which we call bogs, and which have so generally intruded themselves on the landscape during the last ten centuries (4). The Ultonian, who lived before the commencement of Danish and Norwegian invasions in the eighth century, must have witnessed many fairer scenes of natural beauty than even this northern province afterwards presented; for then was initiated that long succession of war and rapine in Ulster which, amongst other lamentable results, literally covered with morass many a plain and lakeside that had once yielded its yearly crops, or was adorned with noble woods.

II.

A region so attractive, however, naturally incurred the fate of most other regions similarly endowed it drew towards itself flocks of invaders as the ages rolled on, and these sheltering mountains, which could break the fury of wintry storms, were unable to ward off the scourge of war. The early history of Ulster is now well known, and in some respects better understood than that of most other European regions. Without going back to the remotest times, it may be observed, for example, that the events recorded in connection with the origin and progress of Milesian colonisation are just such as might have been expected to occur, and have been narrated by our ancient chroniclers with a charming directness and simplicity. Thus, the seas, which bore the Milesian fleet of sixty sail towards these shores, proved troublesome, and indeed disastrous-as they have done so frequently since, and will do so frequently in future. When within sight of the southern coasts, these sixty Milesian vessels were suddenly caught in a tempest, which swept across their course from that vast and then mysterious world of waters we have learned to call the Atlantic Ocean. The invading fleet was scattered in all directions, and some of the vessels carrying distinguished leaders, perished in the storm. Among the commanders thus lost was a son of Milesius, named Ir, whose name was afterwards so distinctly associated with the early history of this northern province. The fragments of the scattered fleet were collected; the surviving colonists heroically dared to land; their successes (as in many a later enterprise against Ireland) drew others from the mother-country after them; and their Milesian banners soon floated triumphantly from all the places of strength which had been held by preceding colonists, known as Tuatha-De-Danann. In the distribution of lands among the Milesian leaders, Heber, the son of Ir, was rewarded for his father's services, and his own, by obtaining this northern section of the island; and, in honour of his father's memory, his descendants were known during many ages by the tribe-name of Irians, a designation which eventually included all the inhabitants of Uladh,

(4). Ten centuries.-"Though turf [peat] has been the common fuel for several years past, there are circumstances which lead us to suppose that it has been generated within the last thousand years, while tillage and agriculture gave place to war and plunder. The best land, if neglected, may, by various accidents, be soon reduced to a state of rank bog. It is next to demonstration that many of the places where turf is now cut have been once arable, vestiges of which have been discovered at great depths."

(See Camden's Britannia, edited by Gough, vol. iv., Pp. 224, 233). At a place called Greenan, in Glenshesk, county of Antrim, the writer visited an ancient sepulchral mound, over which the peat had grown to a depth of eight feet. When, in process of time, the peat was gradually cut away for fuel, the owner planted the field in potatoes, and found several enclosures beautifully constructed of unhewn stones, and containing cinerary urns of very primitive formation.

excepting a comparatively small settlement of Picts (5), who, although so called, and forming a distinct organisation, were also descended from Ir.

The Irian princes, in their generations, resided at their palace of Aileach (6), in Donegal, until the time of Ciombaeth, who, at his queen's desire, built the great house known as Eamhuin, or Emania (7), and made it the chief family residence. The first of this Irian line who attained to the dignity of ard-righ, or monarch of all Ireland, was a prince named Rudhraighe, who lived about a century before the birth of Christ, and whose memory was so honoured among his clan that they abandoned their old tribe-name of Irians, and were called Rudricians. This line or dynasty of the Ultonians existed for a period of 600 years, and no fewer than thirty-one of its rulers, from Ciombaeth to Fergus Fogha, occupied the palace of Eamhuin. In all that long period, although Ulster had waged occasional wars with the adjoining provinces of Leinster and Connaught, it had never suffered

(5). Settlement of Picts.-The Picts, often called DalAraidhe, appear to have occupied the territory now comprising the southern half of the county of Antrim, and the greater part of the county of Down. Fiacha Araidhe, the progenitor of the Dal-Araidhe, was, according to Tighernach, lord of the Cruithne, or Picts, in 236.—See Adamnan's Life of St. Columba, edited and annotated by Dr. Reeves, p. 94; see also Reeves's Eccles. Antiquities, pp. 267, 270, 279, 280, 319, 336, 340.

(6). Aileach.—For a most interesting and elaborate account of Aileach, or Grianan Aileach, or Aileach-Neid, or Aileach-Fririve, by which several names this great structure has been called, see the Ordnance Memoir of the Parish of Templemore. Certain local antiquaries, among whom may be specially mentioned Mr. Peter M'Laughlin, believe that Aileach, on the summit of Greenan Hill, in Burt, had been a Druidical temple, and that the royal palace so called stood about three miles distant, in the townland of Elagh or Ailech. The views of the latter are well put by a writer on Inishowen, as follows:-"There can be little doubt that the palace of Aileach stood in the townland of that name, at a distance of three miles from Greenan, and at the place where O'Dogherty erected a castle in the fifteenth century, a fragment of which remains. The locality is fairly adapted for the purpose, and bears the signs of occupancy and cultivation from the most remote period. Its elevation is somewhat greater than the Hill of Tara, being 248 feet above the level of the sea. It commands a sufficiently extensive view of Tyrconnell, Lough Swilly, Inch, and the adjacent country. As corroborative of this view, we may mention that when Prince Eoghan, who resided in Aileach, died of grief for the loss of his brother, the lord of Tyrconnell, his body was buried in Iskaheen, which adjoins the townland above-named, as related in the Annals of the Four Masters."-(Inishowen: its History, p. 20). Whilst the arguments of this writer, and others holding his views, are worthy of respect and attention, we agree entirely with the opinions of Petrie and O'Donovan, who have clearly shown that the remains on Greenan Hill are those of the ancient royal palace of Eoghan and his descendants, the Ui Neill or Hy-Niall princes.

(7). Eamhuin or Emania.-This great building is believed to have been erected about 300 years before the birth of Christ, and the time of its erection is the limit assigned by our most reliable annalist, Tighernach, to authentic Irish history, all records prior to that age being, in his opinion, uncertain. This looks like a gratuitous assertion, the truth of which Tighernach, perhaps, had no more special means of testing than his contemporaries, and about which he was not in much danger of being called to account. The remains of Eamhuin, however, are situate about a mile and a-half westward from the present town of Armagh, and "are, without a single exception," says O'Donovan, "the most extensive of their kind in all Ireland."-- (See Battle of Magh Rath, p. 213). They "consist of a circular rath or rampart of earth with a deep fosse, enclosing about eleven acres, within which are two smaller circular forts. The great rath is still known by the name of the Navan Fort, in which the original name is curiously preserved. The proper Irish form is Eamhuin, which is pronounced Aven, the Irish article an, contracted as usual to n, being placed before this, makes it nEamhuin, the pronunciation of which is exactly represented by Navan."-(See Joyce on the Origin and History of Irish Names of Places, p. 85.) The circumstances connected with the origin of this famous palace, as they are recorded in the Book of Leinster, are sufficiently curious. "Three kings, named respectively Aedh-ruadh, Dihorba, and Ciombaeth, agreed to reign each for seven years in alternate succession, and they enjoyed the sovereignty for three periods, or 21 years, when Aedh-ruadh [Ayroo] died. His daughter, the celebrated Macha, of the golden hair, asserted her right to reign when her father's turn came, and being opposed by Dihorba and his sons, she defeated them in several battles, in one of which Dihorba was killed, and she then assumed the sovereignty. She afterwards married the surviving monarch, Ciombaeth, and took the five sons of Dihorba prisoners. The Ultonians proposed that they should be put to death. Not so, said she, because it would be the defilement of the righteousness of a sovereign in me; but they shall be condemned to slavery, and shall raise a rath around me, and it shall be the chief city of Ulster for ever."—Ibid, pp. 82, 83; see also O’Curry's MS. Materials, first ser., p. 527.

the miseries of subjugation, nor internal convulsions so violent as to shake its reigning family, for any long time, from their northern throne. During the reign of the prince last named, however, a change was to come; an utter revolution was to be accomplished; and, strange to tell, a plantation of Uladh was to be made in the fourth century more suddenly, if not so sweepingly, as that which took place in the seventeenth century. A few words explanatory of the earlier movement may be required; and, particularly, as the two plantations, though so far distant from each other in point of time, appear to have been almost alike in at least one important aspect.

The Ultonians, who were a brave people, and proud of their ancient nationality, had given offence to the chief monarch of Ireland. An ard-righ, simply because of his position, could always command larger resources than any merely provincial king, however popular, and the monarch, at the period to which we refer (A.D. 323), had determined to humiliate the haughty Rudrician nobles with their king. As his instruments in this business, he selected his three nephews, who had given himself serious trouble-even to the thrusting of his family for three years from the throne-and whom, therefore, he felt it necessary to conciliate by at least finding some congenial work for them to do. Unfortunately for Uladh, these warlike brothers had no landed possessions of their own, and this northern province had then become prosperous beyond the other portions of Erin, simply in the wealth which consisted of prodigious flocks and herds. The green fields of Uladh had, in truth, become too tempting to the eyes of the three Collas (8), for by this designation the three brothers are familiarly known in history. Their mother being a princess of Alba (now Scotland), they were able, through this connection, not only to secure the services of many influential kinsmen in that kingdom, but to draw thence a large fragment of the army with which they invaded Ulster. These soldiers from Alba had been brought secretly across the 'Current of the Mull of Cantire,' now the North Channel, and they numbered, with their associates on this side, 7,000 men, in addition to the large force

(8). The three Collas.—The names of these three princes were Cairell, Muredhach, and Aedh, but they are known in history as the founders of the great Clann Colla, and familiarly designated The Three Collas, viz., Colla, surnamed Uais, or the 'noble'; Colla, surnamed Meann, or the 'stammerer'; and Colla, surnamed Da Chrioch, a phrase sometimes written Fochri, and translated ‘earthy' or 'clay-like.'-(See Eugene O'Curry's Manuscript Matrials of Ancient Irish History, p. 72). From an early Irish manuscript account of the Clann-Colla, never printed, we take the following passage, illustrative of the movements mentioned in the text, this extract representing the monarch of Ireland as being actually at war with the Ultonians :-" Colla Uais, son of Eochaidh Doimhlein (or Dubhlein), assumed the sovereignty of Ireland in the year 322, and he was monarch of Ireland for four years, till Muredach Tirech rose with a mighty host and made battle against the three Collas, and banished them into Alba, where they got extensive lands, because Oilech [Aileach], daughter of the king of Alba, was their mother. This happened when Cormac Finn was king of Alba, 362 [322]. They spent some time in Alba, till it happened to Muredach Tirech, the monarch of Ireland, that a war broke out between him and the Ultonians, namely, the Clanna Rudhraighe, and he sent for his brother's children

to Alba, to aid him against the Clanna Rudhraighe and other neighbouring tribes. They (the three Collas) responded to the monarch of Ireland, and they fought a fierce compaign against the Clanna-Rudhraighe, so that Fergus Fogha, king of Ulster, and his three sons fell by them, and they took to themselves the government of the province of Uladh, and of one-third of the province of Connaught, and many other possessions and privileges, which were conceded to their descendants after them from the monarchs of Ireland. After having terminated that war, Colla Uais returned to Alba, and left all those rights to his brothers; and having spent 15 years in Alba, he came to make a kingly visitation of Ireland, and he died at Temar-na-righ [Tara of the Kings], anno 335." This extract differs in some respects from other and hitherto accepted authorities. If the three Collas actually conquered a third part of Connaught and other possessions, in addition to the territory of the Clanna Rudhraighe, there is no evidence, so far as we know, that they continued to hold any lands excepting such as belonged to that tribe. The notice here of the movements of the eldest of the three brothers, Colla Uais, after his conquest was made, is curious. The statements that he preferred Alba to Ulster as a place of residence, and died at Tara of the Kings, are both, we should say, probable enough.

supplied for the occasion by the monarch of Ireland. The campaign in Uladh lasted only seven days, but the actual fighting is described as continuous throughout that time. It ceased with a great battle at Farney, in the present county of Monaghan, where the Rudrician king, Fergus Fogha, with three of his sons, was slain, and his army cut to pieces. Other disastrous results soon followed, including the seizure, by the victorious Collas, of nearly the entire northern principality as swordland, the expulsion of its inhabitants, the planting on its fields of an alien population, and the utter destruction of the beautiful palace of Eamhuin, which, during so many centuries, had been the pride of the north.

It would now be difficult, perhaps impossible, to define the exact boundaries of the lands thus seized and planted by the three Collas and their adherents. In general terms, they may be described as comprising all Northern Ulster, from Lough Neagh and the lower Bann westward, excepting the region now known as Donegal; and as much of southern Ulster as was included in the counties now known as Armagh, Louth, and Monaghan. In an ancient historical tale, known as the Battle of Magh Rath, the lands held by the Clann Colla, or descendants of the three Collas, are defined as extending westward from Ath-an-Imairg, 'the Ford of the Contest', a place on the lower Bann, to the river Finn, which falls into the Mourne at Lifford, and to Foither, a place not yet identified, but probably somewhere further west. According to the same authority, their lands in southern Ulster stretched from Glinn Righe (the glen through which the Newry river flows), to a place called Bearramain, which must have been situated on the eastern confines of Breifne-a territory comprising the present counties of Cavan and Leitrim. Another definition of the ancient Uladh, held by the Rudricians, and consequently seized by the three Collas, is also given in the same historical A leading actor in the events therein mentioned is represented as addressing his associatesdescendants of Ir and Rudhraighe—as follows:

"From the fair, beauteous Inbher Colptha,

To Drobhaois and Dubhrothair-
That was the extent of your old province
In the time of your royal ancestors,
When the Ultonians were truly great.”

The extreme points on the south-western boundary of ancient Uladh are thus distinctly stated, Inbher Colptha being the old name for the mouth of the Boyne; Drobhaois, the mouth of the river flowing from lough Melvin into Donegal Bay at Bundrowis; and Dubhrothair, or the Black River, now known as the Dubh or Duff, which falls into the same bay at the present Bunduff. It would appear, indeed, that ancient manuscript tracts generally, which relate to the topography of provinces in Ireland, speak of Uladh as including Louth, and extending southward as far as the mouth of the Boyne. O'Donovan refers to one such MS. in particular, which is preserved in the library of Trinity College, Dublin, and which asserts that the country of the Clann Colla was bounded by the four noblest rivers in Uladh or Ultonia, viz., the Boyne, the Bann, the Erne, and the Finn. See the Battle of Magh Rath, translated and annotated by O'Donovan, pp. 8, 9, 28, 29, 38, 39, 142,

220, 221.

The territory held by the Clann-Colla soon began gradually to diminish until it eventually included only portions of the present counties of Louth, Armagh, Monaghan, and Fermanagh. It may be worthy of remark, however, that the plantation originally made by the three Collas was about equal in extent to the plantation made so many centuries afterwards by James I., but different as to boundaries. Thus, the former included the territories comprising the present counties of Louth and Monaghan, but not those comprising the present counties of Cavan and Donegal; whereas, the latter, or the plantation of the seventeenth century, included Cavan and Donegal, but left out Monaghan and Louth. The movement of the fourth century left Breifne (the eastern half of which now forms the county of Cavan) unmolested, for the whole territory then belonged to Connaught; the lands now known as the county of Donegal were also unmolested, for they were held by the northern Ui Neill, or Hy Niall; and the three Collas were commissioned only to invade that portion of the North which was occupied by the Irian or Rudrician race. On the other hand, the planters of the seventeenth century, whilst they had no pretext to assail Louth, which did not then belong to Ulster; nor Monaghan, which had been already settled somewhat after planter fashion; laid hold of Cavan and Donegal, because these counties were respectively owned by O'Reillys and O'Donnells, firm friends and allies of the O'Neills, whom James I., the ard-righ on the English throne, was anxious to remove, just as Muredach Tirech, the chief monarch of Ireland, had aimed, by his plantation of the fourth century, at the removal of the Rudrician race, whom he alike hated and feared. And the latter, if he did not exactly carry out his behest in this respect, succeeded in firmly planting a colony of at least temporary friends, where opponents had formerly dwelt; a colony, indeed, which grew into a proud and powerful people, so proud, as to be designated the Oirghialla, 'of the Golden Hostages,' because any members of the Clann-Colla whom they deigned for a time to surrender as hostages into the hands of enemies, could be bound only during the period of imprisonment by golden fetters; and so powerful, that their kings had the chief seat of honour beside the monarchs of Erin in all grand national assemblages (9).

Although the Oirghialla, as a people, were destined to disappear before the advancing power of the O'Neills, it is remarkable that many of their leading septs survived, in an organised form, until the time of the English invasion (10). But, it is perhaps still more remarkable, that although

(9). National assemblages.—An ancient Irish tract on the Oirghialla states, that whenever the hostages given by them required to be fettered, only golden chains could be used for the purpose, and that hence they were called Oirghialla, i.e., of the golden hostages. According to the same authority, the king of the Oirghialla sat beside the monarch of Ireland, and all the other sub-kings were the length of his hand and sword distant from the king. (See Battle of Magh Rath, p. 29). This latter privilege is also mentioned in the well known Book of Rights, as follows:-"From the mansions of Eire [dwellings of the chiefs] to the throne of Teamhair [Tara], the seat of the king of the Oirghialla is at the right hand of the king of Taillte [Ireland]. The distance of that seat, truly 'tis no mistake, is such that his hard sword should reach the cup-bearer who distributes. Entitled is the king of the Oirghialla, beyond each lord of

tribes, to every third horn of goodly ale, on the right of the king of Teamhair. Entitled is his queen (without falsehood, without boasting) to the same distinction from the other queens."-See O'Donovan's translation, p. 143. As a further illustration of the pride and power of the Oirghialla, it may be mentioned that "St. Bernard, in his Life of St. Malachy, says that the Oirghialla would not allow any bishop among them except one of their own family, and that they had this carried through fifteen generations; and, he adds immediately after, that they had claimed the see of Ard Macha, and maintained possession of it for two hundred years, claiming it as their indubitable birthright."—Ibid.

(10). English invasion.-There is much new and important information on the history of Ulster at that period to be derived from the admirable topographical work of John O'Dubhagain or O'Dugan, whose writings take the