THE STORY OF IRELAND

New Zealand Tablet, 6 March 1919, Page 9

THE STORY OF IRELAND

(By A. M. Sullivan.)

CHAPTER XVIII.HOW THE NORMAN ADVENTURERS GOT A FOOTHOLD ON IRISH

SOIL (Continued). Strongbow and McMurrogh now marched for Dublin. TbeAx'd-Ri, who had meantime taken the field, made an effort to intercept them, but he was out-manoeuvred, and they reached and Commenced to siege the city. The citizens sought a parley. The fate of Waterford had struck terror into them. They despatched to the besiegers’ camp as negotiator or mediator, their archbishop, Laurence, or Lorcan O’Tuahal, the first prelate of Dublin of Irish origin. “This (illustrious man, canonised both by sanctity and patriotism, was then in the thirty-ninth year of his age, and the ninth of his episcopate. His father was lord of Imayle and chief of his clan ; his sister had been wife of Dermid and mother of Eva, the prize bride of Earl Richard. He himself had been a hostage with Dermid in his youth, and afterwards Abbot of Glendalough, the most celebrated monastic city of Leinster. He stood, therefore, to the besieged, being their chief pastor, in the relation of a father; to Dermid, and strangely enough to Strongbow also, as brother-in-law and uncle by marriage. A fitter ambassador could not be found.

“Maurice Regan, the ‘ Latinex*,’ or secretax*y of Dermid, had advanced to the walls and summoned the city to surrender, and deliver up ‘thirty pledges’ to his master, their lawful prince. Asculph, son of Torcall, was in favor of the surrender, but the citizens could not agree among themselves as to hostages. No one was willing to trust himself to the notoriously untrustworthy Dermid. The Archbishop was then sent out on the part of the citizens to arrange the terms in detail. He was received with all reverence in the camp, but while he was deliberating with the commanders without, and the townsmen were anxiously awaiting his return, Milo de Cogan and Raymond the Fat, seizing the opportunity, broke into the city at the head of their companies, and began to put the inhabitants ruthlessly to the sword. They were soon followed by the whole force eager for massacre and pillage. The Archbishop hastened back to endeavor to stay the havoc which was being made of his people. He threw himself before the infuriated Irish and Normans, he threatened, he denounced, he bared his own breast to the swords of the assassins. All to little purpose: the blood fury exhausted itself befoi'e peace settled over the city. Its Danish chief Asculph, with many of his followers, escaped to their ships, and fled to the Isle of Man and the Hebrides in search of succour- and revenge. Roderick, unprepared to besiege the enemy who had thus outmarched and outwitted him, at that season of the year could not be earlier than Octoberbroke up his Encampment at Cloxxdalkin and retired to Connaught. Earl Richard having appointed De Cogan his governor of Dublin, followed on the rear of the retreating Ard-Ri, at the (instigation of McMurrogh, burning and plundering the churches of Kells, Clonard, and Slane, and carrying off the / . hostages of East-Meath.” ‘ (McGee.) Roderick, having first vainly noticed McMurrogh to return to his allegiance on forfeit of the life of his hostage, beheaded the eon of Diarmid, who had been given as. surety for his father’s good faith at the treaty of Perns. Soon after McMurrogh himself died, and his end, as recorded in the chronicles, was truly horrible.. “His death, which took place t in less ' than - a year after his sacrilegious church burnings in Meath, is described, as being accompanied by fearful evidence of divine displeasure. . . He died intestate, and. without the sacraments of the Church. His disease was of some v unknown and loathsome kind, and was attended with > insufferable pain, which, acting on the naturally savage violence of. h,ss temper, rendered, him so .furious that his ordinary attendants must have been afraid to .

approach him, and his body became at once a putrid mass, so that its presence above ground could not be endured. Some historians suggest that this account of his death may have been the invention of enemies, yet it is so consistent with hat we know of McMurrogh’s character and career from other sources, as to be noways ’incredible. He was at his death eightyone years of age, and is known in Irish history as Diarmaid-na-Gall, or Dermot of the Foreigners.” An incident well calculated to win our admiration presents itself, in the midst of the dismal chapter I have just sketched in outline ; an instance of chivalrous honor and good faith on the part of a Norman lord in behalf of an Irish chieftain ! Maurice de Prendergast was deputed by Earl “Strongbow” as envoy to Mac Gilla Patrick, Prince of Ossory, charged to invite him to a conference, in the Norman camp. Prendergast undertook to prevail upon the Ossorian prince to comply, on receiving from Strongbow a solemn pledge that good faith would be observed towards the Irish chief, and that he should be free and safe coming and and returning. Relying on his pledge, Prendergast bore the invitation to Mac Gilla Patrick, and prevailed upon him to accompany him to the earl. “Understanding, however, during the conference,” says the historian, “that treachery was about to be used towards Mac Gilla Patrick, he rushed into Earl Strongbow’s presence, and ‘sware by "he cross of his sword that no man there that day should dare lay handes on the kyng of Ossery’.” And well kept he his word. Out of the camp, when the conference ended, rod© the Irish chief, and by his side, good sword tin hand, that glorious type of honor and chivalry, Prendergast, ever since named in Irish tradition and history as “the Faithful Norman”—“faithful among the faithless,” we might truly say ! Scrupulously did he redeem his word to the Irish priince. He not only conducted him safely back to his own camp, but, encountering on the way a force belonging to Strongbow’s ally, O’Brien, returning from a foray into Ossory, he attacked and defeated them. That night “the Faithful Norman” remained, as the old chronicler has it, “in the woods,” the guest of the Irish chief, and next day retunxed to the English lines. This truly pleasing episode—this little oasis of chivalrous honor in the midst of a trackless expanse of treacherous and imthless ■warfare, has been made the subject of a short poem by Mr. Aubrey De Vere, in his Lyrical Chronicle of Ireland :—• The Faithful Norm Praise to the valiant and faithful foe! Give us noble foes, not the friend who lies ! We dread the drugged cup, not the open blow: We dread the old hate in the new disguise. To Ossory’s king they had pledged their word: He stood in their camp, and their pledge they broke; Then Maurice the Norman upraised his sword ; The cross on its hilt he kiss’d, and spoke: “So long as this sword or this arm hath might, I swear by the cross which is lord of all. By the faith and honor of noble and knight, Who touches you. Prince, by this hand shall fall!” So side by side through the throng they pass’d; And Eire gave praise to the just and true. Brave foe! the past truth heals at last: There is room in the great heart of Eire for you !

It is nigh seven hundred years since “the Faithful Norman” linked the name of Prendergast to honor and chivalry on Irish soil. Those who have read that truly remarkable work, Prendergast’s Cromwellian Settlement of Ireland , will conclude that the spirit of Maurice is still to be found amongst some of those who bear his name.