26d 



while in the Chronicle of Ademar* occurs the interesting passage 

 cited below, and evidently regarding the preparations for this battle, 

 as the historian immediately after speaks of Canute the Great. This 

 author represents it to have been the intention of the Danes on this 

 occasion to extinguish the very name of Irishmen and Ireland, and pos- 

 sess themselves of that most wealthy country, with all its cities, &c.'f* 



If Labbe be correct in thinking that this chronicle was written 

 before 1031, it is most probably the oldest document in which the 

 name " Irlanda," Ireland, is to be found. 



The battle of Clontarf may be further noticed, as having been the 

 inspiring theme of that beautiful Icelandic poem, which Gray has per- 

 haps failed to improve in his Ode of " The Fatal Sisters." 



SECTION II. 



Government, Constitution, Legidation, Sfc. . 



If other evidences were wanting, the passage just cited from Ade- 

 mar's Chronicle, would suffice to shew that Ireland continued to be 

 governed by one supreme king, (" opulentissimam terram, quae civita- 

 tes cum amplissimis episcopatibus et unum regem habet.") A revo- 

 lution, however, most important regarding the eligibility to that 



• Ap. Labbe Nova Bibl. MSS. Libr. t. 2. cited Lanigan's Eccl. Hist. vol. 3. p. 423. 



f " His tempoiibus Normanni supradicti, quod patres eorum nunquam perpetrasse ausi 

 sunt, cum innumeia classe Hiberniam insulam, quae Irlanda dicitur, ingressi sunt una cum 

 uxoribus et liberis et captivis Christianis quos fecerunt sibi servos, ut Hirlandis extinctis 

 ipsiproipsis inhabitarent opulentissimam terram, quae civitates cxxvi amplissimis episcopatibus 

 et unum regem babet, ac propriam linguam sed Latinas literas, quam S. Patricius Romanus 

 ad fidem convertit, &c." 



