In France they wers styled Normans. After various predatory irruptions into that kingdom, they formed a powerful settlement there, in the beginning of the tenth century. Finally, under William Duke of Normandy, they conquered England in the year 1Q66. In the year 812, a fleet of Normans, appeared off the Irish coasts, but was defeated by the Scoto-Hibernians, with vast slaughter* About the year 815, a formidable body of Ostmen arrived on the western coasts of Munster, with sixty ships of war. They landed but were valiantly assailed by Airtre, king of that country who having slain four hundred and sixteen of the invaders, compelled the remainder to take refuge in their vessels, and to abandon their enterprise.t A second attempt on Munster was repelled by King Feidlime, after the Danes had with fire and sword carried havock and devastation through a considerable portion of his territory. Another army of these restless northerns landed in Ulster, destroyed the famous abbey of Benchoir, and put nine hundred monks to the sword. A few years after this period, a formidable Danish fleet appeared off the northern coast. The troops landed but were spiritedly attacked and completely defeated by the Ultonians. A second army of Danes which had disembarked at a place named "Inbher Chinn Tragha," the River at the head of the Strand," subsequently called "Na Yur," or Newry, was for a time more successful. This body of daring adventurers marched from Newry towards Armagh, and miserably wasted the country, in every direction. The city which Colgan says had never before been occupied by strangers was taken by storm, and here 642, Eginbard Annal. apud Usser, Brit. Eccl. Ant. p. 382. Ind. Chron. p. + Mac Curtin, p. 171. the Danes and Norwegians established their head quar ters for the space of a month in the year 830.* During this period, the inhabitants suffered every species of indignity, and endured every kind of misery, which victorious barbarians, inured to blood and unrestrained by moral feeling or religious principle, delight to inflict on the vanquished. At last the invaders were driven back to their ships by the irritated people. In their retreat, they robbed the inhabitants and set fire to the city itself. Some authors state that in the year 832, the Danes took Armagh, and pillaged it thrice, in a single month, When they withdrew, they carried with them the sacred relicks, with various highly esteemed treasures, and compelled the abbot of Saint Peter and Saint Paul's to seek an asylum in Munster.+ Primate ARTRIGE died in the year 833, and was immediately succeeded by EUGENE or EOGAIN, who died in the following year. After his decease, FARANAN (or FORANAN and DERMOD O TIGHERN AC contended for the see, and each assumed and exercised the episcopal functions. In the year 835, DERMOT was driven from the bishoprick, but proceeded in a visitorial circuit through Connaught, to establish there SAINT PATICK's law. At the same period, Fethlim the son of Crimthan, seized upon the abbot of Armagh, in the church of the abbey of Kildare, and carried him and his clergy into captivity.§ In the year 836, the Normans again pillaged and burned the city with the Cathedral and the other sacred edifices. In fact, whilst the country had been agitated by various factions, and the rival prelates, FARANAN and DERMOT had been contending for the see of Armagh, Turgesius (or Thorgis,) a very valiant, but fierce and barbarous Dane, had wasted Connaught, and a • Ware vol. 1, p. 44. Tria Thaum. p. 295. p. 43. Ann. Innisfal, Arch, Monas. Hib. O'Flaherty, p. 43. Annal. Ult. + Ogygia, great part of Meath and Leinster, at the head of his Norwegian troops. Flushed with victory and confident of success, this active chieftain had marched northward with a numerous body of his ferocious adherents, to the conquest of Ulster. In less than three years he had made himself master by force of arms of almost all the country round Lough Neagh. Wherever he advanced, rapine and devastation marked his progress. In Munster also, the Norwegians and Easterlings swept the land with such an irresistible force, that they soon became the acknowledged masters of the country. And now Turgesius, whom his victorious army had proclaimed king of Ireland, marched against the city of Armagh, which probably weakened by intestine division and not yet recovered from the effects of its late capture, was altogether unable to resist his progress. As he advanced, the Danish sovereign waged an unrelenting war against Christianity and its meek teachers. He levelled the churches to the earth, and treated the clergy with wanton insult and inhuman barbarity. When, therefore, this merciless Pagan had seized upon Armagh, he expelled its bishop FARANAN, with all the students of the college, and the whole body of religious devotees from the city. The bishop and such of the clergy as escaped his rage, fled to Cashel. Here however they were pursued by the emissaries of the inexorable Turgesius, and compelled with the clergy of that place to lurk for years in obscure woods, bogs and subterraneous caves.* a Meanwhile Turgesius had established amongst the conquered people, a species of systematic slavery and oppression intolerable to human nature.+ • M'Curtin, p. 180. Colgan says that in 843, Faranan, with his family and the sacred relics, was taken prisoner by the Normans, and sent to their navy at Limerick; but Florence Mac Carthy, asserts that he was expelled with all the students, and the religious of the city and Ussher also in his Chronological Index, A. D. 848, says that he was expelled by Turgasius, who then occupied Armagh. Primor. 860. Ind. Chron. p. 543. Tria Thaum, p. 295. Every cantred of ground was placed under the jurisdiction of a Danish prince; every Tuath or seigniory under a chieftain. Sergeants presided despotically over towns and villages, and every private Buanna or soldier was absolute master of the house in which he was quartered. The abbeys, churches and monasteries were placed at the disposal of the Danish heathen priests, and the edifices originally dedicated to the worship of God, resounded with the praises of Odin, Thor and Friga. If any man concealed his cattle from the voracious Buannas, or secreted food for the use of his children, he was, on detection, fettered, chained and imprisoned, until he had made ample satisfaction to the proud Dane, whose wants he was bound by the Turgesian edict to supply. The inexorable tyrant established also a most oppressive law, by which every head of a family was compelled to pay into the Danish treasury an ounce of gold annually.* He who failed either through poverty or any other cause to pay this tribute of the "Vinge Oir" or ounce of gold, was liable to a punishment of a most cruel and degrading nature. His nose was publickly cut off, and he was thus subjected, as an object of scorn, to the continual scoffs of his inhuman tyrants. Hence this tax was denominated Nose-Rent, and by the Irish, AirgiodSron, and Cioss-Sron.+ The oppressed natives were also prohibited by law, from entering any school, monastery, church or chapel, and none were allowed to employ any clergyman, lawyer, philosopher, bard, or even artist of any kind. Every manuscript which the most minute search of the Danes could discover, was instantly consumed with fire. All social intercourse between families was interdicted, and even the nobility of the land were limited as to diet, to the leavings and offals of their tyrants' tables.‡ Keating, vol. 2, p. 176 et seq. Vide lib. Coga Gall le Gaoidheal apud Mae Curtin. p. 181. † Ibid. p. 182. See Appendix No, X. ‡ Mac Curt, . The despotism of Turgesius and the subordinate ministers of his barbarities extended even to the bridal bed. On the solemnization of every marriage, the Danish captain of the precinct was entitled by law to defile the bride. If he disliked the woman, or chose to wave his claim, he commuted it with the unfortunate husband for a tax in money, which he was by the despotic law of the Danes, entitled to levy.* Let it not be imagined that our Irish annalists have drawn an exaggerated picture of Danish barbarities. The English historians portray their cruelties in equally strong colours. The cruel Gutrum, (says one of these historians,) arrived in England, A. D. 878, with an army of heathenish Danes, equally cruel as himself who, like barbarous savages, destroyed all before them with fire and sword, involving cities, towns and villages with their inhabitants in devouring flames, and cutting those in pieces with their battle-axes who attempted to escape from their burning houses. And again, hoaryheaded old men were seen lying with their throats cut before their own doors, the streets covered with the bodies of young men and children without heads, hands, or feet, and of matrons and virgins who had been first publickly dishonoured, and then put to death, and indecently exposed to public gaze.† These barbarians, say the English writers, were accustomed to tear babes from the bosoms of their mothers, toss them up into the air, and catch them in their descent, on the points of their spears, as if cruelty and infanticide were sports congenial to their souls. Scalping was practised by these inhuman warriors. We learn from an ancient historian, that Earl Godwin having intercepted Prince Alfred at Gilford, in his way to London, defeated his companions and seized his person. Some of the guards he enchained, some he sold • Keating, vol 2, p. 176 et seqentia. Vide lib. Coga Gall. Le Gaoidheal apud Mac Curtin, p. 181. See J. Wallingford apud Gale, p. 536. Anglia Sacra, t. 2.p. 155. |