The Highland monthly - National Library of Scotland

54
The Ui^hland Monthly.
Dublin and was then inaugurated King " as honourably as
ever any King of the Gzeidhil was ever inaugurated." And
he is said then to have presented their stipend to the
foreigners in many cows, and to have levied a tnx of 4000
cows on the men of Ireland for them—a statement which
seems to imply that he took the foreigners into his pay
—the custom of hiring mercenaries having by this time
become common. After his coronation, Roderick invaded
Leinster and Munster, and he appears to have procured the
submission of Dermot Macmurrough. the King of the
former province, but, notwithstanding, he consented to the
attack on that Prince by the King of Breeful and to
his banishment to England — an event which led to
momentous consequences in the following year.
In 1067 Dearmaid O'Brien, who is designed as King of
Munster and Leth-Mogha, a man who aimed at the
sovereignty of all Ireland, died. On his death, Roderick
O'Conner, apparently with the view of procuring his
acknowledgement as sovereign of Ireland by the northern
half of the kingdom, held an assembly of the chiefs of Leth-
Cuinn, both lay and ecclesiastical, and at this assembly it is
said that many good resolutions were passed " respecting
veneration of churches and clerics and controul of tribes and
territories, so that women used to traverse Ireland alone."
The assembly was an armed one, however, and is said to
have been attended by 13,000 horsemen, and it is recorded
as a singular and unlooked-for circumstance that they
separated without battle or contest. The statement that the
result of the assembly was a state of peace in the country,
which made it possible for women to travel alone, is as true
as the similar statement about the time of Brian. After the
assembly, Roderick led his army into Munster and procured
the submission of the chiefs of that province, and he was
thus acknowledged by the whole kingdom as its Ard Righ
or supreme King. Here it may be said, after 153 years of
a war of succession was a king established, and the fair