Irish Nationality

								

people to hardship, nor given them any interest in barbarians. When
Augustine in 595 was sent on the English mission he turned back with
loathing, and finally took a year for his journey. In 664 no one could
be found in Rome to send to Canterbury, till in 668 Theodore was
fetched from Syria; he also took a year on his way. But the Irish
missionaries feared nothing, neither hunger nor weariness nor the
outlaws of the woods. Their succession never ceased. The death of one
apostle was but the coming of another. The English missions again
could not compare with the Irish. Every English missionary from the
seventh to the ninth century had been trained under Irish teachers or
had been for years in Ireland, enveloped by the ardour of their fiery
enthusiasm; when this powerful influence was set aside English mission
work died down for a thousand years or so. The Irish missionaries
continued without a break for over six hundred years. Instead of the
Irish zeal for the welfare of all peoples whatsoever, the English felt
a special call to preach among those "from whom the English race had
its origin," and their chief mission was to their own stock in Frisia.
Finally, among Teutonic peoples politics went hand in hand with
Christianity. The Teutons were out to conquer, and in the lust of
dominion a conqueror might make religion the sign of obedience, and
enforce it by fire and water, viper and sword. But the Irish had no
theory of dominion to push. A score of generations of missionaries
were bred up in the tribal communities of Ireland, where men believed
in voluntary union of men in a high tradition. Their method was one of
persuasion for spiritual ends alone. The conception of human life that
lay behind the tribal government and the tribal church of Ireland gave
to the Irish mission in Europe a singular and lofty character. In the
broad humanity that was the great distinction of their people
persecution had no part. No war of religion stained their faith, and
no barbarities to man.

CHAPTER IV
SCANDINAVIANS IN IRELAND
800-1014

For a thousand years no foreign host had settled in Erin. But the times
of peace were ended. About 800 A.D. the Irish suffered their first
invasion.
The Teutonic peoples, triumphant conquerors of the land, had carried
their victories over the Roman Empire to the edge of the seas that
guarded Ireland. But fresh hordes of warriors were gathering in the
north, conquerors of the ocean. The Scandinavians had sailed out on
"the gulf's enormous abyss, where before their eyes the vanishing
bounds of the earth were hidden in gloom." An old English riddle
likened the shattering iceberg swinging down from Arctic waters to the
terror of the pirate's war-ship--the leader on the prow as it plunged
through the sea, calling to the land, shouting as he goes, with
laughter terrible to the earth, swinging his sharp-edged sword, grim