those very Monarchs for he names only the first and last of 〈◊〉 being Feidlimidius whom he mistakes for one more was not King of Ireland but of Mounster only So little he has of the very Milesians or their Antiquities or Actions Except only 1. A few words of the six Sons of Muredus Provincial King of Ulster entring Scotland 2. A slender touch upon the Danish Invasions of Ireland In which notwithstanding he is mightily out both as to the Year of Christ he fixes on for the first of those Invasions viz. 838. and as to the name person feats yea and Nation too of Gurmundus all being meer Fictions borrow'd mostly from Galfridus Monumethensis However with such and many more idle stories in other matters not only impertinent to the Title of his Books or discharge of his Promise nor only not had from any Records or Writings whatsoever as neither from the oral Testimony of men of knowledg or integrity but wholly deriv'd from old Wive's Tales and pastime of Ferry-men and random reports of Soldiers and imposture of some Knaves who fain'd things of purpose to impose on his vain credulity and besides with most vile reflections Invectives Satyrs almost every where against the Irish Nation of his own time their Princes Priests and People generally without sparing any degree not even the very Monks nor even the very Bishops excepted he patch'd up finish'd at last after five years study all his foresaid five Books of Ireland prefixing Dedicatories of some to the King as of other of 'em to Richard Earl of Poictou who soon after was Richard I. of England And now putting an extraordinary value on these Works of his own and no longer able to conceal his ambitious design of glory by 'em he goes to Oxford renews the ancient Roman Rehearsals there in the most publick Audience could be had continues 'em three days together from morning till night allowing a day for each of his Topographical Books And to make his Comedy the more solemn feasts all the meaner sort of that whole City on the firstday on the second all the Doctors Masters and chief Scholars of the Vniversity on the third day the rest of the Scholars the Soldiers too and all the Burgesses of that Place A sumptuous and noble act says Gerald himself glorying of it whereby the ancient Custom of Poets was renewed which neither the present Age nor any former could shew in England But after all he came short of his expectation of glory His little performance and great ignorance his many Fables and evil choice of other materials toâ— yea and his mortal enmity hatred malevolence to the Irish Nation were seen through especially at Court where as himself complains he had too many back Friends to malign him Above all his Satyrs and spleen against the very name of the Irish lai'd him open Nor were the true causes thereof unknown Besides the common concern he had in the destruction of that People for the sake of his Kinsmen there was another more peculiar to himself that continually egg'd him to the greatest violence against them He had even for his own sake very deeply engag'd in a particular controversie with Albinus O Molloy a Cistercian Irish Monk and Abbot of Baltinglass wherein he was worsted Whether any other causes mov'd him I do not know But this I know that in his Second Book of the Conquest of Ireland he desir'd that whole Nation might either be throughly weakned or totally destroy'd yea notwithstanding the Peace but lately concluded and still observ'd by them And that besides in the same Book cap. 36. he prescrib'd the ways to do it I see also that on every occasion as he is perpetually in the greatest extreams even of Romantic praises of his own Relatives Fitz Stephens Fitz Gerald Meyler the two Barrys and all their Brittish Soldiers too his own Countrey-men so of the other side upon the least pique he is no less passionately excessive in charging with and exaggerating the vilest things against the very Normans and English in Ireland tho embarqu'd in the save public quarrel with them against the Irish Nation Witness among others Herveus de Monte Marisco and William Fitz Adelm the King's Lieutenant and Progenitor of the noble Family of Bourks in that Kingdom Nay witness the King himself Henry II. Whom altho during his Life this Author made the Occidental Alexander the Invincible the Salomon of his own Time the most Pious of Princes and his only Fame tho far short of his Merits to have repress'd the fury of all the very Gentils of Europe and Asia too beyond the Mediterranean Sea adding many more Hyperbolical expressions to magnifie him above all truth and reason as for example That his Victoâ—â—â—◠〈◊〉 with the Circumference of the Earth and That if you seek after the Limits of his Conquests you shall sooner come to the end of the World than of them yet after this Great Prince's death as David Powel very particularly observes he the same Author Gerald of Wales most bitterly invey'd against him in his Book de Instructione Principis where he so belâ—bed forth the venom of his malevolence that he manifestly discover'd his old inveterate hatred of this King Henry So says Powell Moreover and in reference particularly to his stories of Ireland you may find in Primat Ushers Sylloge pag. 155. how the expostulations of other men and evidence of Truth compell'd him at last to several Retractations among which he confesses that altho he had some of his Relations from persons of credit in that Countrey yet for the rest he had only common report and fame Which if I be not mistaken is in effect to acknowledg that he had common Lyes and Forgeries to authorize them Nay further You may read Sir James Wares Censure of them in his own Antiquities of Ireland cap. 23. where in express terms he says in Latin That Gerald of Wales in his Topography of Ireland has heap'd together so many Fabulous Relations that to discuss them exactly would require a just Treatise And then adds in the same place his own wonder How it should come to pass that some of this very Age tho otherwise grave and learned men have again for Truths obtruded on the World those Fictions of Girald Besides You are to know that notwithstanding so many just exceptions against those Books of Cambrensis yea notwithstanding they had therefore lyen after his death 400 years neglected obscure unknown till Cambden had them printed at Francford an 1602. yet ever since that year they have proved the only chief warrant to all such men of little reading as were delighted in writing ill of the ancient Irish To conclude what I would say on the whole is That if hatred enmity open profess'd hostility and special interest and actual engagement too in the destruction of that ancient Irish Nation if ignorance of their Language and wilful passing by their History even the most authentick of their
he lived to finish this Table I know not But I remember to have seen in stead thereof two small Tracts of his in Irish on another Subject annexed to an Irish Copy of his History the one being a Defence of the Mass the other entitl'd in Irish The Three Shafts of Death An other Particular is That which tells how and why he thought it fitting as to the number of years attributed to the several Reigns of some few of their Pagan Monarchs especially Siorna Saoghallach and Cobhthach Caolbhreag to vary from their Book of Reigns where it 's said That the later reign'd fifty years but the former a hundred and fifty and that besides he was a hundred years old when he attain'd the Sovereignty nor died naturally but was murder'd after he had lived two hundred and fifty years in all In the Fifth Particular he speaks only to those who seem rather to admire than believe how it can be at least probable That other Pedegrees than those in Holy Scripture should be truly and in a perpetual Line without any interruption carried up along to Adam and Noah as the Irish Genealogical and Historical Books pretend to do for all their Kings Princes and great Nobles To such admiring incredulous men he answers That the Irishry or Gathelian Off-spring even all along from the time of Gathelus himself whose name gave these Descendants from hinâ— the general appellation of Clanna Gaodhel till their arrival in Ireland had with them a learned sort of men call'd in their Language Draoithe in ours Druids and Magitians whose peculiar Office it was to write and preserve as well their Genealogies as all other Memoirs concerning them or their Travails and Adventures whatsoever good or bad That the more famous Branch of those Gathelians to wit the Clanna Mileadh or Descendents from Milesius the Spaniard after they had conquer'd Ireland from the Nation call'd Tuatha-De-Danann thought fit to continue the same course and accordingly did continue for the 2500 years of their Government and Laws an uninterrupted numerous succession of Antiquaries for the same purpose with large allowance and strict orders to regulate them us has been said afore That besides and particularly to shew the like care among some other Nations for preserving the Genealogies of their great Heroes he instances in the Pedegree of that excellent Saxon King Alfredus and out of Asser Menevensis inserts it carried up through all his Predecessours from Son to Father in a perpetual direct Line to Adam To which Instance alledg'd by Keting I could my self most certainly though without Book add another For about five or six and forty years since travelling in Brabant and within a little English mile to Lovain entring the Choire of the Celestin's Abbey there I saw and for a pretty while did view a Table hung up on the Wall which contain'd the Genealogy of the Illustrious Founders the Dukes of Arscot carried up in like manner through a vast number of Generations to the First of all men Which may be enough to persuade us that the old German Nation how meanly soever for matter of civility or Learning describ'd by Tacitus have been very careful in preserving at least their Genealogical Antiquities And indeed if my memory fail me not I remember to have read in Favins Theatre of Honour much to this purpose where he tells It was from the Germans that all the rest of Europe derived the custom of giving Goats of Arms to shew the Noble Antiquity of their Extraction Though withal I must confess that Keting in the Reign of the Irish Monarch Domhnal mhac Aodh mhic Ainmhire who died in the year of Christ 642. not only demonstrates by a very special Instance That custom of blazoning Arms to have been among the Irish in this Monarchs Reign very common but farther says It had been so in all Ages before among their Ancestours ever since the days of Gathelus himself who deriv'd it from the Israelites at the time of their passing the Red Sea when each of the Tribes had its own peculiar Ensign carried before But to return to my purpose The Sixth and Last of those particulars of Keting's Preface I would acquaint you with is That being his whole History for the matter is only of the Ancient Irish Nation if any Reader shall perhaps apprehend his Relations or commendations or praises of them any where or in any point or as to any matter or Times excessive he desires it be considered That the Author is no Irish man by blood but English though born in Ireland And therefore cannot rationally be suppos'd to magnifie the Old Irish or speak more excellent things of 'em than the very force of Truth and duty of a Historian exacts from him Besides he had immediately before in the same Place declar'd That neither love nor hatred of any People nor hope of any kind of Reward on Earth made him either go through with or indeed at first undergo any part of the toil of so laborious a Work but only those other considerations given before But what his reason was only to write it in Irish I cannot tell Vnless it be That he would not swerve from the custom of that Nation while they were a free People before the English Conquest of transmitting the Authentick Records or publick Acts and Monuments of their Kingdom to after Ages in their own Language only Which as I conceive is the true reason why so little of them has ever yet been known elswhere in the World However you have by this time a sufficient account of Keting the Author I am mostly guided by in the whole Former Part of my Prospect or which is the same thing in my Discourses of the State of Ireland till the beginning of the English Conquest in the year of Christ 1172. I had almost forgotten to prevent your prejudice against Keting's History from his relating about the beginning of it those three unlikely Stories 1. How Seth the Son of Adam and three daughters of Cain in a Company together landed in and view'd all Ireland over 2. How last year before the Deluge three Fishermen of South-Spain by name Laigne Capa and Luasad had been Wind-driven thither c. 3. How Keasar the daughter of Baioth son to Noah with three men viz. Fionntuin Lothra and her said Father and fifty Women to save themselves from the Flood which from Noah they had heard of as impending after they had first by her advice renounc'd the God of Noah taken to themselves an Idol God which the Irish in their Language call Laimbh Dhia and then wandred for seven years by Sea at last arriv'd in Ireland just forty days before the Flood and there nevertheless perish'd by it And indeed I must confess that Keting relates these Stories at large with all their other circumstances But how or why does he relate'em It is manifest he does it of set purpose to explode 'em every one as incredible and meer Poetical
what I had almost forgotten That I have more than once or twice either quoted Geoffrey of Monmouth himself I hope no man will be scandalized that considers besides the occasion what use I make of him Nay I do persuade my self That to see * Former Part from page 3 5. to pag. 347. And again p. 363 364 369. in five or six leaves of this little Form a pretty just Abridgment of his famed Work i. e. his Seven Books of the ancient History of Great Brittain or supposed Posterity of Brutus cannot be displeasing to those who never saw nor knew where to find the Author himself or his History at large nor perhaps were it lying by them and in their own Language too would have the patience to read it over And now That I gave given what I would say in this Place concerning any of those other Authors whom besides Keting and Lucius I either follow or examine or e'en utterly reject in the Former Part of my Prospect there remains but little more to be Prefac'd to it For to the Latter Part I shall therefore prefix an other Preface but one by so much the shorter by how much it must be proper to that Part alone In which other Preface I mean to observe the same Method I have in this by giving an account of the Writers who shall direct me in that Later Part and how and the reasons why I must therein be guided partly by some of those very men whose testimonials in other matters I slight in the Former What more I would give for Preface here to the same Former Part only are these Particulars 1. That wheresoever I annex to any of those Irish Monarchs treated of by me Capital or other Letters or Figures of Numbers whereby I would signifie what rank they held in their Catalogue for example whether of the Tenth or Twentieth or so forth there I related only to the Catalogue of Milesian Monarchs not to any other containing both Milesian and the other 18. Monarchs of the several Conquests that preceded theirs 2. That although I have endeavoured with all diligence to extract in order those Milesian Monarchs out of Ketings voluminous History which no where adds to any of 'em the number i. e. any such Letters Figures or Words importing it after all I cannot be sure I have not mistaken and this perhaps more than once in adding my numbers But the best on 't is that the errour if any such be is not material 3. That where I speak of 2988 years or sometimes of a year or a few years more or less from the first of the Milesian Conquest in all such places I follow the Account of Keting Who to reduce the Irish Chronology to an agreement not only with his own Computation of the years of the World but with the Relation also of Cambrensis and Polychronicon where they tell us of the Milesians having conquer'd that Kingdom 1800 years before S. Patric's death purposely cut off of the Reigns of several of their Kings so many years as make in all 491. But elsewhere that is p. 496 c. and in the Catalogue I have strictly follow'd Gratianus Lucius and consequently the Irish Book of Reigns as to the number of years the Milesian Kings reigned or Kingdom lasted 4. That for want of Irish Books or Antiquaries to consult with I confess it remains a difficulty with me still How the six Sons of the Ulster K. Muredus as Cambrensis calls him in Latin who in Irish is call'd Muiridhach by Keting even those very six famous Brothers that invaded Tâ—ath-Chruthnigh for so the Irish by a proper name in their Language call'd the Countrey of the Picts which now we call Scotland How I say those very six Brothers go sometimes by the name of the Six Sons of Muiridhach and sometimes again by that of the Six Sons of Eirck Vnless peradventure the same person had those two names of Muiridhach Eirck or that Keting derived their being the Sons of Muredus from Girald of Wales only 5. That if any where in these Discourses of Ireland you meet with some Relations either of Miracles above Nature or Antiquities hard to believe I must beg that you will notwithstanding be so just as at least to believe I have no design to impose either upon your reason or upon your freedom 6. That besides it will be no more than Justice requires of you to persuade your self That no Relatour of matters so far beyond our ken is accountable for his own belief or disbelief of them much less for their objective truth or untruth being or not being in themselves Provided he relates no impossibilities nor absurdities nor contradictions of all other Histories that are esteemed true nor any thing whatsoever out of other Records than Authentick or other Authors than Classick or at least other than such as have been among their own People reputed men of Probity and Reason and acknowledg'd so in such matters as they write of 7. That I have commonly chosen to give the Irish proper Names and Surnames though not in Irish Characters yet in such Italick Letters as answer them because by having them so the Reader may be much better assured that he sees before him the true genuine names whether he can pronounce them rightly or not than he could be if according to the custom of others I had transform'd 'em into the English or Latin either syllables or terminations And yet withal my Copy of Keting being very bad in many places and which I do willingly acknowledg my own skill to correct the Irish Orthography of it very small I must in reason suspect my performance in this matter But neither can the Errours herein be either material or any way considerable 8. That I confess I have taken a quite contrary course to the late Brittish Writers in magnifying so far as good Authority did warrant me the Ancient Irish Nation which they a man would think made it their business to lessen and vilifie all they could But nevertheless I doubt not all judicious impartial men will acknowledg how much more it must redound to the honour of the English Nation to have conquered an ancient civil warlike brave People in the days of Yore than such an obscure barbarous vile hideous generation of men as partly the Cambrian Author partly others that follow'd the pattern left by him represent those Old Inhabitants of Ireland in their time Besides if without any relation to others but on the naked sole contemplation of some excellencies in that ancient People I have suffer'd some transport who can blame me None I believe that considers attentively the import and consequence of this Saying of the Roman Sage though delivered by him on an other subject Some acts of Liberality some of Humanity some of Fortitude had astonish'd us and we began to admire them as perfect Under 'em lay many vices which the appearance splendor of some conspicuous Fact did
conceal and these we dissembled Nature bids us magnifie deeds that are commendable None but has extol'd the glorious beyond truth So said Lucius Annaeus Seneca in his one Hundred and Twentieth Epistle as rigid a Stoick as he was And yet I can say for my self this much that I have been so far from dissembling in any such kind where I had unquestionable Authors to lead me that I rather fear to have exceeded on this side than on that other 9. That when I had almost finish'd this Former Part I was unexpectedly desir'd to print before it a Catalogue tho containing only the bare Names of all the Kings that in the succession of so many Conquests and many more Ages for even 3204 years reign'd from Slanius the Son of Dela to the sixth year of Rotheric O Connor the Last of the Irish Race when Hen. II. of England was receiv'd Lord of Ireland in the year of Christ 1172. And though I had my self no inclination to it as apprehending that since I have not given any kind of History great or small of all their Lives or Reigns nor indeed any particular account in any Method Historical or not Historical no not scarce of the Tenth among 'em it would seem a vanity in me to promise more by the Frontispiece than the whole Structure is worth yet after I was persuaded So prevalent with me was the esteem I had of his judgment that urg'd it altho he gave me no other reason than that certainly it would prove at least some satisfaction to all curious Searchers into such remote patterns of Antiquity And truly had he or any other given me this occasion before I had engag'd too far in pursuance of the Method taken by me all along I would have given another kind of Catalogue I mean such a one as together with the Name of each King should have had annex'd the years of his Reign the means of his attaining the Sovoreignty the manner of his death whether natural or violent some one at least of his most remarkable Kingly Actions if any such were recorded of him the Year of the World or Christ respectively answering both the first and last of his Reign and all this of each in a small number of Lines and the whole of all in seven or eight sheets at most or thereabouts I am sure I might with far less trouble have done it than the collecting digesting and discoursing on the matters handled in any one at least in the sixth Section of this Former Part have given me Gratianus Lucius in his Eighth Chapter would have eas'd me of other care in doing it than that of rendring his Catalogue there into English in some few places abridging him by referring the Reader to those pages of my own where I treat the matter at large and in very few places more by adding somewhat out of Keting and then animadverting on both Keting and him But no easing me in that kind could hinder the unproportionable swelling of this Former Part if I should annex to it such a Catalogue as this And therefore in stead thereof I give that of bare Names which take up but little room Perhaps hereafter I may give the other too in a small Treatise bound together with the Later Part. I mean if that Later Part can better than this here admit of such a conjunction without rendring it self unproportionably thick However that happen there needs no further Preface now A Catalogue of the Kings of Ireland Who according to the Irish Book of Reigns and Computation particularly of Lucius Reign'd in all 3204 Years before Henry the II's landing there Anno Christi 1172. Kings of the Fir-bholgian Conquest Reigning in all 36 Years 1 Slainghe 2 Rughruigh 3 Gann and Geannan two Brothers 4 Seanghann 5 Fiacha Cinn Fionnain 6 Rionnal 7 Oidghen 8 Eochâ—dh Kings of the Tuatha-De-Danann Conquest Reigning in all 197 Years 1 Nuadhad Airgidlaimh 2 Breas 3 Lugha Lamhfhada 4 Andaghdha 5 Dealbbaoith 6 Fiacha mhac Dealbhaoith 7 Eachtur Teachtur Ceachtur surnamed Mac Coill Mac Ceacht and Mac Greine the three sons of Cearmada Kings of the Clanna Mileadh or Milesian Conq. Reigning in all 2971 Years 1 Eibhir Fionn and Erimhon two Sons of Mileadh joyntly reigning 2 Erimhon singly 3 Muininne Luigne and Laigne three Sons of Erimhon 4 Iriall Faidh 5 Ear Orba Fearon and Feargna Four Brothers Sons to Eibhir Fionn 6 Ethriall mhac Iriall Faidh 7 Conmhâ—â—l 8 Tighearnmhais 9 Eochodh I. Eadghathach 10 Cearmna and Sohairce two Brothers 11 Eochodh II. Faobharghlas 12 Fiacha I. Labhranna 13 Eochodh III. Mumho 14 Aonghus I. Ollmhuicidh 15 Eunna I. Airgtheach 16 Roitheacthuigh I. mhac Maoin 17 Seadhna I. mhac Artri 18 Fiacha II. Fionscothach 19 Muinemhon 20 Allerghoid 21 Ollamh Fodhla 22 Fionshneachta I. 23 Slanoll ach 24 Geithe Ollghoth 25 Fiacha III. 26 Bearnghall 27 Oillioll I. 28 Siorna Saoghalach 29 Roitheachâ—huigh II. mhac Roin 30 Elim I. Ollfionshneachta 31 Giallchadh 32 Art I. Imleach 33 Nuadhad II. Fionnfail 34 Breasrigh 35 Eochodh IV. Apthach 36 Fionn mhac Bratha 37 Sedhna II. Innarrhuidh 38 Siomon Breac 39 Duacha I. Fionn 40 Muiriadhach Bolgrach 41 Eunna II. Dearg 42 Lughadh I. Jarann 43 Siorlamha 44 Eochodh V. Vaircheas 45 Eochodh VI. Fiadhmhaine and Conn Begeaglach 2 Bro. 46 Lughadh II. Lamhdhearg 47 Conn Begeaglach the second time 48 Art II. mhac Lughaidh 49 Fiacha IV. Tolgrach 50 Oillioll II. Fionn 51 Eochodh VII mhac Oilliolla 52 Airgiodmhair 53 Duacha II. Ladhghrach 54 Lughha III. Laidhe 55 Aaâ—dh I. Ruadh 56 Dithorba 57 Ciombaoth 58 Macha the Queen 59 Reachta Rithdhearg 60 Eoghan Mor. 61 Buchadh 62 Laoghaire I. Lorc 63 Cobhthach Caolbhreag 64 Lauradh Loinnseach 65 Meilge Molbhthach 66 Modhehorh 67 Aonghus II. Ollamh 68 Jar Ainghleo 69 Fearchorh 70 Connla I. Cruaidhcheallgach 71 Oillioll III. Cassâ—hiaclach 72 Adhamhair Foltchinn 73 Eochodh VIII Altleathan 74 Ferghus I. Fortabhaile 75 Aonghus III. Tuirmhidh Teamhrach 76 Conall I. Columhrach 77 Niadh Seadhghamhaine 78 Eunna II. Aignioch 79 Criomthann I. Cosgrach 80 Rughruidh I. mhac Sithrigh 81 Jodhnambar 82 Breassal 83 Lughadh IV. Luighnioch 84 Conghall II. Clarigneach 85 Duach III. Dalltha Deaghniodh 86 Fachna Fathach 87 Eochodh IX Feidhlioch 88 Eochodh X. Aimhremh 89 Eidrisgceoil 90 Nuadhad II. Neacht 91 Conair I. Mor. Immediately after the murder of this Conair surnamed the Great committed on him by some Irish Outlaws but headed as Keting says by Hainchill Keagh Yon to the King of Brittain there follow'd An Interregnum of five Years which being over the Succession was re-assum'd and continued thus 92 Lughadh V. Sriamhndearg 93 Conchahhar I. Abhraruadh 94 Criomthann II. Niadhnair 95 Fearadhach I. Fionnfachtuach 96 Fiacha V. Fionn 97 Fiacha VI. Finnolaidh 98 Cairbre I. Ceann-cheit 99 Feilim I. mhac Conruidh 100 Tuathal I. Teachtmhur 101 Mal. 102 Feilim II. Rachtmhur 103 Cathaoir Mor. 104 Conn II. Ceadchathach 105 Conair II. mhac Moghalaimhe 106 Art III. Aoinfhir 107 Lugha VI. alias Mac Con.
as had natural ends to have been As for the Fir-bholgian Tuath-De-Danann Kings tho proportionably fewer e'en of either died violent deaths yet of their 18. which was their whole number fourteen lost their Lives by the Sword But how many or how few soever you please of all these and those Kings of all the Former Conquests ended their days either by the hands of other men or some prodigious judgment of Heaven or means of other extrinsick secondary Causes in such manner as rendred their deaths properly violent the Inferences out of this Catalogue are plain 1. That if we count severally each of those Milesian Princes who jointly or in Association with any other govern'd as Kings of Ireland and withal not count the same Person twice nor count among 'em either Cairbre I. surnamed Ccann-cheit or Feilim I. mhac Conruidh see Numb 98. 99. as indeed we ought not being these Two are the only noted for meer Usurpers because both were chosen one after another by the Plebeians only nay and only too to head their most hideous bloody Rebellion of 25 years continuance against all the Royal Line and as for the former of 'em viz. Cairbre he had not so much pretence of right as to have been either of the Milesian or e'en Gathelian Race but originally a meer Dane I say that if we count so we shall find the whole number of those Milesian Kings as it is in this Catalogue to agree exactly with that which Cambrensis himself 500 years since reported it to have been That is just 181 in all 2. That counting together with these Milesians those â—8 Fir-bholgian and Tuatha-De-Donann Kings who preceded them and withal admitting both Cairbre Ceann-cheit Feilim mhac Conruidh as Kings of Ireland for so they really tho illegally were in their time the Former 5 years till he died a natural death and the Later 20. at the expiration of which he was kill'd in Battel by Tuathal Teachtmhur it must follow that they make in all 201 Kings of Ireland while the Former Three Conquests held one after another 3. That hereunto adding 22 more of the Fourth and Last i. e. our English Conquest the whole Number of the Sovereign Princes of Ireland from Slainghe to Charles II. must be 223. whereof Three were Queens Macha Mary and Elizabeth A PROSPECT OF The State of Ireland c. The Former PART SECTION I. First Planter of Ireland Ciocal First Invader Partholan then Neimh and his four Sons then Fir-bholg then Tuatha-De-Danann and last of all the Eight Sons of Mileadh Fights of the former Invaders Nine of Ferramh Bolg and Nine more of Tuatha-De-Danann ruled as Kings of Ireland Fir-Bholg divide it into two parts Three Septs of these remaining still The adventures of Mileadh His eight Sons conquer Tuatha-De-Danann How Erimhon came to be sole Monarch of Ireland He was the first of 181 Kings of the Milesian Conquest Eoghun Mor 620 years after Erimhon set up the Provincial Kings Picts first appearing They are the first time and together with them all the Islands of Scotland Conquered by Aonghus Ollbuadhach Many Plantations of the Irish in Scotland Niall Naoighiallach's Invasion of that Countrey and an other by the six Sons of Muireadhach Fergus Mor mhac Ercha made the first-King of Scots that is of the Irish in Scotland Coilus King of Great Brittain destroy'd by him Three Walls built by the Romans against the Irish Kingdom of the Picts 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by these Danish Wars in Ireland Bad success of Roderic the King of Britain's Son The Danes various success They are at the same time plagued as by others so by Ceallaghane King of Mounster most singularly The Monarch Conghallach Mhac Mhaoil Mhithe routs ' emâ— and kills 7000 of them in Battel What of his two next Successors in the Monarchy Briain Boraimh does Wonders in 25 Battels and last of all in that of Clantarff Field Maolseachluin that succeeded him and Hughaire mhac Tuathail King of Leinster destroy the Reliqnes of the Danes The vain attempt of Magnus King of Norvegia to revenge their Fate IReland before that fatal War broke out in the year 1641. had two different Nations like the Twins of Rebecca strugling in its Womb perpetually almost five hundred years the one called by themselves the Ancient Irish the other the Old English or English Irish And indeed the former may justly glory in the Epithet of Ancient since as Cambden himself confesses they fetch Britannia translated by Philemon Holland Edit Lond. Tit. Ireland pag. 64. the beginning of their Histories from the most profound and remote Records of Antiquity so that in comparison of them the Ancientness of all other Nations is but Novelty and as it were a matter of yesterday It is now at least 2988 years since their Fore-fathers the Sons of Mileadh alias Milesius the Spaniard in a Fleet of threescore Sail arrived in Ireland from Gallicia in Spain conquer'd it and left it to their Posterity I say at least Because although Polychronicon and Cambrensis Topog. Dist 3. c. 17. by their saying That from the Arrival of those Milesians in Ireland till the death of S. Patrick their Apostle were efflux'd 1800 years See Jocelin Vit. Saucti Patricii c. 196. agree exactly with Ketings Epocha here yet the Irish Book of Reigns makes the Arrival of those Milesians much earlier that is to this present year of Christ 1680. e'en as long since as 3480 years compleat But I follow Keting's Reformation of that Book and his Account in his Mss History l. 1. whereby he places the Milesian Conquest in the year of the World 2736. after the Floud 1086 after Moses's passing the Red Sea 192. and before the Birth of Christ 〈◊〉 308. Were it to my main purpose which is or only or at least mostly concern'd in those Milesians I could insert here out of Keting the several Plantations and Conquests of that Countrey before they knew it How one Ciocal about a hundred years after the Deluge in a small Fleet of Vessels each Vessel having fifty Men and fifty Women aboard arriving there was the First that planted it How Bartholanus and his three Sons Languinus Salanus and Reterugus with their Wives and as This Author lived as himself writes An 830. under Anaraugh King of Anglesey and Guinech or North-Wales Nennius writes a thousand Fighting Men about 300 years after the Flood Anno Mundi 1956. before the Birth of Abraham 95 years invaded it had many doughty Battels therein with those Aborigines the Issue of Ciocal and Progeny of Cham who come thither from Afric were called Gyants because partly of their stature or corpulency which yet was no way exceeding the tallest growth of other men and partly of their wickedness endeavouring to destroy every where the Descendants or Progeny of Japhet And how this Bartholanus alias Partholan having Conquer'd at last those Aborigines and Affricans his Issue after him were at the end of three hundred
seeing him a Widower his former Wife the Scythian Kings Daughter having died before he came to Egypt the gave him one of his own Daughters to Wife 4. Of his departure from Egypt by Sea and various adventures for some years roaming about all the Northern Seas and Isles of Europe 5. Of his return at last to his own Countrey of Spain and the five and forty Battels fought there victoriously by him and under his conduct by his near Cosins the Children of Breoghuin the Son of Bratha who founded Braganza in Portugal against the forein Enemies that invaded that Kingdom then 6. Of the destruction and utter extirpation at least for a good while of all those Foreiners out of Spain by his Valour and Wisdom and which was consequent of his possessing by himself and his foresaid Kinsmen the greater Part of this Kingdom 7. Of his two and thirty Sons part Legitimat but the most part Illegitimat 8. Of the great Dearth in his time all over Spain continuing six and twenty years thro want of Rain 9. And lastly how this Dearth together with several other reasons but particularly that of his minding now the Prophetical Prediction of him by his own Magitian Cathoir some years before That his Posterity should settle in Ireland made him and soon after his death eight of his Sons think upon invading Ireland Tho I say these are matters not wholly foreign to my purpose yet because they are unnecessary it sufficeth to have touch'd 'em lightly And so I proceed to what I intended as more material here to let you know Which is 1. That of those 8. Sons of that Great Milesius for no more of his two and thirty Sons ventured to Ireland who presently after their Fathers death setting forth from Breoghuin's Tower a place in Gallicia long after called Notium but of later years Compostella and putting to Sea with the first convenience and landing in Ireland then when the three Sons of Cearmada ruled there by turns and by their great Valour destroying all three at last in the Battel of Tailtinn and thereby subduing thorowly the whole Nation of Tuatha-De-Danann two only I mean of those eight Brothers survived to rejoyce in their Conquest finish'd by that Battel Eibhir and Erimhon alias Heber and Herimon as the Latins call them the other six being lost by various Chances 2. That Eibhir and Erimhon assuming now the sovereign power of the whole Island after partition made first to themselves then to their Cousins German then to their other Captains and last of all to the common Soldiers of convenient proportions of Land ruling severally over all that is Eibhir in the Southern and Erimhon in the Northern Division the first year in perfect peace together and then falling at odds through the Pride and instigation of Heber's Wife that put her Husband upon having all in both Divisions to himself alone to the end forsooth she might sit and strut upon the three chief Ardes or Heights of Ireland as the only Queen thereof and then coming to a pitch'd Battel and Heber kill'd in it and then Herimon remaining the only King without any Competitor until his death which hapned fourteen years after He was the first of a hundred fourscore and one that as Monarchs of all Ireland successively governed it and the Milesian or Irish Nation the only possessors of it for two thousand four hundred eighty eight years until the landing of Henry the second there in the year of Christ 1172. 3. Cambrensis himself tho Giraldus Camb. Topog. Hiber dist 3. c. xv 17. 36 37 44. otherwise no great favourer of the Irish does certifie so much by computing from Herimon the first King to Laogirius who was King when St. Patrick landed there Anâ— Christi 432. to preach the Gospel a hundred thirty and one from Laogirius to King Fedlimidius which contain'd 400 years of the flourishing state of Christianity among the Irish three and thirty more and from that period to Ruaridh O Conchabhair who was the Monarch when Henry II. landed as before the whole remainder of that number of a hundred fourscore and one who besides a far greater number of the Provincial Kings under them governed as Sovereign Monarchs of all that Island for so many Ages from the year of the World 2736. Argument enough I think for the Antiquity of the Irish Nation to be no where parallel'd if not peradventure by the Chineses only in the late History written of them by Martinus à Martinâ—s 4. That for their bravery in Martial Exploits to say nothing now of a thousand bloody proofs thereof given by them at home for much above 2000 years fighting almost continually either the Progeny of Heber in general against Herimon's for the Sovereignty or one Province or greater Division Leath Cuinn and Leath Mogh invading the other especially after the Provincial Kings had set up by the Authority of Eoghun Mor or Eugenius Magnus the Monarch about 600 years after the death of Herimon so that very few of their Monarchs in so large an extent of time died other than violent deaths and this in Battel commonly but to say nothing of these proofs given by them at home their manifest Invasions abroad their Plantations and at last even total Conquest of the Kingdom of Albain that part of Great Britain which in after Ages came to be called Scotland from their conquering and planting of it with Colonies of their Children for they themselves were in this part of the World the original Scots as their Countrey now called Ireland or in Latin Hibernia was then the only Countrey named Scotia is an argument which cannot be refuted 5. That the Nation which we call Picts but the Irish in their Language Cruinith having in the reign of Herimon the first Irish Monarch roam'd about by Sea from Scythia till they arrived at last in Ireland and there desiring to inhabit and being denied this request but however directed by Herimon to that part of the now Great Britain which lying Northeast of Ireland was called Albain then and is so still by the Irish and here seated themselves and then multiplying exceedingly for two hundred and fifty years at the expiration of this time upon some difference hapned Aonghus or Aenaeas Ollbhuadhach the VII Monarch of Ireland succeeding Herimon made so sharp and long a War upon them and not on them only but as well on the Northern Britains remaining still their Neighbours as upon the Inhabitants of the barren Orcades the Race of Fir Bholg long before expelled Ireland that in fifty fierce Battels given them he utterly broke their whole strength and made them Tributaries Nor was this the only Conquest made by the Milesian Irish either on the Heathen or Christian Picts and their Associats in Albain For to pass over those six or seven Invasions more of the Irish into Albain under several of their Monarchs from the Reign of the foresaid Aonghus or Enaeas to the
Reign of Niall the Great surnamed also Naoighiallach Likewise to say nothing how this very Niall not only went himself in Person with a powerful Army thither partly to confirm and partly to enlarge those â—â—antations made there by his Predecessors but was himself the first of Mortals that by his own Authority and at the instance of those Plantations gave the name of Scotia Minor or Scotland the Lesser to that Northern part of Great Britain ordaining all his Subjects to call it so Besides to pass by as well the Invasion as the extraordinary great and famous Plantation made therein by the six sons of that Vlster King Muiredbach whom Cambrensis calls in Latin Muredus either in the Time of Lapghaire the II's being Monarch of Ireland when St. Patrick conquered that Kingdom to Christian Religion or at least somewhat later To pass I say all these matters in silence though otherwise both great in themselves and no less attested by sufficient Authority that I think is very great and very true which Cambden a Title Scots page 26. and before page 128. in his Britannia writes That the Scots come from Ireland after a long War at last in the year of Christ 740. and in one great Battel destroyed the Picts so as there was scarce one of them left alive whereby that whole Nation and very name of the Picts was utterly extinguish'd 6. That besides the Irish Chronicles without contradiction from any tell us how the foresaid Niall the Great surnamed Naoighellach from the nine Hostages taken by him five from the five Provinces of Ireland and four from the Picts and other Inhabitants of Scotland or Albuin not only made the other parts of Great Britain even so far as the South of it tributary but with a mighty Force of Irish Scots Picts and Britons in one Army pass'd the Sea to France landed in Armorica and march'd so far as the River Loyre Where being encamped hewas treacherously kill'd by Eochae King of Leinster whom he had formerly so punish'd and plagu'd that he forc'd him to fly even out of all Ireland and who therefore studying still revenge followed him unknown to France and finding there an opportunity took it For standing one day by chance on the bank of the foresaid River and seeing Niall at the same time on the other Bank not far off he bent his Bow presently and with all his might letting fly at him shot him dead in the place by piercing his head through both scull and brain 7. That moreover Fergus the Great King of all Ireland as Buchanan calls him enter'd Scotland with a puiffant Army gave Battel to Coilus King of the Britons who invaded both the Picts and Irish Plantations together fought him kill'd him overthrew his whole Army was thereupon himself both declar'd and receiv'd the first King of the Scottish Nation inhabiting the North of Great Britain and after this being gone for Ireland as he was returning back again to Scotland was drown'd hard by the Rock which from his fate before it hath ever since been called by the Irish Carig-Fherus now Knock-fergus by the English and that all this Rerum Scoticar l. 1. happened says Buchanan about the time that Alexander the Great enter'd Babylon For albeit the Irish Books agree not with Buchanans relation of this Fergusius the Great not either I say as to his quality of being King of Ireland or as to this time of his Adventure in Scotland or elsewhere mentioning him only as a Brother to Mairchertach Mor mhac Ercha Monarch of Ireland and then fixing both his life and death immediatly after Saint Patricks death that is about 530 years after the Incarnation of our Lord yet since they agree with Buchanan in all other material points related by him of this famous Fergus especially that of his entring Scotland with a great Army being the first King of Scots in Britain I think the allegation of what they so agree upon is mightily to purpose 8. That therefore it is easie to be understood whatever Cambden's admiration be how the Milesian Irish Race were those In his Britannia Tit. Picts p. 115. daring men that having the assistance of the Picts their Tributaries and some few Britons withdrawn to them for protection from the Roman yoke drew forth at one time thirty thousand armed men against Agricola and gave Severus the Emperour so much trouble that of Romans and Associats he lost in one expedition against them fifty thousand men And were yet the men against Dio. whose incursions into the Roman Province here first the Fence was built by Adrian from Edinborough Frith to Cluyd fourscore miles Spartianus in length the foundation of it being laid deep within the ground of huge piles or stakes fastned together like a strong hedg or mound then the work of Turff and Earth by Severus across the Island from one Sea to another then under Honorius the Wall of stone running the same extent eight foot broad and twelve foot high and last of all the Towers and Bulwarks all along the Southern Coast of Britain at convenient distances raised against their landing on that side out of their plundering Fleets 6. That a further argument yet and such as of all hands must be confess'd to shew abundantly their Martial spirit and fortitude in those days of old was their brave defence of their own Countrey at home against the manifold powerful and almost continual Invasions of it from abroad by the Heathen Danes Norvegians and Easterlings at least 200 years For I pass wholly over those little short and inconsiderable Invasions of them either by Egfrid the Saxon King of Northumberland in the year 640. according to Cambden c Britannia Tit. Ireland or rather indeed by his General Berthus in the year 684. as Beda d l. 4. c. 26. has it or by some other Brittish Commanders joyn'd with the Picts at two or three several times in the seventh Century after Christ Of none of these do I take notice because they signifie not much save only the preying and burning at two several times and places a part of the Countrey by the Sea-side and three inconsiderable Fights as they are related in the Irish Books The first under the Sovereignty of Blathmhac and Diarmuid Ruannigh two Brothers ruling peaceably together as Kings of Ireland wherein the Saxon King and thirty of his Nobles were kill'd say the Irish Chronicles without mentioning other loss or any at all of the other side The second under the Sovereignty of Fionachta Fliadhach whereof all the account they give is that Comghusgach King of the Picts and a great many of the Irish were slain in it The third after a few years more under the Monarchy of Loionsiogch mhac Aonghussa fought against the men of Vlster by the Brittons but to their own loss And this is all the Irish Chronicles in Doctor Keting have of these matters So that neither the loss nor Victory
Dr. Keting they would surpass all belief we see how at last and for that present the Irish Nation were by the wisdom of this Maolseachluin King of Meath and by the great Valour and resolution of the rest of their Princes and People delivered I say for that present For pursuant to what has been said before you are to understand now 10. That but a very few years after because in the Keting Polychronicon Reign of the same Maolseachluin mhic Mhaolruanuidh King of Meath who deservedly upon the aforesaid expulsion of the Danes was by the Princes and Nobility made King of all Ireland and continued so until his death i. e. full sixteen years and no more three Norvegian Brothers Amelanus Cytaracus and Ivorus as Polychronicon calls 'em with their Train being come to Ireland in a peaceable manner and under pretence of Trafficking got leave of the Princes of the Land to build three Cities paying Tribute for them Dublin Waterford and Limeric Which they had no sooner finished and strongly fortified than the Irish found Keting themselves engaged in as great a War as the former by new and numerous Fleets both of Norvegians Danes and Oostmans as they call'd 'em then arriving continually from time to time in all the Quarters of the Kingdom The difference only was that the former continued forty years or thereabouts but this War now off and on a hundred and fifty years compleat And when the former began the Irish had no strangers in pay whose Revolt might endanger them but when this began they had a great number even of Danish or other Easterling Foreigners whom immediately upon ending the former War they entertain'd in pay and therefore call'd 'em Bownies to guard their Coasts all round the Kingdom and these every one turned against them now Besides in the former the Irish were all of a mind against the common Enemy but in this they were often divided some of them confederating openly and fighting in conjunction with those forein Enemies against their Native Soil especially the little King of Desies in Mounster and the King of Leinster too not seldom Moreover to end the former War and redeem them from their bondage under Turgesius the stratagem of Maolseachluin was necessary but in this later all along both in the procedure and final issue of it they owed their great and frequent Victories not to any stratagem but under God to pure Valour and manly Resolution But that I may at last come to an issue on this point I will pass over all those Victorious Battels fought by the Irish in the procedure of this second Danish War made upon them As first the Battel of Dromma Damhaigha fought by the foresaid King of Ireland Maolseachluin himself 2. The Battel of Loughfoill by his Successor Aoth Finliath 3. The many Battels in the Reign of Donnchoe mhic Floinn fought by Ceallaghane King of Mounster whereby he not only took Limmerick Cashel Cork and Waterford from the Danes but quite extirpated them at least in his days out of that Province His Sea-fight also with their Fleet before Dundalk which proved extreamly fatal to them Likewise the great slaughter of their fellows in Connaught by the Conacians about the same time Moreover and which was somewhat extraordinary and before Ceallaghane had taken Limmerick the Battel of Roscrea where the Merchants and Townsmen at a great Fair held in that place on Saint Peters day understanding of an Army of Danes coming on them from Connaught and Limmerick under a Danish Earl called Oilsin set forth against them in the best order they could fought them defeated them and kill'd three or four thousand of them in that Field Besides Muirchiortach mhac Neill King of Vlster his killing 800 with their chief Commanders Abilaine Aufer and Roilt and soon after Conuing mhac Neill 1200 more of their Heathen wicked Crue And further yet the Defeat given to Rodoricus the King of Britains Son who Anno Christi 966. as Hanmer says invaded Ireland with a puissant Army but lost both Army and Life by those he invaded 4. The Battel of Muine Broghaine fought by the Monarch Conghallach mhac Maoil Mhithe with the slaughter of 7000 Danes on the spot though with great loss of his own side too 5. and lastly even all those four twenty bloudy Battels fought against the Danes and their Confederats before the Battel of Cluain-Tairbh and fought I say every one of them by that happy victorious Prince until his death Brien mhac Kinedie alias Boraimhe who in the fourth year of the foresaid Monarch Conghallach's Reign came to be King of Mounster and within eight years next following made all Leath Mogha i. e. the Southern half of Ireland acknowledg him their Sovereign and ruled so for seven and thirty years until he was chosen at last Monarch of all Ireland in which last Supremacy he continued flourishing the remainder of his life which after twelve years more he ended victoriously at Cluain-tairf Field And as I do pass over so many former Battels wherein the Irish were victorious in this second War so I shall those many other too wherein they were to some purpose foiled in the same War tho Martial courage tho true Valour may sometimes exert it self no less in the Foil than in the Victory I 'le take no notice neither of the stoning to death Maolguala King of Mounster by those barbarous heathen Foes in the Reign of Aodh Finliath nor of the mighty overthrow given the Leinster men by Jomhar one of their Generals in the reign of Niall Gluindubh nor of Sitric another General of theirs both defeating and killing and that in a more considerable fight also the said Monarch Niall Gluindubb himself nor of the Battel of Biothlane against the Leinster men again under the Reign of Domhnal mhac Muirchirtae nor finally of the Battel of Cille mhoane fought by the Danes and Lagenians both joyn'd together now against their Monarch Domhnal mhac Muirchirtae wherein the King of Vlster Ardgall and Dombnal King of Oirghiellae and many others of great quality were kill'd of the Monarch's side As well every one of these unsuccessful Battels as all the former ten times both in number and weight more successful to the Irish in the second War I willingly pass over to come unto and give you the famous Fight of Cluain-Tairbh at last It was the five and twentieth and last of all the Battels fought so bravely by that victorious King of Ireland Brian Boraimhe himself It was indeed the Battel that put an end to all the Danish hopes in that Kingdom Besides it was if ever any was by mutual consent of both sides a pitch'd Battel and the Field whereon it was fought some weeks before agreed upon between them So that there was no place at all for Ambuscadoes Tricks or stratagems in it but pure Valour must decide the quarrel and win the day The occasion manner and issue of it take thus in short
About the end of Brian Boraimh's Reign the Kingdom of Ireland being all over in peace and flourishing with all earthly blessings under him and no more Danes left in the Land but such a certain number of Artificers Handy-craftsmen and Merchants in Dublin Weixford Waterford Cork and Limmerick as he thought and knew could be master'd at any time if they dared rebel he sends to his Brother-in-law Maolmoradh mhac Murchoe King of Leinster desiring three special Masts for shipping out of his Woods Maoldmoradh consents and goes himself to see them drawn along by the streingth of men to Cean Choradh the Monarch's House in Tomond A difference happening in the way between those men and thereupon Maolmoradh alighting and helping them to draw one of the beams up a high Mountain which they must have cross'd he toare off the clasp of his outward Robe Which so soon as he came to the Monarchs Court and visited the Queen his own Sister Garmlaigh he desires her to fasten telling her how it was torn off She takes the Robe throws it into the fire burns it before his face and then rebukes him smartly for his unworthy subjection of himself and his people of Leinster to Briean though her Husband And the Monarch Maolmoradh taking to heart her words and turning aside to see Murchoe the Prince Brian's eldest Son playing a game at Chess advises against him on some draught whereby the Prince lost his game Who thereupon fretting and twitting his Uncle this Leinster King told him that his advice formerly given to the Danes at the Battel of Gleann Mama lost them the Field Maolmoradh replyes that his next should prove otherwise The Prince defies him Maolmoradh withdraws goes to bed Supperless and early in the morning unknown posts away to Leinster Where the very next day after his coming he assembles his chief Noblemen represents to them what had past sets them all on fire to renounce their Allegiance to Briean confederate with the Danes and send the Monarch defiance Then he posts immediatly to Dublin engages the chief of the Danes there to send forthwith to the King of Denmark for a strong supply to help him against their mortal Enemy Brian Boraimhe and promises them his destruction And then he prepares at home for War And then within a little more time having seen twelve thousand men under the command of two of the King of Denmark's Sons Carolus Knutus and Andreas landed safely at Dublin and both kindly received them and refreshed them very well he without longer delay by a Herauld bid defiance to Brian and challenges him to fight on Maghnealta a spacious Field at Cluain-Tairbh otherwise Clantarf within two miles of Dublin And Brian with what speed he can joyning together all the Forces of Mounster Connaght and Meath for those of Vlster he neither sent unto nor would stay for as confiding mightily in those he had already out of the three other Divisions and hastning to fight marches directly to the place appointed Maghnealta and sees the Enemy there prepared to receive him viz. sixteen thousand Danes twelve of the new and four of the old ones together with all the power of Leinster headed by their said King Maolmoradh the only Author of this Battel To be short both Armies drawing near and viewing fully one another the fatal sign is given at last and Trumpets sound and skies resound with the terrible shouts of both sides as they closed But Maolseachluin the King of Meath who had been Monarch before Brian Boraimhe and was deposed to give him place the only Monarch of Ireland that from the beginning did survive his deposition finding it now his time to be in some sort revenged on Brian stands off with his Forces of Meath so soon as the signal was given and continues a meer Spectator during the whole time of the Battel without joyning with either side And yet notwithstanding this treacherous carriage of Maolseachluin for it can be term'd no better though after this Fight was over he recovered the Monarchy by it and was the last Monarch of the Milesian Race obeyed or acknowledged as such universally throughout the Kingdom yet I say notwithstanding it the valorous undaunted Prince Murchoe eldest Son of Brian Boraimhe having persuaded his Father to retire into his Tent by reason of his great age for he was now fourscore and eight years old behaved himself with his Momonian and Conacian Forces so bravely and made such and so many furious impressions on every side into the main Battalions of the Enemies that although neither courage nor dexterity nor ambition nor glory nor revenge nor despair proposed unto them respectively were wanting to make the Danish and Lagenian Forces withstand him a very long time and sell the Victory at a very dear rate he won the Field at last or rather indeed his Father and his Army won it after his death For this renowned Prince was kill'd in the Battel And which is far more strange the Father himself Brian Boraimhe the Monarch now after the Field had been clearly gain'd and the remainder of the Enemy scattered into the four Winds was kill'd in his own Tent by one Bruaodor a Dane who in the general Rout leading a party after him was forc'd to fly that way where the Monarch's Tent was pitch'd Whereinto as he pass'd by entring and seeing the Monarch whom he had formerly known he slew him though himself and his followers were presently cut in pieces by those that pursued them Of the Monarchs side besides himself and his Son the Prince were kill'd in this Battel seven little Kings most of the other Nobility both of Mounster and Connaught and 4000 of inferiour degree But of the other side were kill'd first the King of Leinster himself Molmoradh mhac Murchoe the Challenger of Brian to this Battel with his chief Nobles and 3000 common Souldiers then of the Danes the two Sons of the King of Denmark all their great Nobility 6700 of the Souldiers newly come with them and of the old Danes that were before their coming to Ireland 4000 more in all of both sides 17000 seven hundred besides Princes and other Noble men It was fought in the year of Christ 1034. Apr. 22. on good Friday After this Battel we hear but little of the Danes in Ireland Only that the foresaid Maolseachluin who now the second time succeeded in the Monarchy for nine years more until his death took Dublin the next year sack'd it burnt it and killed in it all those Danes that escaped from Clantarff That soon after this again i. e. in the Sovereignty of this same Maolseachluin Huaghaire mhac Duinling mhac Tâ—athil King of Leinster a man of another mind race and interest than Molmoradh mhac Murchoe was gave a mighty overthrow and it the very last given to Siteric the Son of Aomlaibh and the Danes of Dublin who it seems after the Battel of Clantarff and the burning of Dublin next year by Maolseachluin
extraordinary great veneration both in his life and after his death that as Venerable Bede records it not only all In quibus omnibus scilicet Monasteriis per Hiberniam Britanniam propagatis ex utroque Monasterio idem Monasterium Insulanum in quo ipse requiâ—scit corpore principatum tenat Habere autem solet ipsa Irsula Rectorem semper Abbatem presbyterum cujus juri omnis Provincia ipsi etiam Episcopi ordine inusitato debeant esse subjecti juxta exemplum primi Doctoris illius qui non Episcopus sed presbyter extitit Monachus Beda ibid. the Monasteries propagated in Ireland or Britain from either of those two Abbeys founded by himself were subordinate to this latter of Hy wherein he lived longest and died at last being 77 years aged nor only all the whole Province but even the very Bishops themselves contrary to the custom of the Church in other Countreys were subject to the jurisdiction of all the succeeding Abbots thereof tho Presbyters only by ordination to wit according to the primitive pattern of their first Doctor who was himself no Bishop but only a Priest and Monk In fine he most justly deserved the title which Posterity gave him of the first Converter of the North of Scotland and great Apostle of the Picts as Cambden himself calls him And so he might have call'd him too the great and chief if not the first Instructor in Christianity of all the Irish Scots 4. That although I cannot tell certainly what Venerable Bede means here in the Marginal Note by his omnis Provincia whole Province that is whether he mean all the Kingdom of Scotland as it lies now extended and as then comprehending all the several petty Kingdoms both of Scots and Picts for by the Battel fought in Scotland at Monadoire in the Reign of Diarmuid mhic Cearbheoil King of Ireland by the Family of the Neals against the Picts we understand this Nation of Picts had several petty Kings at that time being they lost in this one Battel together with the Victory seven of them kill'd in the place by those Irish formerly planted there or whether he mean the Kingdom of the Irish in Scotland or which is the same thing of the Scots or Dal-Rheudans only all three signifying the same People or whether only the Dominions of those Northern Picts converted by Columb and there can be no other to be meant by omnis provincia since the Island it self wherein that Monastery was exceeded not five English miles in length yet thus much I can certainly say that Keting tells us in his Reign of Aodh or Hugh Ainmhirioch Monarch of Ireland that Columb-Cille in his Voyages and Journey to the Parliament held by this Monarch at Drom-Ceath in that Kingdom was all along out of Scotland attended not only by 30 Sub-deacons 50 Deacons and 40 Priests but 20 Bishops also to praise God continually and officiate in divine Offices in his company whereby we may somewhat guess at the largeness of that Province whereof Venerable Bede does speak here SECT III. The Scene altered Cause of admiration Bloody horrible feuds begun encreas'd multiplied continued 2600 years No People on earth so implacably set upon the destruction of one another as the Milesian Irish were Above 600 Battels fought between themselves A hundred and eighteen Monarchs slaughter'd Fourscore and six of those very men that kill'd them succeeded immediatly in their Thrones Other strange deaths of several of them Of the whole number of 181 Monarchs not above 29 came to a natural end The Author of this account Battels fought by the Monarchs Caomhaol Tighearnmhuir Tuathal Teachtvair where somewhat of the Plebeians 25 years War Conn Ceadchathach alias Constantinus Centibellis and Mogha Nuadhat King of Mounster What Leath Cuinn and Leatha Mogh import The feuds rather inflam'd than allaid under Christianity Number of main Battels fought and Monarchs kill'd the first 400 years after their Conversion by S. Patrick By two of them the one betwixt the Monarch Fearghall and Murcho O Bruin King of Leinster the other between the Monarch Aodlâ— Ollan and Aodha mhac Colgan King also of Leinster may be guess'd how bloody the rest were Foreign Conquests and Plantations neglected all that while Occasionally somewhat of the Heathen Monarch Dathi's Landing in France with an Army to pursue Niall the Great 's example and of his being kill'd by a Thunderbolt near the Alps and of the ten several Invasions of Scotland by the Irish Pagans and but one if one by the Christian Irish The Families descended from those Irish remaining to this day in that Country A word of those call'd English Scots Columb-Cille himself Author of fighting three of the foresaid Battels in Ireland The heavy pennance during life enjoin'd him therefore by S. Molaisse and his humble performance of it and much greater wonders of him Why the particular of those Battels of Columb-Cille mentioned here The Parliament of Dromceathe in his time Banishment of the Poets one of the three ends it was called for Great Injustice Cruelty Pride c. instanc'd severally in their Monarchs Tuathal Teuchtvar c. Nial Naoighiallach Diarmuid mhac Ceirrbheoil and Aodh mhac Ainmhiriogh Some of the Murders and Battels that happened about the end of their fourth Century of Christian Religion particulariz'd HItherto I have briefly run over the Antiquity Martial Exploits Political Government or Grand Councils ordinary Militia and after their Conversion to Christianity the Learning also and Sanctity of the Ancient Irish And so have I think delivered in short all the most glorious Excellencies recorded of that Nation eitheir in their own Monuments or any foreign Histories that I have seen 16. What follows next is on the other side of the Medal to represent unto you not only a mixture of great imperfections with so many excellencies nor only the prevalency of downright evil men against so many good against so prodigiously numerous and great exemplars of virtue living among them after their being enlightned with the doctrine of salvation but according to the vicissitude of all things on earth the change and wane and strange decay and utter fall at last of that People in general from all the glory of their Ancestors And this whether we regard the greatness of their former dominion and power abroad or the more ancient policy of their Government at home or the stupendious fame of their Letters and Holiness every where in those days of old Nay and this alteration too in every point as happening to them even before the English had set one foot in their Country under Henry II. All which I am to represent unto you now because the order of things and both title and nature of this Tract require I should Though I shall nevertheless do it by so much the more briefly by how much I am less inclined to dwell on this subject However I must confess that when I reflect on the most authentick Monuments of
this King William of Scotland Fol. 152. after he had been taken Prisoner by Henry II. of England carried over to Normandy confin'd at Roan until he compounded for his Ransom return'd back to England set free at York upon his paying down 4000 c. and now being on his journey home and seeing the Noble-men his own Subjects would come no nearer than Pembels in Scotland to receive him therefore took with him many younger Sons of such of the English Nobility as shew'd him most kindness in the time of his Imprisonment That he entertain'd them and detain'd them and bestow'd on them great Estates and Possessions in Scotland which he took from such as had rebell'd against him there That this of their waiting on him to Scotland was in the year of Christ 1174. And that their names were Bailliol Brewse Soulley Moubrey St. Clare Hay Giffâ—rd Ramsey Lanudell Biscy Berk Ley Willegen Bâ—ys Montgomery Valx Colenuille Friser Granâ—â— Gâ—â—lay and divers others 20. Yet my meaning is not to assert positively that the foresaid last Invasion or Plantation made by those Vlster Dal-Rheudans and six Sons of Muredus King of Vlster had been made in the time of Irelands Paganism I know it happen'd in the 20th year of the Sovereignty of Lugha mhac Laoghaire Monarch of Ireland which was of Christ 493. and consequently the very next year after Patricks death according to Ketings computation tho according to Jocelinus it must have been the next saving one I know also it is supposed by the Writers of this holy mans life especially Jocelinus c. 191. that even three and thirty years before his death all Ireland together with the Isle of Man and all other Islands then subject to the Irish had been throughly and wholly converted to Christian Religion by him Which makes it indeed very probable that this last expedition of the Irish into Scotland was wholly consisting of Christian Adventurers And yet I am not certain of it for these reasons 1. Because Jocelinus c. 49. and others tell us that notwithstanding all the prodigious wonders done by S. Patrick and many of them in the very presence of Laogirius the Monarch Father to this Lugha he was never converted but died in his Infidelity being kill'd at Greallach a Village near the River Liffy in that Country which we now call the County of Kildare by a Thunder-bolt shot at him from Heaven Tho Keting partly attributes this Vengeance of God fallen on him to his perfidious breach of solemn promise made by him upon Oath invoking the Sun Moon and all the Planets to attest it Which Oath he made to obtain his Liberty when he was foiled and taken Prisoner in the Battel of Ath-Dara by the Lagenians and Criomthan mhac Euno the contents of it being to remit for ever the heavy Borâ—imh as they call it or Fine which he challeng'd from them as due to him and all other Monarchs after him 2. Because this very Monarch Luigha in whose Reign that Expedition of the Vlster Dal-Rheudans and six Sons of Muredus happen'd tho he lived and continued his Sovereignty 15 years longer was nevertheless at last struck likewise dead by a Thunderbolt and the Irish Antiquaries of those times have interpreted this Judgment on him as a just punishment of the great disrespects and dishonour done by him to the same extraordinary wonderful Servant of God And these are my reasons for doubting For it seems not likely that if Lugha had been converted he would after his Conversion have so behaved himself towards that Saint as to incense Heaven to punish him in so dreadful a manner And as unlikely it is that in case he had so mis-behaved himself during his Infidelity he would not after his Conversion have repented so heartily thereof as to merit the Saints prayers for him to God at least for diverting so terrible a judgment And then we know how far the example of a wicked Monarch might have prevail'd with other wicked men to keep them still in their Infidelity But be this conjecture true or false nay be it suppos'd for certain that Lugha and all Ireland every one and consequently those six Sons of Muireadhach King of Vlster with their Dal-Rheudans were Christians then when they enter'd Scotland it appears notwithstanding out of the Irish Chronicles that as they were the first so they were the last and only Adventurers any where abroad out of Ireland since its Conversion to Christianity the War-like humor of its Monarchs Princes and Nobles being always after that wholly imploy'd at home in destroying one another Insomuch that they gave not themselves either opportunity or leisure to look after not so much as the paiment of Chiefries or Tributes due to them from their Dominions abroad in the Islands or Terra Firma it self of Scotland Not one of all their Monarchs for ought appears in their History having at any time since entertain'd no not a thought of employing their Arms that way save only Aodh mhac Aiumhiriogh the 10th undoubted Christian Monarch who propos'd it in his great Parliament at Drom Ceatha and was generously resolv'd upon it ' until by the customary obstacle of a Civil War at home he was not only soon diverted from that resolution but himself kill'd in the Battel of Beluigh Duin Bholg fought against him by Brandubh King of Leinster as this Brandubh also not long after was by his own Lagenian Subjects in the Battel of Cam-Chluana By all which you may perceive that Christian Religion wrought so little on that People towards the abatement of their mortal feuds that under it even in its first four hundred years among them their Princes were much more fatally engaged in pursuing one another with fire and sword and horrid slaughters to the utter undoing of themselves and weakning of their Country and making it an easie prey to Foreiners after than their very Pagan Predecessors had been whereof so many had extended their Dominions far and near and still enlarged and kept them for so many Ages abroad whatever in the mean time their dissentions were at home And this is one of those two things I would especially remark here 12. The other is That not even the greatest holiness of some of their very greatest and most justly celebrated Saints has been exempt from the fatality of this genius of putting their Controversies to the bloody decision of Battels tho they foresaw the death of so many thousands must needs have followed or at least be hazarded to follow Even Columb-Cille himself so religious a Monk Priest Abbot so much a man of God was nevertheless the very Author Adviser Procurer of fighting three several Battels namely those of Cuile-Dreimbne Cuile-Rathan and Cuile Feadha The first on this occasion At a Parliament held at Taragh by the Monarch Diardmuid mhic Fergusse Ceirrbheoil it happened that contrary to the most sacred and severe Laws of that priviledg'd place one Cuornane mhac Aodh had kill'd a Gentleman
even Christian blood in after-Ages spilt For one third of it was for the Conacians another to the Oirghillians or Methians and another to the Clanna Neills of the North as who had all of 'em assisted that Monarch Tuathal Teachtvar with their Forces to impose it And fourty Monarchs in a continual succession after him did even by Fire land word exact the payment of it when refused until at last Fionachtae Fleadhach the four or five and twentieth Christian Monarch did about the year of Christ 922. at the intercession of S. Moling set Leinster free by remitting and abolishing it for ever after Another example here of might be the former Fine laid about 160 years before Tuathal Teachtuar time on the same Province of Leinster by the Monarch Conaire Mor Mhac Eidrisgâ—â—oil for the death of his said Father Eidrisgâ—â—oil who was likewise Monarch of Ireland before him but after six years Reign was murder'd in Leinster at Allmhain we now call it Allon by Nuadhath Neacht who thereupon succeeded him in the Soveraignty though he held it only for half a year For at the expiration of so little a time of his Reign he also was kill'd by the foresaid Conaâ—re Mor. Now this Câ—naire having thus possess'd himself of the Soveraign power of all Ireland and whatever his end was at last reigned prosperously many years some say 30. others 70 did by his absolute authority which had no controul and for the said death of his Father Eidrisgâ—â—oile lay upon Leinster a perpetual yearly Eiriook of 300 white Cows 300 fat Hogs 300 Vessels of Ale and 300 Swords with golden handles And withal as part of their Eiriock forc'd them to quit the whole Dominion of Ossory which had a very large extent then and they were three Countreys of that name joyn'd together from Gawran to Greine Airbe near the Moore call'd Main Eile and give it up for ever to the Division or Province of Mounster yea and to confirm this surrender by invoking all the Planets to witness that they and as much as in them lay their Posterity after them should stand to it irrevocably All which taken together was peradventure a no less if not much more oppressive Eiriock than the latter impos'd by Tuathal Teachtvar Yet because I find not how far the Leinster men were or were not guilty of Eidrisgâ—eoil death I say nothing positively of this matter though Keting relates that six Provincial Kings of Mounster viz. Oilioll Olum Enghan mhae Oiliolla Fiacha Muilleathan Oilioll Flann Beg Lugha his Son and Gorck mhac Luighiodh in a succession Reigning there had this Eiriock duly paid them or at least forc'd it by arms from the Lagenians By what right other than that Conaire Mor the foresaid Monarch that impos'd it was himself a Mounster man born and therefore perhaps assign'd it to that Province I know not But this I know that Keting tells how by this time the Momonions had got such footing in Leinster that they possess'd all to Maisdion a height now better known by the Irish compound name of Mullach-Maisdon in the County of Kildare And how notwithstanding they were much about the same time that is above 200. years after the imposition of this Fine beaten out of all and their Fine to boot and Ossory recover'd from them by three several Fights as they retired from Maisdion the first at a place then call'd Truisdion now by us Athy on the River Barrow the second in Cadirthin Amhaigh Riada which after was called Laoighis by the Natives and from thence Lease by the English the third at Slighe Dala now the Beallach Mor in Ossory And how this War and three Battels against the Mounster men were manag'd by Cu-Chorb King of Leinster not only with the assistance of Eochae Fionn second Son to the Monarch Felim-Reachtvor and consequently Brother to Conn Ceadchathach likewise Monarch in his time but under the conduct of Laoighseach Ceannmhor or Lewis of the Gread Head who was Son to the famous Warrior and Champion Conall Cearnach as General of the Field under Cu-Chorb And finally how this Leinster King rewarded the said Eochae Fionn by giving him for ever the Countreys then call'd the seven Focharties and the King of Ossory in like manner rewarded Laoighseach Ceannmhor with a grant of the seven Leases besides many other Priviledges bestowed upon him by Cu-Chorb All which may be read at large in Keting For I speak of this matter but occasionally 23. After the great injustice and bloody cousequences of those Tyrannical Eiriocks what I purpos'd next to observe as most remarkable is the greatest cruelty the strangest insulting carriage and the most inhuman rigour of some other Monarchs even towards the very Provincial Kings of their own Nation when their Captives or at their mercy To conclude this point I give three instances the first of a Pagan and the other two of two Christian Monarchs First instance Upon the death of the Monarch Criomthan mhac Fiodae poyson d by his own Sister and Niall Naoighiollach's succeeding him but not yet possess'd of Taragh the Royal Mansion of the Monarchs Eochae King of Leinster pretending some title to the Monarchy anticipates him and possesses that place But Nialls Magitian or chief Druid by name Laighichin mhac Bairrchedha dissuades him on the religious or rather indeed superstitious account That none could succesfully possess Taragh who had not been created a Niadh-Naisk that is a Knight of the celebrated Chain call'd in their Language Naisk Which whoever receiv d with due solemnity about their necks were stiled Niadha-Naisk importing in Irish the same with Milites Torquati in Latin For this of the Chain was an Order and the only Order of Knighthood among ' em However Eochae who had never been receiv'd into that Order nor had that Chain about his neck being thus dissuaded and retiring presently into Leinster but in his way lodging unluckily a night in the said Magitians House it happen'd that on some provoking Language given him by his Son he kill'd him presently in the place This with all vehemency is exaggerated to Niall by the old Magician Father to him that was kill'd And Niall thereupon egg'd on partly by Eochaes late attempt on Taragh and partly by the extream incessant opportunity of Barrechedba to lay all Leinster in ashes for the death of his Son enters that Province with so vast an Army that no power of the Lagenians was able to withstand him and with such a revengeful bloody resolution too that no prayers no tears no offers of the Leinster Nobility though meeting him of purpose and humbling themselves before him could obtain any other answer from him than that he was resolved without delay to ruin their whole Province with the utmost devastation imaginable unless they did forth with deliver into his hands their King Eochae seeing this desperate condition of his people like a brave just and noble Prince considering himself to be the only Criminal chooses rather to
lose his own life than they who were innocent should theirs and therefore delivers himself freely up But the merciless Monarch not moved either with his generosity or humility commands him to be tied presently and straightly about the middle with a strong iron Chain to a huge stone like a Rock which to this day stands an end on a Field that is on the West-side of the River Slaine between Kilbride and Tullo-O-Feilimm in the County of Catherlogh both ends of the chain carried through a hole that ran from one side to another in the Stone and then fastned in the backside with an Iron-bar put into both the extream links and then nine bloody Fellows well arm d to attack him and mangle him in pieces while he had nothing at all no kind of weapon to defend himself Though God and Nature and the horror of so base a death did help him so strangely or rather miraculously indeed that seeing himself in this case for his back was to the Stone and his face to the People and hearing at last the word given to his Executioners who were yet at a little distance off he thereupon roused up his spirits so wonderfully that by violent straining of himself he tore in pieces the Chain before the Executioners were come so near as to reach him and with part of those very pieces laid about him so that some of the Villains lay dead at his feet and he escaped the rest by running away Whereby it seems that God himself in his secret Counsels had design'd so strange a preservation of Eochae at this time that he might be at another time in his own very person the punisher of that extraordinary cruel judgment given by Niall against him For so in truth it happen'd at last in this manner following Eochae as now it has been related having saved his life first by his valour and then by his heels to shun Nialls further cruelty gets himself away so soon as he could privatly over into Scotland where he is incognito receiv'd into the protection of Gabhran mhac Domhunghoirt King of Dal-Riadd there and of all the Scots And after some years more expired when this Scottish King had by commands received from that now mighty Monarch Niall with all the power he could make and spare out of Scotland pass'd over to him in France or Gaule as it then was call'd Eochae accompanies him still incognito and so conceals himself until at last he found his opportunity at the River Loyre where as you have it before he treacherously slew by the flight of an Arrow in the very mid'st of his Royal conquering Army this otherwise invincible though cruel Prince But these later passages of Eochaes preservation and revenge as neither indeed any other of the evil consequences following which were many and great are to my purpose now And therefore I proceed to the Second instance Which though it have not so much either effectual or intentional cruelty yet peradventure it shews the strangest insulting carriage of one Christian Prince a Conqueror towards another not taken in Battel or otherwise but freely coming in of himself and submitting to his mercy that ever has been delivered in writing Diarmuid mhac Ferghussa mhic Ceirrbheoil of whom I have said before that he was the Tenth Christian and now say that he was not only a Christian but perhaps of the very best Christian Monarchs of Ireland being held for many respects a very good man and very just King so just if not rather over just he was that he put his own Son Breassal to death upon the complaint of an old Religious woman of Kill-Ealchruidh That notwithstanding the immunity of that Sacred place and her own right he had forc'd from her a Cow because it was extraordinary fat or to his liking for a Feast though indeed he had first offered her seven Cows and a Bull too in compensation this very Diarmuid I say in the seventh year of his Reign and upon the like complaint of another Nun called Sinioch Chro about one single Cow taken from her having made a sharp War on Guaire mhac Colmain Provincial King of Connaght by overthrowing him in a great Battel and thereupon this Guaire who was no less held as good a King as ever Connaght had hospitable to admiration bountiful without compare so liberal to the Poor that he never denied a considerable Alms to any such person craving it in the name of Christ insomuch that when at any time he wanted money about him he strip'd himself and gave his very Cloaths off his back to help them I say this Guaire so good a man and King too after his said defeat rallying his Troops again the next day and then consulting the Chief among 'em whether he should venture another Fight or go freely of himself and submit to Diarmuids mercy and by their advice choosing the latter and therefore going presently to the Victors Camp entring his Tent and laying himself in an humble posture on his knees before him begging pardon Diarmuid nevertheless without any regard either of the inconstancy of Fortune or of Guaire s voluntary submission or penitent posture or of his regal dignity or of his renowned vertues without other ceremony or more adoe commands him to lie down on his back while himself standing up held one foot on his breast and the point of his Sword between his fore-teeth 'T is true that after this trial made he did Guaire no further hurt yet that does not wipe off the excessive pride and barbarity of the action or trial it self How ever before I pass from this instance it will not be amiss to let the Reader know that notwithstanding all the praises given by Keting to this Connaught King Guaire yet he was the very man as even Keting himself elsewhere relates it who had the Bishop Ceallach Disciple to St. Cieran of Cluan mhac Noise and eldest Son to Eoghan Bell the former King of Connacht murdered by three of that Bishops own Servants which happen'd in the Reign of the former Monarch Tuathal Maolgharbh These Villains Guaire suborn'd to commit this horrid sacriledge and this only on account or supposition of the said Bishops endeavouring to make friends for his own younger Brother to recover that Kingdom of Connaght which his Father Eoghain Bell had some time before enjoy'd and held all along till death Third instance and it is an instance I think of very inhuman rigour Aodh Ainmhiriogh another Christian Monarch of this time for he came to the Sovereignty within eight years after Diarmuids death and we have spoken of him before as who held the great Parliament for 13 months at Dromceatha was so rigorous to Scanlane Mor mhac Cinfoale King of Ossory being his Prisoner that he commanded him to be straightly bound in Prison with twelve chains of Iron loading him fed only with salt Beef allowed not a drop of any kind of liquor no not so much as of
water to drink had all this rigour effectually put in execution against him and rejected even Columb-Cille's Petition for his release though come of purpose out of Scotland to obtain it And so I have done with my Instances nor have I more to say in reference to them Only that although I cannot tell what reasons either of these two Christian Monarchs had for such extream rigour towards Christian Princes of their own Nation though their Prisoners or at their mercy nor can tell as to particulars how considerably this cruel usage did add unto or inflame the former feuds Yet this much I can tell that neither of them had other than a violent death the former murder'd by Aodh Dubh mhac Suibhne the later kill'd in Battel by Brandubh King of Leinster as I have said before upon another occasion And so by consequence I have likewise done with all my special remarks on this large subject of the manifold bloody Feuds of that Nation both in the time of their Paganism and in that of their being under the Gospel of Christ for I intended no more such heer than I have given Which is the reason that now returning once more thither where I was before I conclude at last this long Section with one general remark on that People as they were under the Gospel in the more early Ages of it among them viz. That from the killing of their foresaid Christian Monarch Aodh mhac Ainmhiriogh the last we spake of here the Fate not only of the Milesians but other Gathelians whatsoever in Ireland and the Genius of their Kings Princes Nobles and other Martial men continuing for 300 years after him the very same it had been in the Age before him carried them on perpetually from time to time fighting and slaying and murthering one another at home until the four and twentieth of those Christian Monarchs of theirs who died violent deaths by the hands of their own Irish Subjects within the first 400 years of Christian Religion generally planted among 'em by name Aodh Ollann had been slaughter'd in the Battel of Seir by Domhnal mhac Murchadha that immediatly succeeded him Nay until that in this Domhnals Reign which continued 42 years and the Reign of his Successor Niall Frassach which lasted but four besides Colman the Bishop of Laosaine murdered by Vibh Tuirtre the Battel of Beallach Cro between Criomthan mhac Euno and Fionn mhac Airb the Battel of Beallach Gawran between Mac Conchearca King of Ossory and Dunghall King of Vibh Cionsallach kill d therein the Battel of Leagea betwixt Vibh Mbruine and Vibh Mainne the Battel of Corann betwixt Cinneal Gonnail and Cionneal Eoghuin and finally the killing of Combhasgach King of Ibh-Failghe by Maolduin mhac Aodha Beanainn King of Mounster whether in Battel or out of Battel I know not had fill'd up at last brim full the measure of their domestick unnatural slaughters happening within that term of time their first four Centuries of Christianity SECT IV. National sins Very slight causes of War Cormock Ulfada's beard Muireadhagh's Tiriogh's revenge and the three Colla's War on Ferghussa Fogha King of Eumhna Sundry warnings from God to the Irish Christians but not like the judgment at Magh-Sleachta or the other by Loch Earne on their Pagan Predecessors 1. The loss of all their Dominions abroad 2. Those two Epidemical Plagues at home called the Crom-Chonnioll and Buy-Chonnioll 3. Mortality of Kine and great Famil that follow'd 4. Those three or four Inroads made into their Country by the Saxons and Brittons 5. Prodigies with another extraordinary Famin. Notwithstanding all no amendment This instanc'd in the death of the Monarch's Loinnseach Conghall Cinn Fearrghall Foghartach and Kionaoth What of Flaithiortach The flood-gates of the North set open at last to pour Vengeance on this contumacious people Yet they amidst all continue their intestine feuds Witness the Monarchs Aodh Ordnigh Conchabhar mhac Donochadh and Niall Caille A sad Interregnum The particulars of their Bondage under Turgesius The glory of their Learning and Sanctity now gone for ever Scarce delivered from that Bondage when they relapsed again far more enormously than before This also instanc'd 1. In eight of those eleven Monarchs that Reign'd in the second Danish War 2. In the Reigns of those other six following that assumed the title of Monarchs though not allow'd for such by near at least one half of the Provinces Maolseachluinn the Second by his death put an end to the real Monarchy of Ireland among the Irish and Ruaruidh O Conchabhair saw in his own days not only the pretence or shadow of it gone but the very Being of this Nation any more a free People on Earth 24. SUch were the National provocations of Heaven peculiar to that People hitherto i. e. for two and twenty hundred years besides what we shall yet see did happen after above any other Nation of the whole Earth Immortal Feuds of death tyrannical oppressions of the Subject cruelty as well of justice as revenge Treason Conspiracies Rebellions Murders even of their Sovereigns effusion of human blood like water And this without pity without remorse without any cause sometimes but very slight and sometimes vain and ridiculous An arbitration between two religious Monks in a difference deciding against one of them must engage Families and Countrys in Arms to fight it out in Battel and cut one another in pieces A known Murtherer proscrib'd as unpardouable by their most sacred Laws and therefore justly put to death by the Monarch must nevertheless on pretence of his being seiz'd upon after he had been received into the protection of an Abbot be a just cause of rebelling and fighting that very Monarch and killing his whole Army to boot Nay one single Beast a Cow at most but very little worth taken away I know not how from the owner was the only cause of a great Battel fought between the same Monarch and the Provincial King of Connaught and a Battel wherein most of the Gentry of that Province and Mounster too were kill'd As if neither the Assailant nor Defendant tho Christian Kings both could find any other way to satisfie the poor Woman that was rob'd of that Cow or rather indeed as if they had sported so with the lives not only of their Subjects but of their Friends I say nothing of the Candle-snuff or of its firing the Monarch Cormack Vlfada's beard at an entertainment given him in Maig-Breag by Giolla King of Vlster who shuffing a Candle instead of throwing it aside threw it whether by chance or of purpose into Cormack's long beard which presently catch'd and burn'd up to his tresses Only I say That however this ridiculous matter happen'd or pass'd at that time it cost Vlster dear long after Cormack's death That Muireadhach Tiriogh the great Grand-child of this Cormack and sixth King of Ireland after him took it for a pretence to pour an Army of one and twenty thousand men under the command
so small a tract of time and circumstances of Ireland I think he would not judge amiss that took it for one of the very last warnings from Heaven to this Nation that the Anger of God was now on the point of overcoming all his patience and his rage and fury at hand since nothing else would do * And indeed it ought the rather to be taken so because that much contrary to Ketings relation so good an Author as Tigernacus many hundred years before his time has told us that the shower of Blood fell in the Reign of this Niall and that the three showers fallen at his Birth were one of Honey one of Silver and one of Wheat Certainly the sequel did soon evince it to have been so 26. For not long after that Prodigious Thunder and Lightning which hapned in the Reign of Aodh Ordnigh the patience of God being wearied and his justice inrag'd by the unreclaimable contumacy of that People he call'd out of their Northern Enclosures his exterminating Angels the Heathen Danes Norvegians and other Easternlings and in the same Reign of Aodh Ordnigh pour'd them in on Ireland to execute on the Christian Irish those very heaviest of Judgments that either such former Warnings would have prevented or such later Prodigies had predicted or that any People in the World for so many years after did suffer Except only those if any such have been whom God design'd to extinguish totally root and branch or the incredulous Jews that must be still preserv'd though still dispers'd among all Nations to be a living Monument of Gods Vengeance on the unpardonable sin of their Ancestors But the sin of the Irish how heinous soever was not of that kind nor was it the design of God to extinguish or extirpate them yet And yet this first War of the Danes upon them besides its having fully paid all their old scores to God that is abundantly punish'd them for above 40 years at least in the very same methods they had offended him and therefore covered all their Provinces with blood and ashes and horrors of death without any discrimination of People or Professions or Parties it reduced them at last to a bondage and slavery far surpassing the Egyptian Circassian or any other I have read of any where on earth For to pass over the life worse than death that those of their Church-men that escaped the Sword were forc'd unto and in particular how Foranan with a few more of the Clergy of Ardmagh * Gracianus Lucius p. 328. relates this matter otherwise He says that Turgesius having taken the City of Ardmagh in the year 843. or 848. made Foranan and all the Clergy and Religious men and all the rest of the Students too of that University Prisoners and Ship'd them all for Limmeric which his People held in their possession at that time What became of them there or any where else after that time we have no account having fled so far as Cashel first and together with the Archbishop of that See and his Clergy too thence again to the horrible habitation of Bogs Woods Rocks and Subterranean Caves about or not far off Jomlaigh Jobhair must have been content to hide themselves there and even to luâ—k for several years like wild Beasts But I say to pass over this condition of their Church-men only wherever any of them did scape the Sword who cannot but be astonisht at the particulars of their bondage in general These particulars I have omitted before and therefore give them now for better satisfaction to the Reader 1. Every Canthred or Division of ground containing one of our Baronies had a Danish King every Tuath or Seigniory a Chieftain every Church a Lay-Danish Heathen Abbot every Town a Serjeant every House a Souldier Cess'd the Irish call'd him a Sairioch or Buanna all of 'em Danes and each commanding absolutely within his own Precinct only subordinate respectively to the higher till they came to the Supream who was Turgesius himself 2. The very Buanna did so command the House wherein he was Cess'd that not so much as an Egg or cup of Milk could be disposed of till he had been serv'd though in the mean time a Sucking Babe did perish for want of it And if his Host had but one Cow in the World he must have kill'd her upon demand to give him flesh Or failing therein or in any other thing demanded of him he was presently taken and lead away Prisoner to the next Danish Rath where he was sure to be detain'd in Fetters till he had fully satisfied all the Buanna ' s demands either of Victuals Money or any thing else whatever 3. Every House-keeper must have yearly paid into the Treasury an ounce of Gold the Irish call'd it Vinghe Oir and failing have his Nose cut off which made them call this kind of Tax Nose-rent 4. Neither Lord nor Lady much less an inferior person suffer'd to wear new Cloaths but only the Cast-cloaths of the Danes 5. None to keep School or be taught any kind of Learning not even in their own Houses 6. None to enter any Monastery Church or Chappel for they were all possess'd by the Danes 7. None to have either Clergy-man or any other Learned man Philosopher Poet Lawyer or other Artist whom they call Sruithe 8. None suffer'd to have any kind of Book but all Books the Danes could light upon either burn'd or taken away by them 9. Neither Lords nor Princes nor even Kings Daughters permitted to embroider in Gold or Silver or so much as work in any kind of Silk 10. Nor even Kings Sons to learn or use any feats of activity 11. None of what quality soever permitted to give or take any kind of entertainment not even from or with his private Familiars but all of 'em must e'â— have contented themselves with the Leavings of the Danes I say nothing of that other barbarous Imposition forc'd on every Bridâ— at her first Marriage to lye the first night with the Danish Captain of the Precinct before she had Bedded her Husband if the Captain desired it but if he did not or dislik'd her in either case to pay him a certain Tax in Money How much this Money was I cannot say Tho I have known a custom derived thence to have been continued in my own time by a Christian Landlord of English extraction one Mr. Scurlog who was commonly call'd Scurlog the Poet a Gentleman of two or three hundred a year in the County of Wexford To whom every Maid living upon his Land when she was Married was bound to pay and accordingly did pay half a Crown English money if he did not remit it However I pass over that Heathen Danish Original of this Un-christian custom because I find nothing of it in Doctor Keting Those other manifold particulars of the Irish bondage undoubtedly true besides all their riches lost and all their best blood spill'd and all their Provinces and Countries laid
of Captives And so could one Conghallach some time after this but in the same Monarch's Reign make it either his interest or his revenge to murder that very same Connaght King Besides it was against this Monarch Domhnal mhac Muirchiortac that another Domhnal the Son of Conghallach had the prefidious hard unnatural heart to joyn with the Danes of Dublin and fight him in the great Battel which the Irish call in their Language Cath Chille Monae wherein Ardghall mhac Madagain King of Oirghillac and many other illustrious persons of the Monarch s side were lost although himself after this and many other Battels fought in his Reign had the good luck to die a natural death at Ardmagh Maolseachluinn the II. who appears next for 20 years as Monarch on the stage of Ireland notwithstanding that he had known very well how one Gluneran had lately assum'd the Title of King of the Danes in Ireland that he had fought them victoriously in the Battle of Taragh that he had from thence directly march'd to Dublin forc'd it enter'd it enrich'd himself with all the spoils of that City and that he could not but see work enough remaining still among so many several sorts of Enemies Danes Normans Easterlings and their Irish Confederates yet he found leasure and pick'd some quarrel to march his Army to Mounster against Dal-Gheass and prey and spoil them too albeit they were the bravest Warriours there against the common Enemy In his Reign the three sons of Gearbheoill mhac Lorcain sacrilegiously spoil'd the Sanctuary of Glean-da-Logh For which impiety they were all three kill'd the very next following night And in his Reign Muirchiortach va Conghalla heading or at least assisting the Danes of Dublin plunder'd the Sanctuary of Domhnach-Padruig though to all their cost for they all every one died within a month after this wickedness committed by them Now Brien mhac Kinede surnam'd Boraimh succeeding his murder'd Brother in the Kingdom of Mounster which happen'd in the fourth year of the Monarch Conghallach mhic Mhaolmhithe after he had in the second year of his reign over that Province only and in revenge of his foresaid Brother's most barbarous death challeng'd Maolmodh mhac Brain King of Eonachta to a set Battel sought it accordingly at Bealach Leachta kill'd the greater part of Mac Brains Army and taken all the rest prisoners an Army consisting of a numerous Body of Irish and 1500 Danes that join'd them and when this Battel was over upon intelligence brought him that during his diversion by it Domhnal O Faolan King of the Desies over-ran the greatest part of Mounster preying and spoiling all before him after Brien hereupon had immediately march'd towards him overtaken him fought him at a place called Fane mhich Conrach routed him pursued him kill'd him in his flight and together with him the most part of the Danes of Waterford that join'd with him then forc'd that Town plunder'd it burn'd it and enrich'd his Army the brave Dal-Gheass with the spoils of it and preys of all the parts about it after that within the 8th year of his reign over Mounster he had brought the whole Division of Leathmogh to acknowledg his Sovereignty with perfect obedience and that nevertheless upon the death of Domhnal Claon King of Leinster which soon follow'd that Province withdrawing their obedience and joyning anew with the Danes he had with the whole power of Mounster enter'd it and given both the Leinster-men and their Danish Confederats join'd together the memorable overthrow at Gleannmhama killing 4000 of them in that place I say that after all these and many other bloudy Fights against the Danes only fought by him during his Reign over the Provinces of Mounster and Leath-Mogh under the successive Reigns of three Monarchs or Kings of Ireland Conghallach mhac Mhaolmhthe Domhnal mhac Mairchiortae and Maolseachluinn the Second yet when he was chosen by the far greater part of Ireland in the 23d year of this Maolseachluinn to be Monarch he was nevertheless necessitated to make that choice good and establish himself by fighting on still against some other Irish Lords that opposed him till he had subdued all at last by main force and dint of Sword For to this end it was That with the flower of his Army he march'd to Cineall Laigthagh prey'd it spoil'd it and brought thence 300 Hostages That in like manner he enter'd the Countrey call'd Magh Coruinn seiz'd there Maolruanuidh King of Cineal Gonuill and brought him prisoner along with himself to Ceann Chorah in Tuath Mhumhan In fine That Leinster was wholly over-run and burn'd by him even to the Valley of Gleann-da-Logh and from thence again cross to Cill-Mhuighnionn we call it now Killmainam within a small English mile of the walls of Dublin Westward And yet that also may be true which Keting here observes viz. that Brien was mightily moved to this destruction of Leinster because they were Leinster-men that join'd with the Danes in â—ansacking spoiling and leading away a great number of Cap tives from the Sanctuary of Termon Feichin in Meath I say nothing more of any part of those 21 Battels in all fought as you have elsewhere seen by this Brian Boraimh a great part of them while he was only King of Mounster and the rest after he was Monarch only that in 'em all taking one with another especially counting among 'em as I should the greatest last Battel of them which was that of Clantarff I doubt not there was much more Irish bloud spilt by the Irish themselves on both sides than there was of Danish or by the Danes on either Besides I observe it as worthy of special remark here That immediately after this Battel of Clantarff had been over and the Victorious Army of Brian Boraimh had buried their dead especially this Monarch himself and Murchoe the Prince his oldest Son with the rest of greatest quality of their side that were lost in the Battel and interr'd 'em all at Cill-mhuinionn after those funeral rites perform'd by the whole Army before they separated after the Conacians had then parted and return'd the shortest way home to their own Countrey of Connaght and the Momonians likewise in one body taking another as the nearest way to Mounster these being in all but 4000 men and marching through an Enemies Country were no sooner come to Mullach Mastion about some 20 miles from Dublin in their way to Mounster than those of them who were of West-Mounster and they were three parts of the whole i. e. 3000 men withdrew themselves mutinously apart from the rest who were only a thousand North Mounster men but Dal-Gheass the survivors of those other brave Dal Gheass their Companions that with the loss of their own lives made all their Army Victorious That the Westmounster men being so withdrawn a little distance of ground immediatey sent defiance to Donochadh the Leader till then of both parties as being one of the sons of Brien Boraimh and heading
hopes and Leagues together of those that did it Though after all the goodness of God put off a little further still that heaviest of his judgments on the Nation in general which they whether by relapsing again the third time into their accursed Feuds or whether by continuing in 'em at all times and particularly at this of their last delivery from all forein Enemies brought on themselves not only at last but ere very long And yet I must confess it was no sooner than 127 years more were over For so long still even after the second Danish War of a hundred and fifty years continuance had been wholly ended by the destruction of all their Northern and Eastern Invaders whatsoever did the wonderful mercy of God to them expect their amendment certainly a longer period of time than he expected the repentance of the old World when he had warn'd them to it by the building of the Ark. At present he was content only to add to the former losses of this Nation that which really was the last disposition to that heaviest doom expecting them as it was indeed the very last symptom of their dying Commonwealth He removed their Candlestick that is he subverted their ancient Monarchical Government The power and majesty of which as it had been for so many long Ages their only firm prop so it was the only National glory they had left after the destruction made by 200 years continual War with Foreiners of all whatsoever else had been great or illustrious in their Nation But this is now departed like all the rest For after this Maolseachluinn the II. had by death ended his second Reign of nine years continuance there was never more in Ireland any Monarch truly such never any at all I mean universally either obey'd or acknowledg'd or accounted such by the Irish in general at least till Henry the II. nay I might say till James I. of glorious memory reign'd over ' em Yet because I must confess there have been six more in Title and pretension such that succeeded this Maolseachluinn in their several periods of time for a hundred and twenty seven years in all and because the later part of my Instances are delivered in their Reigns I give them also now in ororder 29. Donochadh mhac Brien Boraimh succeeded next to Malseachluinn II. for two and fifty years says Keting and was acknowledg'd by Leath Mogh and the greater part of Ireland In his reign Art Cuilioch O Ruairck King of Breithfne violated spoil'd plunder'd the Sanctuary of Cluain Fearta Breanuinn but on the same day after he had committed this horrible sacrilegious villany was met and fought and defeated by the Monarch In his reign besides the sacking of Waterford by Diarmuid Mhaoil-na-mbho King of Leinster which I pass over because they were at least most of them were Danes that lived there at that time the other famed Sanctuary of Cluan mhic-Noise was in the like impious manner spoil'd by those Irish called the Comhacnuibh though ere long severely punish'd says Keting by a general mortality sweeping both themselves and their Cattel away In his reign Carthach mhae Saoirbhreathaigh King of Eoghanachta Casshell and a great many other Gentlemen of Note were burn'd together in a Thatch-house by Mac Longhargain mhac Dunn Chuan And after all this Monarch himself Dononachadh mhac Brian Boraimh was not only depriv'd of his Kingdom but glad to save his life by flying away and going a poor Pilgrim to Rome where he died in St. Stephen's Abbey Which in short being the whole account we find in Keting of what happen'd to our purpose here in the long reign of this Dononachadh what follows now is out of the Gratianus Lucius p. 81. Author of Cambrensis Euersus For this accurate Writer tho he delivers many excellent things of this Donogh yet he tells us That he was an Usurper on the rights of his elder Brother Teadhg the undoubted Heir of the Crown say the Annals of Innis-Faile and put him into the hands of those Ely-O-Carrol-Men who treacherously murder'd him That in the year 1027. which was the next after Maolseachluinn's death he prey'd all Meath Fingall Leinster Ossory and camp'd for two days near the Walls of Dublin without any opposition That An. 1036. with only one Vessel he fought sunk and took 14 Breithfne Ships and sufficiently reveng'd on 'em their plundering of Cluan Feart That in the year 1050 the Ossorians and Lagenians rebelling he broke again their Stubbornness and in the year 1060. having enter ed Connaght with a good Army he compell'd Ruadhruigh the King of that Proviuce to give him Hostages So much indeed Gratianus Lucius tells us consequently in the first place of this Donochadh mhic Brien Boraimhe But then going on he relates in the next of Diarmuid mhic Donochadh surnam'd Maol-na-Moa King of Leinster Nephew to this very Donochadh O Brian the Mounster King by Dearbhrogil his Daughter That he taking into his care and espousing against this Usurping Uncle the quarrel of young Toirrghiallach who was the Son and Heir of the murdered Teidhg and consequently his own Cousin German to the end this injured youth might be restored to his right made sharp War on the said Uncle Keting's pretended Monarch of Ireland That to the end he begun with Waterford in the year 1037. took sack'd and burnt it In this year 1048. he set upon Glanuson turn'd it to ashes kill'd a hundred of its defenders and brought away 400 more Captives In the same year he wasted all the Desies and return'd with an infinite number of their Cattel and very many Prisoners In the year 1058. he burnt Limmerick plunder'd Inis-Ceath fought Donochadh at the Mountain Croth and routed his whole Army In the year 1061. he made a miserable slaughter of the Momonians at Cuamchoill wasted their Countrey and put all both Houses Stacks and standing Corn into a light flame of fire Anno 1063. he burnt Limmerick the second time forc'd the Momonians to give him Hostages out of all parts of their Countrey nay soon after upon a new rebellion or insurrection of theirs plagued them again and compell'd 'em to new submissions and Hostages which Hostages he delivered all every one to the foresaid Toirrghiallach The next year which was 1064. he beat Donochadh out of all his Kingdom made him fly beyond Seas plac'd Tourrghiallach in his Throne at least of Mounster and in the following 1065. upon intelligence of Donochadh's son Murchadh s setting up for himself he march'd the last time into Mounster suppressed that Insurrection chas'd Murchadh into Connaght receiv'd the third time Hostages from all Mounster and as he had done before put them into the hands of Tourrghiallach now King after his Uncle Moreover this Author writes of the same Diarmuid King of Leinster that besides his pulling down and setting up so whom he pleased in that Province of Mounster he made Connaght also yield having marcht into it with a smart Army harrass'd
it and reduced Aodh O Conchabhar the King of it to such streights that in the year 1061. he was e'en forc'd at last to buy his peace by coming to his House in Leinster and submitting to his pleasure That before this in the year 1048. at three several times he wasted Meath so cruelly so without any discrimination or distinction made 'twixt sacred and profane that he destroy'd with fire even most of the very Churches there and in the year 1053. entring it the fourth time he led away both a very great number of Captives and innumerable preys That for the Danes or Easterlings of Dublin who it seems stood upon terms of Contest with him he in the year 1052. plagued them so mightily by burning not only Fingall but all other Territories round about them on every side and then fighting and worsting and slaughtering a great number of them hard by their own Walls that they were glad at last to proclaim him their King also and wholly submit to his will That notwithstanding all his former Victories he was in the year of Christ 1072 on the 17th of February being Tuesday fought defeated kill'd in the Battel of Odhbhen by Conchabhar O Maolseachluinn King of Meath And lastly this Author tells us That among all the Irish Antiquaries only Keting places Donochadh O Brien only Sir James Ware Diarmuid mhac Mhaoil-na-Moa in the Catalogue of Irish Monarchs So that all the rest of the Irish Writers it seems account neither of them and consequently none at all in their days to have been King of Ireland but hold a meer Interregnum then of the Monarchy But be it so or no it matters not to my purpose being the Instances brought all along in that very long Reign of Donochadh at least over Mounster are true whether Donochadh or Diarmuid or any other Irish Prince in their time was more than a Provincial King or less than a Monarch of the whole Island Toirrghiallach mhae Teidhg mhic Brien Boraimb that is in our Language Terence the Son of Teig the Son of Brien Boraimh is now Successor to Donachadh as in the Kingdom of Mounster and Leath mogh so in the Title of Monarch says Keting Nor do I find that any other opposed this Title of his But one reason hereof might be his ruling peaceably troubling no man nor forcing any thing from either Province or man And therefore they took no exception against the Title whether assum'd by himself or given him by others during his short Reign which was but of twelve years only as most Antiquaries say though some extend it to 22 years the occasion of their difference being that the former count the beginning of his Reign from the death of Diarmuid Mhaoil-na-moa in the Battel of Odhbhen the later take it from the death of Donochadh O Brien at Rome or at least from his deposition and flight However this is unanimously confess'd that as he lived quietly for his own part during his Reign so he died naturally in the 77 year of his Age being the year of Christ 1086. But so did not under his Reign Conchabhor O Maolseachluinn King of Meath For this but lately Victorious Prince was treacherously murthered by his own Nephew Murcho ' mhac Floinn and his head after burial of it at Cluain-mhac-Noise carried to the Monarch then residing at Coann-Chora Who desired to see it because he bore this Methian King no good will for having kill'd though in Battel his dear Cousin his Patron his supporter and Protector Diarmuid mhac Donochadh surnamed Maol-na-moa King of Leinster as we have seen before But his curiosity cost him dear For the head being brought him on good Friday as he was viewing it a little Mouse slipt out of it into his Bosom which so affrighted him especially when he understood how next Sunday the same head was miraculously return'd back to Cluain-mhac-Noise with a gold Ring upon it that he fell presently into a languishing Disease that held him after in cruel pain for several years and never was perfectly over till he died So writes the Author of Cambrensis Euersus And now Muirchiortach mhac Toirrghialbhaigh mhac Teaidhg the great Grandchild of Brien Boraimh and Son to the foresaid Toirrgheallach succeeded his Father in the Sovereignty at least of Mounster Leath Mogh and greater part of Ireland for 20 years says Keting In which Reign though he record nothing proper to our purpose in this place and somewhat extraordinary that very same is yet Gratianus Lucius has enough This Author page 82. and 84. gives a very particular account of the great combustions in it He tells us how upon the death of Toirrghiallach O Brien the last Monarch not only this Muirchiortach his Son but Domhnall the Son of Ardghar the Son of Lochlen King of Tir-Conel contended to some purpose for the Sovereignty of Ireland How the former by fight and spoil subdued the Lagenians and the later in the same manner the Methians How Dombnal had in the year 1088. got the start of Muirchiortach by forcing the King and Kingdom of Connaght to give him Hostages for their future fidelity and then immediatly enter'd Mounster burnt Limmerick demolish'd Ceann-Chora the chief Royal Seat ever since Brien Boraimh's time wasted the whole Countrey thereabouts with Fire and Sword and brought away thence besides an infinite number of Horses and all sorts of Cattel vast Treasures of Gold Silver and Plate How on the other side Muirchiortach besides forcing Dublin three several times banishing Godred the Danish King being there himself proclaim'd King at each time marcht into Vlster with the Forces of Mounster Connaght Leinster and Meath harrass'd it most wofully burnt the Royal Seat of Domhnall there and was thus reveng'd not once but often on that â—rovince marching into it every time with main Forces and scouring all the Coasts of the whole Island with a very numerous well provided Navy How Domhnall had withal so many rebellions of his own Subjects against himself in the very North nay within Tircâ—nnel it self that having as often overcome them all he put out the eyes of some of their petty Kings and others to death How after all the foresaid Muirchiortach King of Cashel or which is here the same thing of Mounster and together with him Flann O Maolseachluinn King of Meath and Ruidhruigh O Conchabhar King of Connaght found themselves necessitated not only to give Domhnall a meeting but even to deliver him Hostages in the year of Christ 1090. How in the year 1104. Domhnal turn'd to ashes that Countrey in Meath called then Ibh Laoghaire and in the year 1112 broke into Fingall prey'd it plunder'd it all over and carried away thence besides their Cattel a very great deal of costly Rayments magnam boum pretiosissimarumque vestium vim illinc retulit says my Author How after so many devastations of the poor Countrey and much blood spilt betwixt these two Contenders and after frequent annual Cessations between 'em
however he continued in the whole his Reign over Connaght 50 years and according to all the Irish Annals and Historians over Ireland 20. Though says Gratianus according to a more exact severe discussion of the truth if the date of his Monarchy be taken from the death of his Predecessor Mairchiortach O Brien to his own he must have reigned over Ireland 34 years in all or at least 28 if it be continued only till the foresaid Hostages were forc'd from him But I range again For as well this calculation of his years or Reign as his religious preparation for death and his burial and rest close by the high Altar of St. Cieran in the Cathedral Church of Cluan-mhac-Noise is forein to my purpose here And therefore I return again Muirchiortach commonly call'd Mac Loghlenn but immediate Son to Niall and by him Nephew to that Domhnal whom we have so lately seen to have so long contended for the Sovereignty of Ireland and therefore stilâ—d by Colganus King of Ireland upon the death of Toirghiallach mor O Conchabhar assumes that Title of the Irish Monarchy which he had so venturously and early prepar'd for while Toirrghiallach was yet alive and in health Of him at least of any warlike action either of his or indeed of any others in his Reign tho Keting has not a word save only those very few that on an other occasion I have given before page 73. viz. that Mairchiortach mhac Neill the Monarch that succeeded Toirghiallach mor O Conchabhar was in the 18th year of his Reign kill'd by Fearnibh Fearrmhaighe and O Brian yet the diligence and accurateness of Gratianus Lucius makes abundant compensation For this Author p. 86. says of the present Muirchiartach first in general That his humour having been wholly Martial and his fortune answerable he over-run all the Provinces of Ireland in a continual course of Victories obtained partly by Battels and partly by the sole terrour of his Name That he subdued them all and forced them every one to give him Hostages That therefore at least He without any contradiction may be admitted next after Maolseachluinn II. for the undoubted King of all Ireland And then after letting us know that this Prince's great Vertues were much eclipsed by the Precipitancy of his anger and that whom prosperity had rais'd to such a heighth adversity at last did throw down as low even to the very earth he particularly recounts how Eochadh King of Vlster not only refus'd to pay any more Tribute or other dues to him but even without any other provocation made War upon him That he being thereupon enraged enters the Territories of Eochadh routs his Forces burns his Lands takes his Vassals and puts them in Fetters Eochadh himself by good luck escaping That after this yea notwithstanding a reconciliation made between them by the intercession and upon the Engagement of the Primat of Ardmagh and Donochadh King of Oirghllae for performance of Covenants on both sides and Eochadh's consequential pardon and reception to grace which to assure him Muirchiortach took the most solemn Oath he could for such it was accounted then in that Kingdom on the Staff of Jesus what this was S. Bernard tells in the Life of Malachias yet ere long whether out of the former cause or any other new one enraging him he had Eochadh's eyes pull'd out of his head and three of his Nobles duos Olingsios Cathasachi O Flahry nepotem most cruelly put to death without any regard to the engagement of the Sureties And to conclude that Donochadh O Cearrbhaoil the foresaid King of Oirghillae one of the Sureties taking to heart so heinous a breach of Faith Oath Covenants and assurance given by himself and therefore resolving to be reveng'd draws to his association the People of Vibhruinne and Comhaicne marches with an Army of 9000 men into Cineal-Eoghain otherwise call'd by them Tir-Eoghain but by us Tir-oen where the Monarch then resided surprizes him unprovided fights the few tumultuary Forces led forth by him routs them and kills him in that Field a man ever before Victorious in all his Encounters whatsoever Yet such was his end in the 10th of his reign Anno Christi 1166 says Gratianus Lucius though Keting says he was kill'd in the eighteenth of his Reign by Fearrnibh Fearrmhaighe and O Brien as I have noted before But as their difference in computing the years of the Reign is not material the one beginning it when this Muirchiortach mhac Neill had forc'd his predecessor Toirrghiallach mor O Conchabhar to give him Hostages and the other when Toirrghiallach died so neither is it material to know whether any such persons call'd Fearrnibh Fearrmhaighe and O Brien were or were not in that Battel to kill him What is to our present purpose you have it very particularly delivered by the one and not gainsaid by the other And yet upon reflection I must confess I find that I have not delivered all the material things written by Gratianus Lucius in this Reign of Muirchiortach mhac Neill He further writes page 87. that in the Year 1156. even the very first year of it presently after Toirrghiallach mor O Conchabhar's death his Son and Heir and King of Connaght Ruidhruigh O Conchabhar did receive twelve Hostages from Muirchiortach O Brien even that very Mounster King so lately before deprived and banish'd to Tir-Eoghain by the said Toirrghiallach Father to this Ruidhruigh as we have seen already That in the Year 1157. he rush'd into Muirchiortach mhac Neill the Monarch's own peculiar Countrey Tir-Eoghain burnt the fruitful Peninsula there call'd Inis-Eoghain destroy'd all the delicate Gardens Orchards Plantations wasted the whole Region to Cianachty That after this he turn'd his Arms on Mounster Where having first setled the foresaid Muirchiortach O Brien in possession of North Mounster he forc'd Hostages from Diarmuid mhac Cormuic mhic Cartha King of South Mounster to remain with him till Muirchiortach mhac Neill the Monarch did relieve the said Diarmuid That Anno 1158. he enter'd Leinster in like hostile manner with great Force marcht through it to Leiglin being encamp'd there had Hostages brought him from Ossory and Luighis and in the close of all loaded Mac Craih O Morrdha the little King of Luighis with Irons That in the next place he made Inroads into Teabhan driving away thence from the Kerins an exceeding great prey of Cows and with his Fleet afflicted all the Coasts of Tir-Eoghain mightily That in the Year 1161. falling violently on Meath he both compelled the Countreys call'd Vibh Falain and Vibh Faoilghe to give him pledges and then plac'd Governours in them viz. Faolan O Faoelain in the one and Mlaghlin O Conchabhair in the other That after all he made his Conditions of peace with the Monarch deliver'd him four Hostages receiv'd from him in gift the entire Province of Connaght with the one half of Meath and from Diarmuid O Maolseachluinn a hundred ounces of Gold for that
and upon what occasion you may peradventure know in the next Section At present it may suffice to know they were much like the Olympick Games of Greece But whatever this Aonach of Tailteann as the Irish call it be thought to have been Lucius proceeds and tells us that in the same Year also Muirchiortach O Brien King of North mounster was murder'd by the South mounster men That the Monarch made his Brother Domhnal O Brien King to succeed him put him in full possession fined the Desmonians in 3120 Beeves for killing his Brother and made them effectually pay this Fine The same year likewise he fined the Methians in 800 Beeves and the men of Dealfna heavily for the killing of O Finolan one of their Lords In the Year 1169. Domhnal Breagach for being Author of Diarmuid the Prince of Meath's death he punish'd with the loss of that Estate which the said Domhnal by so wicked an Act of murder aim'd to inherit But this Monarch did confiscate it so as he reserv'd West-meath to himself and the Conacians bestowing at the same time Eastmeath on the foresaid Tighernan O Ruairk and his people of Breithfne Anno 1175. Domhnal O Brien King of North-mounster pull'd out the eyes both of Diarmuid mhic Teaidhg and Mahoom mhic Toirrgiallaidgh vihh Bhrian yea and murder'd the Son of Conchabhar O Brien of Corcumruadh To punish this Tyranny Rotherick or Roderick for so the English Writers name this Ruadhruigh the present Monarch enters Tomond makes Domhnal fly and because he could not find him lays his whole Countrey waste In the same Year 1175. he defeated in Ormund the Irish call it Ir-mhoun that is East Mounster both the Welsh English and Irish Troops led by Strougbow kill'd 1700 of them in the place and forc'd that Earl how valiant and fortunate soever till then to give over his present design and retire in great disorder to Watenford After this but yet in the same Year still Ruadhruigh considering not only the defection of many of the Princes from him but their variance among themselves and which was most dangerous of all his own Sons turn'd unruly and rebellious and therefore considering also that himself alone was not able any longer to bear up against so many Enemies both Domestick and Foreign Irish and Brittish well nigh already environing him round he now at last descends to Capitulations of Peaco with the King of England The sum of them says Lucius the Irish Annals deliver in words importing mostly this sense that Cathal alias Catholicus O Dubhay Archbishop of Tuam return'd out of England with the Peace concluded by him there with Henry II. on these conditions viz. That Rotherick should enjoy still the authority and Title of King over the Irish and the Provincial Kings their respective dignities and power but with their former dependance on and subjection to him the said Ruadruigh O. Rotherick But whatever those Capitulations were which you may see more particularly and fully in Roger Hoveden ad An. 1175. pag. 312. the troubles of Ruadhruidh were but little abated by them In the Year 1177. one of his own Sons by name Murchadh out of some unreasonable pique turn'd most unnaturally Traytor to him sided with the common Enemy and was the very Guide to Miles Cogan and his English Troops in their entring Connaght or at least from their coming to Roscommon till they were soon after fought and beat and forc'd back out of that whole Province by Ruaruidh himself Who thereupon seiz'd the said Murchadh and though his own Son put out his eyes for his rebellious unnatural Treachery and justly enough without any peradventure as at the same time for some other heinous transgression he confin'd prisoner to the small Island in Loch-Cuam his own other yea his eldest Son Conchabhar whom notwithstanding O Flatherty and other Favourers of this young Prince rescued by plain force within a twelve-month from that restraint and set at liberty To conclude partly the forein Invaders but chiefly his own Children brought this last Irish Monarch's hoary hairs with grief to the Grave Even his own eldest Son the foresaid Conchabhar in the year 1186. first depriv'd him of his very Kingdom of Connaght then by sundry other indignities forc'd him to fly away to Mounster and last of all after he had been recall'd by the Connaght Nobility compell'd him again to seek refuge in Tir-Chonaill And here it was that this now afflicted man indeed though in his youth and manly years too for some time the Darling of Fortune found his long wish'd-for death among the Chanon Regulars in the Year of Christ 1198. having first by habit and profession made himself a member of that Religious Order He continued seventeen years possess'd at least in part and in Title of his Monarchy over the Irish For so many years their Antiquaries allow his Reign over Ireland though from the beginning of it to his death were efflux'd full two and forty years Thus you have in substance the account and a very particular full one indeed it is given by Gratianus Lucius of this very last Milesian Monarch and his Reign over Ireland Wherein if I be not extreamly mistaken you have withal though among other matters which I have for some use that may be made of them hereafter mentioned Instances enough answerable both in quality and number to those alledged before out of any of the former Reigns of Irish Monarchs since Maolseachluinn II. for demonstrating what I intended by them all Certainly these and those jointly taken are sufficient demonstrations that the Monarchs Princes and other great ones of that Nation receiv'd no correction from the great Hand that from above scourg'd them so grievously so often and so long Nor can it be denied that the later part of the same Instances I mean that large part of them which hap'ned between Maolseachluinn II. Reign and Ruadhruigh O Conchabhair's death are most evident convictions of the little nay the evil use in order to any reformation of their fatal Feuds they made of the hundred and thirty years freedom from foreign Enemies after the last expulsion or subjection of the Danes though a large term of time questionless allow'd them by the extraordinary mercy of God to consider at least then more wisely of the matter and not only relent from their former unnatural courses of persecuting and spoiling and killing and murdering one another but heartily repent what themselves and their Parents and their Grandsires had done in that kind exasperating him continually to hasten on 'em that final doom of theirs which he had so long suspended Neither is it any further to be doubted that both the former and later part equally of the same Instances are sufficient proofs that those passages of Jeremy the Prophet which I have given before page 153. however in his time and as spoken by him describing only the stubbornness of his own Jewish Countrymen might nevertheless be most justly applied by Keting the
the Cattel throughout all parts and Provinces wandred safely in the Fields without any Keeper Besides the magnificent Hospitality of this Monarch is wonderfully celebrated in that Nation Add hereunto this farther happiness of his Reign That in it the weather was so mild from mid-harvest to mid-spring that both Kine and Sheep and other Beasts lay continually abroad in the open air without feeling one sharp breath of wind the Sea covered the very shores at Imbhercholptha then so called after Droichid ath by us now corruptly Droghedae or Tredath with a most prodigious ejection of all sorts of Fish and the fruit-bearing Trees were so laden that they hung down their branches to the very earth They had their CIV Monarch Conn surnamed Ceadchatach whose Reign notwithstanding that prodigious number of Battels sought by him as we have seen before was so wonderfully abounding in all earthly blessings throughout Ireland that when the Writers of after-Ages were minded to express any time of extraordinary abundance or plenty they said it was the Reign of Conn Ceadchatach or Conair Mor return'd again on Earth Now doubtless it could not be otherwise than morally impossible that considering all his Battels there should be so much plenty in every part of the Kingdom had not he as well as Conair Mor before him been as good a Governour as he was a great Warrior And yet on this occasion let me tell you that neither the one nor other excellency could save him from being murther'd Whereof because of the extraordinary contrivance and manner of it I take that notice here which I find in Gratianus Lucius though otherwise it may seem forein to this place and Keting has not a syllable how or where or whether at all this Monarch died either of a natural or violent death But thus in short it happen'd In the 35th year of his Reign which was of Christ 157. being retired without Guards or much attendance at a place then called Tuaihamâ—rois the King of Vlster by name Tibraid Tirigh employed 50 young striplings clad like Maiden Ladies to dispatch him and they did it says Lucius For it is only to him we are beholden as for many other particulars so for this very singular one indeed And if I may conjecture it was or at least might well be thought the pattern whence Maolseachluinn I. when he was yet but King of Meath derived his own stratagem whereby he destroyed the Danish Tyrant Turghesius They had their IVC Monarch Fearrhadhach Fachiuach a Prince of so much Truth in hâ—s words and such integrity in his Life and Actions that from thence he was surnamed Fachtuach signifying in Irish Truth and Integritâ— says the same Author Lucius And it is observable what both he and Keting write of one Moran chief Justice under this King that he had a ring or hoop of such Vertue that when it was put about the Neck of any Judg or any Witness whatsoever at the time the one was to give Sentence or the other to depose upon Oath if either did swerve a title from the right then presently it clasp'd and pinch'd and wrung them so close that to avoid present death by strangling they retracted openly before all the Spectators what they had so wickedly done amiss Whence proceeded that Proverbial wish among the Irish O That he had Moran's Ring about his Neck when they suspect the truth or integrity of any person But to proceed with their Kings They had their CII Monarch Felim surnamed Rachtmhor from his being a Great Maker of excellent wholsome Laws Among which he establish'd with all firmness that of Retaliation kept to it most inviolably and by that means preserv'd the people in peace quiet plenty and security during his Time They had their CIX Monarch Cormock mhac Airt who says Lucius in making good Laws for the Commonwealth and observing them exceeded by much all his Predecessors He wrote a Book of the Institution of a Prince to his Son Cairbre He had the Psalter of Taragh composed In this he gives an account at large 1. of all the noble Irish Families their propagation and relation by blood one to another 2. Of the limits not only of every Province of Ireland but of every Countrey both great and small in each of them 3. Of the Duties Rents Tributes paid usually out of each Province to the Monarch or King of Ireland 4. Of the Duties paid unto the Provincial Kings by the Lords their Vassals 5. And finally of the Rents accrewing to every such Lord from his Tenants any where in the Kingdom The Book also which they call in Irish Sanasan Chormaic and we in English may call the Etymological Dictionary of Cormock is by most ascribed to him though by some to Cormock O Cuillenan the holy King and Archshop of Mounster I pass over his Martial Spirit his Fortune and success in Arms. Tho it was he that when by the surprisal force and rebellious usurpation of Ferghussa Dubhdeadach King of Vlster he had been first dispossess'd of his Royal Mansion of Teamhuir alias Tarach and then affronted with the burning of his Beard as well by the command or direction as by the servant of the same Vlster King Fearghussa for so Gratianus Lucius calls this Northern King tho Keting names him Giolla as I have done before and then after this affront had been banish'd into Connaght yet within a twelve month accompanied with 30 great Lords 50 other Chieftains and fifty thousand men gave Battel at Criombreag to this Usurper kill'd him destroy'd his Army and for the rest of his Vlster adherents banish'd them for ever to the Isle of Man Yea it was he that after this Field was further yet Conqueror of all his other Enemies in 36 Battels more and thereby gave perfect peace to the whole Kingdom for the remainder of his long reign which lasted in the whole forty years And further also it was he that with the Sword of Justice took revenge on the more than savage cruelty of Dunling the Son of Eudeus that murdered those 30 celebrated Virgins living collegially as in the Temple of Vesta at Cluain-fearâ— in Teamhuir all of them of such Royal extraction and quality that each had 30 Virgins more in retinue which made in all Nine Hundred For that unparallel'd Savageness of Dunling this Monarch destroy'd the twelve Tyrants of Leinster who either by approbation of it or defence of him were guilty of it Lastly It was he that whether on this occasion or no I know not But this I know that Lucius writes how it was he that even to a farthing's worth made the Province of Leinster pay the old Boarian Fine impos'd upon them by Tuathal Teachâ—mhor Which this Author says consisted not of 3000 but of 15000 Cows and so many Hogs Mantles Silver Chains Cauldrons of Brass or Coppers that is 15000 of each and each Cauldron as large as that in the Monarch's Kitchin at Tarach which boil'd together at one boyling twelve
and personal nay and of their Subjects also both men and women by the dedication of all in a peculiar way to God as hath been said before but were so fervently Zealous even to a degree of excess in this kind that as both Keting and Lucius relate it if St. Patrick would have receiv'd what they offer'd more their Successors should have scarce been left the grazing of four Beasts to bestow on the Church Secondly in particular the great number of those Princes one after another in the succession of so many Ages that notwithstanding all the bloody Feuds and warlike humor of their Nation withdrew themselves in time from sin yea from all the pleasures vanity pomp earthly glory of their condition and by contemning the world for the sake of God made themselves greater than the World A large list of them you may find partly in Keting but more amply and exactly in Lucius And they were those that stripping themselves naked to follow Christ and shutting themselves up in Cloysters made choice of the better part with Mary at the feet of out Lord. Such were the Monarchs 1. Maâ—â—â—hoba who by the prayers of Columbe-Cille recovering from death to life thereupon without delay Anno 610. renounc'd the World enter'd a Monastery profess'd himself a Monk and was after in regard of his holiness made Bishop of Kildare 2. Flaithiortach who likewise though without any such inducement as Maolchoba had in perfect health vigour streingth deliberately chose to dispoil himself of all earthly greatness Goods Employments and exchange them all for a poor monastick Weed in the Monastery of Ardmagh for a penitential course of life within the walls of that enclosure and for a Christian happy death which he found in that same place after nine years more had been over in his holy exercises there 3. Niall Frassach that not only quitted the Crown and Power but the very Soil of Ireland by retiring to the Scottish Isle of Hy and there in Columb Cille's Monastery devoting himself wholly to works of Christian repentance after eight years continual preparation by them for his passage to immortality had it in the year 773. of our Saviour's Incarnation 4. Muirchiortach great Grandchild to Brion Buraimh and one of Ketings Monarchs of Ireland who having resign'd his Royal Authority and together with it whatever else he possess'd or loved on earth put on the habit of a pooor religious man at Lismore where without looking back he ended happily his days 5. Domhnal mhac â—rdghair who according to Colgan as we have seen before was also King of Ireland though in his declining years yet amidst his prosperity retiring to the Abbey of Doire Cholumb-Cilie employing the remainder of his life there in exercises of piety holiness and mortification and lamenting the sins of his former days prepared for encountred and receiv'd death with a serene countenance full of hopes of a glorious Immortality But whether he took upon him the outward profession of a Monk in those exercises there or did not I can say nothing on either side Nor is it very material to know seeing the inward habit of his Soul yielded fruits worthy of true repentance and the severest outward profession of it 6. Ruaruidh O Conchabhair the very last Irish Monarch we have shewn likewise before to have made a religious life under the Habit and in a Cloister of Augustinian Chanon Regulars his last refuge in this World from so many vicissitudes of Fortune There it was he became so truly wise indeed as to prepare only for that other World which being planted far above all the glory of the Sun and all the Circles of time expects only Souls either never tainted with sin at any time or by perfect repentance at least before death throughly purified from its deadly sting And such indeed for making choice either sooner or later of the better part with Mary were those now enumerated Monarchs of Ireland And yet I know not why I might not add to their number Maolseachluinn I. and Brian Boraimh For albeit they never had been either profess'd Monks Anchorites or Clerks nor divested of their Authority Royal nor at all outwardly retired from the cares of the Publick or management of their own domestick affairs or comfort of their Wives and Children yet their piety of life was such as purchas'd for them after death the reputation of holy men Yea S. Cairbre Bishop of Cluan-mhac-Noise when the former died Anno 860. being in extasy beheld his Soul ascending to glory says Lucius And the later has been inserted not only by John Wilson in his Martyrologe but by Henry Fitz Simons in his Catalogue of the Saints of Ireland both these Authors having in this particular followed Marianus Scotus Of the Provincial Kings a far greater number and some of them very early that is in their very youth made the same prudential wise divine choice Aillill Anmbanna King of Connaght led so wonderfully strict a life according to the exactest Rules of Christianity that upon his death it pleased God to shew his Soul to Columb-Cille ascending to Heaven Anno 544. Cormac King of South Leinster about the Year of Christ 567. quitting voluntarily his Kingdom went to Beannchuir profess'd himself there a Monk continued in the same place leading a life truly answerable to his profession till death translated him to happiness Anno 567. which the Irish Church believing has placed him in her Calendar of Saints Aodh Dubh King of Leinster forsaking in the same manner both his Kingdom and whatever else he might enjoy on earth took the Monastical habit and Vows upon him lived accordingly some years in the Monastery of Kildare an underling was after made Abbot then Bishop of the same Cloister and See deceased Anno Christi 638. and in fine was recorded in the Register of Saints Ceallach mhac Reghal King of Connaght made the like exchange of a Kingdom for a Cloister died in the Year of our Lord 703. and is invoked particularly at Lochkinne as their tutelary Patron Ardghal mhac Cathail King of Connaght the very same only that to be further off from all noise of the World he retired out of Ireland to the Monastery of Columb-Cille in the Island of Hy where in the seventh year of his peregrination which was of Christ 786 he ended his mortal course Before him a little that is Anno Christi 739. flourished the good King of Vlster Fiacha mhac Aodh Roin surnamed In Droiched from his continual care of building Bridges every-where throughout his Kingdom to make the ways more passable for Droiched in their Tongue signities a Bridge He was even to admiration vertuously just and equitable to all persons whatsoever Only one Cow taken away by stealth within his Dominion and because peradventure says Gratianus Lucius the Author of this stealth had not been with due severity punish'd he inflicted the remainder on his own person by going a Pilgrimage to Beannchuir In his Reign and
Year of Christ 743. not as Cambrensis has it biâ—nnio ante Topog. dist 2. c. 10. adventum Anglorum two Years only but 424 Years before the first landing of Fitz Stephens in Ireland So far is Cambrensis out in his relation of the very time of this matter it happening that a prodigious Whale with three golden Teeth stianded at Carlingford within his jurisdiction each Tooth weighing fifty ounces of Gold he gave one of them to the chief workman-builder of the foresaid Bridges the other two he dedicated to the making of Shrines in the Monastery of Beannchuir for those holy relicks there on which the Countrey people did use to take their most solemn Oaths for ending all Controversies arisen Felim mhac Criomthain alias in Latin Feidlimidius that most famous King though not of Ireland wherein also Cambrensis as in most his other Relations concerning Ireland has most grosly err'd but of Mounster having prosperously reigned 27 years and within that time what by harrassing what by fighting Leath-Cuinn humbled them mightily at last resign'd his Crown retired from all secular Employments all earthly joys pleasures vanities withdrew to a Wilderness turn'd a poor Hermit there continued so the rest of his life devoting himself wholly to God till death call'd him away under the Monarchy of Niall Caille in the Year of Christ 845. For then it was that he departed hence with the Opinion both of a great Saint and of as excellent a Writer too as that Age might have says Lucius The Irish Book call'd an Leabhar Irsi or as Keting expounds it the Book of their Annals has in short this Elogy of him Optimus Sâ—piens Anachoreta Scotorum quievit Contemporary to him was Fionachta-Luibhne King of Connaght who in the same manner exchang'd his Royal Robe for an Hermits Coat and all the attendance wealth delights pomp gayety of a Palace for the laonliness poverty silence obscurity of an uncouth naked solitude to prepare himself for the last day of his life which he ended there Anno 846. Next to this Fionachta in order of time the King of Leinster Dunling mhac Muireadhach retired both from his Kingdom and all worldly things else into the Monastery of Kildare professing Monk and continuing there in the exercises first of an Underling then of an Abbot till in the Year 867. he finish'd happily his course And after him Domhnal son to the Monarch of Ireland Aodh Fionnliach devoted himself to the service of God in the habit and profession of a most godly mortified Ecclesiastick In which condition he received without any fear at all the King of terrours Death in the Year of our Saviour 911. Him although at a great distance of time followed Ruaruidh O Conchabhair King of Connaght I mean the Father of Toirghialiach mor O Conchabhair Monarch of Ireland who in the 20th year after that O Flaithâ—â—iortach had put out his eyes enter'd the Order of Canon-Regulars and among them rendred his Soul to his Redeemer An. 1118. And so did the King of the Dublinian Danes and Leinster Irish Domhnal O Brien son to Muirchiortach O Brien King of Ireland renounce his Kingdom profess Clerk at Lismore and accordingly there continue a life of pennance to his death which happened Anno Dom. 1135. Lastly the religious Devotion of Cathal Cruddhearg King of Connaght Lucius calls him in Latin Cathaldus à rubro Carpo is very much celebrated amongst his Countrymen in all their Histories He after the death of his Wife gave up his Kingdom profess'd Cistercian Monk in the Monastery built by himself at a place in Connaght call'd the Hill of Victory and in the Year of Christ 1224. breath'd out his last in the same religious Cloister The great liberality of this Provincial King to the Church and particularly the large extent of Lands bestowed for ever by him upon that Cistercian Abbey de Colle Victoriae when he built it may perhaps be elsewhere in this Treatise reflected on At present and because I have now done with all the most singular patterns of Piety recorded among the Provincial Kings of that Nation I proceed to those of the most celebrated memory in that respect among their Lesser Kings Such were Damhin mhac Dambinghoirt King of Orghillae departed this life Anno Dom. 560. and Ferrhadhach mhac Duacha parted in the Year 582. whose Souls are said by the Irish Writers to have been shew'd to Columb-Cille ascending to Heaven absque poenis purgatoriis Such was Brian Boraimh's Ancestor in the seventh degree of ascent by name Toirrghiallach by Title or Dignity King of Dal-Gheass or rather indeed says Keting of North-Mounster who in the Year 690. or thereabouts after he had bestow'd all the Islands in his Kingdom on poor strangers to be inhabitâ—d and cultivated by them put on a Monks Cowl at Lismore and for his daily employment either polish'd stones for the building of Churches there or mended High-ways So that he was never idle but discharging continually with his own hands the part sometime of a Stone-cutter at other times that of a poor ordinary Mason or meanest Day-labourer Such Maol-bressal mhac Cearnaigh King of Mogh dornuigh who after quitting the World professing Monk and living in that profession many years like a Saint was kill'd at last by the Danes Anno 847. Such Maolduin King of Oiligh son to Aodgh Ordnigh the Monarch that forsook all whatever was desireable on earth took the same course of a profess'd religious Life in a Monastery for many years never look'd back never took his hand off the Plough till death seiz'd him in the Year of Christ 865. Such also were Maolbride King of Cineal-Gonail and Domhnal King of Cineal-Laoghaire who trampling underfoot all worldly temptations assumed the Monastic habit retired into Cloister'd Cells and for the remainder of their lives which was of many years continued their station there practising only the methods of dying to themselves and living to Christ till the blessed hour came when he call'd them to himself the former Anno 897. the later Anno 882. And after them Donochadh the son of Ceallach and Son-in-law to Donochadh mhac Floinn the Monarch King of Ossory is next recorded as a man of exceeding piety and godliness though never so profess'd Monk nor at all retir'd in outward appearance from the duties of his secular Employment His care of the poor was such that in his time every house in Ossory had three several Bags for daily Collections of Victuals to feed them One that receiv'd the tenth part of every persons meal none at all of the Family no not even of the servants excepted Another design'd for the portion of Saint Michael the Archangel as they call'd it And a third was under the peculiar charge of the good Wife to see all the scraps gathered into it Besides he was himself exceeding bountiful to them And then his devotion at Church frequentation of the Sacrament watch over his own senses delight in all
divine things continual exercise in all good works made his memory pleasant and fragrant and sweet and precious after his death The debt of Nature that open'd for him the passage into a blessed immortality he paid in his Father-in-law's Reign over Ireland that is between the Years 918. when this Monarch Donochadh mhac Floinn be gun his reign and the year 942. when he ended it I might on this occasion peradventure call to mind what Keting has of Scanlan mor mhic Cinfoala a former King of Ossory his grateful devout liberality in applotting and enjoyning three pence a smoak throughout his Countrey to be paid yearly for ever to Columb-Cille's Abbey there at a place call'd Durramh And I might withal remember how great how beneficial yea how wonderful even to this very Scanlan himself the inducement he had to this Devotion was For it was no less than his miraculous delivery from the very extreamest rigours of a most cruel imprisonment and twelve chains of Iron loading him and no drink at all allow'd him to quench his thirst when at Colum-Cille's instance for him in prayer to God he was on a sudden by an Angel of glory from Heaven rescued the Prison at midnight enlightned his chains unloosed his Keepers thrown down the Gates open'd he led forth and then presently as it were in another instant of time both conducted and presented to his Wonder-working Patron Columb-Cille that expected him at that very hour But as I have partly before touch'd upon the extraordinary Obligation laid by this miraculous favour on Scanlan so let it suffice here to have only mention'd so much of his grateful acknowledgment thereof And yet perhaps it may not be amiss to let the Reader know what Lucius on the foresaid occasion hath observ'd of the Kings of Ossory in general or indeed rather of the Irish Historians in relation to them viz. That these Writers do seem all of them to have some peculiar esteem for the Kings of Ossory above any other of the Lesser Kings of Ireland For when they give a Catalogue of those Provincial Kings of the Pentarchy that is of those of South-Mounster North-Mounster Connaght Leinster and Vlster that were contemporary to the Monarchs whose Reigns Lives Acts they principally write it may be seen in all their Books that then also they give a particular account of the Kings of Ossory though on that occasion they take no kind of notice of any other of all the Lesser Kings of Ireland What the reason hereof may be I cannot divine if not that peradventure they valued as Lucius says these Ossory Kings not upon the extent of their Dominion which yet was not contemptible but on their bravery and Martial courage like that of Eumenes in Plutarch who when he had but one Castle remaining in his possession would not otherwise capitulate with Antigonus but upon equal terms of honour as not esteeming any man better than himself whiles he had a Weapon in his hand But be this conjecture as you please I return back to the Subject I was on before I now give the only two remaining of those Lesser Kings that are celebrated for their prudent piety in their abandoning all they had on earth taking up their Cross and following Christ in the poverty habit and mortifications of a religious Life These were Maolmordha Huadomhnail King of Cionsallach who paid his tribute to Nature Anno 1022. and Vadah O Conchanain King of Huadiarmada above a hundred years after for he ended his days Anno 1167. Nor have I any other to add to them but only Conchabhar O Cealla surnamed of the Battles King of Mannech in Connaght whose Christian vertues are wonderfully admired by all the Irish Historians Though he was a man that not only till the last continued in his station of a Prince and Governour of his People but a very notable Warriour too as you see that surname of his imports cui cognomento à Proeliis says Lucius In short they write of him 1. That he maintain'd in Clothes and Diet 3â—0 Clerks Monks and poor Women founded twelve Churches in Moanmaigha endow'd them with Lands render'd them exempt from all publick Duties built the Cathedral Church of St. Brandan at Cluainfert and the other of St. Kieran at Cluain-mhac-Noise gave these two Cathedrals large possessions furnish'd them with Ecclesiastical Books Chalices costly Palls Vestments and all other necessaries for the holy Ministery 2. That he tyth'd his whole Estate three several times bestowed the Tenth of it on the Churches the Ninth on the poor and the Eighth part on the Clerks and others that came for assistance and relief to his House 3. That after all being warr'd upon by Conchabhar Moinmhuigh son to Ruaruidgh the last Irish Monarch by the Mac Teigs also and other great Lords associated against him and an agreement made between both sides to put the quarrel to the issue of a pitch'd Battel with this caution and mutual promise that neither should come unto it nor fight in it with Armour i. e. with breast or back or Habergion or any coat of Maile and he for his part most religiously out of meer conscience of his word keeping to that caution but they on the other side without any regard of theirs having dealt perfidiously by covering themselves with Armour under their Cassocks the issue was the slaughtering of a great number of his Army the routing of the rest and killing of him among others in the Field which they call the Field or Battel of Srugheal fought in the year of our Saviour Christ 1180. 4. That upon the news thosE 360 Pensioners above mention'd of his though not living together in one place but far and wide distant in their several Habitations yet in all the hast they could arriving all of them on the third day where his Body was and there upon the sight of it first giving way to Nature by venting their extream grief in abundance of tears groans and lamentations for him but more especially because he that maintain'd so many Ministers for God had not so much as any one of them or any other such to assoil him or comfort him in the last hour then taking his head for it was cut off and sowing it to his body and this done laying themselves on their knees they prai'd c. crying to God mightily and with wonderful Faith beseech'd him to return back the Soul of their dear Benefactor into his Body while he prepar'd himself by repentance and reconciliation and the Sacraments of Christ for a more quiet and hopeful departure 5. Lastly That their prayers were so efficacious and the mercy of God so extraordinarily propitious to Conchabhar that he revived presently confess'd his sins received the holy Viaticum but then as he told them chose rather to die than live any longer Adding withal that the true cause why God would have him defeated and kill'd in that Battle was that he had not incontinently punish'd some
known and his name celebrated among all the Clergy and People and Princes of that Province too Then by his returning back to his own Province of Vlster upon the commands of Celsus and Imarius and there presently repairing the old ruins of the famous Beannchuir which till this time lay in rubbish for so many years ever since the destruction of it by the Danes though not without a Titular Lay-Abbot made still by Election of the Lay-Natives who possess'd all the Revenues nor at this very time neither with-such an Incumbent and he both a very powerful man and Uncle also to Malachias himself but on the return of Malachias from Mounster suddenly chang'd and as it were by a powerful touch of the very finger of God himself so mightily chang'd that without delay he resign'd both the place and whole Estate belonging to it yea and his own person also to this holy Nephew's disposition Then by his refusing the Estate building nevertheless the place planting it with some of his own blessed condisciples under Imarius and in obedience to Celsus and Imarius both taking upon him now as well the true Office as the title of Abbot of Beannchuir imitating so in all respects the sanctity of his great Predecessor Congellus though not equalling his number of Monks Then by the glory of Miracles beginning first to appear wrought by him to the astonishment of the beholders as he was at work with his own hands among the Carpenters that were building this Monastery Then by the Election made of him in the thirtieth year of his Age for the See of Conner and his reluctance for a long time and the perseverance of the other side and his submission at last to the positive commands of Celsus and Imarius Then by his entring upon his Episcopal Function there but withal his finding presently as St. Bernard expresly writes He was not sent to men but Beasts That he had never before not even amongst the most barbarous any where observ'd the like No where the People so stubborn as to Manners so bestial as to Rites so impious as to Faith so barbarous as to Laws so headstrong as to Discipline so filthy as to Life Christians by Name but in very deed Pagans not paying Tithes not offering First-fruits not joyning in lawful Marriages not confessing their sins None among them found either to receive or to enjoin penance The Ministers of the Altar few and yet no work among the Laity for those same few no opportunity given them to make use of their Ministery among a wicked generation of people nor they endeavouring it much if not rather scarce any way at all for in their Churches the voice neither of a Preacher nor Singer was heard Then by his Divine Sermons Exhortations Entreaties Visits Prayers Tears Mortification austerity of Life both in publick and private together with the assistance of his 150 Monks that were never from his side overcoming though with great labour yet in a little time all opposition and working so wonderful either a conversion or Reformation which you please to call it of all that Diocess that they are all now become a new people i. e. the People of God now who had been nothing less before and every where now to be seen the repairing of Churches adorning of Altars and Choires resounding now the praises of God and wicked Laws abolish'd and Christian Institutions receiv'd in their place the Churches thronging from every side with people greedy of hearing the Word and Sacraments frequented and confession of sins made and Concubinage yielding to lawful marriage Then by his necessary migration to Mounster when the King of Vlster had on some pretence destroy'd the City of Conner and by the reception he found there from his former Disciple King Cormac who came to meet him now and withal to entertain both him and his 150 Monks of Beannchuir come along with him out of the North. Then by his building here in Mounster the Abbey of Ibrac Monasterium Ibracense St. Bernard calls it King Cormac with Royal munificence abundantly furnishing Gold and Silver and all other necessaries both to finish the building and maintain the Convent after Then by his living there so exemplarily mortifiedly humbly among them as he had elsewhere perpetually even from the first day of his Episcopal Charge at Conner done taking his turn like an other Monk both in reading and serving in the Refectory at meals yea in all the very meanest Offices of the Cloister even that of Cook to dress their meat in the Kitchin not excepted Then by the last sickness of Celsus who had successively ordain'd him Deacon Priest and Bishop and by the choice made by him of Malachias for his Successor and his Letters to all the Princes of the Kingdom especially the two Mounster Kings * Cormack was one of them his Kingdom South-Mounster his name and surname Cormack mhac Cartha his end by a soul murther committed on him by his own Son in Law All which and the revenge of this murder you may see in the former â—ection page 183. to see after his death Malachias install'd in the Metropolitical See of Ardmagh Which for the memory of their great Apostle St. Patrick who living govern'd it and dying chose it for his place of rest was held in such veneration that all the people of Ireland Clergy and Laiety Nobles Bishops Princes and Kings were subject in all obedience to the Metropolitan thereof Then by the Vision about this time but before any notice had of Ceallach's being sick the Vision I say of a Tall ancient venerable Woman appearing to Malachias and upon his demand what she was answering him she was the Wife of Celsus but withal delivering him a Pastoral Staff Then by a real Messenger come from Celsus as he was yet on his death bed alive with his real Staff indeed and by the real delivery thereof by him as he was commanded by Celsus to this man of God Then by the unanimous application of all the Kingdon from all parts made unto him to accept of this Election and by his declining it nevertheless a very long time alledging now his own unworthiness now his poverty and meanness and inability to contend with the powerful Family that hitherto well nigh two hundred years had possess'd that See besides that not even with the death of men their stubbornness could be overcome moreover that to see blood spilt in his behalf or by his occasion did not become him or his calling finally that he was already join'd to an other Spouse the Church of Conner Then after three years continual reluctance by the National Synods meeting on purpose wherein the Pope's Legat Gillaspuic alias Gilbertus Bishop of Limmeric and Malchus Bishop of Lismore were the chief and by their laying their commands upon him adding threats withal to excommunicate him if he resisted any longer and his own reflecting at the same time on the Vision he had formerly had in
People by Christian Disciplin seeing now all in peace and remembring his own former purpose he ordain'd another by name Gilla-Josa alias Gelasius in his own stead Bishop of Ardmagh gave him possession and notwithstanding the reluctance of others without further delay retired to his former Spouse the poor subordinat Church of Conner That because he now understood this Bishoprick of Conner had but in later times an other Bishoprick I mean that of Down united to it and because himself upon his translation to Ardmagh had ordained a Bishop in Conner he would neither intrude upon him nor yet suffer any longer that Union made by covetousness to continue but restoring the ancient division assum'd to himself i. e. to his own peculiar charge the poorer and least reform'd of the two the Bishoprick of Down That here again calling to his assistance and erecting a new Convent of Regulars he devoted himself among them to his former course of Life in all poverty and humility and rigours of cenobial Discipline assiduity of Prayer and raptures of Contemplation spending all the time he could spare from his Pastoral charge What follows next is to let you know that he was not suffered long the enjoyment of himself in those ascetick exercises That ere long there was an universal conflux of all sorts of people to him even from the highest to the very lowest of the Land That therefore now he finds it necessary like the Husbandmen in the Gospel to go forth and sow his seed and now he disposes with all Authority of all kind of Church affairs and no man questions him by what power he did so all being persuaded by the signs and prodigies wrought by him every where that as he had the power so he had the Spirit of God to direct all his actions That nevertheless himself after some time thought it â—itting to take a journey to Rome and consult the See Apostolick as Paul did the Apostles at Hierusalem after his three years preaching of Christ in Arabia Besides he considered that the See of Ardmagh had never at any time had the Metropolitical Ornament which they call Pallium a word that in the Ecclesiastical use of it imports the plenitude of honour says Bernard but not the plenitude of power as they speak at Rome in this Age. Moreover that his late Predecessor in the Metropolitan Church I mean Celsus had by his own authority erected another Metropolitical See else where in Ireland though with dependence and subjection still to the See of Ardmagh as the only Primatial or Patriarchical See of the Kingdom That to obtain from the See Apostolick of Rome as well the honour of the Pall for each of those two Irish Metropolitan Sees as the confirmation of what Celsus had done in erecting the later of them was another chief motive of his undertaking such a Journey That having pass'd through Scotland and England rested a few days with St. Bernard at Claravallis in France arriv'd at Rome continued there for a month visiting the holy places and conferring much from time to time with his Holiness who was very inquisitive of all the concerns of Ireland the nature of the people c. and especially what Wonders God had lately done by his Ministery there he obtain'd indeed the confirmation of that new Metropolitical See erected by Celsus but was put off the present grant of those Palls desired by him That the Pope told him that by reason Gillaspuic or Gilbertus being now grown old and infirm had signified so much and his desire to he cased of the Legatin care it was necessary he should undertake it and in that quality return back and hold a general Synod of the whole Nation Which when he had done and by general consent and fitting messengers desired the Pallia they should be granted And therefore told him also in plain terms he could by no means yield to his first and most earnest petition of all though by so many tears solicited by him viz. that it might be lawful for him to retire presently to Claravallis and live and die there with Bernard That with this answer he is now dismiss'd by the Pope but as with all delegable power so with all imaginable kindness and respect kissing him and putting his own Mitre on his head his own stole about his neck and his own maniple on his arm which Malachias ever after used in officiating at the Altar That having return'd by Claravallis left there four of his own disciples to be educated in the Monastic Life by Saint Bernard from thence proceeded on in his Journey and in his way through Scotland at the instance of the good King David by praying over the young Prince Robert his Son and Heir recovered him instantly from the jaws of death for he was quite given over by the Physitians landed soon after at his beloved Beannchuir in the North of Ireland he put himself immediately on the work of a true Legat indeed And this for many years without any intermission going about all the Provinces holding frequent Synods in all the quarters of the Land restoring vigour to the old Canons of the Church adding new ones that were of use reforming all the corruptions both new and old preaching every where like an other Helias or some Angel of Heaven come down on Earth No Age no Sex no condition no profession could abscond from his Beams or hinder the operation of them Whatever Decrees he made whatever Canons he publish'd were presently accepted submitted unto obey'd as Oracles without any contradiction at all Nor had any person Man or Woman Prince or Prelat or Peasant or Monarch the daring heart to resist him in any thing because they daily saw before their eyes the signs wrought by him You may read cap. 5. 8. 9. of his Life written by St. Bernard a good many of them though few in respect of those he passes over as the same holy Author St. Bernard says And among them you may find the expulsion of Devils and healing all Diseases and reviving the Dead to Life and the striking also of some impious wicked Blasphemers with an exemplary death to terrifie others And all these miraculous works above Nature done by the God of Nature at the sole invocation of his Name by Malachias without any other application without any charm used by him than that sometimes of lifting up his eyes to Heaven or a short Prayer sometimes of a longer continued with fasting and weeping on God twenty four hours together Unless peradventure his laying his hand on a desperate man brought to him bound in cords by reason of a furious frenzy that possess'd him or his touching with his finger the tongue of a Young Girl that was mute or his blessing a Cup of Drink and sending it to a Woman so long past her Reckoning that all her Neighbours wondred she was not dead or his sprinkling of water hallowed by himself upon a wicked Nobleman that lay long Bedrid
or his invoking the name of God on three Apples and sending them to a Lady in the last agonies of death be reputed a Diabolical Charm And yet after all I am of Bernard's opinion that the first and greatest Miracle wrought by Malachias was himself From the first day of his conversion to the last of his Life sine proprio vixit he lived without property in any kind of thing Even when he was Bishop he had neither man-servant nor maid-servant nor Town nor Village nor Land nor one farthing either of Ecclesiastical or Temporal Revenue no not for allowance to his Episcopal Table He had not so much as a House of his own He almost incessantly went about the Parishes preaching the Gospel and living on the Gospel as our Lord had shew'd him the Example save only that for most part he preach'd it without putting his Auditory to the charge of entertaining him but maintain'd himself and his Religious Train by the labour of his own hands and theirs When he found it necessary to take a little rest he took it in some of the holy places founded by himself in all Countreys of the Kingdom For it was he that was the great Restorer of the Monastick Life and Cloisters in Ireland where for so many Ages before i. e. ever since the Universal desolation by the Danes the people generally though they had heard of the name yet they never saw any such thing as a Monk till he begun A diebus antiquis Monachi quidem nomen audierunt monachum non viderunt says Malachias himself Vit. cap. xi And wheresoever he rested how shor tor how long soever his abode was he conform'd to all their observances their Habit their Table their Diet. Insomuch that as to the exteriour man he could not be discovered from the meanest Brother of the House Lastly in his going about the Parishes or Countreys either to preach or to visit he never made use of Horse or Coach or Waggon he went a foot constantly as likewise did all his Train though now both Bishop and Legat. And was not all this trow you to be a true Heir indeed a true Successor to the Apostles or was it not in Malachias to be himself the first and last and greatest of his Miracles O virum Apostolicum quem tot talia nobilitant signa Apostolatus sui Quid ergo mirum si mira operatus est sic mirabilis ipso Imo verò non ipse sed Deus in ipso Alioquin tu es Deus inquit qui facis mirabilia says Bernard exclaiming here with admiration of this wonderful man However this Life he led for about a dozen years perpetually going about all the Provinces reforming all the abuses doing good to all mortals and working those other prodigious signs every where that I have touch'd upon before At last understanding that Innocent II. was dead and after him within sixteen months more Celestin II. and Luoius the second too and that Eugenius III. a Disciple of Saint Bernards being chosen to succeed them was come so near as France he calls a National Synod holds it dispatches in the three first days of it what was thought expedient as to Reformation on the fourth proposes that of sending to the See Apostolick for the Archiepiscopal Ensigns called Pallia offers himself to be the Solicitor of it in person and tho with great difficulty to part with him at all for any time yet obtains their consent the rather that the Pope was so near And now he takes his Journey again through Scotland where being receiv d with all veneration by King David he founds the last of his Monasteries at a place call'd stagnum viride the Green Lake haviug to that purpose brought with him out of Ireland a sufficient number of Cistercian Monks And then he goes forward the second time to Claravallis in France taking that in his way to Rome whither the Pope before his arrival on that side of the Sea was returned And finally now and from hence i. e. from Claravallis but after a few days of sickness and by a death answerable in all respects to his life he is call'd to glory on that very day which himself had both desired and foretold the day of the Commemoration of all faithful souls departed which as I have noted before was in the Year of Christ 1148. More particulars either of his life or death or miracles whoever desires may find them at large in the funeral Sermon preach'd and Life also most exactly and divinely written of him even by St. Bernard himself Who besides many other Abbots and the whole Cistercian Convent of Claravallis was present with him at his death as they all ministred to him all along in his sickness And it is even this very Bernard that with his own Eyes beheld the great Miracle which he tells wrought on a Paralitick by touching the hand of Malachias while after his death he was yet expos'd in publick before Burial But it is not for the sake of this or any other Miracle wrought by him that I have dilated so much upon him but to shew the state of the Church of Ireland in those days out of so good an Author as St. Bernard is For in that Life of Malachias written by him besides many other points relating directly to the most healthful use of Confession saluberrimum usum confessionis are Bernards own words and the Sacrament of extream Unction and the real presence of Christ in the consecrated Host and Prayers for the Dead all which I pass over as not to the purpose of this Historical Discourse it is very observable That so blessed a Man as Ceallach was even by the character of a Saint Sanctus Celsus given him by Colganus and so learned withal as Sir James Ware represents him to have been did without consulting the See Apostolick of Rome and did I say by his own authority alone as Primat of Ardmagh erect another Metropolitical See in Ireland That not even at any time from the beginning the Irish Church or Metropolitans thereof until this time of Malachias either had or for ought we know ever desired the Pallium but without it exercis'd all plenitude of Archiepiscopal and Primatial jurisdiction all over Ireland Besides we may plainly see by whose solicitation at first the Court of Rome was moved in the concern of Palls of Ireland And that Cardinal John Papiron's bringing them to Ireland about four years after the death of Malachias was undoubtedly an effect of those two Journeys made by him out of Ireland to obtain them Albeit we know not certainly whether it was Malachias that desired so many as were brought by Papiron Or whether after his death others did suggest for the reasonableness and expediency of so many that in Ireland were chiefly four Partiâ—ions Governments or Provincial Kingdoms of very different natures manners interests Feuds and Kings too that would not yield any of them to the other willingly and by
consequence would not be govern'd not even in Ecclesiastical affairs but by some of their own without dependance on any other except only the Prelat of that See which from the beginning of Christianity had prescribed some right over them all But enough on this Subject relating to Malachias the former of those two extraordinary Saints rais'd by God in the decrepit Age of the Irish Monarchy The later of them was a Leinster man of Noble Descent his Irish name and sirname Laurace O Tuathil in English Laurence Tool his Father Muirchiortach O Tuathil Lord of Imaile and peradventure some other small adjoyning Tracts in the County of Wickloe his Mother Inghin J. Bhrian i. e. one of O Brian's Daughters and he the youngest of all their Children But for the name of Laurence a name so unusual in that Countrey then 't was given him on this occasion Being born his Father sent him to be Christened at Kildare by Donachadh Lord of that Countrey of purpose to let him know by this Gossipred he was reconciled to him for before they had been at some distance and therefore those that carried the Child were commanded by the Father to Christen him Conchabhar this being that Nobleman's surname who was to be Godfather But a person reputed in that Countrey then such an other as Merlin had been of old among the Brittans meeting them in the High-way charg'd them to call him Laurence assuring them he would himself that night excuse them to their Lord and then adding prophetically in Irish Verse This Child shall be great on Earth and glorious in Heaven he shall command over great multitudes both of rich and poor and Laurence shall be his name When he was but ten years old his Father delivered him an Hostage to Diarmuid the King of Leinster In which condition notwithstanding the innocency of his Age he suffer'd incredible miseries even to extream want of Raiment and Food in a desert place among barbarous people where he had been for two years confined At the expiration of which being return'd back in exchange of other Prisoners though not delivered to the Father himself but to the Bishop of Gleann-da-Logh and his Father coming on the twelfth day not only to see him but to desire the Bishop to learn of God by Lot which of his children he should dedicate to an Ecclesiastick Life and he taking this opportunity and telling his Father That with his leave he himself would be that Child the Father surpriz'd with joy takes him presently by the right hand and offers him up perpetually to God in that holy place dedicated to St. Keuin both Cathedral Church and Abbey the one govern'd by a Bishop the other by an Abbot Where Laurence proves in a little time so singular a proficient in all Virtue that the Abbot dying the unanimous consent both of the Monks and Nobles of the Countrey Voted him Abbot and forc'd him to accept of it in the 25th year of his Age. And now it begun to appear more eminently what spirit he was of For the more he was honour'd the more he abased himself the stricter guard he kept on all his senses and the more intent he was upon his holy ascetick Exercises Above all that Virtue which is the bond of perfection that Virtue which shall never be evacuated but after Faith and Hope are ended shall remain that Virtue which by relieving the afflictions of other mortals makes the Reliever a God to them as Pliny speaks in his Panegyrick to Trajan Charity I mean did at this time shew what power she had over the Soul of Laurence He was no sooner made Abbot than a general Famine oppressing all that Countrey four years continually he no less continually employ'd himself in relieving all that were in want especially the poorer sort with corn and cattel and all the Revenues of his Abbey Revenues that were very great yea far surpassing those of the Bishoprick Nor must we admire they should be so It was one of the most famous ancient Monasteries of the Kingdom founded at first by St. Keuin as we call him but the Irish Ceaghin the Latins Coenginus a person though illustrious for his Royal extraction yet much more celebrated as well for the admirable austerity of his Life as for his manifold prodigious Miracles which made him after his death be assumed Patron both of the Town Abbey Cathedral Church and whole Diocess of Gleann-da-Loch where he lived and died Besides none but Noblemen's children were elected Abbots and the Noblemen themselves of the whole Diocess had by ancient custom their Voices in the election of them as well as the Monks However the large Revenues of the Abbey as they came short of the necessities of the poor in that long and general Famine so they did of the charity of Laurence as may be well concluded out of what follows hereafter Much about the time this Famine had ended the Bishop of Gleann-da-Loch dying he was chosen to succeed But notwithstanding all the importunity of the Electors he declined it though pretending only his un-Canonical Age. Yet so he could not soon after the Archbishoprick of Dublin For Gregory the First Archbishop of this See being dead Laurence by the unanimous consent of the Clergy and People of Dublin says Waraeus was elected Commentar de Praesul Hiber Archbishop and being at last by continual importunities drawn to yield was consecrated at Dublin by Gelasius Primat of Ardmagh and other Bishops Anno 1162. just fourteen years after the death of Malachias in France What more Waraeus thought fit to record of him is That presently after consecration he changed the secular Canons of his Cathedral Church into Regular of the Order of Aroasia whose habit and rule of Life himself also took upon him now That about eleven years after he built the Choire and Steeple with an other addition of three new Chappels to Trinity Church in that City That in the Year 1179. he went to the General Council held then at Rome under Alexander III. That according to the Author of his Life he was there made Legat of Ireland by that Pope soon after return'd back and exercis'd his Legatin Authority in Ireland That Gerald L. 2. expugn Hib. c. 23. Barry commonly call'd Cambrensis seems to intimate he never had been permitted to return to Ireland sed ob privilegia aliqua zelo suae Gentis impetrata but for some priviledges obtain'd from the Pope in that Council for his Countrey prejudicial to the Royal power of Henry II. was detained a long time partly in England partly in France until at last falling sick in his Journey he died at Auge in Normandy the 14th of Novemb. 1180. or as others have it 1181. Finally that in the Year 1225. he was canonized by Pope Honorius III. and his Relicks translated to Trinity Church in Dublin Which being the brief account given by Waraeus of this great Servant of God he leaves us for the rest that is
For then converting himself wholly and for himself only to God he ceas'd not with tears and sighs and sobs too repeating continually while he could open his lips that Verse of the Psalmist Have mercy on me O God have mercy on me because my soul confideth in thee until about midnight on the 13th of November Anno 1181. he breath'd out his last to his Redeemer Now that such a life and such a death of a man so virtuous all along from his very Youth whether he be considered either as a Clerk or Monk or Abbot of Gleann-da-Loch or as Archbishop of Dublin and Chanon of the Aroasian Institute or as Legat of Ireland or as a prosperous or afflicted man should be attested as pleasing to God by prodigious Miracles both in his life and after his death seems nothing strange to me The Author of his Life recounts a good many of them wrought in the time of his Life And the Bull of his canonization dated at Reate III. Ides Decemb. by Honorius III. Ninth year of his Pontificat which was of Christ 1225. gives a brief sum of all that had been wrought either in his Life or after his death by telling us That besides the Dumb and Lame and Lepers and many others afflicted with sundry other maladies cur'd of all their evils at the sole invocation of God by him or in his name and at his Tomb by others he was by the power of God the wonderful raiser e'en from death to life of seven persons in particular and among 'em of one who had been full three days dead Nor can I well deny that this Bull ought to have by much the more credit with many who are not in other matters over-credulous and ought so to have for these reasons 1. Because it was procured and the whole ceremony and process of this canonization sollicited not only by the Letters of the Archbishop and Chapter of Roan and of the Abbot and Convent of the foresaid Auge where the body then rested within the Diocess of Roan but by those also of many other Archbishops Bishops Abbots and religious men all attesting the sanctity of his Life and glory of Miracles continually wrought after his death at his Tomb. 2. Because the Inquisition was made partly in France by the Archbishop Dean and Treasurer of Roan and for the rest in Ireland by the Bishop of Kildare and Prior of Trinity Church in Dublin 3. Because within 45 years after his death all was finish'd and this very Bull issued and his Festivity with an Octave kept in the most solemn manner could be both at Auge in France and at Dublin and elsewhere in Ireland while the people were yet alive nay by a world of those very people of all degrees that knew and conversed with him familiarly and yet invoked him now most devoutly and religiously as Coheir of Christ in glory and their tutelary Patron under Christ with God the Father The fifth and last Point is That notwithstanding all the sanctity and merits either of those two extraordinary Wonder-working Saints of God Malachy and Laurence or of any other holy men whatsoever that in secret mourned for the iniquities of their People that cried to God incessantly to spare them and that in the Language of Ezechiel interpos'd themselves Ezech. XXII 30. a hedg between the wrath of Heaven and their Land by fasting and praying and afflicting their own Bodies for the sins of others yet all would not do It was now come to that pass with the People of Ireland in general which had been with the People of Judaea when God spake to Hieremy the Prophet c. XV. v. 1. first assuring him that although Samuel and Moses stood before his face to intercede for them yet he would not listen to their prayer because his soul was against that People and then commanding him to pronounce ejection from before his face exâ—crmination and flitting out of their Land against them It was come to that very pass with the Irish now in which it had been again with the same stubborn stiffnecked Israelites when he declar'd to the Prophet Ezechiel and sware unto him even by his own Life That if those very three most perfect servants of his in their generation Moses Daniel and Job lived among them yet by their righteousness they should only save themselves not any other no not so much as either Son or Daughter For such indeed was the deplorable case of the ancient Milesians of Ireland at this time the very last period of their Monarchy And such it was notwithstanding so many just men as in particular the Bishops Malchus and Gilbertus and Celsus and Christianus and Gelasius and Malachi and Laurence that lived among them and interceded for them continually to God Yea such it was notwithstanding all the Reformation so lately wrought by any of these holy men among either Ecclesiasticks or Laics any where in the Nation and all the Councils held and all the Monasteries built and Schools erected and Churches endowed and whatever else at this time was practis'd to restore both civility and piety to some degree of the ancient Lustre Nothing at all could any longer slow the execution of the final doom pronounced by the Watcher and holy one of Heaven against the lofty proud Milesian Tree Nor must we wonder at it if we reflect upon what is discours'd at large in the former Section The Kings and Princes and Nobles and Men at Arms of Ireland either all this while were not at all themselves reformed or certainly and that most frequently too were again relapsed into their old accursed Feuds their concussions violences rapin oppression revenge their spilling of one anothers blood to death and this even all along from time to time until the Executioners of their final Sentence came to part them and make them for ever slaves on every side to a forein People What other sins of the Irish Nation might according to the judgment of man have incensed God after so long forbearance to pour upon 'em so dreadful a judgment I cannot say And the reason is because I find no specification of any other in those Histories of theirs which I have read Yet I will not pass over in silence what I find to this purpose in Girald of Wales I mean Cambrensis This Author says that upon the taking of Dublin and harrasing of Meath by Diarmuid na-Ngall King of Leinster and his forein Auxiliaries the Clergy of Ireland assembled in a National Synod at Ardmach having debated the causes of this Invasion and after full debate resolved first in general that the sins of their Nation had brought this calamity on them Secondly in particular That their evil custom of buying Christian English Youths as well from Merchants as Pirats and making them slaves for ever had been a special Cause of it Thirdly That God was just in subjecting their People to the same condition of slavery under that very Nation which they
Title of Gregory the Great which he says was deservedly given him by his own People 5. That although in Buchanan's account this very Gregory began his Regn an Christi 870. and finish'd it by his death anno 892. and consequently was not only King of Scots but of Scotland being the Pictish Kingdom there at least as 't is commonly suppos'd had been utterly destroy'd full thirty years before the very first of his Reign yet if his being either King of Scotland or King of Scots be no truer than Buchanan's Relation of his invading Ireland fighting a great Battel victoriously there against the two Protectors or Tutors of the young King Duncanus a Minor and then visiting this young King at Dublin where he resided and then appointing new Tutors for him and last of all taking with him to Scotland threescore Irish Hostages out of the several Provinces of Ireland I dare say there was never any such thing or Person or Prince as Gregory King of Scots For besides what I have given before page 23 24. to disprove this great fiction of Gregory the Great either conquering or at all invading Ireland 't is clear out of all the Irish Antiquities recording the Danish Wars that not the Irish nor any Irish King Minor or not Minor did possess Dublin at that time but the Danes And indeed to confirm this truth the Annals of Vlster tell us that in the year of our Lord 871. two great Danish Captains viz. Ainlaph and Juor came from Albania to Ath-Cliath alias Dublin with two hundred sail and an exceeding great Prey of English and Brittons and Picts whom they brought Captives to Ireland So that Dublin most certainly was in the Reign of that Gregory of Scotland not under any Monarch or other Irish King as no more was it in a hundred and fifty years following but in the power of the Danes who were at least the first Re-builders of it much about the same time that Buchanan supposes it to have been the Metropolitan City of Ireland tho it came not to be so till Henry the Second's Reign For he indeed was the first King or Lord of Ireland that ever kept his Court there and by appointing it the Residence of his Vice-Roys gave it in a little time so great splendor that the Forger seeing it so in his own time thought fit in much earlier times to place his forged Irish Monarch of Gregory of Scotlands story Duncanus in it as in the Royal Mansion of the Kings of Ireland Whereas to the contrary nothing is more known in the Irish Histories than that the City of Tarach full twenty miles from Dublin was the Royal Seat of the Kings of Ireland till its destruction by the first Danish War and in the same days Dublin at best but a very mean place respectively 6. That nevertheless as I am apt enough to believe that allowing Cambden the liberty of an hyperbolical expression he has upon sufficient grounds told us that the Earls of Argile derive their Race from the ancient Princes and Potentates of Argile by an infinite descent of Ancestors so I am verily persuaded that by how much the Genealogy of Kings must be more narrowly sifted than that of any Subjects by so much Gratianus Lucius has upon surer grounds exactly derived in a direct Line the descent of James the sixth of Scotland and first of Great Brittain not only through so many Kings his Predecessors of Scotland from the ancient Kings of Argile up along to Fergus I. nor only from those before that very Fergus through fourteen Generations up to Reuda but even before this Reuda through fifty three Generations whereof Twenty four were Monarchs of Ireland up along to Herimon the first sole absolute Monarch of the Milesian blood in that Kingdom even so long since as Three thousand years wanting only seven Nay I am likewise persuaded that he has also very exactly in two other Lines carried up the descent of the same King James through thirty one other Monarchs of Ireland to the said Herimon as also in a fourth and fifth Line through four and twenty more of the Irish Monarchs and here I mean twenty four more wholly different from all those fifty six already given of Herimons Race up along to Heber who being the stock in these two last Lines makes the 25th King of Ireland in this number ascending upwards for so he was during his short life in a joynt Sovereignty with his foresaid Brother Herimon 7. That undoubtedly this derivation of King James through so many Lines for three thousand years and from the Loins of eighty one Irish Monarchs besides all the truly real both Kings of Scotland and Kings of Scots or Dal-Riada and Argathelia in Scotland given us at large by Gratianus Lucius in his Camb. Evers page 242. 243 and 244. as it is by many degrees a much more ancient so it is a much more glorious derivation of the Royal Pedigree than either Buchanan or Boethius or Major or indeed any other Scottish Historian nay or even any Scottish Herald whatsoever among those called English Scots was capable to make even so much as in any manner well or ill as being wholly ignorant of the Irish Antiquities which they could neither understand nor read if they had had ' em And these are the Animadversions I desire them take to thought who shall either persuade themselves they can reconcile the difference 'twixt the Scottish and Irish Histories concerning Fergus or except against me for laying it open how justly soever the story of Him and Coilus given by me page 20 out of Buchanan has put a necessity on me to do so here There is a passage in my 21 page that says The Romans built Towers and Bulwarks all along the Southern Coast of Brittain at convenient distances against the landing of the Irish on that side out of their plundering Fleets Herein also I followed my Author Keting if I understand him rightly But having since consulted Cambden I found that either Keting had mistaken the matter or I him For the truth is that albeit in relation to the Caledonians or Picts and Scots inhabiting or those driven at that time to the Countreys lying North of Grahams Dyke the foresaid Towers or Castles must be acknowledg'd built in the South yet in relation to the whole Island of Great Brittain or to us now in England they were not so Which and whatever else concerning either that Dyke or Wall of the Romans that you may the more fully understand take this following Extract out of Cambden according to Hollands translation of him Camden in his Scotia and Sterling Sheriffdom Julius Agricola observing the narrow land or Streight by which Dunbritton Frith and Edenborough Frith are held from commixing fortined this space between with Garrisons So as all the part this side was then in possession of the Romans the Enemies remov'd and as it were driven into another Island In so much as Tacitus judg'd
the dreadful Judg shall judg his People Though whether we must understand here the final persecution of Antichrist and the end of the World and general Judgment of all Nations in the Valley of Josaphat or whether only the last particular desolation judgment and ruin of Rome and of the Papacy it self never to recover more in this World or at least in that place I can say nothing to it of either side But no more of this Prophetical Subject What remains either of Reflection or Addition are the few points that follow I forgot to give them in their due places according to the order of pages hitherto observ'd and therefore I give them here 63. The first relates to that famous Beannchuir Abbey in the North of Ireland whereof I have treated before page 62 c. For concerning the greatness of it you have here an illustrious testimony out of a forein Writer Antony Yepez in his general Chronicle of the Benedictin Order ad ann Christi 565. cap. 2. where speaking of that Irish Monastery he says in express words It was one of the greatest our sacred Religion he means the Benedictin Order had in all Europe nay the very greatest of all that were built in the whole Occident and that no other was comparable to it But for the austerity of their lives the sanctity of their conversation the power of their doctrine and example their supernatural gifts and in a word the extraordinary stupendious hand of God with them in all their undertakings who were profess'd Votaries in that illustrious Cloister we have no less forein and much more ancient Writers than Yepez to inform us And certainly if we may judg of this matter by what such credible Authors have written some eight hundred and some a thousand years since of the Missionaries of that Abbey the disciples of St. Congellus Founder and first Abbot thereof sent abroad into other parts of Europe by him for the conversion of Infidels and reformation of evil Christians there needs no more to convince us that Beannchuir was a most perfect Seminary of the most truly vertuous and wonderful Monks on Earth For Example of St. Gallus the Irish call him in their Language Gall who was one of the twelve that in one Mission at one and the same time went thence with Columbanus who was the thirteenth of them and Prefect of this Mission thus writeth St. Notkerus Balbulus in his Martyrologe 17 Cal. Nov. that he converted the people of Switzerland and Suevia from Idolatry confirm'd his preaching to them with the power of Miracles and that him the divine goodness made Apostle of the Allemaigns as by whom that Nation which he had found enveloped in Paganism was enlightned with true Religion and brought from the darkness of ignorance to the Sun of Justice who is Christ So and much more in short writeth the said holy Notherus of this great Apostle of the Allemaigus St. Gallus from whom or whose Monastery the Town of St. Gall so famous even at this day hath been called As for the particulars as well of his stupendious austerity as Miracles above Nature they may be seen at large in his Life extant in Messingham and Surius written originally by Walafridus Strabo But for Columbanus himself a Leinster man born and but twenty years old when he went to Sea from Beannchuir Head of that Mission whoever please to read over seriously his Acts written about a thousand years since by one of his own well-nigh Contemporaries Abbot Jonas must needs I think be suspended in admiration of a man so prodigious in all respects I cannot be otherwise my self when I observe the whole course of his Life in Ireland France Burgundy Allmaign and last of all in Italy where he died Nor verily does e'â—n Caesar Baroniug himself after so many other both ancient and modern Authors seem less affected with admiration where he speaks thus of him ad an Christi 612. It appears says he to have proceeded from an extraordinary favour of God that so great a man come from Ireland to France should in the most profligate times illustrate the Church A man of such transcendent merits that if any would in some things equal him to Elias I should not think he err'd Whereas in this most holy man living with his disciples in the Wilderness besides wonderful abstinence and the most exact observance of all Monastick Rules and other his eminent Virtues may be observ'd so great a zeal of the honour of God and fortitude of Soul to reprove evil Princes Who also herein was the more like to Elias that he wanted not Pâ—rsecutors not even a new Achab and another Jezabel as you your self may find by reading his Life But truly his banishment out of Burgundy by King Theodorick at the instigation of the wicked Queen Brumchildis that bane that Murdress of ten Kings for she destroy'd so many some by poison and some by other damnable ways and his Journey thereupon to Italy appear'd to be no other than a long continued Triumph for his victory over Kings and their detestable cruelty yea and a wonderful Triumph indeed because accompanied with so many prodigious signs and Wonders wrought by him every where as he went along So says Baronius in the foresaid place wholly without doubt suspended in admiration of what himself does so relate of this stupendious man of God Whose prophetical Spirit also in foretelling King Lotharius so positively and precisely that within three years the two other Kings Theodorick and Theodobertus should be destroy'd and he Lotharius succeed them by that time and be Monarch of all France the same Baronius ad eund an particularly relates As also he doth the quarrel of Bruinchildis to Columbanus and only cause of his banishment to have been His exhorting the said King of Austrasia Theodorick to marry a Wife and turn away his Concubines For she apprehended that a regnant Queen or which is the same thing a lawful Wife would surely at long running turn her out from the management of State-affairs which Whores could noâ— And then again our great Annalist the same Baronius ad an 615. returning once more to that heavenly Man and telling us of his death in Italy after he had founded there the most renowned Cloister of Bobium as he had formerly done before his banishment that of Luxovium in Burgundy he delivers it with this Elogium of him This year says he that Wonder-working Adorer of God Columbanus the terrour and scourge of evil Kings departed this Life Which Elogium given by so eminent a Cardinal Historian because there Ordericus Vitalis Angligena in his Book of Ecclesiastical History needs no more be said of Columbanus I will only add the testimony of an ancient English Author whom I suppose to have lived and died in forein parts a Monk of Vtica many hundred years since though lately printed in the History of the Normans published by Andreas du Chesne Anno 1619. They cannot be
ignorant says he how the blessed Father Columbanus born in Ireland contemporary to St. Benedict having left both his Fathers House and Countrey and together with other most excellent Monks arrived in France and receiv'd by Childebert King of the French built in Burgundy the Cloister of Luxovium Nor how being banisht thence by the most impious Queen Brunichild and gone to Italy and received there by Agilulphus King of Longobards he founded the Cloister of Bobie Nor how this wonderful man labouring amongst the Chief in the Vineyard of Christ shone most gloriously on Earth with Signs and Prodigies Nor how as he was taught by the Holy Ghost he endited and prescrib'd a Rule of Life for the Monachical Order and was the first Author of it in France Nor how from his School issued those renowned Monks that like stars in the Firmament appear'd in the Church all resplendent with holiness and Miracles Nor finally can they be ignorant how in particular Eustasius Luxoviensis Agitus Resbacensis Faro Meldensis Audomarus Bononiensis Philipertus Gemeticensis with many other most excellently religious both Abbots and Bishops whose sanctity on Earth not only has been confirm'd by most evident signs from Heaven but has even mightily propagated the Church of God amongst the Children of men were all of them Scholars of that very same wonderful Columbanus And this is the testimony in short given of him by Ordericus Vitalis Angligena Which together with what you have seen before though very briefly and almost in general of that singular Mission from the Abbey of Beannchuir may be sufficient to shew the extraordinary holiness of that place if we judg of the Tree by the fruit it bears And the conclusion of all must be that we have reason to think that how great soever this Irish Cloister was either for the dimension of its buildings and ground whereon it stood or for the number of Monks residing therein which elsewhere we have seen amounted to three thousand yet undoubtedly it was far more illustrious for their sanctity and perfection of Life 64. But before I pass to a new Subject the Reader will give me leave to observe here that Antony Yepez notwithstanding his testimony for the greatness of Beannchuir has been very much out in accounting it one of his own Benedictin Order It was the year of our Lord 494. that St. Benedict himself in the fourteenth year of his age retir'd from being at School in Rome to dedicate himself to God in a contemplative Life as Baronius writes in the same year But above a hundred years before that time Ireland was replenish'd with perfect Monks and Monasteries of St. Patrick's own Institution being as we have seen elsewhere out of Henricus Altisiodorensis it was so before St. Patrick's death and his death happen'd in the year 493 as Jocelin says And if neither by one of those Irish Monks at home who had their immediate institution from St. Patric himself nor by one of their immediate disciples yet certainly and at farthest very early after St. Patrick's death it was that that so much celebrated Irish Abby of Beannchuir was founded by St. Congellus and consequently no later than the Monastery of Columb-Cille at Dear-magh being the same Congellus and he were contemporaries Whence a further consecution is that Beannchuir must have been founded at least some years before Columb-Cille's departing from his Monastery at Dearmach in Ireland on this Mission to convert the Picts in the North of Great Brittain which departure of his according to Venerable Bede was precisely in the year of Christ 565. Now it is plain that before the year of Christ 561. there is not in Baronius no not so much as any mention made of Benedicts sending any of his disciples to the West no not into France to propagate his Order Nay before the year 595. his Order had receiv'd no publick approbation from the Church not even within Italy it self As for Great Brittain 't is no less clear that the Benedictin Order was not heard of there till after Austin the Monk's coming thither from Gregory the Great to convert the Saxons And yet we know that long before his time the famous Abby of Monks at Bangor near Westchester had been founded even by the foresaid self same Irish Abbot St. Congellus come thither of purpose from his own former Abby the so much admired Beannchuir in the North of Ireland to build an other in Brittain by the pattern of it But as for Ireland certainly not before all their own rigid austere Monks of St. Patrick's Rule and Congheall's and Collumb Cille's institution had been utterly destroy'd by the long Danish Wars nor after neither till about the time of Malachias that is even five hundred years at least after the foundation of Beannchuir was any Benedictin Abbey there So far is Yepez from any just pretence to Beannchuir or just challenge to it in behalf of his Benedictin Order Besides I think nothing can be plainer than that St. Columbanus and Gallus with those other eleven holy Fellow missioners sent out of the same Beannchuir-Abbey into forein parts to preach the Gospel as has been said before were of the same Order that was profess'd in that Cloister being they were themselves profess'd sons and members of it under the same blessed Abbot Congellus with whose leave and benediction they departed from it on their miraculous fruitful Mission beyond Seas And sure I am that Ordericus Vitalis Angligena in his eighth Book of Ecclesiastical History near the end as Messingham quotes him denies they were of the Benedictin or any other Institution than that was peculiar to themselves and those of their own Followers in France Burgundy c. Moreover I think it no less manifest that if the said illustrious Abbey of Beannchuir in Ireland had been of the Benedictin Order so must also Bangor in Wales have been seeing they had both the same Founder to wit the Blessed Congheall or as they call him in Latin Congellus And yet to assert this of Bangor in Wales must be against all reason Because we know Bangor has been so far from any Roman or Italian Order that Dinooth the Abbot and other Learned men thereof were the grand sticklers against submitting to the Roman Pontiff himself though so good a man and Pontiff both as Gregory the Great was known to be For they were the men pitch'd and relied upon by the Britons to be and accordingly were as to matter of Learning the chiefest opposers of Austin the First Arch-bishop of Canterbury in the Conferences he had with the Brittish Bishops to bring them to some acknowledgment of and submission to the Pope And it is no way probable that Dinooth or his Monks if they had been of the Benedictin Order would have so fiercely oppos'd his Legat especially in point of Canonical submission to the Delegant himself whose only authority was it which gave being and credit to the same Order by confirming it so lately before in
a Roman Council Much less would their fierceness and resolution in that matter have been so unalterable as to occasion the slaughter of eleven hundred and fifty of their Brethren Monks of the very same Bangor Abbey at one time and place Whereof you may see the particulars in Venerable Bede l. 2. Eccl. Histor c. 2. and in Whelock's Notes upon this Chapter So that Yepez in making Beannchuir a Benedictin Abbey knew not what he said or at least what could be objected against him 65. Why the Staff of Jesus mention'd in my 273. page was so called you may read in Jocelinus an English Monk that five hundred years since at the instance of two Irish Bishops and Sir John Curcy whom he calls Prince of Vlster because as I suppose he was the first Conqueror of it under the English Crown digested the Life of St. Patrick out of many former Lives written of Him by several Authors but written by them in such manner and stile as did not invite Readers It is therefore this Jocelinus that in his Life of St. Patrick cap. 24. gives a pretty large account of that Staff of Jesus Which is in substance That when St. Patrick after a long abode of many years with St. German Bishop of Altissiodorum in France had with his leave at last departed towards Rome in his journey thither he either by divine instinct or Angelical instruction diverted to a certain Island in the Tirrhene Sea of purpose to visit a certain holy Anchoret of great same living there whose name was Justus 2. That upon his arrival after holy salutes and spiritual conference Justus gave him a Staff saying he had receiv'd it from the very hand of our Lord Jesus Christ himself but to be given him 3. That after this St. Patrick discoursing with other men who lived in the same Island at some little distance from the Cell of Justus whereof some appeared brisk and young others old even to decrepit age and understanding that those extream old men he saw were the very genuin sons of those other that appear'd young and enquiring how that could be One of the same young men both to remove his admiration which was great and to satisfie his demand gave him this answer We says he from our childhood through the mercy of God have been always given to works of mercy and our door was open to every Traveller that for Christ's sake desired either Victuals or Lodging On a certain Night we received a stranger with a Staff in his hand and according to our best ability treated him with all necessaries and kindness Next Morning upon his departure he blessed us nor only blessed us but moreover spake these words unto us viz. I am Jesus Christ whom in person you have this Night receiv'd into your House who so often before have receiv'd me in my servants And then he delivered the Staff he had in his hand to the man of God our spiritual Father commanding him to keep it for a certain Pilgrim by name Patrick who after many days should arrive here and upon him to bestow it Which command given he presently ascended into Heaven and we have ever since remained in the same state of youthful countenance briskness and vigour of body we were in at that time But our sons that were but little children then are now according to their age come to be decrepit as you see them 4. That when St. Patrick had heard all he gave God thanks and after a few days longer conversation with Justus proceeded on his Journey carrying in his hand that holy Staff appointed by God himself to be an instrument for his servant Patrick to work therewith prodigious things in Ireland as the Rod of Moses had formerly been for effecting the famed Wonders in Egypt the greatest difference betwixt them being that this of Jesus brought health and life to the Irish Nation but that of Moses death upon the Egyptian So in effect Jocelinus mostly concerning the original of that Staff Unto which he addeth cap. 170. concerning also the powerful Virtue of it That by lifting it up on high and threatning with it St. Patrick after a long Fast of forty days and forty nights join'd with continual fervent Prayer forc'd together out of all parts of Ireland all venomous Animals whatsoever to the Mountain call'd in Irish Cruachain Ailge in the West of Conaght and from thence precipitated them into the Western Ocean lying under this Mountain and this with such a blessed riddance to the whole Island as to have left or have rendred it ever since incapable of harbouring any creature alive that were Poisonous though brought into it from other Countreys How Keting understands this later point we have seen before And for Gerald of Wales though he acknowledg both the Vertue and name of that Staff calling it Virtuosissimum baculum Jesu the most powerful Staff of Jesus yet he says withal that the Origin of it is as uncertain as the Virtue is most certain Adding immediately in the same place That in his own time and by his own Countrey men the Brittish Conquerours that noble Treasure for so he calls it was translated from Ardmagh to Dublin What became of it since I cannot tell But this I find in St. Bernards Life of Malachias that this Staff of Jesus and the Text of the Gospel that was St. Patrick's own Book or that used by himself were the two most precious Jewels not only of the Church of Ardmagh but of any in the whole Kingdom of Ireland That they were held by all the Irish in the greatest veneration above all other holy Reliques whatsoever but more especially the Staff as being that which our Saviour Christ himself had both carried in his own divine hand fram'd by his own peculiar workmanship and recommended in such a special manner to be given to his Apostolical servant Patrick I find moreover in David Rooth the late Roman Catholick Bishop of Ossory's Elucidations upon Jocelin whatever may be objected by Criticks against this History of the Staff of Jesus answer'd For if their Exception be against our Saviour's appearing on Earth after his Ascension to Heaven from Mount Olivet he remits then to St. Ambrose where he tells in his Oration against Auxentius how very long after that time our Lord appeared to S. Peter at a Gate in Rome entring that City And if it be against any such Wonder-working power in the Staff it self though by divine Ordinance or consecration of it for such uses he desires them to consider not only the Rod of Moses in Egypt and brazen Serpent in the Desart nor only the brazen Statue of our Saviour erected at Caesarea Eusebius l. 7. Hist c. 18. and Sozomen l. 5. c. 21. Philippi otherwise called Paneas by the Woman in the Gospel cur'd by our Saviour of an Issue of blood but also the torn Cloak and poor Staff of the Egyptian Anchoret Senuphius wherewith Theodosius the Great arming himself
one more of the same Nature and in the very same Kingdom of Mounster too Where as Keting acquaints us upon the Death of Duibh Lachne next Successour in that Provincial Kingdom to Cormock O Cuilleinan for seven years more the Princes and Gentry meeting chose another Priest nay a Monk to be their King even the Abbot of Inis Catha by name Flaithhiortach mhac Jonmâ—uinein who reigned thirteen years over them And they chose him notwithstanding he had been the chief Adviser of Cormock O Cuillenain so lately that is but seven years before to venture that Battel against Flann mhac Sionnadh the Monarch and the Leinster King Cearbhall mhac Muaregein which prov'd so fatal to that good King and his whole Kingdom of Mounster and to this very Abbot himself troublesom For he was taken Prisoner in it and as such detain'd some time at Kildare by that Leinster King until at the intercession of the Abbess of Saint Bridgets Monastery in that Town he was released and return'd to his own Abbey of Inis-Catha in Mounster Whence after some few years wholly employ'd there in rigid ascetical exercises he was call'd upon and e'en compell'd to take the Royal State of a King So says Keting in his Reign of the said Monarch Flann Where also he notes occasionally an other great Errour of Hanmer in his Chronicle For Hanmer page 88. says that both the foresaid Cormock O Cuillenain King of Mounster but he makes him King of Ireland and Cearbhall O Muirreigein King of Leinster were kill'd by the Danes in the year of our Lord 905. Whereas on the contrary neither was Cearbhall kill'd in that year nor that Battel fought of either side by the Danes but of one side by the Monarch and of the other by Cormock who perish'd therein All which is abundantly testified by the Authentick Irish Book of that very Battel which Book has for Title Catha Bheala Mughna Besides as Keting observes in the same place the Danes attempted nothing at all no not once against the Irish during the seven years Reign of Cormock O Cuillenain over Mounster Nay there was so general a peace over all Ireland for this time so great plenty of all earthly blessings so universal a Reformation of manners and so much devotion and zeal in all sorts of people for restoring what had been destroy'd by the first Danish Wars and other attempts following it that nothing was to be seen more frequent now than every where repairing the old and building new Churches Colledges Hospitals Monasteries Yea the numbers of men dedicated only to a religious life was such at this time that Cormock O Cuillenainn tells in his Psalter of Cashel that in Muingharid formerly call'd the City of Deochaine-assain there was a Monastery with six Churches belonging to it in the same Town wherein the number of Conventual Monks was 1500. whereof five hundred were learnned Preachers five hundred Psalmists to serve constantly in the Choire and four hundred old Fathers applied wholly to Contemplation Such was the happy state of Ireland in the short Reign of the same Cormock over Mounster which must have been at or a little before the year of Christ 914. because this year ended the thirty eight years long Reign of the Monarch Flann mhac Sionna who kill'd in Battel that good King Cormock as we have seen before 70. The Sixth being an addition to what has been said before against Hanmer page 403. gives you to understand How Dionbhuillach son to the King of Denmark invading Ireland with a mighty Force landed in the North and march'd his Army so far as Ardmach How Conchabhar the first Provincial King of Vlster with his own people the Sept of Clanna Ruadhruidh i. e. the Children or Descendants from one Ruadhruidh whom they call Ruadhruidh Mor and with them alone nay with tumultuary small Forces rais'd out of them found himself necessitated to attack these Danes How by the advice of one Geanann Gruadhollas lest the Irish Youth should be contemn'd by the Danish old experienc'd Soldiers Conchabhar used the stratagem of tying Locks of grey wool in form of beards to their cheeks and chins whereby having made 'em seem the more considerable to the Enemy as if they also had been Veterans and then giving a furious charge on Dionbhuillach he defeated utterly all his Danes How these ascititious woollen beards were call'd in their Language Vlladh and from them it was that ever since the Northern Province of Ireland has been call'd in the same Irish Language Vlladh which we in ours call Vlster How that which we have here observed having been the issue of Dionbhuillach's Invasion and the time when it happen'd as Keting writes having also been the Reign of Eochadh Feilioch the Irish Monarch and Author of the Pentarchy who died in the year of the World 5069. that is just a hundred and forty years before the birth of Christ according to the computation follow'd by Lucius nothing can be desired clearer to evict Hanmer's little skill in the Irish History and his manifold Errours in delivering as you have seen before page 386. so many other Invasions of the Danes on Ireland and Conquests therein long before the year of Christ 800. 71. My seventh Note being likewise an addition is to supply what I purposely omitted in my 17th Page There I mention'd occasionally the Picts arriving in Ireland out of Scythia so long since as the Reign of Herimon the first Milesian Monarch of that Kingdom but little more of 'em save only their being made Tributary some Ages after in Scotland by the Irish Indeed when I writ and printed that Page I did not think of enlarging as I have done since And therefore partly for haste and partly for compendiousness I pass'd then over several particulars which I had before me that very time in Keting and he has at large in the foresaid Reign concerning those Picts But seeing I have since though contrary to my first design dilated on other matters I think it not amiss to add somewhat more of that Pictish Nation And this for two reasons The first is because 't is not only of all hands confess'd the Picts had been a warlike ancient People but Venerable Bede represents them as most powerful too in the year of Christ 569. In which year speaking of Columb Cille's landing in their Country from Ireland to convert 'em he has these very words Regnante Pictis Bridio filio Meilochon Rege potentissimo c. The second Because both the time of their first appearing in these parts and their very Original i. e. what Country-men they were or whence they came have continued for many Ages hitherto at least of late they are vexatious Questions As may be seen in Cambden's Britannia where he has given a Title of the Picts and four pages in Holland's Translation of him to resolvethese Questions Though after all he seems to me no nearer the Truth in his conjectural decision of either the one or
That upon this success at least not long after it the Picts looking big growing unruly and even aspiring to the Command of that whole Province of Leinster but the Monarch Herimon made acquainted with it drawing together a greater Power then they dared fight they were compell'd to accept of his Terms and hye them away out of hand with his directions and assistance for the Northern parts of Great Brittain 6. That nevertheless before their departure they obtain'd of Herimon three Irish Ladies by name Beanbhreasi Beanbhuais and Beanbhuaisdhne who had been the Widows of three of Herimons Commanders and taken these names from 'em kill'd in the late War with Tuath-De-Danann and these were all the Women they could obtain at least then though upon that very condition told us by Bede The first of 'em married to Cathluan the chief Commander now of the Picts for it seems his Father Gud was before this time departed the World the other two married to two more of their Nobles Nor could any of them obtain leave to stay in Ireland but only six viz. Trosdan the foresaid Magitian Soilean Vlpre Neachtan Nar Aongus and Leatan who had possessions given them for ever by Herimon in the Countrey of Breagh Mhoigh now call'd by us East and West Meath 6. That the foresaid Cathluan was the first King of the Picts in Cruithin-Tuath or Tuath Chruinigh for by both these compound names indifferently the Irish Books call that Countrey in the North of Brittain which the Picts erected to a Kingdom and call it so properly enough as importing in English the Lordship Lordship or Dominion of the Picts the simple word Tuath signifying in Irish a Lordship and Cruinigh the Picts themselves 7. That after him in a succession reign'd in the same Countrey at least in some part of it and of the same Pictish Nation Threescore and Ten Kings more to Constantine the last of ' em And these being the Heads of those particulars that concern them in the Psalter of Cashel written by the Holy Cormock O Cuilenain Arch Bishop and King of Mounster eight hundred years since and by consequence written either immediately before or immediately after I am sure much about the time of their last fatal overthrow by his Countrey men the Irish and their Issue in Scotland we need no longer question either the time of that Pictish Nation 's first appearance or the Countrey they came from to the Western parts of Europe As neither indeed whence they deriv'd the custom of painting themselves They might have learn'd this from the Agathyrsi in Thracia if themselves had it not before yea they might be the first that us'd it in Great Brittain and the Brittons might have only had it from them for any thing said to the contrary And they came as early to Ireland and Scotland both as the Reign of Herinton the first Milesian Monarch of Ireland after he had kill'd his elder Brother Heber to whom he was but joyn'd in Sovereignty while Heber lived Nay we need not question how long this Pictish Kingdom lasted For seeing it began at least as early as Herimon's death I mean by this account in the Psalter of Cashel and that by Primat Vshers account it continued to the year of Christ 840. then we must conclude that according to Gratianus Lucius's computation of the years of the World and years also of all the several Irish Monarchs Reigns the Pictish Kingdom lasted 2623 years in all For this Author fixes the death of Herimon in the year of the World 3516. and the Birth of Christ in the year 5199. as Eusebius Caesariensis one of the Fathers of the first General Council of Nice did long before him What more I have to say in reference to the Picts their Kingdom or Kings is That as I was writing this Reflection Mr. Langhorn's Introduction to the History of England being brought me by chance and looking it over I observ'd That altho the ingenious Author gives no more light therein concerning the Countrey whence those Picts came first to Ireland and thence to Scotland nor of their Leaders name nor of the time of their arrival amongst us than other late Writers especially Campion and Hanmer did before him who call that Leader King Roderick and say this Roderick came to Ireland from Scandia alias Scandinavia which goes under the name of Scythia Germanica or the German Scythia yet he gives therein page 197 a Catalogue of the Brittish Kings and years of their several Reigns partly out of John Fordon's M. S. Scoto-Chronicon and partly out of Hector Boethius who adds to the 76 Kings in Fordon five more So that both numbers put together make just the very same number of Pictish Kings which the Psalter of Cashel has Though I must confess there is no other agreement in any point between that Psalter these Authors either as to the names of those Kings or years of their Reigns or total sum of these years Neither is there in that whole Catalogue any Roderick either as first or last or any at all of them nor any thing near his name The very same you may assure your self of Cathluan whom nevertheless you have seen before out of the Psalter of Cashel to have been the first Pictish King As for the total sum of the years of their Reign which by casting it up out of the several Reigns every body may see is 1165. it plainly comes short by 1452 years of the former account derivable from the Psalter of Cashel and Vsher Lucius Besides it necessarily must suppose the Pictish Kingdom began in Scotland e'en four hundred years full before any Picts landed in Scotland or came from Scandinavia to Scotland or Ireland which does not stand with the time of their coming set down by our new Historians and last of all by Langhorn himself As for the names express'd in that Catalogue all I can say is that if we give credit to Nennius a Brittish Author that liv'd as himself writes an Christi 830. under Anaraugh King of Anglesey and Guinech if besides we suppose his Book rightly translated into Irish in O Duvegans Miscellanies and if withal we believe that Gratianus Lucius quoting both would not impose upon us nor I on you or my self what follows must be That we give no kind of credit to the foresaid Catalogue drawn out of Fordon and Boethius not even I mean as to those names of the Pictish Kings contain'd therein For the same Gratianus Lucius after letting us know in his Cambr. Evers page 93. That himself had a Copy of those Miscellanies and among 'em the Catalogue of all the Pictish Kings written by the said Nennius then presently though upon another occasion names five and forty of 'em and I am sure that of this very number tho only a part of Nennius's Catalogue there are at least six and twenty names that have no affinity with no resemblance at all nor imitation of any in the whole Bedâ—oll
procured by the Primats of Ireland even then when both their Armies stood ready in the Field to fall on they came at last to the old Division of Leath Cuinn and Leath Mogh that is Domhnall to govern absolutely in all the North side of Eisker-Riada and Muirchiortach in all the South of it each stiling himself King of Ireland How this agreement made Muirchiortach falling into a heavy Disease that continued five years his own Brother Diarmuid O Brien seiz'd the Kingdom of Mounster and both he and other Provincial Kings divided among them all Muirchiortach's wealth and possessions while he was yet alive tho extreamly sick but he afterwards unexpectedly recovering made so sharp a War on them all that they were forc'd to quit and restore whatsoever they had so unjustly got In fine how piously both Muirchiortach and Diarmuid ended their days notwithstanding their almost continual Wars during life and health the former at Lismore in the 20th year of his Reign and of Christ 1119. but having first devested himself of all worldly power and care by turning Clerk in that holy place and the later being 73 years old in the Menastery of Columb-cille at Doire now by us called London-derry 27 of his Reign which was of Christ 1121. For so many years I find given him by Colganus in this Elogy of him Donaldus Loghleni ex Ardgaro filio nepos Rex Hiberniae Hibernorumque excellentissimus formae praestantia generis nobilitate animi indole in rebus agendis prosperitate postquam multa munera egenis clementer potentibus liberaliter elargitus fuerat in Roboreto Divi Columbae hoc est in Dorensi Monasterio decessit anno aetatis suae 73. principatus in Hibernia 27. Christi nati 1121. Where I must occasionally reflect on my own mistake in the foregoing 75 page of this little Book and desire the Reader to account it such Indeed there I suppos'd that that Dearmach where Beda says Columbe-Cille had built his famous Irish Monastery was the same with Ardmach But now I see by Colgan's explication of Roboretum D. Columbae that without question that Dear-mach in Latin Roboretum or Campus Roborum for Dair or Doir signifies an Oak in the Irish and Mach or Magh a Field which Beda meant was at the place ever since called by the Irish Doire Columb-Cille as it is of late by the English London-derry and by no means at Ardmagh But to pass over as well that errour of my own as the brief account immediately before this reflection on it given of the pious end those two great Contenders made for peradventure you will say and I confess it freely that neither the one nor the other is to my main purpose here and therefore to return and prosecute only that which is my Province I will now let you see all the glory of the Monarchical or at least pretended Monarchical Power of Ireland which never lasted long not even from Heber's days in any one Family or Sept removing from Mounster to Cannaght and from the O Brians there to the O Connors here Yet leaving still for my part the Question undetermined whether the same Monarchy did not continue for two years longer in Tirconel after it had ended in Tomond and so pass'd immediatly not from Muirchiortach O Brian but from Dombnall mhac Ardghar mhac Loghlin However that was Toirrghiallach mor mhac Ruidhruigh vibh Chonchabhair i. e. Terence the Great Son of Roderick descended of Connor King of Connaght is now possess'd of the Sovereignty of Leath-Cuinn and greater part of Ireland and thereby of the Title of Monarch for 20 years more says Keting For so at least his his own Subjects and followers call'd him I am sure his Reign has furnish'd History with Instances enough on the Subject I treat of At three several times he enter'd the Province 〈◊〉 Mounster with a great and Hostile power of men though the first time having prey'd and spoil'd not only Ard-feanan but Cashel he was set upon in the Rear by part of the Mounster Army and lost Aodh O Heidin King of Biorradh and Muirriadhach O Flacthiorta King of Lower Connaght with a great number of other prime Gentlemen The second time he invaded it both by Land and Sea himself marching by Land in the head of a strong Army and laying all waste about him till he came to Cork where a goodly Fleet says Keting well provided of Seamen and Souldiers which he had sent about to destroy all the Coasts having done their work met him And now this imperious Monarch Toirrghiallach mor O Conchabhair glutted with revenge divides Mounster in two equal parts the Southern and Northern Mounster so called Whereof he commits the Southern to Donochadh mhac Cartha's government the Northern to Conchabbar O Brien and so returns home triumphantly to Connaght with 30 Hostages of the best in Mounster But soon after Cormock mhac Cartha King of West-mounster being treacherously kill'd by Toirrghiallach O Brien his own Son-in-law and Gossip and the whole Province of Mounster that is all the parts and power and Title too of it seiz'd by him as the lawful King of it Toirrghiallach mor O Concbabhar the pretended Monarch draws together all the Forces of Connaght Breithfne Meath and Leinster puts himself in the head of them and marches now again the third time into Mounster Where being advanced in so far as Gleann Mhachair and to a place there called Moinmhoir in English the Great Moor Toirrghiallach O Brien the new Mounster King in the head of 9000 men the flower of all that Province meets him and fights him but is so intirely and mightily defeated that Dal-Gheass the chief strength of his Army never before nor after had the like overthrow as being for the matter all destroyed therein And the issue was the banishment of this new unfortunate King to Tir-Eoghuin in Vlster and the division of Mounster the second time between Diarmuid mhac Cormuick mhic Cartha and Teadhg O Brien by the Monarch Such is the account of this Monarch and no more I mean of his Warlike Actions and Exploits delivered by Keting in his Reign But Gratianus Lucius in his Cambrensis Euersus says further of him that he prey'd all the Provinces of Ireland every one That he made his own Son Conchabhar actually and really King of the Dublinians Lagenians and Methians That with his Land Army he destroy'd Tirconel and with his Navy consisting of 190 Ships wasted Tir-Oen and with both reduced both these warlike Countreys of the North. That nevertheless before the end of his Reign his Glory was obscur'd and power humbled by him who came next to succeed in the Monarchy and who begun early it seems to lay the foundation of his own future greatness by making War on this very Toirrghiallach mor O Conchabhar himself the Monarch and forcing Hostages from him in the year of Christ 1150. that is full six years before this Monarch's death And that