Read Ebook: Ireland: The People's History of Ireland Volume 1 (of 2) by Finerty John F John Frederick

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No man could be allowed into the Fiann until a pit or trench deep enough to reach to his knees had been dug in the earth, and he had been placed therein, armed with his shield, and holding in his hand a hazel staff of the length of a warrior's arm. Nine warriors, armed with nine javelins, were then set opposite him, at the distance of nine ridges; these had to cast their nine weapons at him all at once, and then, if he chanced to receive a single wound, in spite of his shield and staff, he was not admitted to the Order.

Another rule was that the candidate must run through a wood, at full speed, with his hair plaited, and with only the grace of a single tree between him and detailed pursuers. If they came up with him, or wounded him, he was rejected.

He was also rejected "if his arms trembled in his hands"; or if, in running through the wood, "a single braid of his hair had been loosened out of its plait."

He was not admitted if, in his flight, his foot had broken a single withered branch. Neither could he pass muster "unless he could jump over a branch of a tree as high as his forehead, and could stoop under one as low as his knee, through the agility of his body." He was rejected, also, if he failed "to pluck a thorn out of his heel with his hand without stopping in his course." Each member, before being admitted to the Order, was obliged to swear fidelity and homage to the Righ-Feinnedh or king of the Fenians, which is the English translation of the title.

There were also other military bodies--not forgetting the more ancient "Red Branch Knights," whom Moore has immortalized in one of his finest lyrics, but the Fenians and their redoubtable chief hold the foremost place of fame in Irish national annals.

It would seem that a kind of loose federal compact existed, from time to time, between the High King and the other monarchs, but, unfortunately, there does not appear to have been a very strong or permanent bond of union, and this fatal defect in the Irish Constitution of pre-Norman times led to innumerable disputes about succession to the Ard-Righship and endless civil wars, which eventually wrecked the national strength and made the country the comparatively easy prey of adventurous and ambitious foreigners. The monarchical system was, in itself, faulty. Where a monarchy exists at all, the succession should be so regulated that the lineal heir, according to primogeniture, whether a minor or not, must succeed to the throne, except when the succession is, for some good and sufficient reason, set aside by the legislative body of the nation. This was done in England in the case of Henry IV, who, with the consent of Parliament, usurped the crown of Richard II; and also in the case of William and Mary, who were selected by the British Parliament of their day to supplant James II, the father-in-law and uncle of the former and father of the latter. The act of settlement and succession, passed in 1701, ignored the male line of the Stuarts, chiefly because it was Catholic, and placed the succession to the throne, failing issue of William and Mary and Anne, another daughter of the deposed King James, in a younger, Protestant branch of the female line of Stuart--the House of Hanover-Brunswick--which now wears the British crown. But, in general, as far as the question of monarchy is concerned, the direct system of succession has proven most satisfactory, and has frequently prevented confusion of title and consequent civil war. We can recall only one highly important occasion when it provoked that evil--the sanguinary thirty years' feud between the kindred royal English, or, rather, Norman-French, Houses of York and Lancaster. Even in that case the quarrel arose from the original bad title of Henry IV, who was far from being the lineal heir to the throne. Our own democratic system of choosing a chief ruler is, no doubt, best of all. We elect from the body of the people a President whose term of office is four years. In some respects he has more executive power than most hereditary monarchs, but if at the end of his official term he fails to suit a majority of the delegates of his party to the National Convention, some other member of it is nominated in his stead. The opposition party also nominates a candidate, and very often succeeds in defeating the standard-bearer of the party in power. Sometimes there are three or more Presidential candidates in the field, as was the case in 1860, when Abraham Lincoln was elected. Succession to the Presidency, therefore, is not confined to any one family, or its branches, in a republic, and the office of President of the United States may be competed for by any eligible male citizen who can control his party nomination. The example of Washington, who refused a third term, has become an unwritten law in America, and it defeated General Grant's aspiration to succeed Mr. Hayes in the Republican National Convention of 1880. In France, under Napoleon, every French soldier was supposed to carry a marshal's baton in his knapsack. In the United States, every native-born schoolboy carries the Presidential portfolio in his satchel.

Period of Danish Invasion

THE Irish people, having settled down to the Christian form of worship, were enjoying "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," building churches and colleges, and sending out a stream of saints and scholars to the rest of Europe, when, about the end of the eighth century, the restless Norsemen, universally called "Danes" in Ireland, swept down in their galleys by thousands on the Irish coasts, and, after many fierce conflicts, succeeded in establishing colonies at the mouths of many of the great rivers of the island. There they built fortified towns, from which they were able to sally forth by sea or land to change their base of operations and establish new conquests. Dublin at the mouth of the Liffey, Drogheda at the mouth of the Boyne, Wexford at the mouth of the Slaney, Waterford at the mouth of the Suir, and Limerick at the estuary of the Shannon, are all cities founded by the Danes, who were natural traders and fierce warriors. They did not confine their attentions exclusively to Ireland, but, about the same period, conquered Saxon England, ruling completely over it; and they established a strong colony on the north coast of France, which is called Normandy to this day, and from which sprang, by a combination of Scandian with Gallic blood, the greatest race of warriors--the Romans, perhaps, excepted--the world has known.

A period of comparative repose followed. Many of the Danes became converts to Christian doctrine, and there was, probably, more or less of intermarriage among the higher classes of the rival races. But the Norsemen retained much of their old-time ferocity, and, occasionally, the ancient struggle for supremacy was renewed, with varying success. It is humiliating for an Irish writer to be obliged to admit that some of the Irish Christian princes, jealous of the incumbent Ard-Righ, did not remain faithful to their country, and actually allied themselves with the Danes, participating in their barbarous acts. This explains why, for a period of about three hundred years, in spite of repeated Irish victories, the Norsemen were able to hold for themselves a large portion of Ireland, especially the districts lying close to the sea, where they had no difficulty in receiving supplies and reinforcements from Denmark and Norway. Many of those old Irish princes were, indeed, conscienceless traitors, but the people, as a whole, never abandoned the national cause.

Brian of Kinkora, fiery of mood, enterprising, ambitious, and, we fear, somewhat unscrupulous in pursuit of sovereignty, a born general and diplomat, as either capacity might suit his purpose, burned to possess himself of the supreme sceptre. His ambition led, as usual under such conditions, to acts of aggression on his part, and, finally, to civil war between Malachy and himself. A terrible struggle raged in Ireland for twenty years, until, at last, Ard-Righ Malachy was forced to capitulate, and his rival became High King of Ireland in his place. The Danes, naturally, took advantage of the civil strife to re-establish their sway in the island, and gained many advantages over the Irish troops. Moved by the danger of his country, the noble Malachy allied himself with Brian, and, together, they marched against the Norsemen and drove them back to their seacoast forts. But those bold and restless spirits did not, therefore, cease to war upon Ireland. Again and yet again they placed new armies in the field, only to be again baffled and routed by either the skilful Brian or the devoted Malachy.

Battle of Clontarf, A.D., 1014--Total Overthrow of the Danish Army and Power in Ireland

MANY of the princes of Leinster, more especially the MacMurroughs were generally, in some measure, allied to the Danes, and fought with them against their own countrymen. After several years of warfare, a peace was, at length, patched up with the MacMurrough, and he became a guest of King Brian at Kinkora. In those days chess was the national game of the Irish princes and chiefs, and while engaged in it with the Leinster guest, Prince Murrough , Brian's eldest son, in a fit of anger, hurled a taunt at the former in regard to his recent alliance with the invaders of his country. This action was, of course, rude, and even brutal, on the part of Prince Murrough, although MacMurrough had been guilty of treasonable offences. The Leinster potentate rose immediately from the table at which they were playing, pale from rage, and, in a loud voice, called for his horse and retainers. He was obeyed at once and left the palace. The wise King Brian, on learning of the quarrel and departure, sent messengers after the King of Leinster to bring him back, but his anger was so great that he would not listen to their representations, so that they went back without him to Kinkora. MacMurrough immediately re-allied himself with the Danes, and so the flames of war were rekindled with a vengeance. Many other princes and chiefs of Leinster made common cause with their king and his foreign allies. Reinforcements for the latter poured into Ireland from Scandinavia, from Britain, from the neighboring islands, from every spot of earth on which an invader could be mustered--all inflamed against Ireland, and all expecting to wipe King Brian and his army from the Irish soil. But Brian had his allies, too; the armies of Munster, Connaught, part of Ulster, and most of the heroic clans of Leinster flocked to his standard, the latter led by the ever-faithful Malachy and his tributary chiefs. All of the MacMurrough interest, as already stated, sided with the Danes. A majority of the Ulster princes, jealous of Brian's fame and supreme power, held back from his support, but did not join the common enemy.

Brian was now an old man, and even his bold son, Murrough, the primary cause of the new trouble, was beyond middle age. The hostile armies hurried toward Dublin, the principal Danish stronghold, and on Good Friday morning, April 23, 1014, were face to face on the sands of Clontarf, which slope down to Dublin Bay. We have no correct account of the numbers engaged, but there were, probably, not less than thirty thousand men--large armies for those remote days--on each side. It was a long and a terrible battle, for each army appeared determined to conquer or die. Under King Brian commanded Prince Murrough and his five brothers: Malachy, Kian, Prince of Desmond, or South Munster; Davoren, of the same province; O'Kelly, Prince of Hy-Many, East Connaught; O'Heyne, the Prince of Dalaradia, and the Stewards of Mar and Lennox in Scotland.

The Danes and their allies were commanded by Brodar, the chief admiral of the Danish fleet; King Sitric, of Dublin; the Danish captains, Sigurd and Duvgall, and the warrior Norwegian chiefs, Carlos and Anrud. The Lord of the Orkney Islands also led a contingent, in which Welsh and Cornish auxiliaries figured.

Footnote 1:

Sitric, according to some writers, was not in the battle.

Thus, it will seem, the cause was one of moment, as the fate of a country was to be decided, and the ablest captains of Ireland and Scandinavia led the van of the respective hosts. The struggle was long and murderous, for the armies fought hand to hand. Brian, too feeble to sit his war-horse and bear the weight of even his light armor, worn out, moreover, by the long march and the marshaling of his forces, was prevailed upon to retire to his pavilion and rest. He placed the active command of the Irish army in the hands of King Malachy and his son, Prince Murrough O'Brien. The conflict lasted from daylight until near the setting of the sun. Every leader of note on the Danish side, except Brodar, was killed--many by the strong hand of Prince Murrough and his brave young son, Turlough O'Brien, after his father the person most likely to be elected to the chief kingship of Ireland. On the Irish side there fell Prince Murrough, his gallant son, the Scottish chiefs of Mar and Lennox, who came, with their power, to fight for Ireland, and many other leaders of renown. King Brian himself, while at prayer in his tent, which stood apart and unguarded, was killed by Brodar, the flying Danish admiral, who was pursued and put to death by a party of Irish soldiers.

The slaughter of the minor officers and private men, on both sides, was immense, and the little river Tolka, on the banks of which the main battle was fought, was choked with dead bodies and ran red with blood. But the Danes and their allies were completely broken and routed, and the raven of Denmark never again soared to victory in the Irish sky. Many Danes remained in the Irish seaport towns, but they became Irish in dress, language, and feeling, and thousands of their descendants are among the best of Irishmen to-day.

Ireland, although so signally victorious at Clontarf, sustained what proved to be a deadly blow in the loss of her aged king and his two immediate heirs. Brian, himself, unwittingly opened the door of discord when he took the crown forcibly from the Hy-Niall family, which had worn it so long. His aim was to establish a supreme and perpetual Dalcassian dynasty in himself and his descendants--a wise idea for those times, but one balked by destiny. Now all the provincial Irish monarchs aspired to the supreme power, and this caused no end of jealousy and intrigue. Brian, in his day of pride, had been hard on the Ossorians, and their chief, Fitzpatrick, Prince of Ossory, basely visited his wrath, as an ally of the Danes, on the Dalcassian contingent of the Irish army returning from Clontarf encumbered by their wounded. But these dauntless warriors did not for a moment flinch. The hale stood gallantly to their arms, and the wounded, unable to stand upright, demanded to be tied to stakes placed in the ground, and thus supported they fought with magnificent desperation. The treacherous Ossorian prince was routed, as he deserved to be, and has left behind a name of infamy. Many noble patriots of the house of Fitzpatrick have since arisen and passed away, but that particular traitor ranks with Iscariot, MacMurrough, Monteith, and Arnold in the annals of treachery. Who that has read them has not been thrilled by the noble lines of Moore which describe the sacrifice of the wounded Dalcassians?

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

The glorious King Malachy, although ever in the thickest of the battle, survived the carnage of Clontarf. Unable to agree upon a candidate from any of the provincial royal families because of their bitter rivalries, the various factions, having confidence in Malachy's wisdom and patriotism, again elected him High King of Ireland, the last man who held that title without dispute. He reigned but eight years after his second elevation to the supreme throne of his country and died at a good old age about the middle of September, 1022, in the odor of sanctity, and sincerely lamented by the Irish nation, excepting a few ambitious princes who coveted the crown his acts had glorified. In the whole range of Irish history he was the noblest royal character, and his name deserves to be forever honored by the nation he sought to preserve.

After the good king's death, a younger son of Brian Boru, Prince Donough , made an attempt to be elected Ard-Righ, and, failing in that, sought to hold the crown by force. But the provincial monarchs refused to recognize his claims, as he did not appear to inherit either the military prowess or force of character of his great father. After some futile attempts to maintain his assumed authority, he was finally deposed by his abler nephew, Turlough O'Brien, who occupied the throne, not without violent opposition, for a period. Poor Donough proceeded to Rome and presented his father's crown and harp to the Pope, probably because he had no other valuable offerings to bestow. This circumstance was afterward made use of by the Anglo-Normans to make it appear that the presentation made by the deposed and discredited Donough to the Pontiff carried with it the surrender of the sovereignty of Ireland to his Holiness. No argument could be more absurd, because, as has been shown, the crown of Ireland was elective, not hereditary, except with well understood limitations, which made the blood royal a necessity in any candidate. Donough, in any case, was never acknowledged as High King of Ireland, and could not transfer a title he did not possess. In fact all the Irish monarchs may be best described not as Kings of Ireland, but Kings of the Irish. They had no power to alienate, or transfer, the tribe lands from the people, and held them only in trust for their voluntary subjects. Modern Irish landlordism is founded on the feudal, not the tribal, system. Hence its unfitness to satisfy a people in whom lingers the heredity of the ancient Celtic custom. King Brian, the most absolute of all the Irish rulers, is described by some annalists as "Emperor of the Irish."

Desolating Civil Wars Among the Irish

FROM the deposition of Donough O'Brien down to the period of the Norman invasion of the island--about a century and a half--Ireland was cursed by the civil wars which raged interminably, because of disputes of royal succession, between the McLoughlins of Ulster--a branch of the Hy-Niall dynasty--and the descendants of King Brian of Kinkora, in which the latter were finally worsted. Then the successful family fell out with royal O'Conors of Connaught. One of the latter, a brave and ambitious man, called Turlough Mor, aimed at the chief sovereignty and proved himself an able general and a wise statesman. He reigned in splendor over Connaught, and terrorized his enemies of Ulster and Munster by his splendid feats of arms. He held his court at Rathcroghan, in Roscommon, and often entertained as many as 3,000 guests on occasions of festival. His palace, fortified after the circular Celtic fashion, dominated more than four hundred forts, or duns, which were the strongholds of his chiefs, in the territory of Roscommon alone; he founded churches and was generous to the clergy and to the poor. In spite of all this, however, he was unable to attain to the High Kingship, and only succeeded in paving the way to the national throne for his son and successor, Rory, commonly called Roderick, O'Conor, whose reign was destined to behold the Anglo-Normans in Ireland. Dr. Joyce, in dealing with this troubled period of Irish history, says that during the one hundred and fifty years comprised in it, there were eight Ard-Righs "with opposition"--that is, some one of the provinces, perhaps more, would refuse to recognize their jurisdiction. There was also chaos among the minor royal families. As regarded the High King, it was not unusual to have two of them using that title at once, as was the case with Donal O'Loughlin, King of Ulster, and Murtough O'Brien, King of Munster. Both these claimants terminated their careers in monasteries. A similar condition existed, also, between Turlough Mor O'Conor, before mentioned, and Murtough O'Loughlin, King of Ulster, and the strife was only ended by the death of Turlough Mor, in 1156. His son, Roderick, then attempted to wrest the Ard-Righship from the Ulster monarch, but was defeated. On the death of the latter, in 1166, Roderick, who was not opposed by any candidate of influence, was elected High King--the last of the title who reigned over all Ireland.

It may be asked, why did not the clansmen--the rank and file of the Irish people--put a stop to the insane feuds of their kings, princes, and chiefs? Because, we answer, they were accustomed to the tribal system and idea. Doubtless, they loved Ireland, in a general way, but were much more attached to their family tribe-land, and, above all, they adored the head of their sept and followed where he led, asking no questions as to the ethics of his cause. Had they been more enlightened regarding the art of government, they might have combined against their selfish leaders and crushed them. But the tribal curse was upon them, and is not yet entirely lifted.

The Danes held the crown of England for about a quarter of a century after they were driven from power in Ireland. At last, after great difficulty, they were driven from the throne and the saintly Edward the Confessor, of the old Saxon line, was raised to the kingship of England. His successor, King Harold--a brave but, we fear, not a very wise man--is said by English historians to have "done homage"--an evil custom of those days--to William, Duke of Normandy, while on a visit to that country. At all events, William claimed the crown, which Harold, very properly, declined to surrender. William was an able and resolute, but fierce and cruel, warrior. He speedily organized a force of 60,000 mercenaries, mainly French-Normans, but with thousands of real Frenchmen among them, and, having provided himself with an immense flotilla--a wondrous achievement in that age of the world--succeeded in throwing his entire force on the English coast. Harold, nothing daunted, met him on a heath near Hastings, in Sussex, where the Saxon army had strongly intrenched itself, and would, perhaps, have been victorious had not it abandoned its position to pursue the fleeing Normans, who, with their accustomed martial skill, turned upon their disordered pursuers and repulsed them in return. The centre of the great conflict is marked by the ruins of Battle Abbey. The two armies were about equal in strength and fought the whole length of an October day before the combat was decided. Prodigies of valor were performed, but, at last, the brave Harold fell, and the remains of the Saxon army fled from that fatal field. William, soon afterward, occupied London. The Saxons made but small show of resistance, after Hastings, and, within a few years, "fair England" was parceled out among William's Norman-French captains, who thus laid the foundation of the baronial fabric that, with one brief interval, has dominated England ever since. A few of the Saxon nobles managed, somehow, to save their domains--probably by swearing allegiance to William and marrying their lovely daughters to his chiefs--but, as a whole, the Saxon people became the serfs of the Norman barons, and were scarcely recognized even as subjects, until the long and bloody wars with France, in the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries, made them necessary, in a military sense, to the Plantagenet kings, who employed them chiefly as archers. Under Norman training, their skill with the deadly long bow made them perhaps the most formidable infantry of the Middle Ages.

The Normans in England, very wisely, accommodated themselves to the new conditions and made up their minds to live upon and enjoy the lands they had won by the sword. They rapidly became more English than Norman, and after the accession of the House of Anjou to the throne, in the person of Henry II, began to call themselves "Englishmen." Sir Walter Scott, in his noble historical romance of "Ivanhoe," draws a splendidly vivid picture of that period.

In Ireland, as we have seen, the series of distracting civil wars, all growing out of questions of succession to the national and provincial thrones, still progressed, and, owing to the unceasing discord, prosperity waned, and some historians claim that Church discipline was relaxed, although not to any such extent as is asserted by the Norman chroniclers. But the reigning Pontiff, hearing of the trouble, summoned some of the leading hierarchs of the Irish Church to Rome, where they explained matters satisfactorily.

About the time that Henry II, in virtue of his descent from the Conqueror, through his mother, daughter of Henry I, assumed the English crown, the Papal chair was occupied by Adrian the Fourth, whose worldly name was Nicholas Breakspeare, an Englishman by birth, and the only man of that nationality who ever wore the tiara. He, too, had been informed by Norman agents of the disorders in Ireland, where, among other things, it was claimed that the people in general had neglected to pay to the Papacy the slight tribute known as "Peter's Pence." This circumstance, no doubt, irritated the Pontiff, and when Henry, who had his ambitious heart set on acquiring the sovereignty of Ireland, laid open his design, Pope Adrian, according to credible authority, gave him a document called a "bull," in which, it would appear, he undertook to "bestow" Ireland on the English king, with the understanding that he should do his utmost to reform the evils in Church and State said to exist in that country, and also compel the regular payment of the Papal tribute. All of which Henry agreed to do.

The Norman-Welsh Invasion of Ireland--Their Landing in Wexford

Soon after the departure of Dermid for Ireland, Robert Fitzstephen, the readiest of the warlike plotters, and the first of the invaders, sailed for that country at the head of thirty knights, sixty men in armor, and three hundred light-armed archers. In the fragrant ides of May, 1169, they landed on the Wexford coast, near Bannow, and thus, inconsequentially, began the Norman invasion of Ireland. De Prendergast arrived the following day with about the same number of fighting men. Only a few years ago, in removing some d?bris--the accumulation of ages--near Bannow, the laborers found the traces of the Norman camp-fires of 1169 almost perfectly preserved. The two adventurers sent tidings of their arrival to MacMurrough without delay, and he marched at once, with a powerful force of his own retainers to join them. All three, having united their contingents, marched upon the city of Wexford, many of whose inhabitants were lineal descendants of the Danes. They made a gallant defence, but were finally outmanoeuvred, overpowered, and compelled to capitulate. Other towns of less importance submitted under protest to superior force. Indeed there seemed to be a total lack of military foresight and preparedness in all that section of Ireland in 1169. Fitzpatrick, Prince of Ossory, descended from that ally of the Danes who attacked the Dalcassians returning from Clontarf, alone opposed to the invaders a brave and even formidable front. He committed the mistake of accepting a pitched battle with MacMurrough and his allies, and was totally defeated. King Roderick O'Conor, hearing of the invasion, summoned the Irish military bodies to meet him at Tara. Most of them responded, but the Prince of Ulidia, MacDunlevy, took offence at some remark made by a Connaught prince, and, in consequence, most of the Ulster forces withdrew from the Ard-Righ. King Roderick, with the troops that remained, marched to attack MacMurrough at his favorite stronghold of Ferns, where he lay with the Normans, or a part of them, expecting a vigorous siege. Instead of assaulting the enemy's lines at once, when his superior numbers would, most likely, have made an end of the traitor and his Norman allies, O'Conor weakly consented to a parley with Dermid, who was a most thorough diplomat. The Ard-Righ consented, further, to a treaty with MacMurrough, who, of course, designed to break it as soon as the main body of the Normans, under Strongbow in person, should arrive from Wales. He did not, nevertheless, hesitate to bind himself by a secret clause of the treaty with the king to receive no more foreigners into his army, and even gave one of his sons as a hostage to guarantee the same. The Ard-Righ retired from Ferns satisfied that the trouble was ended. The royal army was scarcely out of sight of the place when MacMurrough learned that Maurice Fitzgerald, at the head of a strong party of Normans, had also arrived on the Wexford coast. He now thought himself strong enough to lay claim to the High Kingship and negotiated with the Danes of Dublin for recognition in that capacity. Meanwhile, still another Norman contingent under Raymond Le Gros landed at the estuary of Waterford, on the Wexford side thereof, and occupied Dundonolf Rock, where they intrenched themselves and eagerly awaited the coming of Strongbow with the main body of the Norman army.

And now, at last, the blood of the native Irish was stirred to its depths and they began, when somewhat late, to realize the danger to their liberty and independence. In those far-off days, when there were no railroads, no electric wires, no good roads or rapid means of communication of any kind, and when newspapers were unknown, information, as a matter of course, traveled slowly even in a small country, like Ireland. The woods were dense, the morasses fathomless, and, in short, the invaders had made their foothold firm in the east and south portions of the island before the great majority of the Celtic-Irish comprehended that they were in process of being subjugated by bold and formidable aliens. There had existed in Ireland from very ancient times five main roads, all proceeding from the hill of Tara to the different sections of the country. That called "Dala" ran through Ossory into the province of Munster. The road called "Assail" passed on toward the Shannon through Mullingar. The highway from Tara to Galway followed the esker, or small hill range, as it does in our own day, and was called "Slighe Mor," or great road; the road leading from Tara to Dublin, Bray, and along the Wicklow and Wexford coasts was called "Cullin"; the highway leading into Ulster ran, probably, through Tredagh, or Drogheda, Dundalk, Newry, and Armagh, but this is not positive. As it was the route followed by the English in most of their Ulster wars, it is quite probable that they picked out a well-beaten path, so as to avoid the expense and labor of making a new causeway. McGee tells us that there were also many cross-roads, known by local names, and of these the Four Masters, at different dates, mentioned no less than forty. These roads were kept in repair, under legal enactment, and the main highways were required to be of sufficient width to allow of the passage of two chariots all along their course. We are further informed that the principal roads were required by law to be repaired at seasons of games and fairs, and in time of war. At their best, to judge by the ancient chroniclers, most of them would be considered little better than "trails" through the mountains, moors, and forests in these times.

MacMurrough and Strongbow did not allow the grass to sprout under their feet before marching in great force on Dublin. King Roderick, leading a large but ill-trained army, attempted to head them off, but was outgeneraled, and the enemy soon appeared before the walls of Leinster's stronghold. Its Dano-Celtic inhabitants, cowed by the doleful news from Waterford, tried to parley; but Strongbow's lieutenants, De Cogan and Le Gros, eager for carnage and rich plunder, surprised the city, and the horrors of Waterford were, in a measure, repeated. The Danish prince, Osculph, and most of his chief men escaped in their ships, but the Normans captured Dublin, and the English, except for a brief period in the reign of James II, have held it from that sad day, in October, 1171, to this.

Roderick O'Conor, that weak but well-meaning prince and bad general, retired into Connaught and sent word to MacMurrough to return to his allegiance, if he wished to save the life of his son, held as a hostage. The brutal and inhuman traitor refused, and King Roderick, although humane almost to a fault, had the unfortunate young man decapitated. This was poor compensation for the loss of Waterford and Dublin. Those pages of Irish history are all besmeared with slaughter.

Many of the Irish chroniclers, who are otherwise severe on Norman duplicity, relate a story of chivalry, worthy of any age and people, in connection with Maurice de Prendergast and the Prince of Ossory. Strongbow had deputed the former to invite the latter to a conference. The Irish prince accepted. While the conference was in progress, De Prendergast learned that treachery was intended toward his guest. He immediately rushed into Strongbow's presence and swore on the hilt of his sword, which was a cross, that no man there that day should lay hands on the Prince of Ossory. The latter was allowed to retire unmolested, and Prendergast and his followers escorted him in safety to his own country. De Prendergast has been known ever since in Irish annals as "the Faithful Norman," and his fidelity has made him the theme of many a bardic song and romantic tale.

Superior Armament of the Normans--Arrival of Henry II

ALTHOUGH two of the chief Irish cities had fallen to the invaders, the struggle was not entirely abandoned by the Irish nation. Ulster and most of Connaught remained intact, and even in Munster and Leinster there was, from time to time, considerable, although desultory, resistance to the Anglo-Normans. The latter, clad in steel armor from head to foot, and possessing formidable weapons, had a great advantage over the cloth-clad Irish, although, of course, the latter greatly outnumbered them. The weapons of the Irish were the skian, or short-sword--resembling the Cuban machete--the javelin, and the battle-axe--the latter a terrible arm at close quarters; but even the axe could not cope with the ponderous Norman sword and the death-dealing long bow, with its cloth-yard shaft. In discipline and tactics, also, the Irish were overmatched. In short, they were inferior to their enemies in everything but numbers and courage. But all would have been redeemed had they but united against the common foe.

Henry having "graciously" received the submission of Strongbow and his confederates, proceeded, at once--for he was a monarch of great energy--to make a "royal progress" through the partially subdued portions of Munster and Leinster. He took care, in doing this, to show Pope Adrian's mischievous "bull" to the Irish prelates and princes, some of whom, to their discredit be it confessed, bowed slavishly to the ill-considered mandate of the Pontiff. Many of the princes were even base enough to give Henry "the kiss of peace," when, instead, they should have rushed to arms to defend the honor and independence of their country. The prelates, trained to ecclesiastical docility, disgusted with the everlasting civil contentions of the country, and fearful of further unavailing bloodshed, had some feeble excuse for their ill-timed acquiescence, but what are we to say of those wretched Irish princes who so weakly and wickedly betrayed their nation to the foreign usurper? They were by no means ignorant men, as times went, but they were ambitious, vain, and jealous of the half-acknowledged authority of High King Roderick, who, poor man, seems to have been the Henry VI of Ireland. Those treasonable princes deserve enduring infamy, and foremost among them were Dermid McCarthy, King of Desmond, and Donald O'Brien, King of Thomond. Both lived to regret most bitterly their cowardice and treason.

Henry II was a politic monarch. He flattered the pliable Irish bishops and spoke to them gently about Church reforms, while he palavered the despicable Irish princes, and, at the same time, pretended to favor the common people and affected to check the rapacity of his Norman subjects. Hostilities ceased for a time, except on the borders of Leinster and Connaught, where King Roderick, deserted by many of his allies, and deeply depressed at the absence of national union against the invaders, kept up an unavailing resistance. In this he was encouraged and aided by the patriotic Archbishop of Dublin, St. Lorcan O'Tuhill, who appears to have been the only man among the entire Irish hierarchy who comprehended the iron grip the Normans had on the throat of Ireland. Had all the prelates been like St. Lorcan, and preached a war of extermination against the invaders at the outset, Ireland could, undoubtedly, have thrown off the yoke, because the princes would have been forced by their people, over whom the bishops had great moral sway, to heal their feuds and make common cause for their country. King Roderick, despite his errors, deserves honor for his patriotic spirit. The Ulster princes, too, with few exceptions, stood out manfully against the foreigner, and a long period elapsed before the Anglo-Norman power found a secure footing amid the rugged glens and dense forests of the western and northern portions of the invaded island.

Geraldus Cambrensis, or Gerald Barry, a Norman priest of Welsh birth, accompanied, A.D. 1185, King Henry's son, John, as chronicler, to Ireland. Like nearly every man of his race, he hated the native Irish, but, occasionally, as if by accident, spoke well of some of them. In general, however, his book is a gross libel on the Irish Church and the Irish people. He purports to give Roderick O'Conor's address to his army on the eve of battle with the Anglo-Normans, and the concluding words of the speech are alleged to have been as follows: "Let us then," said the Irish king, "following the example of the Franks, and fighting bravely for our country, rush against our enemies, and as these foreigners have come over few in numbers, let us crush them by a general attack. Fire, while it only sparkles, may be speedily quenched, but when it has burst into a flame, being fed with fresh materials, its power increases with the bulk, and it can not be easily extinguished. It is always best to meet difficulties half way, and check the first approaches of disease, for

"Too late is medicine, after long delay, To stop the lingering course of slow decay.

Wherefore, defending our country and liberty, and acquiring for ourselves eternal renown, let us, by a resolute attack, and the extermination of our enemies, though they are but few in number, strike terror into the many, and, by their defeat, evermore deter foreign nations from such nefarious attempts."

Henry's astute policy disarmed, for a time, even Roderick himself. The Anglo-Norman monarch, who would have made an admirable modern politician, does not seem to have desired the absolute ruin of the Irish nation, but his greedy Norman captains were of a different mind, and when Henry, after having wined and dined the Irish princes to their hearts' content, in Dublin and other cities, at last returned to England, in the fall of 1173, the Norman leaders showed their teeth to the Irish people, and forced most of those who had submitted into fierce revolt. As a result, the Norman forces were crushed in the field. Strongbow, himself, was shut up in Waterford, and his comrades were similarly placed in Dublin, Drogheda, and Wexford. Henry, incensed at this unlooked-for sequel to his Irish pilgrimage, sent over a commission to inquire into the facts. The result was that an Irish delegation went to London to explain, and, at Windsor, where Henry held his court, a treaty was entered into, finally, between King Roderick and himself, by which the former acknowledged Henry as "suzerain," and Roderick was recognized as High King of Ireland, except the portions thereof held by the Normans under Henry. This was a sad ending of Roderick's heroic beginning. As usual with English monarchs, when dealing with the Irish people, Henry, urged by his greedy dependants in Ireland, soon found means to grossly violate the Treaty of Windsor, as the compact between the representatives of Roderick and himself was called, thus vitiating it forever and absolving the Irish nation from observing any of its provisions. Another fierce rebellion followed, in which the southern and western Irish--the Anglo-Normans having now grown more numerous and powerful--were remorselessly crushed. Roderick's rascally son, Prince Murrough O'Conor, who thought his father should be satisfied with the titular High Kingship, and that he himself should be King of Connaught, rose in revolt and attempted to seize the provincial crown. The Connacians, indignant at his baseness, stood by the old king. Murrough was defeated and received condign punishment. This bad prince must have been familiar with the unseemly course pursued by the sons of Henry II in Normandy, for he allied himself with his country's, and his father's, enemies, the Anglo-Normans, under the treacherous De Cogan, and this act, more even than his filial impiety, inflamed the minds of his countrymen against the unnatural miscreant. King Roderick, unhappy man, whose pride was mortally wounded, and whose paternal heart, tender and manly, was wrung with sorrow at the crime of his son and its punishment--decreed by the Clans and not by himself--disgusted, besides, with the hopeless condition of Irish affairs, made up his mind to retire from the world, its pomps and vexations. He repaired to the ancient monastery of Cong, in Galway, and there, after twelve years of pious devotion, on the 29th day of November, 1198, in the 82d year of his age, this good and noble but irresolute monarch surrendered his soul to God. He was not buried at Cong, as some annalists have asserted, but in the chancel of the Temple Mor, or Great Church, of Clonmacnois, in the present King's County, where he was educated. Tradition has failed to preserve the location of the exact place of sepulture within the ruined shrine. And so ended the last Ard-Righ, or High King, that had swayed the sceptre of an independent Ireland.

King Henry's claim that the Irish Church needed great reformation is disproved by the enactments of his own reign in that connection, viz.: 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 and other burdens. 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 the making of wills.

Surely, this was small ground on which to justify the invasion of an independent country and the destruction of its liberty!

Prince John "Lackland" Created "Lord" of Ireland--Splendid Heroism of Sir Armoricus Tristram

In the last year of the reign of Henry II, there occurred in Ireland one of those memorable combats which deserve a lasting place in history, not so much because of any important reform or social or political blessing of any kind resulting from them, but as tending to show that warrior men, in all ages, have often been chivalrous and self-sacrificing. The Norman race--glorious as has been its record all over Europe and Palestine--never evinced greater bravery than on the Woody field of Knocktuagh , "the Hill of Axes," in Galway, A.D. 1189. Sir John De Courcy, hard pressed in Ulster by the fiercely resisting septs of the north, asked aid from his sworn friend and comrade, Sir Armoricus Tristram--ancestor of the family of St. Lawrence, Earls of Howth--then serving in Connaught. Tristram had with him, according to some accounts, thirty knights, one hundred men-at-arms, mounted, and one hundred light-armed infantry; according to other statements, he had under his command thirty cavalry and two hundred foot. This force Cathal O'Conor, afterward known as "the Red-Handed," Prince of the royal house of Connaught--a most valiant and skilful general, who was younger brother, born out of wedlock, of King Roderick, then virtually in the retirement of the cloisters of Cong Abbey--led into an ambush, and attacked with a superior force. Sir Armoricus saw at a glance that escape was hopeless, and that only one refuge was left for him and his following--to die with honor. Some of his horsemen, tradition says, proposed to cut their way out and leave the infantry to their fate. Against this mean proposition Sir Armor's brother and other knights vehemently protested. "We have been together in many dangers," they said; "now let all of us fight and die together." Sir Armor, by way of answer, alighted from his steed, drew his sword and, with it, pierced the noble charger to the heart. All the other horsemen, except two youths, who were detailed to watch the fight from a distant hill, and report the result to De Courcy in Ulster, immediately followed their glorious leader's example. Tradition asserts that the two young men who made their escape, by order, were Sir Armoricus's son and the squire of De Courcy, who brought the latter's message to Tristram. Having completed the slaughter of their horses, the little band of Normans formed themselves in a phalanx, and marched boldly to attack the outnumbering Irish. The latter met the shock with their usual courage, but the enemy, clad in armor, cut their way deeply and fatally into the crowded ranks of their cloth-clad foes. The Irish poet, Arthur Gerald Geoghegan , thus graphically and truthfully describes the dreadful encounter:

"Then rose the roar of battle loud, the shout, the cheer, the cry! The clank of ringing steel, the gasping groans of those who die; Yet onward still the Norman band right fearless cut their way, As move the mowers o'er the sward upon a summer's day.

"For round them there, like shorn grass, the foe in hundreds bleed; Yet, fast as e'er they fall, each side, do hundreds more succeed; With naked breasts undaunted meet the spears of steel-clad men, And sturdily, with axe and skian, repay their blows again.

"Now crushed with odds, their phalanx broke, each Norman fights alone, And few are left throughout the field, and they are feeble grown, But high o'er all, Sir Tristram's voice is like a trumpet heard, And still, where'er he strikes, the foemen sink beneath his sword.

"But once he raised his visor up--alas, it was to try If Hamo and his boy yet tarried on the mountain nigh, When sharp an arrow from the foe pierced right through his brain, And sank the gallant knight a corse upon the bloody plain.

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