terford, Cork and Limerick.

From these points raiding went on, and battles were fought in which the
raiders were as often vanquished as victorious. There was little union
between the various Norse forts, and indeed we sometimes find them
fighting valiantly among themselves. Meanwhile, the old tribal contest
went on everywhere throughout the island. The south invaded the north
and was presently invaded in return. The east and the west sent
expeditions against each other. Clan went forth against clan, chief
against chief, and cattle and captives many times changed hands. These
captives, it would seem, became the agricultural class in each clan,
being made to work as the penalty for unsuccessful fighting. The old
tribal life went on unbroken during the whole of this period; nor did
it subsequently yield to pressure from without, but rather passed
away, during succeeding centuries, as the result of inward growth.
Meanwhile the religious schools continued their work, studying Latin and
Greek as well as the old Gaelic, and copying manuscripts as before; and
one fruit of their work we see in the gradual conversion of the heathen
Norsemen, who were baptized and admitted to the native church. The old
bardic schools likewise continued, so that we have a wealth of native
manuscripts belonging to this time, embodying the finest tradition and
literature of the earlier pagan ages.

[Illustration: Giant Head and Dunluce Castle, Co. Antrim.]

If the Danes and Northern raiders never conquered Ireland, on the other
hand they never were expelled. Through the cessation of the original
impulse of unrest which brought them, they gradually ceased to receive
accessions from the North, and at the same time the forces of
amalgamation were slowly merging them into the national and tribal life
of their new home. Their separate influence grew less and less, but
their race continued, and continues to this day in the sea-ports we
have named.

We shall presently have to record another series of Norse inroads, this
time not directly from the North, but mediately, through France and
Britain, and we shall find that much of our subsequent history was
influenced by the new elements and principles then added. We shall do
well, therefore, to linger for a moment before this new transition, to
gain a clear view of the tendencies of the epoch then closed, the wider
significance of that chapter of our nation's life.

The culture of Ireland, during the peri