It continued to be down till a recent period. The Scotchman, Jamieson, writing in the last century, says:

"Within the memory of persons still living, the school for higher poetry and music was Ireland. And thither professional men were sent to be accomplished in these arts."

Walker in his Irish Bards quotes Vincentio Gallilei as stating that Dante said the harp was first introduced to Italy from Ireland. A Continental writer on the Crusades is quoted as testifying: "We may well think that all the concert of Christendom in these wars would have been as discord, had the Irish harp been absent."

And from Bacon, Walker quotes: "No harp hath a sound so melting, and so prolonged as the Irish harp." It is quite probable that Moengal, at St. Gall, had the Irish harp taught to Tuotilo and others, when he was making that school famous for its music.

Geminiami, says D'Alton, found no music as original as the Irish "on this side of the Alps." And Handel who called our bard Carolan the Irish Orpheus, said he would rather be the author of Eiblin a run (Eileen aroon) than all the music he ever composed.

The high esteem in which music was held in very early Ireland is shown in a thousand legends: among others, in that one which has already been told of how St. Patrick, after Cas Corach the son of Bobd Derg had enchanted him on his Cran Ciuil, promised that the professors of his art should be at all times the bedfellows of kings.

The musical instruments were only a less esteemed and a little less adoringly cared for than the musicians. In the story of the Táin, when Fraech goes to court Findabar, daughter of Medb, the three harpers that went with him were the three sons of the famous Uaithne, harper of the Tuatha De Danann.

"This was the condition of their harp. There were harpbags of the skins of otters about them, ornamented with coral, with an ornamentation of gold and of silver over that, lined inside with snowwhite roebuck skins; and these again overlaid with black-grey strips (of skin); and linen cloths, as white as the swan's coat, wrapped around the strings. Harps of gold, silver, and findruine, with figures of serpents, and birds, and greyhounds upon them. These figures were made of gold and silver. According as the strings vibrated (these figures) ran around the men."

Stokes, Miss Margt.: Early Christian Art in Ireland.

Joyce, P. W.: Social History of Ireland.

O'Curry, Eugene: Manners and Customs of Ancient Ireland.
Manuscript Materials of Irish History.

D'Alton, Jno.: Prize Essay on Irish History (Proc. R. I. A.).

Irish Caligraphy (Ulster Jnl. of Arch.).

Gilbert, Sir Jno.: Facsimiles of the Natl. MSS. of Ireland.

Keller, Dr. Ferdinand: Illumination and Facsimiles from Ancient Irish MSS. in the Libraries of Switzerland.

Wattenbach: "Die Kongregation der Schottenkloster in Deutschland." Translated by Dr. Reeves, with notes, in the Ulster Journal of Archæol., vol. VII.

Westwood: Palaeographia Sacra Pictoria.

Petrie, Geo.: The Ancient Music of Ireland.
Walker's Irish Bards.

CHAPTER XXXVI

THE ENGLISH INVASION

IT was in 1171 that Henry the Second invaded Ireland.

Seventeen years earlier he projected an invasion. And from the newly elected English Pope, Nicholas Breakspeare, Adrian the Fourth, he had then received an approving Bull. He had represented to Adrian that in Ireland morals had become corrupt, and religion almost extinct, and his purpose was to bring the barbarous nation within the fold of the faith and under church discipline.'

But first the opposition of his mother, and then political complications, caused Henry to postpone his project.

For centuries now, dispute unending has raged around the two questions whether Ireland had lapsed into irreligion as represented, and whether the Papal Bull was genuine. Undoubtedly, the centuries of the Danish terror had had disastrous effect upon religion in the island-and the question arises how far had religious Ireland recovered itself in the century and a half since the Danish power was broken. Those whose duty it was to sustain Henry's claim paint a discouraging picture. But Irish defenders say their picture is purposely false. In reply they point to the

1 To which Pope Adrian replied:

"Adrian, bishop and servant of the servants of God, to the most dear son in Christ, the illustrious king of England, greeting, health, and apostolical benediction. "Thy greatness, as is becoming a Catholic prince, is laudably and successfully employed in thought and intention, to propagate a glorious name upon earth, and lay up in heaven the rewards of a happy eternity, by extending the boundaries of the church, and making known to nations which are uninstructed, and still ignorant of the Christian faith, its truths and doctrine, by rooting up the seeds of vice from the land of the Lord and to perform this more efficaciously, thou seekest the counsel and protection of the Apostolical See, in which undertaking, the more exalted thy design will be, united with prudence, the more propitious, we trust, will be thy progress under a benign Providence, since a happy issue and end are always the result of what has been undertaken from an ardour of faith, and a love of religion.

"It is not, indeed, to be doubted, that the kingdom of Ireland, and every island upon which Christ the sun of justice hath shone, and which has received the principles of the Christian faith, belong of right to St. Peter and to the holy Roman church (which thy majesty likewise admits), from whence we the more fully implant in them the seed of faith, that seed which is acceptable to God, and to which we, after a minute investigation, consider that a conformity should be required by us the more rigidly. Thou, dearest son in Christ, hast likewise signified to us,

wonderful work done during this period for the rehabilitation of religion, by the great Primates Cellach, Malachi, and Gelasius; and also the holy St. Lawrence O'Toole; to the synods that were held; to the many beautiful churches and abbeys that were being erected; and to the number of Irish kings, who, resigning their thrones entered monasteries and devoted themselves to God. Many were the princes who went on pilgrimage then. Holy men devoted to the religious life were also flocking abroad to join the noted Irish communities in Germany, that were propagating the faith over Central Europe.

That the standard of learning in the schools was held high is evident from the fact that Primate Gelasius and twenty-six bishops, at the Synod of Clonard a few years before the English invasion, decreed that only graduates of the University of Armagh (which was directly under Gelasius) should be appointed professors of theology in the schools of Ireland. And it will be recalled how that Adrian the Fourth himself heaped eulogy upon his Irish tutor in the University of Paris, the holy and learned Irishman, Marianus, Professor of the Liberal Arts there. And any one who impartially studies the subject can hardly avoid the conclusion that religion in Ireland in the twelfth century, though very far from occupying the shining place that it did before the coming of the Danes, must again have become a living issue.

A most convincing piece of evidence in point is the admission of Giraldus Cambrensis, tutor or secretary of Prince John, a man not only in the employ of the conquerors, but notoriously possessed of much anti-Irish prejudice, a man too who travelled over a third of Ireland and must have known whereof he spoke. Cam

that for the purpose of subjecting the people of Ireland to laws, and eradicating vice from among them, thou art desirous of entering that island; and also of paying for each house an annual tribute of one penny to St. Peter; and of preserving the privileges of its churches pure and undefiled. We, therefore, with approving and favourable views commend thy pious and laudable desire, and to aid thy undertaking, we give to thy petition our grateful and willing consent, that for the extending the boundaries of the church, and restraining the prevalence of vice, the improvement of morals, the implanting of virtue, and propagation of the Christian religion, thou enter that island, and pursue those things which shall tend to the honour of God, and salvation of his people; and that they may receive thee with honour, and revere thee as their lord; the privilege of their churches continuing pure and unrestrained, and the annual tribute of one penny from each house remaining secure to St. Peter and the holy Roman Church. If thou therefore deem what thou hast projected in mind, possible to be completed, study to instil good morals into that people, and act so that thou thyself, and such persons as thou wilt judge competent from their faith, words, and actions, to be instrumental in advancing the honour of the Irish church, propagate and promote religion, and the faith of Christ, to advance thereby the honour of God, and salvation of souls, that thou mayest merit an everlasting reward of happiness hereafter, and establish on earth a name of glory, which shall last for ages to come."

brensis says: "The clergy of that country are highly to be praised for their religion and among other virtues with which they are endowed, their chastity forms a peculiar feature. Those who are entrusted with the divine service do not leave the church but apply themselves wholly to the reciting of psalms, prayers and readings. They are extremely temperate in their food, and never eat till towards evening when their Office is ended." When the clergy of a country draw from an invading enemy such remarkable testimony to their religious ardour, it is difficult to believe that the people from whom these clergy were drawn, wallowed in the mire of irreligion.2

But if we supposed Ireland to be irreligious then, strange indeed would be the choice of an apostle in Henry, a man of vicious life, a supporter of anti-Popes, and reasonably suspected of, and all but excommunicated for, instigating the murder of the holy Thomas à Becket.

Those who contend that the Bull was an English fabrication for impressing the irreligious Irish and making easy their conquest point to the fact (among other assumed proofs) that the most ancient copies of the document discovered lack both date and signature. They say that both Adrian's "Bull" and the later confirmatory letter ascribed to Pope Alexander the Third, exhibit evidence of being fabricated by the same hand-just as they were published at the same time, namely, at the Synod, in 1173, convoked by order of Henry. But the arguments of those who contend that these were forgeries seem to crumble when met by the fact that they were published in the lifetime of Alexander, and were not then disowned or contradicted.

On Dervorgilla, the wife of Tighernan O'Rourke, prince of Breffni, is placed the indirect, and on Diarmuid MacMurrough, king of Leinster, the direct, odium of bringing in the English.

2 A while later, after the island had been wasted by wars, the British Stanihurst bears this testimony: "The majority of the Irish are very religious. Their priests are dignified, and by their wholesome admonition, the consciences of the people who are docile and respectful are very easily worked upon."

3 "Alexander, bishop, servant of the servants of God, to his most dear son in Christ, the illustrious king of England, health and apostolic benediction.

"Forasmuch as those things which are known to have been reasonably granted by our predecessors, deserve to be confirmed in lasting stability, we, adhering to the footsteps of Pope Adrian, and regarding the result of our gift to you (the annual tax of one penny from each house being secured to St. Peter and the holy Roman church), confirm and ratify the same, considering that its impurities being cleansed, that barbarous nation which bears the name of Christian, may by your grace, assume the comeliness of morality, and that a system of discipline being introduced into her heretofore unregulated church, she may, through you, effectually attain with the name the benefits of Christianity."