Books: Irish Race in the Past and the Present

A >> Aug. J. Thebaud >> Irish Race in the Past and the Present

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Foraanan, the primate, fled; and the pagan sea-kong, entering
the cathedral, seated himself on the primatial throne, and had
himself proclaimed archbishop.--(O'Curry.) He had shortly before
devastated Clonmacnoise and made his wife supreme head of that
great ecclesiastical centre, celebrated for its many convents of
holy women. The tendency to add insult to outrage, when the
object of the outrage is the religion of Christ, is old in the
blood of the northern barbarians; and Turgesius was merely
setting the example, in his own rude and honest fashion, to the
more polished but no less ridiculous assumption of
ecclesiastical authority, which was to be witnessed in England,
on the part of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth.

The power of the invader was so superior to whatever forces the
neighboring Irish clans could muster, that no opposition was
even attempted at first by the indignant witnesses of those
sacrileges. It is even said that at the very time when the
Northmen were pillaging and burning in the northeast of the
island, the men of Munster were similarly employed in Bregia;
and Conor, the reigning monarch of Ireland, instead of defending
the invaded territories, was himself hard at work plundering
Leinster to the banks of the river Liffey--(Haverty.) But,
doubtless, none of those deluded Irish princes had yet heard of
the pagan devastations and insults to their religion, and thus
it was easy for the great sea-kong to strengthen and extend his
power. For the attainment of his object he employed two powerful
agents which would have effectually crushed Ireland forever, if
the springs of vitality in the nation had not been more than
usually expansive and strong.

The political ability of the Danes began to show itself in
Ireland, as it did about the same period (830) in England, and
later on in France. Turgesius saw that, in order to subdue the
nation, it was necessary to establish military stations in the
interior and fortify cities on the coast, where he could receive
reinforcements from Scandinavia. These plans he was prompt to
put into practice.

His military stations would have been too easily destroyed by
the bravery of the Irish, strengthened by the elasticity of
their clan-system, if they were, planted on land. He, therefore,
set them in the interior lakes which are so numerous in the
island, where his navy could repel all the attacks of the
natives, unused as they were to naval conflicts. He stationed a
part of his fleet on Lough Lee in the upper Shannon, another in
Lough Neagh, south of Antrim, a third in Lough Lughmagh or
Dundalk bay. These various military positions were strongholds
which secured the supremacy of the Scandinavians in the north of
the island for a long time. In the south, Turgesius relied on
the various cities which his troops were successively to build
or enlarge, namely, Dublin, Limerick, Galway, Cork, Waterford,
and Wexford. This first Scandinavian ruler could begin that
policy only by establishing his countrymen in Dublin, which they
seized in 836.

Up to that time the Irish had scarcely any city worthy of the
name. A patriarchal people, they followed the mode of life of
the old Eastern patriarchs, who abhorred dwelling in large towns.
Until the invasion of the Danes, the island was covered with
farm-houses placed at some distance from each other. Here and
there large _duns_ or _raths_, as they were called, formed the
dwellings of their chieftains, and became places of refuge for
the clansmen in time of danger. Churches and monasteries arose
in great numbers from the time of St. Patrick, which were first
built in the woods, but soon grew into centres of population,
corresponding in many respects to the idea of towns as generally
understood.

The Northmen brought with them into Ireland the ideas of cities,
commerce, and municipal life, hitherto unknown. The introduction
of these supposed a total change necessary in the customs of the
natives, and stringent regulations to which the people could not
but be radically opposed. And strange was their manner of
introduction by these northern hordes. Keating tells us how
Turgesius understood them. They were far worse than the
imaginary laws of the Athenians as recorded in the "Birds" of
Aristophanes. No more stringent rules could be devised, whether
for municipal, rural, or social regulations; and, as the
Northmen are known to have been of a systematic mind, no
stronger proof of this fact could be given.

Keating deplores in the following terms the fierce tyranny of
the Danish sea-kong:

"The result of the heavy oppression of this thraldom of the
Gaels under the foreigner was, that great weariness thereof came
upon the men of Ireland, and the few of the clergy that survived
had fled for safety to the forests and wildernesses, where they
lived in misery, but passed their time piously and devoutly, and
now the same clergy prayed fervently to God to deliver them from
that tyranny of Turgesius, and, moreover, they fasted against
that tyrant, and they commanded every layman among the faithful,
that still remained obedient to their voice, to fast against him
likewise. And God then heard their supplications in as far as
the delivering of Turgesius into the hands of the Gaels."

Thus in the ninth century the subsequent events of the sixteenth
and seventeenth were foreshadowed. The judicious editor of
Keating, however, justly remarks, that this description, taken
mainly from Cambrensis, is not supported in its entirety by the
contemporaneous annals of the island; that the power of the
Danes never was as universal and oppressive as is here supposed;
and that though each of the facts mentioned may have actually
taken place in some part of the country, at some period of the
Danish invasion, yet the whole, as representing the actual state
of the entire island at the time, is exaggerated and of too
sweeping a nature.

It is clear, nevertheless, that the domination of the Northmen
could not have been completely established in Ireland, together
with their notions of superiority of race, trade on a large
scale, and a consequent agglomeration of men in large cities,
without the total destruction of the existing social state of
the Irish, and consequently something of the frightful tyranny
just described.

But the people were too brave, too buoyant, and too ardent in
their nature, to bear so readily a yoke so heavy. They were too
much attached to their religion, not to sacrifice their lives,
if necessary, in order to put an end to the sacrilegious
usurpations of a pagan king, profaning, by his audacious
assumptions, the noblest, highest, purest, and most sacred
dignities of holy Church. A man, stained with the blood of so
many prelates and priests, seated on the primatial throne of the
country in sheer derision of their most profound feelings; his
pagan wife ruling over the city which the virgins of Bridget,
the spouses of Christ, had honored and sanctified so long; their
religion insulted by those who tried to destroy it--how could
such a state of things be endured by the whole race, not yet
reduced to the condition to which so many centuries of
oppression subsequently brought it down!

Hence Keating could write directly after the passage just quoted:
"When the nobles of Ireland saw that Turgesius had brought
confusion upon their country, and that he was assuming supreme
authority over themselves, and reducing them to thraldom and
vassalage, they became inspired with a fortitude of mind, and a
loftiness of spirit, and a hardihood and firmness of purpose,
that urged them to work in right earnest, and to toil zealously
in battle against him and his murdering hordes."

And hereupon the faithful historian gives a long list of
engagements in which the Irish were successful, ending with the
victory of Malachi at Glas Linni, where we know from the Four
Masters that Turgesius himself was taken prisoner and afterward
drowned in Lough Uair or Owell in West Meath, by order of the
Irish king.

This prince, then monarch of the whole island, atoned for the
apathy and the want of patriotism of his predecessors, Conor and
the Nialls. He was in truth a saviour of his country, and the
death of the oppressor was the signal for a general onslaught
upon the "foreigners" in every part of the island.

"The people rose simultaneously, and either massacred them in
their towns, or defeated them in the fields, so that, with the
exception of a few strongholds, like Dublin, the whole of
Ireland was free from the Northmen. Wherever they could escape,
they took refuge in their ships, but only to return in more
numerous swarms than before." - (M. Haverty.)

It is evident that their deep sense of religion was the chief
source of the energy which the Irish then displayed. They had
not yet been driven into a fierce resistance by being forcibly
deprived of their lands; although the Danes, when they carried
their vexatious tyranny into all the details of private life -
not allowing lords and ladies of the Irish race to wear rich
dresses and appear in a manner befitting their rank - when they
went so far as to refuse a bowl of milk to an infant, that a
rude soldier might quench his thirst with it - could have
scarcely permitted the apparently conquered people to enjoy all
the advantages accruing to the owner from the possession of land.
Yet in none of the chronicles of the time which we have seen is
any mention made of open confiscation, and of the survey and
division of the territory among the greedy followers of the sea-
kong. We do not yet witness what happened shortly after in
Normandy under Rollo, and what was to happen four hundred years
later in Ireland. The Scandinavians had not yet attained that
degree of civilization which makes men attach a paramount
importance to the possession of a fixed part of any territory,
and call in surveys, title-deeds, charters, and all the written
documents necessitated by a captious and over-scrupulous
legislation. The Irish, consequently, did not perceive that
their broad acres were passing into the control of a foreign
race, and were being taken piecemeal from them, thus bringing
them gradually down to the condition of mere serfs and
dependants.

What they did see, beyond the possibility of mistake or
deception, was their religion outraged, their spiritual rulers,
not merely no longer at liberty to practise the duties of their
sacred ministry, but hunted down and slaughtered or driven to
the mountains and the woods. They saw that pagans were actually
ruling their holy isle, and changing a paradise of sanctity into
a pandemonium of brutal passion, presided over by a
superstitious and cruel idolatry. For surely, although the Irish
chronicles fail to speak of it, the minstrels and historians
being too full of their own misery to think of looking at the
pagan rites of their enemies - those enemies worshipped Thor and
Odin and Frigga, and as surely did they detest the Church which
they were on a fair way to destroy utterly. This it was which
gave the Irish the courage of despair. For this cause chiefly
did the whole island fly to arms, fall on their foes and bring
down on their heads a fearful retribution. This it was,
doubtless, which breathed into the new monarch the energy which
he displayed on the field of Glas Linni; and when he ordered the
barbarian, now a prisoner in his hands, to be drowned, it was
principally as a sign that he detested in him the blasphemer and
the persecutor of God's church.

Thus did the first national misfortunes of this Celtic people
become the means of enkindling in their hearts a greater love
for their religion, and a greater zeal for its preservation in
their midst.

Ireland was again free; and, although we have no details
concerning the short period of prosperity which followed the
overthrow of the tyranny we have touched upon, we have small
doubt that the first object of the care of those who, under God,
had worked their own deliverance, was to repair the ruins of the
desecrated sanctuaries and restore to religion the honor of
which it had been stripped.

The Danes themselves came to see that they had acted rashly in
striving to deprive the Irish of a religion which was so dear to
their hearts; they resolved on a change of policy, as they were
still bent on taking possession of the island, which Mr. Worsaae
has told us they considered the best country in existence.

They resolved, therefore, to act with more prudence, and to make
use of trade and the material blessings which it confers, in
order to entice the Irish to their destruction, by allowing the
Northmen to carry on business transactions with them and so
gradually to dwell among them again. Father Keating tells the
story in his quaint and graphic style:

"The plan adopted by them on this occasion was to equip three
captains, sprung from the noblest blood of Norway, and to send
them with a fleet to Ireland, for the object of obtaining some
station for purpose of trade. And with them they accordingly
embarked many tempting wares, and many valuable jewels -- with
the design of presenting them to the men of Ireland, in the hope
of thus securing their friendship; for they believed that they
might thus succeed in surreptitiously fixing a grasp upon the
Irish soil, and might be enabled to oppress the Irish people
again . . . . The three captains, therefore, coming from the
ports of Norway, landed in Ireland with their followers, as if
for the purpose of demanding peace, and under the pretext of
establishing a trade; and there, with the consent of the Irish,
who were given to peace, they took possession of some sea-board
places, and built three cities thereon, to wit: Waterford,
Dublin, and Limerick."

We see, then, the Scandinavians abandoning their first project
of conquering the North to fall on the South and confining
themselves to a small number of fortified sea-ports.

The first result of this policy was a firmer hold than ever on
Dublin, once already occupied by them in 836. "Amlaf, or Olaf,
or Olaus, came from Norway to Ireland in 851, so that all the
foreign tribes in the island submitted to him, and they
extracted rent from the Gaels." - (Four Masters.)

From that time to the twelfth century Dublin became the chief
stronghold of the Scandinavians, and no fewer than thirty-five
Ostmen, or Danish kings, governed it. They made it an important
emporium, and such it continued even after the Scandinavian
invasion had ceased. McFirbis says that in his time - 1650 -
most of the merchants of Dublin were the descendants of the
Norwegian Irish king, Olaf Kwaran; and, to give a stronger
impulse to commerce, they were the first to coin money in the
country.

The new Scandinavian policy carried out by Amlaf, who tried to
establish in Dublin the seat of a kingdom which was to extend
over the whole island, resulted therefore only in the
establishment of five or six petty principalities, wherein the
Northmen, for some time masters, were gradually reduced to a
secondary position, and finally confined themselves to the
operations of commerce.

Since the attempt of Turgesius to subvert the religion of the
country, they never showed the slightest inclination to repeat
it; hence they were left in quiet possession of the places which
they occupied on the sea-board, and gradually came to embrace
Christianity themselves.

Little is known of the circumstances which attended this change
of religion on their part; and it is certain that it did not
take place till late in the tenth century. Some pretend that
Christianity was brought to them from their own country, where
it had already been planted by several missionaries and bishops.
But it is known that St. Ancharius, the first apostle of Denmark,
could not establish himself permanently in that country, and
had to direct a few missionaries from Hamburgh, where he fixed
his see. It is known, moreover, that Denmark was only truly
converted by Canute in the eleventh century, after his conquest
of England. As to Norway, the first attempt at its conversion by
King Haquin, who had become a Christian at the court of
Athelstan in England, was a failure; and although his successor,
Harold, appeared to succeed better for a time, paganism was
again reestablished, and flourished as late as 995. It was, in
fact, Olaf the Holy who, coming from England, in 1017, with the
priests Sigefried, Budolf, and Bernard, succeeded in introducing
Christianity permanently into Norway, and he made more use of
the sword than of the word in his mission.

With regard to the conversion of the Danes in Ireland, it seems
that, after all, it was the ever-present spectacle of the
workings of Christianity among the Irish which gradually opened
their eyes and ears. They came to love the country and the
people when they knew them thoroughly; they respected them for
their bravery, which they had proved a thousand times; they felt
attracted toward them on account of their geniality of
temperament and their warm social feelings; even their defects
of character and their impulsive nature were pleasing to them.
They soon sought their company and relationship; they began to
intermarry with them; and from this there was but a step to
embracing their religion.

The Danes of Waterford, Cork, and Limerick were, however, the
last to abandon paganism, and they seem not to have done so
until after Clontarf.

It is very remarkable that, during all those conflicts of the
Irish with the Danes, when the Northmen strewed the island with
dead and ruins; when they seemed to be planting their domination
in the Orkneys, the Hebrides, and even the Isle of Man, on a
firm footing; when the seas around England and Ireland swarmed
with pirates, and new expeditions started almost every spring
from the numerous harbors of the Baltic--the Irish colony of Dal
Riada in Scotland, which was literally surrounded by the
invaders, succeeded in wresting North Britain from the Picts,
drove them into the Lowlands, and so completely rooted them out,
that history never more speaks of them, so that to this day the
historical problem stands unsolved-- What became of the Picts?--
various as are the explanations given of their disappearance.
And, what is more remarkable still, is, that the Dal Riada
colony received constant help from their brothers in Erin, and
the first of the dynasty of Scottish kings, in the person of
Kenneth McAlpine, was actually set on the throne of Scotland by
the arms of the Irish warriors, who, not satisfied apparently
with their constant conflicts with the Danes on their own soil,
passed over the Eastern Sea to the neighboring coast of Great
Britain.

During the last forty years of the tenth century the Danes lived
in Ireland as though they belonged to the soil. If they waged
war against some provincial king, they became the allies of
others. When clan fought clan, Danes were often found on both
sides, or if on one only, they soon joined the other. They had
been brought to embrace the manners of the natives, and to adopt
many of their customs and habits. Yet there always remained a
lurking distrust, more or less marked, between the two races;
and it was clear that Ireland could never be said to have
escaped the danger of subjugation until the Scandinavian element
should be rendered powerless.

This antipathy on both sides existed very early even in Church
affairs, the Christian natives being looked upon with a jealous
eye by the Christian Danes; so that, toward the middle of the
tenth century, the Danes of Dublin having succeeded in obtaining
a bishop of their own nation, they sent him to England to be
consecrated by Lanfranc, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and for a
long time the see of Dublin was placed under the jurisdiction of
Lanfranc's successors.

This grew into a serious difficulty for Ireland, as the capital
of Leinster began to be looked upon as depending, at least
spiritually, on England; and later on, at the time of the
invasion under Strongbow, the establishment of the English Pale
was considerably facilitated by such an arrangement, to which
Rome had consented only for the spiritual advantage of her
Scandinavian children in Ireland.

And the Irish were right in distrusting every thing foreign on
the soil, for, even after becoming Christians, the Danes could
not resist the temptation of making a last effort for the
subjugation of the country.

Hence arose their last general effort, which resulted in their
final overthrow at Clontarf. It does not enter into our purpose
to give the story of that great event, known in all its details
to the student of Irish history. It is not for us to trace the
various steps by which Brian Boru mounted to supreme power, and
superseded Malachi, to relate the many partial victories he had
already gained over the Northmen, nor to allude to his splendid
administration of the government, and the happiness of the Irish
under his sway.

But it is our duty to point out the persevering attempts of the
Scandinavian race, not only to keep its footing on Irish soil,
but to try anew to conquer what it had so often failed to
conquer. For, in describing their preparations for this last
attempt on a great scale, we but add another proof of that Irish
steadfastness which we have already had so many occasions to
admire.

In the chronicle of Adhemar, quoted by Lanigan from Labbe (Nova
Bibl., MSS., Tom. 2, p.177), it is said that "the Northmen came
at that time to Ireland, with an immense fleet, conveying even
their wives and children, with a view of extirpating the Irish
and occupying in their stead that very wealthy country in which
there were twelve cities, with extensive bishopries and a king."

Labbe thinks the Chronicle was written before the year 1031, so
that in his opinion the writer was a contemporary of the facts
he relates.

The Irish Annals state, on their side, that "the foreigners were
gathered from all the west of Europe, envoys having been
despatched into Norway, the Orkneys, the Baltic islands, so that
a great number of Vikings came from all parts of Scandinavia,
with their families, for the purpose of a permanent settlement."

Similar efforts were made about the same time by the Danes for
the lasting conquest of England, which succeeded, Sweyn having
been proclaimed king in 1013, and Canute the Great becoming its
undisputed ruler in 1017.

It is well known how the attempt failed in Erin, an army of
twenty-one thousand freebooters being completely defeated near
Dublin by Brian and his sons.

From that time the existence of the Scandinavian race on the
Irish soil was a precarious one; they were merely permitted to
occupy the sea-ports for the purpose of trade, and soon Irish
chieftains replaced their kings in Dublin, Limerick, Waterford,
and Cork.

The reader may be curious to learn, in conclusion, what signs
the Danes left of their long sojourn on the island. If we listen
to mere popular rumor, the country is still full of the ruins of
buildings occupied by them. The common people, in pointing out
to strangers the remains of edifices, fortifications, raths,
duns, even round-towers and churches, either more ancient or
more recent than the period of the Norse invasion, ascribe them
to the Danes. It is clear that two hundred years of devastations,
burnings, and horrors, have left a deep impression on the mind
of the Irish; and, as they cannot suppose that such powerful
enemies could have remained so long in their midst without
leaving wonderful traces of their passage, they often attribute
to them the construction of the very edifices which they
destroyed. The general accuracy of their traditions seems here
at fault. For there is no nation on earth so exact as the Irish
in keeping the true remembrance of facts of their past history.
Not long ago all Irish peasants were perfectly acquainted with
the whole history of their neighborhood; they could tell what
clans had succeeded each other, the exact spots where such a
party had been overthrown and such another victorious; every
village had its sure traditions printed on the minds of its
inhabitants, and, by consulting the annals of the nation, the
coincidence was often remarkable. How is it, therefore, that
they were so universally at fault with respect to the Danes?

A partial explanation has been given which is in itself a proof
of the tenacity of Irish memory. It is known that the Tuatha de
Danaan were not only skilful in medicine, in the working of
metals and in magic, but many buildings are generally attributed
to them by the best antiquarians; among others, the great mound
of New Grange, on the banks of the Boyne, which is still in
perfect preservation, although opened and pillaged by the Danes--
a work reminding the beholder of some Egyptian monument. The
coincidence of the name of the Tuatha de Danaan with that of the
Danes may have induced many of the illiterate Irish to adopt the
universal error into which they fell long ago, of attributing
most of the ancient monuments of their country to the Danes.