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of which still remain to bear witness to the grand ideas. of their founders. But it is as mighty warriors that they are best known. Besides being personally brave and daring, they were very skilful in the sort of warfare and fighting suited to those times. They wore coats of mail, were celebrated for their skill in archery, using both the long and the cross bow; and what more than all helped to their success in war, they were under perfect discipline on the field of battle. But with all their

noble qualities they were cruel and merciless to those who resisted them.*

The Irish mode of going to battle was totally different. They were, man for man, as brave and as expert in the use of their weapons as the Anglo-Normans, quite as tall and muscular, as fearless and

valiant. The Irish soldiers, especially the Galloglasses, are praised by many English writers, one of whom, in

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Two Galloglasses depicted on a Map of

the 16th century, says of Ireland of 1567. From Morrin's "State them :-"The Galloglasses

Papers of Henry VIII.'

are picked and selected men of great and mighty

* It ought to be observed here that the first of the adventurers to arrive in Ireland were not Anglo-Normans but WelshNormans. For their ancestors had settled in Wales and had intermarried with the Welsh chiefs and princes, so that Strongbow, the Geraldines, the De Burgos, and others, were half Welsh half Norman. But as time went on, Anglo-Normans came over in great numbers from various parts of England.

bodies, cruel without compassion. The greatest force of the battle consisteth in their choosing rather to die than to yield, so that when it cometh to handy blows they are quickly slain or win the field." Another writer, speaking of the Irish soldiers, says: "No man at arms, be he ever so well mounted, can overtake them, they are so light of foot. Sometimes they leap from the ground behind a horseman and embrace the rider so tightly that he can no way get rid of them." Spenser, writing in the sixteenth century, says:-"[The Irish soldiers] are very valiaunt, and hardie, for the most part great indurers of colde, labour, hunger, and all hardnesse, very active and strong of hand, very swift of foot, very vigilant and circumspect in their enterprises, very present [i. e. having presence of mind] in perils, very great scorners of death."

But the Irish fighting men lacked the great tactical skill of their opponents, their discipline was loose, and they fought rather in crowds, than in regularly arranged ranks. They had no walled cities. Their surest defence was the nature of the country, full of impassable bogs and forests; and their best plan of warfare was to hang on the flanks and rear of an invading army and harass them as opportunity offered, retreating, when hard pressed, to their fastnesses, whither no enemy could follow. So long as they kept to this they could, and often did, hold their own, even against superior numbers. But in open

fighting their tunic-clad crowds were, number for number, no match for the steel-cased Anglo-Norman battalions. Nevertheless, as time went on they gradu ally learned the Anglo-Norman methods of warfare, and often turned them successfully against the invaders.

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Sculpture on a Capital: Priest's House, Glendalough: Beranger, 1779.
From Petrie's "Round Towers."

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE ANGLO-NORMAN INVASION.

(A.D. 1166-1173.)

URING the time that the two O'Conors were struggling with Murkertagh O'Loghlin (pages 124, 125), Dermot Mac Murrogh was king of Leinster. This Dermot, who was afterwards often called Dermot-naGall (of the English), is described by

Cambrensis as "a tall man of stature, and of a large and great bodie, a valiant and bold warrior in his nation; and by reason of his continuall halowing and crieng [in battle] his voice was hoarse: he rather choce to be feared than to be loved: a great oppressor of his nobilitie, but a great advancer of the poore and weake. To his owne people he was rough and greevous, and hatefull to strangers; he would be against all men, and all men against him" (Old translation). He was a headstrong and passionate man, and was as much hated in his own day as his memory has been hated ever since. Yet with all his evil qualities he founded many churches and encouraged learning. In 1152 he carried off Dervorgilla the wife of Ternan O'Ruarc prince of Brefney, while O'Ruarc himself was absent from home; and she took away all she had

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brought to her husband as dowry. O'Ruarc appealed for redress to Turlogh O'Conor king of Ireland, who in 1153 marched with an army into Leinster and forced Dermot to restore Dervorgilla and all her rich dowry. This woman retired after a little time to the abbey of

Dermot Mac Murrogh. From the MS. of Giraldus Cambrensis (A.D. 1200), mentioned

under

the Scribe at p. 87. Reproduced

here from Wilde's Catalogue.

Mellifont, where she spent the

rest of her days doing works of penitence and charity, and where she died in 1193 at the age of eighty-five.

At last Dermot's conduct becoming unbearable, he was deposed and banished by King Roderick O'Conor, O'Ruarc, and others (A.D. 1166); whereupon, breathing vengeance, he fled across the sea, resolved to seek the aid of the great King Henry II. of England.

Many years before this time, Pope Adrian IV., an Englishman, influenced by an unfair and exaggerated account of the evil state of religion in Ireland given to him by an envoy of King Henry, issued a bull authorising the king to take possession of Ireland. Some writers have questioned the issue of this bull. But the evidence is so strong on the other side as to leave no

good reason to doubt that the pope did really issue it, believing that it would be for the advancement of religion and for the good of Ireland.

Dermot presented himself before the king at Aquitaine, and prayed him for help against his enemies, offering to acknowledge him as lord and

A.D. 1168 master. The king eagerly accepted the offer; but being then too busy with the affairs of his own kingdom to go to Ireland himself, he gave permission to any of his British or French subjects that pleased to join the Irish king. Dermot immediately proceeded to Bristol, where he engaged the services of

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Mellifont Abbey in 1791. From Grose's "Antiquities of Ireland."

Richard de Clare earl of Pembroke, better known by the name of Strongbow; who agreed to help him on condition that he should get Dermot's daughter Eva in marriage, and should succeed him as king of Leinster. At St. David's in Wales he engaged a number of the Geraldines, among them Maurice Fitzgerald and Robert Fitzstephen, to whom he promised the town of Wexford and the adjoining district. After this Dermot returned

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