BEDE'S ACCOUNT OF IRELAND IN 656.

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In 623 Congal Caech, king of Ulster, assassinated the reigning sovereign, Sweene Men, while he was playing chess on the green before his royal residence. He was vanquished in battle the following year by Sweene's successor, and obliged to fly from the country into Britain, where he remained nine years. During his exile he contrived to ingratiate himself with Saxons and Britons, Picts and Scots, and to prepare for a hostile invasion of Ireland. He returned to his native land in 634, and encountered the forces of the Ard Righ, at Magh Rath, now Moira, in the county Down, where he was slain, and his foreign and native auxiliaries were completely routed. This engagement is one of considerable note in the early annals of Ireland.

In the year 656 Ireland was again visited by the fatal Crom Chonaill. Many orphans were of necessity thrown on the mercy of those to whom charity was their only claim. Nor was the call unheeded. The venerable bishop of Ardbraccan, St. Ultan, whom we may perhaps term the St. Vincent of Ireland, gathered these hapless little ones into a safe asylum, and there, with a thoughtfulness which in such an age could scarcely have been expected, sought to supply by artificial means the natural nourishment of which they had been deprived.

Bede, mentioning this pestilence, gives honourable testimony to the charity of the Irish, not only to their own people, but even to strangers. He says: This pestilence did no less harm in the island of Ireland. Many of the nobility and of the lower ranks of the English nation were there at that time, who, in the days of bishop Finan and Colman, forsaking their native land, retired thither, either for the sake of divine studies, or for a more continent life. The Scots willingly received them all, and took care to supply them with food, as also to furnish them with books to read and their teaching gratis.'

In 673 Finnachta Fleadhach, or the Hospitable, began his reign. He yielded to the entreaties of St. Moling, and remitted the Boromean Tribute, after he had forced it from the Leinster men in a bloody battle. In 687 he abdicated, and embraced the monastic state. In 684 the Irish coasts

were devastated, and even the churches pillaged, by the soldiers of Egfrid, the Saxon King of Northumbria. Bede attributes his subsequent defeat and death, when fighting against the Picts, to the judgment of God. St. Adamnan was sent to Northumbria, after the death of this prince, to obtain the release of the captives. His mission was successful, and he was honoured there as the worker of many miracles.

The generosity of Finnachta failed to settle the vexed question of tribute. Comgal, who died in 708, ravaged Leinster as fiercely as his predecessors, and Fearghal, his successor, invaded it 'five times in one year.' Three wonderful showers are said to have fallen in the eighth year of his reign (A.D. 716 according to the Four Masters)—a shower of silver, a shower of honey, and a shower of blood. These were, of course, considered portents of the awful Danish invasions. Fearghal was killed at the battle of Almhain (Allen, near Kildare), in 718. In this engagement, the Leinster men numbered only nine thousand, while their opponents numbered twenty-one thousand. The Leinster men, however, made up for numbers by their valour; and it is said that the intervention of a hermit, who reproached Fearghal with breaking the pacific promise of his predecessor, contributed to the defeat of the northern forces. Another battle took place in 733, when Hugh Allan, king of Ireland, and Hugh, son of Colgan, king of Leinster, engaged in single combat. The latter was slain, and the Leinster men were killed, slaughtered, cut off, and dreadfully exterminated.' In fact, the Leinster men endured so many 'dreadful exterminations,' that one almost marvels how any of their brave fellows were left for future feats of arms. The northerns were joyous after this victory, for they had wreaked their vengeance and their animosity upon the Leinster men,' nine thousand of whom were slain. St. Samhthann, a holy nun, who died in the following year, is said to have predicted the fate of Aedh, Comgal's son, if the two Aedhs (Hughs) met. Aedh Allan commemorated her virtues in verse, and concludes thus :

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In the bosom of the Lord, with a pure death, Samhthann passed from her sufferings.

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Indeed, the Irish kings of this period manifested their admiration of peaceful living, and their desire for holy deaths, in a more practical way than by poetic encomiums on others. In 704 Beg Boirche 'took a pilgrim's staff, and died on his pilgrimage.' In 729 Flahertach renounced his regal honours, and retired to Armagh, where he died. In 758 Donal died on a pilgrimage at Iona, after a reign of twenty years; and in 765 his successor, Nial Frassagh, abdicated the throne, and became a monk at Iona. Here he died in 778, and was buried in the tomb of the Irish kings in that island.

An Irish poet, who died in 742, is said to have played a clever trick on the foreigners' of Dublin. He composed a poem for them, and then requested payment for his literary labours. The Galls, who were probably Saxons, refused to meet his demand, but Rumrann said he would be content with two pinguins (pennies) from every good man, and one from each bad one. The result may be anticipated. Rumrann is described as an adept in wisdom, chronology, and poetry; we might perhaps add, and in knowledge of human nature. In the Book of Ballymote' he is called the Virgil of Ireland. A considerable number of Saxons were now in the country; and it is said that a British king, named Constantine, who had become a monk, was at that time Abbot of Rahen, in the King's County, and that at Cell-Belaigh there were seven streets of those foreigners. Gallen, in the King's County, was called Galin of the Britons, and Mayo was called Mayo of the Saxons, from the number of monasteries therein, founded by members of these nations.

The entries during the long reign of Domhnall contain little save obituaries of abbots and saints. The first year of the reign of Nial Frassagh is, like the eighth of Fearghal, distinguished by a triple shower-of silver, of wheat, and of honey. The Annals of Clonmacnois say that there was a most severe famine throughout the whole kingdom during the early part of his reign, so much that the king himself had very little to live upon. Then the king prayed very fervently to God, being in company with seven holy bishops; and he asked that he might die rather than see

so many of his faithful subjects perishing, while he was helpless to relieve them. At the conclusion of his prayer, the three showers' fell from heaven; and then the king and the seven bishops gave great thanks to the Lord.

But a more terrible calamity than famine was even then impending, and, if we may believe the old chroniclers, not without marvellous prognostications of its approach. In the year 767 there occurred a most fearful storm of thunder and lightning, with 'terrific and horrible signs.' It would appear that the storm took place while a fair was going on, which obtained the name of the 'Fair of the clapping of hands.' Fear and horror seized the men of Ireland, so that their religious seniors ordered them to make two fasts, together with fervent prayer, and one meal between them, to protect and save them from a pestilence, precisely at Michaelmas.' Another fearful thunderstorm is recorded in the Annals for 799. This happened on the eve of St. Patrick's Day. It is said that a thousand and ten persons were killed on the coast of Clare. The island of Fitha (now Mutton Island) was partly submerged, and divided into three parts. There was also a storm in 783-' thunder, lightning, and wind-storms '-by which the monastery of Clonbroney was destroyed.

SECTION II.

The Saints and Missionaries of the Fifth and Sixth Centuries.

The researches of philologists are daily confirming the statements of hagiographers as to the extent and importance of the missionary zeal of the Irish monks during the fifth and sixth centuries. Their literary attainments are evinced by the number of manuscripts which they have left, and the exquisite skill in illumination which these manuscripts display. Their devotion to their great end of evangelising the heathen is recorded by their biographers, and proved by the reverence still offered to their memory in foreign countries.

These Irish saints have been divided into three orders, in an old catalogue published by Usher. The first order were the immediate contemporaries of St. Patrick, and arc de

ST. KIERAN OF SAIGĦIR.

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scribed as if enveloped in flame, so great was their purity and zeal. The second order, of which St. Columba of the Celts is the head, were the successors of St. Patrick, and they were described as mountains on fire. The third order are compared to bright lamps glimmering in the valley.

There can be no reasonable doubt as to the complete national conversion of Ireland by St. Patrick, though for several centuries some pagans remained, and much paganism continued in national customs and modes of expression, always difficult to eradicate. The Christian missionaries adopted the prudent course of attracting rather than compelling. Thus, where pagans had erected an altar to a false god, they led them gradually to the service of 'Him whom they ignorantly worshipped,' and then taught them to build a temple in His honour. Pagan customs were absolutely forbidden when absolutely sinful, but where it was possible to turn the current of devotion to its true source, it was thus turned, and not rudely stopped. Thus in Ireland the pagan custom of invoking the gods or making some aspirations to avert their wrath on certain occasions, was at once and easily Christianised by introducing the use of Christian aspirations instead of pagan.

St. Kieran of Saighir is called by his biographer 'the first-born of the Saints of Ireland.' His church at Cape Clear is said to have been the earliest Christian church erected in Ireland; its ruins still remain. He afterwards established the monastery of Seir-Kieran in the King's County. This saint is supposed to have ended his life in Cornwall, and to be identical with St. Piran, whose little church at Piranzabuloe is well known.

Another St. Kieran founded the magnificent church and monastery of Clonmacnois on the Shannon, A.D. 548. The ruins of this religious establishment still remain, and amply attest its former greatness. Kings, saints, and scholars lived and died within its peaceful walls, where their burialplaces may still be identified. The southern Hy-Nial princes were usually interred in the cemetery of Clonmacnois, where also may be seen the tomb of one of the three learned Irishmen who visited King Alfred in the year 891,