The mere Irish were never much benefited by the nominal capital of their country. The Norwegians, getting it into their possession in 836 or 838, built a fortress there in 842, and the Danes, after a preliminary visit in 851, returned for reënforcements, and their king, Olaf the White, was recognized as supreme chief of all the foreigners in Ireland in 856, and made Dublin his headquarters.
There was a comparative rest from foreign invasions for about forty years, but Ireland's troubles began to thicken in the early part of the tenth century. Crowds of foreigners assembled, and the brave King of Ireland, Nial of the Black Knee, collected all the forces he could from Meath and the North, and attacked their united strength at Kilmashogue in the mountains beyond Rathfarnham. But the foreigners much outnumbered the natives, and the heroic king with twelve petty princes perished in the battle.
The ferocious invaders did not confine their attentions to Dublin and the north; they ravaged the pleasant south country, and feelingly does the chronicler describe the hellish mischief they committed. Overcome by his subjects, he sometimes even neglects his darling alliteration:
"They rent her (Erinn's) shrines, and her reliquaries, and her books. They demolished her beautiful, ornamented temples; for neither veneration, nor honor, nor mercy for Termonn, [Footnote 279] nor protection for church or for sanctuary, for God or for man, was felt by this furious, ferocious, pagan, ruthless, wrathful people. In short, until the sand of the sea, or the grass of the field, or the stars of heaven be counted, it will not be easy to recount, or to enumerate, or to relate what the Gaedhil, all without distinction, suffered from them. ... Alas! many and frequent were the bright and brilliant eyes that were suffused with tears, and dimmed with grief and despair at the separation of son from father, and daughter from mother, and brother from brother, and relatives from their race and from their tribe."
[Footnote 279: Church lands having the privilege of sanctuary.]
One of the most terrible of these southern descents was that made by Imar—son of Imar (Ivar) and his three sons Dubhceann, and Cu-Allaidh, and Aralt, (Black Head,) and Wild Dog, (Wolf,) and Harold. These worthies took possession of Limerick, and high and haughty were their proceedings.
"Such was the oppressiveness of the tribute and rent of the foreigners at large and generally, that there was a king from them over every territory, and a chief over every chieftainry, and an abbot over every church, and a steward over every village, and a soldier in every house, so that none of the men of Erinn had power to give the milk of his cow, nor so much as the clutch of eggs of one hen, in succor or in kindness to an aged man or to a friend, but was forced to preserve them for the foreign steward, or bailiff, or soldier. And though there were but one milk-giving cow in the house, she durst not be milked for an infant of one night, nor for a sick person, but must be kept for the steward, or bailiff, or soldier of the foreigners. And however long he might be from the house, his share or his supply durst not be lessened. And although there was in the house but one cow, it must be killed for the meal of one night, if the means of a supply could not be otherwise procured.... And an ounce of silver Findrunl was paid for every nose besides the royal tribute every year. And he who had not the means of paying it, had himself to go into slavery for it."
The alternative was the loss of the organ just mentioned.