Story of the Irish Nation Author:Francis Hackett Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: wine for every day in the year from the Danes of Limerick. But, like so many strong rulers who seize power irregularly, Brian Boru conquered a sphere of respo... more »nsibility which he left no one to fill. It is true that he broke the Northmen. He freed the territory where a cow "durst not be milked for an infant of one night, nor for a sick person, but must be kept for the steward or bailiff or soldier of the foreigners." But to do this effectively he had to override the succession to the high- kingship, and the men who came after him copied only his irregularity. Till well after the coming of the Normans the O'Conors of Connacht, the O'Neills of Tyrone, the MacMurroughs of Leinster, and the O'Briens of Thomond kept the kingship in contest and reigned, if at all, "with opposition." When the reigning chiefs made common cause and restored the monarchy in 1258 it was only for a few years. This situation seems anarchical, from the point of view of modern city-dwellers, who cannot survive for six months without a strong central government. But in the age of Brian Boru, we must recollect, the modern military state had not developed. Commerce was young. Tuns of wine, we have seen, came overseas toIreland. For many centuries "noble clothes" were sold at the Kildare fair by Greek-speaking Gauls, and foreign gold was weighed out and paid for Irish hides and salted meat and wool. From the sixth century Spain had traded with Ireland, and for many centuries—up to 1170—the English slave was an article on the Irish market. But, in spite of the sea-power of the Northmen and the international commerce which followed piracy, trade had not yet demanded or matured the type of state to which we are now habituated. Disorder was prevalent everywhere in the North. The massacre of the Danes in England i...« less