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A. D.

nated, together with his life, in a sanguinary battle against the Danes. After the death of Niell, the sceptre passed, according to the order of alternate succession, into the hands of Donogh, a prince of the other branch of the Hy-Niell family; and Murkertach, the son of the late monarch, became the Roydamna, or heir apparent, of his successor.

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During the dark and troubled transactions of this reign, which lasted for the space of five-and twenty years, the two personages who stand forth the most prominently in our annals are the Roydamna, Murkertach, and the famous Callachan, King of Cashel; princes who, opposed to each other in character and in policy, may be aptly referred to as affording, in their respective careers, a fair sample as well of the vices as the virtues by which the chieftains of that turbulent period were characterized. The first great achievement of the Roydamna was a signal victory over the Danes, or Pirates of the Lakes,† in Ulster; on which occasion eighty of the Danish chieftains were slaughtered, and among them, Albdan, the son of Godfred, King of Dublin. The feeble remains of the defeated army, driven to a place called the Ford of the Picts, were there surrounded, and on the point, it is added, of perishing by famine, when Godfred himself hastened from Dublin to their relief.

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926.

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Again, in a few years after, when a force of the Northmen, gaining possession of Loch Erne, laid waste and desolated the whole province of Ulster, “as far as 931. Mount Betha to the west, and Mucnamha to the south," the gallant Roydamna, coming suddenly upon them, defeated and dispersed their whole force, carrying off with him, as trophies of his victory, 200 heads of the slain. With similar success, in the year 936, notwithstanding some recent differences between the monarch and himself,-such as the Roydanna's position in relation to the throne rendered frequent, and, indeed, inevitable,—Murkertach, forgetting all other considerations in that of the public weal, joined the forces under his command, as Prince of Aileach, with those of the monarch; and, attacking the Northmen in their head-quarters, carried devastation through all their possessions round Dublin, from the city itself, as we are told by the chroniclers, to the Ford of Trustan.**

936.

While thus this gallant, and, as far as we can now judge, patriotic and honest prince, was directing all the vigorous means within his power to the one great object of crushing the common foe, the career of his rival, the much more celebrated Callachan, presents a specimen of Irish character the very reverse of this description, and such as, unfortunately, has seldom been wanting in the country, from the days of Agricola to the present. Fighting almost constantly on the side of the Northmen, Callachan imitated also those spoilers of his country in their worst excesses of devastation; and, in one instance, when the venerable monastery of Clonmacnois had been cruelly pillaged and sacked by them, it was again visited with similar horrors in the same year by the King of Cashel.tt With a like disregard both of his country and her religion, Callachan, assisted by the Danes of Waterford, made an irruption into the district of Meath, and sacrilegiously plundering the abbey of Clonenagh, and the ancient church of Cillachie, carried off from those retreats two holy abbots as prisoners.‡‡

* One of the most memorable events of the reign of Niell Glundubh, was his revival (A. D. 915,) of the ancient Taltine Games, or sports, which had of late years, owing to the incursions of the Danes, been very much discontinued. In recording a suspension of these games in the year 872, the Ulster Annals add that it was an event which had never before from early times occurred. These ancient sports, though little more, it is evident, that an annual fair, have been brought by some over zealous antiquarians into juxta-position with the Olympic Games. Hi enim ludi (says Dr. O'Connor) non minori frequentia nec minori Druidum Bolemnitate in Hibernia celebrabantur quam Ludi Olympici in Peloponneso." For the use made of these games by the ancient Irish in regulating the length of their year, see chap. iv. p. 50, of this Work.

† So called by the annalists-See Annal. Inisfall. ad an. 927, where the death of Sitric O'Imar, King of the Black Pirates and the White Pirates, is recorded. The Northmen did not, any more than the ancient Greeks, feel degraded by the appellation of Pirates. In the Odyssey, Nestor inquires of the strangers whom he had been feasting, whether they were merchants or pirates.

"Ath Cruithne."-We have here an instance of that want of precision and definiteness which Pinkerton and others complain of in the Celtic language. The word Cruithne means indifferently either Picts or Harpers; and, accordingly, Dr. O'Connor, who, in his version of the Four Masters, calls the scene of this fight The Ford of the Picts," in translating the record of the same battle, in the annals of Ulster, makes it "The Ford of the Harpers"

IV. Mag. ad ann. 924. Annal Ult. 925. Eræ Com. 926.

iv Mag ac an. 931. Co sliabh Betha siar 7 co Mucnamha fo dheas." I am at a loss to discover what places in Ulster are designated by these names.

This custom of cutting off the heads of fallen enemies, which prevailed originally in Egypt, continued to be practised in Ireland so late as the reign of Henry II.; and Dr. Meyrick (Inquiry into Ancient Armour.) amusingly refers to this custom of the Irish, as len ling "probability to their Asiatic origin, so earnestly con tended for by General Vallancey."

** IV. Mag. ad an. 936.

tt iv. Mag. ad an. 934. (æræ com. 936)

Iv. Mag. ad ann. 939.

To achievements like these the whole public life of this bold and unprincipled chief was devoted; nor is there on record more than one single instance in which he is A. D. stated to have fought on the side of his country, or rather against her despoilers;939. a defeat of the Danes in the Desies country, with the slaughter of 2000 of their troops, being found attributed to him in the Annals of Inisfallen.* There is little doubt, however, that this single redeeming record is erroneous, and that the people of A. D. the Desies themselves were in reality the victims of his triumph.t

941. Notwithstanding their feelings and habits of mutual hostility, alliances were frequently formed between the Northmen and the natives, and coalitions were now becoming almost as common among them as conflicts. Thus a dynast of the house of Niel, named Conang, gained a victory about this time, in concert with the Danes, over the Ulidlans, a people of the present county of Down; in consequence of which, the king of that district, Matudan, called in also the aid of the Northmen, and, in his turn, carried into the plains of the north the horrors of fire and sword.

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But, among the instances of such confederacy, during this century, by far the most memorable was that exhibited at the battle of Brunanburh, in Northumbria; when the brave Anlaf, King of Dublin, and likewise of Northumbria, joining in the 937. powerful league then formed against the Anglo-Saxon king, Athelstan, led an immense army of Northmen and Irish to the encounter, having entered the Humber, it is said, with a fleet of 615 sail. At the head of the forces collected for this formidable invasion was Constantine, King of Albany, whose daughter Anlaf had married; and the battle which decided the fate of their enterprise, and which has been described in detail both by Danish and Anglo-Saxon chroniclers, was considered, for length of duration and amount of slaughter, to be without parallel in English history. After a contest maintained with alternate success from dawn until sunset, victory declared at length in favour of the fortunate Athelstan, who from thenceforth reigned, without a competitor, the first acknowledged English king. A retreat to their shipping, which they were able to effect with the wreck of their army, was all that remained to the vanquished Constantine and his son-in-law; and Anlaf, dislodged by this signal disaster from his Northumbrian throne, returned defeated, but, as will be seen, not subdued, to Ireland.

In the Saga of Egil, which contains the Norse account of this great battle-detailed with a minuteness rather suspicious-we find some particulars respecting the Irish troops engaged in the action, which, as characteristic of that people, are worthy of some notice. One of the Vikingrs, or northern sea-kings, who held a command on the side of Athelstan, is represented, in disposing his forces for action, to have appointed a particular battalion to engage the Scots or Irish, who, it is added, never fought in any regular order; but keeping constantly in motion, from one part of the field to the other, did often much damage to those whom they found off their guard; but, on being opposed, with the same alertness again retreated. We have here an exact picture of the mode of fighting practised by the Kerns, or light-armed infantry of the Irish, whose remarkable activity in returning constantly to the attack, together with their dexterous use of the missile weapons, rendered them a force, as even Giraldus acknowledges, not a little formida ble.**

Inisfall. ad ann. 941.

†The Four Masters, who, in matters relating to Munster, are in general far more trustworthy than the Annals of Inisfallen, state that in the course of the same year (941.) two successive battles were fought be tween Callachan and the people of the Desies, in the first of which the latter were defeated, with the slaughter of two thousand of their troops, but in the second, being assisted by the people of Ossory, they gained a complete victory over him.

The departure of the Danes from Dublin on this expedition "into Saxony," is recorded by the Four Masters, ad an. 935. (æræ com. 937.) § Turner, Hist. of Anglo-Saxons (book vi. chap 2.,) who gives as his authorities, the Chronicle of Mailros. Simeon of Durham, and Hoveden.

Unde usque ad præsens bellum prænominatur magnum-Ethelwerdi Historia. "The bloodiest fight, say authors, that ever this island saw."-Milton, History of Britain.

Thus in Johnstone's version. (Antiq Scando Celt,)“ Scoti enim solent mobiles esse in acie; huc illuc discurrunt, diversisque partibus incursantes, incautis sæpe damnum afferunt; si autem obsistitur illis fugaces existunt." Giraldus has described, in pretty much the same terms, the peculiar manœuvres of the Kerns: "Quatenus et lapidum (quorum ictibus graves et armatos cominus appetere solent, et indemnes agilitatis beneficio, crebris accedere vicibus et abscedere,) è diverso eminus sagittis injuria propulsetur."-Hibern. Expug. lib. ii. c. 36.

** In professing to follow the northern account of this battle, Mr. Turner has, I must say, dealt rather unfairly as well by the meaning of his authority, as by the character of the Irish soldiery. The troops of this nation engaged on that occasion he represents as an "irregular" and "disorderly" force, "who always flew from point to point, no where steady, yet often injuring the unguarded." But assuredly the account given of the mode of fighting of the Irish Kerns, both in Egil's Saga, and the passage of Giraldus just cited, conveys a totally different notion of that light, agile, and constantly harassing force. In the part of his description, too, where professedly following the Saga. Mr. Turner speaks of the battalia of Thorolf, as "con. sisting of the disorderly Irish," there is not, in the original as rendered by Johnstone, the slightest ground. for this disparaging epithet.

In the Anglo-Saxon poem, commemorative of the battle of Brunanburh, there occur some verses which have been, rather too sanguinely, interpreted as containing a eulogium upon the character of the Irish people; whereas, so hopelessly vague and obscure are the structure and language of these verses, that they leave full scope for every possible variety of conjecture as to their meaning; and the opinion given of them long since by the poet Milton,* ought to have deterred all such rash attempts to sound their fathomless obscurity. As the supposed eulogy, however, upon the Irish, which has been conjured up out of them, is at least not undeserved, the passage, as rendered according to this view, may here be cited. After stating that Constantine left his own son on the field of battle, the poet is made to say that "neither was there aught for the yellow-haired race, the bold in battle, and the ancient in genius, to glory in; nor had Olaf, and the remains of the army, any reason to boast. The sad remainder, in the resounding sea,

passed over the depths of the waves to Dublin."t

In about seven years after his defeat on the field of Brunanburh, the gallant Anlaf, finding the course for his daring ambition again thrown open by the death of Athelstan, renewed his pretensions to the Northumbrian throne; and, having been invited over from Ireland with that view, was appointed by the people of Northumbria their sovereign. Among the numerous errors occasioned by so many Danish princes bearing the name of Anlaf, may be reckoned the opinion entertained by some writers, that the brave competitor of Athelstan and of Edmund, just mentioned, was the same Anlaf whose name is found on an ancient Irish coin accompanied by a figure of the cross, denoting that the king, by whose orders this coin had been struck, was a Christian. For this supposition, however, there appears not to be any foundation; as it was not till near seven years after the death of Anlaf of Brunanburh that the Danes of Dublin, to use the language of our annals, "received the faith of Christ and were baptized." The coin in question, therefore, must have belonged to the reign of a later prince of the same name. It was about the year 948 that the conversion of the Danes of Dublin to the Christian faith is, in general, supposed to have taken place. The Northmen of that city were, it is supposed, the first of their nation in Ireland who, in any great numbers, embraced the doctrines of the Gospel; but so little change did this conversion work in their general character, that, were there not an express record of the fact, it would not be easy for a reader of their history to discover that they were not still immersed in all the darkness of heathenism. One early proof of religious zeal they indeed afforded, if it be true, as some historians state, that the celebrated abbey of St. Mary was founded by them in the neighbourhood of Dublin this very year. T

Prosperous as appeared to be, in many respects, the affairs of the Irish Danes at this crisis, and vast as was the command of resources which their possession of all the chief seaports gave them, it is clear that the tenure of their power, however great its extent, was never for a single day certain or undisturbed. The indefatigable activity and bravery of the Irish people left not a moment of repose or security to their invaders; and though but too often, at the call of cupidity or revenge, the ever ready sword was drawn on the side of the foreigners,-though there were even found, as in the case of the Leinster men, large bodies of the natives almost habitually traitors, it is evident that the great mass of the population never ceased to resist, that they were strong in revenge

"To describe which (battle) the Saxon annalist (who is wont to be sober and succinct) whether the same or another writer, now labouring under the weight of his argument, and overcharged, runs on a sudden into such extravagant fancies and metaphors as bear him quite beside the scope of being understood."-Milton, History of Britain.

†The reader needs but to turn to the different versions of this passage by Gibson, Ingram, Turner, and Price, to perceive how utterly hopeless is the attempt to arrive at its real meaning; and of how little worth is the compliment to the Irish that has been extorted from it. He will find that the yellow-haired youth," or "nation," which figures so poetically in the version of three of these interpreters, is, in that of the fourth, transformed into a "grizzly-headed old deceiver."

If the Celtic tongue as above intimated, be open to the charge of vagueness and want of precision, what is to be said of this specimen of the Gothic?

For an account of this silver coin, see Ware's Antiquities, ch. xxxii., and Simon's Essay on Irish Coins. The whole subject of the coins supposed to have been struck in Ireland about this period, is beset with difficulty and obscurity; but, in the writers just quoted, in Bishop Nicholson's Historical Library, ch. viii., and in Kedar's Nummorum in Hibernia Cusorum, &c.:" a work compiled chiefly from the foregoing, the reader will find all that is known and conjectured on the subject. See also a note by Dr. O'Connor, on the Ulster Annals, ad an. 937, and Dr. Lanigan, ch. xxii, note 138.

Ware, Antiq. chap. xxiv. ad ann. 948.

The insincerity of the conversion of the Danes of England is thus strongly represented by the author of the History of the Descent of the Normans:-"Plusieurs prirent, moyennant quelques concessions de terre, le titre et l'emploi de défenseurs perpétuels des églises qu' eux mêmes avoient brulées; d'autres revêtirent l'habit de prêtres, et conservoient sous cet habit le fouge et la dureté d'âme des brigands de mer."

T Ware, in loc. citat. Lanigan, chap. xxii. § 12. Archdall, Monastic. Hibern. at Dublin. See for the churches dedicated by them to their own saints, St. Olave, St. Michan, &c., Mr. W. M Mason's History of St. Patrick's Cathedral.

and hatred against their oppressors, and wanted but one combined and vigorous effort to rid themselves of the yoke.

To go through all the monotonous details of battles and scenes of pillage which form the staple of the Irish records for this century, would be to render these pages like a confused and deathful dream. All those monasteries and religious establishments, which have already been enumerated, as furnishing victims for the Northmen's rage, were again and again visited, during this period, by the still refreshed spirit of cruelty and rapine. The venerable church of Columba, at Kells, the cells of the religious upon the islets of Lough Ree, the sacred edifices of Armagh,* the school of Clonard, renowned for its learning through Europe, and the ancient abbey of Down, the hallowed resting-place of the remains of St. Patrick,-all these memorable and holy structures were, at different times, during this century, and in various forms of violation, profaned and laid desolate.t Therich shrines of Kildare, so frequently before an object of their cupidity, were broken and plundered by these spoilers on the very day sacred to the virgin saint. Even after the Danes themselves had professed to embrace Christianity, they did not the less desecrate and destroy its venerable temples; and, in an attack made by them upon Slane, in the year 950, when they set fire to the church of that ancient place, a number of persons who were at the time assembled in the belfry, among whom was Probus, the histo rian of St. Patrick, perished miserably in the flames.

It has been observed of the Danes of England, that had they, at the commencement of this century, united the whole of their force under one supreme head, they would have been probably more than a match for the whole power of Edward; and doubtless the same impolitic system of dividing their strength among number of equal and independent chieftains, which so long delayed their complete conquest of England, was the cause likewise of their ultimate failure in Ireland. For, minute as was in this latter country the subdivision of sovereignty, a yet more multiple form of royalty was adopted by the nations of the north; where, in the times preceding the eighth century, there existed in Norway itself no less than twelve kingdoms; and the small territory around Upsal was under the rule of nineteen different kings.

This enfeebling partition of the kingly power continued to be the system adopted by the Northmen in Ireland; and the weakening effects of such a policy were the more felt, from the detached districts they severally occupied, which rendered it still more difficult for them to act with speed and decision in concert. While in England, too, the original affinity between their language, and that of the Saxons afforded to the invaders such means of intercourse as greatly facilitated their progress and settlement in the country, the Danes in Ireland were, on the contrary, encountered by a language wholly and essentially different from their own, and forming in itself a complete wall of separa. tion between them and the great mass of the natives. When such and so serious were the disadvantages under which they laboured, and boldly, constantly as every step of their way was contested, it is evident that nothing but a want of unity among the Irish themselves, from the divided nature of their government, the feuds and jealousies among the people, and, too often, the treachery of their princes, could have delayed so long the utter expulsion of the foreign intruder from out the land.

What the Irish wanted at this crisis was evidently the ascendancy of some one potent spirit, who, whether for his own aggrandizement, or from some more lofty motives, would devote ardently the entire energies of his mind to the task of arousing and uniting his fellow countrymen, so as, by one grand and simultaneous effort, to rid the whole island of the pestilent presence of the foreigner.

It was hardly possible that two such ascendant and stirring spirits as the roydamna and the King of Cashel, should continue to move through the same sphere of action, and generally in adverse directions, without coming at last into collision; and the triumphant ease with which, in the encounter that ensued between them, Murkertach mastered his antagonist, presents one of those instances of what is called poetical justice, which occur

In 921, when Godfred, King of the Danes of Dublin, attacked and plundered Armagh, he is said to have spared the Churches, the Colidei, or Culdees (who were the officiating clergy of the cathedral,) and the sick. + See our Annals, passim.

"The Herverar Saga mentions that, at one period, there were twelve kingdoms in Norway "— Turner, Hist. Anglo Sax., book ini. c 1. "In Upsal, nineteen of these petty kingdoms are enumerated."-Ibid. § Lingua Danorum Anglicanæ loquel vicina est.-Script. Rer. Danic Saxons,) originally kindred, were melted into each other; their ancestors were of the same race, and might "The languages (of the Danes and have been neighbours in their original seats" - Mackintosh, Hist. of England, c. ii. CAB CYC.

According to a late learned work, however, (Rask's Anglo-Saxon Grammar.) by which a new light appears to have been thrown upon this subject, the Anglo-Saxon deviates considerably from the Danish and other Scandinavian dialects.-See Preface.

but too rarely in real history. After a successful course of warfare in different parts of the kingdom, the particulars of which it is unnecessary to dwell upon, the Roy- A. D. damna proceeded at the head of his troops, and attended by a select band of 1200 939. warriors* from his own principality, to gather the fruits of his late successes, in the shape of tribute and princely hostages from the conquered. The Danes of Dublin, in acknowledgment of submission, surrendered to him their prince, Sitric; while, from the Lagenians, he not only enforced tribute, but carried away with him as hostage their king, Lorcar. But it was in Munster that the proudest trophy of this triumphal progresst awaited him. Entering boldly into the very territories of his rival, Callachan, he required of the Momonians, no less as a pledge of future fealty than, as an atonement for past transgressions, that they should deliver up their king unconditionally into his hands. This humiliating demand was, after some hesitation and parley, complied with; and the fierce Callachan, led in bondage from his own dominions, was sent soon after by the triumphant Roydamna, with all his other captives and hostages, to the monarch. How long his state of captivity lasted does not very clearly appear; but there occurs once only, after this date, any particular mention of him; and then, faithful to his old habits of intestine warfare, he is found gaining a sanguinary victory at Maighduine, or the Field of the Fortress, over Kennedy, the father of the celebrated Brian Boru.§

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Murkertach survived but a short time his proud and triumphal circuit throughout the island, and died,|| as he had for the greater part of his manhood lived, in fierce conflict with the Danes; leaving, as a poet of that day strongly expresses it, all his countrymen orphans. In the record of his death we find him described as warrior of the Saffron bue,** and the hero of Western Europe."+t

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It is a fact both curious and instructive, as showing of what materials the idols of the multitude are most frequently fashioned, that while such, as we learn from authentic records, were the respective careers of these two warlike contemporaries, the fame of Callachan, as transmitted by tradition, has far outrun that of his patriotic rival; and that even some modern Irish historians, by whom Murkertach is barely mentioned, have devoted whole pages to the narration of a wild and imaginary adventure related of the King of Cashel. For this flimsy tale of romance there exist no grounds whatever in our annals; and the whole fable was probably the invention of some of those poet-historians, or seanachies, of the Eugenian princes, who sought to do honour to their royal masters by embalming in fiction the memory of a chieftain of their race. The very selection, however, of Callachan's name, as a theme for fable, shows that already he stood high in popular fame, having been handed down by tradition as the favourite champion of a period when valour was the virtue most in request; and when it mattered little to the fame of the hero whether he fought on the wrong side or the right, so he but fought boldly and successfully, and with the due heroic disregard to life, as well his own as that of others.

After a reign comprising in its duration nearly a quarter of a century, this year saw another of those shadows of royalty, which occupied in succession the throne of A. D. Tara, pass undistinguished into oblivion. This monarch's name, it may be re- 944. membered, was Donough; and the annalist, in recording his death, cites a distich inscribed by a poet of the day to his memory, in which the general condition of the

IV. Mag. ad an. 939.

There is still extant a poem on this circuit of Murkertach, said to have been written by a contemporary and friend of that prince, Corbmacan Eigeas, the chief poet of Ulster. The monarch, gratified, we are told, by Murkertach's loyalty, in delivering to him all the hostages, returned them again into his hands, consider. ing him their fittest guardian. "To commemorate this event, and the mighty deeds of his prince, Corbmacan wrote his poem of 256 verses, beginning Oh Muirceartach, son of worthy Niall, who hast received hostages from Falia's Isle."-Trans. Iberno-Celt. Society. Mr. O'Reilly adds, that "a copy of this poem is in the O'Clery's Book of Conquests, and in the pedigree of the once royal family of O'Niell, which is in the hands of the assistant secretary of the society."

Annal. Inisfall. ad an. 941.

IV. Mag. ad an. 942. Annal. Ult. 943. (æræ com. 944.)

IV. Mag. ad an. 941. Annal. Ult. ad an. 942 (æræ com. 943.)

Verses quoted by the Four Masters, in loc.

** The use of this colour in their garments continued to be a favourite fashion with the Irish down to so late a period as the time of Henry VIII., when it was, like all other things Irish, rendered punishable by law; and there is a statute of that reign, forbidding any one to use or wear any shirt, smocke, kerchor, bendol, neckerchour, mocket, or linnen cappe, coloured or dyed with saffron." See, for some amusing remarks upon this statute, Ledwich's Antiquities" Of the ancient Irish Dress." Campion, who wrote his account of Ireland in the sixteenth century, says, "They have now left their saffron, and learne to wash their shirts four or five times in a yeare."

tt The Hector of Western Europe," as it is in the original of both the annalists above cited,-Ectoir tar tair Eorpa. According to Dr. O'Connor, however, Ectoir is a very ancient Irish word, signifying hero, and compounded, as he rather too fancifully supposes, of Eacht, an achievement, and Oir, golden, or splendid. 11 On this farrago of fiction Keating has bestowed no less than ten or eleven of his folio pages, while Dr. Warner has filled fourteen of his quarto pages with a verbose dilution of the same trash.

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