Building.—This was the Danish fortress of Dublin, which occupied the greater part of the hill on which the present Castle of Dublin stands. See note, Four Masters, vol. iii. p. 5. The Annals say this was a "spectacle of intense pity to the Irish." It certainly could not have tended to increase their devotion to English rule.
Waterford.—The English and Irish accounts of this affair differ widely. The Annals of Innisfallen make the number of slain to be only seven hundred. MacGeoghegan agrees with the Four Masters.
Coat-of-mail.—Costly mantles were then fashionable. Strutt informs us that Henry I. had a mantle of fine cloth, lined with black sable, which cost £100 of the money of the time—about £1,500 of our money. Fairholt gives an illustration of the armour of the time (History of Costume, p. 74). It was either tegulated or formed of chains in rings. The nasal appendage to the helmet was soon after discarded, probably from the inconvenient hold it afforded the enemy of the wearer in battle. Face-guards were invented soon after.
Property.—Maurice FitzGerald died at Wexford in 1179. He is the common ancestor of the Earls of Desmond and Kildare, the Knights of Glynn, of Kerry, and of all the Irish Geraldines.