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4 THE SCANDINAVIANS, AND
BOOK i.
CHAP. i.
to exercise regal
1
privileges.
High qnaiitie
Henry
found that
j)u b]j n AVas the seat of Ostman sovereignty; it
thence became the capital of his Irish dominion, and
from the extension of that dominion it has become
the capital of Ireland.
Yet even if Dublin were not founded by the Scandi-
founders'oT navians, or that the Ostmen were not the cause of
its present pre-eminence, the silence of local and
general historians respecting the social position,
religion, laws, and monuments of those who occupied
Dublin for more than three hundred years on all
facts connected with the first Scandinavian invaders,
excepting
such as relate to their inroads and devas-
tations, has contributed to strengthen very erroneous
opinions respecting that remarkable people. And
although this silence may be justified, in some degree,
with regard to the first invaders, their history beingobscure,
it certainly cannot be so justified with
1 Henry left Strongbow in pos- king was driven out of Ireland,
session of the territory he had and went to seek foreign aid :
acquired by marriage with the "Oh, Mary ! It is a great deed
daughter of the King of Leinster, that is done in Erinn this day.
but he claimed, by right of con- Dermod, son of Doncliadh Mac
quest, the Ostmen cities of Dub- Murchadha, King of Leinster and
lin, Wexford, Waterford, and Li- of the Danes, was banished by the
merick, and out of the lands which men of Ireland over the sea east-
belonged to the Ostmen [kings] of ward. Uch! Uch! Oh Dublin he formed his four royal shall I do?"
now, what
War of the Gaedhil
manors of Newcastle, Esker, Sag- with the Gaill, p. xii. "The Danes
gard, and Crumlin. meant the Danes of Dublin."
[McMurrough ruled over the Note city
by Dr. Todd, ibid. Yet King
of Dublin and the town of Henry took from Strongbow Dub-
Wexford, as well as the rest of lin and Leinster. This is evidenced by
Wexford, though equally
acquired by marriage with Eva,
the following
made by
entry of his
grief McMurrough's daughter. He
one of his followers in feared probably that they mi^ht
the Book of Leinster, on the very render him too powerful for a
day (1st August, 1166) when the subject.]