ment, of a loathsome disease;" a
manifest judgment, in the eyes of the Chronicler, for the crime of
bringing the Normans to Ireland. In the year that saw his death, "Henry
the Second, king of the Saxons and duke of the Normans, came to Ireland
with two hundred and forty ships." He established a footing in the land,
as one of many contesting powers, but the immediate results of his
coming were slight. This we can judge from the record of three years
later: "A brave battle was fought by the Foreigners under Iarl Strangbow
and the Gaels under Ruaidri Ua Concobar at Thurles, in which the
Foreigners were finally defeated by dint of fighting. Seventeen hundred
of the Foreigners were slain in the battle, and only a few of them
survived with the Iarl, who proceeded in sorrow to his home at Port
Lairge--Waterford." Iarl Strangbow died two years later at Dublin.

Norman warriors continue to appear during the succeeding years,
fighting against the native chieftains and against each other, while the
native chieftains continue their own quarrels, just as in the days of
the first Norse raids. Thus in the year of Iarl Strangbow's death, Kells
was laid waste by the Foreigners in alliance with the native Ui-Briain,
while later in the same year the Foreigners were driven from Limerick by
Domnall Ua-Briain, who laid siege to them and forced them to surrender.

Two years later, four hundred and fifty of the followers of De Courcy,
another great Norman warrior, were defeated at Maghera Conall in Louth,
some being drowned in the river, while others were slain on the
battlefield. In the same year De Courcy was again defeated with great
slaughter in Down, and escaped severely wounded to Dublin. For At-Cliat,
from being a fortress of the Danes and Norsemen, was gradually becoming
a Norman town. The doorway of Christ Church Cathedral, which dates from
about this time, is of pure Norman style.

In 1186 we find a son of the great Ruaidri Ua Concobar paying a band of
these same Foreigners three thousand cows as "wages," for joining him in
some plundering expedition against his neighbors. The genius of strife
reigned supreme, and the newcomers were as completely under its sway as
the old clansmen. Just as we saw the Dark Norsemen of the ninth century
coming in their long ships to plunder the Fair Norsemen of At-Cliat, and
the Fair Norsemen not less vigorously retaliating, so now we find wars
breaking out among the Normans who followed in the steps