Brian, semi-usurper though he was, was in every sense a great statesman as well as a great warrior. He found almost every seat of learning in ruins, and every town and palace in Ireland a shattered wreck. Before he died he had gone far towards restoring them. He rebuilt the monasteries, re-erected the churches, refounded the schools. "He sent professors and masters to teach wisdom and knowledge," says the history from which we have been quoting; but the schools had been hopelessly broken up, the scribes had perished, the books—"the countless hosts of the illuminated books of the men of Erin"—had been burned and "drowned." Hence he found himself obliged to despatch his emissaries and the few men of learning who had survived that awful time, "to buy books beyond the sea and the great ocean, because," says the history,

    "their writings and their books in every church and in every sanctuary where they were, were burnt and thrown into water by the plunderers from beginning to end [of their invasions], and Brian himself gave the price of learning, and the price of books, to every one separately who went on this service." "By him were erected also noble churches and sanctuaries in Erin ... many works also, and repairs were made by him. By him were erected the church of Cell Dálua[1] and the church of Inis Cealtra, and the round tower[Pg 444] of Tuam Gréine, and many other works in like manner. By him were made bridges and causeways and high roads. By him were strengthened also the dúns and fortresses and islands and celebrated royal forts of Munster.... The peace of Erin was proclaimed by him, both of churches and people, so that peace throughout all Erin was made in his time. He fined and imprisoned the perpetrators of murders, trespass, robbery, and war. He hanged and killed and destroyed the robbers and thieves and plunderers of Erin.... After the banishment of the foreigners out of all Erin and after Erin was reduced to a state of peace, a single woman came from Torach in the north of Erin to Clíodhna in the south of Erin, carrying a ring of gold on a horse-rod, and she was neither robbed nor insulted."[2]

The bardic schools began to revive again, for the bards too had felt the full pressure of the invasion, their colleges had been broken up, and many of themselves been slain. One aim of the Norsemen was to destroy all learning. "It was not allowed," writes Keating, "to give instruction in letters." ... "No scholars, no clerics, no books, no holy relics, were left in church or monastery through dread of them. Neither bard nor philosopher nor musician pursued his wonted profession in the land."

The eleventh and twelfth centuries, however, witnessed a great revival of art and learning. Indeed, from the reign of Brian until the coming of the Normans, Irish metal-work, architecture, and letters flourished wonderfully. It is from this brief period of comparative rest that the three most important relics of Celtic literature now in the world date, the Leabhar na h-Uidhre, the Book of Leinster, and the Book of Hymns. The eleventh and twelfth centuries produced also many men of literature, including the annalist Tighearnach who was Abbot of Clonmacnois and died in[Pg 445] 1088; and Dubdaléithe, Archbishop of Armagh, who died in 1065, who wrote Annals of Ireland which are now lost, but which are quoted both in the Annals of Ulster and in the "Four Masters." The greatest scholar, chronologist, and poet of this period is unquestionably Flann, the fear-léighinn or head-teacher of the school of Monasterboice, who died in 1056. Though he is called Flann Mainstreach, or Flann of the Monastery, he was really a layman—one proof out of many, that the schools and colleges which grew up round religious institutions were as much secular as theological. He composed a valuable series of synchronisms, in which he synchronised the kings of the Assyrians, Medes, Persians, Greeks, and the Roman emperors, with the kings of Ireland, in parallel columns century by century, and sums up the most important portions of his teaching in a poem of some twelve hundred lines intended evidently as a class-book for his pupils. A piece of more value is one which synchronises the reigns of the Irish monarchs with those of the Irish provincial kings and the kings of Scotland, from the time of King Laeghaire who received St. Patrick, down to the death of Murtough O'Brien in 1119, these later years having been completed by some other hand.

No fewer than two thousand lines of Flann's poetry were copied into the Book of Leinster less than a hundred years after his own death, and there are nearly as many more in other manuscripts. They are, however, though composed in elaborate metres, anything but creative and imaginative poems. The most of them consist of annals or history versified, evidently with the intention of being committed to memory, because the great ollamhs like Flann were really rather historians and philosophers than what we call poets, and they used their metrical art, very often though not always, to enshrine their knowledge. There is, however—except to the historian—nothing particularly inspiriting in a poem of 204 lines on the monarchs of Erin and kings of Meath who are descended from[Pg 446] Niall of the Nine Hostages, giving the names, length of reign, and manner of death of each, despite the undoubted skill with which the technical difficulties of a thorny metre are overcome.[3] Some of his pieces, however, are of more living interest, as his poem on the history of Oileach or Ailech, the palace of the O'Neills near Derry, in which he takes us to the time of the Tuatha De Danann, and in his poem on the battles fought by the Kinel Owen. Indeed as O'Curry well puts it,

    "Many a name lying dead in our genealogical tracts and which has found its way into our evidently condensed chronicles and annals, will be found in these poems connected with the death or associated with the brilliant deeds of some hero whose story we would not willingly lose; while, on the other hand, many an obscure historical allusion will be illustrated and many an historical spot as yet unknown to the topographer will be identified, when a proper investigation of these and other great historical poems preserved in the Book of Leinster, shall be undertaken as part of the serious study of the history and antiquities of our country."[4]

This summing-up of O'Curry's as to the poems of Flann, is one which may be also applied to several of his contemporaries and successors, such as Coleman O'Seasnan who died in 1050, one of whose poems on the kings of Emania and of Ulster contains 328 lines; Giolla Caomhghin [Gilla Keevin], who died in 1072, some thirteen or fourteen hundred lines of whose poetry has been preserved; Tanaidhe O'Mulconry, who died in 1136; Giolla Moduda O'Cassidy, who died in 1143, and whose poems, still extant, amount to nearly nine hundred lines; and[Pg 447] Giolla-na-naomh O'Dunn who died in 1160, and of whom we still possess fourteen hundred verses.[5]

The compositions of two rather earlier poets, Erard mac Coisé [C?sha] and Cuan O'Lochain possess more interest. They died in 1023 and 1024 respectively. Mac Coisé's four surviving poems and his prose allegory are all of great interest. As for Cuan O'Lochain, he was chief poet of Erin in his day, and according to Mac Echagain's "Annals of Clonmacnois" and an entry in the Book of Leinster, he and a cleric named Corcran were elected to govern Ireland during the interregnum which succeeded the death of King Malachy, who quietly reassumed, after the death of Brian Boru, the High-kingship of which that monarch had deprived him. This is a convincing proof of the honour attached to the office of "ollamh of all Ireland."

One of O'Lochain's pieces is of special value, because it describes and names every chief building, monument, rath, and remarkable spot in and around Tara, both those erected in Cormac mac Art's time and those added afterwards; both those which were in ruins when the poet wrote, and those which had been described by former authors from the time of Cormac till his own.[6] Another poem of his is on the geasa [gassa] or tabus of the king of Ireland, and on his prerogatives. It was tabu for him to let the sun rise on him when in bed in the plains of Tara, or for him to alight on a Wednesday on the plain of Bregia, or to traverse the plain of Cuillenn after sunset, or to launch his ship on the first Monday after May Day, etc. Another is a beautiful poem on the origin of the river Shannon, called from a lady Sinann, who ventured near Connla's well, a thing tabu to a female—to steal the nuts of knowledge. There grew nine splendid mystical hazel trees[Pg 448] around this well, and they produced the most beautiful nuts of rich crimson colour, and as these lovely nuts, filled full with all that was loveliest and most refined in literature, poetry, and art, dropped off their branches into the well, they raised a succession of red sh............