301 



Neither were the depredations of those martial adventurers, though 

 much less frequently exercised, entirely checked. The forays, how- 

 ever, that succeed, were more properly desultory expeditions perpe- 

 trated by external pirates, than the result of any dominant tyranny 

 at home. In 1015 Downpatrick was plundered and burned by the 

 Danes, an outrage which they repeated in the years 1040 and 1069.* 

 They also burned Kells in 1015, 1036, 1040, 1073, 1095, and 

 1099.* In 1017 Einar Jarlus plundered the coasts of Ireland, &c.-t- 

 In 1020 the chief library of the kingdom at Armagh was consumed, 

 as it would seem, by the instrumentality of the Danes, J a destruction 

 which the Annals of Tigernach feelingly lament.§ In 1022 Malachy 

 the Second died at his palace in an island of Lough Annin. It was 

 on his deposition by Boroimhe, as before mentioned,!! that the Hy Nial 

 dynasty was overthrown ; and although on the death of his rival he had 

 been permitted to hold the government of Ireland for the space of 

 eight years, yet the failure of the usual order of succession seems more 

 referrible to the period to which we have assigned it. . 



In 1023 Duleek was devastated by the Danes, as also in 1037, and 

 burned in 1050.** In 1031 Ardbraccan and other monasteries were 



Percys are said to have descended from one of those Danish chiefs, who in the ninth century 

 conquered that portion of France to which they gave the name of Normandy. 



• Trias Thaum. p. 633. 



f " Einarus Jarlus per ajstates saepius in piratica versabatur circa littora Hibemise, Sco- 

 tise at Bretlandiae."— Ant. Celt. Scand. p. 167. 



X Trias Thaum. p. 298. 



§ "Ardmacha combusta tertio Kal. Maii cum nosacomiis suis omnibus, non excepta 

 domo scripturarum sanctarum, et combustae sunt plurima; domus in temariis regionibus 

 civitatis, et cathedralis ecclesia magna, lapidea, et campanile cum suis campanis, et lapidea 

 ecclesia electionum, et ecclesia lapidea Saballi, et cathedra doctrinalis Praedicatorum et copia 

 ingens auri et argenti et res pretioscB similiter." To which the Annals of Ulster add, "ecclesia 

 saxea magna cum suo tegmento plumbeo." 



II Ante, p. 270. •• Trias Thaum. p. 633. 



