279 



In 982 Tigemach speaks of the cutting down of the tree of ado- 

 ration;* the event, however, is not communicated as an instance of 

 existing idolatry, though it might have been of superstitious devo- 

 tion. The field of adoration in Connaught is spoken of much earlier, 

 and the cutting down of a similar tree there, is mentioned by Tiger- 

 nach ad ann. 1050. 



SECTION IV. 



Sciences, Learning, and Learned Men. 



When the Danes first arrived in Ireland, they found the country, as 

 has been shewn, covered with populous towns and flourishing schools, 

 wherein the i^iences were taught and the arts cultivated ; but in 

 the melancholy period of their military occupation, they rioted over 

 the land with such ruinous desolation, that scarcely a monument 

 of its former pride was suffered to survive. Trained up, as they 

 were, from their infancy to the barbarous chivalry of a pirate life, 

 devoted to the profession of arms so as to pay almost divine ho- 

 nours to their swords ; inured and accustomed to feats of desperate 

 valour, educated only in the experience of dangerous exercises, leap- 

 ing, skating, and swimming ; they set but little value on the oppor- 

 tunities for better instruction, which, on their first coming into Ireland 

 opened around them. Notwithstanding their ravages, however, some 

 of the academies maintained a precarious establishment, as has been 

 shewn in the case of Armagh ;-f- and "after the destruction of Icolm- 

 kill, Ireland sheltered and preserved that learning, which Scotland in 

 a great measure lost ; whence, in Ireland are to be found numerous 



• See Annals of the Four Masters, ad ann. 1051. f Ante, p. 271. 



