spiritual and moral vigor, a great man in every
sense, and one in whom we divine a lovable and admirable spirit. At that
time there were four archbishoprics in Ireland, at Armagh, Cashel,
Dublin and Tuam; the primacy belonging to the first, as the seat of the
Damliag Mor or Great Stone Church, built by Saint Patrick himself. A
sentence in the Annals shows how the revenues were raised: "A horse from
every chieftain, a sheep from every hearth." A few passages like these
are enough to light up whole epochs of that mediaeval time, and to show
us how sympathetic, strong and pure that life was, in so many ways.

We find, meanwhile, that the tribal struggle continued as of old: "1154:
Toirdealbac Ua Concobar brought a fleet round Ireland northwards, and
plundered Tir-Conaill and Inis Eogain. The Cinel Eogain sent to hire the
fleets of the Hebrides, Arran, Cantyre and Man, and the borders of Alba
in general, and they fell in with the other fleet and a naval battle
was fiercely and spiritedly fought between them. They continued the
conflict from, the beginning of the day till evening, but the foreign
fleet was defeated." This records perhaps the only lesson learned from
the Norsemen, the art of naval warfare. We may regret that the new
knowledge was not turned to a more national end.

Four years later, "a wicker bridge was made by Ruaidri Ua Concobar at
Athlone, for the purpose of making incursions into Meath. There was a
pacific meeting between Ruaidri Ua Concobar and Tigearnan, and they made
peace, and took mutual oaths before sureties and relics." This is our
first meeting with a king as remarkable in his way as the great
archbishop his contemporary. Ruaidri descendant of Concobar was king of
Connacht, holding the land from the western ocean up to the great
frontier of the river Shannon. Eager to plunder his neighbors and bring
back "a countless number of cows," he undertook this wonderful work, a
pile bridge across the river, seemingly the first of its kind to be
built there, and in structure very like the famous bridge which Caesar
built across the Rhine,--or like many of the wooden bridges across the
upper streams of the Danube at the present day. We shall record a few
more of this enterprising and large-minded prince's undertakings,
following the course of the years.

In parenthesis, we find a clue to the standard of value of the time in
this record: "1161: The visitation of Osraige was made by Flaitbeartac,
successor