Irish Nationality

								

English over the Gaelic church.
In church and state, therefore, the Danes had brought the first
anti-national element into Irish life. The change is marked by a
change of name. The Danes coined the name "Ire-land," a form of Eriu
suited to their own speech; the people they called "Irish," leaving
the name of "Scots" only to the Gaels who had crossed the sea into
Alban. Their trading ships carried the words far and wide, and the old
name of Erin only remained in the speech of the Gaels themselves.
Clontarf, too, had marked ominously the passing of an old age, the
beginning of a new. Already the peoples round the North Sea--Normans,
Germans, English--were sending out traders to take the place of the
Scandinavians; and the peoples of the south--Italians and Gauls--were
resuming their ancient commerce. We may see the advent of the new men
in the names of adventurers that landed with the Danes on that low
shore at Clontarf--the first great drops of the storm--lords from
Normandy, a Frenchman from Gaul, and somewhere about that time Walter
the Englishman, a leader of mercenaries from England. In such names we
see the heralds of the coming change.
The Irish were therefore face to face with questions of a new
order--how to fuse two wholly different peoples into one community;
how to make a united church within a united nation; and how to use
foreign influences pouring in on all sides so as to enrich without
destroying the national life. Here was the work of the next hundred
and fifty years. Such problems have been solved in other lands by
powerful kings at the heads of armies; in Ireland it was the work of
the whole community of tribes. It is in this effort that we see the
immense vitality of the Gaelic system the power of its tradition, and
the spirit of its people.
After Brian's death two learned men were set over the government of
Ireland; a layman, the Chief Poet, and a devout man, the Anchorite of
all Ireland. "The land was governed like a free state and not like a
monarchy by them." The victory of Clontarf was celebrated by a
renascence of learning. Eye-witnesses of that great battle, poets and
historians, wrote the chronicle of the Danish wars from first to last,
and sang the glories of Cellachan and of Brian Boru in the greatness
of his life and the majesty of his death. A scholar put into Irish
from Latin the "Tale of Troy," where the exploits and battle rage of
the ancient heroes matched the martial ardour of Irish champions, and
the same words are used for the fights and armour and ships of the
Trojan as of the Danish wars. Another translated from Latin a history
of the Britons, the neighbouring Celtic races across the Channel. In
schools three or four hundred poetic metres were taught. The glories
of ancient Erin were revived. Poets wrote of Usnech, of Tara, of
Ailech, of the O'Neills on Lough Swilly in the far north, of Brian
Boru's palace Kincora on the Shannon, of Rath Cruachan of Connacht.