Whatever benefit other countries may have received from the Danes or Northmen, Ireland received none. To her they were nothing but a curse. If they had conquered her, they might, in the long run, have benefitted her. It would be not only difficult, but absolutely impossible, to point out a single way, except, perhaps, by an admixture of a little new blood, in which Ireland was benefitted by the visits of the Northmen. In spite of their very great skill in ship-building and navigation, they introduced not a single art into Ireland. Confused as the political state of the country was before they came to it, it was still more confused when they ceased to be plunderers and became merchants. They had nothing themselves that could be called literature, and were the greatest enemies that Irish literature had ever encountered, for the number of books they must have destroyed is beyond calculation. Not a monastery or church from one end of Ireland to the other escaped being plundered by them, and most of the monasteries were plundered ten times during the two hundred years their plunderings lasted. Iona, though not in Ireland, was an Irish establishment; it was so often plundered by them, and its entire population so often killed, that it had to be entirely abandoned in the ninth century. It became a ruin, and remained such until the Northmen ceased their raids; its treasures, or what remained of them, were removed to Kells in Ireland. Nothing can show more plainly the knowledge the Northmen possessed of the country, and their determination to leave nothing in it unplundered, than their having plundered the anchorites’ cells on the Skelligs rocks, off the coast of Kerry. It is said that there is but one spot at which a boat can land on these rocks, and then only on the very finest and calmest day; but the Northmen found out the landing-place, plundered the cells, and, of course, killed every one they found in them.
It is very curious how it came to pass that a people so very brave as the Northmen undoubtedly were should be so lacking in almost every quality that goes to form a great, conquering people and builders up of nations. They never impressed themselves on any nation or province they conquered. A very large part of the north of England was not only conquered but settled by them, and three Danish kings reigned in England, yet it remained Saxon England until the battle of Hastings. In France they not only lost their language, but lost their identity in less than three generations, and became absolutely French. They did not even call themselves Northmen, or Normans; for on the Bayeux Tapestry we find the legend, Hic Franci pugnant, showing plainly that they regarded themselves as nothing but French. They conquered the greater part of the island of Sicily, but, as usual, have left hardly a trace of their occupation in it. It need hardly be repeated that in Ireland, in spite of their having held and ruled some of its chief cities for three hundred years, and in spite of their many alliances with Irish chiefs and nobles, all they have left that in any way shows that they ever set foot on Irish soil are less than a dozen place names. The Northmen might well be forgiven for their plunderings and burnings if it were not for the quantity of books they burned. But for them, ancient Celtic literature would be so immense that it would be regarded with respect even by those who would be most hostile to the nation that produced it.
The successful resistance of the Irish against the Northmen is a very curious historic fact. Of all countries in Europe in the middle ages, it ought to have been, no matter what might be the valour of its inhabitants, the most easy of subjugation on account of its political divisions, and the consequent state of almost continual war that existed among the provinces. Yet in spite of all, in no part of Europe which the Northmen attacked, did they encounter such strong and such long-sustained resistance as in Ireland, in spite of the fact that for many years before the battle of Clontarf, the province of Leinster, whose soldiers from time immemorial had been considered the bravest in Ireland, was in alliance with the invaders. The successful resistance the Irish made against the Northmen is proved from sources that are neither Scandinavian nor Irish; for the Norman Chronicle says, “that the Franks, or French, were grateful to the Irish for the successful resistance they made against the Danes; and that in the year 848 the Northmen captured Bordeaux and other places which they burned and laid waste; but that the Scotts (Irish) breaking in on the Northmen drove them victoriously from their borders.” It is absolutely sickening to read of all the plunderings, murderings, and burnings committed by the Northmen in Ireland. When we think of all the similar sort of work the Irish practised on one another, we wonder how it happened that there were any people left in the island; and we are almost driven to the conclusion that if it had not been for the extraordinary fecundity of the race, it would have become depopulated. It was not only the numbers of Irish that were killed by the Northmen, but also the numbers that were brought into captivity by them that tended to depopulate the country.
Under the year 949 the Annals of the Four Masters state that Godfrey, a Danish king or general, plundered Kells and other places in Meath, and carried off three thousand persons into captivity, and robbed the country of an enormous quantity of gold, silver, and wealth of all kinds. That sort of work had been carried on for nearly two hundred years, and it is a wonder that the entire country was not utterly ruined.
An interesting as well as gruesome illustration of what Ireland suffered from Danish raids was revealed some few years ago while workmen were levelling ground for the erection of a house at Donnybrook, near Dublin. They unearthed the skeletons of over six hundred people, of almost all ages; from those of full-grown men to those of babies, all buried in one grave, and only about eighteen inches under the surface. This vast grave was close to the banks of the little river Dodder. The Northmen had evidently gone up the river in their galleys, for at full tide it had enough of water to float them. By some chance the leader, or one of the leaders, of the Danes was killed in the foray, for his body was found a little distance from the grave of the victims. His sword was buried with him; it was of recognised Danish make, and had a splendid hilt inlaid with silver. Not a vestige of clothing or ornaments was found on the bodies of the slain, save a common bronze ring on the finger of one of them. Everything they had seems to have been taken. A village had evidently stood in the locality; it was raided by the Danes, the inhabitants all killed, and everything of value they possessed, even to their clothing, taken; for if they had been buried in their clothing, which must have been almost entirely of woollen material, which resists decay for a long time, some vestige of it would have been discovered. The remains of the victims of the massacre were carefully examined by the most eminent scientists and archæologists of Dublin, among them Dr Wm. Fraser, who wrote an article on the discovery that may be seen in the transactions of the Royal Irish Academy. Irish history and annals are silent about this terrible massacre, and it is hardly to be wondered at that they should not have mentioned it, for such things were of such frequent occurrence in Ireland during the time of the Northmen that it was impossible to keep track of them all.
It is hard to agree with the Earl of Dunraven in what he says in the passage that has been quoted a few pages back, as to the cause of the invasions and plunderings of the Northmen. The victories of Charlemagne over the Saxons could scarcely have caused the vast outpourings of Northmen on southern and western Europe. The Saxons were Germans, pure and simple; but there seems to have been a very great difference between Northmen and Germans. They may both have belonged originally to the same race, and their languages may have been, and undoubtedly were, closely allied, but they seem to have had very little in common. One was an essentially seafaring people, and keeps up a love for the sea to the present day. The other was not a seafaring people, and hardly yet takes kindly to maritime life. The Norse and German races lived side by side in England for some centuries, but they lived apart, quite as much apart as the Celts and Scandinavians lived apart in Ireland. It would rather seem as if it was want, added to a bold and restless nature, that was the primary cause of Norsemen’s raids on the south-western coasts of Europe. Their own country was barren, and cold, and unable to support a dense population. It sometimes happens that people multiply faster than they can be supported. Such a state of things occurred in Ireland in the early part of the present century. Not that Ireland could not have supported a much larger population than it ever contained, provided the social condition of the country was different; but under the conditions that existed, the people multiplied beyond their means of support. The same thing may have occurred in Scandinavia. The people may have been forced by hunger to seek a living by foul means or fair, somewhere else than in their own country. Cruel as they were, they were probably not more cruel than any other people of their time would have been under the same circumstances. It would seem that it was exhaustion of population in Scandinavia that put an end to Scandinavian raidings. Its people having become Christians may have had some effect in softening their manners; but it is certain that it was not hatred of Christianity that prompted them to plunder Christian nations. It was love of plunder, intensified, in all probability, by want and semi-starvation at home. It is, however, very curious that the people who were once the terror of southern Europe should have become what they are to-day, and what they have been for some centuries, as peaceable and as law-abiding nations as there are in the world.
GALWAY AND ITS ENVIRONS
Galway is one of the most modern of the Irish provincial capitals. It does not figure at all in ancient annals. The first mention of it in the annals of the Four Masters is under the year 1124, when it is stated that the men of Connacht erected a castle in Galway. The first mention of it in the annals of Loch Key is under the year 1191, when it is stated that the river Gaillimh, from which the town takes its name, was dried up. The cause of this phenomenon is not stated. Galway was at one time a place of considerable wealth and trade. It was, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the port to which most of the Spanish wine destined for Ireland used to come; and it is generally believed that a Spanish type of features can still be noticed on some of its inhabitants. But whatever mercantile prosperity Galway enjoyed some centuries ago, very little of it unfortunately remains; for of all Irish towns the decrease of its population has been the most terrible. In 1845 it contained very close on 35,000 inhabitants, in 1891 it had only 14,000! It is painful to walk in the outskirts of the town and pass through whole streets in which nothing remains save the ruins of cottages. Galway ought to be a prosperous place, for it is situated on a noble bay that forms a spacious harbour, sheltered from the fury of the Atlantic by the Isles of Arran. It is pleasant to be able to state that the condition of this once fine city is improving.