he Pursuit
after Callaghan of Cashel, by the Chief of Munster, after he had been
entrapped by the Danes.'"

The year 948 has generally been assigned as that of the conversion of
the Danes to Christianity; but, whatever the precise period may have
been, the conversion was rather of a doubtful character as we hear of
their burning churches, plundering shrines, and slaughtering
ecclesiastics with apparently as little remorse as ever. In the very
year in which the Danes of Dublin are said to have been converted, they
burned the belfry of Slane while filled with religious who had sought
refuge there. Meanwhile the Irish monarchies were daily weakened by
divisions and domestic wars. Connaught was divided between two or three
independent princes, and Munster into two kingdoms.

The ancient division of the country into five provinces no longer held
good; and the Ard-Righ, or chief monarch, was such only in name. Even
the great northern Hy-Nials, long the bravest and most united of the
Irish clans, were now divided into two portions, the Cinel-Connaill and
Cinel-Owen; the former of whom had been for some time excluded from the
alternate accession of sovereignty, which was still maintained between
the two great families of the race of Nial. But, though this arrangement
was persevered in with tolerable regularity, it tended little to the
promotion of peace, as the northern princes were ever ready to take
advantage of the weakness of the Meath men, who were their inferiors
both in numbers and in valour.

The sovereignty of Munster had also been settled on the alternate
principle, between the great tribe of Dalcassians, or north Munster
race, and the Eoghanists, or southeners. This plan of succession, as may
be supposed, failed to work peaceably; and, in 942, Kennedy, the father
of the famous Brian Boroimhe, contested the sovereignty with the
Eoghanist prince, Callaghan Cashel, but yielded in a chivalrous spirit,
not very common under such circumstances, and joined his former opponent
in his contests with the Danes. The author of the _Wars of the Gaedhil
with the Gall_ gives a glowing account of the genealogy of Brian and his
eldest brother, Mathgamhain. They are described as "two fierce,
magnificent heroes, the two stout, able, valiant pillars," who then
governed the Dalcassian tribes; Mathgamhain (Mahoun) being the actual
chieftain, Brian the heir apparent. A guerilla war was carried on for
some time in the woods of Thomond, in