254 



In A. D. 801 , lona was burned in one of these invasions, " a genti- 

 libus."* In 806, they penetrated to the Abbey of Incheymorey , (in the 

 county of Longford,) which they destroyed.* In 807 they laid waste 

 Roscommon and the surrounding country, while in the same year the 

 monastery of Kells was founded by a monk of lona.-f- Comparatively 

 limited as was this scale of depredation, it does, however, seem to 

 have excited the provident alarm of other nations, and Charlemagne, 

 probably about this period, roused by the descent of the Danes on his 

 own coasts, formed that remarkable alliance of friendship with Ireland, 

 of which some Scotch writers have toiled to deplume her. Accord- 

 ing to Eginhard, it was the result of much reciprocal affection. J An 

 allegation which the Chronicon Abbatis Urspergen repeats, yet, 

 Fordun will have it, that the " Scottorum reges," in Eginhard's Nar- 

 rative, was Achaius, king of the Scots of North Britain, though 

 Achaius died before Charlemagne was born,§ though foreign writers 

 rarely, if ever, called any of this period Scots but the people of Ireland, 

 and though Eginhard himself, when he speaks of Scots at A, D. 812, 

 expressly defines them to be the inhabitants of the island Hibernia.ll 



* Annal. Ulton. 



f " Anno 807 Dani et Norwegi in Hibemiam appulerunt, et Roscommoniam regionem- 

 que adjacentem ferro flammaque vastaverunt. Eodem tempore Cellacus Abbas caenobii S. 

 Columbae Hyensis, multis e suis Norvegorum crudelitale interfectis, in Hibemiam profugit et 

 Kenanusae monasterium (now Kells) in honorem S, Columbae sive condidit sive restau- 

 ravit." — Ware's Annal. Hibern. 



X " Scotorum reges sic habuit ad suam voluntatem per suam munificentiam inclinatos, ut 

 eum numquam aliter quam dominum seque subditos et servos ejus pronuntiarent. Extant 

 epistolae ab lis ad ilium missse, quibus hujusmodi affectus eorum erga iUum indicatur.''^ 

 Vita Caroli Magni. 



§ See Hailes's Remarks on the History of Scotland. 



II " Classis Nordmannorum, Hibemiam Scoiorum insulam aggressa, commissoque cum 

 Scotis praelio, parte nee modica Nordmannorum interfecla, turpiter fugiendo domum reversa 

 est." — Eginhard, cited O'Conor, Rer. Hib. Script, vol. 4. p. 178. 



