n Boru_. He
drove out the Danes, usurped the place of Chief-King, and reigned in
the Halls of Tara for a few years, then left his land to lapse once
more into a chaos of fighting clans. But it was Dermot, the King of
Leinster, whose fatal quarrel led to the subjugation of the land to
England. The Irish epic, like that of Troy, has its Paris and Helen.
If that fierce old man had not fallen in love with the wife of the Lord
of Brefny and carried her away, there might have been a different story
to tell. The injured husband made war upon him, in which the
Chief-King took part, and so hot was it made for the wife-stealer, that
he offered to place Leinster at the feet of Henry II. in return for
assistance. A party of adventurous barons, led by Strongbow, the Earl
of Pembroke, {205} rushed to Dermot's rescue, defeated the Chief-King,
drove the Danes out of Dublin, which they had founded, and took
possession of that city themselves. Henry II. followed up the
unauthorized raid of his barons with a well-equipped army, which he
himself led, landing upon the Irish coast in 1171.

The conquest was soon complete, and Henry proceeded to organize his new
territory, dividing it into counties, and setting up law-courts at
Dublin, which was chosen as the Seat of his Lord-Deputy. The system of
English law was established for the use of the Norman barons and
English settlers, the natives being allowed to live under their old
system of Brehon laws. Henry gave huge grants of land with feudal
rights to his barons, then returned to his own troubled kingdom,
leaving them to establish their claims and settle accounts with the
Irish chieftains as best they could. The sword was the argument used
on both sides, and a conflict between the brehon and feudal systems had
commenced which still continues in Ireland. If Henry had expected to
convert Irishmen into Englishmen, he had {206} miscalculated; it was
the reverse which happened--the Norman-English were slowly but surely
converted into Irishmen, and two elements were thereafter side by side,
the Old Irish and the Anglo-Irish, who, however antagonistic, had
always a certain community of interest which drew them together in
great emergencies.

It is an easy task to describe a storm which has one centre. But how
is one to describe the confused play of forces in a cyclone which has
centres within centres? Irish chieftains at war with Irish chieftains,
jealous Norman barons with Norman bar