The Round Towers. 25 



them into the sea. From thence they went to Ireland, and 

 devastated Recheryn and other places. Three years afterwards, 

 according to O'Flaherty's chronology — i.e., in 798 — they plun- 

 dered the Isle of Man and the Hebrides. In 802 they burned 

 Iona, and again in 806 plundered the same island, but 

 not without resistance, for sixty-eight of the monastic society 

 of the island were slain. The following year, 807, they entered 

 for the first time the mainland of the West and South of Ire- 

 land, and, having plundered the Island of Inishmurry, off the 

 coast of Sligo, they advanced inland as far as Roscommon. In 

 812 and 813 we find them in Connaught and Munster, where 

 they suffered more than one defeat from the native chieftains. 

 Finally, in 815, or, according to other accounts, in 830, a Nor- 

 wegian leader called by the Irish writers Thorgils, which name 

 was Latinised Turgesius, established himself as sovereign of the 

 foreigners, and made Armagh the capital of his kingdom. For 

 the purpose of strengthening his position, he placed detach- 

 ments of his forces at Limerick, at Lough Ree, on the Shan- 

 non ; at Dundalk Bay, Carlingford, Lough Neagh, and Dublin. 

 For four years Thorgils was able to maintain himself at 

 Armagh, and during this time, by taking command of his fleet 

 on Lough Ree, he plundered all the great ecclesiastical establish- 

 ments upon the banks of the Shannon, and, having seized the 

 Abbey of Clonmacnoise, and burnt its oratories, he left his wife 

 as sovereign there. This lady's name was Ota, and, according 

 to the ancient record, she gave her audiences, or answers, from 

 the high altar of the principal church of the monastery. Dur- 

 ing this time, and afterwards, reinforcements continued to 

 reach the Scandinavians in Ireland from their own country." 

 About 837 a fleet of sixty-five ships landed at Dublin, and a few 

 years later an Irish scribe wrote that there was not a point in 

 Ireland without a fleet, and that the sea seemed to vomit forth 

 floods of invaders. From this time on for about two centuries 

 we hear of continued invasions of the Northmen, and there 

 seems to have been no part of the country into which their 

 marauding bands did not pass. The monasteries, being the 

 receptacles of most of the wealth of the country, wer§ 



