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Norwegian, landed with a powerful armament, pillaged and devastated the country, and seated himself at Armagh, from which he expelled the clergy, and confiscated their property. The Irish, after some resistance, submitted to the conquerors, and the northern leader, after a residence of thirty years, was proclaimed monarch of Ireland.

Ilistorians describe the barbarities of the Norwegians in the most affecting and pathetic colours; their insolence and oppression, their destruction of every monument of learning, their profane havoc of the most sacred records, the overthrow of the most renowned seminaries and religious houses. Such scenes at length awoke the slumbering spirit of Irishmen, and the Danes were annihilated by a sudden and simultaneous insurrection of the people. New colonies came from the north of Europe, and settled in the cities of Dublin, Waterford, Limerick, and other principal towns. Being a trading and industrious race of people, they were suffered to remain unmolested, until large reinforcements of their countrymen made them once more formidable to Ireland.

The most vigorous and dreadful opponent which the. northern foreigners ever experienced, was the illustrious and renowned Brian Boromy, or Brian Borcu. He was king of Munster, and was called to the throne by the unanimous voice of his admiring countrymen; he defeated the Danes and Norwegians in many pitched battles, and roused his countrymen to one universal exertion; his valour threw the king of Ireland into the shade; Malachy was deposed, and Brian Boreu was declared sovereign of his country. Under his parental reign the wounds of Ireland began to heal; churches and seminaries rose from their ruins, lands were cultivated, confidence restored, laws administered and strongly enforced; and while this patriot king was completing his great work of regenerating

his native land, he was again invaded by the Danes, with whom he fought the celebrated battle at Clontarf, which, it is supposed, struck at the root of the Danish power in Ireland, The old king numbered his eightyeighth year; he witnessed the fall of his beloved son in this great conflict with the Danes, and it is supposed that the king himself fell a victim to the dagger of an assassin from the camp of the enemy.

The deposed Malachy was again called to the throne, and after several battles, totally extinguished the power of the Danes in Ireland. The succession being interrupted by the election of Brian Boreu, the Irish nation was involved in the most melancholy scenes of anarchy and distraction, by the struggles of competitors for the Irish throne. The son of Brian disputed the crown with various success. At length the nephew of the Irish monarch was proclaimed king of Ireland.

The laws and the religion of the country were silenced and trampled on, among the clamours of faction and the tumult of arms; and Bernard, the monk, paints those times as the most calamitous in the history of ancient Ireland. Convulsed and weakened by internal feuds and animosities, Ireland was an easy prey to the first invader who descended on her shores.-Magnus, the king of Norway, made the experiment, and in the full confidence of victory, rushed into the heart of the country, without caution or vigilance. The Irish, whose native securities enabled them to take advantage of the precipitate conduct of the king of Norway, darted unexpectedly from their retreats and fastnesses, and cut the invading army to pieces. Factions still continued to mangle and debilitate the Irish people; and it would appear as if Providence had ordered that Ireland should be prepared, by the follies of her own sons, for that invasion which the English nation soon after effected.

D

THE

HISTORY OF IRELAND.

Invasion of Henry II

FOR a length of time previous to the invasion of Ireland by Henry II. this country might have fallen an easy prey to the ambition of any foreign prince inclined to make the experiment. Torn and convulsed by faction, she would have been unable to struggle with the well regulated excursions of an invading enemy, and the errors of her children might have been the successful allies of Denmark, of Norway, of Sweden, or of England. But all these countries were too much occupied by more important interests, to allow them the opportunity of taking advantage of Ireland's follies and divisions. The mind and passions of Europe were carried down the torrent of religious fanaticism, and the wealth and enterprise of its principal kingdoms found ample employment in the wild

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and unproductive struggles for the recovery of the Holy Land. The strength, the resources, and value of Ireland, were not, however, unknown or overlooked by the governments of surrounding nations: her people were celebrated for their valour, their hospitality, and their heroism; the English and the Welsh have fled for succour and protection to Ireland, and the three sons of Harold found a safe and hospitable asylum in this country, when pursued by the triumphant arms of William the Conqueror. An Irish army contended on English ground for the rights of Englishmen, against the merciless and despotic ambition of William; and we are informed by Irish annalists, that Murtough, the Irish monarch, was solicited by the earl of Pembroke to defend him against the vengeance of Henry I. France assiduously courted Irish alliance; and the formidable co-operation of this country with the enemy of England, first pointed out to Henry II the policy of annexing Ireland to his English đominions.

Various pretexts were assigned by the English monarch, to justify the invasion of a country, which might be either a perpetual source of strength or of weakness, which might be the bulwark of England, or its most formidable enemy; and possessed of the wealth and resources with which it was known to abound, would be ever an object of jealousy and rivalship to the wealth and the industry of Englishmen, and of respect and regard to foreigners. We are not to wonder, therefore, that every artifice which power and talents could suggest, or which the superstition of the times would countenance and encourage, should have been practised by Henry, to justify the violence of his proceedings against a brave and unoffending nation. We accordingly find that pope Adrian was prevailed on by the solicitation of the English monarch to grant a bull, investing Henry with full power and authority to invade the king

dom of Ireland, and that, in the language of this solemn instrument issued by his holiness, "Henry II, should enter the kingdom of Ireland, with the pious purpose of extending the borders of the church, restraining the progress of vice, correcting the manners of its inhabitants, and increasing the influence of religion; and that in consideration for this power so vested in the English mon arch, the annual pension of one penny for every house, be levied and delivered over to the service of St. Peter." This bull, with a ring, the token of investiture, was presented to Henry, as rightful sovereign of Ireland.

Such is the ground of Henry's justification for the inva sion of this country; and such is the flimsy covering which interested historians throw over the spirit of usurpation and ambition, that first urged the English nation to trample upon the liberties of Ireland, and by fraud and violence to desolate a country, illustrious for its kindness and its hospitality, its sincerity and honor: possessed of qualities which would have made her a useful and powerful ally, and which afterwards became the fruitful source of bitterness and disaster to Englishmen.

It is recorded, that about the period of the English invasion, certain ceremonies and points of discipline of the Irish church were first assimilated to those of Rome; that cardinal Paparon was delegated by the pope to new model the ecclesiastical constitution of Ireland, for which purpose, Irish annalists state, that he assembled three thousand clergymen, regular and secular, in the town of Drogheda, about the year 1152; that at this period the discipline of Rome was universally established, and the spiritual preeminence of the pope formally recognised. The preparations of Henry for the invasion were interrupted by the insurrections of his brother Geoffry in the province of Anjou ;-his invasion of Wales, and his contests with Becket

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