here were indeed many long and
peaceful reigns, but the historians record neat little wars,
seductive forays and "hostings", to use the new-old word, to the
heart's content. The Irish character remained fixed in its
essentials, but, under the influence of religious enthusiasm, Ireland
progressed and prospered in the arts of peace. It would undoubtedly
have shared the full progress of western Europe from this time on,
but for its insularity. Hitherto its protection, it was now to be its
downfall. A hostile power was growing of which it knew nothing.

The Norsemen--the hardy vikings of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark--had
become a nation of pirates. Undaunted fighters and able mariners,
they built their shapely long ships and galleys of the northern pine
and oak, and swept hardily down on the coasts of England, Ireland,
France, Spain, and Italy, and the lands of the Levant, surprising,
massacring, plundering. In France (Normandy), in England, and lastly
in Ireland they planted colonies. Their greatest success was in
England, which they conquered, Canute becoming king. Their greatest
battles and final defeat were in Ireland. From the end of the eighth
century to the beginning of the eleventh the four shores of Erin were
attacked in turn, and sometimes all together, by successive fleets of
the Norsemen. The waters that had been Ireland's protection now
became the high roads of the invaders. By the river Shannon they
pushed their conquests into the heart of the country. Dublin Bay,
Waterford Harbor, Belfast Lough, and the Cove of Cork offered shelter
to their vessels. They established themselves in Dublin and raided
the country around. Churches and monasteries were sacked and burned.
To the end these Norsemen were robbers rather than settlers. To these
onslaughts by the myriad wasps of the northern seas, again and again
renewed, the Irish responded manfully. In 812 they drove off the
invaders with great slaughter, only to find fresh hordes descending a
year or two later. In the tenth century, Turgesius, the Danish
leader, called himself monarch of Ireland, but he was driven out by
the Irish king, Malachi. The great effort which really broke the
Danish power forever in Ireland was at the battle of Clontarf, on
Dublin Bay, Good Friday, 1014, when King Brian Boru, at the head of
30,000 men, utterly defeated the Danes of Dublin and the Danes of
oversea. Fragments of the Northmen remained all over Ireland, but
henceforth they gradua