CHAPTER VII
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.
The native Irish met their fierce invaders with dauntless courage, but they had been so long at peace that they were no longer expert in the use of arms, and the Danes were all-powerful on the seas. Those Norsemen were pagans, and had no respect for revealed religion, literature, works of art, architecture, or, in, short, anything except land-grabbing and plunder. It must be remembered that most of northern Europe, at the period written of, was in a benighted state, and that Great Britain itself was barely emerging from the intellectual and spiritual gloom of the Dark Ages. The Norse invaders, whenever successful in their enterprises against the Irish chiefs, invariably demolished the churches and colleges, murdered the priests, monks, and nuns—often, however, carrying the latter into captivity—and burned many of the priceless manuscripts, the pride and the glory of the illustrious scholarship of ancient Ireland. In the middle portion of the ninth century—about 840—when Nial III was Ard-Righ of Ireland, came the fierce Dane Turgesius, at the head of an immense fleet and army. He at once proceeded to ravage the exposed portions of the coast, and then forced his way inland, laying the country under tribute of all kinds as he advanced. He made prisoners of Irish virgins and married them, by main force, to his barbarous chiefs. He even occupied the celebrated monastery of Clonmacnois and its university as a headquarters, converted the great altar into a throne, and issued his murderous edicts from that holy spot. Clonmacnois, translated into English, means “the Retreat of the Sons of the Noble,” and was the Alma Mater of the princes and nobility of Ireland. This crowning outrage, coupled with insults offered to Irish ladies, finally aroused the spirit of burning vengeance in the breasts of the Irish people. Tradition says that thirty handsome young men, disguised as maidens, attended a feast given at Clonmacnois by Turgesius and his chiefs. When the barbarians were sated and had fallen into a drunken stupor, the youths rose upon and slew them all. The body of Turgesius, with a millstone tied around the neck, was thrown into a neighboring lake. Then the nation, under the brave Nial III, rose and drove the Norsemen back to the seacoast, where they rallied. Another raid on the interior of the island was attempted, but repelled. Sad to relate, the gallant King Nial, while attempting to save the life of a retainer who fell into the Callan River, was himself drowned, to the great grief of all Ireland. The name of the river in which he perished was changed to the Ownarigh (Ownaree) or King’s River—a designation which, after the lapse of ages, it still retains.
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.
The feuds of the Munster chiefs, toward the end of the tenth century, had the unlooked-for effect of bringing to the front the greatest ruler and warrior produced by ancient Ireland. Because of a series of tragedies in which the hero himself bore no blameful part, Brian of Kinkora, son of Kennedy and brother of Mahon, both of whom had reigned as kings of Thomond, or North Munster, ascended the throne of that province. Mahon, progenitor of the southern MacMahons—from whom descended the late President of the French Republic, Maurice Patrice MacMahon, Marshal of France and Duke of Magenta—was murdered by Prince Donovan, a faithless ally. His younger brother, Brian, afterward called Borumah or “Boru”—literally, “Brian of the Cow Tribute”—fiercely avenged his assassination on the treacherous Donovan, and on the Danish settlers of Limerick, who were the confederates of that criminal in his evil acts. Brian, young, powerful, and destitute of fear, after disposing of Donovan, killed with his own brave hand Ivor, the Danish prince, together with his two sons, although these fierce pagans had taken refuge in the Christian sanctuary on Scattery Island, in the Shannon, and then swept the remaining conspirators, both Irish and Danes, off the face of the earth. Prince Murrough, Brian’s heir, then a mere boy, slew in single combat the villanous chief, Molloy, who, as the base instrument of Donovan and Ivor, actually killed his uncle, King Mahon. Afterward, Brian reigned for a brief period, quietly, as King of Thomond. He had a profound insight and well knew that only a strong, centralized government could unite all Ireland against the foreigners, and he designed to be the head of such a government. He had only one rival in fame and ability on Irish soil—the reigning Ard-Righ, Malachy II. This monarch had scourged the warrior Northmen in many bloody campaigns. In one battle he slew two Danish princes, and took from one a golden collar, and from the other a priceless sword. The poet Moore commemorates the former exploit in the well-known melody, “Let Erin Remember the Days of Old.”
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.