with such determined valour, that the y put seventeen hundred of them to the sword, and forced the remainder to abandon their ill-gotten booty.

Undismayed by these reverses, the northern rovers continued their petty inroads, while the Irish, instead of uniting for mutual defence, were continually weakening the national strength by intestine wars. By degrees the invaders obtained some small settlements in the country; and in the year 815, they arrived with such a force as in the end proved irresistible. This new horde was commanded by Turgesius or Thorgils, son of Harold Harfager, King of Norway. He divided his army into various bodies, which carried desolation and death through the entire northern half of the island, while his fleet, in three squadrons, ravaged the coast. Neither age, sex, nor condition was spared. Many of the priests and monks fell by the hands of these savages, and Turgesius took up his residence in the episcopal palace of Armagh, from whence he expelled the bishop and all his clergy.

While a barbarous enemy was thus carrying fire and sword throughout the country, the monarch Hugh was waging war with his own subjects, and perished in battle. His successor Connor pursued the same fatal course, and at the very time when the Danes were making rapid strides over the island, he carried on an unsuccessful war with the King of Ulster, the various factions alternately seeking the assistance of the common enemy in their deadly

feuds. After a sanguinary victory over the Leinster forces, the northern barbarians renewed their devastations with increased violence. Churches and religious houses became the particular objects of their fury. The consecrated vessels and every other article of value were seized, the clergy put to death or expelled, and the colleges at Armagh, Lismore, Clonard, and Cashell, with a number of inferior academies were totally destroyed. The monarch Connor made some fruitless attempts to rescue his country from the miseries by which it was oppressed, but mental anguish and bodily fatigue brought him to a premature grave in the fourteenth year of his reign. His successor was Niall III. who for some time, like his predecessors, appeared more anxious to weaken the power of the King of Leinster than to take any steps against the foreign enemy. During this period fresh hordes of invaders of a different nation from the former arrived in the rivers Boyne and Liffey.* The rapid progress of these new comers, who quickly overran the county of Dublin with fire and sword, alarmed Turgesius, and collecting his forces from all quarters, he re

* The invaders of Ireland in the ninth century consisted of a mixed crew of Danes, Frisians, Norwegians, Swedes and Livonians. The ancient Irish distinguished them into two septs from the colour of their hair, one being called Fion-Gail, or Fin-Gal, the White Strangers, and the other Dubh-Gail, the Black Strangers. Fingal is supposed to have been settled by the former, and Donegal by the latter.

A battle

solved to turn his arms against them. ensued, in which Turgesius proved victorious, and thus acquired additional strength for rivetting his yoke on the neck of the unfortunate natives. This he now undertook to accomplish in the most systematic manner, commencing by the erection of fortifications for the security of his conquests. The ruins of many of these remain to the present, and still retain the names of Danish Raths or Mounts. The natives were at length aroused from the fatal apathy which had seized them, by these undoubted symptoms of the enemy's resolution to make a permanent settlement in Ireland, and for some time their valorous efforts were crowned with success. Melachlin or Malachy, King of Meath, routed their main body with the loss of seven hundred men and one of their principal generals; while another victory crowned the arms of the united forces of Munster and Leinster, in which Tomair, the Prince Royal of Denmark, with twelve hundred of his troops, is said to have perished. The prevalence of faction, however, still prevented that union which was absolutely necessary for the complete deliverance of the country; and the arrival of speedy reinforcements not only re-established, but augmented the strength of Turgesius, who, having taken the city of Dublin by storm, A. D. 838, built a castle in it, from whence he spread his ravages through all the surrounding country.

Niall III. having at length terminated his disputes

with the province of Leinster, commenced operations against the common enemy, with a vigour that afforded sanguine hopes of final success. Having overthrown the barbarians in a pitched battle, in Tirconnell, he marched against their head-quarters at Armagh. Another army which opposed his advance was defeated with great slaughter, and the victorious Niall pursued the fugitives towards their fortifications on the banks of the river Callain, which was at this time greatly swollen by incessant rains. As this circumstance interrupted the advance of the Irish army to Armagh, Niall ordered one of his warriors to attempt the ford on horseback; but he was quickly overwhelmed by the impetuosity of the torrent. The generous and intrepid monarch calling on his guard in vain, to make some effort for the preservation of their perishing comrade, dashed forward himself to the brink of the river, where the ground being undermined by the violence of the flood, sank beneath the feet of his horse, and the heroic king being precipitated into the river, shared the fate of the hapless object of his commiseration.*

* Mr. Stuart, in his very valuable and interesting History of Armagh, states that many curious vestiges of this battle have been found in that neighbourhood. Visible traces of Niall's tumulus are yet to be discovered on the margin of the river. In the year 1798 four brazen trumpets of a gold colour were found in boggy land near Loughnashade, one of which is in the possession of Mr. Pooler of that place, a second was presented to Lieut. Gen. A. Campbell, and a third to Col. Hall of

After the death of Niall, which occurred in the year 846, Malachy, King of Meath, was elected Monarch of Ireland; while on the other hand Turgesius is said to have usurped the sovereignty, and been proclaimed King of Ireland by his own countrymen. To support his assumed authority he received a vast augmentation of forces from the North of Europe, with which he commenced a course of operations that evinced his firm determination to overturn the religion, laws, and liberties of the Irish, by methods the most revolting to humanity. In every direction the country was desolated by fire and sword, and the unfortunate inhabitants were compelled to fly from instant death into their woods and fastnesses, where thousands of them perished with cold and famine. Others, wearied with being the victims not only of their barbarous invaders, but of

Armagh. Human skulls and bones were met near the trumpets, in a state of high preservation, which is attributable to the anti-septic quality of the bog. One of these skulls, in the possession of Doctor Simpson, was found to be separable into distinct laminas, exceedingly thin, remarkably smooth, and retaining, like parchment, the impression of ink made with a pen. Some of the townlands in this neighbourhood are supposed to have derived their names from this great battle; as Bally-rae, "Battle's-town," Drumcoote, or Druimcode, "the Ridge of Victory." A chain of fortifications seem to have extended through the whole district, of which Dunnathan (now called Navan), signifying "the Noble Fortress," appears to have had the pre-eminence. Stuart's Armagh, Appendix,

No. 11.