[Illustion]

VII.

THE NORTHERN SCOURGE.

While from the fifth to the eighth century the work of the Irish Church was thus yearly increasing, spreading its net wider and wider, and numbering its converts by thousands, not much good can be reported of the secular history of Ireland during the same period.  It is for the most part a confused chronicle of small feuds, jealousies, raids, skirmishes, retaliations, hardly amounting to the dignity of war, but certainly as distinctly the antipodes of peace.

The tribal system, which in its earlier stages has been already explained, had to some degree begun to change its character.  The struggles between the different septs or clans had grown into a struggle between a number of great chieftains, under whose rule the lesser ones had come to range themselves upon all important occasions.

As early as the introduction of Christianity Ireland was already divided into four such aggregations of tribes—­kingdoms they are commonly called—­answering pretty nearly to the present four provinces, with the addition of Meath, which was the appanage of the house of Ulster, and included West Meath, Longford, and a fragment of the King’s County.  Of the other four provinces, Connaught acknowledged the rule of the O’Connors, Munster that of the O’Briens, Leinster of the McMurroughs, and Ulster of the O’Neills, who were also in theory over-kings, or, as the native word was, Ard-Reaghs of the entire island.

[Illustration:  DOORWAY OF MAGHERA CHURCH, LONDONDERRY.]

Considering what a stout fighting race they proved in later ages—­fighting often when submission would have been the wiser policy—­it is curious that in early days these O’Neills or Hy-Nials seem to have been but a supine race.  For centuries they were titular kings of Ireland, yet during all that time they seem never to have tried to transform their faint, shadowy sceptre into a real and active one.  Malachy or Melachlin, the rival of Brian Boru, seems to have been the most energetic of the race, yet he allowed the sceptre to be plucked from his hands with an ease which, judging by the imperfect light shed by the chroniclers over the transaction, seems to be almost unaccountable.

It is difficult to say how far that light, for which the Irish monasteries were then celebrated, extended to the people of the island at large.  With one exception, little that can be called cultivation is, it must be owned, discoverable, indeed long centuries after this Irish chieftains we know were innocent of the power of signing their own names.  That exception was in the case of music, which seems to have been loved and studied from the first.  As far back as we can see him the Irish Celt was celebrated for his love of music.  In one of the earliest extant annals a Cruit, or stringed harp, is described as belonging to the Dashda, or Druid chieftain.