Nor must it be thought that these repeated raids which we have recorded in any way checked the full spiritual life of the nation. It is true that there was not that quiet serenity from which came the perfect beauty and art of the old Book of Kells, but a keenness and fire kindled the breasts of those who learned the New Way and the Ancient Learning. The schools sent forth a host of eminent men who over all western Europe laid the intellectual basis of the modern world. This view of Ireland's history might well be expanded almost without limit or possibility of exaggeration. Receiving, as we saw, the learning and traditions of Rome while Rome was yet mighty and a name of old imperial renown, Ireland kept and cherished the classical wisdom and learning, not less than the lore of Palestine. Then the northern garrisons of Rome were beaten back, and Britain and Gaul alike were devastated by hordes from beyond the Rhine. The first wild deluge of these fierce invaders was now over, and during the lull of the storm teachers went forth from Ireland to Scotland, as we have seen; they went also to Britain; to Belgium; to northern, central and southern Gaul; and to countries beyond the Rhine and in the south; to Switzerland and Austria, where one Irishman gave his name to the Canton of St. Gall, while another founded the famous see of Salzburg, a rallying-point through all the Middle Ages. It was not only for pure spiritual zeal and high inspiration that these teachers were famed. They had not less renown for all refined learning and culture. The famous universities of Oxford, Paris and Pavia count among the great spirits at their inception men who were worthy pupils of the schools of Devenish and Durrow, of Bangor and Moville.
We have recorded the tribute paid by Alfred the Saxon king to the Ireland of his day. Let us add to it the testimony of a great divine of France. Elias, Bishop of Angoulême, who died in 875, wrote thus: "What need to speak of Ireland; setting at nought, as it does, the difficulties of the sea, and coming almost in a body to our shores, with its crowd of philosophers, the most intelligent of whom are subjecting themselves to a voluntary exile."
We have traced the raids of the Northmen for nearly a century. They continued for a century and a quarter longer. Through all this time the course of the nation's life was as we have described it: a raid from the sea, or from one of their seaboard fortresses by the Dark Gentiles or the Fair; an assembling of the hosts of the native chieftains against them; a fierce and spirited battle against the pirates in their mail-coats and armed with great battle-axes. Sometimes the chosen people prevailed, and sometimes the Gentiles; but in either case the heads of the slain were heaped up at the feet of the victor, many cattle were driven away as spoil, and young men and maidens were taken into captivity. It would seem that at no time was there any union between the foreigners of one and another seaboard fortress, any more than there was unity among the tribes whom they raided and who defeated them in their turn. It was a strife of warring units, without fusion; small groups round chosen leaders, and these merging for awhile in greater groups. Thus the life of the times, in its warlike aspect. Its spiritual vigor we have sufficiently shown, not less in the inspirations of the saints than in the fiery songs of the bards, called forth by battles and the death of kings. Everywhere there was fierce force and seething energy, bringing forth fruit of piety or prowess.
The raiders slowly lost their grasp of the fortresses they had seized. Newcomers ceased to fill their thinning ranks. Their force was finally shattered at the battle of Clontarf, which the Annalist thus records: "1013: The Foreigners of the west of Europe assembled against Brian and Maelseaclain, and they took with them a thousand men with coats of mail. A spirited, fierce, violent, vengeful and furious battle was fought between them, the likeness of which was not to be found in that time, at Cluain-tarb, the Lawn of the Bulls. In this battle was slain Brian son of Ceinneidig, monarch of Ireland, who was the Augustus of all the west of Europe, in the eighty-eighth year of his age."
The scene of this famous conflict is on the coast, between Dublin and the Hill of Howth. A wide strand of boulders is laid bare by the receding tide, with green sea-grass carpeting the stones. At the very verge of the farthest tide are two huge sand-banks, where the waves roar and rumble with a sound like the bellowing of bulls, and this tumultuous roaring is preserved in the name of the place unto this day.