, son of Usna, whose manly beauty, vigor, activity, and bravery were the theme of every tongue. One day, accompanied only by a faithful deerhound, Naeisi had hunted the deer from the rising of the sun, until, toward evening, he found the chase had led him into a district quite strange to his eye. He paused to think how best he might retrace his way homeward, when suddenly the terrible idea flashed across his mind that he was within the forbidden ground which it was death to enter—the watchfully-guarded retreat of the king's my sterious protégée, Deirdri. While pondering on his fatal position, he came suddenly upon Deirdri and her nurse, who were strolling in the sunset by a running stream. Deirdri cried out with joy to her attendant, and asked what sort of a being it was who stood beyond; for she had never seen any such before. The consternation and embarrassment of the aged attendant were extreme, and she in vain sought to baffle Deirdri's queries, and to induce her to hasten homeward. Naeisi too, riveted by the beauty of Deirdri, even though he knew the awful consequences of his unexpected presence there, stirred not from the scene. He felt that even on the penalty of death he would not lose the enchanting vision. He and Deirdri spoke to each other; and eventually the nurse, perplexed at first, seems to have become a confidante to the attachment which on the spot sprung up between the young people.

It was vain for them, however, to hide from themselves the fate awaiting them on the king's discovery of their affection, and accordingly Naeisi and Deirdri arranged that they would fly into Alba, where they might find a home. Now Naeisi was greatly loved by all the nobles of Ulster; but most of all was he loved by his two brothers, Anli and Ardan, and his affection for them caused him to feel poignantly the idea of leaving them forever. So he confided to them the dread secret of his love for Deirdri and of the flight he and she had planned. Then Anli and Ardan said that wherever Naeisi would fly, thither also would they go, and with their good swords guard their brother and the wife for whom he was sacrificing home and heritage. So, privately selecting a trusty band of one hundred and fifty warriors, Naeisi, Anli, and Ardan, taking Deirdri with them, succeeded in making their escape out of Ireland and into Alba, where the king of that country, aware of their noble lineage and high valor, assigned them ample "maintenance and quarterage," as the bards express it. There they lived peacefully and happily for a time, until the fame of Deirdri's unequalled beauty made the Albanian king restless and envious, reflecting that he might, as sovereign, himself claim her as wife, which demand at length he made. Naeisi and his brothers were filled with indignation at this; but their difficulty was extreme, for whither now could they fly? Ireland was closed against them forever; and now they were no longer safe in Alba! The full distress of their position was soon realized: for the king of Alba came with force of arms to take Deirdri. After many desperate encounters and adventures, however, any one of which would supply ample material for a poem-story, the exiled brothers and their retainers made good their retreat into a small island off the Scottish coast.

When it was heard in Ulidia that the sons of Usna were in such sore strait, great murmurs went round among the nobles of Ulster, for Naeisi and his brothers were greatly beloved of them all. So the nobles of the province eventually spoke up to the king, and said it was hard and a sad thing that these three young nobles, the foremost warriors of Ulster, should be lost to their native land and should suffer such difficulty "on account of one woman." Conor saw what discontent and disaffection would prevail throughout the province if the popular favorites were not at once pardoned and recalled. He consented to the entreaties of the nobles, and a royal courier was dispatched with the glad tidings to the sons of Usna.

When the news came, joy beamed on every face but on that of Deirdri. She felt an unaccountable sense of fear and sorrow, "as if of coming ill." Yet, with all Naeisi's unbounded love for her, she feared to put it to the strain of calling on him to choose between exile with her or a return to Ireland without her. For it was clear that both he and Anli and Ardan longed in their hearts for one glimpse of the hills of Erinn. However, she could not conceal the terrible dread that oppressed her, and Naeisi, though his soul yearned for home, was so moved by Deirdri's forebodings, that he replied to the royal messenger by expressing doubts of the safety promised to him if he returned.

When this answer reached Ulster, it only inflamed the discontent against the king, and the nobles agreed that it was but right that the most solemn guarantees and ample sureties should be given to the sons of Usna on the part of the king.

To this also Conor assented; and he gave Fergus Mac Roi, Duthach del Ulad, and Cormac Colingas as guarantees or hostages that he would himself act toward the sons of Usna in good faith.

The royal messenger set out once more, accompanied by Fiachy, a young noble of Ulster, son of Fergus Mac Roi, one of the three hostages;, and now there remained no excuse for Naeisi delaying to return. Deirdri still felt oppressed by the mysterious sense of dread and hidden danger; but (so she reflected) as Naeisi and his devoted brothers had hitherto uncomplainingly sacrificed everything for her, she would now sacrifice her feelings for their sakes. She assented, therefore (though with secret sorrow and foreboding), to their homeward voyage.

Soon the galleys laden with the returning; exiles reached the Irish shore. On landing, they found a Dalariadan legion waiting to escort them to Emania, the palace of the king; and of this legion the young Fiachy was the commander. Before completing the first day's march some misgivings seem occasionally to have flitted across the minds of the brothers, but they were allayed by the frank and fearless, brave and honorable Fiachy, who told them to have no fear, and to be of good heart. But every spear's length they drew near to Emania, Deirdri's feelings became more and more insupportable, and so overpowered was she with the forebodings of evil, that again the cavalcade halted, and again the brothers would have turned back but for the persuasions of their escort. Next day, toward evening, they sighted Emania. "O Naeisi," cried Deirdri, "view the cloud that I here see in the sky! I see over Email Green a chilling cloud of blood-tinged red." But Naeisi tried to cheer her with assurances of safety and pictures of the happy days that were yet before them.

Next day came Durthacht, chieftain of Fermae (now Farney), saying that he came from the king, by whose orders the charge of the escort should now be given to him. But Fiachy, who perhaps at this stage began to have misgivings as to what was in meditation, answered that to no one would he surrender the honorable trust confided to him on the stake of his father's life and honor, which with his own life and honor he would defend.

And here, interrupting the summarized text of the story, I may state that it is a matter of doubt whether the king was really a party to the treachery which ensued, or whether Durthacht and others themselves moved in the bloody business without his orders, using his name and calculating that what they proposed to do would secretly please him, would be readily forgiven or approved, and would recommend them to Conor's favor. Conor's character as it stands on the page of authentic history, would forbid the idea of such murderous perfidy on his part; but all the versions of the tale allege the king's guilt to be deep and plain.

Fiachy escorted his charge to a palace which had been assigned for them in the neighborhood; and, much to the disconcerting of Durthacht of Fermae, quartered his legion of Dalariadans as guards upon the building. That night neither the chivalrous Fiachy nor the children of Usna disguised the now irresistible and mournful conviction that foul play was to be apprehended; but Naeisi and his brothers had seen enough of their brave young custodian to convince them that, even though his own father should come at the palace gate to bid him connive at the surrender of his charge, Fiachy would defend them while life remained.

Next morning the effort was renewed to induce Fiachy to hand over the charge of the returned exiles. He was immovable. "What interest is it of yours to obstruct the king's orders?" said Durthacht of Fermae; "can you not turn over your responsibility to us, and in peace and safety go your way?"—"It is of the last interest to me," replied Fiachy, "to see that the sons of Usna have not trusted in vain on the word of the king, on the hostage of my father, or on the honor of my father's son." Then all chance of prevailing on Fiachy being over, Durthacht gave the signal for assault, and the palace was stormed on all sides.

Then spoke Naeisi, touched to the heart by the devotion and fidelity of Fiachy: "Why should you perish defending us? We have seen all. Your honor is safe, noblest of youths. We will not have you sacrifice vainly resisting the fate that for us now is clearly inevitable. We will meet death calmly, we will surrender ourselves, and spare needless slaughter." But Fiachy "would not have it so, and all the entreaties of the sons of Usna could not prevail upon him to assent. "I am here," said he, "the representative of my father's hostage, of the honor of Ulster, and the word of the king. To these and on me you trusted. While you were safe you would have turned back, but for me. Now, they who would harm you must pass over the lifeless corpse of Fiachy."

Then they asked that they might at least go forth on the ramparts and take part in the defense of the palace; but Fiachy pointed out that by the etiquette of knightly honor in Ulidia, this would be infringing on his sacred charge. He was the pledge for their safety, and he alone should look to it. They must, under no circumstances, run even the slightest peril of a spear-wound, unless he should first fall, when by the laws of honor, his trust would have been acquitted, but not otherwise. So ran the code of chivalry among the warriors of Dalariada.

Then Naeisi and his brothers and Deirdri withdrew into the palace, and no more, even by a glance, gave sign of any interest or thought whatsoever about their fate; whether it was near or far, brightening or darkening; "but Naeisi and Deirdri sat down at a chessboard and played at the game."

Meanwhile, not all the thunders of the heavens could equal the resounding din of the clanging of shields, the clash of swords and spears, the cries of the wounded, and the shouts of the combatants outside. The assailants were twenty to one; but the faithful Fiachy and his Dalariadans performed prodigies of valor, and at noon they still held the outer ramparts of all. By the assailants nothing had yet been won.

An attendant rushed with word to Naeisi. He raised not his eyes from the board, but continued the game.

But now the attacking party, having secured reinforcements, returned to the charge with increased desperation. For an hour there was no pause in the frightful fury of the struggle.

At length the first rampart was won.

A wounded guard rushed in with the dark news to Naeisi, who "moved a piece on the board, but never raised his eyes."

The story in this way goes on to describe how, as each fosse surrounding the palace was lost and won, and as the din and carnage of the strife drew nearer and nearer to the doomed guests inside, each report from the scene of slaughter, whether of good or evil report failed alike to elicit the slightest motion of concern or interest one way or another from the brothers or from Deirdri. In all the relics we possess of the old poems or bardic stories of those pagan times, there is nothing finer than the climax of the tragedy which the semi-imaginative story I have been epitomizing here proceeds to reach. The deafening clangor and bloody strife outside, drawing nearer and nearer, the supreme equanimity of the noble victims inside, too proud to evince the slightest emotion, is most powerfully and dramatically antithesized; the story culminating in the final act of the tragedy, when the faithful Fiachy and the last of his guards having been slain, "the Sons of Usna" met their fate with a dignity that befitted three such noble champions of Ulster.

When Fergus and Duthach heard of the foul murder of the sons of Usna, in violation of the pledge for which they themselves were sureties, they marched upon Emania, and, in a desperate encounter with Conor's forces in which the king's son was slain and his palace burned to the ground, they inaugurated a desolating war that lasted in Ulster for many a year, and amply fulfilled the dark prophecy of Kavaiee the Druid in the hour of Deirdri's birth.

Deirdri, we are told, "never smiled" from the day of the slaughter of her husband on Eman Green.

In vain the king lavished kindness and favors upon her. In vain he exhausted every resource in the endeavor to cheer, amuse, or interest her.

One day, after more than a year had been passed by Deirdri in this settled but placid despair and melancholy, Conor took her in his own chariot to drive into the country. He attempted to jest her sarcastically about her continued grieving for Naeisi, when suddenly she sprang out of the chariot, then flying at the full speed of the steeds, and falling headforemost against a sharp rock on the roadside, was killed upon the spot.

Well known to most Irish readers, young and old, is Moore's beautiful and passionate "Lament for the Children of Usna:"

"Avenging and bright fall the swift sword of Erin
On him who the brave sons of Usna betrayed!—
For every fond eye he hath waken'd a tear in,
A drop from his heart-wounds shall weep o'er her blade!

"By the red cloud that hung over Conor's dark dwelling,
When Ulad's three champions lay sleeping in gore—
By the billows of war, which so often, high swelling,
Have wafted these heroes to victory's shore—

"We swear to revenge them!—
No joy shall be tasted,
The harp shall be silent, the maiden unwed,
Our halls shall be mute, and our fields shall lie wasted,
Till vengeance is wreak'd on the murderer's head!

"Yes, monarch, tho' sweet are our home recollections;
Though sweet are the tears that from tenderness fall;
Though sweet are our friendships, our hopes, our affections,
Revenge on a tyrant is sweetest of all!"...

[Fairlie]

STORY OF IRELAND

By A. M. Sullivan

CHAPTER V.

From the Atlas and Cyclopedia of Ireland (1900)

« Chapter IV. | Contents | Chapter VI. »

THE DEATH OF KING CONOR MAC NESSA.

I HAVE alluded to doubts suggested in my mind by the facts of authentic history, as to. whether King Conor Mac Nessa was likely to have played the foul part attributed to him in this celebrated bardic story, and for which, certainly, the "sureties" Fergus, Duthach, and Cormac, held him to a terrible account. All that can be said is, that no other incident recorded of him would warrant such an estimate of his character; and it is certain he was a man of many brave and noble parts. He met his death under truly singular circumstances. The ancient bardic version of the event is almost literally given in the following poem, by Mr. T. D. Sullivan:

DEATH OF KING CONOR MAC NESSA.

I.

'Twas a day full of sorrow for Ulster when Conor Mac Nessa went forth
To punish the clansmen of Connaught who dared to take spoil from the North;
For his men brought him back from the battle scarce better than one that was dead,
With the brain-ball of Mesgedra [1] buried two-thirds of its depth in his head.
His royal physician bent o'er him, great Fingen, who often before
Stanched the war-battered bodies of heroes, and built them for battle once more,
And he looked on the wound of the monarch, and heark'd to his low breathed sighs,
And he said, "In the day when that missile is loosed from his forehead, he dies.

II.

"Yet long midst the people who love him King Conor Mac Nessa may reign,
If always the high pulse of passion be kept from his heart and his brain;
And for this I lay down his restrictions:—no more from this day shall his place
Be with armies, in battles, or hostings, or leading the van of the chase;
At night when the banquet is flashing, his measure of wine must be small,
And take heed that the bright eyes of woman be kept from his sight above all;
For if heart-thrilling joyance or anger awhile o'er his being have power,
The ball will start forth from his forehead, and surely he dies in that hour."

III.

Oh! woe for the valiant King Conor, struck down from the summit of life,
While glory unclouded shone round him, and regal enjoyment was rife—
Shut out from his toils and his duties, condemned to ignoble repose,
No longer to friends a true helper, no longer a scourge to his foes!
He, the strong-handed smiter of champions, the piercer of armor and shields,
The foremost in earth-shaking onsets, the last out of blood-sodden fields—
The mildest, the kindest, the gayest, when revels ran high in his hall—
Oh, well might his true-hearted people feel gloomy and sad for his fall!

IV.

The princes, the chieftains, the nobles, who met, to consult at his board,
Whispered low when their talk was of combats, and wielding the spear and the sword:
The bards from their harps feared to waken the full-pealing sweetness of song,
To give homage to valor or beauty, or praise to the wise and the strong;
The flash of no joy-giving story made cheers or gay laughter resound,
Amid silence constrained and unwonted the seldom-filled wine-cup went round;
And, sadder to all who remembered the glories and joys that had been,
The heart-swaying presence of woman not once shed its light on the scene.

V.

He knew it, he felt it, and sorrow sunk daily more deep in his heart;
He wearied of doleful inaction, from all his loved labors apart.
He sat at his door in the sunlight, sore grieving and weeping to see
The life and the motion around him, and nothing so stricken as he.
Above him the eagle went wheeling, before him the deer galloped by,
And the quick-legged rabbits went skipping from green glades and burrows a-nigh,
The song-birds sang out from the copses, the bees passed on musical wing,
And all things were happy and busy, save Conor Mac Nessa the king!

VI.

So years had passed over, when, sitting mid silence like that of the tomb,
A terror crept through him as sudden the noon-light was blackened with gloom.
One red flare of lighting blazed brightly, illuming the landscape around,
One thunder-peal roared through the mountains, and rumbled and crashed under ground;
He heard the rocks bursting asunder, the trees tearing up by the roots,
And loud through the horrid confusion the howling of terrified brutes.
From the halls of his tottering palace came screamings of terror and pain,
And he saw crowding thickly around him the ghosts of the foes he had slain!

VII.

And as soon as the sudden commotion that shuddered through nature had ceased,
The king sent for Barach, his Druid, and said: "Tell me truly, O priest,
What magical arts have created this scene of wild horror and dread?
What has blotted the blue sky above us, and shaken the earth that we tread?
Are the gods that we worship offended? what crime or what wrong has been done?
Has the fault been committed in Erin, and how may their favor be won?
What rites may avail to appease them? what gifts on their altars should smoke?
Only say, and the offering demanded we lay by your consecrate oak."

VIII.

"O king," said the white-bearded Druid, "the truth unto me has been shown,
There lives but one God, the Eternal; far up in high Heaven is His throne.
He looked upon men with compassion, and sent from His kingdom of light
His Son, in the shape of a mortal, to teach them and guide them aright.
Near the time of your birth, O King Conor, the Savior of mankind was born,
And since then in the kingdoms far eastward He taught, toiled, and prayed, till this morn,
When wicked men seized Him, fast bound Him with nails to a cross, lanced His side,
And that moment of gloom and confusion was earth's cry of dread when He died.

IX.

"O king, He was gracious and gentle, His heart was all pity and love,
And for men He was ever beseeching the grace of His Father above;
He helped them, He healed them, He blessed them, He labored that all might attain
To the true God's high kingdom of glory, where never comes sorrow or pain;
But they rose in their pride and their folly, their hearts filled with merciless rage,
That only the sight of His life-blood fast poured from His heart could assuage:
Yet while on the cross-beams uplifted, His body racked, tortured, and riven,
He prayed—not for justice or vengeance, but asked that His foes be forgiven."

X.

With a bound from his seat rose King Conor, the red flush of rage on his face,
Fast he ran through the hall for his weapons, and snatching his sword from its place,
He rushed to the woods, striking wildly at boughs that dropped down with each blow,
And he cried: "Were I midst the vile rabble, I'd cleave them to earth even so!
With the strokes of a high king of Erinn, the whirls of my keen-tempered sword,
I would save from their horrible fury that mild and that merciful Lord."
His frame shook and heaved with emotion; the brain-ball leaped forth from his head,
And commending his soul to that Savior, King Conor Mac Nessa fell dead.

« Chapter IV. | Contents | Chapter VI. »

NOTES

[1] The pagan Irish warriors sometimes took the brains out of champions whom they had slain in single combat, mixed them up with lime, and rolled them into balls, which hardened with time, and which they preserved as trophies. It was with one of these balls, which had been abstracted from his armory, that Conor Mac Nessa was wounded, as described in the text....

[Fairlie]

STORY OF IRELAND

By A. M. Sullivan

CHAPTER VI.

From the Atlas and Cyclopedia of Ireland (1900)

« Chapter V. | Contents | Chapter VII. »

THE "GOLDEN AGE" OF PRE-CHRISTIAN ERINN.

As early as the reign of Ard-Ri Cormac the First—the first years of the third century—the Christian faith had penetrated into Ireland. Probably in the commercial intercourse between the Irish and continental ports, some Christian converts had been made among the Irish navigators or merchants. Some historians think the monarch himself, Cormac, toward the close of his life adored the true God, and attempted to put down druidism. "His reign," says Mr. Haverty the historian, "is generally looked upon as the brightest epoch in the entire history of pagan Ireland. He established three colleges; one for War, one for History, and the third for Jurisprudence. He collected and remodeled the laws, and published the code which remained in force until the English invasion (a period extending beyond nine hundred years), and outside the English Pale for many centuries after! He assembled the bards and chroniclers at Tara, and directed them to collect the annals of Ireland, and to write out the records of the country from year to year, making them synchronize with the history of other countries, by collating events with the reigns of contemporary foreign potentates; Cormac himself having been the inventor of this kind of chronology. These annals formed what is called the 'Psalter of Tara,' which also contained full details of the boundaries of provinces, districts, and small divisions of land throughout Ireland; but unfortunately this great record has been lost, no vestige of it being now, it is believed, in existence. The magnificence of Cormac's palace at Tara was commensurate with the greatness of his power and the brilliancy of his actions; and he fitted out a fleet which he sent to harass the shores of Alba or Scotland, until that country also was compelled to acknowledge him as sovereign. He wrote a book or tract called Teaguscna-Ri, or the 'Institutions of a Prince,' which is still in existence, and which contains admirable maxims on manners, morals, and government." This illustrious sovereign died A.D. 266, at Cleitach, on the Boyne, a salmon bone, it is said, having fastened in his throat while dining, and defied all efforts at extrication. He was buried at Ross-na-ri, the first of the pagan monarchs for many generations who was not interred at Brugh, the famous burial place of the pre-Christian kings. A vivid tradition relating the circumstances of his burial has been very beautifully versified by Dr. Ferguson in his poem, "The Burial of King Cormac:"

" 'Crom Cruach and his sub-gods twelve,'
Said Cormac, 'are but craven treene;
The ax that made them, haft or helve,
Had worthier of our worship been:

" 'But He who made the tree to grow,
And hid in earth the iron-stone,
And made the man with mind to know
The ax's use, is God alone.' "

The Druids hear of this fearful speech, and are horrified:

"Anon to priests of Crom was brought
(Where girded in their service dread
They ministered on red Moy Slaught)
Word of the words King Cormac said.

"They loosed their curse against the king,
They cursed him in his flesh and bones
And daily in their mystic ring
They turned the maledictive stones."

At length one day comes the news to them that the king is dead, "choked upon the food he ate," and they exultantly sound "the praise of their avenging god." Cormac, before he dies, however, leaves as his last behest, a direction that he shall not be interred in the old pagan cemetery of the kings at Brugh, but at Ross-na-ri:

"But ere the voice was wholly spent
That priest and prince should still obey,
To awed attendants o'er him bent
Great Cormac gathered breath to say:

"'Spread not the beds of Brugh for me,
When restless death-bed's use is done;
But bury me at Ross-nar-ee,
And face me to the rising sun.

"'For all the kings who lie in Brugh
Put trust in gods of wood and stone;
And 'twas at Ross that first I knew
One Unseen, who is God alone.

"'His glory lightens from the east,
His message soon shall reach our shore,
And idol-god and cursing priest
Shall plague us from Moy Slaught no more.' "

King Cormac dies, and his people one and all are shocked at the idea of burying him anywhere save in the ancient pagan cemetery where all his great forefathers repose. They agree that he must have been raving when he desired otherwise; and they decide to bury him in Brugh, where his grandsire, Conn of the hundred Battles, lies armor-clad, upright, hound at foot and spear in hand:

"Dead Cormac on his bier they laid:
'He reigned a king for forty years;
And shame it were,' his captains said,
'He lay not with his royal peers:

"'His grandsire, Hundred Battles, sleeps
Serene in Brugh, and all around
Dead kings, in stone sepulchral keeps,
Protect the sacred burial ground.

"'What though a dying man should rave
Of changes o'er the eastern sea,
In Brugh of Boyne shall be his grave,
And not in noteless Ross-na-ree.'

"Then northward forth they bore the bier,
And down from Sleithac's side they drew
With horseman and with charioteer,
To cross the fords of Boyne to Brugh."

Suddenly "a breath of finer air" touches the river "with rustling wings."

"And as the burial train came down
With dirge, and savage dolorous shows,
Across their pathway broad and brown,
The deep full-hearted river rose.

"From bank to bank through all his fords,
Neath blackening squalls he swelled and boiled,
And thrice the wond'ring gentile lords
Essay'd to cross, and thrice recoil'd.

"Then forth stepped gray-haired warriors four;
They said: 'Through angrier floods than these,
On link'd shield once our King we bore
From Dread-spear and the hosts of Deece;

"'And long as loyal will holds good,
And limbs respond with helpful thews,
Nor flood nor fiend within the flood
Shall bar him of his burial dues.' "

So they lift the bier, and step into the boiling: surge.

"And now they slide and now they swim,
And now amid the blackening squall,
Gray locks afloat with clutchings grim,
They plunge around the floating pall.

"While as a youth with practiced spear
Through justling crowds bears off the ring—
Boyne from their shoulders caught the bier,
And proudly bare away the King!"

The foaming torrent sweeps the coffin away; next day it is found far down the river, stranded on the bank under Ross-na-ri; the last behest of Cormac is fulfilled after all!

"At morning on the grassy marge
Of Ross-na-ree the corpse was found,
And shepherds at their early charge,
Entombed it in the peaceful ground.

"And life and time rejoicing run
From age to age their wonted way;
But still he waits the risen Sun,
For still it is only dawning Day."

In the two centuries succeeding, there flourished among other sovereigns of Ireland less known to fame, the celebrated Nial of the Nine Hostages, and King Dahi. During these two hundred years the flag of Ireland waved through continental Europe over victorious legions and fleets; the Irish monarchs leading powerful armies across the plains of Gaul, and up to the very confines of "the Caesar's domains" in Italy. It was the day of Ireland's military power in Europe; a day which subsequently waned so disastrously, and, later on, set in utter gloom. Neighboring Britain, whose yoke a thousand years subsequently Ireland was to wear, then lay helpless and abject at the mercy of the Irish, hosts; the Britons, as history relates, absolutely weeping and wailing at the departure of the enslaving Roman legions, because now there would be naught to stay the visits of the Scoti, or Irish, and the Picts! The courts of the Irish princes and homes of the Irish nobility were filled with white slave attendants, brought from abroad, some from Gaul, but the most from Anglia. It was in this way the youthful Patricius, or Patrick, was brought a slave into Ireland from Gaul. As the power of Imperial Rome began to pale, and the outlying legions were being every year drawn in nearer and nearer to the great city itself, the Irish sunburst blazed over the scene, and the retreating Romans found the cohorts of Erinn pushing dauntlessly and vengefully on their track. Although the Irish chronicles of the period themselves say little of the deeds of the armies abroad, the continental records of the time give us pretty full insight into the part they played on the European stage in that day.[2] Nial of the Nine Hostages met his death in Gaul, or the banks of the Loire, while leading his armies in one of those campaigns. The death of King Dahi, who was killed by lightning at the foot of the Alps while marching at the head of his legions, one of our national poets, Davis, has immortalized in a poem, from which I quote here:

"Darkly their glibs o'erhang,
Sharp is their wolf-dog's fang,
Bronze spear and falchion clang—
Brave men might shun them!
Heavy the spoil they bear—
Jewels and gold are there—
Hostage and maiden fair—
How have they won them?

"From the soft sons of Gaul,
Roman, and Frank, and thrall,
Borough, and hut, and hall—
These have been torn.
Over Britannia wide,
Over fair Gaul they hied,
Often in battle tried—
Enemies mourn!

"Upon the glacier's snow,
Down on the vales below,
Monarch and clansmen go—
Bright is the morning.
Never their march they slack,
Jura is at their back,
When falls the evening black,
Hideous, and warning.

"Eagles scream loud on high;
Far off the chamois fly;
Hoarse comes the torrent's cry,
On the rocks whitening.
Strong are the storm's wings;
Down the tall pine it flings;
Hailstone and sleet it brings—-
Thunder and lightning.

"Little these veterans mind
Thundering, hail, or wind;
Closer their ranks they bind—
Matching the storm.
While, a spear-cast or more,
On, the first ranks before,
Dathi the sunburst bore—
Haughty his form.

"Forth from the thunder-cloud
Leaps out a foe as proud—
Sudden the monarch bowed—
On rush the vanguard;
Wildly the king they raise—
Struck by the lightning's blaze—
Ghastly his dying gaze,
Clutching his standard!

"Mild is the morning beam,
Gently the rivers stream,
Happy the valleys seem;

But the lone islanders—
Mark how they guard their king!
Hark, to the wail they sing!
Dark is their counselling—
Helvetia's highlanders.

"Gather like ravens, near—
Shall Dathi's soldiers fear?
Soon their home-path they clear—
Rapid and daring;
On through the pass and plain,
Until the shore they gain,
And, with their spoil, again
Landed in Eirinn.

"Little does Eire care
For gold or maiden fair—
'Where is King Dathi?—where,
Where is my bravest?'
On the rich deck he lies.
O'er him his sunburst flies.
Solemn the obsequies,
Eire! thou gavest.

"See ye that countless train
Crossing Ros-Comain's plain,
Crying, like hurricane,
Uile liú ai? Broad is his cairn's base—
Nigh the 'King's burial place,'
Last of the Pagan race, Lieth King Dathi!"

« Chapter V. | Contents | Chapter VII. »

NOTES

[1] This was a sobriquet. His real name was Feredach the Second.

[N.B. To whom the above note relates was not indicated in the original text]

[2] Haverty the historian says: "It is in the verses of the Latin poet Claudian that we read of the sending of troop: by Stilichio, the general of Theodosius the Great, to repe the Scottish hosts led by the brave and adventurous Nial. One of the passages of Claudian thus referred to is that in which the poet says:

"'Totam cum Scotus Iernem
Movit, et infesto spumavit remige Tethys.'

That is, as translated in Gibson's "Camden:"

"'When Scots came thundering from the Irish shores
The ocean trembled, struck with hostile oars.'"....

[Fairlie]

STORY OF IRELAND

By A. M. Sullivan

CHAPTER VII.

From the Atlas and Cyclopedia of Ireland (1900)

« Chapter VI. | Contents | Chapter VIII. »

HOW IRELAND RECEIVED THE CHRISTIAN FAITH.

To these foreign expeditions Ireland was destined to be indebted for her own conquest by the spirit of Christianity. As I have already mentioned, in one of the military excursions of King Nial the First into Gaul, he captured and brought to Ireland among other white slaves, Patricius, a Romano-Gallic youth of good quality, and his sisters Darerca and Lupita. The story of St. Patrick's bondage in Ireland, of his miraculous escape, his entry into holy orders, his vision of Ireland—in which he thought he heard the cries of a multitude of people, entreating him to come to them in Erinn—his long studies under St. Germain, and eventually his determination to undertake in an especial manner the conversion of the Irish,[1] will all be found in any Irish Church History or Life of St. Patrick. Having received the sanction and benediction of the holy pontiff Pope Celestine, and having been consecrated bishop, St. Patrick, accompanied by a few chosen priests, reached Ireland in 432. Christianity had been preached in Ireland long before St. Patrick's time. In 431 St. Palladius, Archdeacon of Rome, was sent by Pope Celestine as a bishop to the Christians in Ireland. These, however, were evidently but few in number, and worshiped only in fear or secrecy. The attempt to preach the faith openly to the people was violently suppressed, and St. Palladius sailed from Ireland. St. Patrick and his missioners landed on the spot where now stands the fashionable watering place called Bray, near Dublin. The hostility of the Lagenian prince and people compelled him to re-embark. He sailed northward, touching at Innis-Patrick near Skerries, county Dublin, and eventually landed at Magh Innis, in Strangford Lough.

Druidism would appear to have been the form of paganism then prevailing in Ireland, though even then some traces remained of a still more ancient idol-worship, probably dating from the time of the Tuatha de Danaans, two thousand years before, St. Patrick, however, found the Irish mind much better prepared, by its comparative civilization and refinement, to receive the truths of Christianity, than that of any other nation in Europe outside imperial Rome. The Irish were always—then as they are now—preeminently a reverential people, and thus were peculiarly susceptible of religious truth. St. Patrick's progress through the island was marked by success from the outset. Tradition states that, expounding the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, he used a little sprig of trefoil, or three-leaved grass, whence the Shamrock comes to be the National Emblem, as St. Patrick is the National Saint or Patron of Ireland.

Ard-Ri Laori [2] was holding a druidical festival in Tara, at which the kindling of a great fire formed a chief feature of the proceedings, and it was a crime punishable with death for any one to light a fire in the surrounding country on the evening of that festival until the sacred flame on Tara Hill blazed forth. To his amazement, however, the monarch beheld on the Hill of Slane, visible from Tara, a bright fire kindled early in the evening. This was the Paschal fire which St. Patrick and his missionaries had lighted, for it was Holy Saturday. The king sent for the chief Druid, and pointed out to him on the distant horizon the flickering beam that so audaciously violated the sacred laws. The archpriest gazed long and wistfully at the spot, and eventually answered: "O king, there is indeed a flame lighted on yonder hill, which, if it be not put out to-night will never be quenched in Erinn." Much disquieted by this oracular answer, Laori directed that the offenders, whoever they might be, should be instantly brought before him for punishment. St. Patrick, on being arrested, arrayed himself in his vestments, and, crozier in hand, marched boldly at the head of his captors, reciting aloud, as he went along, a litany which is still extant, in which he invoked, "on that momentous day for Erinn," the Holy Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, ever Blessed Mary the Mother of God, and the saints around the throne of heaven. Having arrived before the king and his assembled courtiers and druidical high priests, St. Patrick, undismayed, proclaimed to them that he had come to quench the fires of pagan sacrifice in Ireland, and light the flame of Christian faith. The king listened amazed and angered, yet no penalty fell on Patrick. On the contrary, he made several converts on the spot, and the sermon and controversy in the king's presence proved an auspicious beginning for the glorious mission upon which he had just entered.

It would fill a large volume to chronicle the progress of the saint through the island. Before his death, though only a few of the reigning princes had embraced the faith (for many years subsequently pagan kings ruled the country), the good seeds had been sown far and wide, and were thriving apace, and the cross had been raised throughout Ireland, "from the center to the sea." Ours was the only country in Europe, it is said, bloodlessly converted to the faith. Strictly speaking, only one martyr suffered death for the evangelization of Ireland, and death in this instance had been devised for the saint himself. While St. Patrick was returning from Munster a pagan chieftain formed a design to murder him. The plan came to the knowledge of Odran, the faithful charioteer of Patrick, who, saying nought of it to him, managed to change seats with the saint, and thus received himself the fatal blow intended for his master.

Another authentic anecdote may be mentioned here. At the baptism of Aengus, King of Mononia or Munster, St. Patrick accidentally pierced through the sandal-covered foot of the king with his pastoral staff,[3] which terminated in an iron spike, and which it was the saint's custom to strike into the ground by his side, supporting himself more or less thereby, while preaching or baptizing. The king bore the wound without wincing until the ceremony was over, when St. Patrick with surprise and pain beheld the ground covered with blood, and observed the cause. Being questioned by the saint as to why he did not cry out, Aengus replied that he thought it was part of the ceremony to represent, though faintly, the wounds our Lord had borne for man's redemption.

In the year of our Lord 493, on the 17th of March—which day is celebrated as his feast by the Catholic Church and by the Irish nation at home and in exile—St. Patrick departed this life in his favorite retreat of Saul, in the county of Down, where his body was interred. "His obsequies," say the old annalists, "continued for twelve days, during which the light of innumerable tapers seemed to turn night into day; and the bishops and priests of Ireland congregated on the occasion."

Several of the saint's compositions, chiefly prayers and litanies, are extant. They are full of the most powerful invocations of the saints, and in all other particulars are exactly such prayers and express such doctrines as are taught in our own day in the unchanged and unchangeable Catholic Church.

« Chapter VI. | Contents | Chapter VIII. »

NOTES

[1] My young readers will find this glorious chapter in our religious annals, related with great simplicity, beauty, and truth, in a little publication called, "St. Patrick's: how it was restored," by the Rev. James Gaffney, of the diocese of Dublin, whose admirable volume on "The Ancient Irish Church," as well as the Rev. S. Malone's "Church History of Ireland," will be found invaluable to students.

[2] Son of Niul the First.

[3] "The staff of Jesus" is the name by which the crozier of St. Patrick is always mentioned in the earliest of our annals; a well-preserved tradition asserting it to have been a rood or staff which our Lord had carried. It was brought by St. Patrick from Rome when setting forth by the authority of Pope Celestine to evangelize Ireland, This staff was treasured as one of the most precious relics on Irish soil for more than one thousand years, and was an object of special veneration. It was sacrilegiously destroyed in the reign of Henry the Eighth by one of Henry's "reforming" bishops, who writes to the king boasting of the deed!....

[Fairlie]

STORY OF IRELAND

By A. M. Sullivan

CHAPTER VIII.

From the Atlas and Cyclopedia of Ireland (1900)

« Chapter VII. | Contents | Chapter IX. »

A RETROSPECTIVE GLANCE AT PAGAN IRELAND

WE have now, my dear young friends, arrived at a memorable point in Irish history; we are about to pass from pagan Ireland to Christian Ireland. Before doing so, it may be well that I should tell you something about matters which require a few words apart from the brief narrative of events which I have been relating for you. Let us pause, and take a glance at the country and the people, at the manners and customs, laws and institutions, of our pagan ancestors.

The geographical subdivisions of the country varied in successive centuries. The chief subdivision, the designations of which are most frequently used by the ancient chroniclers, was effected by a line drawn from the hill or ridge on the south bank of the Liffey, on the eastern end of which the castle of Dublin is built, running due west to the peninsula of Marey, at the head of Galway Bay. The portion of Ireland south of this line was called Leah Moha ("Moh Nua's half"); the portion to the north of it Leah Cuinn ("Conn's half."). As these names suggest, this division of the island was first made between two princes, Conn of the Hundred Battles, and Moh Nua, or Eoghan Mor, otherwise Eugene the Great, the former being the head or chief representative of the Milesian families descended from Ir, the latter the head of those descended from Heber. Though the primary object of this partition was achieved but for a short time, the names thus given to the two territories are found in use to designate the northern and southern halves of Ireland for a thousand years subsequently.

Within these there were smaller subdivisions. The ancient names of the four provinces into which Ireland is still divided were Mononia (Munster), Dalariada, or Ulidia (Ulster), Lagenia (Leinster), and Conacia, or Conact Connaught. Again, Mononia was subdivided into Thomond and Desmond, i.e., north and south Munster. Beside these names, the territory or district possessed by every sept or clan had a designation of its own.

The chief palaces of the Irish kings, whose splendors are celebrated in Irish history, were: the palace of Emania, in Ulster, founded or built by Macha, queen of Cinbaeth the First (pronounced Kimbahe), about the year B.C. 700; Tara, in Meath; Cruachan, in Conact, built by Queen Maeve, the beautiful, albeit Amazonian, Queen of the West, about the year B.C. 100; Aileach, in Donegal, built on the site of an ancient Sun-temple, or Tuatha de Danaan fort-palace.

Kincora had not at this period an existence, nor had it for some centuries subsequently. It was never more than the local residence, a palatial castle, of Brian Boruma. It stood on the spot where now stands the town of Killaloe.

Emania, next to Tara the most celebrated of all the royal palaces of Ancient Erinn, stood on the spot now marked by a large rath called the Navan Fort, two miles to the west of Armagh. It was the residence of the Ulster kings for a period of 855 years.

The mound or Grianan of Aileach, upon which even for hundreds of years after the destruction of the palace, the O'Donnells were elected, installed, or "inaugurated," is still an object of wonder and curiosity. It stands on the crown of a low hill by the shores of Lough Swilly, about five miles from Londonderry.

Royal Tara has been crowned with an imperishable fame in song and story. The entire crest and slopes of Tara Hill were covered with buildings at one time; for it was not alone a royal palace, the residence of the Ard-Ri (or High King) of Erinn, but, moreover, the legislative chambers, the military buildings, the law courts, and royal universities that stood thereupon. Of all these, naught now remains but the moated mounds or raths that mark where stood the halls within which bard and warrior, ruler and lawgiver, once assembled in glorious pageant.

Of the orders of knighthood, or companionships of valor and chivalry, mentioned in pagan Irish history, the two principal were: the Knights of the (Craev Rua, or) Red Branch of Emania, and the Clanna Morna, or Damnonian Knights of Iorras. The former were a Dalariadan, the latter a Conacian body; and, test the records how we may, it is incontrovertible that no chivalric institutions of modern times eclipsed in knightly valor and romantic daring those warrior companionships of ancient Erinn.

Besides these orders of knighthood, several military legions figure familiarly and prominently in Irish history; but the most celebrated of them all, the Dalcassians—one of the most brave and "glory-crowned" bodies of which there is record in ancient or modern times—did not figure in Irish history until long after the commencement of the Christian era.

The Fianna Eirion or National Militia of Erinn, I have already mentioned. This celebrated enrollment had the advantage of claiming within its own ranks a warrior-poet, Ossian (son of the commander Fin), whose poems, taking for their theme invariably the achievements and adventures of the Fenian host, or of its chiefs, have given to it a lasting fame. According to Ossian, there never existed upon the earth another such force of heroes as the Fianna Eirion; and the feats he attributes to them were of course unparalleled. He would have us believe there were no taller, straighter, stronger, braver, bolder, men in all Erinn than his Fenian comrades; and with the recital of their deeds he mixes up the wildest romance and fable. What is strictly true of them is, that at one period undoubtedly they were a splendid national force; but ultimately they became a danger rather than a protection to the kingdom, and had to be put down by the regular army in the reign of King Carbry the Second, who encountered and destroyed them finally on the bloody battlefield of Gavra, about the year A.D. 280.

Ben Eder, now called the Hill of Howth, near Dublin, was the camp or exercise ground of the Fianna Eirion when called out annually for training.

The laws of pagan Ireland, which were collected and codified in the reign of Cormac the First, and which prevailed throughout the kingdom as long subsequently as a vestige of native Irish regal authority remained—a space of nearly fifteen hundred years—are, even in this present age, exciting considerable attention among legislators and savants. A royal commission—the "Brehon Laws Commission"—appointed by the British government in the year 1856 (chiefly owing to the energetic exertions of Rev. Dr. Graves and Rev. Dr. Todd, of Trinity College, Dublin), has been laboring at their translation, parliament voting an annual sum to defray the expenses. Of course only portions of the original manuscripts are now in existence, but even these portions attest the marvelous wisdom and the profound justness of the ancient Milesian Code, and give us a high opinion of Irish jurisprudence two thousand years ago!

The Brehon Laws Commission published their first volume, the "Seanchus Mor," in 1865, and a most interesting publication it is. Immediately on the establishment of Christianity in Ireland a royal commission of that day was appointed to revise the statute laws of Erinn, so that they might be purged of everything applicable only to a pagan nation and inconsistent with the pure doctrines of Christianity. On this commission, we are told, there were appointed by the Irish monarch three chief Brehons or judges, three Christian bishops, and three territorial chiefs or viceroys. The result of their labors was presented to the Irish parliament of Tara, and being duly confirmed, the code thenceforth became known as the Seanchus Mor.

From the earliest age the Irish appear to have been extremely fond of games, athletic sports, and displays of prowess or agility. Among the royal and noble families chess was the chief domestic game. There are indubitable proofs that it was played among the princes of Erinn two thousand years ago; and the oldest bardic chants and verse-histories mention the gold and jewel inlaid chessboards of the kings.

Of the passionate attachment of the Irish to music little need be said, as this is one of the national characteristics which has been at all times the most strongly marked, and is now most widely appreciated; the harp being universally emblazoned as a national emblem of Ireland. Even in the pre-Christian period we are here reviewing, music was an "institution" and a power in Erinn....

[Fairlie]

STORY OF IRELAND

By A. M. Sullivan

CHAPTER IX.

From the Atlas and Cyclopedia of Ireland (1900)

« Chapter VIII. | Contents | Chapter IX. (continued) »

CHRISTIAN IRELAND.—THE STORY OF COLUMBA, THE "DOVE OF THE CELL."

THE five hundred years, one-half of which preceded the birth of our Lord, may be considered the period of Ireland's greatest power and military glory as a nation. The five hundred years which succeeded St. Patrick's mission may be regarded as the period of Ireland's Christian and scholastic fame. In the former she sent her warriors, in the latter her missionaries, all over Europe. Where her fierce hero-kings carried the sword, her saints now bore the cross of faith. It was in this latter period, between the sixth and the eighth centuries particularly, that Ireland became known all over Europe as the Insula Sanctorum et Doctorum—"the Island of Saints and Scholars."

Churches, cathedrals, monasteries, convents, universities, covered the island. From even the most distant parts of Europe, kings and their subjects came to study in the Irish schools. King Alfred of Northumberland was educated in one of the Irish universities. A glorious roll of Irish saints and scholars belong to this period: St. Columba or Columcille, St. Columbanus, St. Gall, who evangelized Helvetia, St. Frigidian, who was bishop of Lucca in Italy, St. Livinus, who was martyred in Flanders, St. Argobast, who became bishop of Strasburg, St. Killian, the apostle of Franconia, and quite a host of illustrious Irish missionaries, who carried the blessings of faith and education all over Europe. The record of their myriad adventurous enterprises, their glorious labors, their evangelizing conquests, cannot be traced within the scope of this book. There is one, however, the foremost of that sainted band, with whom exception must be made—the first and the greatest of Irish missionary saints, the abbot of Iona's isle, whose name and fame filled the world, and the story of whose life is a Christian romance—Columba, the "Dove of the Cell."[1]

The personal character of Columba and the romantic incidents of his life, as well as his preeminence among the missionary conquerers of the British Isles, seem to have had a powerful attraction for the illustrious Montalembert, who, in his great work, "The Monks of the West," traces the eventful career of the saint in language of exquisite beauty, eloquence, and feeling. Moreover, there is this to be said further of that Christian romance, as I have called it, the life of St. Columba, that happily the accounts thereof which we possess are complete, authentic, and documentary; most of the incidents related we have on the authority of well-known writers, who lived in Columba's time and held personal communication with him or with his companions.

The picture presented to us in these life-portraitures of Iona's saint is assuredly one to move the hearts of Irishmen, young and old. In Columba two great features stand out in bold prominence; and never perhaps were those two characteristics more powerfully developed in one man—devotion to God and passionate love of country. He was a great saint, but he was as great a "politician," entering deeply and warmly into everything affecting the weal of Clan Nial, or the honor of Erinn. His love for Ireland was . something beyond description. As he often declared in his after-life exile, the very breezes that blew on the fair hills of holy Ireland were to him like the zephyrs of paradise. Our story were incomplete indeed, without a sketch, however brief, of the "Dove of the Cell."

« Chapter VIII. | Contents | Chapter IX. (continued) »

NOTES

[1] Columbkille; in English, "Dove of the Cell."

[Fairlie]

STORY OF IRELAND

By A. M. Sullivan

CHRISTIAN IRELAND.—THE STORY OF COLUMBA, THE "DOVE OF THE CELL." (Part-2)
[/b]
CHAPTER IX. (continued)[/b]

From the Atlas and Cyclopedia of Ireland (1900)

« Start of Chapter | Contents | Chapter IX. (continued) »

Columba [2] was a prince of the royal race of Nial, his father being the third in descent from the founder of that illustrious house, Nial of the Nine Hostages. He was born at Gartan, in Donegal, on Dec. 7, 521. "The Irish legends," says Montalembert, "which are always distinguished, even amid the wildest vagaries of fancy, by a high and pure morality, linger lovingly upon the childhood and youth of the predestined saint." Before his birth (according to one of these traditions) the mother of Columba had a dream, "which posterity has accepted as a graceful and poetical symbol of her son's career. An angel appeared to her, bringing her a veil covered with flowers of wonderful beauty, and the sweetest variety of colors; immediately after she saw the veil carried away by the wind, and rolling out as it fled over the plains, woods, and mountains. Then the angel said to her, 'Thou art, about to become the mother of a son who shall blossom for Heaven, who shall be reckoned among the prophets of God, and who shall lead numberless souls to the heavenly country.' "

But indeed, according to the legends of the Hy-Nial, the coming of their great saint was foretold still more remotely. St. Patrick, they tell us, having come northward to bless the territory and people, was stopped at the Daol—the modern Deel or Burndale river—by the breaking of his chariot wheels. The chariot was repaired, but again broke down; a third time it was refitted, and a third time it failed at the ford. Then Patrick, addressing those around him, said: "Wonder no more; behold, the land from this stream northward needs no blessing from me; for a son shall be born there who shall be called the Dove of the Churches; and he shall bless that land; in honor of whom God has this day prevented my doing so." The name Ath-an-Charpaid (ford of the chariot) marks to this day the spot memorized by this tradition. Count Montalembert cites many of these stories of the "childhood and youth of the predestined saint." He was, while yet a child, confided to the care of the priest who had baptized him, and from him he received the first rudiments of education. "His guardian angel often appeared to him; and the child asked if all the angels in Heaven were so young and shining as he. A little later, Columba was invited by the same angel to choose among all the virtues that which he would like best to possess. 'I choose,' said the youth, 'chastity and wisdom;' and immediately three young girls of wonderful beauty but foreign air, appeared to him, and threw themselves on his neck to embrace him. The pious youth frowned, and repulsed them with indignation. 'What,' they said, 'then thou dost not know us?'—'No, not the least in the world.'—'We are three sisters, whom our Father gives to thee to be thy brides.'—'Who, then, is your Father?'—'Our Father is God, He is Jesus Christ, the Lord and Savior of the world.'—'Ah, you have indeed an illustrious Father. But what are your names?'—'Our names are Virginity, Wisdom, and Prophecy; and we come to leave thee no more, to love thee with an incorruptible love.'"

From the house of this early tutor Columba "passed into the great monastic schools, which were not only a nursery for the clergy of the Irish church, but where also young laymen of all conditions were educated."

"While Columba studied at Clonard, being still only a deacon," says his biographer, "an incident took place which has been proved by authentic testimony, and which fixed general attention upon him by giving a first evidence of his supernatural and prophetic intuition. An old Christian bard (the bards were not all Christians) named Germain had come to live near the Abbot Finian, asking from him, in exchange for his poetry the secret of fertilizing the soil. Columba, who continued all his life a passionate admirer of the traditionary poetry of his nation, determined to join the school of the bard, and to share his labors and studies. The two were reading together out of doors, at a little distance from each other, when a young girl appeared in the distance pursued by a robber At the sight of the old man the fugitive made for him with all her remaining strength, hoping, no doubt, to find safety in the authority exercised throughout Ireland by the national poets. Germain, in great trouble, called his pupil to his aid to defend the unfortunate child, who was trying to hide herself under their long robes, when her pursuer reached the spot. Without taking any notice of her defenders, he struck her in the neck with his lance, and was making off, leaving her dead at their feet. The horrified old man turned to Columba. 'How long,' he said, 'will God leave unpunished this crime which dishonors us?' 'For this moment only,' said Columba, 'not longer; at this very hour, when the soul of this innocent creature ascends to heaven, the soul of the murderer shall go down to hell.' At the instant, like Ananias at the words of Peter, the assassin fell dead. The news of this sudden punishment, the story goes, went over Ireland, and spread the fame of young Columba far and wide."

« Start of Chapter | Contents | Chapter IX. (continued) »

NOTES

[2] His name was pronounced "Creivan" or "Creivhan."

[Fairlie]

STORY OF IRELAND

By A. M. Sullivan

CHAPTER IX. (continued)

CHRISTIAN IRELAND.—THE STORY OF COLUMBA, THE "DOVE OF THE CELL." ( Part-3)

From the Atlas and Cyclopedia of Ireland (1900)

« Previous Page | Start of Chapter | Contents | Chapter IX. (continued) »

At the comparatively early age of twenty-five, Columba had attained to a prominent position in the ecclesiastical world, and had presided over the creation of a crowd of monasteries. As many as thirty-seven in Ireland alone recognized him as their founder. "It is easy," says Montalembert, "to perceive, by the importance of the monastic establishments which he had brought into being, even before he had attained to manhood, that his influence must have been as precocious as it was considerable. Apart from the virtues of which his after life afforded so many examples, it may be supposed that his royal birth gave him an irresistible ascendency in a country where, since the introduction of Christianity, all the early saints, like the principal abbots, belonged to reigning families, and where the influence of blood and the worship of genealogy still continue, even to this day, to a degree unknown in other lands. Springing, as has been said, from the same race as the monarch of all Ireland, and consequently himself eligible for the same high office, which was more frequently obtained by election or usurpation than inheritance—nephew or near cousin of the seven monarchs who successive wielded the supreme authority during his life—he was also related by ties of blood to almost all the provincial kings. Thus we see him during his whole career treated on a footing of perfect intimacy and equality by all the princes of Ireland and of Caledonia, and exercising a sort of spiritual sway equal or superior to the authority of secular sovereigns."

His attachment to poetry and literature has been already glanced at. He was, in fact, an enthusiast on the subject; he was himself a poet and writer of a high order of genius, and to an advanced period of his life remained an ardent devotee of the muse, ever powerfully moved by whatever affected the weal of the ministrel fraternity. His passion for books (all manuscript, of course, in those days, and of great rarity and value) was destined to lead him into that great offense of his life, which he was afterward to expiate by a penance so grievous. "He went everywhere in search of volumes which he could borrow or copy; often experiencing refusals which he resented bitterly." In this way occurred what Montalembert calls "the decisive event which changed the destiny of Columba, and transformed him from a wandering poet and ardent bookworm, into a missionary and apostle." While visiting one of his former tutors, Finian, he found means to copy clandestinely the abbot's Psalter by shutting himself up at nights in the church where the book was deposited. "Indignant at what he considered as almost a theft, Finian claimed the copy when it was finished by Columba, on the ground that a copy made without permission ought to belong to the master of the original, seeing that the transcription is the son of the original book. Columba refused to give up his work, and the question was referred to the king in his palace of Tara." What immediately follows, I relate in the words of Count Montalembert, summarizing or citing almost literally the ancients authors already referred to:

"King Diarmid, or Dermott, supreme monarch of Ireland, was, like Columba, descended from the great King Nial, but by another son than he whose great-grandson Columba was. He lived, like all the princes of his country, in a close union with the Church, which was represented in Ireland, more completely than anywhere else, by the monastic order. Exiled and persecuted in his youth, he had found refuge in an island situated in one of those lakes which interrupt the course of the Shannon, the chief river of Ireland, and had there formed a friendship with a holy monk called Kieran, a zealous comrade of Columba at the monastic school of Clonard, and since that time his generous rival in knowledge and in austerity. Upon the still solitary bank of the river the two friends had planned the foundation of a monastery, which, owing to the marshy nature of the soil, had to be built upon piles. 'Plant with me the first stake,' the monk said to the exiled prince, 'putting your hand under mine, and soon that hand shall be over all the men of Erinn;' and it happened that Diarmid was very shortly after called to the throne. He immediately used his new power to endow richly the monastery which was rendered doubly dear to him by the recollection of his exile and of his friend. This sanctuary became, under the name of Clonmacnoise, one of the greatest monasteries and most frequented schools of Ireland and even of Western Europe.

"This king might accordingly be regarded as a competent judge in a contest at once monastic and literary; he might even have been suspected of partiality for Columba, his kinsman—and yet he pronounced judgment against him. His judgment was given in a rustic phrase which has passed into a proverb in Ireland—To every cow her calf, and, consequently, to every book its copy. Columba protested loudly. 'It is an unjust sentence,' he said, 'and I will revenge myself. ' After this incident a young prince, son of the provincial king of Connaught, who was pursued for having committed an involuntary murder, took refuge with Columba, but was seized and put to death by the king. The irritation of the poet-monk knew no bounds. The ecclesiastical immunity which he enjoyed in his quality of superior and founder of several monasteries, ought to have, in his opinion, created a sort of sanctuary around his person, and this immunity had been scandalously violated by the execution of a youth whom he protected. He threatened the king with prompt vengeance. 'I will denounce,' he said, 'to my brethren and my kindred thy wicked judgment, and the violation in my person of the immunity of the Church; they will listen to my complaint, and punish thee sword in hand. Bad king, thou shalt no more see my face in thy province until God, the just judge, has subdued thy pride. As thou hast humbled me to-day before thy lords and thy friends, God will humble thee on the battle-day before thine enemies.' Diarmid attempted to retain him by force in the neighborhood; but, evading the vigilance of his guards, he escaped by night from the court of Tara, and directed his steps to his native province of Tyrconnell.

"Columba arrived safely in his province, and immediately set to work to excite against King Diarmid the numerous and powerful clans of his relatives and friends, who belonged to a branch of the house of Nial, distinct from and hostile to that of the reigning monarch. His efforts were crowned with success. The Hy-Nials of the north armed eagerly against the Hy-Nials of the south, of whom Diarmid was the special chief.

"Diarmid marched to meet them, and they met in battle at Cool-Drewny, or Cul-Dreimhne, upon the borders of Ultonia and Connacia. He was completely beaten, and was obliged to take refuge at Tara. The victory was due, according to the annalist Tighernach, to the prayers and songs of Columba, who had fasted and prayed with all his might to obtain from heaven the punishment of the royal insolence, and who, besides, was present at the battle, and took upon himself before all men the responsibility of the bloodshed.

"As for the manuscript which had been the object of this strange conflict of copyright elevated into a civil war, it was afterward venerated as a kind of national, military, and religious palladium. Under the name of Cathach or Fightu, the Latin Psalter transcribed by Columba, enshrined in a sort of portable altar, became the national relic of the O'Donnell clan. For more than a thousand years it was carried with them to battle as a pledge of victory, on the condition of being supported on the breast of a clerk free from all mortal sin. It has escaped as by miracle from the ravages of which Ireland has been the victim, and exists still, to the great joy of all learned Irish patriots."[3]

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NOTES

[3] "The Annals of the Four Masters report that in a battle waged in 1497, between the O'Donnells and M'Dermotts, the sacred book fell into the hands of the latter, who, however, restored it in 1499. It was preserved for thirteen hundred years in the O'Donnell family, and at present belongs to a baronet of that name, who has permitted it to be exhibited in the museum of the Royal Irish Academy, where it can be seen by all. It is composed of fifty-eight leaves of parchment, bound in silver The learned O'Curry (p. 322) has given a facsimile of a fragment of this MS., which he does not hesitate to believe is in the handwriting of our saint, as well as that of the fine copy of the Gospels called the Book of Kells, of which he has also given a facsimile. See Reeves' notes upon Adamnan, p, 250. and the pamphlet upon Marianus Scotus, p. 12."—Count Montalembert's note.

[Fairlie]

STORY OF IRELAND

By A. M. Sullivan

CHRISTIAN IRELAND.—THE STORY OF COLUMBA, THE "DOVE OF THE CELL." ( Part-4)

CHAPTER IX. (continued)
[/b]
From the Atlas and Cyclopedia of Ireland (1900)

« Previous Page | Start of Chapter | Contents | Chapter IX. (continued) »

But soon a terrible punishment was to fall upon Columba for this dread violence. He, an anointed priest of the Most High, a minister of the Prince of Peace, had made himself the cause of the inciter of a civil war, which had bathed the land in blood—the blood of Christian men—the blood of kindred! Clearly enough, the violence of political passions, of which this war was the most lamentable fruit, had, in many other ways, attracted upon the youthful monk the severe opinions of the ecclesiastical authorities. "His excitable and vindictive character," we are told, "and above all his passionate attachment to his relatives, and the violent part which he took in their domestic disputes and their continually recurring rivalries, had engaged him in other struggles, the date of which is perhaps later than that of his first departure from Ireland, but the responsibility of which is formally imputed to him by various authorities, and which also ended in bloody battles." At all events, immediately after the battle of Cool-Drewny, "he was accused by a synod, convoked in the center of the royal domain at Tailte, of having occasioned the shedding of Christian blood." The synod seems to have acted with very uncanonical precipitancy; for it judged the cause without waiting for the defense—though, in sooth, the facts, beyond the power of any defense to remove, were ample and notorious. However, the decision was announced—sentence of excommunication was pronounced against him!

"Columba was not a man to draw back before his accusers and judges. He presented himself before the synod which had struck without hearing him. He found a defender in the famous Abbot Brendan, the founder of the monastery of Birr. When Columba made his appearance, this abbot rose, went up to him, and embraced him. 'How can you give the kiss of peace to an excommunicated man?' said some of the other members of the synod. 'You would do as I have done,' he answered, 'and you never would have excommunicated him, had you seen what I see—a pillar of fire which goes before him, and the angels that accompany him. I dare not disdain a man predestined by God to be the guide of an entire people to eternal life.' Thanks to the intervention of Brendan, or to some other motive not mentioned, the sentence of excommunication was withdrawn, but Columba was changed to win to Christ, by his preaching, as many pagan souls as the number of Christians who had fallen in the battle of Cool-Drewny."

Troubled in soul, but still struggling with a stubborn self-will, Columba found his life miserable, unhappy, and full of unrest; yet remorse had even now "planted in his soul the germs at once of a startling conversion and of his future apostolic mission." "Various legends reveal him to us at this crisis of his life, wandering long from solitude to solitude, and from monastery to monastery, seeking out holy monks, masters of penitence and Christian virtue, and asking them anxiously what he should do to obtain the pardon of God for the murder of so many victims."

At length, after many wanderings in contrition and mortification, "he found the light which he sought from a holy monk, St. Molaise, famed for his studies of Holy Scripture, and who had already been his confessor.

"This severe hermit confirmed the decision of the synod; but to the obligation of converting to the Christian faith an equal number of pagans as there were of Christians killed in the civil war, he added a new condition which bore cruelly upon a soul so passionately attached to country and kindred. The confessor condemned his penitent to perpetual exile from Ireland!"

Exile from Ireland! Did Columba hear the words aright? Exile from Ireland! What! See no more that land which he loved with such a wild and passionate love! Part from the brothers and kinsmen all, for whom he felt perhaps too strong and too deep an affection! Quit for ay the stirring scenes in which so great a part of his sympathies were engaged! Leave Ireland!

Oh! it was more hard than to bare his breast to the piercing sword; less welcome than to walk in constant punishment of suffering, so that his feet pressed the soil of his worshiped Erinn!

But it was even so. Thus ran the sentence of Molaise: "perpetual exile from Ireland!"

Staggered, stunned, struck to the heart, Columba could not speak for a moment. But God gave him in that great crisis of his life the supreme grace of bearing the blow and embracing the cross presented to him. At last he spoke, and in a voice agitated with emotion he answered: "Be it so; what you have commanded shall be done."

From that instant forth his life was one prolonged act of penitential sacrifice. For thirty years—his heart bursting within his breast the while—yearning for one sight of Ireland—he lived and labored in distant Iona. The fame of his sanctity filled the world; religious houses subject to his rule arose in many a glen and isle of rugged Caledonia; the gifts of prophecy and miracle momentously attested him as one of God's most favored apostles; yet all the while his heart was breaking; all the while in his silent cell Columba's tears flowed freely for the one grief that never left him—the wound that only deepened with lengthening time—he was away from Ireland! Into all his thoughts this sorrow entered. In all his songs—and several of his compositions still remain to us—this one sad strain is introduced. Witness the following, which, even in. its merely literal translation into the English, retains much of the poetic beauty and exquisite tenderness of the original by Columba in the Gaelic tongue:

What joy to fly upon the white-crested sea; and watch the waves break upon the Irish shore!

My foot is in my little boat; but my sad heart ever bleeds!

There is a gray eye which ever turns to Erinn; but never in this life shall it see Erinn, nor her sons, nor her daughters!
From the high prow I look over the sea; and great tears are in my eyes when I turn to Erinn—
To Erinn, where the songs of the birds are so sweet, and where the clerks sing like the birds:
Where the young are so gentle, and the old are so wise; where the great men are so noble to look at, and the women so fair to wed!
Young traveler! carry my sorrows with you; carry them to Comgall of eternal life!
Noble youth, take my prayer with thee, and my blessing: one part for Ireland—seven times may she be blest—and the other for Albyn.
Carry my blessing across the sea; carry it to the West. My heart is broken in my breast!
If death comes suddenly to me, it will be because of the great love I bear to the Gael![4]

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NOTES

[4] This poem appears to have been presented as a farewell gift by St. Columba to some of the Irish visitors at Iona, when returning home to Ireland It is deservedly classed among the most beautiful of his poetic compositions.

[Fairlie]

STORY OF IRELAND

By A. M. Sullivan

CHRISTIAN IRELAND.—THE STORY OF COLUMBA, THE "DOVE OF THE CELL." ( Part-5)

CHAPTER IX. (continued)[/b]

From the Atlas and Cyclopedia of Ireland (1900)

« Previous Page | Start of Chapter | Contents | Chapter IX. (continued) »

It was to the rugged and desolate Hebrides that Columba turned his face when he accepted the terrible penance of Molaise. He bade farewell to his relatives, and, with a few monks who insisted on accompany him whithersoever he might go, launched his frail currochs from the northern shore. They landed first, or rather were carried by wind and stream, upon the little isle of Oronsay, close by Islay; and here for a moment they thought their future abode was to be. But when Columba, with the early morning, ascending the highest ground on the island, to take what he thought would be a harmless look toward the land of his heart, lo! on the dim horizon a faint blue ridge—the distant hills of Antrim! He averts his head and flies downward to the strand! Here they cannot stay, if his vow is to be kept. They betake them once more to the currochs, and steering further northward, eventually land upon Iona, thenceforth, till time shall be no more, to be famed as the sacred isle of Columba! Here landing, he ascended the loftiest of the hills upon the isle, and "gazing into the distance, found no longer any trace of Ireland upon the horizon." In Iona accordingly he resolved to make his home. The spot from whence St. Columba made this sorrowful survey is still called by the islesmen in the Gaelic tongue, Carn-cul-ri-Erinn, or the Cairn of Farewell—literally, The back turned on Ireland.

Writers without number have traced the glories of Iona.[5] Here rose, as if by miracle, a city of churches; the isle became one vast monastery, and soon much too small for the crowds that still pressed thither. Then from the parent isle there went forth to the surrounding shores, and all over the mainland, off-shoot establishments and missionary colonies (all under the authority of Columba), until in time the Gospel light was ablaze on the hills of Albyn; and the names of St. Columba and Iona were on every tongue from Rome to the utmost limits of Europe!

"This man, whom we have seen so passionate, so irritable, so warlike and vindictive, became little by little the most gentle, the humblest, the most tender of friends and fathers. It was he, the great head of the Caledonian Church, who, kneeling before the strangers who came to Iona, or before the monks returning from their work, took off their shoes, washed their feet, and after having washed them, respectfully kissed them. But charity was still stronger than humility in that transfigured soul. No necessity, spiritual or temporal, found him indifferent. He devoted himself to the solace of all infirmities, all misery and pain, weeping often over those who did not weep for themselves.

"The work of transcription remained until his last day the occupation of his old age, as it had been the passion of his youth; it had such an attraction for him, and seemed to him so essential to a knowledge of the truth that, as we have already said, three hundred copies of the Holy Gospels, copied by his own hand, have been attributed to him."

But still Columba carried with him in his heart the great grief that made life for him a lengthened penance. "Far from having any prevision of the glory of Iona, his soul," says Montalembert, "was still swayed by a sentiment which never abandoned him—regret for his lost country. All his life he retained for Ireland the passionate tenderness of an exile, a love which displayed itself in the songs which have been preserved to us, and which date perhaps from the first moment of his exile. . . . 'Death in faultless Ireland is better than life without end in Albyn.' After this cry of despair follow strains more plaintive and submissive."

"But it was not only in these elegies, repeated and perhaps retouched by Irish bards and monks, but at each instant of his life, in season and out of season, that this love and passionate longing for his native country burst forth in words and musings; the narratives of his most trustworthy biographers are full of it. The most severe penance which he could have imagined for the guiltiest sinners who came to confess to him, was to impose upon them the same fate which he had voluntarily inflicted on himself—never to set foot again upon Irish soil! But when, instead of forbidding to sinners all access to that beloved isle, he had to smother his envy of those who hard the right and happiness to go there at their pleasure, he dared scarcely trust himself to name its name; and when speaking to his guests, or to the monks who were to return to Ireland, he would only say to them, 'you will return to the country that you love.' "

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NOTES

[5] "We are now," said Dr. Johnson, " treading that illustrious island which was once the luminary of the Caledonian regions; whence savage clans and roving barbarians derived the benefits of knowledge and the blessings of religion....Far from me and from my friends be such frigid philosophy as may conduct us indifferent and unmoved over any ground which has been dignified by wisdom, bravery, or virtue. That man is little to be envied whose patriotism would not gain force upon the plain of Marathon, or whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins of Iona."—Boswell's "Tour to the Hebrides."

[Fairlie]

STORY OF IRELAND

By A. M. Sullivan

CHRISTIAN IRELAND.—THE STORY OF COLUMBA, THE "DOVE OF THE CELL." ( Part-6)

CHAPTER IX. (continued)

From the Atlas and Cyclopedia of Ireland (1900)

« Previous Page | Start of Chapter | Contents | Chapter IX. (continued) »

At length there arrived an event for Columba full of excruciating trial—it became necessary for him to revisit Ireland! His presence was found to be imperatively required at the general assembly or convocation of the princes and prelates of the Irish nation, convened A.D. 573 by Hugh the Second.[6] At this memorable assembly, known in history as the great Convention of Drumceat, the first meeting of the States of Ireland held since the abandonment of Tara, there were to be discussed, among other important subjects, two which were of deep and powerful interest to Columba: firstly, the relations between Ireland and the Argyle or Caledonian colony; and secondly, the proposed decree for the abolition of the bards.

The country now known as Scotland was, about, the time of the Christian era, inhabited by a barbarous and warlike race called Picts. About the middle of the second century, when Ireland was, known to the Romans as Scotia, an Irish chieftain, Carbry Riada (from whom were descended the Dalariads of Antrim), crossed over to the western shores of Alba or Albyn, and founded there a Dalariadan or Milesian colony. The colonists had a hard time of it with their savage Pictish neighbors; yet they managed to hold their ground, though receiving very little aid or attention from the parent country, to which nevertheless they regularly paid tribute. At length, in the year 503, the neglected colony was utterly overwhelmed by the Picts, whereupon a powerful force of the Irish Dalariads, under the leadership of Leorn, Aengus, and Fergus, crossed over, invaded Albany, and gradually subjugating the Picts, re-established the colony on a basis which was the foundation eventually of the Scottish monarchy of all subsequent history. To the, re-established colony was given the name by which it was known long after, Scotia Minor; Ireland being called Scotia Major.

In the time of St. Columba, the colony, which so far had continuously been assessed by, and. had duly paid its tribute to, the mother country, began to feel its competency to claim independence. Already it had selected and installed a, king (whom St. Columba had formally consecrated), and now it sent to Ireland a demand to exempted from further tribute. The Irish monarch resisted the demand, which, however, it was decided first to submit to a national assembly, at which the Scottish colony should be represented, and where it might plead its case as best it could.

Many and obvious considerations pointed to St. Columba as the man of men to plead the cause of the young nationality on this, momentous occasion. He was peculiarly qualified to act as umpire in this threatening quarrel between the old country, to which he felt bound by such sacred ties, and the new one, which by adoption was now his home. He consented to attend at the assembly. He did so the more readily, perhaps, because of his strong feelings in reference to the other proposition named, viz., the proscription of the bards.

It may seem strange that in Ireland, where, from an early date, music and song held so high a place in national estimation such a proposition should be made. But by this time the numerous and absurd immunities claimed by the bardic profession had become intolerable; and by gross abuses of the bardic privileges, the bards themselves had indubitably become a pest to society. King Hugh had therefore, a strong public opinion at his back in his design of utterly abolishing the bardic corporation.

St. Columba, however, not only was allied to them by a fraternity of feeling, but he discerned clearly that by purifying and conserving, rather than by destroying, the national minstrelsy, it would become a potential influence for good, and would entwine itself gratefully around the shrine within which at such a crisis it found shelter. In fine, he felt, and felt deeply, as an Irishman and as an ecclesiastic, that the proposition of King Hugh would annihilate one of the most treasured institutions of the nation—one of the most powerful aids to patriotism and religion.

So, to plead the cause of liberty for a young nationality, and the cause of patriotism, religion, literature, music, and poetry, in defending the minstrel race, St. Columba to Ireland would go!

To Ireland! But then his vow! His penance sentence, that he should never more see Ireland! How his heart surged! O great allurement! O stern resolve! O triumph of sacrifice!

Yes; he would keep his vow, yet attend the convocation amid those hills of Ireland which he was never more to see! With a vast array of attendant monks and lay princes, he embarked for the unforgotten land; but when the galleys came within some leagues of the Irish coast, and before it could yet be sighted, St. Columba caused his eyes to be bandaged with a white scarf, and thus blindfolded was he led on shore! It is said that when he stepped upon the beach, and for the first time during so many years felt that he trod the soil of Ireland, he trembled from head to foot with emotion.

When the great saint was led blindfold into the convention, the whole assemblage—kings, princes, prelates, and chieftains—rose and uncovered as reverentially as if Patrick himself had once more appeared among them.[7] It was, we may well believe, an impressive scene; and we can well understand the stillness of anxious attention with which all waited to hear once more the tones of that voice which many traditions class among the miraculous gifts of Columba. More than one contemporary writer has described his personal appearance at this time; and Montalembert says: "All testimonies agree in celebrating his manly beauty, his remarkable height, his sweet and sonorous voice, the cordiality of his manner, the gracious dignity of his deportment and person."

Not in vain did he plead the causes he had come to advocate. Long and ably was the question of the Scottish colony debated. Some versions allege that it was amicably left to the decision of Columba, and that his award of several independence, but fraternal alliance, was cheerfully acquiesced in. Other accounts state that King Hugh, finding argument prevailing against his views, angrily drawing his sword, declared he would compel the colony to submission by force of arms; whereupon Columba, rising from his seat, in a voice full of solemnity and authority, exclaimed: "In the presence of this threat of tyrannic force, I declare the cause ended, and proclaim the Scottish colony free forever from the yoke!" By whichever way, however, the result was arrived at, the independence of the young Caledonian nation was recognized and voted by the convention through the exertions of St. Columba.

His views in behalf of the bards likewise prevailed. He admitted the disorders, irregularities, and abuses alleged against the body; but he pleaded, and pleaded successfully, for reform instead of abolition. Time has vindicated the far sighted policy of the statesman saint. The national music and poetry of Ireland, thus purified and consecrated to the service of religion and country, have ever since, through ages of persecution, been true to the holy mission assigned them on that day by Columba.

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NOTES

[6] Aedh (pronounced Aeh), son of Anmire the First.

[7] Some versions allege that, although the saint himself was received with reverence, almost with awe, a hostile demonstration was designed, if not attempted, by the king's party against the Scottic delegation who accompanied St. Columba.

[Fairlie]

STORY OF IRELAND

By A. M. Sullivan

CHRISTIAN IRELAND.—THE STORY OF COLUMBA, THE "DOVE OF THE CELL." ( Part-7)
CHAPTER IX. (concluded)

From the Atlas and Cyclopedia of Ireland (1900)

« Previous Page | Start of Chapter | Contents | Chapter X. »

The Dove of the Cell made a comparatively long stay in Ireland, visiting with scarf-bound brow the numerous monastic establishments subject to his rule. At length he returned to Iona, where far into the evening of life he waited for his summons to the beatific vision. The miracles he wrought, attested by evidence of weight to move the most callous sceptic, the myriad wondrous signs of God's favor that marked his daily acts, filled all the nations with awe. The hour and the manner of his death had long been revealed to him. The precise time he concealed from those about him until close upon the last day of his life; but the manner of his death he long foretold to his attendants. "I shall die," said he, "without sickness or hurt; suddenly, but happily, and without accident." At length one day, while in his usual health, he disclosed to Diarmid, his "minister," or regular attendant monk, that the hour of his summons was nigh. A week before he had gone around the island, taking leave of the monks and laborers; and when all wept, he strove anxiously to console them. Then he blessed the island and the inhabitants. "And now," said he to Diarmid, "here is a secret; but you must keep it till I am gone. This is Saturday, the day called Sabbath, or day of rest: and that it will be to me, for it shall be the last of my laborious life." In the evening he retired to his cell, and began to work for the last time, being then occupied in transcribing the Psalter. When he had come to the thirty-third Psalm, and the verse, "Inquirentes autem Dominum non deficient omni bono," he stopped short. "I cease here," said he; "Baithin must do the rest. "

Montalembert thus describes for us the "last scene of all:" "As soon as the midnight bell had rung for the matins of the Sunday festival, he rose and hastened before the other monks to the church, where he knelt down before the altar. Diarmid followed him; but, as the church was not yet lighted, he could only find him by groping and crying in a plaintive voice, 'Where art thou, my father?' He found Columba lying before the altar, and, placing himself at his side, raised the old abbot's venerable head upon his knees. The whole community soon arrived with lights, and wept as one man at the sight of their dying father. Columba opened his eyes once more, and turned them to his children at either side with a look full of serene and radiant joy. Then, with the aid of Diarmid, he raised as best he might his right hand to bless them all. His hand dropped, the last sigh came from his lips, and his face remained calm and sweet, like that of a man who in his sleep had seen a vision of heaven."

Like the illustrious French publicist whom I have so largely followed in this sketch, I may say that I have "lingered perhaps too long on the grand form of this monk rising up before us from the midst of the Hebridean sea." But I have, from the missionary saint-army of Ireland, selected this one—this typical apostle—to illustrate the characters that illumine one of the most glorious pages of our history. Many, indeed, were the "Columbs" that went forth from Ireland, as from an ark of faith, bearing blessed olive branches to the mountain tops of Europe, then slowly emerging from the flood of paganism. Well might we dwell upon this period of Irish history! It was a bright and a glorious chapter. It was soon, alas! to be followed by one of gloom. Five hundred years of military fame and five hundred years of Christian glory were to be followed by five hundred years of disorganizing dissensions, leading to centuries of painful bondage.

[Fairlie]

STORY OF IRELAND

By A. M. Sullivan

CHAPTER X.

From the Atlas and Cyclopedia of Ireland (1900)

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THE DANES IN IRELAND

THE first dark cloud came from Scandinavia. Toward the close of the eighth century the Danes made their appearance in Ireland. They came at first as transitory coast marauders, landing, and sacking a neighboring town, church, or monastery. For this species of warfare the Irish seem to have been as little prepared as any of the other European countries subjected to the like scourge, that is to say, none of them but the Danes possessed at this period of history a powerful fleet. So when the pirates had wreaked their will upon the city or monastery, in order to plunder which they had landed, they simply re-embarked and sailed away comparatively safe from molestation.

At length it seems to have occurred to the professional pirates that in place of making periodical dashes on the Irish coast, they might secure a permanent footing thereupon, and so prepare the way for eventually subjugating the entire kingdom. Accordingly, they came in force and possessed themselves of several spots favorably placed for such purposes as theirs—sites for fortified maritime cities on estuaries affording good shelter for their fleets, viz.: Dublin, Drogheda, Waterford, Limerick, Wexford, etc.

In the fourth year of Nial the Third (about the year A.D. 840), there arrived a monster fleet of these fierce and ruthless savages, under the command of Turgesius. They poured into the country and carried all before them. For nearly seven years, Turgesius exercised over a considerable district kingly authority, and the Irish groaned under the horrors of oppression the most heartless and brutal. Turgesius converted the cathedral at Clonmacnoise into a palace for his own use, and from the high altar, used as a throne, the fierce idolater gave forth his tyrannical commands. Meantime the Christian faith was proscribed, the Christian shrines were plundered, the gold and jewels were kept by the spoilers, but the holy relics were sacrilegiously given to destruction. The schools were dispersed, the books and chronicles burned, and finally the "successor of Patrick," the Archbishop of Armagh, was seized, the cathedral sacked, and the holy prelate brought a captive into the Danish stronghold.

But a day of retribution was at hand. The divided and disorganized tribes were being bitterly taught the necessity of union. These latest outrages were too much for Christian Irish flesh and blood to bear. Concerting their measures, the people simultaneously rose on their oppressors. Turgesius was seized and put to death by Malachy, Prince of Westmeath, while the Irish Ard-Ri, Nial the Third, at length able to rally a powerful army against the invaders, swooped down upon them from the north, and drove them panic-stricken to their maritime fortresses, their track marked with slaughter. Nial seems to have been a really noble character, and the circumstances under which he met his death, sudden and calamitous, in the very midst of his victorious career, afford ample illustration of the fact. His army had halted on the banks of the Callan River, at the moment swollen by heavy rains. One of the royal domestics or attendants, a common Giolla, in endeavoring to ford the river for some purpose, was swept from his feet and carried off by the flood. The monarch, who happened to be looking on, cried aloud to his guards to succour the drowning man, but quicker than any other he himself plunged into the torrent. He never rose again. The brave Nial, who had a hundred times faced death in the midst of reddened spears, perished in his effort to save the life of one of the humblest of his followers!

The power of the Danes was broken, but they still clung to the seaports, where either they were able to defy efforts at expulsion, or else obtained permission to remain by paying heavy tribute to the Irish sovereign. It is clear enough that the presence of the Danes came, in course of time, to be regarded as useful and profitable by the Irish, so long as they did not refuse tribute to the native power. The history of the succeeding centuries accordingly—the period of the Danish struggle—exhibits a singular spectacle. The Danes made themselves fully at home in the great maritime cities, which they may be said to have founded, and which their commerce certainly raised to importance. The Irish princes made alliances betimes with them, and Danes frequently fought on opposite sides in the internecine conflicts of the Irish princes. Occasionally seizing a favorable opportunity (when the Irish were particularly weakened by internal feud, and when a powerful reinforcement for themselves arrived from Scandinavia) they would make a fierce endeavor to extend their dominion on Irish soil. These efforts were mostly successful for a time, owing to the absence of a strong centralized authority among the Irish; but eventually the Irish, by putting forth their native valor, and even partially combining for the time, were always able to crush them.

Yet it is evident that during the three hundred years over which this Danish struggle spreads, the Irish nation was undergoing disintegration and demoralization. Toward the middle of the period, the Danes became converted to Christianity; but their coarse and fierce barbarism remained long after, and it is evident that contact with such elements, and increasing political disruption among themselves, had a fatal effect on the Irish. They absolutely retrograded in learning and civilization during this time, and contracted some of the worst vices that could pave the way for the fate that a few centuries more were to bring upon them.

National pride may vainly seek to ignore or hide the great truth here displayed. During the three hundred years that preceded the Anglo-Norman invasion, the Irish princes appeared to be given over to a madness marking them for destruction! At a time when consolidation of national authority was becoming the rule all over Europe, and was becoming so necessary for them, they were going into the other extreme. As the general rule, each one sought only his personal or family ambition or aggrandizement, and strove for it lawlessly and violently. Frequently when the Ard-Ri of Erinn was nobly grappling with the Danish foe, and was on the point of finally expelling the foreigner, a subordinate prince would seize what seemed to him the golden opportunity for throwing off the authority of the chief king, or for treacherously endeavoring to grasp it himself! During the whole time—three centuries—there was scarcely a single reign in which the Ard-Ri did not find occupation for his arms as constantly in compelling the submission of the subordinate native princes, as in combating the Scandinavian foe.

Religion itself suffered in this national declension. In these centuries we find professedly Christian Irish kings themselves as ruthless destroyers of churches and schools as the pagan Danes of a few years previous. The titles of the Irish episcopacy were sometimes seized by lay princes for the sake of the revenues attached to them; the spiritual functions of the offices, however, being performed by ecclesiastics meanwhile. In fine, the Irish national character in those centuries is to be censured, not admired. It would seem as if by adding sacrilege and war upon religion and on learning to political suicide and a fatal frenzy of factiousness, the Irish princes of that period were doing their best and their worst to shame the glories of their nation in the preceding thousand years, and to draw down upon their country the terrible chastisement that eventually befel it, a chastisement which never could have befallen it but for the state of things I am here pointing out.

Yet was this gloomy period lit up by some brilliant flashes of glory, the brightest, if not the, last, being that which surrounds the name of Clontarf, where the power of the Danes in Ireland was crushed totally and forever.

[Fairlie]

STORY OF IRELAND

By A. M. Sullivan

CHAPTER XI.

From the Atlas and Cyclopedia of Ireland (1900)

« Chapter X. | Contents | Chapter XI. (continued) »

HOW "BRIAN OF THE TRIBUTE" BECAME A HIGH KING OF ERINN.

FEW historical names are more widely known among Irishmen than that of Brian the First—"Brian Boru, or Borumha;"[1] and the story of his life is a necessary and an interesting introduction to an account of the battle of Clontarf.

About the middle of the tenth century the. crown of Munster was worn by Mahon, son of Ceineidi (pr. Kennedy,) a prince of the Dalcas-sian family. Mahon had a young brother, Brian, and by all testimony the affection which existed, between the brothers was something touching. Mahon, who was a noble character—"as a prince and captain in every way worthy of his inheritance"—was accompanied in all his expeditions, and from an early age, by Brian, to whom he. acted not only as a brother and prince, but as a military preceptor. After a brilliant career, Mahon fell by a deed of deadly treachery. A, rival prince of South Munster—"Molloy, son of. Bran, Lord of Desmond"—whom he had vanquished, proposed to meet him in friendly conference at the house of Donovan, an Eugenian. chief. The safety of each person was guaranteed by the Bishop of Cork, who acted as mediator between them. Mahon, chivalrous and unsuspecting, went unattended and unarmed to the conference. He was seized by an armed band of, Donovan's men, who handed him over to a party of Molloy's retainers, by whom he was put to death. He had with him, as the sacred and (as it ought to have been) inviolable "safe-conduct" on the faith of which he had trusted himself into the power of his foes, a copy of the Gospels written by the hand of St. Barre. As the assassins drew their swords upon him, Mahon snatched up. the sacred scroll, and held it on his breast, as if, he could not credit that a murderous hand would dare to wound him through such a shield! But the murderers plunged their swords into his heart, piercing right through the vellum, which became all stained and matted with his blood. Two priests had, horror-stricken, witnessed the outrage. They caught up the blood-stained Gospels and fled to the bishop, spreading through the country as they went the dreadful news which they bore. The venerable successor of St. Fin Bar, we are told, wept bitterly and uttered a prophecy concerning the fate of the murderers, which was soon and remarkably fulfilled.

"When the news of his noble-hearted brother's death was brought to Brian at Kincora, 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 foul deed,
Or I must perish by a violent death.'

"But the climax of his grief was, that Mahon 'had not fallen behind the shelter of his shield, rather than trust the treacherous word of Donovan."[2]

A "Bard of Thomond" in our own day—one not unworthy of his proud pseudonym—Mr. M. Hogan of Limerick, has supplied the following very beautiful version of "Brian's Lament for King Mahon:"

"Lament, O Dalcassians! the Eagle of Cashel is dead!
The grandeur, the glory, the joy of her palace is fled;
Your strength in the battle—your bulwark of valor is low,
But the fire of your vengeance will fall on the murderous foe!
"His country was mighty—his people were blest in his reign,
But the ray of his glory shall never shine on them again;
Like the beauty of summer his presence gave joy to our souls,
When bards sung his deeds at the banquet of bright golden bowls.

"Ye maids of Temora, whose rich garments sweep the green plain!
Ye chiefs of the Sunburst, the terror and scourge of the Dane!
Ye gray-haired Ard-Fileas! whose songs fire the blood of the brave!
Oh! weep, for your Sun-star is quenched in the night of the grave.
"He clad you with honors—he filled-your high hearts with delight,
In the midst of your councils he beamed in his wisdom and might;
Gold, silver, and jewels were only as dust in his hand,
But his sword like a lightning-flash blasted the foes of his land.

"Oh! Mahon, my brother! we've conquer'd and marched side by side,
And thou wert to the love of my soul as a beautiful bride;
In the battle, the banquet, the council, the chase and the throne,
Our beings were blended—our spirits were filled with one tone.
"Oh! Mahon, my brother! thou'st died like the hind of the wood,
The hands of assassins were red with thy pure noble blood;
And I was not near, my beloved, when thou wast o'er power'd,
To steep in their hearts' blood the steel of my blue-beaming sword.

'I stood by the dark misty river at eve dim and gray,
And I heard the death-cry of the spirit of gloomy Craghlea;
She repeated thy name in her caoine of desolate woe,
Then I knew that the Beauty and Joy of Clan Tail was laid low.
"All day and all night one dark vigil of sorrow I keep,
My spirit is bleeding with wounds that are many and deep;
My banquet is anguish, tears, groaning, and wringing of hands,
In madness lamenting my prince of the gold-.hilted brands.

"O God! give me patience to bear the affliction I feel,
But for every hot tear a red blood-drop shall blush on my steel;
For every deep pang which my grief-stricken spirit has known,
A thousand death-wounds in the day of revenge shall atone."

And he smote the murderers of his brother with a swift and terrible vengeance. Mustering his Dalcassian legions, which so often with Mahon he had led to victory, he set forth upon the task of retribution. His first effort, the old records tell us, was directed against the Danes of Limerick, who were Donovan's allies, and he slew Ivor, their king, and his two sons. Foreseeing their fate, they had fled before him, and had taken refuge in "Scattery's Holy Isle." But Brian slew them even "between the horns of the altar." Next came the turn of Donovan, who had meantime hastily gathered to his aid the Danes of South Munster. But "Brian," say the Annals of Innisfallen, "gave them battle, and Auliffe and his Danes, and Donovan and his allies, were all cut off." Of all guilty in the murder of the brother whom he so loved, there now remained but one—the principal, Molloy, son of Brian. After the fashion in those times, Brian sent Molloy a formal summons or citation to meet him in battle until the terrible issue between them should be settled. To this Molloy responded by confederating all the Irish and Danes of South Munster whom he could rally, for yet another encounter with the avenging Dalcassian. But the curse of the Comharba of St. Barre was upon the murderers of Mahon, and the might of a passionate vengeance was in Brian's arm. Again he was victorious. The confederated Danes and Irish were overthrown with great slaughter; Brian's son, Morrogh, then a mere lad, "killing the murderer of his uncle Mahon with his own hand." "Molloy was buried on the north side of the mountain where Mahon had been murdered and interred: on Mahon the 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 Brian was universally acknowledged king of Munster, and until Ard-Ri Malachy won the battle of Tara, was justly considered the first Irish captain of his age."[3]

This was the opening chapter of Brian's career. Thenceforth his military reputation and his political influence are found extending far beyond the confines of Munster.

« Chapter X. | Contents | Chapter XI. (continued) »

NOTES

[1] That is, "Brian of the Tribute."

[2] M'Gee.

[3] M'Gee.

[Fairlie]

STORY OF IRELAND

By A. M. Sullivan

[b]HOW "BRIAN OF THE TRIBUTE" BECAME A HIGH KING OF ERINN.
CHAPTER XI. (continued)
[/b]
From the Atlas and Cyclopedia of Ireland (1900)

« Previous Page | Contents | Chapter XII. »

The supreme crown of Ireland at this time was worn by a brave and enlightened sovereign, Malachy the Second, or Malachy Mor. He exhibited rare qualities of statesmanship, patriotism, and valor, in his vigorous efforts against the Danes. On the occasion of one of his most signal victories over them, he himself engaged in combat two Danish princes, overcame and slew both of them, taking from off the neck of one a massive collar of gold, and from the grasp of the other a jewel-hilted sword, which he himself thenceforward wore as trophies. To this monarch, and to the incident here mentioned, Moore alludes in his well-known lines:

"Let Erin remember the days of old,
Ere her faithless sons betrayed her,
When Malachi wore the collar of gold
Which he won from her proud invader."

Whether it was that Ard-Ri Malachy began to fear the increasing and almost overshadowing power and influence of his southern tributary, or that Brian had in his pride of strength refused to own his tributary position, it seems impossible to tell; but unfortunately for Ireland the brave and wise Ard-Ri Malachy, and the not less brave and wise tributary Brian, became embroiled in a bitter war, the remote but indubitable consequences of which most powerfully and calamitously affected the future destinies of Ireland. For nearly twenty years the struggle between them continued. Any adversary less able than Malachy would have been quickly compelled to succumb to ability such as Brian's; and it may on the other hand be said that it was only a man of Brian's marvelous powers whom Malachy could not effectively crush in as many months. Two such men united could accomplish anything with Ireland; and when they eventually did unite, they absolutely swept the Danes into their walled and fortified cities, from whence they had begun once more to overrun the country during the distractions of the struggle between Malachy and Brian. During the short peace or truce between himself and the Ard-Ri, Brian—who was a sagacious diplomatist as well as great general—seems to have attached to his interest nearly all the tributary kings, and subsequently even the Danish princes; so that it was easy to see that already his eye began to glance at the supreme crown. Malachy saw it all, and when the decisive moment at last arrived, and Brian, playing Caesar, "crossed the Rubicon," the now only titular Ard-Ri made a gallant but brief defence against the ambitious usurper—for such Brian was on the occasion. After this short effort Malachy yielded with dignity and calmness to the inevitable, and gave up the monarchy of Erinn to Brian. The abdicated sovereign thenceforward served under his victorious rival as a subordinate, with a readiness and fidelity which showed him to be Brian's superior at least in unselfish patriotism and in readiness to sacrifice personal pride and personal rights to the public interests of his country.

Brian, now no longer king of Munster, but Ard-Ri of Erin, found his ambition fully crowned. The power and authority to which he had thus attained, he wielded with a wisdom, a sagacity, a firmness, and a success that made his reign as Ard-Ri, while it lasted, one of almost unsurpassed glory, prosperity, and happiness for Ireland. Yet the student of Irish history finds no fact more indelibly marked on his mind by the thoughtful study of the great page before him than this, namely, that, glorious as was Brian's reign—brave, generous, noble, pious, learned, accomplished, politic, and wise, as he is confessed on all hands to have been—his seizure of the supreme national crown was a calamity for Ireland. Or rather, perhaps, it would be more correct and more just to say, that having reference not singly to his ambitious seizure of the national crown, but also to the loss in one day of his own life and the lives of his next heirs (both son and grandson), the event resulted calamitously for Ireland. For "it threw open the sovereignty to every great family as a prize to be won by policy or force, and no longer an inheritance to be determined by law and usage. The consequences were what might have been expected. After his death the O'Connors of the West competed with both O'Neills and O'Brien's for supremacy, and a chronic civil war prepared the way for Strongbow and the Normans. The term 'kings with opposition' is applied to nearly all who reigned between King Brian's time and that of Roderick O'Connor" (the Norman invasion), "meaning thereby kings who were unable to secure general obedience to their administration of affairs."[4]

Brian, however, in all probability, as the historian I have quoted pleads on his behalf, might have been moved by the great and statesmanlike scheme of consolidating and fusing Ireland into one kingdom; gradually repressing individuality in the subordinate principalities, and laying the firm foundation of an enduring and compact monarchial state, of which his own posterity would be the sovereigns. For Morrogh, his first-born, and for Morrogh's descendants he hoped to found an hereditary kingship after the type universally copied throughout Christendom. He was not ignorant of what Alfred had done for England, Harold for Norway, Charlemagne for France, and Otho for Germany." If any such design really inspired Brian's course, it was a grandly useful one, comprehensive, and truly national. Its realization was just what Ireland wanted at that period of her history. But its existence in Brian's mind is a most fanciful theory. He was himself, while a tributary king, no wondrous friend or helper of centralized authority. He pushed from the throne a wise and worthy monarch. He grasped at the scepter not in a reign of anarchy, but in a period of comparative order, authority, and tranquility.

Be that as it may, certain it is that Brian was "every inch a king." Neither on the Irish throne, nor on that of any other kingdom, did sovereign ever sit more splendidly qualified to rule; and Ireland had not for some centuries known such a glorious and prosperous, peaceful, and happy time as the five years preceding Brian's death. He caused his authority to be not only unquestioned, but obeyed and respected, in every corner of the land. So justly were the laws administered in his name, and so loyally obeyed throughout the kingdom, that the bards relate a rather fanciful story of a young and exquisitely beautiful lady, making, without the slightest apprehension of violence or insult, and in perfect safety, a tour of the island on foot, alone and unprotected, though bearing about her the most costly jewels and ornaments of gold! A national minstrel of our own times has celebrated this illustration of the tranquility of Brian's reign in the well-known poem, "Rich and rare were the gems she wore."

« Previous Page | Contents | Chapter XII. »

NOTES

[4] M'Gee.

[Fairlie]

STORY OF IRELAND

By A. M. Sullivan

CHAPTER XII.

From the Atlas and Cyclopedia of Ireland (1900)

« Previous Page | Contents | Chapter XIII. »

HOW A DARK THUNDER-CLOUD GATHERED OVER IRELAND

ABOUT this time the Danish power all over Europe had made considerable advances. In France it had fastened itself upon Normandy, and in England it had once more become victorious, the Danish prince, Sweyne, having been proclaimed king of England in 1013, though it was not until the time of his successor, Canute, that the Danish line were undisputed monarchs of England. All these triumphs made them turn their attention the more earnestly to Ireland, which they so often and so desperately yet so vainly, sought to win. At length the Danes of this country—holding several of the large seaport cities, but yielding tribute to the Irish monarch—seem to have been roused to the design of rallying all the might of the Scanian race for one gigantic and supreme effort to conquer the kingdom: for it was a reflection hard for northmen to endure, that they who had conquered England almost as often as they tried, who had now placed a Danish sovereign on the English throne, and had established a Danish dukedom of Normandy in. France, had never yet been able to bring this dearly coveted western isle into subjection, and had never once given a monarch to its line of kings. Coincidently with the victories of Sweyne in England, several Danish expeditions appeared upon the Irish coast: now at Cork in the south, now at Lough Foyle in the north; but these were promptly met and repelled by the vigor of the Ard-Ri, or of the local princes. These forays, however, though serious and dangerous enough, were but the prelude to the forthcoming grand assault, or as it has been aptly styled, "the last field-day of Christianity and Paganism on Irish soil."

"A taunt thrown out over a game of chess at Kincora is said to have hastened this memorable day. Maelmurra, prince of Leinster, playing or advising on the game, made or recommended a false move, upon which Morrogh, son of Brian, observed it was no wonder his friends the Danes (to whom he owed his elevation) were beaten at Glenmana, if he gave them advice like that. Maelmurra, highly incensed by the allusion—all the more severe for its bitter truth—arose, ordered his horse, and rode away in haste. Brian, when he heard it, dispatched a messenger after the indignant guest, begging him to return; but Maelmurra was not to be pacified, and refused. We next hear of him as concerting with certain Danish agents, always open to such negotiations, those measures which led to the great invasion of the year 1014, in which the whole Scanian race, from Anglesea and Man, north to Norway, bore an active share.

"These agents passing over to England and Man, among the Scottish isles, and even to the Baltic, followed up the design of an invasion on a gigantic scale. Suibne, earl of Man, entered warmly into this conspiracy, and sent 'the war-arrow' through all those 'out-islands' which obeyed him as lord. A yet more formidable potentate, Sigurd, of the Orkneys, next joined the league. He was the fourteenth earl of Orkney, of Norse origin, and his power was at this period a balance to that of his nearest neighbor, the king of Scots. He had ruled since the year 996, not only over the Orkneys, Shetland, and Northern Hebrides, but the coasts of Caithness and Sutherland, and even Ross and Moray rendered him homage and tribute. Eight years before the battle of Clontarf, Malcom the Second of Scotland had been fain to purchase his alliance by giving him his daughter in marriage, and the kings of Denmark and Norway treated with him on equal terms. The hundred inhabited isles which lie between Yell and Man—isles which after their conversion contained 'three hundred churches and chapels'—sent in their contingents, to swell the following of the renowned Earl Sigurd. As his fleet bore southward from Kirkwall, it swept the subject coast of Scotland, and gathered from every lough its galleys and its fighting-men. The rendezvous was the Isle of Man, where Suibne had placed his own forces, under the command of Brodar, or Broderick, a famous leader against the Britons of Wales and Cornwall. In conjunction with Sigurd, the Manxmen sailed over to Ireland, where they were joined, in the Liffey, by Earl Canuteson, prince of Denmark, at the head of fourteen hundred champions clad in armor. Sitric of Dublin stood, or affected to stand, neutral in these preparations, but Malemurra of Leinster had mustered all the forces he could command for such an expedition."[1]

Here was a mighty thunder-storm gathering over and around Ireland! Never before was an effort of such magnitude made for the conquest of the island. Never before had the Danish power so palpably put forth its utmost strength, and never hitherto had it put forth such strength in vain. This was the supreme moment for Ireland to show what she could do when united in self-defence against a foreign invader. Here were the unconquered Northmen, the scourge and terror of Europe, the conquerors of Britain, Normandy, Anglesea, Orkney, and Man, now concentrating the might of their whole race, from fiord and haven, from the Orkneys to the Scilly Isles, to burst in an overwhelming billow upon Ireland! If before a far less formidable assault England went down, dare Ireland hope now to meet and withstand this tremendous shock? In truth, it seemed a hard chance. It was a trial-hour for the men of Erin. And gloriously did they meet it! Never for an instant were they daunted by the tidings of the extensive and mighty preparations going forward; for the news filled Europe, and a hundred harbors in Norway, Denmark, France, England, and the Channel Isles resounded day and night with the bustle preparatory for the coming war. Brian was fully equal to the emergency. He resolved to meet force by force, combination by combination, preparation by preparation; to defy the foe, and let them see "what Irishmen could do." His efforts were nobly seconded by the zeal of all the tributary princes (with barely a few exceptions), but most nobly of all by the deposed Malachy, whose conduct upon this occasion alone would entitle him to a proud place in the annals of Ireland. In one of the preliminary expeditions of the Danes a few years previously, he detected more quickly that Brian the seriousness of the work going forward; he sent word hurriedly to Kincora that the Danes, who had landed near Dublin, were marching inward, and entreated of Brian to hasten to check them promptly. The Ard-Ri, however, was at that time absolutely incredulous that anything more serious than a paltry foray was designed; and he refused, it is said, to lend any assistance to the local prince. But Malachy had a truer conception of the gravity of the case. He himself marched to meet the invaders, and in a battle which ensued, routed them, losing, however, in the hour of victory, his son Flann. This engagement awakened Brian to a sense of the danger at hand. He quickly dispatched an auxiliary force, under his son Morrogh to Malachy's aid; but the Danes, driven into their walled city of Dublin by Malachy, did not venture out; and so the Dalcassian force returned southward, devastating the territory of the traitor, Maelmurra, of Leinster, whose perfidy was now openly proclaimed.

« Previous Page | Contents | Chapter XIII. »

NOTES

[1] M'Gee.

[Fairlie]

STORY OF IRELAND

By A. M. Sullivan

CHAPTER XIII.

From the Atlas and Cyclopedia of Ireland (1900)

« Chapter XII. | Contents | Chapter XIII. (continued) »

THE GLORIOUS DAY OF CLONTARF

BRIAN soon became fully aware of the scheme at which the Danes all over Europe were laboring, and of the terrible trial approaching for Ireland. Through all the autumn of that year 1013, and the spring months of the year following, the two powers, Danish and Irish, were working hard at preparations for the great event, each straining every energy and summoning every resource for the crisis. Toward the close of March, Brian's arrangements being completed, he gave the order for a simultaneous march to Kilmainham,[1] usually the camping ground and now the appointed rendezvous of the national forces. By the second week in April there had rallied to the national standard a force which, if numerically unequal to that assembled by the invaders, was, as the result showed, able to compensate by superior valor for whatever it lacked in numbers.

The lords of all the southern half of the kingdom—the lord of Decies, Inchiquin, Fermoy, Corca-Baiskin, Kinalmeaky, and Kerry—and the lords of Hy-Manie and Hy-Fiachra in Connaught, we are told, hastened to Brian's standard. O'More and O'Nolan of Leinster, and Donald, Steward of Mar, in Scotland, continues the historian, "were the other chieftains who joined him before Clontarf, besides those of his own kindred," or the forces proper of Thomond.[2] Just one faint shadow catches the eye as we survey the picture presented by Ireland in the hour of this great national rally. The northern chieftains, the lords of Ulster, alone held back. Sullen and silent, they stirred not. "They had submitted to Brian; but they never cordially supported him."

The great Danish flotilla, under Brodar, the admiral-in-chief, entered Dublin Bay on Palm Sunday, the 18th of April, 1014. The galleys anchored, some of them at Sutton, near Howth, others were moored in the mouth of the river Liffey, and the rest were beached or anchored in a vast line stretching along the Clontarf shore, which sweeps between the two points indicated. Brian immediately swung his army round upon Glassnevin, crossed the Tolka at the point where the Botanical Gardens now stand, and faced his line of battle southward toward where the enemy were encamped upon the shore. Meantime, becoming aware that Maelmurra, prince of Leinster, was so eager to help the invader that he had entered the Danish camp with every man of his following, Brian secretly dispatched a body of Dalcassians, under his son Donagh, to dash into the traitor's territory and waste it with fire and sword. The secret march southward of the Dalcassians was communicated to Maelmurra by a spy in Brian's camp, and, inasmuch as the Dalcassians were famed as the "invincible legion" of the Irish army, the traitor urged vehemently upon his English allies that this was the moment to give battle—while Brian's best troops were away. Accordingly, on Holy Thursday, the Danes announced their resolution to give battle next day. Brian had the utmost reluctance to fight upon that day, which would be Good Friday, thinking it almost a profanation to engage in combat upon the day on which our Lord died for man's redemption. He begged that the engagement might be postponed even one day; but the Danes were all the more resolute to engage on the next morning, for, says an old legend of the battle, Brodar, having consulted one of the Danish pagan oracles, was told that if he gave: battle upon the Friday Brian would fall.

With early dawn next day, Good Friday, 23d of April, 1014, all was bustle in both camps.[3] The Danish army, facing inland, northward or northeast, stretched along the shore of Dublin Bay; its left flank touching and protected by the city of Dublin, its center being about the spot, where Clontarf castle now stands, and its right wing resting on Dollymount. The Irish army, facing southward, had its right on Drumcondra, its center on Fairview, and its extreme left on Clontarf. The Danish forces were disposed of in three divisions, of which the first, or left, was. composed of the Danes of Dublin, under their king, Sitric, and the princes Dolat and Conmael, with the thousand Norwegians already mentioned as clothed in suits of ringed mail, under the youthful warriors Carlus and Anrud; the second, or central division, was composed chiefly of the Lagenians, commanded by Maelmurra himself, and the princes of Offaly and of the Liffey territory; and the third division, or right wing, was made up of the auxiliaries from the Baltic and the Islands, under Brodar, admiral of the fleet, and the earl of Orkneys, together with some British auxiliaries from Wales and Cornwall. To oppose these the Irish monarch also marshaled his forces in three corps or divisions. The first, or right wing, composed chiefly of the diminished legions of the brave Dalcassians, was under the command of his son Morrogh, who had also with him his four brothers, Tiege, Donald, Conor, and Flann, and his own son (grandson of Brian), the youthful Torlogh, who was but fifteen years of age. In this division also fought Malachy with the Meath contingent. The Irish center division comprised the troops of Desmond, or South Munster, under the commander of Kian, son of Molloy, and Donel, son of Duv Davoren (ancestor of The O'Donoghue), both of the Eugenian line. The Irish left wing was composed mainly of the forces of Connaught, under O'Kelly, prince of Hy-Manie (the great central territory of Connaught); O'Heyne, prince of Hy-Fiachra Ahna; and Echtigern, king of Dalariada. It is supposed that Brian's army numbered about 20,000 men.[4]

« Chapter XII. | Contents | Chapter XIII. (continued) »

NOTES

[1] The district north and south of the Liffey at this point—the Phoenix Park, Kilmainham, Inchicore, and Chapel-Izod—was the rendezvous.

[2] "Under the standard of Brian Borumha also fought that day the Maermors, or Great Stewards of Lennox and Mar, with a contingent of the brave Gaels of Alba. It would even appear, from a Danish account, that some of the Northmen who had always been friendly to Brian, fought on his side at Clontarf. A large body of hardy men came from the distant maritime districts of Connemara; many warriors flocked from other territories, and, on the whole, the rallying of the men of Ireland in the cause of their country upon that occasion, as ouch as the victory which their gallantry achieved, renders the event a proud and cheering one in Irish history."—Haverty.

[3] Haverty says: "The exact site of the battle seems to. be tolerably well defined. In some copies of the Annals it. is called ' the Battle of the Fishing-weir of Clontarf:' and the weir in question must have been at the mouth of the Tolka, about the place where Ballybough Bridge now stands. It also appears that the principal destruction of" the Danes took place when in their flight they endeavored to cross the Tolka, probably at the moment of high water, when great numbers of them were drowned; and it is expressly stated that they were pursued with great slaughter 'from the Tolka to Dublin.'" I, however, venture, though with proper diffidence, to suggest that the 'Fishing-weir' stood a short distance higher up the river, to wit, at Clonliffe, directly below where the College of the Holy Cross now stands. For there is, in my opinion, ample evidence to show that at that time the sea flowed over the flats on the city side, by which Ballybough Bridge is now approached, making a goodly bay, or wide estuary, there; and that only about the point I indicate was a fishing-weir likely to have stood in 1014.

[4] Abridged from Haverty.

[Fairlie]

STORY OF IRELAND

By A. M. Sullivan
[b]THE GLORIOUS DAY OF CLONTARF (Part-2)
CHAPTER XIII. (continued)[/b]

From the Atlas and Cyclopedia of Ireland (1900)

« Previous Page | Contents | Chapter XIII. (continued) »

All being ready for the signal of battle, Brian himself, mounted on a richly-caparisoned charger, rode through the Irish lines, as all the records are careful to tell us, "with his sword in one hand, and a crucifix in the other, exhorting the troops to remember the momentous issues that depended upon the fortunes of that day—Religion and Country against Paganism and Bondage. It is said that on this occasion he delivered an address which moved his soldiers, now to tears, and anon to the utmost pitch of enthusiasm and resolution. And we can well imagine the effect, upon an army drawn up as they were for the onset of battle in defence of "Faith and Fatherland," of such a sight and such an appeal—their aged and venerable monarch, "his white hair floating in the wind, "riding -through their lines, with the sacred symbol of Redemption borne aloft, and adjuring them, as the chronicles tell us to "remember that on this day Christ died for us, on the Mount of Calvary." Moreover, Brian himself had given them an earnest, such perhaps as monarch had never given before, of his resolve, that with the fortunes of his country he and his sons and kinsmen all would stand or fall. He had brought "his sons and nephews there," says the historian, who might have added, and even his grandchildren, "and showed that he was prepared to let the existence of his race depend upon the issue of the day." We may be sure a circumstance so affecting as this was not lost upon Brian's soldiers. It gave force to every word of his address. He recounted, we are told, all the barbarities and the sacrileges perpetrated by the invaders in their lawless ravages on Irish soil, the shrines they had plundered, the holy relics they had profaned, the brutal cruelties they had inflicted on unarmed non-combatants—nay, on "the servants of the Altar." Then, raising the crucifix aloft, he invoked the Omnipotent God to look down upon them that day, and to strengthen their arms in a cause so just and holy.

Mr. William Kenealy (now of Kilkenny) is the author of a truly noble poem which gives with all the native vigor and force of the original, this thrilling "Address of Brian to his Army."

"Stand ye now for Erin's glory! Stand ye now for Erin's cause!
Long ye've groaned beneath the rigor of the Northmen's savage laws.
What though brothers league against us? What, though myriads be the foe?
Victory will be more honored in the myriads' overthrow.

"Proud Connacians! oft we've wrangled in our petty feuds of yore;
Now we fight against the robber Dane upon our native shore;
May our hearts unite in friendship, as our blood in one red tide,
While we crush their mail-clad legions, and annihilate their pride!
"Brave Eugenians! Erin triumphs in the sight she sees to-day—
Desmond's homesteads all deserted for the muster and the fray!
Cluan's vale and Galtees' summit send their bravest and their best—
May such hearts be theirs forever, for the Freedom of the West!

"Chiefs and Kernes of Dalcassia! Brothers of my past career,
Oft we've trodden on the pirate-flag that flaunts before us here;
You remember Inniscattery, how we bounded on the foe,
As the torrent of the mountain bursts upon the plain below!

"They have razed our proudest castles—spoiled the Temples of the Lord—
Burned to dust the sacred relics—put the Peaceful to the sword—
Desecrated all things holy—as they soon may do again,
If their power to-day we smite not—if to-day we be not men!

"On this day the God-man suffered—look upon the sacred sign—
May we conquer 'neath its shadow, as of old did Constantine!
May the heathen tribe of Odin fade before it like a dream,
And the triumph of this glorious day in our future annuals gleam!

"God of heaven, bless our banner—nerve our sinews for the strife!
Fight we now for all that's holy—for our altars, land and life—
For red vengeance on the spoiler, whom the blazing temples trace—
For the honor of our maidens and the glory of our race!

"Should I fall before the foeman, 'tis the death I seek to-day;
Should ten thousand daggers pierce me, bear my body not away,
Till this day of days be over—till the field is fought and won—
Then the holy mass be chanted, and the funeral rites be done.

"Men of Erin! men of Erin! grasp the battle-ax: and spear!
Chase these Northern wolves before you like a herd of frightened deer!
Burst their ranks, like bolts from heaven! Down, on the heathen crew,
For the glory of the Crucified, and Erin's glory too!"

Who can be astonished that, as he ceased, a shout wild, furious, and deafening, burst from the Irish lines? A cry arose from the soldiers, we are told, demanding instantly to be led against the enemy. The aged monarch now placed himself at the head of his guards, to lead the van of battle; but at this point his sons and all the attendant princes and commanders protested against his attempting, at his advanced age, to take part personally in the conflict; and eventually, after much effort, they succeeded in prevailing upon him to retire to his tent, and to. let the chief command devolve upon his eldest, son Morrogh.

"The battle," says a historian, "then commenced; 'a spirited, fierce, violent, vengeful, and furious battle; the likeness of which was not. to be found at that time,' as the old annalists quaintly describe it. It was a conflict of heroes. The chieftains engaged at every point in single combat; and the greater part of them on both sides fell. The impetuosity of the Irish was irresistible, and their battle-axes did fearful execution, every man of the ten hundred mailed warriors of Norway having been made to bite the dust, and it was against them, we are told, that the Dalcassians had been obliged to contend single-handed. The heroic Morrogh performed prodigies of valor throughout the day. Ranks of men fell before him; and, hewing his way to the Danish standard, he cut down two successive bearers of it with his battle-ax. Two Danish leaders, Carolus and Conmael, enraged at this, success, rushed on him together, but both fell in rapid succession by his sword. Twice Morrogh and some of his chiefs retired to slake their thirst and cool their hands, swollen from the violent use of the sword; and the Danes observing the vigor with which they returned to the conflict, succeeded, by a desperate effort in cutting off the brook which had refreshed them. Thus the battle raged from an early hour in the morning—innumerable deeds of valor being performed on both sides, and victory appearing still doubtful, until the third or fourth hour in the afternoon, when a fresh and desperate effort was made by the Irish, and the Danes, now almost destitute of leaders, began to waver and give way at every point. Just at this moment the Norwegian prince, Anrud, encountered Morrogh, who was unable to raise his arms from fatigue, but with the left hand he seized Anrud and hurled him to the earth, and with the other placed the point of his sword on the breast of the prostrate Northman, and leaning on it plunged it through his body. While stooping, however, for this purpose, Anrud contrived to inflict on him a mortal wound with a dagger, and Morrogh fell in the arms of victory. According to other accounts, Morrogh was in the act of stooping to relieve an enemy when he received from him his death wound. This disaster had not the effect of turning the fortune of the day, for the Danes and their allies were in a state of utter disorder, and along their whole line had commenced to fly toward the city or to their ships. They plunged into the Tolka at a time, we may conclude, when the river was swollen with the tide, so that great numbers were drowned. The body of young Turlogh was found after the battle 'at the weir of Clontarf,' with his hands entangled in the hair of a Dane whom he had grappled with in the pursuit.

"But the chief tragedy of the day remains to be related. Brodar, the pirate admiral, who commanded in the point of the Danish lines remotest from the city, seeing the rout general, was making his way through some thickets with only a few attendants, when he came upon the tent of Brian Borumha, left at that moment without his guards. The fierce Norseman rushed in and found the aged monarch at prayer before the crucifix, which he had that morning held up to the view of his troops, and attended only by his page. Yet, Brian had time to seize his arms, and died sword in hand. The Irish accounts say that the king killed Brodar, and was only overcome by numbers; but the Danish version in the Niala Saga is more probable, and in this Brodar is represented as holding up his reeking sword and crying: 'Let it be proclaimed from man to man that Brian has been slain by Brodar.' It is added, on the same authority, that the ferocious pirate was then hemmed in by Brian's returned guards and captured alive, and that he was hung from a tree, and continued to rage like a beast of prey until all his entrails were torn out—the Irish soldiers thus taking savage vengeance for the death of their king, who but for their own neglect would have been safe."[5]

« Previous Page | Contents | Chapter XIII. (continued) »

NOTES

[5] Haverty.

[Fairlie]

STORY OF IRELAND

By A. M. Sullivan
[b]THE GLORIOUS DAY OF CLONTARF (Part-3)
CHAPTER XIII. (concluded)[/b]

From the Atlas and Cyclopedia of Ireland (1900)

« Previous Page | Contents | Chapter XIV. »

Such was the victory of Clontarf—one of the most glorious events in the annals of Ireland! It was the final effort of the Danish power to effect the conquest of this country. Never again was that effort renewed. For a century subsequently the Danes continued to hold some maritime cities in Ireland; but never more did they dream of conquest. That design was overthrown forever on the bloody plain of Clontarf.

It was, as the historian called it truly, "a conflict of heroes." There was no flinching on either side, and on each side fell nearly every commander of note who had entered the battle! The list of the dead is a roll of nobility, Danish and Irish; among the dead being the brave Caledonian chiefs, the great Stewards of Mar and Lennox, who had come from distant Alba to fight on the Irish side that day!

But direst disaster of all—most woeful in its ulterior results affecting the fate and fortunes of Ireland—was the slaughter of the reigning family: Brian himself, Morrogh, his eldest son and destined successor, and his grandson, "the youthful Torlogh," eldest child of Morrogh—three generations cut down in the one day upon the same field of battle!

"The fame of the event went out through all nations. The chronicles of Wales, of Scotland, and of Man; the annals of Ademar and Marianus;[6] the saga of Denmark and the Isles, all record the event. The Norse settlers in Caithness saw terrific visions of Valhalla 'the day after the battle.'"[7] "The annals state that Brian and Morrogh both lived lived to receive the last sacraments of the Church, and that their remains were conveyed by the monks to Swords (near Dublin), and thence to Armagh by the Archbishop; and that their obsequies were celebrated for twelve days and nights with great splendor by the clergy of Armagh after which the body of Brian was deposited in a stone coffin on the north side of the high altar in the cathedral, the body of his son being interred on the south side of the same church. The remains of Torlogh and of several of the other chieftains were buried in the old churchyard of Kilmainham, where the shaft of an Irish cross still marks the spot."[8]

« Previous Page | Contents | Chapter XIV. »

NOTES

[6] "Brian, king of Hibernia, slain on Good Friday, the 9th of the calends of May (23d April), with his mind and his hands turned toward God."—"Chronicles of Marianus Scotus."

[7] M'Gee.

[8] Haverty.

[Fairlie]

STORY OF IRELAND

By A. M. Sullivan

CHAPTER XIV.

From the Atlas and Cyclopedia of Ireland (1900)

« Previous Page | Contents | Chapter XV. (The Normans) »

"AFTER THE BATTLE." THE SCENE "UPON OSSORY'S PLAIN. "THE LAST DAYS OF NATIONAL FREEDOM."

THREE days after the battle the decimated but victory-crowned Irish legions broke up camp and marched homeward to their respective provinces, chanting songs of triumph. The Dalcassians (who had suffered terribly in the battle) found their way barred by a hostile prince, Fitzpatrick, lord of Ossory, whose opposing numbers vastly exceeded their effective force, which indeed was barely enough to convey or convoy their wounded homeward to Kincora. In this extremity the wounded soldiers entreated that they might be allowed to fight with the rest. "Let stake " they said, "be driven into the ground, and suffer each of us, tied to and supported by one of these stakes, to be placed in his rank by the side of a sound man." "Between seven and eight hundred wounded men," adds the historian, "pale, emaciated, and supported in this manner, appeared mixed with the foremost of the troops! Never was such another sight exhibited!"[1]

Keating's quaint narrative of the event is well worthy of quotation. He says: "Donagh then again gave orders that one-third of his host should be placed on guard as a protection for the wounded, and that the other two-thirds should meet the expected battle. But when the wounded men heard of these orders, they sprang up in such haste that their wounds and sores burst open; but they bound them up in moss, and grasping their lances and their swords, they came thus equipped into the midst of their comrades. Here they requested of Donncadh, son of Brian, to send some men to the forest with instructions to bring them a number of strong stakes, which they proposed to have thrust into the ground, 'and to these stakes,' said they, 'let us be bound with our arms in our hands, and let our sons and our kinsmen be stationed by our sides; and let two warriors, who are unwounded, be placed near each one of us wounded, for it is thus that we will help one another with truer zeal, because shame will not allow the sound man to leave his position until his wounded and bound comrade can leave it likewise.' This request was complied with, and the wounded men were stationed after the manner which they had pointed out. And, indeed, that array in which the Dal g-Cais were then drawn, was a thing for the mind to dwell upon in admiration, for it was a great and amazing wonder."

Our national minstrel, Moore, has alluded to this episode of the return of the Dalcassians in one of the melodies:

"Forget not our wounded companions, who stood
In the day of distress by our side:
While the moss of the valley grew red with their blood,
They stirred not, but conquered and died.
The sun that now blesses our arms with his light
Saw them fall upon Ossory's plain;
Oh! let him not blush, when he leaves us tonight,
To find that they fell there in vain!"

With the victory of Clontarf the day of Ireland's unity and power as a nation may be said to have ended. The sun of her national greatness, that had been waning previously, set suddenly in a brilliant flash of glory. If we except the eight years immediately following Brian's death, Ireland never more knew the blessing of national unity—never more was a kingdom, in the full sense of the word. Malachy Mor—well worthy of his title "the great"—the good, the magnanimous, the patriotic, and brave king, whom Brian had deposed, was unanimously recalled to the throne after Brian's death. The eight years during which Malachy ruled in this the second term of his sovereignty, were marked by every evidence of kingly ability and virtue on his part. At length, finding death approaching, he retired for greater solititude to an island in Lough Ennel (now called Cormorant Island), whither repaired sorrowfully to his spiritual succor "Amalgaid, Archbishop of Armagh, the abbots of Clonmacnoise and of Durrow, and a good train of clergy;" and where, as the old chronicles relate it, "after intense penance, on the fourth of the nones of September, died Malachy, the pillar of the dignity and nobility of the western world."

He was the last "unquestioned" monarch of Ireland. The interval between his death and the landing of Henry the Second (over one hundred and fifty years) was a period of bloody and ruinous contention that invited—and I had almost said merited—the yoke of a foreign rule. After Malachy's death, Brian's younger son, Donogh, claimed the throne; but his claim was scorned and repudiated by a moiety of the princes, who had, indeed, always regarded Brian himself as little better than an usurper, though a brave and a heroic sovereign. Never afterward was an Ard-Ri fully and lawfully elected or acknowledged. There were frequently two or more claimants assuming the title at the same time, and desolating the country in their contest for sovereignty. Brian had broken the charmed line of regulated succession that had, as I have already detailed, lasted through nearly two thousand years. His act was the final blow at the already loosened and tottering edifice of centralized national authority. While he himself lived, with his own strong hand and powerful mind to keep all things in order, it was well; no evil was likely to come of the act that supplied a new ground for wasting discords and bloody civil strife.

But when the powerful hand and the strong mind had passed away; when the splendid talents that had made even the deposed monarch, Malachy, bow to their supremacy, no longer availed to bind the kingdom into unity and strength, the miseries that ensued were hopeless. The political disintegration of Ireland was aggravated a thousand-fold. The idea of national unity seemed as completely dead, buried, and forgotten, when the Normans came in, as if it never had existence among the faction-split people of Erinn.

'Twas self-abasement paved the way
For villain bonds and despot's sway.

Donogh O'Brien, never acknowledged as Ard-Ri, was driven from even his titular sovereignty by his own nephew, Torlogh. Aged, broken, and weary, he sailed for Rome, where he entered a monastery and ended his life "in penance," as the old chronicles say. It is stated that this Donogh took with him to Rome the crown and the harp of his father, the illustrious Brian, and presented them to the pope.[2] This donation of his father's diadem to the pope by Donogh has sometimes been referred to as if it implied a bestowal of the Irish sovereignty; a placing of it, as it were, at the disposal of the Father of Christendom, for the best interests of faction-ruined Ireland herself, and for the benefit of the Christian religion. Perhaps the pope was led so to regard it. But the Supreme Pontiff did not know that such a gift was not Donogh's to give! Donogh never owned or possessed the Irish sovereignty; and even if he had been unanimously elected and acknowledged Ard-Ri (and he never was), the Irish sovereignty was a trust to which the Ard-Ri was elected for life, and which he could not donate even to his own son, except by the consent of the Royal Electors and Free Clans of Erinn.

« Previous Page | Contents | Chapter XV. (The Normans) »

NOTES

[1] O'Halloran.

[2] The harp is still in existence. It is in the Museum of Trinity College, Dublin.

[Fairlie]

STORY OF IRELAND

By A. M. Sullivan

CHAPTER XV.

From the Atlas and Cyclopedia of Ireland (1900)

« Chapter XIV. (After Clontarf) | Contents | Chapter XVI. (Henry II) »

HOW ENGLAND BECAME A COMPACT KINGDOM, WHILE IRELAND WAS BREAKING INTO FRAGMENTS

We now approach the period at which, for the first time, the history of Ireland needs to be read with that of England.

A quarter of a century after the rout of the Danes by the Irish at Clontarf, the Anglo-Saxons drove them from the English throne, the Anglo-Saxon line being restored in the person of Edward the Confessor. A quarter of a century subsequently, however, the Anglo-Saxons were again dethroned, and England was again conquered by new invaders—or the old ones with a new name—the Normans. In this last struggle, the Anglo-Saxons were aided by troops from Ireland, for the Normans were kith and kin of the Norse foes whom Ireland had such reason to hate. An Irish contingent fought side by side with the Saxons in their struggle against William; and when the brave but unfortunate Harold fell at Hastings, it was to Ireland his children were sent for friendly asylum.

The Normans treasured a bitter remembrance of this against Ireland; and there is evidence that from the first they meant to essay the subjugation of that island also, as soon as they should have consolidated their British conquest. These same Normans were a brave race. They possessed every quality requisite for military conquerors. To the rough, fierce vigor of their Norse ancestors they had added the military discipline and scientific skill which the Gauls had learned from their Roman masters. They conquered united England in one year. Yet they were five hundred years unsuccessfully laboring to conquer disunited Ireland!

During the one hundred and fifty years following Brian's death (devoted by the Irish princes to every factious folly and crime that could weaken, disorganize, disunite, and demoralize their country), the Normans in England were solidifying and strengthing their power. England was becoming a compact nation, governed by concentrated national authority, and possessed of a military organization formidable in numbers and in arms, but most of all in scientific mode of warfare and perfection of military discipline; while Ireland, like a noble vessel amid the breakers, was absolutely going to pieces—breaking up into fragments, or "clans," north, south, east, and west. As a natural result of this anarchy or wasting strife of factions, social and religious disorders supervened; and as a historian aptly remarks, the "Island of Saints" became an "Island of Sinners." The state of religion was deplorable. The rules of ecclesiastical discipline were in many places overthrown, as was nearly every other necessary moral and social safeguard; and, inevitably, the most lamentable disorders and scandals resulted. The bishops vainly sought to calm this fearful war of factions that was thus ruining the power of a great nation, and destroying or disgracing its Christian faith. They threatened to appeal to the Supreme Pontiff, and to invoke his interposition in behalf of religion thus outraged, and civil society thus desolated. St. Malachy, the primate of Armagh, the fame of whose sanctity, piety, and learning had reached all Europe, labored heroically amid these terrible afflictions. He proceeded to Borne, and was received with every mark of consideration by the reigning pope, Innocent the Second, who, "descending from his throne, placed his own mitre on the head of the Irish saint, presented him with his own vestments and other religious gifts, and appointed him apostolic legate in the place of Gilbert, Bishop of Limerick, then a very old man."

St. Malachy petitioned the pope for the necessary recognition of the Irish archiepiscopal sees, by the sending of the palliums to the archbishops; but the pope pointed out that so grave a request should proceed from a synod of the Irish Church. The primate returned to Ireland; and after some time devoted to still more energetic measures to cope with the difficulties created by perpetual civil war, he eventually convened a national synod, which was held at Innis-Patrick, near Skerries, county Dublin. St. Malachy was authorized again to proceed to the Holy Father, and in the name of the Irish Church beseech him to grant the palliums. The aged primate set out on his journey. But while on his way, having reached Clairvaux, he was seized with his death-sickness, and expired there (November 2, 1148), attended by the great St. Bernard, between whom and the Irish primate a personal friendship existed, and a correspondence passed, a portion of which is still extant. Three years afterward the palliums, sent by Pope Eugene the Third, were brought to Ireland by Cardinal Paparo, and were solemnly conferred on the archbishops the year following, at a national synod held at Kells.

But all the efforts of the ministers of religion could not compensate for the want of a stable civil government in the land. Nothing could permanently restrain the fierce violence of the chiefs; and it is clear that at Rome, and throughout Europe, the opinion at this time began to gain ground that Ireland was a hopeless case. And, indeed, so it must have seemed. It is true that the innate virtue and morality of the Irish national character began to assert itself the moment society was allowed to enjoy the least respite: it is beyond question that, during and after the time of the sainted primate, Malachy, vigorous and comprehensive efforts were afoot, and great strides made, toward reforming the abuses with which chronic civil war had covered the land. But, like many another reformation, it came too late. Before the ruined nation could be reconstituted, the Nemesis of invasion arrived, to teach all peoples, by the story of Ireland's fate, that when national cohesiveness is gone, national power has departed and national suffering is at hand.

« Chapter XIV. (After Clontarf) | Contents | Chapter XVI. (Henry II) »

[Fairlie]

STORY OF IRELAND

By A. M. Sullivan

CHAPTER XVI.

From the Atlas and Cyclopedia of Ireland (1900)

« Chapter XV. (The Normans) | Contents | Chapter XVII. (Diarmid M'Murrogh) »

HOW HENRY THE SECOND FEIGNED WONDROUS ANXIETY TO HEAL THE DISORDERS OF IRELAND

The grandson of William of Normandy, Conqueror of England, Henry the Second, was not an inattentive observer of the progressing wreck of the Irish Church and Nation. He inherited the Norman design of one day conquering Ireland also, and adding that kingdom to his English crown. He was not ignorant that at Rome Ireland was regarded as derelict. An Englishman, Pope Adrian, now sat in the Chair of Peter; and the English ecclesiastical authorities, who were in constant communication with the Holy See, were transmitting the most alarming accounts of the fearful state of Ireland. It is now known that these accounts were, in many cases, monstrously exaggerated; but it is true that, at best, the state of affairs was very bad.

The cunning and politic Henry saw his opportunity. Though his was the heart of a mere conqueror, sordid and callous, he clothed himself in the garb of the most saintly piety, and wrote to the Holy Father, calling attention to the state of Ireland, which for over a hundred years had been a scandal to Europe. But oh! it was the state of religion there that most afflicted his pious and holy Norman heart! It was all in the interests of social order, morality, religion, and civilization,[1] that he now approached the Holy Father with a proposition. In those times (when Christendom was an unbroken family, of which the pope was the head), the Supreme Pontiff was, by the voice of the nations themselves, invested with a certain kind of arbitrative civil authority for the general good. And, indeed, even infidel and non-Catholic historians declare to us that, on the whole, and with scarcely a possible exception, the popes exerted the authority thus vested in them with a pure, unselfish, and exalted anxiety for the general public good and the ends of justice, for the advancement of religion, learning, civilization, and civil freedom. But this authority rested merely on the principle by which the Acadian farmers in Longfellow's poem constituted their venerable pastor supreme lawgiver, arbitrator, and regulator in their little community; a practice which, even in our own day, prevails within the realms of fact here in Ireland and in other countries.

Henry's proposition to the pope was that he, the English king, should, with the sanction of the Holy Father, and (of course) purely in the interests of religion, morality, and social order, enter Ireland and restore order in that region of anarchy. He pleaded that the pope was bound to cause some such step to be taken, and altogether urged numerous grounds for persuading the pontiff to credit his professions as to his motives and designs. Pope Adrian is said to have complied by issuing a bull approving of Henry's scheme as presented to him, and with the purposes and on the conditions therein set forth. There is no such bull now to be found in the papal archives, yet it is credited that some such bull was issued; but its contents, terms, and permissions have been absurdly misrepresented and exaggerated in some versions coined by English writers.

The papal bull or letter once issued, Henry had gained his point. He. stored away the document until his other plans should be ripe; and, meanwhile, having no longer any need of feigning great piety and love for religion, he flung off the mask and entered upon that course of conduct which, culminating in the murder of St. Thomas a Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, drew down upon him the excommunication of Rome.

Meantime events were transpiring in Ireland destined to afford him a splendid opportunity for practically availing of his fraudulently obtained papal letter, and making a commencement in his scheme of Irish conquest.

« Chapter XV. (The Normans) | Contents | Chapter XVII. (Diarmid M'Murrogh) »

NOTES

[1] Even in that day—seven hundred years ago—English subjugators had learned the use of these amiable pretexts for invasion and annexation!

[Fairlie]

STORY OF IRELAND

By A. M. Sullivan

CHAPTER XVII.

From the Atlas and Cyclopedia of Ireland (1900)

« Chapter XVI. (Henry II.) | Contents | Chapter XVIII. (Norman Invasion) »

THE TREASON OF DIARMID M'MURROGH

ABOUT the year 1152, in the course of the interminable civil war desolating Ireland, a feud of peculiar bitterness arose between Tiernan O'Ruarc, Prince of Brefni, and Diarmid M'Murrogh, Prince of Leinster. While one of the Ard-Righana favorable to the latter was for the moment uppermost, O'Ruarc had been dispossessed of his territory, its lordship being handed over to M'Murrogh. To this was added a wrong still more dire. Devorgilla, the wife of O'Ruarc, eloped with M'Murrogh, already her husband's most bitter rival and foe! Her father and her husband both appealed to Torlogh O'Connor for justice upon the guilty prince of Leinster. O'Connor, although M'Murrogh had been one of his supporters, at once acceded to this request. M'Murrogh soon found his territory surrounded, and Devorgilla was restored to her husband. She did not, however, return to domestic life. Recent researches among the ancient "Manuscript Materials for Irish History," by O'Curry and O'Donovan, throw much light upon this episode, and considerably alter the long-prevailing popular impressions in reference thereto. Whatever the measure of Devorgilla's fault in eloping with M'Murrogh—and the researches alluded to bring to light many circumstances invoking for her more of commiseration than of angry scorn—her whole life subsequently to this sad event, and she lived for forty years afterward, was one prolonged act of contrition and of penitential reparation for the scandal she had given. As I have already said, she did not return to the home she had abandoned. She entered a religious retreat; and thenceforth, while living a life of practical piety, penance, and mortification, devoted the immense dower which she possessed in her own right to works of charity, relieving the poor, building hospitals, asylums, convents, and churches.

Thirteen years after this event, Roderick O'Connor, son and successor of the king who had forced M'Murrogh to yield up the unhappy Devorgilla, claimed the throne of the kingdom. Roderick was a devoted friend of O'Ruarc, and entertained no very warm feelings toward M'Murrogh. The king claimant marched on his "circuit," claiming "hostages" from the local princes as recognition of sovereignty. M'Murrogh, who hated Roderick with intense violence, burned his city of Ferns, and retired to his Wicklow fastnesses, rather than yield allegiance to him. Roderick could not just then delay on his circuit to follow him up, but passed on southward, took up his hostages there, and then returned to settle accounts with M'Murrogh. But by this time O'Ruarc, apparently only too glad to have such a pretext and opportunity for a stroke at his mortal foe, had assembled a powerful army and marched upon M'Murrogh from the north, while Roderick approached him from the south. Diarmid, thus surrounded, and deserted by most of his own people, outwitted and overmatched on all sides, saw that he was a ruined man. He abandoned the few followers yet remaining to him, fled to the nearest seaport, and, with a heart bursting with the most deadly passions, sailed for England (A.D. 1168), vowing vengeance, black, bitter, and terrible, on all that he left behind!

"A solemn sentence of banishment was publicly pronounced against him by the assembled princes, and Morrogh, his cousin—commonly called 'Morrogh na Gael,' (or 'of the Irish'), to distinguish him from 'Morrogh na Gall' (or 'of the Foreigners')—was inaugurated in his stead."[1]

Straightway he sought out the English king, who was just then in Aquitaine quelling a revolt of the nobles in that portion of his possessions. M'Murrogh laid before Henry a most piteous recital of his wrongs and grievances, appealed to him for justice and for aid, inviting him to enter Ireland, which he was sure most easily to reduce to his sway, and finally offering to become his, most submissive vassal if his majesty would but aid him in recovering the possessions from which he had been expelled. "Henry," as one of our historians justly remarks, "must have been forcibly struck by such an invitation to carry out a project which he had long entertained, and for which he had been making grave preparations long before." He was too busy himself, however, just then to enter upon the project; but he gave M'Murrogh a royal letter or proclamations authorizing such of his subjects as might so desire to aid the views of the Irish fugitive. Diarmid hurried back to England, and had all publicity given to this proclamation in his favor; but though he made the most alluring offers of reward and booty, it was a long time before he found any one to espouse his cause. At length Robert Fitzstephen, a Norman relative of the prince of North Wales, just then held in prison by his Cambrian kinsman, was released or brought out of prison by M'Murrogh, on condition of undertaking his service. Through Fitzstephen there came into the enterprise several other knights, Maurice Fitzgerald, Meyler Fitzhenry, and others—all of them men of supreme daring, but of needy circumstances. Eventually there joined one who was destined to take command of them all—Richard de Clare, Earl of Pembroke, commonly called "Strongbow;" a man of ruined fortune, needy, greedy, unscrupulous, and ready for any desperate adventure; possessing unquestionable military skill and reckless daring, and having a tolerably strong following of like adventurous spirits among the knights of the Welsh marches—in fine, just the man for Diarmid's purpose. The terms were soon settled. Strongbow and his companions undertook to raise a force of adventurers, proceed to Ireland with M'Murrogh, and reinstate him in his principality. M'Murrogh was to bestow on Strongbow (then a widower between fifty and sixty years of age) his daughter Eva in marriage, with succession to the throne of Leinster. Large grants of land also were to be distributed among the adventurers.

Now, Diarmid knew that "succession to the throne" was not a matter which any king in Ireland, whether provincial or national, at any time could bestow, the monarchy being elective out of the members of the reigning family. Even if he was himself at the time in full legal possession of "the throne of Leinster," he could not promise, secure, or bequeath it, as of right, even to his own son.

In the next place, Diarmid knew that his offers of "grants of land" struck directly and utterly at the existing land system, the basis of all society in Ireland. For, according to the Irish constitution and laws for a thousand years, the fee-simple or ownership of the soil was vested in the sept, tribe, or clan; its use or occupancy (by the individual members of the sept or others) being only regulated on behalf of and in the interest of the whole sept, by the elected king for the time being. "Tribe land" could not be alienated unless by the king, with the sanction of the sept. The users and occupiers were, so to speak, a co-operative society of agriculturists, who, as a body or a community, owned the soil they tilled, while individually renting it from that body or community under its administrative official—the king.

While Strongbow and his confederates were completing their arrangements in Chester, M'Murrogh crossed over to his native Wexford privately to prepare the way there for their reception. It would seem that no whisper had reached Ireland of his movements, designs, proclamations, and preparations on the other side of the channel. The wolf assumed the sheep's, clothing. M'Murrogh feigned great humility and contrition, and pretended to aspire only to. the recovery, by grace and favor, of his immediate patrimony of Hy-Kinsella. Among his own immediate clansmen, no doubt, he found a. friendly meeting and a ready following, and, more generally, a feeling somewhat of commiseration for one deemed to be now so fallen, so helpless, so humiliated. This secured him from very close observation, and greatly favored the preparations he was stealthily making to meet the Norman expedition with stout help on the shore.

« Chapter XVI. (Henry II.) | Contents | Chapter XVIII. (Norman Invasion) »

NOTES

[1] M'Gee.

[Fairlie]

STORY OF IRELAND

By A. M. Sullivan

CHAPTER XVIII.

From the Atlas and Cyclopedia of Ireland (1900)

« Chapter XVII. (Diarmid M'Murrogh) | Contents | Chapter XIX. (Strongbow) »

HOW THE NORMAN ADVENTURERS GOT A FOOTHOLD ON IRISH SOIL

THE fatal hour was now at hand. Early in the month of May a small flotilla of strange vessels ran into a little creek on the Wexford coast, near Bannow and disembarked an armed force upon the shore. This was the advanced guard of the Norman invasion; a party of thirty knights, sixty men in armor, and three hundred footmen, under Robert Fitzstephen. Next day at the same point of disembarkation arrived Maurice de Prendergast, a Welsh gentleman who had joined the enterprise, bringing with him an additional force. Camping on the coast, they quickly dispatched a courier to M'Murrogh to say that they had come. Diarmid hastened to the spot with all the men he could rally. The joint force at once marched upon and laid siege to Wexford, "which town, after a gallant defence, capitulated to them. Elate with this important victory, and strengthened in numbers, Diarmid now marched into Ossory. Here he was confronted by Fitzpatrick, prince of Ossory, commanding, however, a force quite inferior to M'Murrogh's. A sanguinary engagement ensued. The Ossorians bravely held their own throughout the day, until decoyed from their chosen position into an open ground where the Norman cavalry had full play, "the poise of the beam" was turned against them; they were thrown into confusion, pressed by the enemy, and at length overthrown with great slaughter.

Roderick the Second, titular Ard-Ri, now awakened to the necessity of interposing with the national forces; not as against an invasion; for at this period, and indeed for some time afterward, none of the Irish princes attached such a character or meaning to the circumstance that M'Murrogh had enlisted into his service some men of England. It was to check M'Murrogh, the deposed king of Leinster, in his hostile proceedings, that the Ard-Ri summoned the national forces to meet him at the Hill of Tara. The provincial princes, with their respective forces, assembled at his call; but had scarcely done so, when, owing to some contention, the northern contingent, under Mac Dunlevy, prince of Ulidia, withdrew. With the remainder, however, Roderick marched upon Ferns, the Lagenian capital, where M'Murrogh had intrenched himself. Roderick appears to have exhibited weakness and vacillation in the crisis, when boldness, promptitude, and vigor were so vitally requisite. He began to parley and diplomatize with M'Murrogh, who cunningly feigned willingness to agree to any terms; for all he secretly desired was to gain time till Strongbow and the full force from Wales would be at his side. M'Murrogh, with much show of moderation and humility, agreed to a treaty with the Ard-Ri, by which the sovereignty of Leinster was restored to him; and he, on the other hand, solemnly bound himself by a secret clause, guaranteed by his own son as hostage, that he would bring over no more foreigners to serve in his army.

No suspicion of any such scheme as an invasion seems even for an instant to have crossed the monarch's mind; yet he wisely saw the danger of importing a foreign force into the country. He and the other princes really believed that the only object M'Murrogh had was to regain the sovereignty of Leinster.

The crafty and perfidious Diarmid in this treaty gained the object he sought—time. Scarcely had Roderick and the national forces retired, than the Leinster king, hearing that a further Norman contingent, under Maurice Fitzgerald, had landed at Wexford, marched upon Dublin—then held by the Danes under their prince Hasculf Mac Turkill, tributary to the Irish Ard-Ri—and set up a claim to the monarchy of Ireland. The struggle was now fully inaugurated. Soon after a third Norman force, under Raymond le Gros (or "the Fat"), landed in Waterford estuary, on the Wexford side, and hastily fortified themselves on the rock of Dundonolf, awaiting the main force under Strongbow.

And now we encounter the evil and terrible results of the riven and disorganized state of Ireland, to which I have already sufficiently adverted. The hour at last had come, when the curse was to work, when the punishment was to fall!

It was at such a moment as this—just as Roderick was again preparing to take the field to crush the more fully developed designs of Diarmid—that Donogh O'Brien, Prince of Thomond, chose to throw off allegiance to the Ard-Ri, and precipitate a civil war in the very face of a foreign invasion! Meanwhile, Strongbow was on the point of embarking at Milford Haven with a most formidable force, when King Henry, much mistrusting the adventurous and powerful knight—and having, secretly, his own designs about Ireland, which he feared the ambition of Strongbow, if successful, might thwart—imperatively forbade his sailing. Strongbow disregarded the royal mandate, and set sail with his fleet. He landed at Waterford (August 23, 1171), and joined by the force of Raymond, which had been cooped up in their fort on the rock of Dundonolf, laid siege to the city. Waterford, like Dublin, was a Dano-Irish city, and was governed and commanded by Reginald, a prince of Danish race. The neighboring Irish under O'Felan, prince of the Deisi, patriotically hurried to the assistance of the Danish citizens; and the city was defended with a heroism equal to that of the three hundred at Thermopylae. Again and again the assailants were hurled from the walls; but at length the Norman sieging skill prevailed; a breach was effected; the enemy poured into the town, and a scene of butchery shocking to contemplate ensued. Diarmid arrived just in time to congratulate Strongbow on this important victory. He had brought his daughter Eva with him, and amid the smoking and blood-stained ruins of the city the nuptials of the Norman knight and the Irish princess were celebrated.

Strongbow and M'Murrogh now marched for Dublin. The Ard-Ri who had meantime taken the field, made an effort to intercept them, but he was out-maneuvered, and they reached and commenced to siege the city. The citizens sought a parley. The fate of Waterford had struck terror into them. They dispatched to the besiegers' camp, as negotiator or mediator, their archbishop, Laurence, or Lorcan O'Tuahal, the first prelate of Dublin of Irish origin.

"This illustrious man, canonized both by sanctity and patriotism, was then in the thirty-ninth year of his age, and the ninth of his episcopate. His father was lord of Imayle and chief of his clan; his sister had been wife of Dermid and mother of Eva, the prize bride of Earl Richard. He himself had been a hostage with Dermid in his youth, and afterward abbot of Glendalough, the most celebrated monastic city of Leinster. He stood, therefore, to the besieged, being their chief pastor, in the relation of a father; to Dermid, and strangely enough to Strongbow also, as brother-in-law and uncle by marriage. A fitter ambassador could not be found.

"Maurice Regan, the 'Latiner,' or secretary of Dermid, had advanced to the walls and summoned the city to surrender, and deliver up 'thirty pledges' to his master, their lawful prince. Asculph, son of Torcall, was in favor of the surrender, but the citizens could not agree among themselves as to hostages. No one was willing to trust himself to the notoriously untrustworthy Dermid. The archbishop was then sent out on the part of the citizens to arrange the terms in detail. He was received with all reverence in the camp, but while he was deliberating with the commanders without, and the townsmen were anxiously awaiting his return, Milo de Cogan and Raymond the Fat, seizing the opportunity, broke into the city at the head of their companies, and began to put the inhabitants ruthlessly to the sword. They were soon followed by the whole force eager for massacre and pillage. The archbishop hastened back to endeavor to stay the havoc which was being made of his people. He threw himself before the infuriated Irish and Normans, he threatened, he denounced, he bared his own breast to the swords of the assassins. All to little purpose: the blood fury exhausted itself before peace settled over the city. Its Danish chief Asculph, with many of his followers, escaped to their ships, and fled to the Isle of Man and the Hebrides in search of succor and revenge. Roderick, unprepared to besiege the enemy who had thus outmarched and outwitted him, at that season of the year—it could not be earlier than October—broke up his encampment at Clondalkin and retired to Connaught. Earl Richard having appointed De Cogan his governor of Dublin, followed on the rear of the retreating Ard-Ri, at the instigation of M'Murrogh, burning and plundering the churches of Kells, Clonard, and Slane, and carrying off the hostages of East-Meath."[1]

Roderick, having first vainly notified M'Murrogh to return to his allegiance on forfeit of the life of his hostage, beheaded the son of Diarmid, who had been given as surety for his father's good faith at the treaty of Ferns. Soon after M'Murrogh himself died, and his end, as recorded in the chronicles, was truly horrible. "His death, which took place in less than a year after his sacrilegious church burnings in Meath, is described as being accompanied by fearful evidence of divine displeasure. He died intestate, and without the sacraments of the church. His disease was of some unknown and loathsome kind, and was attended with insufferable pain, which, acting on the naturally savage violence of his temper, rendered him so furious that his ordinary attendants must have been afraid to approach him, and his body became at once a putrid mass, so that its presence above ground could not be endured. Some historians suggest that this account of his death may have been the invention of enemies, yet it is so consistent with what we know of M'Murrogh's character and career from other sources, as to be noways incredible. He was at his death eighty-one years of age, and is known in Irish history as Diarmaid-na-Gall, or Dermot of the Foreigners."

An incident well calculated to win our admiration presents itself, in the midst of the dismal chapter I have just sketched in outline; an instance of chivalrous honor and good faith on the part of a Norman lord in behalf of an Irish chieftain! Maurice de Prendergast was deputed by Earl "Strongbow" as envoy to Mac Gilla Patrick, prince of Ossory, charged to invite him to a conference in the Norman camp. Prendergast undertook to prevail upon the Ossorian prince to comply, on receiving from Strongbow a solemn pledge that good faith would be observed toward the Irish chief, and that he should be free and safe coming and returning. Relying on this pledge, Prendergast bore the invitation to Mac Gilla Patrick, and prevailed upon him to accompany him to the earl. "Understanding, however, during the conference," says the historian, "that treachery was about to be used toward Mac Gilla Patrick, he rushed into Earl Strongbow's presence, and 'sware by the cross of his sword that no man there that day should dare lay handes on the kyng of Ossery.'" And well kept he his word. Out of the camp, when the conference ended, rode the Irish chief, and by his side, good sword in hand, that glorious type of honor and chivalry, Prendergast, ever since named in Irish tradition and history as "the Faithful Norman"—"faithful among the faithless" we might truly say! Scrupulously did he redeem his word to the Irish prince. He not only conducted him safely back to his own camp, but, encountering on the way a force belonging to Strongbow's ally, O'Brien, returning from a foray into Ossory, he attacked and defeated them. That night "the Faithful Norman" remained, as the old chronicler has it, "in the woods," the guest of the Irish chief, and next day returned to the English lines. This truly pleasing episode—this little oasis of chivalrous honor in the midst of a trackless expanse of treacherous and ruthless warfare, has been made the subject of a short poem by Mr. Aubrey De Vere, in his "Lyrical Chronicle of Ireland:"

THE FAITHFUL NORMAN

Praise to the valiant and faithful foe!
Give us noble foes, not the friend who lies!
We dread the drugged cup, not the open blow:
We dread the old hate in the new disguise.

To Ossory's king they had pledged their word:
He stood in their camp, and their pledge they broke;
Then Maurice the Norman upraised his sword;
The cross on its hilt he kiss'd, and spoke:

"So long as this sword or this arm hath might,
I swear by the cross which is lord of all,
By the faith and honor of noble and knight,
Who touches you, Prince, by this hand shall fall!"

So side by side through the throng they pass'd;
And Eire gave praise to the just and true.
Brave foe! the past truth heals at last:
There is room in the great heart of Eire for you!

It is nigh seven hundred years since "the Faithful Norman" linked the name of Prendergast to honor and chivalry on Irish soil. Those who have read that truly remarkable work, Pren-dergast's "Cromwellian Settlement of Ireland" will conclude that the spirit of Maurice is still to be found among some of those who bear his name.

« Chapter XVII. (Diarmid M'Murrogh) | Contents | Chapter XIX. (Strongbow) »

NOTES

[1] M'Gee.

[Fairlie]

STORY OF IRELAND

By A. M. Sullivan

CHAPTER XIX.

From the Atlas and Cyclopedia of Ireland (1900)

« Chapter XVIII. (Norman Invasion) | Contents | Chapter XX. (Roderick O'Conor) »

HOW HENRY RECALLED THE ADVENTURERS—HOW HE CAME OVER HIMSELF TO PUNISH THEM AND BEFRIEND THE IRISH

STRONGBOW having now assumed the sovereignty of Leinster, King Henry's jealousy burst into a flame. He issued a proclamation ordering Strongbow and every other Englishman in Ireland to return forthwith to England on pain of outlawry! Strongbow hurriedly dispatched ambassador after ambassador to soothe Henry's anger; but all was vain. At length he hastened to England himself, and found the English sovereign assembling an enormous fleet and army with the intent of himself invading Ireland! The crafty knight humiliated himself to the utmost; yet it was with great difficulty the king was induced even to grant him audience. "When he did, Strongbow, partly by his own most abject protestations of submission, and partly by the aid of mediators, received the royal pardon for his contumacy, and was confirmed in his grants of land in Wexford.

Early in October, 1171, Henry sailed with his armada of over four hundred ships, with a powerful army; and on the 18th of that month landed at Crooch, in Waterford harbor. In his train came the flower of the Norman knights, captains, and commanders; and even in the day of Ireland's greatest unity and strength she would have found it difficult to cope with the force which the English king now led into the land.

Coming in such kingly power, and with all the pomp and pageantry with which he was particularly careful to surround himself—studiously polished, politic, plausible, dignified, and courtierlike toward such of the Irish princes as came within his presence—proclaiming himself by word and act, angry with the lawless and ruthless proceedings of Strongbow, Raymond, Fitzstephen, and Fitzgerald—Henry seems to have appeared to the Irish of the neighborhood something like an illustrious deliverer! They had full and public knowledge of his strong proclamation against Strongbow and his companions, calling upon all the Norman auxiliaries of Dermot to return forthwith to England on pain of outlawry. On every occasion subsequent to his landing Henry manifested a like feeling and purpose; so much so that the Irish of Wexford, who had taken Fitzstephen prisoner, sent a deputation to deliver him up to be dealt with by Henry, and the king imprisoned him forthwith in Reginald's tower to wait further sentence!

In fine, Henry pretended to come as an angry king to chastise his own contumacious subjects—the Norman auxiliaries of the Leinster prince—and to adjudicate upon the complicated issues which had arisen out of the treaties of that prince with them. This most smooth and plausible hypocrisy, kept up with admirable skill, threw the Irish utterly off their guard, and made them regard his visit as the reverse of hostile or undesirable. As I have already pointed out, the idea of national unity was practically defunct among the Irish at the time. For more than a hundred years it had been very much a game of "every one for himself" (varied with "every man against everybody else") with them. There was no stable or enduring national government or central authority in the land since Brian's time. The nakedly hostile and sanguinary invasion of Strongbow they were all ready enough, in their disintegrated and ill-organized way, to confront and bravely resist to the death; and had Henry on this occasion really appeared to them to come as an invader, they would have instantly encountered him sword in hand; a truth most amply proven by the fact that when subsequently (but too late) they found out the real nature of the English designs, not all the power of united, compact, and mighty England was able, for hundreds and hundreds of years, to subdue the broken and weakened, deceived and betrayed, but still heroic Irish nation.

Attracted by the fame of Henry's magnanimity, the splendor of his power, the (supposed) justice and friendliness of his intentions, the local princes one by one arrived at his temporary court; where they were dazzled by the pomp, and caressed by the courtier affabilities, of the great English king. To several of them it seems very quickly to have occurred that, considering the ruinously distracted and demoralized state of the country, and the absence of any strong central governmental authority able to protect any one of them against the capricious lawlessness of his neighbors, the very best thing they could do—possibly for the interests of the whole country, certainly for their own particular personal or local interests—would be to constitute Henry a friendly arbitrator, regulator, and protector, on a much wider scale than (as they imagined) he intended. The wily Englishman only wanted the whisper of such a desirable pretext. It was just what he had been angling for. Yes; he, the mighty and magnanimous, the just and friendly, English sovereign would accept the position. They should all, to this end, recognize him as a nominal liege lord; and then he, on the other hand, would undertake to regulate all their differences, tranquillize the island, and guarantee to each individual secure possession of his own territory!

Thus, by a smooth and plausible diplomacy, Henry found himself, with the consent or at the request of the southern Irish princes, in a position which he never could have attained, except through seas of blood, if he had allowed them to suspect that he came as a hostile invader, not as a neighbor and powerful friend.

From Waterford he marched to Cashel, and from Cashel to Dublin receiving on the way visits from the several local princes; and now that the news spread that the magnanimous English king had consented to be their arbitrator, protector, and liege lord, every one of them that once visited Henry went away wheedled into adhesion to the scheme. Among the rest was Donald O'Brien, prince of Thomond, who the more readily gave in his adhesion to the new idea, for that he, as I have already mentioned of him, had thrown off allegiance to Roderick, the titular Ard-Ri, and felt the necessity of protection by some one against the probable consequences of his conduct. Arrived at Dublin, Henry played the king on a still grander scale. A vast palace of wicker-work was erected [1] for his especial residence; and here, during the winter, he kept up a continued round of feasting, hospitality, pomp and pageantry. Every effort was used to attract the Irish princes to the royal court, and once attracted thither, Henry made them the object of the most flattering attentions. They were made to feel painfully the contrast between the marked superiority in elegance, wealth, civilization—especially in new species of armor and weapons, and in new methods of war and military tactics—presented by the Norman-English, and the backwardness of their own country in each particular; a change wrought, as they well knew, altogether or mainly within the last hundred and fifty years!

Where was the titular Ard-Ri all this time? Away in his western home, sullen and perplexed, scarcely knowing what to think of this singular and unprecented turn of affairs. Henry tried hard to persuade Roderick to visit him; but neither Roderick nor any of the northern princes could be persuaded to an interview with the English king. On the contrary, the Ard-Ri, when he heard that Henry was likely to come westward and visit him, instantly mustered an army and boldly took his stand at Athlone, resolved to defend the integrity and independence of at least his own territory. Henry, however, disclaimed the idea of conflict; and, once again trusting more to smooth diplomacy than to the sword, dispatched two ambassadors to the Irish titular monarch. The result was, according to some English versions of very doubtful and suspicious authority, that Roderick so far came in to the scheme of constituting Henry general suzerain as to agree to offer it no opposition on condition (readily acceded to by the ambassadors) that his own sovereignty, as, at least, next in supremacy to Henry, should be recognized. But there is no reliable proof that Roderick made any such concession, conditional or unconditional; and most Irish historians reject the story.

Having spent the Christmas in Dublin, and devoted the winter season to feasting and entertainment on a right royal scale, Henry now set about exercising his authority as general pacificator and regulator; and his first exercise of it was marked by that profound policy and sagacity which seem to have guided all his acts since he landed. He began, not by openly aggrandizing himself or his followers—that might have excited suspicion—but by evidencing a deep and earnest solicitude for the state of religion in the country. This strengthened the opinion that estimated him as a noble, magnanimous, unselfish and friendly protector, and it won for him the favor of the country. As his first exercise of general authority in the land, he convened a synod at Cashel; and at this synod, the decrees of which are known, measures were devised for the repression and correction of such abuses and irregularities in connection with religion as were known to exist in the country. Yet, strange to say, we find by the statutes and decrees of this synod nothing of a doctrinal nature requiring correction; nothing more serious calling for regulation than what is referred to in the following enactments then made:

1. That the prohibition of marriage within the canonical degrees of consanguinity be enforced.

2. That children should be regularly catechized before the church door in each parish.

3. That children should be baptized in the public fonts of the parish churches.

4. That regular tithes should be paid to the clergy rather than irregular donations from time to time.

5. That church lands should be exempt from the exaction of "livery," etc.

6. That the clergy should not be liable to any share of the eric or blood-fine, levied off the kindred of a man guilty of homicide.

7. A decree regulating wills.

Such and no more were the reforms found to be necessary in the Irish Church under Henry's own eye, notwithstanding all the dreadful stories he had been hearing, and which he (not without addition by exaggeration) had been so carefully forwarding to Rome for years before! Truth and candor, however, require the confession that the reason why there was so little, comparatively, needing to be set right just then, was because there had been during and ever since St. Malachy's time vigorous efforts on the part of the Irish prelates, priests, princes, and people themselves, to restore and repair the ruins caused by long years of bloody convulsion.

The synod over, Henry next turned his attention to civil affairs. He held a royal court at Lismore, whereat he made numerous civil appointments and regulations for the government of the territories and cities possessed by the Norman allies of the late prince of Leinster, or those surrendered by Irish princes to himself.

While Henry was thus engaged in adroitly causing his authority to be gradually recognized, respected and obeyed in the execution of peaceful, wise and politic measures for the general tranquillity and welfare of the country—for, from the hour of his landing, he had not spilled one drop of Irish blood, nor harshly treated a native of Ireland—he suddenly found himself summoned to England by gathering troubles there. Papal commissioners had arrived in his realm of Normandy to investigate the murder of St. Thomas a Becket, and threatening to lay England under an interdict if Henry could not clear or purge himself of guilty part in that foul deed. There was nothing for it but to hasten thither with all speed, abandoning for the time his Irish plans and schemes, but taking the best means he could to provide meantime for the retention of his. power and authority in the realm of Ireland.

I do not hesitate to express my opinion that, as the Normans had fastened at all upon Ireland, it was unfortunate that Henry was called away at, this juncture. No one can for an instant rank side by side the naked and heartless rapacity and bloody ferocity of the Normans who preceded and who succeeded him in Ireland with the moderation, the statesmanship, and the tolerance exhibited by Henry while remaining here. Much of this, doubtless, was policy on his part; but such a policy, though it might result in bringing the kingdom of Ireland under the same crown with England many centuries sooner than it was so brought eventually by other means, would have spared our country centuries of slaughter, persecution, and suffering unexampled in the annals of the world. There are abundant grounds for presuming that Henry's views and designs originally were wise and comprehensive, and certainly the reverse of sanguinary. He meant simply to win the sovereignty of another kingdom; but the spirit in which the Normans who remained and who came after him in Ireland acted was that of mere freebooters—rapacious and merciless plunderers—whose sole redeeming trait was their indomitable pluck and undaunted bravery.

« Chapter XVIII. (Norman Invasion) | Contents | Chapter XX. (Roderick O'Conor) »

NOTES

[1] On the spot where now stands the Protestant church of St. Andrew, St. Andrew Street, Dublin.

[Fairlie]

STORY OF IRELAND

By A. M. Sullivan

CHAPTER XX.

From the Atlas and Cyclopedia of Ireland (1900)

« Chapter XIX. (Strongbow's Recall) | Contents | Chapter XXI. (Death of Henry II.) »

HOW HENRY MADE A TREATY WITH THE IRISH KING—AND DID NOT KEEP IT

SOON the Irish began to learn the difference between King Henry's friendly courtesies and mild adjudications and the rough iron-shod rule of his needy, covetous, and lawless lieutenants. On all sides the Normans commenced to encroach upon, outrage, and despoil the Irish, until, before three years had elapsed, Henry found all he had won in Ireland lost, and the English power there apparently at the last extremity. A signal defeat which Strongbow encountered in one of his insolent forays, at the hands of O'Brien, prince of Thomond, was the signal for a general assault upon the Normans. They were routed on all sides; Strongbow himself being chased into and cooped up with a few men in a fortified tower in Waterford. But this simultaneous outbreak lacked the unity of direction, the reach of purpose, and the perseverance which would cause it to accomplish permanent rather than transitory results. The Irish gave no thought to the necessity of following up their victories; and the Norman power, on the very point of extinction, was allowed slowly to recruit and extend itself again.

Henry was sorely displeased to find affairs in Ireland in this condition; but, of course, the versions which reached him laid all the blame on the Irish, and represented the Norman settlers as meek and peaceful colonists driven to defend themselves against treacherous savages. The English monarch, unable to repair to Ireland himself, bethought him of the papal letters, and resolved to try their influence on the Irish. He accordingly commissioned William Fitzadelm De Burgo and Nicholas, the prior of Wallingford, to proceed with these documents to Ireland, and report to him on the true state of affairs there. These royal commissioners duly reached that country, and we are told that, having assembled the Irish prelates, the papal letters were read. But no chronicle, English or Irish, tells us what was said by the Irish bishops on hearing them read. Very likely there were not wanting prelates to point out that the pope had been utterly misinformed and kept in the dark as to the truth about Ireland; and that so far the bulls were of no valid force as such: that as to the authority necessary to King Henry to effect the excellent designs he professed, it had already been pretty generally yielded to him for such purpose by the Irish princes themselves without these letters at all: that, for the purposes and on the conditions specified in the papal letters, he was likely to receive every co-operation from the Irish princes; but that it was quite another thing if he expected them to yield themselves up to be plundered and enslaved—that they would resist forever and ever; and if there was to be peace, morality, or religion in the land, it was his own Norman lords and governors he should recall or curb.

Very much to this effect was the report of the royal commissioners when they returned, and as if to confirm the conclusion that these were the views of the Irish prelates and princes at the time, we find the Irish monarch, Roderick, sending special ambassadors to King Henry to negotiate a formal treaty, recording and regulating the relations which were to exist between them. "In September 1175," we are told, "The Irish monarch sent over to England as his plenipotentiaries, Catholicus O'Duffy, the archbishop of Tuam; Concors, abbot of St. Brendan's of Clonfert; and a third, who is called Master Laurence, his chancellor, but who was no other than the holy Archbishop of Dublin, as we know that that illustrious man was one of those who signed the treaty on this occasion. A great council was held at Windsor, within the octave of Michaelmas, and a treaty was agree on, the articles of which were to the effect that Roderick was to be king under Henry, rendering him service as his vassal; that he was to hold his hereditary territory of Connaught in the same way as before the coming of Henry into Ireland; that he was to have jurisdiction and dominion over the rest of the island, including its kings and princes, whom he should oblige to pay tribute, through his hands, to the king of England; that these kings and princes were also to hold possession of their respective territories as long as they remained faithful to the king of England and paid their tribute to him; that if they departed from their fealty to the king of England, Roderick was to judge and depose them, either by his own power, or, if that was not sufficient, by the aid of the Anglo-Norman authorities; but that his jurisdiction should not extend to the territories occupied by the English settlers, which at a later period was called the English Pale, and comprised Meath and Leinster, Dublin with its dependent district, Waterford, and the country thence to Dungarvan.

The treaty between the two sovereigns, Roderick and Henry, clearly shows that the mere recognition of the English king as suzerain was all that appeared to be claimed on the one side or yielded on the other. With this single exception or qualification, the native Irish power, authority, rights and liberties, were fully and formally guaranteed. What Henry himself thought of the relations in which he stood by this treaty toward Ireland, and the sense in which he read its stipulations, is very intelligibly evidenced in the fact that he never styled, signed, or described himself as either king or lord of Ireland in the documents reciting and referring to his relations with and toward that country.

But neither Henry nor his Norman barons kept the treaty. Like that made with Ireland by another English king, five hundred years later on at Limerick, it was "broken ere the ink wherewith 't was writ was dry."

I am inclined to credit Henry with having at one time intended to keep it. I think there are indications that he was in a certain sense coerced by his Norman lords into the abandonment, or at least the alteration, of his original policy, plans, and intentions as to Ireland, which were quite too peaceful and afforded too little scope for plunder to please those adventurers. In fact the barons revolted against the idea of not being allowed full scope for robbing the Irish; and one of them, De Courcy, resolved to fling the king's restrictions overboard, and set off on a conquering or freebooting expedition on his own account! A historian tells us that the royal commissioner Fitzadelm was quite unpopular with the colony. "His tastes were not military; he did not afford sufficient scope for spoliation; and he was openly accused of being too friendly to the Irish. De Courcy, one of his aides in the government, became so disgusted with his inactivity that he set out, in open defiance of the viceroy's prohibition, on an expedition to the north. Having selected a small army of twenty-two knights and three hundred soldiers, all picked men, to accompany him, by rapid marches he arrived the fourth day at Downpatrick, the chief city of Ulidia, and the clangor of his bugles ringing through the streets at the break of day was the first intimation which the inhabitants received of this wholly unexpected incursion. In the alarm and confusion which ensued, the people became easy victims, and the English, after indulging their rage and rapacity, intrenched themselves in a corner of the city. Cardinal Vivian, who had come as legate from Pope Alexander the Third to the nations of Scotland and Ireland, and who had only recently arrived from the Isle of Man, happened to be then in Down, and was horrified at this act of aggression. He attempted to negotiate terms of peace, and proposed that De Courcy should withdraw his army on the condition of the Ulidians paying tribute to the English king; but any such terms being sternly rejected by De Courcy, the cardinal encouraged and exhorted Mac Dunlevy, the king of Ulidia and Dalariada, to defend his territories manfully against the invaders. Coming as this advice did from the pope's legate, we may judge in what light the grant of Ireland to King Henry the Second was regarded by the pope himself."

It became clear that whatever policy or principles Henry might originally have thought of acting on in Ireland, he should abandon them and come into the scheme of the barons, which was, that he should give them free and full license for the plunder of the Irish, and they in return would extend his realm. So we find the whole aim and spirit of the royal policy forthwith altered to meet the piratical views of the barons.

One of Roderick's sons, Murrogh, rebelled against and endeavored to depose his father (as the sons of Henry endeavored to dethrone him a few years subsequently), and Milo de Cogan, by the lord deputy's orders, led a Norman force into Connaught to aid the parricidal revolt! The Connacians, however, stood by their aged king, shrank from the rebellious son, and under the command of Roderick in person gave battle to the Normans at the Shannon. De Cogan and his Norman treaty-breakers and plunder-seekers were utterly and disastrously defeated; and Murrogh, the unnatural son, being captured, was tried for his offence by the assembled clans, and suffered the eric decreed by law for his crime.

This was the first deliberate rent in the treaty by the English. The next was by Henry himself, who, in violation of his kingly troth, undertook to dub his son John, yet a mere child, either lord or king of Ireland, and by those plausible deceits and diplomatic arts in which he proved himself a master, he obtained the approbation of the pope for his proceeding. Quickly following upon these violations of the treaty of Windsor, and suddenly and completely changing the whole nature of the relations between the Irish and the Normans as previously laid down, Henry began to grant and assign away after the most wholesale fashion the lands of the Irish, apportioning among his hungry followers whole territories yet unseen by an English eye!' Naturalists tell how the paw of a tiger can touch, with the softness of velvet or clutch with the force of a vice, according as the deadly fangs are sheathed or put forth. The Irish princes had been treated with the velvet smoothness; they were now to be torn by the lacerating fangs of that tiger grip to which they had yielded themselves up so easily.

« Chapter XIX. (Strongbow's Recall) | Contents | Chapter XXI. (Death of Henry II.) »

[Fairlie]

STORY OF IRELAND

By A. M. Sullivan

CHAPTER XXI.

From the Atlas and Cyclopedia of Ireland (1900)

« Chapter XX. (Roderick O'Conor) | Contents | Chapter XXII. (Anglo-Normans) »

DEATH-BED SCENES

IT is a singular fact—one which no historian can avoid particularly noticing—that every one of the principal actors on the English side in this eventful episode of the first Anglo-Norman invasion, ended life violently, or under most painful circumstances. M'Murrogh the traitor died, as we have already seen, of a mysterious disease, by which his body became putrid while yet he lingered between life and death. Strongbow died under somewhat similar circumstances; an ulcer in his foot spread upward, and so eat away his body that it almost fell to pieces. Strongbow's son was slain by the father's hand. The death-bed of King Henry the Second was a scene of horror. He died cursing with the most fearful maledictions his own sons! In vain the bishops and ecclesiastics surrounding his couch, horror-stricken, sought to prevail upon him to revoke these awful imprecations on his own offspring! "Accursed be the day on which I was born; and accursed of God be the sons that I leave after me," were his last words.[1] Far different is the spectacle presented to us in the death-scene of the hapless Irish monarch Roderick. Misfortunes in every shape had indeed overwhelmed him, and in his last hours sorrows were multiplied to him. "Near the junction of Lough Corrib with Lough Mask, on the boundary line between Mayo and Galway, stand the ruins of the once populous monastery and village of Cong.

The first Christian kings of Connaught had founded the monastery, or enabled St. Fechin to do so by their generous donations. The father of Roderick had enriched its shrine by the gift of a particle of the true cross, reverently enshrined in a reliquary, the workmanship of which still excites the admiration of antiquaries. Here Roderick retired in the seventieth year of his age, and for twelve years thereafter—until the 29th day of November, 1198—here he wept and prayed and withered away. Dead to the world, as the world to him, the opening of a new grave in the royal corner at Clonmacnoise was the last incident connected with his name which reminded Connaught that it had lost its once prosperous prince, and Ireland that she had seen her last Ard-Ri, according to the ancient Milesian constitution. Powerful princes of his own and other houses the land was destined to know for many generations, before its sovereignity was merged in that of England, but none fully entitled to claim the high-sounding but often fallacious title of Monarch of all Ireland." One other deathbed scene, described to us by the same historian, one more picture from the Irish side, and we shall take our leave of this eventful chapter of Irish history, and the actors who moved in it.

The last hours of Roderick's ambassador, the illustrious archbishop of Dublin, are thus described: "From Rome he returned with legatine powers which he used with great energy during the year 1180. In the autumn of that year he was intrusted with the delivery to Henry the Second of the son of Roderick O'Connor, as a pledge for the fulfillment of the treaty of Windsor, and with other diplomatic functions. On reaching England he found the king had gone to France, and following him thither, he was seized with illness as he approached the monastery of Eu, and with a prophetic foretaste of death, he exclaimed as he came in sight of the towers of the convent, 'Here shall I make my resting place.' The Abbot Osbert and the monks of the order of St. Victor received him tenderly and watched his couch for the few days he yet lingered. Anxious to fulfill his mission, he dispatched David, tutor of the son of Roderick, with messages to Henry, and waited his return with anxiety. David brought him a satisfactory response from the English king, and the last anxiety only remained. In death, as in life, his thoughts were with his country. 'Ah, foolish and insensible people,' he exclaimed in his latest hours, 'what will become of you? Who will relieve your miseries? Who will heal you?' When recommended to make his last will, he answered with apostolic simplicity: 'God knows out of all my revenues I have not a single coin to bequeath.' And thus on the 11th of November, 1180, in the forty-eighth year of his age, under the shelter of a Norman roof, surrounded by Norman mourners, the Gaelic statesman-saint departed out of this life, bequeathing one more canonized memory to Ireland and to Rome."

« Chapter XX. (Roderick O'Conor) | Contents | Chapter XXII. (Anglo-Normans) »

NOTES

[1] "Mandit soit le jour ou je suis né; et mandits de Dieu soient les fils qui je laisse."

[Fairlie]

STORY OF IRELAND

By A. M. Sullivan

CHAPTER XXII.

From the Atlas and Cyclopedia of Ireland (1900)

« Chapter XXI. (Death of Henry) | Contents | Chapter XXIII. (Godfrey Tyrconnell) »

HOW THE ANGLO-NORMAN COLONY FARED

I HAVE, in the foregoing pages, endeavored to narrate fully and minutely all the circumstances leading to, and attendant upon, the Anglo-Norman landing and settlement in this country, A. D. 1169-1172. It transcends in importance all other events in our history, having regard to ulterior and enduring consequences; and a clear and correct understanding of that event will furnish a key to the confused history of the troubled period which immediately succeeded it.

It is not my design to follow the formal histories of Ireland in relating at full length, and in consecutive detail, the events of the four centuries that succeeded the date of King Henry's landing. It was a period of such wild, confused and chaotic struggle that youthful readers would be hopelessly bewildered in the effort to keep its incidents minutely and consecutively remembered. Moreover, the history of those four centuries, fully written out, would make a goodly volume in itself; a volume abounding with stirring incidents and affecting tragedies, and with episodes of valor and heroism, adventurous daring, and chivalrous, patriotic devotion, not to be surpassed in the pages of romance. But the scope of my story forbids my dwelling at any great length upon the events of this period. Such of my readers as may desire to trace them in detail will find them succinctly related in the formal histories of Ireland. What I propose to do here is to make my youthful readers acquainted with the general character, course, and progress of the struggle; the phases, changes, or mutations through which it passed; the aspects it presented, and the issues it contested, as each century rolled on, dwelling only upon events of comparative importance, and incidents illustrating the actions and the actors of the period.

Let us suppose a hundred years to have passed away since King Henry's visit to Ireland—that event which Englishmen who write Irish history affect to regard as an "easy conquest" of our country. Let us see what the Normans have achieved by the end of one hundred years in Ireland. They required but one year to conquer England; and, accordingly, judging by all ordinary calculations and probabilities, we ought surely, in one hundred times that duration, to find Ireland as thoroughly subdued and as completely pacified as England had been in the twelvemonth that sufficed for its utter subjugation.

The nature of the struggle waged by the Anglo-Normans against Ireland during this period was rather peculiar. At no time was it an open and avowed effort to conquer Ireland as England had been conquered, though, as a matter of fact, the military force engaged against the Irish throughout the period exceeded that which had sufficed the Normans to conquer England. King Henry, as we have already seen, presented himself and his designs in no such hostile guise to the Irish. He seems to have concluded that, broken and faction-split, disorganized and demoralized, as the Irish princes were, they would probably be rallied into union by the appearance of a nakedly hostile invasion; and he knew well that it would be easier to conquer a dozen Englands than to overcome this soldier race if only united against a common foe. So the crown of England did not, until long after this time, openly profess to pursue a conquest of Ireland, any more than it professed to pursue a conquest in India in the time of Clive.

An Anglo-Norman colony was planted on the southeastern corner of the island. This colony, which was well sustained from England, was to push its own fortunes, as it were, in Ireland, and to extend itself as rapidly as it could. To it, as ample excitement, sustainment, and recompense was given, prospectively, the land to be taken from the Irish. The planting of such a colony—composed, as it was, of able, skillful, and desperate military adventurers—and the endowing of it, so to speak, with such rich prospect of plunder, was the establishment of a perpetual and self-acting mechanism for the gradual reduction of Ireland.

Against this colony the Irish warred in their own desultory way, very much as they warred against each other, neither better nor worse; and in the fierce warring of the Irish princes with each other, the Anglo-Norman colonists sided now with one, now with another; nay, very frequently in such conflicts Anglo-Normans fought on each side! The colony, however, had precisely that which the Irish needed—a supreme authority ever guiding it in the one purpose; and it always felt strong in the consciousness that, at the worst, England was at its back, and that in its front lay, not the Irish nation, but the broken fragments of that once great and glorious power.

The Irish princes, meantime, each one for himself, fought away as usual, either against the Norman colonists or against some neighboring Irish chief. Indeed, they may be described as fighting each other with one hand, and fighting England with the other! Quite as curious is the fact that in all their struggles with the latter, they seem to have been ready enough to admit the honorary lordship or suzerainty of the English king, but resolved to resist to the death the Norman encroachments beyond the cities and lands to the possession of which they had attained by reason of their treaties with, or successes under, Dermot M'Murrogh. The fight was all for the soil. Then, as in our own times, the battle cry was "Land or Life!"

But the English power had two modes of action; and when one failed the other was tried. As long as the rapacious freebooting of the barons was working profitably, not only for themselves but for the king, it was all very well. But when that policy resulted in arousing the Irish to successful resistance, and the freebooters were being routed everywhere, or when they had learned to think too much of their own profit and too little of the king's, then his English majesty could take to the role of magnanimous friend, protector, or suzerain of the Irish princes, and angry punisher of the rapacious Norman barons.

We have already seen that when Henry the Second visited Ireland it was (pretendedly at least) in the character of a just-minded king who came to chastise his own subjects, the Norman settlers. When next an English king visited these shores, it was professedly with a like design. In 1210 King John arrived, and during his entire stay in this country he was occupied, not in wars or conflicts with the Irish—quite the contrary—in chastising the most powerful and presumptuous of the great Norman lords! What wonder that the Irish princes were confirmed in the old idea, impressed upon them by King: Henry's words and actions, that though in the Norman barons they had to deal with savage and. merciless spoliators, in the English king they had a friendly suzerain? As a matter of fact, the Irish princes who had fought most stoutly and victoriously against the Normans up to the date of John's arrival, at once joined their armies to his, and at the head of this combined force: the English king proceeded to overthrow the most piratical and powerful of the barons!

Says M'Gee: "The visit of King John, which lasted from 20th of June to the 25th of August, was mainly directed to the reduction of those intractable Anglo-Irish princes whom Fitz-Henry and Gray had proved themselves unable to cope with. Of these the De Lacys of Meath were the most obnoxious. They not only assumed an independent state, but had sheltered De Braos, Lord of Brecknock, one of the recusant barons of Wales, and refused to surrender him on the royal summons. To assert his authority and to strike terror into the nobles of other possessions, John crossed the channel with a prodigious fleet—in the Irish annals said to consist of seven hundred sail. He landed at Crook, reached Dublin, and. prepared at once to subdue the Lacys. With his own army, and the co-operation of Cathal O'Conor, he drove out Walter de Lacy, Lord of Meath, who fled to his brother, Hugh de Lacy, since De Courcy's disgrace, Earl of Ulster. From Meath into Louth John pursued the brothers, crossing the lough at Carlingford with his. ships, which must have coasted in his company. From Carlingford they retreated, and he pursued to Carrickfergus, and that fortress, being unable to resist a royal fleet and navy, they fled into. Man or Scotland, and thence escaped in disguise, into France. With their guest De Braos, they wrought as gardeners in the grounds of the Abbey of Saint Taurin Evreux, until the abbot, having discovered by their manners the key to their real rank, negotiated successfully with John for their restoration to their estates. Walter agreed to pay a fine of twenty-five hundred marks for his lordship in Meath, and Hugh four thousand for his possessions in Ulster. Of De Braos we have no particulars; his high-spirited wife and children were thought to have been starved to death by order of the unforgiving tyrant in one of his castles."

In the next succeeding reign (that of Henry the Third), we find a like impression existing and encouraged among the Irish princes; the king of Connaught proceeding to England and complaining to the king of the unjust, oppressive, and rapacious conduct of the barons. And we find King Henry ordering him substantial redress, writing to his lord justice in Ireland, Maurice Fitzgerald, to "pluck up by the root" the powerful De Burgo, who lorded it over all the west. There is still in existence a letter written by the Connacian king to Henry the Third, thanking him for the many favors he had conferred upon him, but particularly for this one.

« Chapter XXI. (Death of Henry) | Contents | Chapter XXIII. (Godfrey Tyrconnell) »

[Fairlie]

STORY OF IRELAND

By A. M. Sullivan

CHAPTER XXIII.

From the Atlas and Cyclopedia of Ireland (1900)

« Chapter XXII. (Anglo-Normans) | Contents | Chapter XXIV. (Edward Bruce) »

"THE BIER THAT CONQUERED"—THE STORY OF GODFREY OF TYRCONNELL.

I HAVE remarked that the Irish chiefs may be said to have fought each other with one hand, while they fought the English with the other. Illustrating this state of things, I may refer to the story of Godfrey, Prince of Tyrconnell—as glorious a character as ever adorned the page of history. For years the Normans had striven in vain to gain a foothold in Tyrconnell. Elsewhere—in Connaught, in Munster, throughout all Leinster, and in Southern Ulster—they could betimes assert their sway, either by dint of arms or insidious diplomatic strategy. But never could they overreach the wary and martial Cinel-Connal, from whom more than once the Norman armies had suffered overthrow. At length the lord justice, Maurice Fitzgerald, felt that this hitherto invulnerable fortress of native Irish power in the northwest had become a formidable standing peril to the entire English colony; and it was accordingly resolved that the whole strength of the Anglo-Norman force in Ireland should be put forth in one grand expedition against it; and this expedition the lord justice decided that he himself would lead and command in person! At this time Tyrconnell was ruled by a prince who was the soul of chivalric bravery, wise in the council, and daring in the field—Godfrey O'Donnell.

The lord justice, while assembling his forces, employed the time, moreover, in skillfully diplomatizing, playing the insidious game which, in every century, most largely helped the Anglo-Norman interest in Ireland—setting up rivalries and inciting hostilities among the Irish princes! Having, as he thought, not only cut off Godfrey from all chance of alliance or support from his fellow-princes of the north and west, but environed him with their active hostility, Fitzgerald marched on Tyrconnell. His army moved with all the pomp and panoply of Norman pride. Lords, earls, knights, and squires, from every Norman castle or settlement in the land, had rallied at the summons of the king's representative. Godfrey, isolated though he found himself, was nothing daunted by the tremendous odds which he knew were against him. He was conscious of his own military superiority to any of the Norman lords yet sent against him—he was in fact one of the most skillful captains of the age—and he relied implicitly on the unconquerable bravery of his clansmen. Both armies met at Credan-Kille in the north of Sligo. A battle which the Normans describe as fiercely and vehemently contested, ensued and raged for hours without palpable advantage to either side. In vain the mail-clad battalion's of England rushed upon the saffron kilted Irish clansmen; each time they reeled from the shock and fled in bloody rout! In vain the cavalry squadrons—long the boasted pride of the Normans—headed by earls and knights whose names were rallying cries in Norman England, swept upon the Irish lines! Riderless horses alone returned,

"Their nostrils all red with the sign of despair."

The lord justice in wild dismay saw the proudest army ever rallied by Norman power on Irish soil being routed and hewn piecemeal before his eyes! Godfrey, on the other hand, the very impersonation of valor, was everywhere cheering his men, directing the battle and dealing destruction to the Normans. The gleam of his battle-ax or the flash of his sword was the sure precursor of death to the haughtiest earl or knight that dared to confront him. The lord justice—than whom no abler general or braver soldier served the king—saw that the day was lost if he could not save it by some desperate effort, and at the worst he had no wish to survive the overthrow of the splendid army he had led into the field. The flower of the Norman nobles had fallen under the sword of Godfrey, and him the Lord Maurice now sought out, dashing into the thickest of the fight. The two leaders met in single combat. Fitzgerald dealt the Tyrconnell chief a deadly wound; but Godfrey, still keeping his seat, with one blow of his battle-ax, clove the lord justice to the earth, and the proud baron was carried senseless off the field by his followers. The English fled in hopeless confusion; and of them the chroniclers tell us there was made a slaughter that night's darkness alone arrested. The Lord Maurice was done with pomp and power after the ruin of that day. He survived his dreadful wound for some time; he retired into a Franciscan monastery which he himself had built and endowed at Youghal, and there taking the habit of a monk, he departed this life tranquilly in the bosom of religion. Godfrey, meanwhile, mortally wounded, was unable to follow up quickly the great victory of Credan-Kille; but stricken as he was, and with life ebbing fast, he did not disband his army till he had demolished the only castle the English had dared to raise on the soil of Tyrconnell. This being done, and the last soldier of England chased beyond the frontier line, he gave the order for dispersion, and himself was borne homeward to die.

This, however, sad to tell, was the moment seized upon by O'Neill, Prince of Tyrone, to wrest from the Cinel-Connal submission to his power! Hearing that the lion-hearted Godfrey lay dying, and while yet the Tyrconnellian clans, disbanded and on their homeward roads, were suffering from their recent engagement with the Normans, O'Neill sent envoys to the dying prince demanding hostages in token of submission. The envoys, say all the historians, no sooner delivered this message than they fled for their lives! Dying though Godfrey was, and broken and wounded as were his clansmen by their recent glorious struggle, the messengers of Tyrowen felt but too forcibly the peril of delivering this insolent demand! And characteristically was it answered by Godfrey! His only reply was to order an instantaneous muster of all the fighting men of Tyrconnell. The army of Tyrowen meanwhile pressed forward rapidly to strike the Cinel-Connal, if possible, before their available strength (such as it was), could be rallied. Nevertheless, they found the quickly reassembled victors of Credan-Kille awaiting them. But alas, sorrowful story! On the morning of the battle death had but too plainly set his seal upon the brow of the heroic Godfrey! As the troops were being drawn up in line, ready to march into the field, the physicians announced that his last moments were at hand; he had but a few hours to live! Godfrey himself received the information with sublime composure. Having first received the last sacraments of the church, and given minute instructions as to the order of battle, he directed that he should be laid upon the bier which was to have borne him to the grave; and that thus he should be carried at the head of his army on their march! His orders were obeyed, and then was witnessed a scene for which history has not a parallel! The dying king, laid on his bier, was borne at the head of his troops into the field! After the bier came the standard of Godfrey—on which was emblazoned a cross with the words, In hoc signo vinces [1]—and next came the charger of the dying king, caparisoned as if for battle! But Godfrey's last fight was fought! Never more was that charger to bear him where the sword-blows fell thickest. Never more would his battle-ax gleam in the front of the combat. But as if his presence, living, dead, or dying, was still a potential assurance of triumph to his people, the Cinel-Connal bore down all opposition. Long and fiercely, but vainly, the army of Tyrowen contested the field. Around the bier of Godfrey his faithful clansmen made an adamantine rampart which no foe could penetrate. Wherever it was borne the Tyrconnell phalanx, of which it was the heart and center, swept all before them. At length, when the foe was flying on all sides, they laid the bier upon the ground to tell the king that the day was won. But the face of Godfrey was marble pale, and cold and motionless! All was over! His heroic spirit had departed amid his people's shouts of victory!

Several poems have been written on this tragic yet glorious episode. That from which I take the following passages is generally accounted the best:[2]

"All worn and wan, and sore with wounds from Credan's bloody fray,
In Donegal for weary months the proud O'Donnell lay;
Around his couch in bitter grief his trusty clansmen wait,
And silent watch, with aching hearts, his faint and feeble state."

The chief asks one evening to be brought into the open air, that he may gaze once more on the landscape's familiar scenes:

"'And see the stag upon the hills, the white clouds drifting by;
And feel upon my wasted cheek God's sunshine ere I die.'"

Suddenly he starts on his pallet, and exclaims:

"'A war-steed's tramp is on the heath, and onward cometh fast,
And by the rood! a trumpet sounds! hark! it is the Red Hand's blast!'
And soon a kern all breathless ran, and told a stranger train
Across the heath was spurring fast, and then in sight it came.

"'Go, bring me, quick, my father's sword,' the noble chieftain said;
'My mantle o'er my shoulders fling, place helmet on my head;
And raise me to my feet, for ne'er shall clansman of my foe
Go boasting tell in far Tyrone he saw O'Donnell low.'"

The envoys of O'Neill arrive in Godfrey's presence, and deliver their message, demanding tribute:

"'A hundred hawks from out your woods, all trained their prey to get;
A hundred steeds from off your hills, uncrossed by rider yet;
A hundred kine from off your hills, the best your land doth know;
A hundred hounds from out your halls, to hunt the stag and roe.'"

Godfrey, however, is resolved to let his foes, be they Norman or native, know that, though dying, he is not dead yet. He orders a levy of all the fighting men of Tyrconnell:

"'Go call around Tyrconnell's chief my warriors tried and true;
Send forth a friend to Donal More, a scout to Lisnahue;
Light baal-fires quick on Esker's towers, that all the land may know
O'Donnell needeth help and haste to meet his haughty foe.

"'Oh, could I but my people head, or wield once more a spear,
Saint Augus! but we'd hunt their hosts like herds of fallow deer.
But vain the wish, since I am now a faint and failing man;
Yet, ye shall bear me to the field, in the center of my clan.

"'Right in the midst, and lest, perchance, upon the march I die,
In my coffin ye shall place me, uncovered let me lie;
And swear ye now, my body cold shall never rest in clay,
Until you drive from Donegal O'Niall's host away.'

"Then sad and stern, with hand on skian, that solemn oath they swore,
And in a coffin placed their chief, and on a litter bore.
Tho' ebbing fast his life-throbs came, yet dauntless in his mood,
He marshaled well Tyrconnell's chiefs, like leader wise and good.

"Lough Swilly's sides are thick with spears, O'Niall's host is there,
And proud and gay their battle sheen, their banners float the air;
And haughtily a challenge bold their trumpets bloweth free,
When winding down the heath-clad hills, O'Donnell's band they see!

"No answer back those warriors gave, but sternly on they stept,
And in their center, curtained black, a litter close is kept;
And all their host it guideth fair, as did in Galilee
Proud Judah's tribes the Ark of God, when crossing Egypt's sea.

"Then rose the roar of battle loud, as clan met clan in fight;
The ax and skian grew red with blood, a sad and woeful sight;
Yet in the midst o'er all, unmoved, that litter black is seen,
Like some dark rock that lifts its head o'er ocean's war serene.

"Yet once, when blenching back fierce Bryan's charge before,
Tyrconnell wavered in its ranks, and all was nearly o'er,
Aside those curtains wide were flung, and plainly to the view
Each host beheld O'Donnell there, all pale and wan in hue.

"And to his tribes he stretch'd his hands—then pointed to the foe,
When with a shout they rally round, and on Clan Hugh they go;
And back they beat their horsemen fierce, and in a column deep,
With O'Donnell in their foremost rank, in one fierce charge they sweep.

"Lough Swilly's banks are thick with spears!—O'Niall's host is there,
But rent and tost like tempest clouds—Clan Donnell in the rere!
Lough Swilly's waves are red with blood, as madly in its tide
O'Niall's horsemen wildly plunge, to reach the other side.

"And broken is Tyrowen's pride, and vanquished Clannaboy,
And there is wailing thro' the land, from Bann to Aughnacloy;
The Bed Hand's crest is bent in grief, upon its shield a stain,
For its stoutest clans are broken, its stoutest chiefs are slain.

"And proud and high Tyrconnell shouts; but blending on the gale,
Upon the ear ascendeth a sad and sullen wail;
For on that field, as back they bore, from chasing of the foe,
The spirit of O'Donnell fled!—oh, woe for Ulster, woe!

"Yet died he there all gloriously—a victor in the fight;
A chieftain at his people's head, a warrior in his might;
They dug him there a fitting grave upon that field of pride,
And a lofty cairn they raised above, by fair Lough Swilly's side."

In this story of Godfrey of Tyrconnell we have a perfect illustration of the state of affairs in Ireland at the time. Studying it, no one can marvel that the English power eventually prevailed; but many may wonder that the struggle lasted so many centuries. What Irishman can contemplate without sorrow the spectacle of those brave soldiers of Tyrconnell and their heroic prince, after contending with, and defeating, the concentrated power of the Anglo-Norman settlement, called upon to hurriedly re-unite their broken and wounded ranks that they might fight yet another battle against fresh foes—those foes their own countrymen! Only among a people given over to the madness that precedes destruction, could conduct like that of O'Neill be exhibited. At a moment when Godfrey and his battle-wounded clansmen had routed the common foe—at a moment when they were known to be weakened after such a desperate combat—at a moment when they should have been hailed with acclaim, and greeted with aid and succour by every chief and clan in Ireland—they are foully taken at disadvantage, and called upon to fight anew by their own fellow-countrymen and neighbors of Tyrowen!

The conduct of O'Neill on this occasion was a fair sample of the. prevailing practice among the Irish princes. Faction-split to the last degree, each one sought merely his own personal advantage or ambition. Nationality and patriotism were sentiments no longer understood. Bravery in battle, dauntless courage, heroic endurance, marvelous skill, we find them displaying to the last; but the higher political virtues so essential to the existence of a nation—unity of purpose and of action against a common foe—recognition of and obedience to a central national authority—were utterly absent. Let us own in sorrow that a people among whom such conduct as that of O'Neill toward Godfrey of Tyrconnell was not only possible but of frequent occurrence, deserved subjection—invited it—rendered it inevitable. Nations, like individuals, must expect the penalty of disregarding the first essentials to existence. "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty."

Factionism like that of the Irish princes found its sure punishment in subjugation.

« Chapter XXII. (Anglo-Normans) | Contents | Chapter XXIV. (Edward Bruce) »

NOTES

[1] On the banner and shield of Tyrconnell were emblazoned a cross surrounded by the words In hoc signo vinces. One readily inclines to the conjecture that this was borrowed from the Roman emperor Constantine. The words may have been; but among the treasured traditions of the Cinel-Connal was one which there is reason for regarding as historically reliable, assigning to an interesting circumstance the adoption by them of the cross as the armorial bearings of the sept. One of the earliest of St. Patrick's converts was Conall Crievan, brother of Ard-Ri Laori and ancestor of the Cinel-Connal. Conall was a prince famed for his courage and bravery, and much attached to military pursuits; but on his conversion he desired to become a priest; preferring his request to this effect to St. Patrick, when either baptizing or confirming him. The saint, however, commanded him to remain a soldier; but to fight henceforth as became a Christian warrior; "and under this sign serve and conquer," said the saint, raising the iron-pointed end of the "Staff of Jesus," and marking on the shield of Conall a cross. The shield thus marked by St. Patrick's crozier was ever after called "Sciath Bachlach," or the "Shield of the Crozier." Mr. Aubrey de Vere very truly calls this the "inauguration of Irish (Christian) chivalry," and has made the incident the subject of the following poem:

ST. PATRICK AND THE KNIGHT.

"Thou shalt not be a priest," he said;
"Christ hath for thee a lowlier task:
Be thou his soldier! Wear with dread
His cross upon thy shield and casque!
Put on God's armor, faithful knight!
Mercy with justice, love with law;
Nor e'er, except for truth and right,
This sword, cross-hilted, dare to draw."

He spake, and with his crozier pointed
Graved on the broad shield's brazen boss
(That hour baptized, confirmed, anointed,
Stood Erin's chivalry) the Cross:
And there was heard a whisper low—
(Saint Michael, was that whisper thine?)—
Thou sword, keep pure thy virgin vow,
And trenchant thou shalt be as mine.

[2]The name of the author is unknown.

[Fairlie]

STORY OF IRELAND

By A. M. Sullivan

CHAPTER XXIV.

From the Atlas and Cyclopedia of Ireland (1900)

« Chapter XXIII. (Godfrey Tyrconnell) | Contents | Chapter XXV. (Famine of 1317) »

HOW THE IRISH NATION AWOKE FROM ITS TRANCE, AND FLUNG OFF ITS CHAINS. THE CAREER OF KING EDWARD BRUCE

EARLY in the second century of the Norman settlement we find the Irish for the first time apparently realizing their true position in relation to England. They begin to appreciate the fact that it is England and not the Anglo-Norman colony they have to combat, and that recognition of the English power means loss of liberty, loss of honor, loss of property, alienation of the soil! Had the Irish awakened sooner to these facts, it is just possible they might have exerted themselves and combined in a national struggle against the fate thus presaged. But they awoke to them too late:

The fatal chain was o'er them cast,
And they were men no more!

As if to quicken within them the strings of self-reproach, they saw their Gaelic kinsmen of Caledonia bravely battling in compact national array against this same English power that had for a time conquered them also. When King Edward marched northward to measure swords with the Scottish "rebel" Robert Bruce, he summoned his Norman lieges and all other true and royal subjects in Ireland to send him aid. The Anglo-Norman lords of Ireland did accordingly equip considerable bodies, and with them joined the king in Scotland. The native Irish, on the other hand, sent aid to Bruce; and on the field of Bannockburn old foes on Irish soil met once more in deadly combat on new ground—the Norman lords and the Irish chieftains. "Twenty-one clans, Highlanders and Islesmen, and many Ulstermen fought on the side of Bruce on the field of Bannockburn. The grant of Kincardine-O'Neill,' made by the victor-king to his Irish followers, remains a striking evidence of their fidelity to his person and their sacrifices in his cause. The result of that glorious day was, by the testimony of all historians, English as well as Scottish, received with enthusiasm on the Irish side of the channel."[1]

Fired by the glorious example of their Scottish kinsmen, the native Irish princes for the first time took up the design of a really national and united effort to expel the English invaders root and branch. Utterly unused to union or combination as they had been for hundreds of years, it is really wonderful how readily and successfully they carried out their design. The northern Irish princes with few exceptions entered into it; and it was agreed that as well to secure the prestige of Bruce's name and the alliance of Scotland, as also to avoid native Irish jealousies in submitting to a national leader or king, Edward Bruce, the brother of King Robert, should be invited to land in Ireland with an auxiliary liberating army, and should be recognized as king. The Ulster princes, with Donald O'Neill at their head, sent off a memorial to the pope (John the Twelfth), a document which is still extant, and is, as may be supposed, of singular interest and importance. In this memorable letter the Irish princes acquaint his holiness with their national design; and having reference to the bulls or letters of popes Adrian and Alexander, they proceed to justify their resolution of destroying the hated English power in their country, and point out the fraud and false pretense upon which those documents were obtained by King Henry from the pontiffs named. The sovereign pontiff appears to have been profoundly moved by the recital of facts in this remonstrance or memorial. Not long after he addressed to the English king (Edward the Third) a letter forcibly reproaching the English sovereigns who had obtained those bulls from popes Adrian and Alexander, with the crimes of deceit and violation of their specific conditions and covenants. To the objects of those bulls, his holiness says, "neither King Henry nor his successors paid any regard; but, passing the bounds that had been prescribed for them, they had heaped upon the Irish the most unheard-of miseries and persecutions, and had, during a long period, imposed on them a yoke of slavery which could not be borne."

The Irish themselves were now, however, about to make a brave effort to break that unbearable yoke, to terminate those miseries and: persecutions, and to establish a national throne once more in the land. On May 25, 1315, Edward Bruce, the invited deliverer, landed near Glenarm in Antrim with a force of six thousand men. He was instantly joined by Donald O'Neill, prince of Ulster, and throughout all the northern half of the island the most intense excitement spread. The native Irish flocked to Bruce's standard; the Anglo-Normans, in dismay, hurried from all parts to encounter this truly formidable danger, and succeeded in compelling, or inducing, the Connacian prince, O'Connor, to join them. Meanwhile the Scotto-Irish army marched southward, defeating every attempt of the local English garrisons to obstruct its victorious progress. The lord justice, coming from Dublin with all the forces he could bring from the south, and Richard de Burgo, Anglo-Norman titular Earl of Ulster, hurrying from Athlone with a powerful contingent raised in the west, came up with the national army at, Ardee, too late however, to save that town, which the Irish had just captured and destroyed.

This Earl Richard is known in Anglo-Irish history as "the Red Earl." He was the most prominent character, and in every sense the greatest—the ablest and most powerful and influential—man of that century among the Anglo-Norman rulers or nobles. As a matter of fact, his influence and power overtopped and overshadowed that of the lord justice; and, singular to relate, the king's letters and writs, coming to Ireland, were invariably, as a matter of form, addressed to him in the first instance, that is, his name came first, and that of the lord justice for the time being next. He was, in truth, king of the Anglo-Normans in Ireland. He raised armies, levied war, made treaties, conferred titles, and bestowed lands, without the least reference to the formal royal deputy—the lord justice in Dublin—whom he looked down upon with disdain. Accordingly, when these two magnates met on this occasion, the Red Earl contemptuously desired the lord justice to get him back to his castle of Dublin as quickly as he pleased, for that he himself, Earl Richard, as befitted his rank of Earl of Ulster, would take in hands the work of clearing the province of the Scottish-Irish army, and would guarantee to deliver Edward Bruce, living or dead, into the justice's hands ere many days. Notwithstanding this haughty speech, the lord justice and his forces remained, and the combined army now confronted Bruce, outnumbering him hopelessly; whereupon he commenced to retreat slowly, his object being to effect, either by military strategy or diplomacy, a separation of the enemy's forces. This object was soon accomplished.

When the Connacian king, Felim O'Connor, joined the Red Earl and marched against Bruce in his own principality, his act was revolted against as parricidal treason. Ruari, son of Cathal Roe O'Conor, head of the Clanna-Murtough, unfurled the national flag, declared for the national cause, and soon struck for it boldly and decisively. Hurriedly dispatching envoys to Bruce, tendering adhesion, and requesting to be commissioned or recognized as Prince of Connaught in place of Felim, who had forfeited by fighting against his country at such a crisis, he meanwhile swept through all the west, tearing down the Norman rule and erecting in its stead the national authority, declaring the penalty of high treason against all who favored or sided with the Norman enemy or refused to aid the national cause. Felim heard of these proceedings before Ruari's envoys reached Bruce, and quickly saw that his only chance of safety—and in truth the course most in consonance with his secret feelings—was, himself, to make overtures to Bruce, which he did; so that about the time Ruari's envoys arrived, Felim's offers were also before the Scotto-Irish commander. Valuable as were Ruari's services in the west, the greater and more urgent consideration was to detach Felim from the Norman army, which thus might be fought, but which otherwise could not be withstood. Accordingly, Bruce came to terms with Felim, and answered to Ruari that he was in no way to molest the possessions of Felim, who was now on the right side, but to take all he could from the common enemy the English. Felim, in pursuance of his agreement with Bruce, now withdrew from the English camp and faced homeward, whereupon Bruce and O'Neill, no longer afraid to encounter the enemy, though still superior to them in numbers, gave battle to the lord justice. A desperate engagement ensued at Connoyr, on the banks of the river Bann, near Ballymena.

The great Norman army was defeated; the haughty Earl Richard was obliged to seek personal safety in flight; his brother, William, with quite a number of other Norman knights and nobles, being taken prisoners by that same soldier-chief whom he had arrogantly undertaken to capture and present, dead or alive, within a few days, at Dublin Castle gate! The shattered forces of the lord justice retreated southward as best they could. The Red Earl fled into Connaught, where, for a year, he was fain to seek safety in comparative obscurity, shorn of all power, pomp, and possessions. Of these, what he had not lost on the battlefield at Connoyr, he found wrested from him by the Prince of Tyrconnell, who, by way of giving the Red Earl something to do near home, had burst down upon the Anglo-Norman possessions in the west, and levelled every castle that flew the red flag of England! The Irish army now marched southward once more, capturing all the great towns and Norman castles on the way. At Loughsweedy, in West-Meath, Bruce and O'Neill went into winter quarters, and spent their Christmas "in the midst of the most considerable chiefs of Ulster, Meath, and Connaught."

Thus closed the first campaign in this, the first really national war undertaken against the English power in Ireland. "The termination of his first campaign on Irish soil," says a historian, "might be considered highly favorable to Bruce. More than half the clans had risen, and others were certain to follow their example; the clergy were almost wholly with him, and his heroic brother had promised to lead an army to his aid in the ensuing spring."

In the early spring of the succeeding year (1316) he opened the next campaign by a march southward. The Anglo-Norman armies made several ineffectual efforts to bar his progress. At Kells, in King's County of the present day, Sir Roger Mortimer at the head of fifteen thousand men made the most determined stand. A great battle ensued, the Irish utterly routing this the last army of any proportions now opposed to them. Soon after this decisive victory, Bruce and O'Neill returned northward in proud exultation. Already it seemed that the liberation of Ireland was complete. Having arrived at, Dundalk, the national army halted, and preparations were commenced for the great ceremonial that was to consummate and commemorate the national deliverance. At a solemn council of the native princes and chiefs, Edward Bruce was elected king of Ireland; Donald O'Neill, the heart and head of the entire movement, formally resigning by letters patent in favor of Bruce such rights as belonged to him as son of the last acknowledged native sovereign. After the election, the ceremonial of inauguaration was carried out in the native Irish forms, with a pomp and splendor such as had not been witnessed since the reign of Brian the First. This imposing ceremony took place on the hill of Knocknemelan, within a mile of Dundalk; and the formal election and inauguaration being over, the king and the assembled princes and chiefs marched in procession into the town, where the solemn consecration took place in one of the churches. King Edward now established his court in the castle of Northburg, possessing and exercising all the prerogatives, powers, and privileges of royalty, holding courts of justice, and enforcing such regulations as were necessary for the welfare and good order of the country.

« Chapter XXIII. (Godfrey Tyrconnell) | Contents | Chapter XXV. (Famine of 1317) »

NOTES

[1] M'Gee.

[Fairlie]

STORY OF IRELAND

By A. M. Sullivan

CHAPTER XXV.

From the Atlas and Cyclopedia of Ireland (1900)

« Chapter XXIV. (Edward Bruce) | Contents | Chapter XXVI. (Anglo-Irish) »

HOW THIS BRIGHT DAY OF INDEPENDENCE WAS TURNED TO GLOOM. HOW THE SEASONS FOUGHT AGAINST IRELAND, AND FAMINE FOR ENGLAND

THE Anglo Irish power was almost extinct. It would probably never more have been heard of, and the newly-revived nationality would have lasted long and prospered, had there not been behind that broken and ruined colony all the resources of a great and powerful nation. The English monarch summoned to a conference with himself in London several of the Anglo-Irish barons, and it was agreed by all that nothing but a compact union among themselves, strong reinforcements from England, and the equipment of an army of great magnitude for a new campaign in Ireland, could avert the complete and final extinction of the English power in that country. Preparations were accordingly made for placing in the field such an army as had never before been assembled by the Anglo-Irish colony.

King Edward of Ireland, on the other hand, was fully conscious that the next campaign would be the supreme trial, and both parties, English and Irish, prepared to put forth their utmost strength. True to his promise, King Robert of Scotland arrived to the aid of his brother, bringing with him a small contingent. The royal brothers soon opened the campaign. Marching southward at the head of thirty-six thousand men, they crossed the Boyne at Slane, and soon were beneath the walls of Castleknock, a powerful Anglo-Norman fortress, barely three miles form the gate of Dublin. Castleknock was assaulted and taken, the governor, Hugh Tyrell, being made prisoner.

The Irish and Scotch kings took up their quarters in the castle, and the Anglo-Normans of Dublin, gazing from the city walls, could see between them and the setting sun the royal standards of Ireland and Scotland floating proudly side by side! In this extremity the citizens of Dublin exhibited a spirit of indomitable courage and determination. To their action in this emergency—designated by some as the desperation of wild panic, but by others, in my opinion more justly, intrepidity and heroic public spirit—they saved the chief seat of Anglo-Norman authority and power, the loss of which at that moment would have altered the whole fate and fortunes of the ensuing campaign. Led on by the mayor, they exhibited a frantic spirit of resistance, burning down the suburbs of their city, and freely devoting to demolition even their churches and priories outside the walls, lest these should afford shelter or advantage to a besieging army. The Irish army had no sieging materials, and could not just then pause for the tedious operations of reducing a walled and fortified city like Dublin, especially when such a spirit of vehement determination was evinced not merely by the garrison but by the citizens themselves. In fact, the city could not be invested without the co-operation of a powerful fleet to cut off supplies by sea from England. The Irish army, therefore, was compelled to turn away from Dublin, and leave that formidable position intact in their rear. They marched southward as in the previous campaigns, this time reaching as far as Limerick. Again, as before, victory followed their banners. Their course was literally a succession of splendid achievements. The Normans never offered battle that they were not utterly defeated.

The full strength of the English, however, had not yet been available, and a foe more deadly and more formidable than all the power of England was about to fall upon the Irish army.

By one of those calamitous concurrences which are often to be noted in history, there fell upon Ireland in this year (1317) a famine of dreadful severity. The crops had entirely failed the previous autumn, and now throughout the land the dread consequences were spreading desolation. The brothers Bruce each day found it more and more difficult to provision the army, and soon it became apparent that hunger and privation were destroying and demoralizing the national force. This evil in itself was bad enough, but a worse followed upon it. As privation and hunger loosed the bonds of military discipline, the soldiers spread themselves over the country seeking food, and soon there sprung up between the Scottish contingent and the Irish troops and inhabitants bitter ill feeling and contention. The Scots—who from the very outset appear to have discriminated nought in plundering castles and churches when the opportunity came fairly in their way—now, throwing off all restraint, broke into churches, and broke open and rifled shrines and tombs. The Irish, whose reverence for religion was always so intense and solemn, were horrified at these acts of sacrilege and desecration, and there gradually spread through the country a vague but all-powerful popular belief that the dreadful scourge of famine was a "visitation of heaven" called down upon the country by the presence of the irreverent Scots!

Meanwhile the English were mustering a tremendous force in the rear of the wasted Irish army. The Bruces, on learning the fact, quickly ordered a night retreat, and pushed northward by forced marches. An Anglo-Irish army of thirty thousand men, well appointed and provisioned, lay across their path; yet such was the terror inspired by vivid recollection of the recent victories of the Irish and the prestige of Bruce's name, that this vast force, as the historian tells us, hung around the camp of the half-starved and diminished Scotto-Irish army, without ever once daring to attack them in a pitched battle! On the 1st May, after a march full of unexampled suffering, the remnant of the Irish army safely reached Ulster.

The famine now raged with such intensity all over Ireland that it brought about a suspension of hostilities. Neither party could provision an army in the field. King Robert of Scotland, utterly disheartened, sailed homeward. His own country was not free from suffering, and in any event, the terrible privations of the past few months had filled the Scottish contingent with discontent. King Edward, however, nothing daunted, resolved to stand by the Irish kingdom to the last, and it was arranged that whenever a resumption of hostilities became feasible, Robert should send him another Scottish contingent.

The harvest of the following year 1318 was no sooner gathered in and found to be of comparative abundance, than both parties sprang to arms. The English commander-in-chief, John de Birmingham, was quickly across the Boyne at the head of twelve thousand men, intent on striking King Edward before his hourly expected Scottish contingent could arrive. The Irish levies were but slowly coming in, and Edward at this time had barely two or three thousand men at hand. Nevertheless he resolved to meet the English and give them battle. Donald O'Neill and the other native princes saw the madness of this course, and vainly endeavored to dissuade the king from it. They pointed out that the true strategy to be adopted under the circumstances was to gain time, to retire slowly on their northern base, disputing each inch of ground, but risking no pitched battle until the national levies would have come in, and the Scottish contingent arrived, by which time, moreover, they would have drawn Birmingham away from his base, and would have him in a hostile country. There can be no second opinion about the merits of this scheme. It was the only one for Edward to pursue just then. It was identical with that which had enabled him to overthrow the Bed Earl three years before and had won the battle of Connoyr. But the king was immovable. At all times headstrong, self-willed, and impetuous, he now seemed to have been rendered extravagantly over-confident by the singular fact (for fact it was), that never yet had he met the English in battle on Irish soil that he did not defeat them. It is said that some of the Irish princes, fully persuaded of the madness of the course resolved upon, and incensed by the despotic obstinacy of the king, withdrew from the camp. "There remained with the iron-headed king," says the historian, "the lords Mowbray de Soulis and Stewart, with the throe brothers of the latter, Mac Roy, Lord of the Isles, and Mac Donald, chief of his clan. The neighborhood of Dundalk, the scene of his triumphs and coronation, was to be the scene of the last act of Bruce's chivalrous and stormy career." From the same authority (M'Gee) I quote the following account of that scene:

"On the 14th of October, 1318, at the Hill of Faughard, within a couple of miles of Dundalk, the advance guard of the hostile armies came into the presence of each other, and made ready for battle. Roland de Jorse, the foreign Archbishop of Armagh, who had not been able to take possession of his see, though appointed to it seven years before, accompanied the Anglo-Irish, and moving through their ranks, gave his benediction to their banners. But the impetuosity of Bruce gave little time for preparation. At the head of the vanguard, without waiting for the whole of his company to come up, he charged the enemy with impetuosity. The action became general, and the skill of De Birmingham as a leader was again demonstrated. An incident common to the warfare of that age was, however, the immediate cause of the victory. Master John de Maupas, a burgher of Dundalk, believing that the death of the Scottish leader would be the signal for the retreat of his followers, disguised as a jester or a fool, sought him throughout the field. One of the royal esquires named Gilbert Harper, wearing the surcoat of his master, was mistaken for him and slain; but the true leader was at length found by De Maupas, and struck down by the blow of a leaden plummet or slung-shot. After the battle, when the field was searched for his body, it was found under that of De Maupas, who had bravely yielded up life for life. The Hiberno-Scottish forces dispersed in dismay, and when King Robert of Scotland landed, a day or two afterward, he was met by the fugitive men of Carrick, under their leader Thompson, who informed him of his brother's fate. He returned at once into his own country, carrying off the few Scottish survivors. The head of the impetuous Edward was sent to London, but the body was interred in the churchyard of Faughard, where, within living memory, a tall pillar stone was pointed out by every peasant in the neigborhood as marking the grave of King Bruce."

Thus ended the first grand effort of Ireland as an independent nation to expel the Anglo-Norman power. Never was so great an effort so brilliantly successful, yet eventually defeated by means outside and beyond human skill to avert, or human bravery to withstand. The seasons fought against Ireland in this great crisis of her fate. A dreadful scourge struck down the country in the very moment of national triumph. The arm that was victorious in battle fell lifeless at the breath of this dread destroyer. To the singular and calamitous coincidence of a famine so terrible at such a critical moment for Ireland, and to this alone was the ruin of the national cause attributable. The Irish under the king of their choice had, in three heavy campaigns, shown themselves able to meet and overcome the utmost force that could be brought against them. England had put forth her best energies and had been defeated. Prestige was rapidly multiplying the forces and increasing the moral and material resources of the Irish; and but for the circumstances which compelled the retreat northward from Limerick, reducing and disorganizing the national army, and leading in a long train of still greater evils, as far as human ken could see, the independent nationality of Ireland was triumphantly consolidated and her freedom securely established.

The battle of Faughard—or rather the fall of Edward under such circumstances—-was a decisive termination of the whole struggle. The expected Scottish contingent arrived soon after; but all was over, and it returned home. The English king, some years subsequently, took measures to guard against the recurrence of such a formidable danger as that which had so nearly wrested Ireland from his grasp—a Scotto-Irish alliance. On March 17, 1328, a treaty between England and Scotland was signed at Edinburg, by which it was stipulated that, in the event of a rebellion against Scotland in Skye, Man, or the Islands, or against England in Ireland, the respective kings would not assist each other's "rebel subjects." Ireland had played for a great stake, and lost the game. The nation that had reappeared for a moment again disappeared, and once more the struggle against the English power was waged merely by isolated chiefs and princes, each one acting for himself alone.

« Chapter XXIV. (Edward Bruce) | Contents | Chapter XXVI. (Anglo-Irish) »

[Fairlie]

STORY OF IRELAND

By A. M. Sullivan

CHAPTER XXVI.

From the Atlas and Cyclopedia of Ireland (1900)

« Chapter XXV. (Famine 1317) | Contents | Chapter XXVII. (Art M'Murrogh) »

HOW THE ANGLO-IRISH LORDS LEARNED TO PREFER IRISH MANNERS, LAWS, AND LANGUAGE, AND WERE BECOMING "MORE IRISH THAN THE IRISH THEMSELVES." HOW THE KING IN LONDON TOOK MEASURES TO ARREST THAT DREADED EVIL.

BUT a new danger arose to the English power. It was not alone fresh armies and a constant stream of subsidies that England found it necessary to be pouring into Ireland, to insure the retention of the Anglo-Norman Colony. Something more became requisite now. It was found that a constant stream of fresh colonization from England, a frequent change of governors, nay, further, the most severe repressive laws, could alone keep the colony English in spirit, in interest, in language, laws, manners, and customs. The descendants of the early Anglo-Norman settlers—gentle and simple, lord and burgher—were becoming thoroughly Hibernicized. Notwithstanding the ceaseless warfare waged between the Norman lords and the Irish chiefs, it was found that the former were becoming absorbed into or fused with the native element. The middle of the fourteenth century found the Irish language and Brehon law, native Irish manners, habits and customs, almost universally prevalent among the Anglo-Normans in Ireland; while marriage and "fosterage"—that most sacred domestic tie in Gaelic estimation—were becoming quite frequent between the noble families of each race. In fact the great lords and nobles of the Colony became chieftains, and their families and following, Septs. Like the Irish chiefs, whom they imitated in most things, they fought against each other or against some native chief, or sided with either of them, if choice so determined. Each earl or baron among them kept his bard and his brehon, like any native prince; and, in several instances, they began to drop their Anglo-Norman names and take Irish ones instead.

It needed little penetration on the part of the king and his council in London to discern in this state of things a peril far and away more formidable than any the English power had yet encountered in Ireland. True, the Anglo-Irish lords had always as yet professed allegiance to the English sovereign, and had, on the whole, so far helped forward the English designs. But it was easy to foresee that it would require but a few more years of this process of fusion with the native Irish race to make the Anglo-Irish element Irish in every sense. To avert this dreaded and now imminent evil, the London government resolved to adopt the most stringent measures. Among the first of these was a royal ordinance issued in 1341, declaring that whereas it had appeared to the King (Edward the Third) and his council that they would be better and more usefully served in Ireland by Englishmen whose revenues were derived from England than by Irish or English who possessed estates only in Ireland, or were married there, the king's justiciary should therefore, after diligent inquiries, remove all such officers as were married or held estates in Ireland, and replace them by fit Englishmen, having no personal interest whatever in Ireland. This ordinance set the Anglo-Irish colony in a flame. Edward's lord-deputy, Sir John Morris, alarmed at its effect on the proud and powerful barons, summoned them to a parliament to meet in Dublin to reason over the matter. But they would have no reasoning with him. They contemptuously derided his summons, and called a parliament of their own, which, accordingly, met at Kilkenny in November, 1342, whereat they adopted a strong remonstrance, and forwarded it to the king, complaining of the royal ordinance, and recriminating by alleging, that to the ignorance and incapacity of the English officials sent over from time to time to conduct the government of the colony, was owing the fact that the native Irish had possessed themselves of nearly all the land that had ever hitherto been wrested from them by the "gallant services of themselves (the remonstrancers) or their ancestors." Edward was obliged to temporize. He answered this remonstrance graciously, and "played" the dangerous barons.

But the policy of the ordinance was not relinquished. It was to be pushed on as opportunity offered. Eight years subsequent to the above proceedings—in 1360—Lionel, son of King Edward, was sent over as lord-lieutenant. He brought with him a considerable army, and was to inaugurate the new system with great eclat. He had personal claims to assert as well as a state policy to carry out. By his wife, Elizabeth de Burgh, he succeeded to the empty titles of Earl of Ulster and Lord of Connaught, and the possessions supposed to follow them; but these were just then held by their rightful Irish owners, and one of Lionel's objects was to obtain them by force of arms for himself. Soon after landing he marched against "the Irish enemy," and, confident in the strength of newly-landed legions, he issued a proclamation "forbidding any of Irish birth to come near his army." This arrogance was soon humbled. His vaunted English army was a failure. The Irish cut it to pieces; and Prince Lionel was obliged to abandon the campaign, and retreated to Dublin a prey to mortification and humiliation. His courtiers plied him with flatteries in order to cheer him. By a process not very intelligible, they argued that he conquered Clare, though, O'Brien had utterly defeated him there, and compelled him to fly to Dublin; and they manufactured for him out of this piece of adulatory invention the title of "Clarence." But he only half accepted these pleasant fictions, the falseness of which he knew too well. He recalled his arrogant and offensive proclamation, and besought the aid of the Anglo-Irish. To gain their favor he conferred additional titles and privileges on some of them, and knighted several of the most powerful commoners.

After an administration of seven years it was deemed high time for Lionel to bring the new policy into greater prominence. In 1367 he convened a parliament at Kilkenny, whereat he succeeded in having passed that memorable statute known ever since in history as "The Statute of Kilkenny"—the first formal enactment in that "penal code of race" which was so elaborately developed by all subsequent English legislation for hundreds of years. The act sets out by reciting that "Whereas, at the conquest of the land of Ireland, and for a long time after, the English of the said land used the English language, mode of riding and apparel, and were governed and ruled, both they and their subjects, called Betaghese (villeins) according to English law, etc.; but now many English of the said land, forsaking the English language, manners, mode of riding, laws, and usages, live and govern themselves according to the manners, fashion and language of the Irish enemies, and also have made divers marriages and alliances between themselves and the Irish enemies aforesaid: it is therefore enacted (among other provisions), that all intermarriages, fosterings, gossipred, and buying or selling with the enemy shall be accounted treason; that, English names, fashions, and manners shall be resumed under penalty of the confiscation of the delinquent's lands; that March laws and Brehon laws are illegal, and that there shall be no law but English law; that the Irish shall not pasture their cattle on English lands, that the English shall not entertain Irish rhymers, minstrels, or news men; and, moreover, that no 'mere Irishman' shall be admitted to any ecclesiastical benefice or religious house situated within the English district."

The Anglo-Irish barons must have been strangely overawed or overreached when they were brought to pass this statute; several of themselves being at that moment answerable to all its penalties! Its immediate result, however, wellnigh completed the ruin of the power it was meant to restore and strengthen. It roused the native Irish to a full conception of the English policy, and simultaneously, though without the least concert, they fell upon the colony on all sides, drove in the outposts, destroyed the castles, hunted the barons, and reoccupied the country very nearly up to the walls of Dublin. "O'Connor of Connaught and O'Brien of Thomond," says Hardiman, "laid aside for the moment their private feuds, and united against the common foe. The Earl of Desmond, lord justice, marched against them with a considerable army, but was defeated and slain (captured) in a sanguinary engagement, fought A.D. 1369 in the county of Limerick. O'Farrell, the chieftain of Annaly, committed great slaughter in Meath. The O'Mores, Cavanaghs, O'Byrnes, and O'Tooles, pressed upon Leinster, and the O'Neills raised the red arm in the north. The English of the Pale were seized with consternation and dismay, and terror and confusion reigned in their councils, while the natives continued to gain ground upon them in every direction. At this crisis an opportunity offered such as had never before occurred, of terminating the dominion of the English in Ireland; but if the natives had ever conceived such a project, they were never sufficiently united to achieve it. The opportunity passed away, and the disunion of the Irish saved the colony."

As for the obnoxious statute, it was found impossible to enforce it further. Cunning policy did not risk permanent defeat by pressing it at such a moment. It was allowed to remain "a dead letter" for a while; not dead, however, but only slumbering.

« Chapter XXV. (Famine 1317) | Contents | Chapter XXVII. (Art M'Murrogh) »

[Fairlie]

STORY OF IRELAND

By A. M. Sullivan

CHAPTER XXVII.

From the Atlas and Cyclopedia of Ireland (1900)

« Chapter XXVI. (Anglo-Irish) | Contents | Chapter XXVIII. (Art M'Murrogh) »

HOW THE VAINGLORIOUS RICHARD OF ENGLAND AND HIS OVERWHELMING ARMY FAILED TO "DAZZLE" OR CONQUER THE PRINCE OF LEINSTER. CAREER OF THE HEROIC ART M'MURROGH.

The close of the century which witnessed the events I have been mentioning; brought about another "royal visit" to Ireland. The weak, vain, and pomp-loving Richard the Second visited this country twice in the course of his ill-fated career—for the first time 1394; I would not deem either worth more than a passing word (for both of them were barren of results), were it not that they interweave with the story of the chivalrous Art M'Murrogh "Kavanagh," Prince of Leinster, whose heroic figure stands out in glorious prominence on this page of Irish history.

If the M'Murroghs of Leinster in 1170 contributed to our national annals one character of evil fame, they were destined to give, two centuries later on, another, illustrious in all that ennobles or adorns the patriot, the soldier, or the statesman. Eva M'Murrogh, daughter of Diarmid the Traitor, who married Strongbow the Freebooter, claimed to be only child of her father born in lawful wedlock. That there were sons of her father then living, was not questioned; but she, or her husband on her behalf, setting up a claim of inheritance to Diarmid's possessions, impugned their legitimacy. However this may have been, the sept proceeded according to law and usage under the Irish constitution, to elect from the reigning family a successor to Diarmid, and they raised to the chieftaincy his son Donal. Thenceforth the name of M'Murrogh is heard of in Irish history only in connection with the bravest and boldest efforts of patriotism. Whenever a blow was to be struck for Ireland, the M'Murroghs were the readiest in the field—the "first in front and last in rear." They became a formidable barrier to the English encroachments, and in importance were not second to any native power in Ireland. In 1350 the sept was ruled by Art, or Arthur the First, father of our hero. "To carry on a war against him," we are told, "the whole English interest was assessed with a special tax. Louth contributed twenty pounds, Meath and Waterford two shillings, on every carucate (one hundred and forty acres) of tilled land; Kilkenny the same sum, with the addition of 6d. in the pound on chattels. This Art captured the strong castles of Kilbelle, Galbarstown, Rathville; and although his career was not one of invariable success, he bequeathed to his son, also called Art, in 1375, an inheritance extending over a large portion—perhaps one-half—of the territory ruled by his ancestors before the invasion."

From the same historian [1] I take the subjoined sketch of the early career of that son, Art the Second. "Art M'Murrogh, or Art Kavanagh, as he is commonly called, was born in the year 1357, and from the age of sixteen and upward was distinguished by his hospitality, knowledge, and feats of arms. Like the great Brian, he was a younger son, but the fortune of war removed one by one those who would otherwise have preceded him in the captaincy of his clan and connections. About the year 1375—while he was still under age—he was elected successor to his father, according to the annalists, who record his death in 1417, 'after being forty-two years in the government of Leinster.' Fortunately he attained command at a period favorable to his genius and enterprise. His own and the adjoining tribes were aroused by tidings of success from other provinces, and the partial victories of their immediate predecessors, to entertain bolder schemes, and they only waited for a chief of distinguished ability to concentrate their efforts. This chief they found, where they naturally looked for him, among the old ruling family of the province. Nor were the English settlers ignorant of his promise. In the parliament held at Castledermot in 1377 they granted to him the customary annual tribute paid to his house. . . . . Art M'Murrogh the younger not only extended the bounds of his inheritance and imposed tribute on the English settlers in adjoining districts during the first years of his rule, but having married a noble lady of the 'Pale,' Elizabeth, heiress to the barony of Norragh, in Kildare, which included Naas and its neighborhood, he claimed her inheritance in full, though forfeited under 'the statute of Kilkenny,' according to English notions. So necessary did it seem to the deputy and council of the day to conciliate their formidable neighbor, that they addressed a special representation to King Richard, setting forth the facts of the case, and adding that M'Murrogh threatened, until this lady's estates were restored and the arrears of tribute due to him fully discharged, he should never cease from war, 'but would join with the Earl of Desmond against the Earl of Ormond, and afterward return with a great force out of Munster to ravage the Country.' ... By this time the banner of Art M'Murrogh floated over all the castles and raths on the slope of the Ridge of Leinster, or the steps of the Blackstair hills; while the forests along the Barrow and the Upper Slaney, as well as in the plain of Carlow and in the southwestern angle of Wicklow (now the barony of Shillelagh), served still better his purposes of defensive warfare.

"So entirely was the range of country thus vaguely defined under native sway that John Griffin, the English bishop of Leighlin and chancellor of the exchequer, obtained a grant in 1389 of the town of Gulroestown, in the county of Dublin, 'near the marches of O'Toole, seeing he could not live within his own see for the rebels.' In 1390, Peter Creagh, Bishop of Limerick, on his way to attend an Anglo-Irish parliament, was taken prisoner in that region, and in consequence the usual fine was remitted in his favor. In 1392, James, the third earl of Ormond, gave M'Murrogh a severe check at Tiscoffin, near Shankill, where six hundred of his, clansmen were left dead among the hills.

"This defeat, however, was thrown into the shade by the capture of New Ross, on the very eve of Richard's arrival at Waterford. In a previous chapter we have described the fortifications erected round this important seaport toward the end of the thirteenth century. Since that period its progress had been steadily onward. In the reign of Edward the Third the controversy which had long subsisted between the merchants of New Ross and those of Waterford, concerning the trade monopolies claimed by the latter, had been decided in favor of Ross. At this period it could muster in its own defense 363 cross-bowmen, 1,200 long bowmen, 1,200 pikemen, and 104 horsemen—a force which would seem to place it second to Dublin in point of military strength. The capture of so important a place by M'Murrogh was a cheering omen to his followers. He razed the walls and towers, and carried off gold, silver, and hostages."

From the first sentence in the concluding passage of the foregoing extract it will be gathered, that it was at this juncture the vainglorious. Richard made his first visit to Ireland. He had just recently been a candidate for the imperial throne of the Germanic empire, and had been rejected in a manner most wounding to his pride. So he formed the project of visiting Ireland with a display of pomp, power, and royal splendor, such as had not been seen in Europe for a longtime, and would, he was firmly persuaded, enable him to accomplish the complete subjugation of the Irish kingdom after the manner of that Roman general who came and saw and conquered. Early in October he landed at Waterford with a force of 30,000 bowmen and 4,000 men-at-arms; a force in those days deemed ample to overrun and conquer the strongest kingdom, and far exceeding many that sufficed to. change the fate of empires previously and subsequently in Europe. This vast army was transported across the channel in a fleet of some three hundred ships or galleys. Great pains were taken to provide the expedition with all the appliances and features of impressive pageantry; and in the king's train, as usual, came the chief nobles of England—his uncle, the duke of Gloster, the young earl of March (heir apparent), and of earls and lords a goodly attendance, besides several prelates, abbots, and other ecclesiastical dignitaries. But with this vast expedition King Richard accomplished in Ireland just as much as that king in the ballad, who "marched up the hill, and then marched down again." He rehearsed King Henry and King John on Irish soil. The Irish princes were invited to visit their "friend" the mighty and puissant king of England. They did visit him, and were subjected, as of old, to the "dazzling" process. They were patronizingly fondled; made to understand that their magnanimous suzerain was a most powerful, and most grand, and most gorgeous potentate, own brother of the Sun and Moon. They accepted his flattering attentions; but they did not altogether so clearly understand or accept a proposition he made them as to surrendering their lands and chieftaincies to him, and receiving, instead, royal pensions and English titles from his most gracious hand. Many of the Irish princes yielded, from one motive or another, to this insidious proposition. But foremost among those who could not be persuaded to see the excellence of this arrangement was the young prince of Leinster, whose fame had already filled the land, and whose victories had made the English king feel ill at ease. Art would not come to "court" to reason over the matter with the bland and puissant king. He was obdurate. He resisted all "dazzling." He mocked at the royal pageants, and snapped his fingers at the brother of the Sun and Moon.

All this was keenly mortifying to the vainglorious Richard. There was nothing for it but to send a royal commissioner to treat with Art. He accordingly dispatched the earl marshal (Mowbray) to meet and treat with the prince of Leinster. On the plain of Balligory, near Carlow, the conference took place, Art being accompanied by his uncle Malachi. The earl marshal soon found that he had in Art a statesman as well as a soldier to treat with. Art proudly refused to treat with an inferior. If he was to treat at all, it should be with the king himself! Mowbray had to bend to this humiliating rebuff and try to palaver the stern M'Murrogh. In vain! Art's final answer was, that "so far from yielding his own lands, his wife's patrimony in Kildare should instantly be restored to him; or—" Of course this broke up the conference. The earl marshal returned with the unwelcome news to the king, who flew into rage! What! He, the great, the courtly, the puissant, and gorgeous King Richard of England, thus haughtily treated by a mere Irish prince! By the toenails of William the Conqueror, this astounding conduct should meet a dreadful chastisement! He would wipe out this haughty prince! The defiant M'Murrogh should be made to feel the might of England's royal arm! So, putting himself at the head of his grand army, King Richard set out wrathfully to annihilate Art.

But the Legenian chief soon taught him a bitter lesson. Art's superior military genius, the valor of his troops, and the patriotism of the population, soon caused the vastness of the invading English host to be a weakness, not a strength. Richard found his march tedious and tardy. It was impossible to make in that strange and hostile country commissariat arrangements for such an enormous army. Impenetrable forests and impassable bogs were varied only by mountain defiles defended with true Spartan heroism by the fearless M'Murrogh clansmen. Then the weather broke into severity awful to endure. Fodder for the horses, food for the men, now became the sole objects of each day's labor on the part of King Richard's grand army; "but," says the historian, "M'Murrogh swept off everything of the nature of food—took advantage of his knowledge of the country to burst upon the enemy by night, to entrap them into ambuscades, to separate the cavalry from the foot, and by many other stratagems to thin their ranks and harass the stragglers." In fine, King Richard's splendid army, stuck fast in the Wicklow mountains, was a wreck: while the vengeful and victorious Lagenians hovered around, daily growing more daring in their disastrous assaults. Richard found there was nothing for it but to supplicate Art, and obtain peace at any price. A deputation of "the English and Irish of Leinster" was dispatched to him by the king, making humble apologies and inviting him to a conference with his majesty in Dublin, where, if he would thus honor the king, he should be the royal guest, and learn how highly his valor and wisdom were esteemed by the English sovereign. Art acceded, and permitted Richard to make his way in peace northward to Dublin, crestfallen and defeated, with the relics of his grand army and the tattered rags of the gilt silk banners, the crimson canopies and other regal "properties" that were to have "dazzled" the sept of M'Murrogh.

Art, a few months afterward followed, according to invitation; but he had not been long in Dublin—where Richard had by great exertions once more established a royal court with all its splendors—when he found himself in the hands of treacherous and faithless foes. He was seized and imprisoned on a charge of "conspiring" against the king. Nevertheless, Richard found that he dared not carry out the base plot of which this was meant to be the beginning. He had already got a taste of what he might expect if he relied on fighting to conquer Ireland; and, on reflection, he seems to have decided that the overreaching arts of diplomacy, and the seductions of court life were pleasanter modes of extending his nominal sway than conducting campaigns like that in which he had already lost a splendid army and tarnished the tinsel of his vain prestige. So Art was eventually set at liberty, but three of his neighboring fellow-chieftains were retained as "hostages" for him; and it is even said that before he was released some form or promise of submission was extorted from him by the treacherous "hosts" who had so basely violated the sanctity of hospitality to which he had frankly trusted.

Not long after, an attempt was made to entrap and murder him in one of the Norman border castles, the owner of which had invited him to a friendly feast. As M'Murrogh was sitting down to the banquet, it happened that the quick eye of his bard detected in the courtyard outside certain movements of troops that told him at once what was afoot. He knew that if he or his master openly and suddenly manifested their discovery of the danger, they were lost; their perfidious hosts would slay them at the board. Striking his harp to an old Irish air, the minstrel commenced to sing to the music; but the words in the Gaelic tongue soon caught the ear of M'Murrogh. They warned him to be calm, circumspect, yet ready and resolute, for that he was in the toils of the foe. The prince divined all in an instant. He maintained a calm demeanor until, seizing a favorable pretext for reaching the yard, he sprang to horse, dashed through his foes, and, sword in hand, hewed his way to freedom. This second instance of perfidy completely persuaded M'Murrogh that he was dealing with faithless foes, whom no bond of honor could bind, and with whom no truce was safe; so, unfurling once more the Lagenian standard, he declared war à la mort against the English settlement.

It was no light struggle he thus inaugurated. Alone, unaided, he challenged and fought for twenty years the full power of England; in many a dearly-bought victory proving himself truly worthy of his reputation as a master of military science. The ablest generals of England were one by one sent to cope with him; but Art outmatched them in strategy and outstripped them in valor. In the second year's campaign the strongly-fortified frontier town and castle of Carlow fell before him; and in the next year (July 20, 1398) was fought the memorable battle of Kenlis. "Here," says a historian, "fell the heir presumptive to the English crown, whose premature removal was one of the causes which contributed to the revolution in England a year or two later."[2] We can well credit the next succeeding observation of the historian just quoted, that "the tidings of this event filled the Pale with consternation, and thoroughly aroused the vindictive temper of Richard. He at once dispatched to Dublin his half-brother, the Earl of Kent, to whom he made a gift of Carlow castle and town, to be held (if taken) by knight's service. He then, as much perhaps to give occupation to the minds of his people as to prosecute his old project of subduing Ireland, began to make preparations for his second expedition thither."

« Chapter XXVI. (Anglo-Irish) | Contents | Chapter XXVIII. (Art M'Murrogh) »

NOTES

[1] M'Gee.

[2] M'Gee.

[Fairlie]

STORY OF IRELAND

By A. M. Sullivan

CHAPTER XXVIII.

From the Atlas and Cyclopedia of Ireland (1900)

« Chapter XXVII. (Art M'Murrogh) | Contents | Chapter XXIX. (War of the Roses) »

HOW THE VAINGLORIOUS ENGLISH KING TRIED ANOTHER CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE INVINCIBLE IRISH PRINCE, AND WAS UTTERLY DEFEATED AS BEFORE.

OF this second expedition of King Richard there is extant an account written by a Frenchman who was in his train. In all its main features expedition number two was a singular repetition of expedition number one; vast preparations and levies of men and materials, ships and armaments, as if for the invasion and subjugation of one of the most powerful empires of the world; gorgeous trappings, courtly attendants, and all the necessaries for renewed experiments with the royal "dazzling" policy. Landing at Waterford, Richard, at the head of his panoplied host, marched against M'Murrogh, who, to a lofty and magniloquent invitation to seek the king's gracious clemency, had rudely replied, "that he would neither submit to nor obey him in any way; and that he would never cease from war and the defense of his country until his death." To the overawing force of the English king, Art had, as the French narrator informs us, just "three thousand hardy men, who did not appear to be much afraid of the English."

M'Murrogh's tactics were those which had stood in such good stead on the previous occasion. He removed all the cattle and corn, food and fodder of every kind, as well as the women, children, aged, and helpless of his people, into the interior, while he himself, at the head of his Spartan band, "few, but undismayed," took up a position at Idrone awaiting the invaders. Once more Richard found his huge army entangled in impenetrable forests, hemmed in by bogs, morass, and mountain—M'Murrogh fighting and retiring with deadly craft to draw him deeper and deeper into difficulty, "harassing him dreadfully, carrying off everything fit for food for man or beast, surprising and slaying his foragers, and filling his camp nightly with alarm and blood." A crumb of consolation greatly regarded by the mortified and humiliated English king was the appearance one day in his camp of Art's uncle giving in submission, supplicating for himself "pardon and favor." This Richard only too joyfully granted; and, allowing the incident to persuade him that Art himself might also be wavering, a royal message was sent to the Leinster prince assuring him of free pardon, and "castles and lands in abundance elsewhere," if only he would submit. The Frenchman records M'Murrogh's reply: "Mac-Mor told the king's people that for all the gold in the world he would not submit himself, but would continue to war and endamage the king in all that he could." This ruined Richard's last hope of anything like a fair pretext for abandoning his enterprise. He now relinquished all idea of assailing M'Murrogh, and marched as best he could toward Dublin, his army meanwhile suffering fearfully from famine. After some days of dreadful privation they reached the seashore at Arklow, where ships with provisions from Dublin awaited them. The soldiers rushed into the sea to reach at the food, fought for it ravenously, and drank all the wine they could seize. Soon after this timely relief, a still more welcome gleam of fortune fell upon the English host. A messenger arrived from Art expressing his willingness to meet some accredited ambassador from the king and discuss the matters at issue between them. Whereupon, says the chronicler, there was great joy in the English camp.

The Earl of Gloster was at once dispatched to treat with Art. The French knight was among the earl's escort, and witnessed the meeting, of which he has left a quaint description. He describes Art as a "fine large man, wondrously active. To look at him he seemed very stern and savage and a very able man." The horse which Art rode especially transfixed the Frenchman's gaze. He declares, that a steed more exquisitely beautiful, more marvelously fleet, he had never beheld. "In coming down it galloped so hard, that, in my opinion, I never saw hare, deer, sheep, or any other animal, I declare to you for a certainty, run with such speed as it did." This horse Art rode "without housing or saddle," yet sat like a king, and guided with utmost ease in the most astounding feats of horsemanship. "He and the earl," the Frenchman tells, "exchanged much discourse, but did not come to agreement. They took short leave and hastily parted. Each took his way apart, and the earl returned to King Richard." The announcement brought by his ambassador was a sore disappointment to the king. Art would only agree to "peace without reserve;" "otherwise he will never come to agreement." "This speech," continues the Frenchman, "was not agreeable to the king. It appeared to me that his face grew pale with anger. He swore in great wrath by St. Bernard that no, never would he depart from Ireland till, alive or dead, he had him in his power."

Rash oath—soon broken. Little thought Richard when he so hotly swore against Art in such impotent anger that he would have to quit Ireland, leaving Art free, unconquered, and defiant, while he returned to England only to find himself a crownless monarch, deposed and friendless, in a few brief days subsequently to meet a treacherous cruel death in Pontefract castle!

All this, however, though near at hand, was as yet in the unforeseen future; and Richard, on reaching Dublin, devoted himself once more to "dazzling" revels there. But while he feasted he forgot not his hatred of the indomitable M'Murrogh. "A hundred marks in pure gold" were publicly proclaimed by the king to any one who should bring to him in Dublin, alive or dead, the defiant prince of Leinster; against whom, moreover, the army, divided into three divisions, were dispatched upon a new campaign. Soon the revels and marchings were abruptly interrupted by sinister news from England. A formidable rebellion had broken out there, headed by the banished Lancaster. Richard marched southward with all speed to take shipping at Waterford, collecting on the way the several divisions of his army. He embarked for England, but arrived too late. His campaign against Art M'Murrogh had cost him his crown, eventually his life; had changed the dynasty in England, and seated the house of Lancaster upon the throne.

For eighteen years subsequently the invincible Art reigned over his inviolate territory; his career to the last being a record of brilliant victories over every expedition sent against it. As we wade through the crowded annals of those years, his name is ever found in connection with some gallant achievement.

Wherever else the fight is found going against Ireland, whatever hand falters or falls in the unbroken struggle, in the mountains of Wicklow there is one stout arm, one bold heart, one glorious intellect, ever nobly daring and bravely conquering in the cause of native land. Art, "whose activity defied the chilling effects of age, poured his cohorts through Sculloge Gap on the garrisons of Wexford, taking in rapid succession in one campaign (1406) the castles of Camolins, Ferns, and Enniscorthy. A few years subsequently his last great battle, probably the most serious engagement of his life, was fought by him against the whole force of the Pale under the walls of Dublin. The duke of Lancaster, son of the king and lord lieutenant of Ireland, issued orders for the concentration of a powerful army for an expedition southward against M'Murrogh's allies. But M'Murrogh and the mountaineers of Wicklow now felt themselves strong enough to take the iniative. They crossed the plain which lies to the north of Dublin and encamped at Kilmainham, where Roderick, when he besieged the city, and Brian before the battle of Clontarf, had pitched their tents of old. The English and Anglo-Irish forces, under the eye of their prince, marched out to dislodge them in four divisions. The first was led by the duke in person; the second by the veteran knight, Jenicho d'Artois; the third by Sir Edward Perrers, an English knight; and the fourth by Sir Thomas Butler, prior of the order of St. John, afterward created by Henry the Fifth, for his distinguished service, earl of Kilmain. With M'Murrogh were O'Byrne, O'Nolan, and other chiefs, beside his sons, nephews, and relatives. The numbers on each side could hardly fall short of ten thousand men, and the action may be fairly considered one of the most decisive of those times. The duke was carried back wounded into Dublin; the slopes of Inchicore and the valley of the Liffey were strewn with the dying and the dead; the river at that point obtained from the Leinster Irish the name of Athcroe, or the ford of slaughter; the widowed city was filled with lamentation and dismay."

This was the last endeavor of the English power against Art. "While he lived no further attacks were made upon his kindred or country." He was not, alas! destined to enjoy long the peace he had thus conquered from his powerful foes by a forty-four years' war! On January 12, 1417, he died at Ross in the sixtieth year of his age, many of the chroniclers attributing his death to poison administered in a drink. Whether the enemies whom he had so often vanquished in the battlefield resorted to such foul means of accomplishing his removal, is, however, only a matter of suspicion, resting mainly on the fact that his chief brehon, O'Doran, who with him had partaken of a drink given them by a woman on the wayside as they passed, also died on the same day, and was attacked with like symptoms. Leeches' skill was vain to save the heroic chief. His grief-stricken people followed him to the grave, well knowing and keenly feeling that in him they had lost their invincible tower of defense. He had been called to the chieftaincy of Leinster at the early age of sixteen years; and on the very threshold of his career had to draw the sword to defend the integrity of his principality. Prom that hour to the last of his battles, more than forty years subsequent, he proved himself one of the most consummate military tacticians of his time. Again and again he met and defeated the proudest armies of England, led by the ablest generals of the age. "He was," say the Four Masters, "a man distinguished for his hospitality, knowledge, and feats of arms; a man full of prosperity and royalty; a founder of churches and monasteries by his bounties and contributions." In fine, our history enumerates no braver soldier, no nobler character, than Art M'Murrogh "Kavanagh," prince of Leinster.

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[Fairlie]

STORY OF IRELAND

By A. M. Sullivan

CHAPTER XXIX.

From the Atlas and Cyclopedia of Ireland (1900)

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HOW THE CIVIL WARS IN ENGLAND LEFT THE ANGLO-IRISH COLONY TO RUIN. HOW THE IRISH DID NOT GRASP THE OPPORTUNITY OF EASY LIBERATION.

WITHIN the hundred years next succeeding the events we have just traced—the period embraced between 1420 and 1520—England was convulsed by the great civil war of the White and Red Roses, the houses of York and Lancaster. Irish history during the same period being chiefly a record of the contest for mastery between the two principal families of the Pale—the Butlers and the Geraldines. During this protracted civil struggle, which bathed England in blood, the colony in Ireland had, of course, to be left very much to its own resources; and, as a natural consequence, its dimensions gradually contracted, or rather it ceased to have any defined boundary at all, and the merest exertion on the part of the Irish must have sufficed to sweep it away completely. Here was, in line, the opportunity of opportunities for the native population, had they but been in a position to avail of it, or had they been capable of profiting by any opportunity, to accomplish with scarcely an effort the complete deliverance of their country. England was powerless for aggression, torn, distracted, wasted, paralyzed, by a protracted civil war.

The lords of the Pale were equally disunited and comparatively helpless. One-hundredth part of the exertion put forth so bravely, yet so vainly, by the native princes in the time of Donald O'Neill and Robert Bruce would have more than sufficed them now to sweep from the land every vestige of foreign rule. The chain hung so loosely that they had but to arise and shake it from their limbs. They literally needed but to will it, and they were free!

Yet not an effort, not a movement, not a motion, during all this time—while this supreme opportunity was passing away forever—was made by the native Irish to grasp the prize thus almost thrust into their hand—the prize of national freedom! They had boldly and bravely striven for it before, when no such opportunity invited them; they were subsequently to strive for it yet again with valor and daring as great, when every advantage would be arrayed against them. But now, at the moment when they had but to reach out their hand and grasp the object of all their endeavors, they seemed dead to all conceptions of duty or policy. The individual chiefs, north, south, east, and west, lived on in the usual way. They fought each other or the neighboring Anglo-Norman lord just as usual, or else they enjoyed as a pleasant diversification a spell of tranquility, peace, and friendship. In the relations between the Pale and the Irish ground there was, for the time, no regular government "policy" of any kind on either hand. Each Anglo-Norman lord, and each Irish chieftain, did very much as he himself pleased; made peace or war with his neighbors, or took any side he listed in the current conflicts of the period. Some of the Irish princes do certainly appear to have turned this time of respite to a good account, if not for national interests, for other not less sacred interests. Many of them employed their lives during this century in rehabilitating religion and learning in all their pristine power and grandeur.

Science and literature once more began to flourish; and the shrines of Rome and Compostello were thronged with pilgrim chiefs and princes, paying their vows of faith, from the Western Isle. Within this period lived Margaret of Offaly, the beautiful and accomplished queen of O'Carroll, king of Ely. She and her husband were munificent patrons of literature, art, and science. On Queen Margaret's special invitation the literati of Ireland and Scotland, to the number of nearly three thousand, held a "session" for the furtherance of literary and scientific interests, at her palace, near Killeagh, in Offaly, the entire assemblage being the guests of the king and queen during their stay. "The nave of the great church of Da Sinchell was converted for the occasion into a banqueting hall, where Margaret herself inaugurated the proceeding by placing two massive chalices of gold, as offerings, on the high altar, and committing two orphan children to the charge of nurses to be fostered at her charge. Robed in cloth of gold, this illustrious lady, who was as distinguished for her beauty as for her generosity, sat in queenly state in one of the galleries of the church, surrounded by the clergy, the brehons, and her private friends, shedding a luster on the scene which was passing below, while her husband, who had often encountered England's greatest generals in battle, remained mounted on a charger outside the church to bid the guests welcome, and see that order was preserved. The invitations were issued, and the guests arranged, according to a list prepared by O'Connor's chief brehon; and the second entertainment, which took place at Rathangan, was a supplemented one, to embrace such men of learning as had not been brought together at the former feast."

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