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leaving a circle of hair all round, the Irish monks and clerics shaved or clipped the front part of the head from ear to ear. One mode of shaving the head appears quite as harmless as the others, but the subject was, nevertheless, made one of warm debate at the synod of Whitby, by St Wilfrid, and other Saxon converts, who strenously advocated the Roman custom, and the Irish monks ultimately abandoned their own method. From such disputes as these, and from any peculiarities of the Irish liturgy, which were only such as have been tolerated in various ancient Catholic liturgies, nothing can be more absurd than to argue that the primitive church of Ireland was not united in faith with the other churches in the communion of the see of Rome.

Hewn timber, wattles, and earth were, as we have seen, the ordinary building materials used for the dwellings of the ancient Irish; and we have the authority of Venerable Bede, and of some of the oldest lives of Irish saints for the fact that these materials were also employed in the construction of their churches and oratories in the seventh, eighth, and ninth centuries. We are told by St. Bernard that such continued to be the case, even in the time of St. Malachy, in the twelfth century; but there is also evidence enough to show that churches were frequently built in Ireland of stone and cement, even from the time of St. Patrick. As characteristic examples of the oldest style of our ecclesiastical architecture still in good preservation, Dr. Petrie, in his learned work on that subject, instances the monastic establishment of St. Molaise, on Inishmurray (Inis Muireadhaigh), in the bay of Sligo, erected in the sixth century; that of St. Brendan, on Inishglory, off the coast of Erris, in Mayo, of the beginning of the same century; and that of St. Fechin, on High Island, off the coast of Connemara, erected in the seventh century; and to these he elsewhere adds, as remains of the sixth century, some of the oratories and cells of the Isles of Aran, in Galway Bay. In all these examples we find that mortar was only used in the churches; the houses or cells of the abbots and monks being invariably built of dry stone, without any kind of cement, and in that style of masonry which antiquaries call cyclopean, or Pelasgic, like the primitive stone houses and military structures of the Firbolgs, which we have already noticed. The cells were generally circular or oval, with dome-shaped roofs, constructed, not on the principle of the arch, but by the gradual overlapping of the stones; and the cluster of cells, with their oratory, were surrounded by a thick wall of the same rude cyclopean masonry."

* The stone churches were called damliags, from dom or domnach, a church, and lag a stone. Thus, from the damliag of St. Kianan, who was consecrated bishop by St. Patrick, and who died

At various periods between the sixth and twelfth centuries (some of them still later, but the greater number, perhaps, in the ninth and tenth centuries), were erected those singular buildings, the round towers, which have been so enveloped in mystery by the arguments and conjectures of modern antiquaries. It is only in recent times that people have thought of ascribing to these towers any other than a Christian and ecclesiastical origin; but of late years a variety of theories have been started about them, and they have been alternately made firetemples and shrines of other kinds of pagan worship; anchorite's cells, or places for penitential seclusion, and beacons. The real uses of the Irish round towers, both as belfries and as ecclesiastical keeps or castles, have been satisfactorily established by Dr. Petrie, in his important and erudite work on the ecclesiastical architecture of Ireland. For this twofold purpose they were admirably adapted. In a woody country such as Ireland was in remote times, they may also have been useful as beacons, and may, moreover, have served as watch-towers. In fine, the wants and tastes of the country led to the adoption of a peculiar style in their structure, as we find to have been the case in most old Christian countries, where some local singularity in the design and structure of church towers is sure to attract the traveller's attention, although it might be now difficult to determine what circumstances led to the local adoption of each peculiarity. The style of our ancient round towers seems to have been peculiar to the Irish or Scottish race. These buildings were well contrived to supply the clergy with a place of safety for themselves, the sacred vessels, and other objects of value, during the incursions of the Danes, and other foes; and the upper stories, in which there were four windows, were perfectly well adapted for the ringing of the largest bells then used in Ireland. We must refer to Dr. Petrie's work for an exposition of the principal theories that have been started about these round towers; and for the arguments in support of the true explanation of their use; but this much may be added here, namely that the closest study of Irish antiquities leaves no doubt whatever that the principle of the arch, and the use of lime cementboth of which are to be found in the round towers-cannot be traced in any Irish remains which either historical evidence or popular tradition ascribes to a period anterior to the introduction of Christianity.*

in the year 490, Duleek, in Meath, has derived its name. The oratories, or smaller churches, were called duirachs (duirthenchs), a name which, as some think, implies that they were constructed of oak, although many of them also were built of stone and mortar.

Goban Saer, to whom traditition points as the architect of some of the Round Towers, flourished early in the seventh century, and was the son of Turvi, from whom Traigh Tuirbi, on the

Those sacred remains called by the Irish peasantry "saints' beds may have been, in some instances, the penitential stone beds used by th ancient ascetics; while others of them were, no doubt, the graves of th holy persons after whom they have been called. Some of these places now frequented by the peasantry for the purposes of prayer, were unquestionably the penitential stations of the ancient monasteries, or were at some time resorted to by the Irish saints for prayer, fasting, and mortification. Such places were the Skellig Mihil, on the coast of Kerry; Cruach Patrick, in Mayo; and the island of St. Patrick's Purgatory, in Lough Dearg; and many spots for which veneration has thus been preserved by the popular traditions, such as these saints' beds and holy wells, were consecrated in distant ages by some relations with the blessed servants of God. It is not necessary here to consider the question whether or not they merit our respect as memorials of the primitive saints of Ireland, and whether it be better to regulate the popular devotion which they inspire, rather than condemn them as objects of superstition.

north coast of Dublin, takes its name. Of what race Turvi was is not known, but he is supposed to have been descended from the Tuatha de Dananns, who are said to have left Tara with Lewy of the Long Hand, A.M. 2764, according to the chronology of the Ogygia. He was, at all events, not of Milesian descent. The round towers built by Goban, were, according to tradition, those of Kilmacduach, Killala, and Antrim. See Petrie's Round Towers, p. 385, &c., second edition, in which the Dinnsenchus is quoted on the subject. Adamnan's Life of St. Columba mentions, according to the general acceptation of the word, the erection of a round tower (monaserii rotundi) in the sixth century; and passages are quoted by Dr. Petrie (pp. 390, &c.) from the Irish annals, shewing the erection of round towers in the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries

CHAPTER XIII.

Character of Irish History in the Seventh and Eighth Centuries-Piety of some Irish Kings.-Renewed Wars for the Leinster Tribute.-The Poet Rumann.Foundation of Tallaght.-St. Aengus the Culdee.-St. Colgu and Alcuin.An Early Irish Prayer-book.-Signs and Prodigies.-The Lavchomart.-First Appearance of the Danish Pirates.-Their Character.-Their Barbarism and Inhumanity.-Heroic Resistance of the Irish.-Turgesius.-Domestic Wars.Felim, King of Cashel.-Malachy I.-Danish Settlements in Waterford and Limerick.-Irish Allies of the Danes.-Cormac MacCuilenan.-Niall Glundubh.-Muirkertach and Callaghan Caishil.

COTEMPORARY SOVEREIGNS AND EVENTS.

A.D. 800, Charlemagne crowned emperor of the West.-827, Dissolution of the Saxon heptarchy; Egbert sole king of England.-872-900, Alfred the Great; Danish invasions of England.— 850, Final subjugation of the Picts by Kenneth, king of the Scots of Albany.-921, The Moors victorious in Spain.-932, Rollo, the Norman, founds the Duchy of Normandy.-987, Hugh Capet, king of France.-995, the Danegelt, or land-tax, paid in England to the Danes.

R

The Eighth, Ninth, and first half of the Tenth Centuries.

ESUMING the thread of our civil history, we may glide rapidly over the events which intervene between the commencement of the seventh century and the epoch of the Danish invasions-the next era of great importance in our annals. During that interval, comprising a couple of centuries, the facts recorded are sufficiently numerous, but the details are meagre, and rarely afford a clue to the motives of the actors, or to the causes or consequences of events. The obituaries of ecclesiastics, eminent for learning or holiness, and for their exalted position in the church, occupy a leading place in the chronicles of the times. The demise of kings, chieftains, and tanists, is also set down with fidelity; dearths, epidemics, and portentous phenomena, are duly recorded; and these, with the brief mention of battles, which would indicate an almost per

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THE BORUMEAN TRIBUTE RENEWED.

petual warfare between the several provinces, and between different districts of the same province, make up the staple of the venerable annals of the period.* With all their hereditary feuds there was still mixed up a spirit of primitive chivalry. As a general rule human life was safe except in the field of battle; and their pitched battles were usually pre-arranged, sometimes for a year or more, both as to time and place; so that both parties had an opportunity to collect their forces, and the conflict which ensued was a fair trial of strength. Several Irish kings, at this period, were remarkable for piety, and not a few of them ended their days in religious houses; and the same pages which record the carnage of battle, often shew that distinguished saints were then dwelling in our monasteries and anchorites' cells. With such living examples in the midst of them, the people cannot have been destitute of piety and morality; and in the picture which that rude age presents we find a beautiful illustration of the way in which religion stood between society and barbarism, as it did at that time throughout Europe in general.

The pious generosity of Finachta, in relinquishing his claim to the Leinster tribute, at the prayer of St. Moling (about 687) was of little avail, as most of his successors waged war to renew it. The monarch Congal, of the race of Conal Gulban, scourged Leinster with his armies, either for this purpose, or, as some say, to avenge the death of his grandfather, Hugh, son of Ainmire, who was slain in the battle of Dunbolg. Congal died suddenly, in the year 708; and by his successor, Fergal, of the Cinel-Eoghain branch of the Hy-Nialls, Leinster was "five times wasted and preyed in one year." In one of these inroads (A.D. 772) a great battle was fought at the celebrated hill of Allen, in the county of Kildare, when Fergal and the chiefs of Leath Cuinn brought 21,000 men into the field, and the Leinstermen could only muster 9,000. The latter however, made up by their bravery for the disproportion of their numbers, and the slaughter which followed was terrific, the total amount of slain on both sides being seven thousand

* As to this frequent recurrence of petty wars we must recollect that other countries present similar blood-stained annals in the same ages. The wars of the Saxon heptarchy were as numerous as the cotemporary ones of the Irish pentarchy, Writing of Northumbria in the eighth century, Lingard says that "it exhibited successive instances of treachery and murder, to which no other country, perhaps, can furnish a parallel." Its kings were engaged in perpetual strife; and Charlemagne pronounced them to be "a perfidious and perverse race, worse than pagans." The English Saxons seem to have fallen at this epoch into a state of utter demoralization; so much so that their own historians affirm that the crimes of both princes and people had drawn down upon them the merited scourge of the Danish wars. See the testimonies of Henry of Huntingdon, and others, to this effect collected by Mr. MacCabe, in his Catholic History of England, vol. ii., chap. 1.