Thus we read that Armagh, the center of St. Patrick's work, and the chief home of learning, was thrice plundered in 830, the raiders sailing up Carlingford Lough and then making a dash of some fifteen miles across the undulating country separating them from the city of churches. This is the first time they ventured out of sight of their boats. Two years later they plundered Clondalkin, nine miles inland from the Dublin coast, where the Round Tower still marks the site of the old church and school. To the growing frequency of these raids, it would seem, the building of Round Towers is to be attributed; they were at once belfries and places of refuge. We find, therefore, that the door is almost always many feet above the ground, being reached by a ladder afterwards drawn up by those inside. The number of these Round Towers all over the country, and the perfect preservation of many of them, show how universal this precaution was, and how effective were the refugees thus provided. It is instructive to read under this same year, 832, that "a great number of the family of Clonmacnoise were slain by Feidlimid king of Cashel, all their land being burned by him up to the door of the church." Thus the progress of tribal struggle was uninterrupted by the Gentile raids.
Four years later, a fleet of sixty Norse fighting galleys sailed up the Boyne. Sixty long ships entered the Liffey in the same year, and a year later they captured the fortress of the Ford of the Hurdles, At-Cliat,--the old name of Dublin. Three years later we find the king of Munster plundering Meath and West Meath, showing that no sense of common danger disturbed the native kings. This strengthens the view we have already taken: that the attacks of the Norse sea-kings were only an interlude in the incessant contests between the tribes of province and province; contests perfectly natural and normal to the development of the land, and through which every country has at some period passed.
It would seem that the Northmen who captured the Ford of the Hurdles departed from their former usage. Fortifying themselves, or strengthening the existent fortress, they determined to pass the winter in Ireland, instead of returning, as they had always done up to this time, before the autumn storms made dangerous the navigation of the wild northern seas. Their presence in this fort gave the native powers a center upon which to concentrate their attack, and as a result the year 846 was marked by a signal victory over the Northmen, twelve hundred of those at At-Cliat being slain. Four other successful contests with the raiders are recorded for the same year, and we can thoroughly trust the Annalists who, up to this time, have so faithfully recorded the disasters of their own race.
About the same time the Northmen gained a second point of vantage by seizing and fortifying a strong position where the town of Cork now stands. Indeed their instinct of seamanship, their knowledge of good harbors and the conditions which make them, led them to fix their first entrenchments at Dublin, Cork and Limerick,--which remained for centuries after the great ports of the country on the east, south and west; and the Norse flavor still lingers in the names of Carlingford, Wexford and Waterford, the Fiords of Cairlinn, Weis and Vadre. A wonderful side-light on the whole epoch is shed by this entry for 847: "In this year sevenscore ships of the Gentiles from abroad fought against the Gentiles in Ireland." It would seem that the earlier comers, who had drawn up their long ships on the beach, and thrown up earthworks round their camp, instantly resented the attempt of later arrivals to poach on their preserves, and that a fierce fight was the result. During the whole of the following century we find signs of like rivalry between different bands of raiders, and it becomes evident that they were as much divided amongst themselves as were the native tribes they fought against.
Two years later a further light is shed on this mutual strife when we are told that "Dark Gentiles came to At-Cliat and slaughtered the Fair Gentiles, plundering their fort and carrying away both people and property." The next year saw a new struggle between the Dark Gentiles and the Fair Gentiles, with much mutual slaughter. This leads us to realize that these raiders, vaguely grouped by modern writers under the single name of Danes, really belonged to several different races, and doubtless came from many parts of the Baltic coasts, as well as from the fiords of the great Scandinavian peninsula. The Dark Foreigners are without doubt some of that same race of southern origin which we saw, ages earlier, migrating northwards along the Atlantic seaboard,--a race full of the spirit of the sea, and never happier than when the waves were curling and breaking under their prows. They found their way, we saw, as far northwards as the coast of Scotland, the Western Isles, and distant Norway over the foam, where the long fiords and rugged precipices gave them a congenial home. We find them hovering over the shores of Ireland at the very dawn of her history; and, in later but still remote ages, their power waned before the De Danaan tribes. This same dark race returning now from Norway, swooped hawk-like upon the rich shrines of the Irish island sanctuaries, only to come into hostile contact once more with sons of that golden-haired race which scattered the dark Fomorians at Mag Tuiread of the North. For the Fair Gentiles of our mediaeval Chronicle are no other than the golden-haired Scandinavians; the yellow-locked Baltic race that gave conquerors and a new ideal of beauty to the whole modern world. And this Baltic race, as we saw in an earlier epoch, was the source and mother of the old De Danaans, whose hair was like new-smelted gold or the yellow flag-lilies of our lakes and rivers. Thus after long ages the struggle of Fomor and De Danaan was renewed at the Ford of the Hurdles between the Dark and Fair Strangers, rivals for the plunder of the Irish religious schools.
Though the personalities of this age do not stand forth with the high relief of Cuculain and Concobar, though we can hardly quote poems to equal the songs of Find son of Cumal and Ossin of the golden tongue, yet genuine inspiration never failed in the hearts of the warriors and on the lips of the bards. Thus in 860 did a poet lament the death of a king:
"Mournfully is spread her veil of grief over Erin
Since Maelseaclain, chieftain of our race has perished,--
Maelseaclain of the flowing Shannon.
Many a moan resounds in every place;
It is mournful news among the Gael.
Red wine has been spilled into the valley:
Erin's monarch has died.
Though he was wont to ride a white charger.
Though he had many steeds,
His car this day is drawn by a yoke of oxen.
The king of Erin is dead."
Four years afterwards the contest between the raiders and the chieftains grew keener, more centered, more like organized war. "A complete muster of the North was made by Aed Finnliat, so that he plundered the fortresses of the foreigners, wherever they were in the north; and he carried off their cattle and accoutrements, their goods and chattels. The foreigners of the province came together at Lough Foyle. After Aed king of Ireland had heard that this gathering of strangers was on the borders of his country, he was not negligent in attending to them. For he marched towards them with all his forces, and a battle was fought fiercely and spiritedly between them. The victory was gained over the foreigners, and a slaughter was made of them. Their heads were collected to one place, in the presence of the king, and twelve-score heads were reckoned before him, which was the number slain in that battle, besides the numbers of those who were wounded and carried off by him in the agonies of death, and who died of their wounds some time afterwards."