the history of dublin, so admirably narrated by mr. gilbert in his learned and instructive volumes,12 begins the modern period of296 irish history when ireland became indissolubly united with the british empire—the greatest empire of the world—and legendary lore, like all the ancient usages and superstitions, began to fade and perish before advancing civilization, as the luxurious undergrowth of a primeval forest before advancing culture.

a sketch of the rise of the capital of ireland, with all the changes produced in irish life by the new modes of thought and action introduced by norman influence, forms therefore a fitting close to the legendary and early-historic period, so full of poetry and charm for the imagination, with its splendour of kings and bards, its shadowy romance and mist-woven dreams, and its ideal fairy world of beauty and grace, of music and song; when the people lived the free, joyous life of the childhood of humanity under their native princes, and the terrible struggle of a crushed and oppressed nation against a foreign master had not yet begun; the struggle that has lasted for seven centuries, and still goes on with exhaustless force and fervour.

the history of cities is the history of nations—the most perfect index of the social altitude, mental development, physical perfection, and political freedom, which at any given period a people may have attained. every stone within a city is a hieroglyphic of the century that saw it raised. by it we trace human progression through all its phases; from the first rude fisher’s hut, the altar of the primitive priest, the mound of the first nomad warrior, the stone fortalice or simple fane of the early christian race, up to the stately and beautiful temples and palaces which evidence the luxury and refinement of a people in its proudest excess, or human genius in its climax of manifestation.

thus babylon, thebes, rome, jerusalem, are words that express nations. the ever-during interest of the world circles round them, for their ruins are true and eternal pages of human history. every fallen column is a fragment of a past ritual, or a symbol of a dynasty. the very dust is vital with great memories, and a philosopher, like the comparative anatomist, might construct the entire life of a people—its religion, literature, and laws—from these fragments of extinct generations—these fossil paleographs of man.

statue and column, mausoleum and shrine, are trophies of a nation’s triumphs or its tragedies. the young children, as they gaze on them, learn the story of the native heroes, poets, saints, and martyrs, leaders and lawgivers, who have flung their own glory as a regal mantle over their country. spirits of the past, from the phantom-land, dwell in the midst of them. we feel their presence, and hear their words of inspiration or warning, alike in the grandeur or decadence of an ancient city.

modern capitals represent also, not only the history of the past, but the living concentrated will of the entire nation. thus is it297 with london, berlin, and vienna, while paris, the cité verbe, as victor hugo calls her, represents not only the tendencies of france, but of europe.

dublin, however, differs from all other capitals, past or present, in this wise—that by its history we trace, not the progress of the native race, but the triumphs of its enemies; and that the concentrated will of dublin has always been in antagonism to the feelings of a large portion of the nation.

the truth is, that though our chief city of ireland has an historical existence older than christianity, yet this fair ath-cliath has no pretension to be called our ancient mother. from first to last, from a thousand years ago till now, dublin has held the position of a foreign fortress within the kingdom; and its history has no other emblazonment beyond that of unceasing hostility or indifference to the native race.

“the inhabitants are mere english, though of irish birth,” wrote hooker, three hundred years ago. “the citizens,” says holingshed, “have from time to time so galled the irish, that even to this day the irish fear a ragged and jagged black standard that the citizens have, though almost worn to the stumps.” up to henry the seventh’s reign, an englishman of dublin was not punished for killing an irishman, nor were irishmen admitted to any office within the city that concerned the government either of the souls or bodies of the citizens. the viceroys, the archbishops, the judges, the mayors, the corporations, were all and always english, down to the very guild of tailors, of whom it stands on record that they would allow no irishman to be of their fraternity. as the american colonists treated the red man, as the spaniards of cortez treated the mexicans, as the english colony of india treated the ancient indian princes, tribes, and people, so the english race of dublin treated the irish nation. they were a people to be crushed, ruined, persecuted, tormented, extirpated; and the irish race, it must be confessed, retorted the hatred with as bitter an animosity. the rising of 1641 was like all irish attempts—a wild, helpless, disorganized effort at revenge; and seven years later we read that owen roe o’neil burned the country about dublin, so that from one steeple there two hundred fires could be seen at once.

this being the position of a country and its capital, it is evident that no effort for national independence could gain nourishment in dublin. our metropolis is associated with no glorious moment of a nation’s career, while in all the dark tragedies of our gloomy history its name and influence predominate. dublin is connected with irish patriotism only by the scaffold and the gallows. statue and column do indeed rise there, but not to honour the sons of the soil. the public idols are foreign potentates and foreign heroes. macaulay says eloquently on this subject, “the irish people are298 doomed to see in every place the monuments of their subjugation; before the senate-house, the statue of their conqueror—within, the walls tapestried with the defeats of their fathers.”

no public statue of an illustrious irishman until recently ever graced the irish capital. no monument exists to which the gaze of the young irish children can be directed, while their fathers tell them, “this was to the glory of your countrymen.” even the lustre dublin borrowed from her great norman colonists has passed away. her nobility are remembered only as we note the desecration of their palaces; the most beautiful of all our metropolitan buildings but reminds us that there the last remnant of political independence was sold; the stately custom-house, that dublin has no trade; the regal pile of dublin castle, that it was reared by foreign hands to “curb and awe the city.”

it is in truth a gloomy task to awaken the memories of dublin, even of this century. there, in that obscure house of thomas street, visions rise of a ghastly night-scene, where the young, passionate-hearted geraldine was struggling vainly in death-agony with his betrayers and captors. pass on through the same street, and close by st. catherine’s church you can trace the spot where the gallows was erected for robert emmet. before that sombre prison pile two young brothers, handsome, educated, and well-born, and many a fair young form after them, expiated by death their fatal aspirations for irish freedom. look at that magnificent portal, leading now to the tables of the money-changers; through it, not a century ago, men, entrusted with the nation’s rights, entered to sell them, and came forth, not branded traitors, but decorated, enriched, and rewarded with titles, pensions, and honours.

yet the anomalous relation between our country and its capital springs naturally from the antecedents of both. dublin was neither built by the irish nor peopled by the irish; it is a scandinavian settlement in the midst of a southern nation. long even before the norman invasion two races existed in ireland, as different as the lines of migration by which each had reached it; and though ages have rolled away since scythian and southern first met in this distant land, yet the elemental distinctions have never been lost: the races have never blended into one homogeneous nationality. other nations, like the english, have blended with their conquerors, and progression and a higher civilization have been the result. roman, saxon, dane, and norman, each left their impress on the primitive briton; and from roman courage, saxon thrift, and norman pride has been evolved the strong, wise, proud island-nation that rules the world—the ocean-rome. a similar blending of opposite elements, but in different proportions, has produced scotch national character—grave, wise, learned, provident, industrious, and unconquerably independent.299 but the irish race remains distinct from all others, as jew or zincali. it has no elective affinities, enters into no new combinations, forms no new results, attracts to itself no scythian qualities of stern self-reliance and the indomitable pride of independence, but still retains all the old virtues and vices of their semi-oriental nature, which make the history of ireland so sad a record of mere passionate impulses ending mostly in failure and despair. the english, slow in speech and repellent in manner, are yet able not only to rule themselves well and ably, but to rule the world; while the irish, so fascinating, eloquent, brave, and gifted, have never yet achieved a distinctive place in the political system of europe. we had even the advantage of an earlier education; we taught england her letters, christianized her people, sheltered her saints, educated her princes; we give her the best generals, the best statesmen, the best armies; yet, withal, we have never yet found the strength to govern our own kingdom. ethnologists will tell you this comes of race. it may be so. let us then sail up the stream of time to ararat, and try to find our ancestry amongst the children of the eight primal gods, as the ancients termed them, who there stepped forth from their ocean prison to people the newly baptized world.

a very clever german advises all reviewers to begin from the deluge, so that by no possibility can a single fact, direct or collateral, escape notice connected with the matter in hand. when treating of ireland this rule becomes a necessity. our nation dates from the dispersion, and our faults and failings, our features and our speech, have an authentic hereditary descent of four thousand years. other primitive nations have been lost by migration, annihilated by war, swallowed up in empires, overwhelmed by barbarians: thus it was that the old kingdoms of europe changed masters, and that the old nations and tongues passed away. here only, in this island prison of the atlantic, can the old race of primitive europe be still found existing as a nation, speaking the same tongue as the early tribes that first wandered westward, when europe itself was an unpeopled wilderness.

we learn from sacred record that the first migrations of the human family, with “one language and one speech,” were from the east; and every successive wave of population has still flowed from the rising towards the setting sun. the progression of intellect and science is ever westward. the march of humanity is opposed to the path of the planet. life moves contrary to matter. a metaphor, it may be, of our spirit exile—this travelling “daily further from the east;” yet, when at the farthest limit, we are but approaching the glory of the east again.

gradually, along the waters of the mediterranean, the beautiful islands on its bosom serving as resting-places for the wanderers, or bridges for the tribes to pass over, the primal families of the300 japhetian race reached in succession the three great peninsulas of the great sea, in each leaving the germ of a mighty nation. still onward, led by the providence of god, they passed the portals of the atlantic, coasted the shores of the vine-clad france, and so reached at length the “isles of the setting sun,” upon the very verge of western europe.

but many centuries may have elapsed during the slow progression of these maritime colonies, who have left their names indelibly stamped on the earth’s surface, from ionia to the tartessus of spain; and miriam may have chanted the death-song of pharaoh, and moses led forth the people of god, before the descendants of the first navigators landed amidst the verdant solitudes of ireland.

the earliest tribes that reached our island, though removed so far from the centre of light and wisdom, must still have been familiar with all science necessary to preserve existence, and to organize a new country into a human habitation. they cleared the forests, worked the mines, built chambers for the dead, after the manner of their kindred left in tyre and greece, wrought arms, defensive and offensive, such as the heroes of marathon used against the long-haired persians; they raised altars and pillar-stones, still standing amongst us, mysterious and eternal symbols of a simple primitive creed; they had bards, priests, and lawgivers, the old tongue of shinar, the dress of nineveh, and the ancient faith whose ritual was prayer and sacrifice.

the kindred races who remained stationary, built cities and temples, still a world’s wonder, and arts flourished amongst them impossible to the nomads of the plains, or the wanderers by the ocean islands; but the destiny of dispersion was still on the race, and from these central points of civilization, tribes and families constantly went forth to achieve new conquests over the yet untamed earth.

whatever wisdom the early island colonizers had brought with them, would have died out for want of nourishment, had not these new tribes, from countries where civilization had become developed and permanent, constantly given fresh impulses to progress. with stronger and more powerful arts and arms, they, in succession, gained dominion over their weaker predecessors, and by commerce, laws, arts, and learning, they organized families into nations, enlightening while they subjugated.

the conquest of canaan gave the second great impetus to the human tides ever flowing westward. irish tradition has even, in a confused manner, preserved the names of two amongst the leaders of the sidonian fugitives who landed in ireland. partholan, with his wife elga, and gadelius, with his wife scota.

“this gadelius,” say the legends,301 “was a noble gentleman, right wise, valiant, and well spoken, who, after pharaoh was drowned, sailed for spain, and from thence to ireland, with a colony of greeks and egyptians, and his wife scota, a daughter of pharaoh’s; and he taught letters to the irish, and warlike feats after the greek and egyptian manner.”

these later tribes brought with them the syrian arts and civilization, such as dyeing and weaving, working in gold, silver, and brass, besides the written characters, the same that cadmus afterwards gave to greece, and which remained in use amongst the irish, it is said, until modified by saint patrick into their present form, to assimilate them to the latin.

continued intercourse with their syrian kindred soon filled ireland with the refinement of a luxurious civilization. from various sources, we learn that in those ancient times, the native dress was costly and picturesque, and the habits and modes of living of the chiefs and kings splendid and oriental. the high-born and the wealthy wore tunics of fine linen of immense width, girdled with gold and with flowing sleeves after the eastern fashion. the fringed cloak, or cuchula, with a hood, after the arab mode, was clasped on the shoulders with a golden brooch. golden circlets, of beautiful and classic form, confined their long, flowing hair, and, crowned with their diadems, the chiefs sat at the banquet, or went forth to war. sandals upon the feet, and bracelets and signet rings, of rich and curious workmanship, completed the costume. the ladies wore the silken robes and flowing veils of persia, or rolls of linen wound round the head like the egyptian isis, the hair curiously plaited down the back and fastened with gold or silver bodkins, while the neck and arms were profusely covered with jewels.13

for successive centuries, this race, half tyrian and half greek, held undisputed possession of ireland, maintaining, it is said, constant intercourse with the parent state, and, when tyre fell, commercial relations were continued with carthage. communication between such distant lands was nothing to phœnician enterprise. phœnicians in the service of an egyptian king had sailed round africa and doubled the cape of good hope two thousand years before the portuguese. the same people built the navy of king solomon a thousand years before christ; and led the fleet to india for the gold necessary for the temple.302 they cast the brazen vessels for the altar, employing for the purpose the tin which their merchants must have brought from the british isles. thus, to use the words of humboldt, there can be no doubt that three thousand years ago “the tyrian flag waved from britain to the indian ocean.”

a king of the race, long before romulus founded rome, erected a college at tara, where the druids taught the wisdom of egypt, the mysteries of samothrace, and the religion of tyre. then it was that ireland was known as innis-alga—the holy island—held sacred by the tyrian mariners as the “temple of the setting sun:” the last limit of europe, from whence they could watch his descent into the mysterious western ocean.

but onward still came the waves of human life, unceasing, unresting. driven forth from carthage, spain, and gaul, the ancient race fled to the limits of the coast, then surged back, fought and refought the battle, conquering and yielding by turns, till at length the syrian and the latin elements blended into a new compound, which laid the foundation of modern europe. but some tribes, disdaining such a union, fled from spain to ireland, and thus a new race, but of the old kindred, was flung on our shores by destiny.

the leaders, brave, warlike, and of royal blood, speedily assumed kingly sway, and all the subsequent monarchs of ireland, the o’briens, the o’connors, the o’neils, the o’donnels, and other noble races, claim descent from them; and very proud, even to this day, are the families amongst the irish who can trace back their pedigree to these princely spaniards.

we have spoken hitherto but of the maritime colonists—that portion of the primal race who launched their ships on the mediterranean to found colonies and kingdoms along its shores; then passing out through the ocean straits, the human tides surged upon the western limits of europe, till the last wave found a rest on the green sward of ancient erin. the habits of these first colonists were agricultural, commercial, and unwarlike; and ancient historians have left us a record of their temperament; volatile and fickle; passionate in joy and grief, with quick vivid natures prone to sudden excesses; religious and superstitious; a small, dark-eyed race, lithe of limb and light of heart; the eternal children of humanity.

for illustrations we need not here refer to the royal irish academy, for as they looked and lived three thousand years ago, they may be seen to this day in the mountains of connemara and kerry.

while this race travelled westward to the ocean by the great southern sea, other families of the japhetian tribes were pressing westward also, but by the great northern plains. from western india, by the caspian and the caucasus, past the shores of the303 euxine, and still westward along the great rivers of central europe, up to the rude coasts of the baltic, could be tracked “the westward marches of the unknown crowded nations,” carrying with them fragments of the early japhetian wisdom, and memories of the ancient primal tongue brought from the far east; but, as they removed further from the great lines of human intercourse, and were subjected to the influence of rigorous climates and nomadic habits, gradually becoming a rude, fierce people of warriors and hunters, predatory and cruel, living by the chase, warring with the wild wolves for their prey, and with each other for the best pasture-grounds. driven by the severity of the seasons to perpetual migration, they built no cities and raised no monuments, save the sepulchral mound, which can be traced from tartary to the german ocean.

without the civilizing aids of commerce or literature, their language degenerated into barbarous dialects; their clothing was the skin of wild beasts; their religion, confused relics of ancient creeds, contributed by the wandering colonies of egypt, media, greece, and tyre, which occasionally blended with the scythian hordes, wherein isis, mercury, and hercules, the symbols of wisdom, eloquence, and courage, were the objects worshipped, though deteriorated by savage and sanguinary rites, whose sacrifices were human victims, and whose best votary was he who had slain most men.

from long wandering through the gloomy regions where the sun is darkened by perpetual clouds, they called themselves the “children of the night,” and looked on her as the primal mother of all things.

their pastimes symbolized the fierce daring of their lives. at their banquets they quaffed mead from the skulls of the slain, and chanted war-songs to the music of their clashing bucklers, while their dances were amid the points of their unsheathed swords.

from the influence of climate, and from constant intermarriage amongst themselves, certain physical and mental types became permanently fixed, and the gigantic frame, the fair hair and “stern blue eyes”14 of the scythian tribes, along with their bold, free, warlike, independent spirit, are still the marked characteristic of their descendants. for amidst these rude races of lion-hearted men, who cleared the forests of central europe for future empires, there were great and noble virtues born of their peculiar mode of life: a love of freedom, a lofty sense of individual dignity, bold defiance of tyranny, a fortitude and courage that rose to heroism—the spirit that brooks no fetter either on the mind or frame. we see that such men were destined for world-rulers. to them europe is indebted for her free political systems; the chivalry304 that ennobled warfare and elevated women, and the religious reformation that freed christianity from superstition. every charter of human freedom dates from the scythian forests.

the great northern concourse of fierce, wild tribes, comprehended originally under the name of scythians, or wanderers, having spread themselves over the north to the very kingdom of the frost-giants, amidst frozen seas and drifting glaciers, turned southward, tempted by softer climes and richer lands, and under the names of goth, vandal, frank, and norman, devastating tribes of the scythian warriors poured their rude masses upon the early and refined civilization of the mediterranean nations, conquering wherever they appeared and holding bravely whatever they conquered.

the roman empire trembled and vanished before the terrible might of the long-haired goths. they sacked rome and threatened constantinople: africa, italy, spain, france, and germany yielded to the barbaric power. before the fifth century the scythians had conquered the world, and every kingdom in europe is ruled by them to this hour.

how strangely contrasted the destinies of the two great japhetian races! what vicissitudes of fortune! the refined, lettered, oriental light-bringers to europe—the founders of all kingdoms, the first teachers of all knowledge, the race that peopled tyre, carthage, greece, italy, spain, and gaul, degraded, humbled, and almost annihilated; the last poor remnant of them crushed up in the remote fastnesses of the hills along the coast-line of europe; step by step driven backwards to the atlantic, as the red man of america had been driven to the pacific, till, over the whole earth they can be found nowhere as a nation, save only in ireland, while the rude, fierce scandinavian hordes have risen up to be the mightiest of the earth. greece subdued asia, and rome subdued greece, but scythia conquered rome! the children of night and of the dark forests rule the kingdoms that rule the world.

they have given language and laws to modern empires, and at the present day are at the head of all that is most powerful, most thoughtful, most enterprising, and most learned throughout the entire globe.

the story of how the scythian first came to the british islands, has been preserved in the welsh annals, which date back three thousand years. the legend runs that their ancestors, the nation of the cimbri, wandered long over europe, forgetting god’s name, and the early wisdom. at length they crossed “the hazy sea” (the german ocean) from the country of the pools (belgium) and came to britain, the sea-girt land, called by them cambria,15305 or, first mother; and they were the first who trod the soil of britain. there their poets and bards recovered the lost name of god, the sacred i.a.o., and the primal letters their forefathers had known, called the ten signs. and ever since they have possessed religion and literature, though the bards kept the signs secret for many ages, so that all learning might be limited to themselves.

the paramount monarch of the cimbri nation reigned at london, and a state of poetry and peace long continued, till the dragon-aliens appeared on their coasts. the ancient cimbri retreated into wales, where they have ever since remained. the picts seized on caledonia, and the saxons on england, until, in their turn, they were conquered by the danes.

ireland at that period was the most learned and powerful island of the west. through all changes of european dynasties she retained her independence. from the milesian to the norman, no conqueror had trod her soil.16

meanwhile england, who never yet successfully resisted an invading enemy, passed under many a foreign yoke. for five hundred years the romans held her as a province to supply their legions with recruits, and the abject submission of the natives called forth the bitter sarcasm, that “the good of his country was the only cause in which a briton had forgot to die.”

the acquisition of ireland was eagerly coveted by the imperial race, but though agricola boasted he would conquer it with a single legion, and even went so far towards the completion of his design as to line all the opposite coasts of wales with his troops, yet no roman soldier ever set foot on irish soil.

rome had enough of work on hand just then, for alaric the goth is at her gates, and attila, the scourge of god, is ravaging her fairest provinces. the imperial mother of colonies can no longer hold her own or aid her children; england is abandoned to her fate, and the irish from the west, the scythian from the north, the saxon from the east, assault, and desolate, and despoil her.

the scythian picts pour down on her cities, “killing, burning, and destroying.” the irish land in swarms from their corrahs, and “with fiery outrage and cruelty, carry, harry, and make havoc of all.” thus bandied between two insolent enemies, the english sent ambassadors to rome “with their garments rent, and sand upon their heads,” bearing that most mournful appeal of an humbled people—“to ætius, thrice consul: the groans of the britons. the barbarians drive us to the sea, the sea drives us back to the barbarians; thus, between two kinds of death, we are either slaughtered or drowned.”

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but no help comes, for rome herself is devastated by hun and vandal, and the empire is falling like a shattered world.

thus england passed helplessly under the saxon yoke, and so rested some hundred years; ireland the while remaining as free from saxon thrall as she had been from roman rule.

through all these centuries the current of human life still flowed westward from the unknown mysterious regions of central asia.

it was about the close of the eighth century, when the scythian charlemagne was crowned emperor of rome in the city of the cæsars, that the fierce children of thor and odin, after having swept across northern europe to the limit of the land, flung their fortunes to the stormy seas, and began to earn that terrible yet romantic renown with which history and saga have invested the deeds of the scandinavian sea kings. the raven on their black banner was the dreaded symbol of havoc and devastation all along the sea coasts and islands of the atlantic. in england, saxon rule fell helplessly before the power of the new invaders, as wave after wave of the ruthless sea-ravagers dashed upon the sluggish masses of the heptarchy.

after two hundred years of protracted agony and strife, saxon sway was annihilated for ever, and canute the dane reigned in england.

meanwhile, the well-appointed fleets of norsemen and danes were prowling about the cost of ireland, trying to obtain a footing on her yet unconquered soil.

when these pagan pirates first appeared on our shores, ireland had enjoyed a christian civilization of four centuries. the light of the true faith had been there long before it shone upon rude saxon england. the irish of that early era excelled in music, poetry, and many arts. they had a literature, colleges for the learned, an organized and independent hierarchy, churches and abbeys, whose ruins still attest the sense of the beautiful, as well as the piety which must have existed in the founders. their manuscripts, dating from this period, are older than those of any other nation of northern europe; their music was distinguished by its pathetic beauty, and the ballads of their bards emulated in force of expression those of ancient homer. at the time that the scots were totally ignorant of letters, and that the princes of the heptarchy had to resort to irish colleges for instruction in the liberal sciences, ireland held the proud title of the “island of saints and scholars;” and learned men went forth from her shores to evangelize europe.

one irish priest founded an abbey at iona; another was the friend and counsellor of charlemagne; a third, of equal celebrity, founded monasteries both in france and england. the irish of eleven centuries ago were the apostles of europe!

the norsemen, or “white strangers,” as the irish called them307 who swept like a hurricane over this early civilization, were fierce pagans, who respected neither god nor man. not till three centuries after their arrival in ireland were they converted to the christian faith. they pillaged towns, burned churches, destroyed manuscripts of the past which no future can restore, plundered abbeys of all that learning, sanctity and civilization had accumulated of the sacred, the costly, and the beautiful, and gave the irish nothing in return but lessons of their own barbarous ferocity. then it was we hear how irish mothers gave their infants food on the point of their father’s sword, and at the baptism left the right arms of their babes unchristened that they might strike the more relentlessly. the syrian and the scythian, the children of the one japhetian race, met at last in this ultima thule of europe, after a three thousand years’ divergence; and even then, though they met with fierce animosity and inextinguishable hatred, yet lingerings of a far-off ancient identity in the language, the traditions, and the superstitions of each, could still be traced in these children of the one mighty father.

great consternation must have been in ireland when the report spread that a fleet of sixty strange sail was in the boyne, and that another of equal number was sailing up the liffey. the foreigners leaped from their ships to conquest. daring brought success; they sacked, burned, pillaged, murdered; put a captive king to death in his own gyves at their ships; drove the irish before them from the ocean to the shannon; till, with roused spirit and gathered force, the confederate kings of ireland in return drove back the white foreigners from the shannon to the ocean. but they had gained a footing, and inroads, with plunder and devastation, never ceased from that time till the whole eastern sea-border of ireland was their own. there they established themselves for four centuries, holding their first conquests, but never gaining more, until they were finally expelled by the normans.

to these red-haired pirates and marauders dublin owes its existence as a city. the ath-cliath of the irish, though of ancient fame, was but an aggregate of huts by the side of the liffey, which was crossed by a bridge of hurdles. the kings of ireland never made it a royal residence, even after tara was cursed by st. rodan. their palaces were in the interior of the island; but no doubt exists that ath-cliath, the eblana of ptolemy, was a well-known port, the resort of merchantmen from the most ancient times. there were received the spanish wines, the syrian silks, the indian gold, destined for the princes and nobles; and from thence the costly merchandize was transported to the interior.

but dublin, with its fine plain watered by the liffey, its noble bay, guarded by the sentinel hills, at once attracted the special308 notice of the bold vikings. their chiefs fixed their residence there, and assumed the title of kings of dublin, or kings of the dark water, as the word may be translated. they erected a fortress on the very spot where the norman castle now rules the city, and, after their conversion, a cathedral, still standing amongst us, venerable with the memories of eight hundred years.

their descendants are with us to this day, and many families might trace back their lineage to the danish leaders, whose names have been preserved in irish history. amongst sundry of “these great and valiant captains” are named swanchean, griffin, albert roe, torbert duff, goslyn, walter english, awley, king of denmark, from whom descend the macaulays, made more illustrious by the modern historian of their race than by the ancient pirate king. there are also named randal o’himer, algot, ottarduff earl, fyn crossagh, torkill, fox wasbagg, trevan, baron robert, and others; names interesting, no doubt, to those who can claim them for their ancestry.

the norsemen having walled and fortified dublin, though including but a mile within its circumference—whereas now the city includes ten—proceeded to fortify dunleary, now kingstown, in order to secure free passage to their ships. then, from their stronghold of dublin, they made incessant inroads upon the broad rich plains of the interior. they spread all along meath, which received its name from them, of “fingall” (the land of the white stranger); they devastated as far north as armagh, as far west as the shannon; wexford, waterford, and limerick became half danish cities. everywhere their course was marked by barbaric spoliation. at one time it is noticed that they carried off a “great prey of women”—thus the romans woo’d their sabine brides; indeed the accounts in the irish annals of the shrines they burned, the royal graves they plundered, the treasures they pillaged, the ferocities they perpetrated, are as interminable as they are revolting.

when beaten back by the irish princes they crouched within their walled city of dublin, till an opportunity offered for some fresh exercise of murderous cunning, some act of audacious rapine. thus the contest was carried on for four centuries between the colonists and the nation; mutual hatred ever increasing; the irish kings of leinster still claiming the rights of feudal lords over the danes; the danes resisting every effort made to dislodge them, though they were not unfrequently forced to pay tribute.

sometimes the irish kings hired them as mercenaries to assist in the civil wars which raged perennially amongst them. sometimes there were intermarriages between the warring foes—the daughter of brian boro’ wedded sitric, king of the danes of dublin. occasionally the irish kings got possession of dublin,309 and ravaged and pillaged in return. once the danes were driven forth completely from the city, and forced to take refuge upon “ireland’s eye,” the lone sea rock, since made memorable by a tragic history. malachy, king of meath, besieged dublin for three days and three nights, burned the fortress, and carried off the danish regalia; hence the allusion in moore’s song to “the collar of gold which he won from the proud invader.” but the most terrible defeat the danes ever sustained was at clontarf, when ten thousand men in coats of mail were opposed to king brian; but “the ten thousand in armour were cut in pieces, and three thousand warriors slain besides.” even the irish children fought against the invader. the grandchild of king brian, a youth of fifteen, was found dead with his hand fast bound in the hair of a dane’s head, whom the child had dragged to the sea.17

still the danish colony was not uprooted, though after this defeat they grew more humble, kept within their city of dublin, and paid tribute to the kings of leinster, and to the paramount monarch of ireland.

up to this period, therefore, we see that the irish race had no relationship whatever with their capital city; they never saw the inside of their metropolis unless they were carried there as prisoners, or that they entered with fire and sword; and, stranger still, during the many centuries of the existence of dublin as a city, up to the present time, the irish race have never ruled there, or held possession of the fortress of their capital.

but the time of judgment upon the danes was approaching, though it did not come by irish hands. as the saxons in england fell before the danes, so the danes had fallen before the normans. the normans, a scythian race likewise, but more beautiful, more brave, more chivalrous, courtly, and polished, than any race that had preceded them, came triumphant from italy and france to achieve the conquest of england, which yielded almost without a struggle. one great battle, and then no more. william the norman, or rather the scythian frenchman, ascends the throne of alfred. dane and saxon fall helplessly beneath his feet, and his tyrannies, his robberies, his confiscations, are submitted to by the subjugated nation without an effort at resistance.

his handful of norman nobles seized upon the lands, the wealth, the honours, the estates of the kingdom, and retain them to this hour. and justly; so noble a race as the norman knights were310 made for masters. the saxons sank at once to the level of serfs, of traders and menials, from which they have never risen, leaving england divided into a norman aristocracy who have all the land, and a saxon people who have all the toil; crushed by the final conquerors, they sank to be the sediment of the kingdom.

the irish had a different destiny; for five hundred years they fought the battle for independence with the normans, nor did their chiefs sink to be the pariahs of the kingdom, as the saxons of england, but retain their princely pretensions to this day. the o’connors, the o’briens, o’neils, kavanaghs, o’donnels, yield to no family in europe in pride of blood and ancestral honours; while, by intermarriage with the norman lords, a race was founded of norman irish—perhaps the finest specimens of aristocracy that europe produced—the geraldines at their head, loving ireland, and of whom ireland may be proud.

a hundred years passed by after the norman conquest of england. three kings of the norman race had reigned and died, and still the conquest of ireland was unattempted; no norman knight had set foot on irish soil.

the story of their coming begins with just such a domestic drama as homer had turned into an epic two thousand years before. a fair and faithless woman, a king’s daughter, fled from her husband to the arms of a lover. all ireland is outraged at the act. the kings assemble in conclave and denounce vengeance upon the crowned seducer, dermot, king of leinster.

he leagues with the danes of dublin, the abhorred of his countrymen, but the only allies he can find in his great need. a battle is fought in which dermot is defeated, his castle of ferns is burned, his kingdom is taken from him, and he himself is solemnly deposed by the confederate kings, and banished beyond the seas. roderick, king of all ireland, is the inexorable and supreme judge. he restores the guilty wife to her husband; but the husband disdains to receive her, and she retires to a convent, where she expiates her crime and the ruin of her country by forty years of penance. the only records of her afterwards are of her good deeds. she built a nunnery at clonmacnoise; she gave a chalice of gold to the altar of mary, and cloth for nine altars of the church; and then dervorgil, the helen of our iliad, is heard of no more.

dermot, her lover, went to england, seeking aid to recover his kingdom of leinster. in a year he returns with a band of welsh mercenaries, and marches to dublin; but is again defeated by the confederate kings, and obliged to pay a hundred ounces of gold to o’rourke of breffny, “for the wrong he had done him respecting his wife,” and to give up as hostage to king roderick his only son. but while parleying with the irish311 kings, dermot was secretly soliciting english aid, and not unsuccessfully.

memorable was the year 1170, when the renowned strongbow, gilbert de clare, earl of pembroke, and his norman knights, landed at wexford to aid the banished king; and when dermot welcomed his illustrious allies, little he thought that by his hand

“the emerald gem of the western world,

was set in the crown of a stranger.”

the compact with the foreigners was sealed with his son’s blood. no sooner did king roderick hear of the norman landing, than he ordered the royal kavanagh, the hostage of king dermot, to be put to death; and henceforth a doom seemed to be on the male heirs of the line of dermot, as fatal as that which rested upon the house of atrides.

dermot had an only daughter remaining. he offered her in marriage to the earl of pembroke, with the whole kingdom of leinster for her dowry, so as he would help him to his revenge. after a great battle against the danes, in which the normans were victorious, the marriage was celebrated at waterford.

“sad eva gazed

all round that bridal field of blood, amazed;

spoused to new fortunes.”18

no record remains to us of the beauty of the bride, or in what language the norman knight wooed her to his arms; this only we know, that eva, queen of leinster in her own right, and countess of pembroke by marriage, can number amongst her descendants the present queen of england. of the bridegroom, cambrensis tells us that he was “ruddy, freckle-faced, grey-eyed, his face feminine, his voice small, his neck little, yet of a high stature, ready with good words and gentle speeches.”

the same authority describes dermot from personal observation—“a tall man of stature, of a large and great body, a valiant and bold warrior, and by reason of his continued hallooing his voice was hoarse. he rather chose to be feared than loved. rough and generous, hateful unto strangers, he would be against all men and all men against him.”

from waterford to dublin was a progress of victory to dermot and his allies, for they marched only through the danish settlements of which dermot was feudal lord. at dublin king roderick opposed them with an army. three days the battle raged; then the danes of dublin, fearing dermot’s wrath,312 opened their gates, and offered him gold and silver in abundance if he would spare their lives; but, heedless of treaties, the norman knights rushed in, slew the danes in their own fortress, drove the rest to the sea; and thus ended the danish dynasty of four centuries. never more did they own a foot of ground throughout the length or breadth of the land. an irish army, aided by norman skill, had effected their complete extinction. the kingdom of leinster was regained for dermot, and he and his allies placed a garrison in dublin. this was the last triumph of the ancient race. the kingdom was lost even at the moment it seemed regained. that handful of scythian warriors, scarcely visible amid dermot’s great irish army, are destined to place the yoke upon the neck of ancient ireland.

the brave roderick gathered together another army, and, with sixty thousand men, laid siege to dublin, o’rourke of breffny aiding him. they were repulsed. o’rourke was taken prisoner, and hanged with his head downwards, then beheaded and the head stuck on one of the centre gates of the castle, “a spectacle of intense pity to the irish;” and roderick retired into connaught to recruit more forces.

there is something heroic and self-devoted in the efforts which, for eighteen years, were made by roderick against the norman power. brave, learned, just, and enlightened beyond his age, he alone of all the irish princes saw the direful tendency of the norman inroad. all the records of his reign prove that he was a wise and powerful monarch. he had a fleet on the shannon, the like of which had never been seen before. he built a royal residence in connaught, the ruins of which are still existing to attest its former magnificence, so far beyond all structures of the period, that it was known in ireland as the beautiful house. he founded a chair of literature at armagh, and left an endowment in perpetuity, to maintain it for the instruction of the youth of ireland and scotland. a great warrior, and a fervent patriot, his first effort, when he obtained the crown, was to humble the danish power. dublin was forced to pay him tribute, and he was inaugurated there with a grandeur and luxury unknown before. when dermot outraged morality, he deposed and banished him. when dermot further sinned, and traitorously brought over the foreigner, roderick, with stern justice, avenged the father’s treason by the son’s life. his own son, the heir of his kingdom, leagued with the normans, and was found fighting in their ranks. roderick, like a second brutus, unpitying, yet heroically just, when the youth was brought a prisoner before him, himself ordered his eyes to be put out. his second son also turned traitor, and covenanted with the normans to deprive his father of the kingdom. then roderick, surrounded by foreign foes and domestic treachery, quitted connaught, and went through the313 provinces of ireland, seeking to stir up a spirit as heroic as his own in the hearts of his countrymen. soon after his unworthy son was killed in some broil, and roderick resumed the kingly functions; but while all the other irish princes took the oath of fealty to king henry, he kept aloof beyond the shannon, equally disdaining treachery or submission. his last son, the only one worthy of him, being defeated in a battle by the normans, slew himself in despair.

the male line of his house was now extinct; the independence of his country was threatened; norman power was growing strong in the land, and his continued efforts for eighteen years to arouse the irish princes to a sense of their danger was unavailing. wearied, disgusted, heartbroken, it may be, he voluntarily laid down the sceptre and the crown, and retired to the monastery of cong, where he became a monk, and thus, in penance and seclusion, passed ten years—the weary ending of a fated life.

he died there, twenty-eight years after the norman invasion, “after exemplary penance, victorious over the world and the devil;” and the chroniclers record his title upon his grave where he is laid—

“roderick o’connor,

king of all ireland, both of the irish and english.”

seven centuries have passed since then, yet even now, which of us could enter the beautiful ruins of that ancient abbey, wander through the arched aisles tapestried by ivy, or tread the lonely silent chapel, once vocal with prayer and praise, without sad thoughts of sympathy for the fate of the last monarch of ireland, and perchance grave thoughts likewise over the destiny of a people who, on that grave of native monarchy, independence, and nationality, have as yet written no resurgam.

exactly ten months after the normans took possession of dublin, king dermot, “by whom a trembling sod was made of all ireland, died of an insufferable and unknown disease—for he became putrid while living—without a will, without penance, without the body of christ, without unction, as his evil deeds deserved.”

immediately the earl of pembroke assumed the title of king of leinster in right of his wife eva. whereupon henry of england grew alarmed at the independence of his nobility, and hastened over to assert his claims as lord paramount. to his remonstrances strongbow answered, “what i won was with the sword; what was given me i give you.” an agreement was then made by which strongbow retained dublin, while henry appointed what nobles he chose over the other provinces of leinster.

when the first norman monarch landed amongst us, the memorable 18th day of october, 1172, no resistance was offered by any party; no battle was fought. the irish chiefs were so elated314 at the danish overthrow, that they even volunteered oaths of fealty to the foreign prince who had been in some sort their deliverer. calmly, as in a state pageant, henry proceeded from wexford to dublin; his route lay only through the conquered danish possessions, now the property of the countess eva; there was no fear therefore of opposition. on reaching the city, “he caused a royal palace to be built, very curiously contrived of smooth wattels, after the manner of the country, and there, with the kings and princes of ireland, did keep christmas with great solemnity,” on the very spot where now stands st. andrew’s church.

king henry remained six months in ireland, the longest period which a foreign monarch has ever passed amongst us, and during that time he never thought of fighting a battle with the irish. as yet, the whole result of norman victories was the downfall of the danes, in which object the irish had gladly assisted. strongbow and eva reigned peacefully in our capital. henry placed governors over the other danish cities, and in order that dublin, from which the danes had been expelled, might be repeopled, he made a present of our fair city to the good people of bristol.

accordingly a colony from that town, famed for deficiency in personal attractions, came over and settled here; but thirty years after, the irish, whose instincts of beauty were no doubt offended by the rising generation of bristolians, poured down from the wicklow hills upon the ill-favoured colony, and made a quick ending of them by a general massacre.

in a fit of penitence, also, for the murdered à becket, henry founded the abbey of thomas court, from which thomas street derives its name, and then the excommunicated king quitted ireland, leaving it unchanged, save that henry the norman held the possessions of torkil the dane, and dublin, from a danish, had become a norman city. five hundred years more had to elapse before english jurisdiction extended beyond the ancient danish pale, and a cromwell or a william of nassau was needed for the final conquest of ireland, as well as for the redemption of england.

nothing can be more absurd than to talk of a saxon conquest of ireland. the saxons, an ignorant, rude, inferior race, could not even maintain their ascendency in england. they fell before the superior power, intelligence, and ability of the norman, and the provinces of ireland that fell to the first norman nobles were in reality not gained by battles, but by the intermarriage of norman lords with the daughters of irish kings. hence it was that in right of their wives the norman nobles early set up claims independent of the english crown, and the hereditary rights, being transmitted through each generation, were perpetually tempting the norman aristocracy into rebellion. english supremacy was as uneasily borne by the de lacys, the geraldines, the butlers, and others315 of the norman stock, as by the o’connors, the kavanaghs, the o’neils, or the o’briens. the great richard de burgho married odierna, grand-daughter of cathal crovdearg, king of connaught. hence the de burghos assumed the title of lords of connaught.

king roderick, as we have said, left no male issue. his kingdom descended to his daughter, who married the norman knight, hugo de lacy. immediately de lacy set up a claim as independent prince in right of his wife, assumed legal state, took the title of king of meath, and appeared in public with a golden crown upon his head, and so early as twenty-five years after the invasion, john de courcy and the son of this de lacy marched against the english of leinster and munster. many a romance could be woven of the destiny and vicissitudes of this great race, half irish, half norman; independent princes by the one side, and english subjects by the other.

the great earl of pembroke lived but a few years after his capture of dublin. the irish legends say that st. bridget killed him. however, he and eva had no male heir, and only one daughter, named isabel, after the earl’s mother, who was also aunt to the reigning king of scotland.

this young girl was sole heiress of leinster and of her father’s welsh estates. richard cœur de lion took her to his court at london, and she became his ward. in due time she married william marshall, called the great earl, hereditary earl marshal of england, and earl of pembroke and leinster, in right of his wife. high in office and favour with the king, we read that he carried the sword of state before richard at his coronation, and as a monument of his piety, he left tintern abbey, in the county wexford, erected by him on his wife’s property.

isabel and earl william had five sons and five daughters. the five sons, william, walter, gilbert, anselm, and richard (isabel called no son of hers after the royal traitor dermot, her grandfather) inherited the title in succession, and all died childless. we have said there was a doom upon dermot’s male posterity.

the inheritance was then divided between the five daughters, each of whom received a province for a dower. carlow, kilkenny, the queen’s county, wexford, and kildare were the five portions. maud, the eldest, married the earl of norfolk, who became earl marshal of england in right of his wife.

isabel, the second, married the earl of gloucester, and her granddaughter, isabel also, was mother to the great robert bruce, who was therefore great-great-great-grandson of eva and strongbow. eva, the third daughter, married the lord de breos, and from a daughter of hers, named eva likewise, descended edward the fourth, king of england, through whose granddaughter margaret queen of scotland, daughter of henry the316 seventh, the present reigning family of england claim their right to the throne. through two lines, therefore, our most gracious majesty can trace back her pedigree to eva the irish princess.

joan, whose portions were wexford, married lord valentia, half-brother to king henry the third, and the male line failing, the inheritance was divided between two daughters, from one of whom the talbots, earls of shrewsbury, inherit their wexford estates.

from sybil, the youngest, who married the earl of ferrars and derby, descended the earls of winchester, the lords mortimer, and other noble races. she had seven daughters, who all married norman lords, so that scarcely a family could be named of the high and ancient english nobility, whose wealth has not been increased by the estates of eva, the daughter of king dermot; and thus it came to pass that leinster fell by marriage and inheritance, not by conquest, into the possession of the great norman families, who, of course, acknowledged the king of england as their sovereign; and the english monarchs assumed thenceforth the title of lords of ireland—a claim which they afterwards enforced over the whole country.

the destiny of the descendants of de lacy and king roderick’s daughter was equally remarkable. they had two sons, hugh and walter, who, before they were twenty-one, threw off english allegiance, and set up as independent princes. to avoid the wrath of king john they fled to france, and took refuge in an abbey, where, disguised as menials, the two young noblemen found employment in garden-digging, preparing mud and bricks, and similar work. by some chance the abbot suspected the disguise, and finally detected the princes in the supposed peasants. he used his knowledge of their secret to obtain their pardon from king john, and hugh de lacy was created earl of ulster. he left an only daughter, his sole heir. she married a de burgho, who, in right of his wife, became earl of ulster, and from them descended ellen, wife of robert bruce, king of scotland. it is singular that the mother of robert bruce should have been descended from eva, and his wife from king roderick’s daughter. the granddaughter of robert bruce, the princess margery, married the lord high steward of scotland, and through her the stuarts claimed the crown. from thence it is easy to trace how the royal blood of the three kingdoms meet in the reigning family of england. another descendant of the earls of ulster (an only daughter likewise) married lionel, duke of clarence, son of edward the third, who, in the right of his wife, became earl of ulster and lord of connaught, and these titles finally merged in the english crown in the person of edward the fourth. from all these genealogies one fact may be clearly deduced, that the present representative of the royal irish races of eva and roderick,317 and the lineal heiress of their rights, is her majesty queen victoria.

the proud and handsome race of norman irish, that claimed descent from these intermarriages, were the nobles, of whom it was said, “they were more irish than the irish themselves.” the disposition to become independent of england was constantly manifested in them. they publicly asserted their rights, renounced the english dress and language, and adopted irish names. thus sir ulick burke, ancestor of lord clanricarde, became macwilliam oughter (or upper), and sir edmond albanagh, progenitor of the earl of mayo, became macwilliam eighter (or lower). richard, son of the earl of norfolk, and grandson of eva, set up a claim to be independent king of leinster, and was slain by the english. we have seen that walter and hugh de lacy, grandsons of roderick, were in open rebellion against king john. a hundred years later, two of the same race, named walter and hugh likewise, were proclaimed traitors for aiding the army of robert bruce, who claimed the crown of ireland for his brother edward, and the two de lacys were found dead by the side of edward bruce at the great battle of dundalk, where the scotch forces were overthrown.

once, even the geraldines and the fitzmaurices took prisoner the justiciary of dublin, as the lord-lieutenant of that day was named. meanwhile the irish princes of the west retained their independence; sometimes at feud, sometimes in amity with the english of the eastern coast. we read that “the english of dublin invited hugh, king of connaught, to a conference, and began to deal treacherously with him; but william mareschall, his friend, coming in with his forces, rescued him, in despite of the english, from the middle of the court, and escorted him to connaught.” both races were equally averse to the domination of the english crown. the geraldines and butlers, the de burghos and de lacys, were as intractable as the o’connors of connaught, or the o’neils of tyrone; even more so. the great o’neil submitted to elizabeth; but two hundred years later the geraldines had still to add the name of another martyr for liberty to the roll of their illustrious ancestors.

frequently the normans fought amongst themselves as fiercely as if opposed to the irish. the earl of ulster, a de burgho, the same who is recorded to have given the first entertainment at dublin castle, took his kinsman, walter burke, prisoner, and had him starved to death in his own castle; a tragedy which might have been made as memorable as that of ugolino in the torre del fame, had there been a dante in ireland to record it. for this act the kinsmen of walter burke murdered the earl of ulster on the lord’s day, as he was kneeling at his prayers, and cleft his head in two with a sword.

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it was unfortunate for ireland that her irish princes were so unconquerable, and that her norman lords should have caught the infection of resistance to the crown. eight hundred years ago the saxons of england peaceably settled down with the normans to form one nation, with interests and objects identical.

the norman conquerors, better fitted, perhaps, for rulers than any other existing in europe, established at once a strong, vigorous government in england. the kings, as individuals, may have been weak or tyrannous, but there was a unity of purpose, a sense of justice, and a vigour of will existing in the ruling class that brought the ruled speedily under the order and discipline of laws. not a century and a half had elapsed from the conquest before magna charta and representation by parliament secured the liberty of the people against the caprices of kings; and the norman temperament which united in a singular degree the instincts of loyalty with the love of freedom, became the hereditary national characteristic of englishmen. but ireland never, at any time, comprehended the word nationality. from of old it was broken up into fragments, ruled by chiefs whose principal aim was mutual destruction. there was no unity, therefore no strength.

if, at the time of the norman invasion, a king of the race had settled here as in england, the irish would gradually have become a nation under one ruler, in place of being an aggregate of warring tribes; but for want of this chief corner-stone the norman nobles themselves became but isolated chiefs—new petty kings added to the old—each for himself, none for the country. it was contrary to all natural laws that the proud irish princes, with the traditions of their race going back two thousand years, should at once serve with love and loyalty a foreign king whose face they never saw and from whom they derived no benefits. and thus it was that five hundred years elapsed, from henry plantagenet to william of nassau, before ireland was finally adjusted in her subordinate position to the english crown.

meanwhile the danish dublin was fast rising into importance as the norman city, the capital of the english pale. within that circle the english laws, language, manners and religion were implicitly adopted; without, there was a fierce, warlike, powerful people, the ancient lords of the soil, but with them the citizens of dublin had no affinity; and the object of the english rulers was to keep the two races as distinct as possible. amongst other enactments tending to obliterate any feeling of kindred which might exist, the inhabitants of the pale were ordered to adopt english surnames, derived from everything which by the second commandment we are forbidden to worship. hence arose the tribes of fishes—cod, haddock, plaice, salmon, gurnet, gudgeon, &c.; and of birds—crow, sparrow, swan, pigeon; and of trades,319 as carpenter, smith, baker, mason; and of colours—the blacks, whites, browns, and greens, which in dublin so copiously replace the grand old historic names of the provinces. determined also on annihilating the picturesque, at least in the individual, lest the outward symbol might be taken for an inward affinity, the long flowing hair and graceful mantle, after the irish fashion, were forbidden to be worn within the pale.

neither was the irish language tolerated within the english jurisdiction, for which holingshed gives good reason, after this fashion—“and here,” he says, “some snappish carpers will snuffingly snib me for debasing the irish language, but my short discourse tendeth only to this drift, that it is not expedient that the irish tongue should be so universally gagled in the english pale; for where the country is subdued, there the inhabitants should be ruled by the same laws that the conqueror is governed, wear the same fashion of attire with which the victor is vested, and speak the same language which the victor parleth; and if any of these lack, doubtless the conquest limpeth.” the english tongue, however, seems to have been held in utter contempt and scorn by the irish allies of the pale. after the submission of the great o’neil, the last who held the title of king in ireland, which he exchanged for that of earl of tyrone, as a mark and seal of his allegiance to queen elizabeth, “one demanded merrilie,” says holingshed, “why o’neil would not frame himself to speak english? ‘what,’ quoth the other in a rage, ‘thinkest thou it standeth with o’neil his honour to writhe his mouth in clattering english.’”

as regarded religion, the english commanded the most implicit obedience to the pope, under as strict and severe penalties as, five hundred years later, they enacted against those who acknowledged his authority. one provision of the ancient oath imposed upon the subjugated irish was—“you acknowledge yourself to be of the mother church of rome, now professed by all christians.” but, that the irish of that era little heeded papal or priestly ordinances may be inferred from the fact that, during the wars of edward bruce, the english complained that their irish auxiliaries were more exhausting than the scots, as they ate meat all the time of lent; and it is recorded, that in 1133, when the leinster irish rose against the english, “they set fire to everything, even the churches, and burned the church of dunleary, with eighty persons in it, and even when the priest in his sacred vestments, and carrying the host in his hands, tried to get out, they drove him back with their spears and burned him. for this they were excommunicated by a papal bull, and the country was put under an interdict. but they despised these things, and again wasted the county of wexford.”19

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the energetic and organizing spirit of the normans was, however, evidenced by better deeds than those we have named. courts of law were established in dublin, a mayor and corporation instituted, and parliaments were convened after the english fashion. within fifty years after the norman settlement, the lordly pile of dublin castle rose upon the site of the old danish fortress, built, indeed, to overawe the irish, as william the conqueror built the tower of london to overawe the english; yet, by norman hands, the first regal residence was given to our metropolis. st. patrick’s cathedral was next elected by the colonists, and gradually our fair city rose into beauty and importance through norman wealth and norman skill. from henceforth, the whole interest of irish history centres in the chief city of the pale, and the history of dublin becomes the history of english rule in ireland. for centuries its position was that of a besieged city in the midst of a hostile country; for centuries it resisted the whole force of the native race; and finally triumphantly crushed, annihilated, and revenged every effort made for irish independence.

in truth, dublin is a right royal city, and never fails in reverential respect towards her english mother.

many great names are associated with the attempt to write a history of dublin. the work in all ages was laborious; there were no printed books to consult, and the records of ireland, as hooker complains three hundred years ago, “were verie slenderlie and disorderlie kept.” whitelaw’s work, though it employed two editors ten hours a day for ten years, yet goes no farther than a description of the public buildings; but the object of mr. gilbert’s history is distinct from all that precedes it. it is from the decaying streets and houses that he disentombs great memories, great fragments of past life. it is not a mere record of ionic pillars, corinthian capitals, or doric pediments he gives us. whitelaw has supplied whole catalogues of these; but records of the human life, that has throbbed through the ancient dwellings of our city century after century; of the vicissitudes of families, to be read in their ruined mansions; of the vast political events which in some room, in some house, on some particular night, branded the stigmata deeper on the country; or the tragedies of great hopes crushed, young blood shed, victims hopelessly sacrificed, which have made some street, some house, some chamber, for ever sacred.

the labours of such an undertaking are manifest; yet none can appreciate them fully who has not known what it is to spend days, weeks, months buried in decaying parchments, endless pipe-rolls, worm-eaten records, dusty deeds and leases, excavating some fact, or searching for some link necessary for the completion of a tale, or the elucidation of a truth.

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mr. gilbert tells us that twelve hundred statutes and enactments of the anglo-irish parliament still remain unpublished. from these and such-like decayed and decaying manuscripts, ancient records which have become almost hieroglyphics to the present age, he has gathered the life-history of an ancient city; he has made the stones to speak, and evoked the shadows of the past to fill up the outline of a great historical picture.

fifty, even twenty years hence, the production of such a work would be impossible; the ancient records will probably have perished; the ancient houses, round which the curious may yet gather, will have fallen to the ground; and the ancient race, who cherished in their hearts the legends of the past with the fidelity of priests, and the fervour of bards, will have almost passed away.

dublin is fortunate, therefore, in finding a historian endowed with the ability, the energetic literary industry, the untiring spirit of research, and the vast amount of antiquarian knowledge necessary for the production of so valuable a work, before records perish, mansions fall, or races vanish.

in a history illustrated by human lives and deeds, and localized in the weird old streets, once the proudest, now the meanest of our city, many a family will find an ancestral shadow starting suddenly to light, trailing long memories with it of departed fashion, grandeur, and magnificence.

few amongst us who tread the dublin of the present in all its beauty, think of the dublin of the past in all its contrasted insignificance. true, the eternal features are the same; the landscape setting of the city is coeval with creation. tyrian, dane, and norman have looked as we look, and with hearts as responsive to nature’s loveliness, upon the emerald plains, the winding rivers, the hills draperied in violet and gold, the mountain gorges, thunder-riven, half veiled by the foam of the waterfall, and the eternal ocean encircling all; scenes where god said a city should arise, and the mountain and the ocean are still, as of old, the magnificent heritage of beauty conferred on our metropolis.

but the early races, whether from southern sea or northern plain, did little to aid the beauty of nature with the products of human intellect. dublin, under the danish rule, consisted only of a fortress, a church, and one rude street. under the rule of the normans, those great civilizers of the western world, those grand energetic organizers, temple and tower builders, it rose gradually into a beautiful capital, the chief city of ireland, the second city of the empire. at first the rudimental metropolis gathered round the castle, as nebulæ round a central sun, and from this point it radiated westward and southward; the o’briens on the south, the o’connors on the west, the o’neils on the north, perpetually hovering on the borders, but never able to regain the city, never able to dislodge the brave norman garrison who had322 planted their banners on the castle walls. in that castle, during the seven hundred years of its existence, no irishman of the old race has ever held rule for a single hour.

and what a history it has of tragedies and splendours; crowned and discrowned monarchs flit across the scene, and tragic destinies, likewise, may be recorded of many a viceroy! piers gravestone, lord-lieutenant of king edward, murdered; roger mortimer—“the gentle mortimer”—hanged at tyburn; the lord deputy of king richard ii. murdered by the o’briens; whereupon the king came over to avenge his death, just a year before he himself was so ruthlessly murdered at pomfret castle. two viceroys died of the plague; how many more were plagued to death, history leaves unrecorded; one was beheaded at drogheda; three were beheaded on tower hill. amongst the names of illustrious dublin rulers may be found those of prince john, the boy deputy of thirteen; prince lionel, son of edward iii., who claimed clare in right of his wife, and assumed the title of clarence from having conquered it from the o’briens.

the great oliver cromwell was the lord-lieutenant of the parliament, and he in turn appointed his son henry to succeed him. dire are the memories connected with cromwell’s reign here, both to his own party and to ireland. ireton died of the plague after the siege of limerick; general jones died of the plague after the surrender of dungarvon; a thousand of cromwell’s men died of the plague before waterford. the climate, in its effect upon english constitutions, seems to be the great nemesis of ireland’s wrongs.

strange scenes, dark, secret, and cruel, have been enacted in that gloomy pile. no one has told the full story yet. it will be a ratcliffe romance of dungeons and treacheries, of swift death or slow murder. god and st. mary were invoked in vain for the luckless irish prince or chieftain that was caught in that norman stronghold; but that was in the old time—long, long ago. now the castle courts are crowded only with loyal and courtly crowds, gathered to pay homage to the illustrious successor of a hundred viceroys.

the strangest scene, perhaps, in the annals of vice-royalty, was when lord thomas fitzgerald (silken thomas), son of the earl of kildare, and lord-lieutenant in his father’s absence, took up arms for irish independence. he rode through the city with seven score horsemen, in shirts of mail and silken fringes on their head-pieces (hence the name silken thomas), to st. mary’s abbey, and there entering the council chamber, he flung down the sword of state upon the table, and bade defiance to the king and his ministers; then hastening to raise an army, he laid siege to dublin castle, but with no success. silken thomas and his five uncles were sent to london, and there executed; and sixteen323 fitzgeralds were hanged and quartered at dublin. by a singular fatality, no plot laid against dublin castle ever succeeded; though to obtain possession of this foreign fortress was the paramount wish of all irish rebel leaders. this was the object with lord maguire and his catholics, with lord edward fitzgerald and his republicans, with emmet and his enthusiasts, with smith o’brien and his nationalists—yet they all failed. once only, during seven centuries, the green flag waved over dublin castle, with the motto—“now or never! now and for ever!” it was when tyrconnel held it for king james.

in the ancient stormy times of norman rule, the nobility naturally gathered round the castle. skinner’s row was the “may fair” of mediæval dublin. hoey’s court, castle street, cook street, fishamble street, bridge street, werburgh street, high street, golden lane, back lane, &c., were the fashionable localities inhabited by lords and bishops, chancellors and judges; and thomas street was the grand prado where viceregal pomp and norman pride were oftenest exhibited. a hundred years ago the lord-lieutenant was entertained at a ball by lord mountjoy in back lane. skinner’s row was distinguished by the residence of the great race of the geraldines, called “carbrie house,” which from them passed to the dukes of ormond, and after many vicissitudes, the palace from which silken thomas went forth to give his young life for irish independence, fell into decay, “and on its site now stand the houses known as 6, 7, and 8 christ church place, in the lower stories of which still exist some of the old oak beams of the carbrie house.”

in skinner’s row also, two hundred years ago, dwelt sir robert dixon, mayor of dublin, who was knighted at his own house there by the lord-lieutenant, the afterwards unfortunate strafford. the house has fallen to ruins, but the vast property conferred on him by charles i. for his good services, has descended to the family of sir kildare burrowes, of kildare. in those brilliant days of skinner’s row, it was but seventeen feet wide, and the pathways but one foot broad. all its glories have vanished now; even the name no longer exists; yet the remains of residences once inhabited by the magnificent geraldines and butlers can still be traced.

every stone throughout this ancient quarter of dublin has a history. in cook street lord maguire was arrested at midnight, under circumstances very similar to the capture of lord edward fitzgerald; and “to commemorate this capture in the parish it was the annual custom, down to the year 1829, to toll the bells of st. andrew’s church at twelve o’clock on the night of the 22nd of october.”

in bridge street great lords and peers of the realm resided. the marquis of antrim, the duke of marlborough’s father; west324enra, the dutch merchant who founded the family afterwards ennobled, and others. it was the merrion square of the day. in bridge street the rebellion of ’98 was organized at the house of oliver bond; and one night major swan, led by reynolds the informer, seized twelve gentlemen there, all of whom were summarily hanged as rebels. castle street was the focus of the rebellion of 1641; sir phelim o’neill and lord maguire had their residences there, and concocted together how to seize the castle, destroy all the lords and council, and re-establish popery in ireland. but a more useful man than either lived there also—sir james ware, whose indefatigable ardour in the cause of irish literature caused him to collect, with great trouble and expense, a vast number of irish manuscripts, which, after passing through many vicissitudes, are now deposited in the british museum. the french family of latouche came to castle street about one hundred years ago, and one of them, in 1778, upheld the shattered credit of the government by a loan of £20,000 to the lord-lieutenant. fishamble street has historical and classic memories, and traditions of handel consecrate this now obscure locality.

handel spent a year in dublin. his “messiah” was composed there, and first performed for the benefit of mercer’s hospital. how content he was with his reception is expressed in a letter to a friend. “i cannot,” he says, “sufficiently express the kind treatment i receive here, but the politeness of this generous nation cannot be unknown to you.”

dublin quays are likewise illustrated by great names. on usher’s quay may still be seen the once magnificent moira house, the princely residence of lord moira, afterwards marquis of hastings, governor-general of india. a hundred years ago it was the holland house of dublin, sparkling with all the wit, splendour, rank, and influence of the metropolis. the decorations were unsurpassed in the kingdom for beauty and grandeur. the very windows were inlaid with mother-o’-pearl.

after the union, the family in disgust quitted ireland; moira house was left tenantless for some years, and then finally was sold for the use of the pauper poor of dublin. the decorations were removed, the beautiful gardens turned into offices, the upper story of the edifice was taken off, and the entire building pauperized as much as possible to suit its inmates and its title—“the mendicity.”

in the good old times the lord mayor treated the lord-lieutenant to a new play every christmas, when the corporation acted mysteries upon the stage in hoggin green, where the college now stands. the mysteries were on various subjects. in one, the tailors had orders to find pilate and his wife clothed accordingly; the butchers were to supply the tormentors; the mariners and vintners represented noah. at that period the lord-lieutenants held their court at kilmainham, or thomas court,325 for dublin castle was not made a viceregal residence until the reign of elizabeth. the parliaments, too, were ambulatory. sometimes they met in the great aisle of christ church, that venerable edifice whose echoes have been destined to give back such conflicting sounds. what changes in its ritual and its worshippers! what scenes have passed before its high altar since first erected by the danish bishop, whose body, in pallium and mitre, lay exposed to view but a few years since, after a sleep of eight hundred years. irish kings and norman conquerors have trod the aisles. there roderick was inaugurated, the last king of ireland; there strongbow sleeps, first of the norman conquerors, and, until the middle of the last century, all payments were made at his tomb, as if in him alone, living or dead, the citizens had their strength; there lambert simnel was crowned with a crown taken from the head of the virgin mary; there cromwell worshipped before he went forth to devastate; there the last stuart knelt in prayer before he threw the last stake at the boyne for an empire; and there william of nassau knelt in gratitude for the victory, with the crown upon his head, forgotten by james in his ignominious flight.

and how many rituals have risen up to heaven from that ancient altar, each anathema maranatha to the other—the solemn chants of the early church; the gorgeous ritual of the mass; in elizabeth’s time, the simple liturgy of the english church in the english tongue; this, too, was prohibited in its turn, and for ten years the puritans wailed and howled against kings and liturgies in the ancient edifice; there the funeral oration for the death of cromwell was pronounced, entitled, “threni hibernici, or ireland sympathizing with england for the loss of their josiah (oliver cromwell).” once again rose the incense of the mass while king james was amongst us; but william quenched the lights on the altar, and established once more the english liturgy in its simplicity and beauty. but so little, during all these changes, had the irish to do with the cathedral of their capital, that by an act passed in 1380 no irishman was permitted to hold in it any situation or office; and so strictly was the law enforced, that sir john stevenson was the first irishman admitted, as even vicar-choral.

many are the themes of interest to be found in mr. gilbert’s “history of dublin,” concerning those ancient times when sackville street was a marsh, merrion square an exhausted quarry, the undulations so beautiful in its present verdant state being but the accident of excavation; when st. stephen’s green, with its ten fine irish acres, was a compound of meadow, quagmire, and ditch; when mountjoy square was a howling wilderness, and north georges street and summer hill were far away in the country, and when the danes, rudely expelled by norman swords from the326 south of the liffey, were stealing over the river to found a settlement on the north side.

our fathers have told us of dublin in later times, before the union, when a hundred lords and two hundred commoners enriched and enlivened our city with their wealth and magnificence. dublin was then at the summit of its glory; but when the colonists sold their parliament to england, and the lords and commons vanished, and their mansions became hospitals and poorhouses, and all wealth, power, influence, and magnificence were transferred to the loved mother country, then the “city of the dark water” sank into very pitiable insignificance. the proud norman spirit of independence was broken at last, and there was no great principle to replace it. having no large sympathies with the irish nation, no idea of country, nationality, or any other grand word by which is expressed the resolve of self-reliant men to be self-governed, the colonists became petty, paltry, and selfish in aim; imitative in manners and feelings; apathetic, even antagonistic to all national advance; bound to england by helpless fear and servile hope; content so as they could rest under her great shadow, secure from the mysterious horrors of popery, preserved in the blessing of a church establishment, and allowed to worship even the shadow of transcendent majesty. then dublin ambition was satisfied and happy; for there is no word so instinctively abhorrent, so invincibly opposed to all the prejudices of dublin society, as patriotism.

from this cursory glance over the antecedents of our metropolis, the cause of her anti-irishism is plainly deducible from the fact, that at no epoch was dublin an irish city. the inhabitants are a blended race, descended of danes, normans, saxon settlers, and mongrel irish. the country of their affections is england. they have known no other mother. with the proud old princes and chiefs of the ancient irish race they have no more affinity than (to use mr. macaulay’s illustration) the english of calcutta with the nation of hindustan, and from this colonial position a certain dublin idiosyncrasy of character has resulted, which makes the capital distinct in feeling from the rest of ireland.

meanwhile the destiny of the ancient race is working out, not in happiness or prosperity, but in stern, severe discipline. unchanged and unchangeable they remain, so far as change is effected by impulses arising from within. “two thousand years,” says moore, “have passed over the hovel of the irish peasant in vain.” such as they were when the first light of history rested on them, they are now; indolent and dreamy, patient and resigned as fatalists, fanatical as bonzees, implacable as arabs, cunning as greeks, courteous as spaniards, superstitious as savages, loving as children, clinging to the old home and the old sod and the old families with a tenderness that is always beautiful, sometimes327 heroic; loving to be ruled, with veneration in excess; ready to die like martyrs for a creed, a party, or the idol of the hour, but incapable of extending their sympathies beyond the family or the clan; content with the lowest place in europe; stationary amid progression; isolated from the european family; without power or influence; lazily resting in the past while the nations are wrestling in the present for the future. children of the ocean, yet without commerce; idle by thousands, yet without manufactures; gifted with quick intellect and passionate hearts, yet literature and art die out amongst them for want of aid or sympathy; without definite aims, without energy or the earnestness which is the vital life of heroic deeds; dark and blind through prejudice and ignorance, they can neither resist nobly nor endure wisely; chafing in bondage, yet their epileptic fits of liberty are marked only by wild excesses, and end only in sullen despair.

yet it was not in the providence of god that the fine elements of humanity in such a people should still continue to waste and stagnate during centuries of inaction, while noble countries and fruitful lands, lying silent since creation, were waiting the destined toilers and workers, who, by the sweat of the brow, shall change them to living empires.

two terrible calamities fell upon ireland—famine and pestilence; and by these two dread ministers of god’s great purposes, the irish race were uprooted and driven forth to fulfil their appointed destiny. a million of our people emigrated; a million of our people died under these judgments of god. seventeen millions worth of property passed from time-honoured names into the hands of strangers. the echoes of the old tongue—call it pelasgian, phœnician, celtic, irish, what you will, still the oldest in europe, is dying out at last along the stony plains of mayo and the wild sea-cliffs of the storm-rent western shore. scarcely a million and a half are left of people too old to emigrate, amidst roofless cabins and ruined villages, who speak that language now. exile, confiscation, or death, was the final fate written on the page of history for the much-enduring children of ireland. one day they may reassert themselves in the new world, or in other lands. australia, with its skies of beauty and its pavement of gold, may be given to them as america to the saxon, but how low must a nation have fallen at home when even famine and plague come to be welcomed as the levers of progression and social elevation. some wise purpose of god’s providence lies, no doubt, at the reverse side, but we have not yet turned the leaf.

the ancient race who, thousands of years ago, left the cradle of the sun to track him to the ocean, are now flung on the coast of another hemisphere to begin once more their destined westward march; and like the israelites of old, they, too, might tell in that new country:328 “a syrian ready to perish was our father!”

they fled across the atlantic like a drift of autumn leaves—“pestilence-stricken multitudes”—and the sea was furrowed by the dead as the plague-ships passed along.

one would say a doom had been laid upon our people—the wandering io of humanity—a destiny of weeping and unrest.

of old the kings at tara sat throned with their faces to the west: was it a symbol or a prophecy of the future of their nation? when from every hill in ireland could be seen—

“the remnant of our people

sweeping westward, wild and woful,

like the cloud-rack of a tempest,

like the withered leaves of autumn.”

from the atlantic to the pacific, where the rocky mountains bar like a portal the land of gold—through the islands of the southern ocean to the great desolate world of australia, seeking as it were the lost home of their fathers, and doomed to make the circuit of the earth—still onward flows the tide of human life—that inexhaustible race which has cleared the forests of canada, built the cities and made all the railroads of the states, given thousands to the red plains of the crimea, overran california and peopled australia—the race whose destiny has made them the instruments of all civilization, though they have never reaped its benefits.

yet we cannot believe that the irish race is doomed for ever to work and suffer without the glory of success; for the celtic element is necessary to humanity as a great factor in human progress. it is the subtle, spiritual fire that warms and permeates the ruder clay of other races, giving them new, vivid, and magnetic impulses to growth and expansion.

the children of the early wanderers from the isles of the sea will still continue to fulfil their mission as world-workers and world-movers. across the breadth of earth they will found new nations, each a greater and a stronger ireland, where they will have the certainty of power, station, and reward denied them at home. but neither change nor progress nor the severing ocean will destroy the electric chain that binds them lovingly to their ancient mother in that true sympathy with country and kinship that ever burns in the irish heart.

the new ireland across the seas, whether in america or in australia, will still cherish with sacred devotion the beautiful legends, the pathetic songs, the poetry and history and the heroic traditions of the old, well-loved country as eternal verses of the bible of humanity, with all the light and music of the fanciful fairy period, such as i have tried to gather into a focus in these volumes, along with the holy memories of those martyrs of our race whose names are for ever associated with the words liberty and nationhood, but whose tragic fate has illustrated so many mournful pages in the history of the irish past.