4S 



to have died of grief for the death of his wife, the daughter of a king 

 of Lochhn ;* thereby shewing the intercourse that must have even 

 then existed with Denmark. 



In the year 62, according to the Irish annals,-]- an inundation of 

 the sea occurred, by which Lough Neagh was formed over the ruins 

 of a large tract of country called Corofoiche ; an event of which no 

 confirmation could be expected from foreigners, but its remembrance 

 is perpetuated in traditions, which Giraldus Cambrensis believed:|: 

 and the Speculum Regale fully recognises.§ 



More important and interesting events succeed with the period 

 when, without any justifiable motives for hostility, the Romans under 

 Plautius (A. D. 43,) under Ostorius Scapula (A. D. 50,) and yet more 

 under Suetonius Paulinus (A. D. 59,) were inflicting those increased 

 severities upon the unfortunate inhabitants of England, which are said 

 by the ancient historians to have at length driven them from their 

 homes to the comparative repose of Ireland. Tacitus fore-tokens this 

 gregarious flight, when he says that Petilius Cerealis had, after many 

 battles, and some not bloodless, 'attacked the city of the Brigantes, 

 whose tribe was accounted the most numerous of the whole province, 

 and reduced the greatest part of that people either by actual victory 

 or by the terror of his arms ;11 and accordingly, a very considerable 

 emigration of this very people is supposed to have taken place from 

 Britain to Ireland about A. D. 76, the account and cause of which 

 are thus given by Harris in his comment on Ware.** "These people 



* Dr. O'Conor, we cannot but think unfairly translates this a king of the Saxons, though 

 his own index makes Lochlanni and Dani synonunous. 



t Annal. Tigem. ad. ann. J See post, per. 1 . sect. 5. 



§ See post, per. 4. sect 1. 



II " Petilius Cerealis Brigantum civitatem, qua) numerosissima provincise totius perhibetur, 

 aggressus, multa proelia et aliquando non incruenta, magnamque Brigantum partem aut vic- 

 toria amplexus aut hello." — Vita Agricolae. 



•* Antiqs. fo. 38. 



