RODERIC O'CONOR MONARCH OF IRELAND.

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by the monarch, O'Loughlin, on Eochy Mac Dunlevy, prince of Dalaradia. One of the petty wars, so usual at the period, having been arranged between these two princes the preceding year, a peace was ratified by the successor of St. Patrick and some of the neighbouring chieftains. Urged, however, by some new feeling of exasperation, from what cause we are not told, O'Loughlin came suddenly upon the Dalaradian chief, put out his eyes, and killed three of his principal men. This savage aggression so provoked the princes who had been guarantees for the treaty, that they mustered an army, composed of choice battalions of the men of Oriel, Breffny, and Conmacne, under the command of Donough O'Carroll, and marched to the north. At Leiter Luin, a place in the present barony of Upper Fews, county of Armagh, and then part of Tir Eoghain, they encountered O'Loughlin, who, although he had but a few troops, gave battle. In the fierce contest which ensued the Kinel Eoghain were defeated, and the monarch himself slain; and thus fell Murtough O'Loughlin, who, of all the Irish kings since the days of Malachy II., had the most unquestionable right to the title of monarch of Ireland.

A.D. 1166.-Roderic O'Conor lost no time in getting himself recognised as sovereign, on the death of O'Loughlin; and this appears to have been a mere matter of parade in his case, as there was no serious opposition to his claim. He first led an army to Easrua, in Donegal, and took the hostages of Kinel Connell. Thence he marched across Ireland to Dublin, being joined on the way by the men of Meath and Teffia, and he was there inaugurated with more pomp than any Irish king had ever been before. This was, indeed, the first solemn act in which we see Dublin treated as a metropolis, and on this occasion Roderic paid the Dano-Irish of that city a stipend in cattle, and levied for them a tax of 4,000 cows on Ireland at large.

From Dublin he proceeded to Drogheda (Droicheat-atha), where O'Carroll and the men of Oriel paid homage, and gave him hostages. Attended by a great hosting of the men of Connaught, Breffny, and Meath, he marched back to Leinster, advancing into Hy-Kinsella, where Dermot Mac Murrough gave him hostages; and submission was made in a similar form by the various chiefs of Leinster and Ossory, and of north and south Munster.

By the death of the late monarch, Dermot Mac Murrough was deprived of his only supporter; and on the accession of Roderic-the firm ally of his old enemy, O'Rourke-he saw what his fate must inevitably be. According to the friendly authority of Giraldus Cambrensis, this prince was detested by all. Equally hateful to strangers and to his own people

"his hand was against every man, and every man's hand against him.” He accordingly prepared for the worst by burning his castle of Ferns, and soon saw his fears realised by the approach of an army conducted by Tiernan O'Rourke, and composed of the men of Breffny and Meath, of the Dano-Irish of Dublin, and of the chiefs of his own kingdom of Leinster. A precipitate flight was his only resource, and while he sought refuge in England his kingdom was given to another member of his family.

A.D. 1167.-A great assembly of the clergy and chieftains of Leath Cuinn, or the northern half of Ireland, was convened by Roderic, at Athboy, in Meath. Among those who attended were the primate; St. Laurence O'Toole, archbishop of Dublin; Catholicus O'Duffy, archbishop of Tuam; and the chieftains of Breffny, Oriel, Ulidia, Meath, and Dublin. Thirteen thousand horsemen are said to have assembled on this occasion; and the meeting, from its magnitude, has been supposed by some, although incorrectly, to have been a revival of the ancient Feis of Tara. It has been also remarked how sadly this display of the resources, and awakening of the olden glories of the country, contrasted with the fatal circumstances of the moment; and how little the men then congregated at Athboy could anticipate the ruin which was just about to come upon themselves and upon their nation! Several useful regulations, affecting the social and religious interests of the people, were adopted on this occasion, and the convention tended materially to promote respect for the laws, and to give eclat to the commencement of the new sovereign's reign.

Roderic, with a large army, composed of contingents from every other part of Ireland, entered the territory of Tyrone (Tir-Eoghain) and divided it between Niall O'Loughlin and Hugh O'Neill, giving to the former the country lying to the north of Slieve Gallion, in the present county of Londonderry, and to the latter the territory south of, that mountain. This might be considered as the last act of undisputed sovereignty exercised by a native king of Ireland. Roderic was a man of parade, not of action, and totally unfit for the emergency in which the unhappy destiny of Ireland had placed him. No monarch of Ireland, up to his time, was ever more implicitly obeyed, or could command more numerous hostings of brave men; yet in his hands all this power was miserably worthless and inoperative.

Dermot's Appeal to Henry II.-His Negotiations with Earl Strongbow and others.-Landing of the first English Adventurers in Ireland.-Siege of Wexford.-First Rewards of the Adventurers.-Apathy of the Irish.-Incursion into Ossory.-Savage Conduct of Dermot.-His Vindictiveness.-Shameful Feebleness of Roderic.-The Treaty of Ferns.-Dermot aspires to the Sovereignty.-Strongbow's Preparations for his Expedition.-Landing of his Precursor, Raymond le Gros.-Massacre of Prisoners by the English.-Arrival of Strongbow, and Siege of Waterford.-Marriage of Strongbow and Eva.March on Dublin.-Surprise of the City.-Brutal Massacre.-The English Garrison of Waterford cut off.-Sacrilegious Spoliations by Dermot and the English.-Imbecility of Roderic.-Execution of Dermot's Hostages.-Synod of Armagh.-English Slaves, Nefarious Custom.-Horrible Death of Dermot Mac Murrough.

(A.D. 1168-1171.)

EDITATING vengeance against the country from which he was compelled to fly in disgrace, the fugitive king of Leinster arrived at Bristol, where he learned that Henry II., to whom he had determined to apply for aid, was absent in Aquitaine. Thither he immediately proceeded; and having at length found the English king, he laid before him such a statement of his grievances as he thought fit. He offered to become Henry's vassal, should he, through his assistance, be reinstated in his kingdom, and made the most abject protestations of reverence and submission. Henry lent a willing ear to his statement, and must have been forcibly struck by this

invitation to carry out a project which he himself had long entertained, and for which he had been making grave preparations many years before. That project was the invasion of Ireland. As his hands were, however, just then full of business-for he was engaged in bringing into submission the proud nobles of the

province in which he then was, while at home the resistance of St. Thomas à Becket, who would not suffer him to trample on the rights of the church with impunity, was become daily more irksome-he could not occupy himself personally in Dermot's affairs, but gave him letters patent, addressed to all his subjects-English, French, and Welsh -recommending Dermot to them, and granting them a general license to aid that prince in the recovery of his territory by force of arms.

A.D. 1168.-With this authorization Dermot hastened back to Wales, where he gave it due publicity, but for some time his efforts to induce any one to espouse his cause were unavailable. At length, he was fortunate enough to find some needy military adventurers suited to his purpose. The chief of these was Richard de Clare, commonly called Strongbow, (as his father, Gilbert, also had been), from his skill with the crossbow. This man, who was earl of Pembroke and Strigul, or Chepstow, being of a brave and enterprising spirit, and of ruined fortune, entered warmly into Dermot's design. He undertook to raise a sufficient force to aid the king of Leinster in the recovery of his kingdom, for which Dermot promised him his daughter, Eva, in marriage, and the succession to the throne of Leinster. Two Anglo-Norman knights, Maurice FitzGerald and Robert Fitz Stephen, also enlisted themselves in the cause of Dermot. These men were half-brothers, being the sons of Nesta, who had been first the mistress of Henry I., then the wife of Gerald of Windsor, governor of Pembroke and lord of Carew, to whom she bore the former of these adventurers, and finally the mistress of constable Stephen de Marisco, who was the father of Robert FitzStephen. These knights were also men of needy circumstances, and Dermot promised to reward them liberally for their services, by granting them the city of Wexford with certain lands adjoining. Such were the obscure individuals by whom the first introduction of English power into Ireland was planned and carried out.

The year was now drawing to a close, and Dermot Mac Murrough, relying on the promises which he had obtained, ventured back to Ireland, and remained, during the winter, concealed in a monastery of Augus tinian canons which he had founded at Ferns. There is some uncertainty as to the date of the first landing of the Anglo-Normans in Ireland; and it may also be doubted, whether some of the proceedings of Dermot and his foreign auxiliaries, mentioned obscurely in the native annals, occurred previous to the arrival of Fitz Stephen, and the surrender of Wexford, in May, 1169, or were identical with those recorded after that time Thus it is stated, that early in the year a few of Dermot's

SIEGE OF WEXFORD.

185 Welsh auxiliaries arrived, and that with their aid he recovered possession of Hy-Kinsellagh; but that this movement on his part was premature, and that at the approach of a force, hastily collected by Roderic O'Conor and Tiernan O'Rourke, a battle in which some of the Welsh were killed, having been fought at Cill Osnadh, now Kellistown, in the county of Carlow, Dermot, who only wanted to gain time, made a hypocritical peace with the monarch, giving him seven hostages for ten cantreds of his former territory. It is added, that he gave a hundred ounces of gold to O'Rourke, as an atonement for the injury he had formerly inflicted on him; but all this seems to be only a confused version of some of the events which we are now about to relate in order, on the authority of Giraldus Cambrensis and Maurice Regan.*

A.D. 1169.—According to the most probable account of the first AngloNorman descent, Robert FitzStephen, with 30 knights, all his own kinsmen, 60 men-at-arms, and 300 skilful archers, disembarked in May, this year, at Bannow,† near Wexford. One of the knights was Hervey de Montemarisco, or Mountmaurice, a paternal uncle of earl Strongbow; and the next day, at the same place, landed Maurice de Prendergast, a Welsh gentleman, with 10 knights and 60 archers. Dermot, on receiving notice of their arrival, marched with the utmost speed to join them with 500 men, being all that he could then muster; and with the joint force, he proceeded immediately to lay siege to the town of Wexford, the inhabitants of which were Dano-Irish. The first assault was repelled with great bravery, the inhabitants having previously set fire to the suburbs, that they might not afford a cover to the enemy; but when the Anglo-Normans were preparing to renew the attack next morning, the townspeople demanded a parley, and terms of capitulation were negotiated by the clergy; Dermot, though with great reluctance, consenting to pardon the inhabitants on their returning to their allegiance. In the first day's assault eighteen of the English had been slain, and only three of the brave garrison. FitzStephen burned the shipping which lay before the town; and it is said that he destroyed also the vessels which had conveyed his own troops from England, to show that they were resolved never to retreat. The lordship of the town was then, according to the contract, made over to him and to FitzGerald, who had not yet

The authority referred to as that of Maurice Regan, is a metrical narrative written by an anonymous Norman rhymer from the oral account which he received from Regan, the secretary and " Lattiner," or interpreter, of Dermot Mac Murrough. An old translation into English, by Sir George Carew, was published in Harris's Hibernica.

+ Cuan-an-bhainbh, "the creek of the sucking pigs." The place of FitzStephen's debarkation is called Baganbun by the Anglo-Irish historians.