located themselves and laboured with much zeal in the north of England. Many others, again, passed over to the continent, and devoted themselves to Christianize and civilize its then barbarous population, until the power of Rome's bishop obliged them to conform or flee. What proportion, or whether any, of these earnest men went from Dublin or its neighbourhood is unknown.

The Venerable Bede records that, in the seventh century, numbers of the nobility and others of England came over to Ireland on account of the advantages it afforded above their own country for education and religious improvement. Among the persons of high rank who thus made it a temporary residence, was Alfrid, a son of Oswin the king of Northumberland. Oswin, urged by the agents of Rome to recognise her rule, held an assembly for discussing in his presence the difference of opinion between them and the Irish monkswho till then had ministered to his peoplerespecting the observance of Easter. The design of the conference was to supply argument which would enable the king to form a sound judgment for his own guidance. In the end, Oswin, to make himself sure of the favour of Peter, who was represented as holding the keys of heaven, gave his verdict in favour of the Roman clergy, and the Irish monks were obliged forthwith to leave Northumbria and return to their native land. On the death of Oswin, his son Egfrid succeeded him in the

throne, and Alfrid, his other son, withdrew to Ireland, dreading his brother's jealousy. In June, 684, Egfrid sent an expedition, under a commander named Beret, against the district called Bergia, lying between Dublin and Drogheda. The marauders spared neither laity nor clergy, things sacred nor things secular, and bore away with them " many captives and much booty." It is possible that the favourable treatment given to Alfrid may have provoked this outrage. Alfrid is said to have become, while in Ireland, " a man most learned in the Scriptures," and "highly qualified for being placed at the head of a state," which position he acquired when his brother died. A poem, composed by Alfrid, is yet extant in the Irish language, describing, in a lively strain, what he had observed in travelling through various parts of the country. It is too long to be inserted entire, but three verses may be transcribed as given in a translation :

"I found the good lay monks and brothers
Ever beseeching help for others,

And, in their keeping, the Holy Word
Pure as it came from Jesus the Lord.

"I found in Leinster the smooth and sleek,
From Dublin to Slewmargy's peak,
Flourishing pastures, valour, health,
Long-living worthies, commerce, wealth.
"I found in Meath's fair principality,
Virtue, vigour, and hospitality;
Candour, joyfulness, bravery, purity,
Ireland's bulwark and security."

With regard to what is said of the Irish monks "ever beseeching help for others," the

reader will observe that it was for others, not for themselves, that they sought assistance; and it ought to be borne in mind that the Irish monks had it as a law that they were not to live upon alms, but were to support themselves by their own industry. The mention of "commerce" in Leinster, naturally refers to Dublin, that city being, it is presumed, the principal, if not then the only sea-port in the province. Slewmargy is a mountain in the Queen's County. In the third of the above verses, there are allusions to Tarah, where the monarch of all Ireland neld his court.

Supposing the Danes to have settled in or near Dublin, as before noticed, towards the close of the fifth century, they must have lived on good terms with its native inhabitants, for we have no accounts of disagreements between the two parties till about the year 838. By that time, however, they appear to have become masters of the place, and their power had so increased that it aroused the fears of the local Irish chiefs around. In 851, the kings of Leinster and Meath made war upon them, expelled them from the city, and gave it up to pillage by a rude soldiery. But, in the year following, the Danes returned in great power, regained the place, fortified it with a wall and towers, and crowned their leader, Amlaffe, "king" of Dublin. He built himself a royal residence at Clondalkin. Hostilities frequently occurred between him and the neighbouring prinees. On one occasion, they attacked

Clondalkin, burned his palace there, and slew a hundred of his servants. He retaliated, by surprising a body of their followers, two thousand in number, all of whom he either killed or made prisoners. He made excursions into the country, and, among other successful enterprises, he plundered and burned Armagh. In 870, he and his son Yvar crossed the channel with an army to assist their brethren, the Danes, against the Saxons in England. The Ulster Annals relate their return thus:"Amlaffe and Yvar came to Ath-Cliath out of Albany with two hundred ships, and brought with them a great prey of English, Britons, and Picts." In 872, Ostin Mac Amlaffe, king of Dublin, invaded the Picts of North Britain with success, but was afterwards slain by his own people. On the other hand, in 890, Dublin was taken by Gregory, king of Scotland. Two years afterwards, a great fleet of Danes arrived in the Liffey, to assist their countrymen, but on disembarking they were routed near the city with great slaughter.

In

916, the Danes sustained the greatest defeat they ever had experienced in the country; yet, strange to record, in that same year they ravaged the island of Anglesea; and in three years more they vanquished and slew Neill Iv., king of Ireland, in a battle near their city.

The long recital of constantly occurring fights, maraudings, and bloodshed, at which the preceding paragraph merely affords a glance, is interrupted by a statement that, about

the year 948, the Danes of Dublin renounced heathenism and embraced Christianity. As will appear in our next section, it was Christianity as then Romanized, not Christianity as it existed among the native Irish, that they received. This circumstance will account for the outrages the Danes of Dublin continued to practise on their Irish neighbours, so strongly complained of by Dr. Lanigan, the ecclesiastical historian of Ireland :- "These new converts," he writes, "did not imbibe the meekness prescribed by the gospel; for in 950," only two years after their conversion, "the Danes of Dublin plundered and burned Slane; so that many persons assembled in the belfry perished in the flames." About the time they became nominally Christians, they founded the Abbey of St. Mary, near Ostmantown, their own settlement. As the best sites were chosen for such establishments, we may presume that the portion of the city now traversed by Capelstreet, and its branches right and left, was then a spot the most eligible, for its rich soil, lovely position, and other conveniences, that the Danes had at their command in the neighbourhood of Dublin.

Rapin informs us that Edgar, surnamed the Peaceable, king of England, kept a fleet of four thousand vessels, by which he not only protected his own dominions, but "obliged the kings of Wales, Ireland, and the Isle of Man, to swear allegiance to him and acknowledge him for sovereign." This account of the extent of