which enlivens the annals of less secluded nations, there yet belong to our history some sources of interests, which, owing to this very seclusion, are peculiar to itself; rendering it a record and picture of a state of society altogether, perhaps, unexampled, and such as is not unworthy of engaging the attention, as well of the philosopher as of the historian and antiquarian.

The first emergence of this people to the notice of Europe, with so many of the marks of an ancient state of civilization impressed strongly upon their language, traditional customs, and institutions, while they themselves were but little elevated above the level of savage life; the docile intelligence with which they received and appreciated the doctrines of Christianity, and, soon after, started forth as the apostles and teachers of Western Europe, in every walk of learning, both sacred and secular, leaving the name of their country associated, to the present day, with most of the institutions established, in those times, for the purposes of religion and instruction;-all this honourable celebrity of the Irish abroad, followed by their long and manful struggle against the Danish power at home, and finally, the death-blow dealt, on the field of Clontarf, to the domination of that people in Ireland, at a time when England and other great states of Europe had been forced to bow beneath their yoke, presents altogether a career of such various and entirely self-derived energy, as few countries, within the same compass of time, have been ever known to exhibit; and which, notwithstanding the fierce and lawless excesses that stain so many of its pages, cannot but entitle the history which records so remarkable a course of affairs to a more than ordinary share of attention and interest.

The reader will recollect that these observations are applied solely to the period commencing at the reign under which St. Patrick made his first appearance in Ireland, and ending with the death of Malachy II. From this latter epoch the aspect of affairs began materially to change, and the country sank by degrees into a state of obscuration, both moral and political. The causes of this national declension, the greater number of which had been for some time in operation, shall be pointed out as they more fully developed themselves in this and the following century; but among the most operative, doubtless, was the state of confusion and disorganization into which the whole framework of the government of the country had been thrown by Brian's forcible infringement of the law which had been so long observed in the course of succession to the monarchy. In a land so parcelled out into sovereignties, and through which there circulated, in every direction, so many rival currents of royal blood, it was of the utmost importance to the preservation of the public peace, that their channels should be kept distinct and sacred; and in the instance of the monarchy, so effectual was prescriptive usage for this purpose, that, with only two exceptions (of which one was Brian*) all the monarchs of Ireland, for more than five hundred years, had been elected from among the princes of the HyNiell race. By the usurpation of Brian, however, this sacred boundary was overleaped; this last stronghold against aristocratic pretensions was overthrown, and a new impulse given to the efforts of irregular ambition, throughout the country, by the crown of Tara being added to the prizes in the arena of political strife.

The long struggle, also, with the Danes, besides accustoming the people to scenes of rapine and blood, was attended with other evils and influences still more permanently demoralizing. The habit of employing, and being employed by, these freebooters, as hired auxiliaries, in local and factious feuds, without any regard to the national honour or interests, could not but confuse, in the public mind, the boundaries of right and wrong, and at last lead to that state of moral degradation which both disposes and fits men to be slaves. Nor did the ecclesiastical part of the community, from whose example and influence might be expected some salutary check to the growing degeneracy of their countrymen, keep the standard of their own morals sufficiently high to admit of their rebuking the offences of others with much effect. An eminent churchman, indeed, of the twelfth century, in referring to the moral darkness into which Ireland had then fallen, notices, particularly among the causes-if they were not rather, perhaps, results-of that declension, the utter relaxation of ecclesiastical discipline, and a general decay of religious feeling among the people.‡

The other was Boetan. See ancient Irish MS. quoted by Dr. O'Connor, Ep. Nunc. "Vetus scriba, qui seculo XI. Engusii colidei opera descripsit, ex Codice Psalter na Rann, cujus extat exemplar annorum 600, in Codice Bodleiano, Laud F 95. fol. 75. inquit, Nullum regem Hiberniam tenuisse post Patricium nisi ex semine Herimonis, exceptis duobus, Botan et Brian." The MS adds, that some ancient authorities did not admit Botan among the monarchs, thus leaving Brian the sole exception to the ancient rule of succession. † Peter Lombard thus feelingly mourns over this declension of Ireland's glory:-"Sed proh dolor! Hibernia priore illa gloriâ paulatim ita excidit, ut quæ tot sanctorum honorifica pridem mater ac magistra, nunc eo se dejecta videat quo illa quondam sancta civitas Domina gentium Jerusalem cecidit."-De regno Hibern. Sanctor Insula Comment. Præfat.

S. Bernard." Inde tota illa per universam Hyberniam, de quâ multa superius diximus, dissolutio eccle. siasticæ disciplinæ, censuræ enervatio, religionis evacatio," &c. &c.-Vita Malach.

Among the ecclesiastical abuses referred to by him, was one that had begun to prevail some time before this period, having been introduced, almost simultaneously, into different countries of Europe;-and that was the practice of allowing laymen to hold possession of church lands (even of lands belonging to episcopal sees,) and to transmit them to their own descendants, or, at least, to the sept to which they belonged. Of the holders of this sort of property, in Ireland, there were two distinct classes, or ranks, of which one were called Corbes, or Comorbans,* and the other Erenachs; and the only difference that has been yet very clearly made out between them, is that the Erenachs were a class inferior in wealth and dignity, and far more numerous than that of the Comorbans.

In an essay written on this subject, in his youth, by archbishop Usher, it is assumed that the Comorbans, at their first institution, were the same as those Chorepiscopi, or rural bishops, of whom mention has already been made. But that this is a mistake will appear from the fact, that the Chorepiscopi were most of them invested with episcopal powers, while the Comorbans were, in general, laymen, who, holding a position, as it appears, analagous to that of the lay-abbots, or abbacomites, in France, appropriated to themselves the abbatial lands and other properties, leaving to the clergy only the altars, tithes, and dues. In like manner, the Irish Erenachs, whose title originally signifies archdeacon, bore a no less close resemblance to those holders of church property in the time of Charlemagne, who, though assuming the title of archdeacon, were, in reality, laymen, and, in some instances, farmed the property. The lands held in this manner, in Ireland, were called Termon, or free lands, and the possessors paid out of them a certain yearly rent to the bishop, besides some other contributions towards ecclesiastical purposes. Such, as far as I am able to unravel the perplexed statements on this subject,which has become but the more entangled the more hands it has passed through,-was the nature of this tenure of church property, which did not in Ireland, probably, come into use till after the age of Charlemagne, but continued to be retained here to as late a period as the reign of James I.

There is yet one difficulty, or rather confusion, as regards the use of the term Comorban. Though employed to signify a lay possessor of lands and property which had been usurped, at some time or other, from the Church, it was used also as a distinguishing title of the successive occupants of the great Irish sees; and the Comorban of St. Patrick, the Comorban of St. Fiech, of St. Bridget, &c.,¶ was the mode of designation generally employed in speaking of the successors of those eminent saints in the high dignities they had respectively founded. The use of the title, indeed, extended even to the pope, whom it was not unusual to call the Comorban of St. Peter; and the fact appears to be, that this term, which signifies a successor in any ecclesiastical dignity, came to be applied, not merely to those who had legitimately succeeded to property in the church, but also to those who, being laymen, had become possessors of it only by usurpation; much in the same manner as in Charlemagne's time, when the title of abbot was bestowed alike on the religious heads of monasteries, on lay lords, and even on soldiers;** and when archdeaconries, held in fee, stood side by side with those of episcopal appointment.

In consequence of the suspended state of the succession to the monarchy, there ensued now a long and ruinous interregnum, during which the evils arising from the want of a supreme, directing head, were aggravated a hundred fold by the fierce rivalry and dis

For opinions and authorities respecting this class of persons, the reader is referred to Archbishop Usher's treatise on the subject. (Collectan. de Reb. Hib. vol. i.) Ware's Antiquities, c. xxxv. Sir John Davies's Letter to the Earl of Salisbury; Campbell's Strictures on the Hist. of Ireland, sect. 10; and Dr. Lanigan's Ecclesiast. Hist. vol. iv. c. 26, note 63. The account given by most of these writers of this class of holders of church property, is far from being satisfactory Dr. Lanigan alone,-though, as usual, diffuse and careless in the arrangement of his learned materials,-deals with the subject so as to inspire confidence in his opinion. ↑ Giraldus makes use of this very term in speaking of the lay intruders into church property, who were common in Wales as well as in Ireland. Notandum autem, quod hæc ecclesia (S. Paterni) sicut et aliæ per Hiberniam et Walliam plures, abbatem laicum habet."-Itiner. Cambr. lib. ii. cap. 4.

It would appear, from the letter of Sir John Davies just referred to, that this class of proprietors had, in his time, got into their possession almost all the church lands in Ireland. In speaking of Fermanagh, he says, "It did not appear to me that the bishop had any land in demesne, but certain mensal duties of the Corbes and Erenachs; neither did we find that the parsons and vicars had any glebe land at all in this country." In another place he adds, "Certain it is that these men possess all the glebe lands which belongeth to

such as have the cure of souls."

§ In being hereditary, says Spelman, the office of Erenach resembled that of the Vicedomini Ecclesiarum, on the continent:- Sic enim hereditárium in Hibernia fit munus Herenaci, non minus quam in partibus transmarinis vicedomini."-Gloss. in voce.

I "Hinc archidiaconatus, ipsum archidiaconi munus; quos feudi jure possessos à viris secularibus, etiam tempore Caroli magni, patet ex ejus capitulari 1 A. C. 805., c. 15., &c. ubi illud vetitum. Archidiaconatus quoque dati ad firmam."-Hoffman, in voce.

With an ignorance of his subject not rare in this writer, Dr. Campbell says (Strictures, sect. 10.,)"Hence we are given to understand why so many Comorbans of St. Patrick became primates;" the fact being, that it was their becoming primates that made them Comorbans of St. Patrick.

**See note on this page. In an old document preserved by Catel, in his Memoirs of Languedoc (lib. v., it is said,-"Ut tunc temporis erat mos milites tenere archidiaconatus."

cord which such a state of things could not but engender, and keep in perpetual activity. Among those princes, indeed, who, during the remainder of Ireland's existence as a separate nation, assumed the title of monarch, there were scarcely any, we shall find, who had been elected according to the regular ancient form, or were acknowledged generally by the people; and the nature both of their authority and their claims may be sufficiently judged from the designation given to them by our native historians, who call them Righ go freasabra, that is, "Kings with reluctance or opposition."

But though the train for all these evil consequences had been now laid, their fated explosion did not take place till some time after; for it is not the least striking and characteristic of the circumstances which attended the demise, as it may almost be called, of the Irish monarchy, in the person of Malachy II., that, on the death of this prince, not even a pretender to the right of succeeding him appeared to put forth his claims;-as though there existed a feeling, tacitly, throughout the country, that even the vacancy of the ancient seat of the Hy-Niells were preferable to the fierce and sanguinary strife which any attempt to take possession of it would provoke. As a sort of provisional substitute for the authority of the monarch, an arrangement was made, through the interposition, most probably, of the Church, by which the administration of the principality of Meath, and of some of the adjoining districts, was placed in the hands of Cuan O'Lochan, chief poet and antiquarian of Ireland,* and an ecclesiastic named Corcoran, who is styled Primate of the Irish Anchorites. In a year or two after, the name of this Cuan is found among the obituary notices; and it is highly probable that the government he had presided over did not survive himself, as it would appear, from the subsequent history of the princes of Meath, that they thenceforth took the administration of that principality into their own hands.

It might have been expected, that at such a crisis the name of the popular champion, Brian, his vigorous career as supreme ruler, and his brilliant achievement, still so recent, would have established some claim in favour of the sons he had left behind. But even by them not a single movement was now made to lay claim to a throne around which their father had thrown so lasting a lustre. At the time of his death, there survived but two of his sons, Teige and Donchad, and their first joint task on the occurrence of that event was to defend, in opposition to the claims of the Eugenian tribe, their own right of succession to the throne of Munster. But the good understanding between these brothers was of very short continuance. Preferring, like most other Irish septs and families, royal or otherwise, destructive strife among themselves, to co-operation, for common interests, against others, they came, at length, to open warfare, and a desperate battle between them ensued, in which the Prince of Aradia, and other chieftains of distinguished station, lost their lives. Through the mediation, however, of the clergy of Munster, the two brothers were soon after reconciled, and continued coregnants in the throne of Munster till the year 1023, when, on some new cause of contention breaking out, A. D. Donchad concerted a plot against his brother's life, and, delivering him up into 1023. the hands of the people of Eile, had him basely murdered.||

By this guilty act, Donchad secured to himself the sole undivided sovereignty of Munster; and, as homage was paid, and hostages delivered to him by the princes and states of Connaught, as well as also by the Danes of Dublin and Leinster, the range of his dominion is considered by some of our antiquarians** sufficiently extensive to entitle him to a place in the list of Ireland's kings; while others who require a more widely extended foundation for that title, exclude Donchad's name altogether from their select album of Irish monarchs.

He was soon to encounter, however, a young and formidable rival, in his own nephew, Turlough, the son of the murdered Teige, whom, immediately after the violent death of that prince, he had, with the half policy by which the guilty so frequently undermine their own schemes, sent into exile in the province of Connaught. Received favourably by the chiefs of that kingdom, and adopted with affectionate zeal by his kinsman, Dermot, the King of Leinster, the young prince's own military accomplishments soon justified

* O'Plaherty, Ogygia, c. 94. O'Connor, Rer. Hib. Script. tom. ii. p. 178. note. For this provisional government of Cuan I can find no authority in any of our regular annals. Vallancey, from Munster Records, Law of Tanistry. Annal. Ult.

§ Ibid.

Tigernach, and IV. Mag. ad an. 1023.

Tigernach and Inisfall. ad an. 1026. Vallancey, in loc.

**Hinc in regum hujus 2di ordinis enumeratione, scriptores nostri fluctuant inter æmulos reges provinciarum, prout major erat cujusque potentia. Sic Donchadum O'Brian, Briani Borromæi filium, aliqui regem Hiberniæ et Malachie successorem appellant, alii Diarmitium filium Maelnamboi (Lageniæ regem) eodem

titulo decorant."

the reception he had met with, and rendered him a powerful instrument in the hands of these chieftains, against a liege lord whom they so reluctantly served. At the head of a considerable force, furnished in aid of his cause by those provinces, Turlough invaded the dominions of his uncle, and succeeded in compelling him to exonerate Connaught from all claim of tribute.* A similar concession, in favour of the Lagenians, was extorted, a year or two after, from the now humbled Donchad, who, driven to extremity by such repeated reverses, having been, in the year 1058, totally defeated by the combined force of these two provinces, at length summoned together all his means and resources for one decisive effort. Encountering, at the foot of the Ardagh moun1063. tains, the united armies of Connaught and Leinster, under the command of Turlough, he there sustained a complete and irretrievable overthrow; in consequence of which, despairing of all farther chance of success, he, in the following year, surrendered the kingdom of Munster to his victorious nephew, and, in the hope of atoning for his sins by penitence and prayer, set out on a pilgrimage to Rome. There, entering into the monastery of St. Stephen, he died in the year 1064, with the reputation, as it appears, of having been a very sincere penitent.§

A. D.

According to some writers, this royal pilgrim took away with him to Rome the crown of Ireland and laid it at the feet of the pope; and it is certain that instances were by no means uncommon of princes laying, in those times, their crowns and kingdoms at the feet of the popes, and receiving them back as fiefs of the Holy See. But, besides that in none of our authentic annals is any mention made of such an act of Donchad, it does not appear how the crown of Ireland could have been disposed of by him, having never, in fact, been in his possession; and his own crown of Munster he had, previously to his departure, transferred to his nephew's brow. The tale was most probably, therefore, invented in after times, either for the purpose of lending a colour to the right assumed by pope Adrian of bestowing the sovereignty of Ireland upon Henry II., or, at a still later period, for the very different purpose of furnishing Irishmen with the not inconvenient argument, that, if former popes possessed the power of bestowing on the English the right of sovereignty over Ireland, there appeared no reason whatever why future popes should not give back the dominion to its first rightful owners.

By his second marriage, Donchad had become connected with the family and, in some degree, fortunes of the great English Earl Godwin, having married Driella, the daughter of that statesman, and sister of Harold, afterwards King of England. During the rebellion of Godwin and his sons against Edward the Confessor, Harold, being compelled to take refuge in Ireland, remained in that country, says the Saxon Chronicle "all the winter on the King's security:" and in the following year, having been furnished by Donchad with a squadron of nine ships, he proceeded on a predatory expedition along the southern coast of England.

Whatever may have been thought of the quality of this king's legislation, the fault of being deficient in quantity could not, assuredly, be objected to it, as we are told that, in the course of his reign, there were more taxes raised, and more ordinances issued, than during the whole interval that had elapsed from the time of the coming of St. Patrick.** A custom encouraged, if not introduced, by Donchad, was that of celebrating games, or athletic sports, on the sabbath day;-the cæstus, or gloves, used by the pugilists, at these games, being distributed, it is said, in the king's own mansion.tt

On the abdication of the crown of Munster, by Donchad, his nephew Turlough became

Inisfall. IV. Mag. ad an. 1058. § Ibid. ad an. 1064.

Inisfall. ad an. 1053, 1054. Tigernach, IV. Mag. ad an. 1063. Whether the kings of Ireland wore any sort of crown whatever, has been a matter of doubt with antiquarians. In the preface to Keating's history there is an account given of a golden cap, supposed to be a provincial crown, which was found in the year 1692, in the county of Tipperary. "This cap, or crown," it is said, "weighs about five ounces; the border and the head is raised in chase-work, and it seems to bear some resemblance to the close crown of the castern empire, which was composed of the helmet together with the diadem, as the learned Selden observes in his Titles of Honour."-Hist. of Ireland, Preface by the Translator. A representation of this crown is given in Ware's Antiq. Plate I. No. 2. Ad ann. 1051.

**Inisfall. (Cod. Bodleian) ad an. 1023 (æræ com. 1040.)

tt Ibid. According to the version of Gratianus Lucius, a very different meaning is here to be attributed to the annalist, whom he represents as asserting that Donchad was a most religious observer of the sabbath, and forbade that any one should carry burdens, or hold hunting matches or fairs on that day. "Dii Dominicæ religiosissimus cultor vetuit onera diebus Dominicis vehi, aut nundinas venationesve fieri." Instead of asserting, too, that "more laws" had been passed in that reign than during the whole interval from the time of St. Patrick, the annalist is made to say, "better laws ""Annales iidem (Inisfallenses) leges ab eo latas fuisse narrant quibus pares à S. Patricii diebus, in Hibernia non ferebantur." On referring to the original, the Irish scholar will, I rather think, pronounce the version which I have above adopted to be the most correct. O'Halloran, who, it is clear, had not consulted the original, follows Lynch's interpretation. "Several severe laws," he says, "were passed by Donchad against robbers, murderers, and profaners of the sabbath."

his successor; and this prince is, by most of the authorities on the subject allowed to take rank among Ireland's nominal monarchs;* though some, who consider his claims as inferior to those of his ally and kinsman, Dermot, king of Leinster, scrupulously withhold from him, during the lifetime of the latter, the full title of monarch. So unfixed and arbitrary, indeed, are the grounds upon which this merely titular honour is awarded, that frequently the preference felt for any particular candidate, by the writer who treats on the subject, suffices for his decision of the question; and accordingly while some perceive in the achievements of Donchad and Dermot sufficient grounds for their enrolment among Ireland's monarchs, others exclude these same princes from that dignity altogether. If a generous sacrifice of his own interests to those of others might be taken into account among Dermot's titles to supremacy, his claims would be of no common order; as the liberal aid he, from the first, proffered to the young Turlough, enabling him to assert and obtain his birthright, lends a moral dignity to his character, far surpassing any that mere rank could bestow, and justifying, in a great degree, the eulogy bestowed upon him by the Welsh chronicler, Caradoc, who pronunces him to have been "the best and worthiest prince that ever reigned in Ireland."

A. D.

On the death of Derinot, who was killed in the battle of Obdha, in Meath, there remained no competitor to dispute the supremacy with Turlough, who, taking the 1072. field at the head of his troops, was acknowledged with homage wherever he directed his march. Proceeding to Dublin, he found the gates of that city thrown open to receive him; and the Danes, together with their king Godfred, placing their hands in his hands, as a pledge that their power was to be thenceforth employed as his own, acknowledged him for their liege lord and sovereign. The same forms of submission were complied with by the kings of Meath and of Ossory, as well as by the princes of the province of Connaught; all delivering to him hostages and acknowledging his sovereignty over their respective states.

In his incursion into Ulster he appears to have been not equally successful, having returned from thence without hostages or plunder, and with the loss, it is added, of a part of his army. He succeeded soon after, however, in dethroning Godfred, king of the Dublin Danes, and, having banished him beyond seas, appointed his own son, Murkertach, to be king over that people. From the frequent intermarriage** that took place between these foreigners and the natives, the decendants of the original Northmen had become, at this period, a mixed race; and accordingly, early in the present century, we find the inhabitants of Dublin called by Tigernach Gall-Gedel, or Dano-Irish.tt

The reduction, indeed, of the Danes of Dublin, the last remaining hold of the Northmen's power, had, to a great extent, been effected some years before the period where we have now arrived, and, in the person of Murchad, the son of the gallant Dermot, was witnessed the first Irish king of the Danes. In the year 1070, this prince died ;§§ and, after an interval of a few years, during which the Northmen appear to have recovered the dominion of that city, the monarch Turlough, as we have just seen, expelled the prince of their choice, and appointed his own son Murkertach in his place.

To dwell in detail on the remaining events of this prince's reign, would be but to repeat, and with little variation even of phrase, the same meager accounts of pitched battles, predatory inroads, and exactions of tribute, which form the sole material of history throughout the greater part of these monarchs' reigns. Though unsuccessful, at first, in Ulster, he at length compelled that province also to acknowledge vassalage, as well as every other part of the kingdom, and received from Eochad, king of Ulster, as his tribute, 1000 head of cattle, 40 ounces of gold, and 120 party-coloured mantles. It is mentioned, to the honour of our Irish oak, though with what truth there are not any means of ascer

*"Tordelachum autem Thadæi filium, B. Borumhii nepotem, nemo in regum Hiberniæ numero non collocat."-Gratianus Lucius.

Thus O'Halloran - On his (Dermot's) death, Turlough certainly was the most potent prince in Ireland, and had the fairest claim to the title of nominal monarch."-Vol iii. c. 3.

"Dermitium Maken-Anel, dignissimum et optimum principem qui unquam in Hibernia regnavit." This chronicler assigns his death to about 1068; but Tigernach, the Annals of Inisfallen, and the Four Masters, place it at 1072.

§ Tigernach and IV. Mag. Inisfall. ad an. 1073.

¶ Ibid. 1075.

**One of the most distinguished instances of this sort of intermarriage is found in the family of the great Brian Boru, whose third wife had, previously to her marriage with him, been the wife of a Danish prince; and was, by this double union, mother to Sitric, King of Dublin, as well as to the Irish monarch, Donchad. See Tigernach, ad an. 1030, the year in which this princess died.

tt Ad an. 1034.

This decided advantage over the remaining power of the Dublin Danes may be dated from the year 1029, when Anlaf, son of Sitric, then King of the Danes, was made prisoner by O'Regan, Prince of Bregia, and forced to redeem himself at an enormous sacrifice both of wealth and of power. Annal. Ult. ad an. 1029. IV. Mag. ad ann. 1070. These annals call him prince of the Gals (or Strangers,) and of the Lagenians. Inisfall. ad an. 1082.