I have dwelt at some length upon these peculiarities of composition, because I wish to lay stress on the fact that the narrative form and the romantic dress in which the early history of Ireland is preserved (through the medium of sagas) need not detract from its substantial veracity. We can prove the minute accuracy of the Clontarf story and there seems scarcely more reason to doubt that of the battle of Moyrath, fought in Adamnan's time, or possibly the substantial accuracy of the battles of Cnoca, or of Moy Léana; we must, however, remember that with each fresh redaction, fresh miraculous agencies, and fresh verbiage were added.
The battle of Clontarf put an end to the dream of a Danish kingdom in Ireland, and though numerous bodies of the Northmen remained in their sea-coast settlements, and continued for many years after this to give much trouble, yet it put a stop to all further invasion from their mother country, and once more the centres of Irish learning and civilisation could breathe freely.
[1] It was not he, however, who built Cormac's Chapel at Cashel, but Cormac Mac Carthy, in the twelfth century. I am not sure whether Cashel had been formed into an archiepiscopal see at this time, but he is certainly called bishop of Cashel.
[2] The celebrated Vocabularius S. Galli was, according to Zimmer, the work of an Irish monk.
[3] Leabhar na gCeart.
[4] It has been most carefully edited and translated in a large volume by O'Donovan for the Celtic Society, in 1847.
[5] 903 according to the "Four Masters."
[6] From the fragment copied by Duald Mac Firbis in 1643 from a vellum MS. of Mac Egan of Ormond, a chief professor of the old Brehon Law, a MS. which was so worn as to be in places illegible at the time Mac Firbis copied it; published by O'Donovan for the Archæological Society. I have altered O'Donovan's translation very slightly.
[7] In Irish, "Flaithbheartach."