Part 20 (2/2)
Murtough appears to have been a not unusual compound of piety and profanity. We read in one place of his reckless exploits in burning churches and desecrating shrines, and in others of his liberal endowments of the same.
The Danes had now settled quietly in the mercantile towns which they had mainly contributed to form, and expended all their energies on commerce instead of war; but the new generation of Northmen, who had not yet visited Ireland, could not so easily relinquish the old project of conquering it. About the year 1101, Magnus planned an expedition to effect this purpose. He arrived in Dublin the following year; a ”hosting of the men of Ireland came to oppose him;”[236] but they made peace with him for one year, and Murtough gave his daughter in marriage to his son Sitric, ”with many jewels and gifts.” The year 1103 was distinguished for sanguinary conflicts. Murdhadh Drun was killed on a predatory excursion in Magh Cobha. Raghnall Ua h-Ocain,[237] lawgiver of Felach Og, was slain by the men of Magh Itha. There was a ”great war” between the Cinel-Eoghain and the Ulidians; and Murtough O'Brien, with the men of Munster, Leinster, and Ossory, the chiefs of Connaught, and the men of Meath and their kings, proceeded to Magh Cobha (Donaghmore, co. Down) to relieve the Ulidians. When the men of Munster ”were wearied,”
Murtough proceeded to Ard-Macha, and left eight ounces of gold upon the altar, and promised eightscore cows. The northern Hy-Nials then attacked the camp of the Leinster men, and a spirited battle was fought. The Cinel-Eoghain and Cinel-Connaill returned victoriously and triumphantly to their forts, with valuable jewels and much wealth, together with the royal tent, the standard, and jewels.
Magnus, King of Lochlann and the Isles, was slain by the Ulidians this year.
It is noticeable that, in the Annals of the Four Masters, obituaries of saints or good men always occupy the first place. The Annals of this year are of unusual length; but they commence with the obituary of Murchadh O'Flanaghan, Arrchinneach of Ardbo, a paragon of wisdom and instruction, who died on his pilgrimage at Ard-Macha. A priest of Kildare is also mentioned, and the Tanist-Abbot of Clonmacnois, a prosperous and affluent man.
It would appear that the Irish were sufficiently occupied with domestic wars to prevent their offering a.s.sistance elsewhere. This, however, was not the case. When Harold returned to England, his brother-in-law, Donough, lent him nine s.h.i.+ps; and we find the Irish affording a.s.sistance in several other feuds of the Anglo-Saxons of this period. A deputation of the n.o.bles of Man and other islands visited Dublin, and waited on Murtough O'Brien to solicit a king. He sent his nephew, Donnell; but he was soon expelled on account of his tyranny. Another Donnell O'Brien, his cousin, was, at the same time, lord of the Danes in Dublin. In 1114 Murtough O'Brien was obliged to resign the crown in consequence of ill-health; the Annals say that he became a living skeleton. His brother, Dermod, took advantage of this circ.u.mstance to declare himself King of Munster. This obliged Murtough to resume the reins of government, and put himself at the head of his army. He succeeded in making Dermod prisoner, but eventually he was obliged to resign the kingdom to him, and retired into the Monastery of Lismore, where he died in 1119. The Annals call him the prop of the glory and magnificence of the western world. In the same year Nial Mac Lochlann, royal heir of Aileach and of Ireland, fell by the Cinel-Moain, in the twenty-eighth year of his age. He was the ”paragon of Ireland, for personal form, sense, hospitality, and learning.” The Chief Ollamh of Ireland, Cucollchoille ua Biagheallain, was killed by the men of Lug and Tuatha-ratha (Tooragh, co. Fermanagh), with his wife, ”two very good sons,” and five-and-thirty persons in one house, on the Sat.u.r.day before Little Easter. The cause of this outrage is not mentioned. The Annals of the Four Masters and the Annals of Ulster record the same event, and mention that he was distinguished for charity, hospitality, and universal benevolence.
Donnell O'Loughlin died in 1121, in the Monastery of St. Columba, at Derry. He is styled King of Ireland, although the power of his southern rival preponderated during the greater part of his reign. In 1118 Rory O'Connor died in the Monastery of Clonmacnois. He had been blinded some years previously by the O'Flaherties. This cruel custom was sometimes practised to prevent the succession of an obnoxious person, as freedom from every blemish was a _sine qua non_ in Erinn for a candidate to royal honours. Teigue Mac Carthy, King of Desmond, died, ”after penance,” at Cashel, A.D. 1124. From the time of Murtough O'Brien's illness, Turlough O'Connor, son of the prince who had been blinded, comes prominently forward in Irish history. His object was to exalt the Eoghanists or Desmonian family, who had been virtually excluded from the succession since the time of Brian Boroimhe. In 1116 he plundered Th.o.m.ond as far as Limerick. In 1118 he led an army as far as Glanmire (co. Cork), and divided Munster, giving Desmond to Mac Carthy, and Th.o.m.ond to the sons of Dermod O'Brien. He then marched to Dublin, and took hostages from the Danes, releasing Donnell, son of the King of Meath, whom they had in captivity. The following year he sailed down the Shannon with a fleet, and destroyed the royal palace of Kincora, hurling its stones and timber beams into the river. He then devoted himself to wholesale plundering, and expelled his late ally and father-in-law from Meath, ravaging the country from Traigh Li (Tralee) to the sanctuary lands of Lismore. In 1126 he bestowed the kingdom of Dublin on his son Cormac. In 1127 he drove Cormac Mac Carthy from his kingdom, and divided Munster in three parts. In fact, there was such a storm of war throughout the whole country, that St. Celsus was obliged to interfere.
He spent a month and a year trying to establish peace, and promulgating rules and good customs in every district, among the laity and clergy.
His efforts to teach ”good rules and manners” seem to have been scarcely effectual, for we find an immediate entry of the decapitation of Ruaidhri, after he had made a ”treacherous prey” in Aictheara. In the year 1128 the good Archbishop succeeded in making a year's truce between the Connaught men and the men of Munster. The following year the saint died at Ardpatrick, where he was making a visitation. He was only fifty years of age, but anxiety and care had worn him old. St. Celsus was buried at Lismore, and interred in the cemetery of the bishops.
We must now give a brief glance at the ecclesiastical history of Ireland, before narrating the events which immediately preceded the English invasion.
In the year 1111 a synod was convened at Fidh Aengussa, or Aengus Grove, near the Hill of Uisneach, in Westmeath. It was attended by fifty bishops, 300 priests, and 3,000 religious. Murtough O'Brien was also permitted to be present, and some of the n.o.bles of his province. The object of the synod was to inst.i.tute rules of life and manners for the clergy and people. St. Celsus, the Archbishop of Armagh, and Maelmuire[238] or Maria.n.u.s O'Dunain, Archbishop of Cashel, were present.
Attention had already been directed to certain abuses in ecclesiastical discipline. Such abuses must always arise from time to time in the Church, through the frailty of her members; but these abuses are always carefully reprehended as they arise, so that she is no longer responsible for them. It is remarkable that men of more than ordinary sanct.i.ty have usually been given to the Church at such periods. Some have withheld heretical emperors from deeds of evil, and some have braved the fury of heretical princes. In Ireland, happily, the rulers needed not such opposition; but when the country had been again and again devastated by war, whether from foreign or domestic sources, the intervention of saintly men was especially needed to restore peace, and to repair, as far as might be, the grievous injury which war always inflicts on the social state of those who have suffered from its devastations.
Lanfranc, the great Archbishop of Canterbury, had already noticed the state of the Irish Church. He was in constant communication with the Danish bishops, who had received consecration from him; and their accounts were probably true in the main, however coloured by prejudice.
He wrote an earnest epistle to Turlough O'Brien, whom he addresses respectfully as King of Ireland, and whose virtues as a Christian prince he highly commends. His princ.i.p.al object appears to have been to draw the king's attention to an abuse, of which the Danes had informed him, with regard to the sacrament of matrimony. This subject shall be noticed again. Pope Gregory VII. also wrote to Turlough, but princ.i.p.ally on the temporal authority of the Holy See.
The synod had four special subjects for consideration: (1) First, to regulate the number of bishops--an excessive and undue multiplication of episcopal dignity having arisen from the custom of creating ch.o.r.episcopi or rural bishops. It was now decided that there should be but twenty-four dioceses--twelve for the northern and twelve for the southern half of Ireland. Cashel was also recognized as an archiepiscopal see, and the successor of St. Jarlath was sometimes called Archbishop of Connaught. The custom of lay appropriations, which had obtained in some places, was also firmly denounced. This was an intolerable abuse. St. Celsus, the Archbishop of Armagh, though himself a member of the family who had usurped this office, made a special provision in his will that he should be succeeded by St. Malachy. This saint obtained a final victory over the sacrilegious innovators, but not without much personal suffering.[239]
The (2) second abuse which was now noticed, referred to the sacrament of matrimony. The Irish were accused of abandoning their lawful wives and taking others, of marrying within the degrees of consanguinity, and it was said that in Dublin wives were even exchanged. Usher, in commenting on the pa.s.sage in Lanfranc's letter which refers to these gross abuses, observes that the custom of discarding wives was prevalent among the Anglo-Saxons and in Scotland. This, however, was no excuse for the Irish. The custom was a remnant of pagan contempt of the female s.e.x,--a contempt from which women were never fully released, until Christianity restored the fallen, and the obedience of the second Eve had atoned for the disobedience of the first. It appears, however, that these immoralities were almost confined to the half-Christianized Danes, who still retained many of their heathen customs. The canons of St. Patrick, which were always respected by the native Irish, forbid such practices; and the synod, therefore, had only to call on the people to observe the laws of the Church more strictly.
Two other subjects, (3) one regarding the consecration of bishops, the other (4) referring to the ceremonies of baptism, were merely questions of ecclesiastical discipline, and as such were easily arranged by competent authority. In St. Anselm's correspondence with the prelates of the south of Ireland, he pa.s.ses a high eulogium on their zeal and piety, while he deplores certain relaxations of discipline, which they were as anxious to reform as he could desire.
We have already mentioned that St. Celsus appointed St. Malachy his successor in the Archiepiscopal See of Armagh. Malachy had been educated by the Abbot Imar O'Hagan, who presided over the great schools of that city; and the account given of his early training, sufficiently manifests the ability of his gifted instructor, and the high state of intellectual culture which existed in Ireland. While still young, St.
Malachy undertook the restoration of the famous Abbey of Bangor. Here he erected a small oratory of wood, and joined himself to a few devoted men ardent for the perfection of a religious life. He was soon after elected Bishop of Connor. With the a.s.sistance of some of his faithful monks, he restored what war and rapine had destroyed; and was proceeding peacefully and successfully in his n.o.ble work, when he was driven from his diocese by a hostile prince. He now fled to Cormac Mac Carthy, King of Desmond;[240] but he was not permitted to remain here long. The See of Armagh was vacated by the death of St. Celsus, and Malachy was obliged to commence another arduous mission. It is said that it almost required threats of excommunication to induce him to undertake the charge. Bishop Gilbert of Limerick, the Apostolic-Delegate, and Bishop Malchus of Lismore, with other bishops and several chieftains, visited him in the monastery which he had erected at Ibrach,[241] and at last obtained compliance by promising him permission to retire when he had restored order in his new diocese.
[Ill.u.s.tration: BANGOR CASTLE.]
St. Malachy found his mission as painful as he had antic.i.p.ated. The lay intruders were making a last attempt to keep up their evil custom; and, after the death of the usurper who made this false claim, another person attempted to continue it; but popular feeling was so strong against the wretched man, that he was obliged to fly. Ecclesiastical discipline was soon restored; and after Malachy had made a part.i.tion of the diocese, he was permitted to resign in favour of Gelasius, then Abbot of the great Columbian Monastery of Derry.
But peace was not yet established in Ireland. I shall return again to the narrative of domestic feuds, which made it a ”trembling sod,” the O'Loughlins of Tyrone being the chief aggressors; for the present we must follow the course of ecclesiastical history briefly. St. Malachy was now appointed Bishop of Down, to which his old see of Connor was united. He had long a desire to visit Rome--a devotional pilgrimage of the men of Erinn from the earliest period. He was specially anxious to obtain a formal recognition of the archiepiscopal sees in Ireland, by the granting of palliums. On his way to the Holy City he visited St.
Bernard at Clairvaux, and thus commenced and cemented the friends.h.i.+p which forms so interesting a feature in the lives of the French and Irish saints. It is probable that his account of the state of the Irish Church took a tinge of gloom from the heavy trials he had endured in his efforts to remove its temporary abuses. St. Bernard's ardent and impetuous character, even his very affectionateness, would lead him also to look darkly on the picture: hence the somewhat over-coloured accounts he has given of its state at that eventful period. St. Malachy returned to Ireland after an interview with the reigning Pontiff, Pope Innocent II. His Holiness had received him with open arms, and appointed him Apostolic Legate; but he declined to give the palliums, until they were formally demanded by the Irish prelates.
In virtue of his legatine power, the saint a.s.sembled local synods in several places. He rebuilt and restored many churches; and in 1142 he erected the famous Cistercian Abbey of Mellifont, near Drogheda. This monastery was liberally endowed by O'Carroll, King of Oriel, and was peopled by Irish monks, whom St. Malachy had sent to Clairvaux, to be trained in the Benedictine rule and observances. But his great act was the convocation of the Synod of Inis Padraig. It was held in the year 1148. St. Malachy presided as Legate of the Holy See; fifteen bishops, two hundred priests, and some religious were present at the deliberations, which lasted for four days. The members of the synod were unwilling that Malachy should leave Ireland again; but Eugene III., who had been a Cistercian monk, was visiting Clairvaux, and it was hoped he might grant the favour there. The Pope had left the abbey when the saint arrived, who, in a few days after, was seized with mortal sickness, and died on the 2nd November, 1148. His remains were interred at Clairvaux.
His feast was changed from the 2nd of November, All Souls, to the 3rd, by ”the seniors,” that he might be the more easily revered and honoured.
In 1151 Cardinal Paparo arrived in Ireland with the palliums which had been solicited by St. Malachy. The insignia of dignity were conferred the following year, at the Council of Kells. t.i.thes were then introduced for the first time in Ireland, but they were not enforced until after the English invasion.
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