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The "fury of the Northmen" from which
the mediaeval litanies of these islands and of Brittany prayed to
be delivered began to fall upon Ireland toward the close of the eighth
century. It was the backwash of a mighty movement which embraced all
Southern and Western Europe and extended itself to the borders of
Russia, then an almost unknown country. All the Scandinavian nations
took part in it, but it was only the fleets of the Norsemen and Danes
that visited the shores of Britain and Ireland, the main direction
of Swedish expansion being toward the East. When the first recorded
fleet of the foreigners appeared before Rechra in 795, and burned
Inis Patraic [1] in 797 (798), the rumours of their descents on the
shores of Northumbria had already reached Ireland. The Annals of Ulster
speak of the "devastation of all the islands of Britain by Gentiles"
or heathen men, under the year 793. This report doubtless refers to
the ravaging of Lindisfarne, the news of which seems to have reached
Ireland soon after the event. Though the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle speaks
of these first-comers as Danes, it is almost certain that they came
from Norway, not from Denmark. The place from which they started was
Haerethaland, now Hordaland, on the west coast of Norway, directly
opposite the northern shores of the British Isles. The Irish name
for Norway, Ioruaith or Hirotha, may be a reminiscence of this word.
But even before 793 there must have been settlements of Norse in Northumbria,
for we hear of a synod held at Finn-Gall or " Fair Foreigners,"
a place evidently named after the Norse invaders, in the north of
England in 788. The descents of the Norse on Ireland were by way of
the Orkneys, Caithness, and the Hebrides; those of the Danes chiefly
by the south coasts of England and Wales. The Norse were hardy seafarers,
who pushed out north-west to the shores of Greenland, Iceland, and
North Britain, and thence made their way down the western coasts of
Scotland to Ireland; the Danes, who were not naturally a sea-loving
nation, were inclined to hug the shores. They landed on the coasts
of Britain and eventually established themselves as kings of England,
a monarchy which, though shortlived, was remarkable for the vigour
of the great Canute, whose vast realm at one time included Britain,
Denmark, and Norway and came near to adding Sweden as well. Canute's
dream of a Northern confederation of nations, to be ruled from Britain,
though it was never realized, became very nearly an accomplished fact;
but the weakness and follies of his successors dissipated all that
his genius had achieved.
[1] It is uncertain whether this was the island of that name, near
Skerries, Co. Dublin, or a place now called Holm-Peel in the Isle
of Man. Probably it was the former.
Thus the two peoples, Norsemen and Danes, met upon the shores of
Ireland, the one descending from the north, by way of Scotland and
the Hebrides, the other from the south, by way of England and Wales.
In Ireland they tried their mutual strength, for the aim of the
Danes was to oust the earlier Norsemen from the fruit of their conquests
and to establish settlers from Denmark in their stead. To a large
extent they succeeded, for the Norse kingdom of Dublin, firmly established
by Olaf the White in 853, came to an end, and the Danish kingdoms
of Dublin, Waterford, and Limerick took its place. It is the Danes,
not the Norse, who are remembered in Ireland. In the Irish Chronicles
the distinction is usually well preserved, the Norse being called
Finn-Gaill, or "Fair Foreigners," and the Danes Dubh-Gaill,
or "Dark Foreigners." The plunderers of Rechra appear
to have been a chance party of the Danes who had been ravaging in
Glamorgan and South Britain, the first serious attempts at conquest
being made by the Norse who fell upon the North of Ireland. The
Gwentian Chronicle calls the plunderers of Rechra "black pagans
from Denmark" and adds that when the Cymry, or Welsh, had driven
them into the sea and killed very many of them they went to Ireland
and devastated Rechreyn (Rechra). This was probably Lambay Island,
off the coast of Co. Dublin, and not Rathlin on the Antrim coast,
which would have been quite out of their way. The Annals of Clonmacnois
also call them Danes (A.D. 792, recte 795). |
The viking period began in these islands earlier than is usually supposed
and lasted longer. Zimmer shows that the Norse were settled in the Orkneys
two centuries before their first descents recorded in history, and even
then were carrying on trade between Ireland and Scandinavia. They came
both for booty and on trading expeditions, often combining both professions
as occasion served. The earliest mention of Limerick is in the Icelandic
Landnámabóc, where Hrafn, the Limerick-farer, is said to
have spent a long time in Limerick in Ireland, which looks as if the town
had already become a trading centre. Dublin, too, was very early a resort
of the vikings, and the old song of Starkad, who was slain by Ragner Lodbrok,
relates among his hero-deeds, "having taken the chief of the Irish
race, I rifled the wealth of Dublin."
Lodbrok himself is said to have slain King Melbrik (Mael-brigde) of Dublin
and to have found the city "full of barbarian wealth." In Egil's
saga we hear of ships fitted out "for the Irish trade"; and
many of these searovers settled down, married Irish wives, and made the
trading towns they had established in Ireland their headquarters. One
Bjorn, "a right doughty man," went sometimes on freebooting
and sometimes on merchant voyages. His father refused his request for
a fighting ship, but made him master of a trading vessel and bade him
"go south to Dublin, for that voyage is now most highly spoken of."
[2] The division of the descents of the Northmen on Ireland into two periods,
a preliminary movement consisting of raids round the coast and up the
waterways, in order to become familiar with the country, and a later period
of settlement, is only a very partial description of what actually occurred.
The building of towns and settlements in the country by no means put an
end to plunderings for booty. The Norse lord, whether he lived in Norway
or in the Hebrides (Sudreyer), [3] made his spring-viking and his autumn-viking
as regularly as the seasons came round, with a space for sowing his seed
and reaping his harvest between each distant raid. The terror of the Northmen
was not confined to a brief period; it went on until late into the twelfth
century, practically up to the time of the Norman invasion, for the coasts
of Ireland lay conveniently within the range of coasting voyages. Half
a century before we have any records of their doings in the Norse annals
we hear of them pushing their way up the Irish rivers, robbing the monasteries
of their ornaments, sacred books, and valuables, and burning the fragile
structures to the ground. They made trading centres at every important
river-mouth, to which the peasants of the interior brought down their
goods for barter, and out of which were to grow the chief seaport towns
of Ireland—Dublin, Waterford, Wexford, Cork, and Limerick. As early
as the middle of the ninth century we hear of a mixed race called the
Gall-Gael (Gaill-Gaedhil) of partly Scandinavian and partly Irish blood,
who began to collect formidable armies. Intermarriage and settlement must
thus have been frequent at a date when it is customary to think of the
Norse as mere occasional raiders along the coasts. To the Irish it seemed
that "great sea-cast floods of foreigners" poured in at every
harbour and river-mouth and began to overrun the whole country by means
of its waterways. Two fleets of sixty sail appeared simultaneously on
the Boyne and Liffey, and, though their landing was disputed with vigour,
the invaders succeeded in penetrating to Lough Erne and raiding Meath.
For the first time, in 836, Ath-Cliath, henceforth to be known as Dyflin
or Dublin, fell into their hands, and by a stroke of high policy they
determined to make it their headquarters in Ireland. Standing on one of
those splendid natural harbours which the Romans had envied, it lay within
direct touch of the western coasts of Britain and was to form the main
future passage for commerce and navigation between the two countries.
Hitherto, as its name indicates, it had been the main ford across which
ran the highway between the south-east and Tara, carried over the Liffey
by a hurdle-bridge. Probably a village existed on the banks of the river
where the bridge crossed it. But in the hands of the Norse it was to become
not only a trading town and the capital of Olaf the White, but a chief
link with the Scandinavian kingdoms of Northumbria and the Western Isles.
There they planted their 'Thing-mote' for the administration of justice
in the Scandinavian manner; there they built a fort on the site occupied
by Dublin Castle in later days; and round "entrenched Ath-Cliath"
they made their walls and gates. Norse names, such as Howth, Lambay, Leixlip,
Skerries, cluster about the district north of the city which is still
known as Fingall, or the place of the Fair Foreigners, as the Irish termed
the Norse.
[2] The Saga of Egil Skalligrimson. It describes conditions in the middle
of the tenth century.
[3] The Sudreyer, or Sudreys, were the Southern Hebrides. Later the word
was corrupted into Sodor, which is now used in the title of the Bishops
of Sodor and Man.
The choice of Dublin as the capital of the Norse kingdom brought about
a corresponding change in the position of Armagh, which from the time
of St Patrick onward had, both ecclesiastically and nationally, been looked
upon as the metropolis of Ireland. Its great age and its connexion with
the patron saint, its important schools and its abbatial dignity, had
made it the real capital of the North. It was on this account that Turgeis,
or Turgesius, styled in the Annals Lord of the Gall or Foreigners, who
arrived in the North of Ireland in 842, with "a great royal fleet"
attacked Armagh, plundering it three times in one month, the first of
these dreadful experiences which had befallen it at the hands of the foreigners.
Turgeis, who is said to have come "to assume the sovereignty of the
Gall of Ireland," appears to have had two chief aims; first he desired
to unite under his rule the Norse settlers, who had hitherto been without
any definite central authority, and to consolidate their conquests in
the face of the incoming Danes, who were already beginning to "exercise
authority" over the Norse who preceded them; and, secondly, he wished
to re-establish paganism in Ireland. To give himself the necessary position
of authority he "usurped the abbacy" of Armagh, claiming thereby
the spiritual as well as the temporal power over the North. He aimed at
a pagan revival in the very place specially consecrated to Christian worship,
and Forannan, Abbot of Armagh, had to fly into Munster. He next set up
his wife, Ota (Old Norse, Audr), as a priestess and giver of oracles in
the second great centre of Christian influence in Northern Ireland, Clonmacnois,
and she pronounced her oracles from the high altar of St Ciaran's city.
Turgeis has been identified with Thorgils, whom the historian Snorro Sturleson
believed to be a son of Harald Fairhair, and who is said to have gone
on a viking expedition into Ireland. The dates, however, are difficult
to reconcile. If he was a devotee of the god Thor, as this name would
indicate, his anxiety to establish the worship of Thor in Ireland would
be explained. In Scandinavia the priesthood did not form a separate caste;
the head of a family or village was also its priest and offered sacrifices
to Thor.
The attempt of Turgeis to introduce the worship of Scandinavian deities
into Ireland was not so hopeless as might at first appear. The intermarriages
between Irish women and Norse husbands had brought about a widespread
reversion toward paganism, the converts becoming even more fierce and
sacrilegious than the foreigners themselves. Turgeis died a miserable
death in 845, having been taken prisoner by the King of Ireland and drowned
by him in Loch Owel in Westmeath, but his evil influence survived him.
We hear that "many of the Irish forsook their Christian baptism and
joined the Lochlanns or Norse, plundering Armagh and carrying away its
riches. They even adopted the name of Norsemen, with the religion and
customs of their former foes," and "though the original Norse
were bad to the churches, these were far worse, in whatever part of Erin
they chanced to be." The writer of this passage ascribes the awakening
of this anti-Christian spirit to the fostering by the newcomers of Irish
children, who thus imbibed from infancy ideas contrary to their own country
and religion. Fosterage was equally common among both peoples, few Norse
or Irish children being reared at home. Norse children were 'knee-seated'
with some distinguished friend of the family, who, exactly as in Ireland,
brought them up and set them out in life, frequently making the adopted
child the heir. From this intercourse sprang the mixed race called Gall-Gael,
who formed a considerable section of the nation and had their own fleets
and armies. They formed bodies of mercenary troops, whom each party tried
to bring over to its side, and were difficult to reckon with; they entered
the forces of the Danes, Norse, or Irish indifferently, and are found
fighting sometimes for and sometimes against their country.[4]
[4] MacFirbis, Three Fragments of Annals, ed. J. O'Donovan (1860), pp.
127, 129, 139. These Gall-Gael are not to be confused with the mixed Norse-Gaelic
population of the same name in Galloway, though they sometimes fought
in alliance with them; see Annals of the Four Masters, 1154.
After the death of Turgeis his conquests seem to have collapsed, and the
next attempts were made by foreigners in the south. When King Malaughlan
I came to the throne in 846 the seas between Ireland and the Scottish
coasts swarmed with vessels, "so that there was not a point of Erin
without a fleet." Forts sprang up on all the rivers along which the
raiders could navigate their ships, and these gradually assumed the appearance
of a network over the whole country. The King's first step was to clear
out the nests of marauders or "sons of death" who were plundering
from centres such as Loch Ramor in Cavan, after which he turned his arms
against the foreigners of Meath and inflicted on them a severe defeat
at Sciath Nechtan. Here fell the chieftain Tomar, who is called tanist
(or heir) to the King of Lochlann and who seems to have been the ancestor
of the Norse kings of Dublin. "The Sword of Carlus and the Ring of
Tomar" were treasured as royal heirlooms in the city; in later times
they were carried off by Malaughlan II by force in token of the supremacy
that he had gained over the Norse of Dublin, who went by the name of the
"Race of Tomar" or "Tomar's Chieftains." [5] The Ring
of Tomar may have been one of the sacred iron rings on which it was customary
with the Norse to swear judicial oaths. The Sword of Carlus seems to have
been part of the royal insignia of the foreign kings of Dublin. Carlus
was son of Olaf the White. He was killed in the battle of Killoderry in
866 (869). It may have been in consequence of the fall of Tomar, a scion
of the royal house, that Olaf the White arrived in Dublin in the year
853 with a prodigious fleet. He seems to have been a Norse chief from
the Hebrides, though his genealogy is given differently in the Northern
and Irish accounts. The story of his wife, Aud the Deep-wealthy, who returned
to Iceland by way of the Hebrides after the death of her husband, is told
in Laxdaela Saga. Olaf came to Ireland to dispute the supremacy over the
Irish with the Danes, who were making rapid advances both in the North
and in Munster, and who, in the year succeeding the accession of King
Malaughlan, had captured and plundered Dublin, the seat of Norse authority.
These Dubh-Gaill or "Black Foreigners," as the Irish called
them, probably rather on account of their deeds than their complexion,
brought terror alike to the Norse and the Irish. They had the fierce habits
and also the accommodating spirit, half pagan, half Christian, which characterized
the Northmen of the viking period. When trading with Christian folk they
were 'prime-signed,' or marked with a cross, so that they might enter
into fellowship with Christian men, but at home they worshipped Thor as
their ancestors had done. "I am prime-signed, but not baptized,"
said a man named Toki to King Haraldson, "because I have been in
turn with heathen and Christians, though I believe in the White Christ."
So the Danes who now arrived in the North of Ireland adopted Patrick as
their protector and offered their spoils to his church at Armagh. Malaughlan
was forced to come to terms with the Norse against the Danes, "but
though Olaf promised many things and swore to observe them, he did not
observe the smallest of them after leaving Malaughlan's house, but plundered
all his land."
[5] Book of Rights, ed. J. O'Donovan (1847), p. xxxvi.
Malaughlan's efforts against the foreigners were impeded by the struggles
of two restless foes who were disputing the monarchy with him, Aedh Finnliath,
his successor, and Carroll (Cearbhal or Kjarval) of Ossory, a prince whose
power so impressed the Northmen that we find him mentioned in the opening
passage of the Icelandic Landnámabóc as King of Dublin at
the same time that Harald Fairhair reigned in Norway and Alfred the Great
in England. He was on friendly terms with the Norse and married his large
family of daughters to famous vikings of the Hebrides or Iceland. His
daughter Rafarta married Eyvind the Eastman, a great trader, who had a
fleet fitted out specially for raiding the Irish coasts. Another, Aithne,
married the father of Sigurd the Stout, who fell at Clontarf carrying
the raven-banner which she had wrought. His descendants went home to Iceland
and founded families there, calling their children partly by Norse and
partly by Irish names. Carroll is said to have been "a person worthy
to possess all Erin for the goodness of his countenance, hospitality,
and valour," but he was an uncertain ally, and a thorn in the side
both of the foreigners and of the Irish King. He crushed the Norse chief
Orm, or Horm, in Munster, but he failed the Munstermen at the moment of
battle, and involved them in a hopeless defeat. He wasted Leinster, and
in 858-859 the King of Ireland had to summon a convention of princes and
abbots to force Carroll to pay him his dues. He died in 887. But in 902,
the year after the death of Alfred the Great, whose activities in England
had broken the strength of the foreigners in that country, the invaders
met with so severe a reverse in Ireland that they are said to have been
expelled from the country and to "have escaped half dead, having
been wounded and broken." Thus the first period of their power ended
in rout and defeat.
A partial pause in hostilities or "forty years' rest" is reckoned
in the annals between 876 and 916, years during which the Danes found
it necessary to withdraw their troops in order to concentrate against
the wars of expulsion that Alfred was waging against them in England.
But fighting was going on all the time, and, in spite of it, the Norse
kings of Dublin were again consolidating their power. Ivar, brother of
Olaf the White (?), who in the Annals of Ulster is styled Rex Nord-mannorum
totius Hiberniae et Britanniae,[6] was succeeded in turn by Ivar, his
grandson, Sitric Gale and Olaf Godfreysson.
[6] He may have been Ivar Beinlaus, son of Ragnar Lodbrok.
Under Olaf Cuaran, or Olaf of the Sandal, whose name is famous in romance
and history, the power of the Dublin Norse rose to its greatest height.
Ragnall (d. 921) captured York in 919, and he and his successors ruled
a kingdom which included all Northumbria south to the Humber, making their
headquarters sometimes at York and sometimes in Dublin. But at the battle
of Brunanburh, or Brumby, fought near the mouth of the Humber in 937,
their power was broken in the defeat of the most formidable combination
ever made by the Norsemen, including Scottish and Irish contingents, by
Athelstan, King of England; and Olaf Cuaran, the Norse leader, only escaped
back to Dublin "with a few," leaving five kings dead on the
field.
In their nailed barks the Northmen departed
Bloody relic of darts, on roaring ocean
O'er the deep water Dublin to seek,
Back to Ireland, shamed in mind.[7]
[7] Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, 937.
In Ireland the power of the Norse attacks had been weakened even during
the forty years' truce by a series of determined rulers, of whom the greatest
were Niall Glundubh, or "Black-knee," and his son Murtogh of
the Leather Cloaks in the North, and Cormac MacCuilennan and Callachan
of Cashel in the South. These princes kept up a continuous fight, though
with varying success, against the invaders.
The least warlike but in many ways the most remarkable of these princes
was Cormac, who reigned for seven years (901-908) from his capital on
the rocky cliff of Cashel which rises out of the plain of Tipperary. The
existing group of buildings, consisting of the palace and cathedral, and
the chapel of wonderfully rich decoration known as Cormac's Chapel now
crowded on its summit, are all later than the tenth century, but they
occupy the site of an earlier fort or palace.[8] The round tower was built,
like most of the round towers of Ireland, about this date, as a protection
against the Danish pirates. Cormac belonged to a race of abbot-kings,
who in his day occupied the throne of Cashel. His predecessor and his
successor were, like himself, at once abbots and princes, combining in
their persons the religious and royal functions. His temperament was quiet
and peaceful, and devoted to studious pursuits. He has left a glossary
of obscure Irish words which were already, in his time, falling out of
use, and he either initiated or continued a work called the Psalter of
Cashel, containing "all the inhabitations, events, and septs that
lived in this land, from the first peopling and discovery thereof,"
which seems to have been compiled after his accession to the throne. He
is described as "a most excellent scribe, bishop, and anchorite,"
and "as a holy man, master of Gaelic and Latin; proficient in law,
in wisdom, knowledge, and science; most pious, most pure." [9] But
the times in which he lived and the influence of the warlike ecclesiastic
Flaherty, Abbot of Scattery Island, who was Cormac's successor, involved
him in wars against his better judgment. In the fateful battle of Ballymoon,
in which Cormac fell (908) fighting against the men of Leinster, the clergy
of Leinster are said to have abused Flaherty roundly for inducing the
King to enter the battle to his own destruction. "Nobles of Munster,"
exclaimed one of the leaders, "fly from this abominable battle and
leave the clergy, who could not be quiet without coming to battle, to
fight it out between themselves." The law exempting ecclesiastics
from warfare had evidently become a dead letter, if it had ever been enforced
at all, and "the life of a cleric in battle was not more spared than
that of a layman." Cormac was killed by the fall of his horse into
a trench, just as he was urging a foster-son "who was an adept in
wisdom and jurisprudence, in history and Latin" to escape. When Cormac's
head was brought to Flann, King of Ireland, he was filled with horror.
"It was a monstrous thing," he exclaimed, "to have taken
off the head of the holy bishop," and he had it interred with reverence.[10]
[8] Cormac's Chapel was built in 1127 by King Cormac MacCarthy.
[9] MacFirbis, op. cit., p. 215. The Psalter of Cashel was continued by
King Brian, who brought it up to date. The Book of Rights is believed
to be a portion of this book.
[10] MacFirbis, op. cit., pp. 209, 213. O'Donovan tells us that the stone
on which King Cormac's head was cut off is still shown on the site of
the battle two and a half miles north of Carlow.
The last days of old Flann Sinna, who reigned as King of Tara for over
thirty-six years, saw the outbreak of new and more determined attempts
to establish a permanent footing in the South. From this time may be dated
the seacoast towns, of which the most important were Waterford and Limerick,
ruled by branches of the great house of Ivar; but even the less important
trade centres, Cork, Youghal, and Wexford, seem at this period to have
undergone a rapid expansion. Wexford is described by Giraldus in 1170
as having walls, towers, and battlements.[11] But Waterford (Port Lairge)
continued to be the seat of the Southern line of Danish princes and the
capital city of the Munster Danes. Already in the "Kraku-Mal"
of the Ragnar Lodbrok cycle we hear of Waterford as one of the places
visited by his viking troops.
[11] Giraldus Cambrensis, Conquest of Ireland, ch. iii.
Marstein, Erin's king, whelm'd by the irony sleet,
Allayed the hunger of the eagle and the wolf;
The slain at Wadras ford [Waterford] became the raven's booty;
We hewed with our swords!
South in Leinster, at break of day, we held our game of war.[12]
[12] Vigfusson and F. York Powell, Corpus Poeticum Boreale (1883), ii,
343. Marstein was the Melbric of Saxo.
Probably the first settlement was at Gaultire, or Gall-tire, "the
Foreigner's Country," where there had been a settlement since 891.
Waterford, like Dublin, had its walls and gates and its 'Green,' or Thing-mote,
of judgment.[13] This nucleus was added to from time to time, especially
after the "forty years' rest," when Ragnall, grandson of Ivar,
and Ottar the Black, with "innumerable hordes," are said to
have arrived. They raided all Munster, subdued it, and demanded from it
heavy taxes. Though independent of Dublin, both Waterford and Limerick
were in close contact with the Scandinavian kingdom of the Isles and with
Man; their princes are found fighting in the Hebrides on the way to and
from Ireland. The position of Waterford made it a centre from early times
for trade with Britain, especially with Bristol. When the Normans landed
there they found a merchant ship with a cargo of corn and wine lying in
the harbour; and it became the port for the extensive slave trade carried
on with Bristol. Limerick and Waterford seem to have been on friendly
terms, and though each had its own line of princes, we do not hear of
fighting between them. Limerick became an important harbour for Danish
fleets; they anchored round what is now King Island (Inis Sibthonn) in
the Shannon, and the arrival, about 919-920, of Tamar, son of Elge, with
an immense fleet, enlarged this then small settlement in the river-mouth
into a regular resort for Danish fleets. They speedily pushed their way
northward; and their "mighty deeds" included raids on Loughs
Derg and Ree,[14] from whence they made their way into Connacht and even
across to Meath.
[13] Alexander Bugge, Caithreim Callachan Caisil, p. 70.
[14] Wars of the Gael with the Gall, ed. J. H. Todd, p. 39.
The heavy blows inflicted by the Irish on the Danes of Limerick must have
greatly weakened the colony, and we hear of Morann, the viking chief of
the island of Lewis in the Hebrides, coming to the help of the Danish
city.[15] The Irish fought at a great disadvantage, for they wore no armour,
but only tunics, with shields for protection; their weapons were swords,
spears, clubs, and arrows; but the Northmen were encased in suits of armour,
upon which the blades of the Irish took no effect, while the helmets of
the Danes were impervious to the blows delivered with their clubs.[16]
The battleaxe, later the favourite weapon of the Irish, was introduced
by the Northmen; but both nations used it at the time of the Norman invasion.
[15] Caithreim Callachan Caisil, pp. 61, 65.
[16] Ibid., p. 64.
The years of the brief reign of Niall Glundubh (917-919) were the worst
hitherto experienced by the Irish. Sixteen fleets are said to have arrived
simultaneously to ravage Munster, one of them being commanded by the celebrated
Inghen Ruadh, or "Red Maiden," the woman-warrior of whom terrible
stories are told. The necessity of self-defence forced the Irish to imitate
the Danes in building fleets of fighting vessels, and from this time we
hear of considerable fleets of "brown-planked" barks in Munster
used by the Irish. Regular levies of warships, "ten from each cantred,"
were raised and could be mustered on occasion. We hear of "Limerick
of the ships and bulwarks" and the "king of Foyle of the ready
ships." The fleet with which Murtogh of the Leather Cloaks penetrated
to the Hebrides, "after gaining victory and triumph," was evidently
a full fighting fleet. Most of the Irish words connected with ships and
shipping, and many of those connected with commerce and markets, are of
Norse origin. The native Gaelic words for boats, such as currach, a canvas
or skin-covered bark, or ethar, a ferry-boat, indicate a very primitive
sort of craft, which could not have met the "nailed barks" of
the Norse on equal terms. The Irish also adopted Norse weights and measures,
and the first coins minted in Ireland bear the names of Ivar and Sitric.
Building and fortifying went on all over the country; the massive tower
known as Ragnall's or Reginald's Tower, in Waterford, still bears the
name of its Danish ruler. Limerick is spoken of as "Limerick of the
riveted stones," and even Armagh is called "Armagh of the great
towers," while in Dublin arose the battlemented tower from which
King Sitric looked out on the battle of Clontarf. Beneath it lay the bridge
over the Liffey, called Droichet Dubhgall, or "the Dane's Bridge,"
later, when the Normans had driven the Danes into Ostmanstown on the north
side of the river to be called Ostman's or Eastman's Bridge.
In addition to the ordinary articles of tribute, cattle, cauldrons, drinking
horns and vessels, chariots and swords, we now hear of "imported
gold and silver," "steeds brought across the green sea,"
and "foreign shields," as part of the tributes paid from prince
to prince, or from the foreigners to the Irish princes. Bondsmen and bondswomen
formed an important article of tribute, in one case "ten foreigners
without a knowledge of Gaelic" being among the demands. Irish girls
of high rank were carried away into slavery, as we know from the beautiful
story of the daughter of King Myrkiartan, probably Murtogh of the Leather
Cloaks, who was carried to Iceland as a slave, and whose son, Olaf the
Peacock, or Olaf Pa, is the hero of Laxdaela Saga. Tributes were also
paid from the Irish to the Danes, "a severe tribute" being demanded
by the Dublin Norse from Leinster. On the other hand, the Danes had to
attend the kings of Cashel in battle, in return for maintenance by them
in their territory.[17] In 919 Niall Glundubh, or "Black-knee,"
King of Aileach, in Donegal fell in the fierce battle of Kilmashog, near
Dublin, in a vain effort to recover the city from Sitric Gale, the Norse
king. One of the few Irish entries in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records,
but incorrectly, under the year 921: "This year King Sitric slew
Neil his brother." Though victorious, Sitric left Dublin the next
year and never returned, Dublin falling into the hands of his brother
or cousin Godfrey, and the great kingdom of the Norse became henceforth
divided.
[17] Book of Rights, ed. J. O'Donovan (1847), pp. 51, 207.
Around the Irish princes who succeeded Niall Glundubh a number of stories
or sagas have grown up, written in their praise by their poets and chroniclers.
Murtogh of the Leather Cloaks, Callachan of Cashel, Brian Boromhe, or
Boru, has each his story, written in the romantic manner of the bards.
Substantially true, these stories are yet coloured by poetical imagination
or provincial pride. This form of historical romance seems to have grown
out of the union of the two nations who were at this period brought into
such close contact. It also influenced several of the sagas of Iceland;
some bear Irish names, as Cormac's Saga and Njal's (Niall's) Saga, others
deal with Irish subjects, such as Thorstein's Saga or Brian's Saga, which
take the battle of Clontarf as their central topic. The saga, as we may
call it, of Murtogh, King of the Northern Hy-Neill, son of Niall Glundubh,
who reigned from his fort of Aileach in Donegal, describes a tour made
by him round the provinces of Ireland in the depth of winter in assertion
of his authority after a series of defeats of the foreigners. He was accompanied
by an imposing force of a thousand picked men, who were clad in sheepskin
or cowhide cloaks, which served as wraps by day and tents by night, and
from which he received his sobriquet of "Murtogh of the Leather Cloaks."
He received tribute from the Norse of Dublin and "blood-money of
red gold," besides a prince of their royal house as hostage. From
Munster he carried off King Callachan of Cashel in fetters—an audacious
stroke of policy, which made a noise in its day; and in Connacht a young
son of Teigue of the Three Towers was entrusted to his care. On their
arrival at Aileach the captive princes were received with honour and treated
to a banquet, at which Murtogh himself and his queen waited on the hostages,
after which they were delivered by him voluntarily to the King of Ireland
as his superior lord. This chivalrous and successful prince fell in battle
at Ardee in the same year (943) by the sword of Blacaire, Lord of the
Foreigners, and the feeling of his countrymen is voiced by the chronicler:
"Alas! since Murtogh does not live, the country of the Gael will
ever be orphaned!" [18]
[18] The courtesies of Murtogh to his captives remind us of the later
chivalries of the Black Prince. For the poem of Cormacan, Murtogh's bard
(ed. J. O'Donovan), see Tracts relating to Ireland, (Irish Archaeological
Society 1841), vol. 1.
A romantic tale has also grown up round Callachan of Cashel, the prince
of Munster whom Murtogh took as a hostage. Like the King of Aileach he
made a strong stand against the Northmen, but he was less fortunate in
his efforts than his Northern rival, for he was twice a prisoner in their
hands. They endeavoured also to entrap him by arranging a marriage between
him and a sister of Sitric, lord of Dublin,[19] in order to entice him
into their power. When he was on his way to Dublin to bring about the
match Callachan was secretly warned by Sitric's queen that it was intended
to take him prisoner. The warning came too late. As he turned to retrace
his way he found himself surrounded by ambushed troops, who bore down
upon him, killed his followers, and took him captive to Dublin and thence
to Armagh. The men of Munster lost no time in collecting a great army
to rescue their chief. They marched north to Armagh, only to find that
the Northmen had got notice of their intentions and had quietly sent Callachan
off with an escort to Dundalk, and thence to their ships in the harbour.
Destroying as they went, the angry Munstermen pursued the party down to
the brink of the sea. Their wrath was fierce when they saw their king
bound with ropes and suspended from the mast of Sitric's ship. At this
moment the Munster fleet under Failbe, King of Desmond, which had been
making its way round by sea, entered the harbour. The Norse were caught
between the land and sea forces, and a furious battle began. Failbe boarded
Sitric's ship, a sword in each of his hands, and, while he kept the foe
at bay with his right hand, with his left he cut down the ropes that bound
Callachan and set him free. The two warriors cut their way back to Failbe's
ship, but Failbe was overpowered and his head cut off on the side of his
own boat. Callachan escaped safely and returned home in triumph to resume
the sovereignty of Munster and to carry his revenge upon the Danes as
far as the cities of Cork, Waterford, and Limerick. The Munster story
speaks of Callachan's great size and ruddy face. The Northern chroniclers
are not so favourable, and the annalists of Clonmacnois describe him as
"that unruly king that partaked with the Danes," probably in
memory of the fact that he and the foreigners had once plundered their
monastery in company. But Callachan acted with magnanimity on more than
one occasion, and he succeeded in keeping down the Danish advance in the
south. He is said to have fought fifteen battles with the enemies of his
country in the course of his career.
[19] This may have been the Sitric taken prisoner by Murtogh. He is otherwise
unknown.
The wars and miseries of the city of Dublin during the perpetual attacks
and sacks of the cramped mediaeval town led to their natural results.
In 950-951 the unfortunate city was visited by a terrible pestilence,
called in the Annals of Ulster "a great leprosy and bloody flux,"
which became known in Ireland as the Dolor Gentilium. It was followed
by a plague among the cattle and bees, so that the country must have been
in a miserable state of sickness and famine, in addition to the constant
terrors of war. In the Annals of the Four Masters we hear that the famine
was so intolerable that "the father would sell his son or his daughter
for food." It is to the same period that the worst oppressions in
Munster are also ascribed. The clergy had to go into hiding and many of
the Irish were reduced to servitude. Heavy imposts were laid upon them:
"an ounce of gold yearly from every man in Ireland or else the nose
from his face." Foreign overseers were placed over every townland
and every household was forced to take in a foreign soldier, who, if he
were not satisfied with his treatment, could summon his host before the
assembly. The milk of the babes of one year and of the sick had to be
given to the soldier.[20]
[20] Keating, History, iii, 175-177; Wars of the Gael with the Gall,
pp. 49-51.
But toward the close of the tenth century a check was given to the power
of the Danes by the rapid rise of two rulers, one in the North and the
other in the South, whose able and persistent efforts came near to bringing
the foreign dominion to an end. Had not Brian of the Tributes been so
fortunate in his eulogists, posterity would probably have regarded Malaughlan
II (commonly miscalled Malachy) as one of the most commanding figures
that ever occupied the seat of the High King of Ireland. His fame has,
however, been overshadowed by that of his rival Brian, who deposed him,
and whose poets and chroniclers put forth unusual efforts to glorify the
first prince from Munster who succeeded in breaking through the long tradition
of monarchs drawn from the Northern branches of the family of the Hy-Neill.
Malaughlan II came to the throne in 980, and it was only after a reign
of twenty-three years that Brian deposed him. During all that time he
had pursued a steady and successful policy of opposition to the common
enemy, similar to that which Brian was carrying on in the South. In the
first year of his reign he inflicted on the foreigners of Dublin, at the
battle of Tara, one of the heaviest defeats they had ever experienced.
It is safe to say that Clontarf was rendered possible by this weakening
defeat. As a result, Olaf Cuaran withdrew from Ireland and sought an asylum
in Iona among those Columban monks whom the Norse had so often ravaged.
With his retirement the whole of the North was freed from subjection to
the foreigners of Dublin. Malaughlan forced the Danes to set free the
Irish hostages and all slaves, and obliged them to give him hostages in
token of subjection. Ragnall, Olaf Cuaran's son, fell in the battle, and
Sitric, another son by Gormliath, succeeded to the rule of the Danes of
Dublin. This was Sitric Silkenbeard (Silki-skeggor), the Danish king who
was present at the battle of Clontarf. He had an uneasy reign. He was
expelled from Dublin in 994, when his foe Ivar of Waterford unseated him,
but he returned and drove out Ivar a couple of years afterward and reinstated
his authority. Malaughlan allowed his enemies no rest. He immediately
followed up his success at Tara by a three days' and three nights' siege
of Dublin, which gave way before his "great army." He carried
off booty and hostages and issued a proclamation bidding every Gael who
was in servitude to the foreigner to return to his own territory in peace.
So complete was the triumph of Malaughlan that the Annals of the Four
Masters add that this was the end of the "Babylonian Captivity of
Ireland; next, indeed, to the captivity of hell."
Two years later we find Malaughlan, who was doubtless aware of the growing
power of Brian, descending on his sept, the Dalcais, and plundering Thomond.
He cut down the ancient tree of Magh Adhair, under which, according to
Irish custom, the chiefs of the O'Briens were inaugurated, following up
this humiliation by marching on Waterford and inflicting a defeat on Ivar,
with the men of Leinster along with him. He took prisoner Gilla-Phadraic,
Ivar's son,[21] ravaged Leinster and passed on to inflict a similar fate
on Connacht. In 989 he fell again upon the fort of Dublin. For twenty
nights he besieged the fort, the Danes within having meanwhile nothing
to drink "but the saltish water of the seas." He took the fort
with great slaughter of the defenders and wrung from them his full demand,
an ounce of gold out of every garden and croft in the city, to be paid
for ever on Christmas Night. Shortly afterward Malaughlan asserted his
supremacy over the Danes of Dublin by carrying off the royal insignia,
the Ring of Tomar and the Sword of Carlus, which were taken by him forcibly
with many other jewels. This possession of the Danish trophies and the
imposition of the first annual tax upon them shows that the tide had turned
in favour of the Irish kings. At this moment of their greatest power Malaughlan
and Brian entered into friendly negotiations against their common enemy.
"To the joy of all the Irish" they joined their armies and together
obtained hostages from the Danes and plundered Dublin. A year later, in
1000, the two armies united in Co. Wicklow and inflicted on the foreigners
a crushing defeat at Glenmama, a battle which was sternly contested on
both sides. Brian and Malaughlan pursued the retreating Danes to Dublin,
where they again burned the fort and expelled Sitric, Brian remaining
encamped in the town from Christmas to Epiphany. The account of the wealth
found in the city is surprising. Besides quantities of gold and silver,
bronze and precious stones, goblets and buffalo horns, the poets of the
day sing:
[21] It is curious to find a Danish prince calling himself the gilla,
or servant, of Patrick.
We brought silk out of the fortress,
We brought bedding, we brought feathers,
We brought steeds goodly and fleet,
We brought blooming fair white women.
This was "the barbarian wealth of Dublin" of which the Northern
saga speaks. Every yeoman in Munster gained enough to furnish his house
with gold and silver and coloured cloths and property of all sorts. As
a part of the "mutual peace" agreed upon between them the monarch
of Ireland handed over to Brian all hostages held by him from the South
of Ireland, whether foreign or Irish, thus acknowledging Brian's undivided
authority over Munster, in return for a solemn renunciation on Brian's
part of any claims on the High Kingship. In a few months' time this compact
was broken by Brian's designs on the throne of Ireland, which were fully
revealed in the following year.
At this turning-point in the story we must trace the rise to power of
the King of Munster. The early career of Brian had been one long adventure.
He and his elder brother Mahon were sons of Kennedy, a prince of the Dalcais
who had withdrawn his claim in favour of Callachan of Cashel of the rival
house of Eoghan, or Owen, an old arrangement between the two houses having
provided for the alternate succession of the two Munster houses of the
Eoghanacht and the Dalcais. The former had their seat in Cashel, the latter
in Clare. The fort of Kincora, the 'Head of the Weir,' near the present
town of Killaloe, on the Shannon, was the palace of the Dalcais. Kennedy
of the Dalcais never reigned, but on the death of Callachan the succession
passed by right to Mahon, who determined to continue Callachan's policy
of a steady resistance to the Danes. After a period of waiting Brian stirred
up his brother to more vigorous action, and he took the bold step of marching
on Limerick to attack the Danish camp outside the city. The two armies
met at Sulcoit, and after a fierce encounter the Danes were routed and
the Munstermen pursued them into the city and sacked it, "the fort
and good town being reduced to a cloud of smoke and red fire." A
terrible orgy followed on the hills above the town, every man being put
to the sword, and every "soft youthful matchless girl and every blooming
silk-clad woman" of the Danes being degraded and enslaved "for
the good of the souls of the foreigners who were killed," as the
writer adds with a grim attempt at irony.[22] Mahon followed up the important
defeat of Sulcoit (968) by seven routs of the Danes, and the people, encouraged
by his successes, everywhere turned on the foreign soldiers billeted in
their families and killed them. At the height of his success the career
of Mahon was cut short by the jealousy of two rival clans under their
chiefs Donovan and Molloy, who treacherously invited Mahon to their house
and had him killed. Even the Bishop of Cork, under whose protection he
had put himself, took part in the murder.
[22] Wars of the Gael with the Gall, pp. 77-83.
The horrid deed brought Brian to the throne as the undisputed head of
the chiefs of Munster. He inflicted a just retribution on the murderers
of his brother, slaying "that ripe culprit Donovan" along with
his Danish ally Harald, or Aralt, and then set himself to continue Mahon's
policy. He took hostages from Leinster and pushed his way up the Shannon
into Meath and Connacht. In 998 he made his first compact with Malaughlan,
who was closely watching the advance of his ambitious designs, now revealing
themselves as directed against the monarchy. It was in the very year of
the combined victory of Glenmama over the foreigners (1000) that we find
the record, "The first turning of Brian against Malaughlan,"
to which the Northern Annals of Tighernach add "through guile and
treachery." A brief entry in the same annals: "Brian of the
Tributes reigns," announces the accomplishment of his ambitious purpose,
but the Four Masters give the date of his accession as 1002. The Annals
of Ulster do not mention his elevation to the kingship, but they later
speak of him as King of Ireland, while his rival is named King of Tara.
Brian is said to have attained the age of seventy-six years when he replaced
Malaughlan on the throne. The Annals of the Four Masters give the date
of his birth at 925, and he is said to have been twenty-four years older
than his rival. According to the Annals of Ulster, however, Brian is said
to have been born in 941, which would make him sixty-one at the time of
his accession, a much more probable age. The ambition of every prince
who had risen to power by his own exertions was to secure the public recognition
of his position by making an armed circuit of the provinces of Ireland,
to obtain the open submission of the provincial chiefs by taking hostages
from them. In the second year of Brian's reign he attempted such a circuit,
but was refused entry into the North and was obliged to turn back. Not
till after the delay of a year did the North consent unwillingly to give
hostages to Brian rather than to go to battle with him. It was during
Brian's circuit into Ulster that he visited the city of Armagh, where
he spent a week discussing the question of the primacy as between the
foundation of St Patrick and Brian's own abbatial church of Cashel. In
the end Brian solemnly confirmed to Armagh the ecclesiastical supremacy
over the whole of Ireland which the clergy of Armagh might well have feared
would, on the accession of a prince of Munster to the throne of Ireland,
pass from them to the Southern Church. There is still to be seen in the
Book of Armagh an inscription written on this occasion by Brian's scribe
under the eyes of the King himself, confirming these rights to the Church
of Armagh. The entry ends as follows: "I, that is Calvus Perennis
[i.e., Maelsuthain, Brian's secretary], have written under the eyes of
Brian, Emperor of the Scots [Irish], and what I have written he determined
for all the kings of Maceria [i.e., Cashel]." [23]
[23] O'Curry, Manuscript Materials, pp. 76-79, 529-531; the original
of this inscription is given, ibid., pp. 653-654 (1861). The Book of Armagh
is now in the Library of Trinity College, Dublin.
Ten years before this visit of Brian to Armagh a great misfortune had
befallen the city in the destruction by lightning of the chief part of
its religious buildings, "both houses and churches and its belfry
and sacred wood," say the annals. Doubtless one of the most treasured
objects in the city was the Book of Armagh, in which Brian inscribed his
name and which contained some of the writings of St Patrick. When a few
years later, in 1020, nearly all the city was again burned down, including
its fort, the damhlaic or great church with its leaden roof, the bell-house
with its bells, along with several oratories and houses, and the old preaching-chair
and abbot's chariot, fortunately the library or house of the manuscripts
was spared. Had it been burned with the rest the Book of Armagh would
have been lost to us. Brian completed his patronage of Armagh by laying
twenty-two ounces of gold upon the altar, after which he returned to Munster
bringing the hostages of Eastern Munster with him. Next year he carried
out his design of enforcing his imperial supremacy over Ireland by making
the grand circuit of the provinces.
Having now accomplished his aims, Brian settled at home, and for nine
years, up to the close of his life, he occupied himself with little interruption
in securing the well-being of his own province of Munster. He made bridges
and roads, built or strengthened a number of fortresses in different parts
of the South, living himself chiefly at his favourite fort or palace of
Kincora in Co. Clare. Close to it was a place called Boromhe (pronounced
Boru) to which the tributes of cattle were brought to be given to Brian,
and from which he came to be called, from the number of the tributes,
Brian Boromhe, or "Brian of the Tributes." [24] He built churches
and belfries, executed justice, and encouraged learning. He exercised
a wide hospitality, and the peace of his reign is symbolized by the story
of the solitary woman who could pass in safety from one part of the country
to the other, carrying a gold ring on a horse-rod.[25] He sent professors
over the sea "to teach wisdom and knowledge and to buy books beyond
the sea and the great ocean, because the books and writings in every church
and in every sanctuary had been burned and thrown into the water by plunderers;
and Brian himself gave the price of learning and the price of books to
each one who went on this service."
[24] His title had nothing to do with the special tribute out of Leinster
known by the same name. For the fort of Boromha and Brian's name see Wars
of the Gael with the Gall, p. 141; Ériu, vol. iv, Part I, pp. 68-73.
The name Brian in this form is Breton, and only became common in Ireland
after this date.
[25] The same legend is told of the reign of King Edwin of Northumbria,
in Bede, Eccle. Hist., Bk. II, ch. xvi; and see Annals of the Four Masters,
1167.
But though things were outwardly prosperous there were signs of coming
trouble. Leinster was restive under Brian's restraining hand and the necessity
forced upon it of giving large tributes to him. The Norse were smarting
under the defeats that they had received, and were showing unusual activity
in forming alliances, fomenting dissatisfaction, and gaining adherents
both within and without the country. Brian on his side was not unaware
of what was going forward, and he was gathering the whole of the forces
over whom he had control in one final effort to drive the Danes permanently
out of Ireland.
END OF CHAPTER III |
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