Soon his eyes were opened, for in May 1169, Robert FitzStephens and Maurice FitzGerald, both sons by different fathers of Nesta, the cast off mistress of Henry I., landed at the creek of Bannow, with thirty knights, sixty men in coats of mail, and three hundred archers. These were followed by Richard de Clare, Earl of Pembroke, called Strongbow, who landed on the 23rd of August at Downdonnell, near Waterford, with a well-appointed army of one thousand men and two hundred knights in armour.1 Here, indeed, was the thin end of the wedge with a vengeance. This formidable body of desperate adventurers, trained and disciplined in the wars of Henry, and armed in a manner far superior to the Irish, set at once to the task of conquest with fierce courage and untiring energy. Strongbow took in marriage Eva, the daughter of MacMurrough, and so in a manner put himself in the place of the unhappy hostage, who had to pay with his life for the perfidy of his father. With their united forces they first stormed Wexford, which made the first day a bold resistance, but surrendered the second day-the people being reminded by some clerics that after all MacMurrough was their lawful king. They next seized Waterford, and then proceeded to Dublin with their joint forces, numbering probably not less than ten thousand men. The city, inhabited chiefly by Danes, offered a stout resistance. At this time the celebrated St. Laurence O'Toole, son of the Prince of Imayle, was Archbishop of Dublin. His sister had been the wife of Dermod, and mother of Eva, the wife of Strongbow. When the citizens fully realised the impossibility of successfully resisting the large force around their walls. with such means for attack as the Normans brought with them, asking for a truce, they selected St. Laurence, the near relation of both Dermod and Strongbow, to make for them what they hoped would prove honourable terms of peace. While St. Laurence was in the camp of the besiegers, a base advantage was taken; for Miles de Cogan, with a select body, assaulted the city, and, taking its defenders by surprise, easily captured it. The Danish commander, Asculph, fled, and St. Laurence returned to find the city a scene of pillage and

1 Hibernia Expugnata, lib. i. cap. 16; Harris' Hibernica, p. 23.

slaughter. Rory O'Connor, with O'Ruarck, marched to oppose them, but, finding the Leinster troops and their English allies safely entrenched within the walls of Dublin, they did not attempt an attack, and returned without effecting anything. As soon as they were out of sight, MacMurrough and the English moved northwards, pillaging the country, burning Kells, Slane, Clonard, and many other towns, and scattering religious communities. In his patriotic striving against the invaders, Rory was greatly impeded by the hostile attitude of Donal O'Brien, who in his absence rescued the Dalcassian hostages previously surrendered in token of submission to him. To punish him for his defection, Rory sailed down the Shannon and carried the sword and torch into Thomond. The O'Kellys repeatedly plundered Ormond, while the troops of West Connaught made inroads on the whole country, from the Bay of Galway to the Shannon. In the Hy Cashin territory they met with such stubborn resistance1 from the hastily summoned MacNamaras, O'Gradys, O'Lyddys, and their kindred clans, the O'Molonys, the MacInernys, the Magraths, etc., that they had to retire hastily, leaving some of the principal chiefs dead after them, but burning the bridge at Killaloe, and so crippling for a while the Dalcassian forces. Having thus checked any attempt on the part of Donal to advance in support of his father-in-law, MacMurrough, Rory O'Connor, once more aided by O'Carroll and O'Ruarck, marched upon Dublin. Leaving a detachment of his army watching the city, he took the greater part with him to destroy the growing crops, with the view of cutting off the supplies of the besieged; but these sallied out, and, taking them completely by surprise, put to utter rout the troops left near Dublin, and compelled the others, under Rory, to retire for the second time. The year A.D. 1171, Dermod MacMurrough died from the annalists say-a loathsome disease. He had brought upon himself the malediction of his own. people, and left to history a name that is a reproach to Ireland. Giraldus Cambrensis describes him as a man of great frame and stature, fierce and brave in war, but tyrannical in conduct, "hated by all and loved by none." Following

1 Four Masters.

the feudal law, Strongbow, as the husband of his daughter, claimed the sovereignty of Leinster, and thus the house of Dermod, the betrayer of his country's freedom, disappeared in gloom and dishonour.

Meanwhile, Henry II. viewed with a jealous eye the success of his subordinates, more particularly when he learned that Strongbow assumed a regal title. He issued a proclamation forbidding any others of his subjects to cross the Irish Sea; whereupon Strongbow, now fully alive to the danger of his position between the hostile Irish on the one side and his angry liege lord on the other, determined at once to make abject submission. He returned to the feet of Henry and surrendered to him his conquests. He was, after some show of displeasure, received into favour, and allowed to accompany him in the expedition already organising by Henry for the conquest of Ireland.

CHAPTER IX.

FROM 1171 To 1194.

Life in Thomond before the Norman Invasion-Battle of Thurles-Defeat of the Normans-Alleged Submission of Roderick, the Ard-Righ, to Henry II.-Capture of Limerick-Recovered and burned by Donal O'Brien-Defeat of the Eoghanachts-Battle of the Curlieu Mountains-Pursuit of the English-Second Defeat of Thurles-Death of Donalmor.

THE Norman invasion turned the current of Irish history into an entirely new channel. For greater clearness in the narration of its subsequent events, I will henceforth use for West Thomond its comparatively modern name, Clare. At this notable turning-point in its history, it will be interesting to pause for a while, and try to take a look into its inner life -into the social and religious condition of its people before the Norman intruder crossed their path. What must give a zest to this inquiry is the admitted fact that, though a change came in the name of the county, and though undoubtedly there was an infusion of new blood, yet the people of the Clare of to-day are, for far the greater part, the direct descendants of the clans who held its wooded hills and fertile valleys for more than two thousand years before the Norman or any other invader secured a foothold west of the Shannon. The old names still survive and crowd the land-the O'Briens, the MacNamaras, the MacMahons, the O'Loughlins, the O'Molonys, the MacInernys, the O'Currys, the O'Slatteries, the O'Maddigans, the Magraths, the O'Deas, the O'Gradys, the O'Reidys, the O'Hehirs, the MacClancys, the O'Quins, the O'Hallorans, the O'Neills (Dalcassian, not Northern), the O'Liddys, the O'Kennedys, the O'Meehans, the O'Malones, etc.; and even of the names which, like the present

writer's, appear English in their origin, many were assumed for protection's sake, as will appear later on, by Clare families living within reach of their victorious and relentless enemies, when their last hope died out with the surrender of Limerick. No people in Europe, hardly even the Greeks, can trace from so ancient a period such pure and lineal descent. Of their early condition, as far as can be gathered from authentic history, something has been already told in a previous chapter. But in approaching its study, whether then or in the period before the Norman invasion now about being glanced at, a great difficulty besets us. Beyond all doubt the Irish were a lettered, cultivated nation, and all along records were carefully kept, especially in the religious houses after the introduction of Christianity. But, alas! the destroying hand of the ruthless Dane carried fire as well as the sword into the haunts of learning and piety through nearly the whole island during two centuries of constant warfare; and it needs no great effort of imagination to realise the enormous loss that Irish literature must have suffered from such havoc. Then, when the country was only recovering from the evils introduced by one horde of barbarous invaders, another, scarcely less barbarous, rushed in. Again the pen had to be laid aside for the sword; and in the frequent ransacking of towns and cities and monasteries, many ancient manuscripts must have perished. But the evil was aggravated and intensified later on. Not satisfied with seizing the lands and goods of the Irish, a fanatic attempt was made by Protestant England, and persevered in for many generations with what Edmund Burke fitly called "hellish ingenuity," to uproot and utterly destroy every trace of Ireland's ancient faith and national literature. Yet in spite of all this, here and there among some of the old families, or in the more remote religious houses, or on the shelves of European libraries, where they were placed by Irish missionaries or Irish exiles, some of the ancient records escaped the general destruction, and from these sources, scant as they certainly are, the manners and customs and religious movements of the people may be gleaned. Even the English enemy contributes in some degree to the task of picturing for our days the general features of