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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 the 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 fortressses, 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 Callen 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 succor 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 mades 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 firce 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 amongst 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. Towards 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 amongst themselves, had a fatal effects on the Irish. They absolutely retrogaded 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 aggrandisement, 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 for ever,

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

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EW historical names are more widely known amongst Irishmen than that of Brian the First- Brian Boru, or Borumha;"* 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 Dalcassian 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

* That is," Brian of the Tribute."

from an early age, by Brian, to whom he acted not only as a brother and prince, but as 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 "safeconduct" 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 bloodstained 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 chaunted—

'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.'

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