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SOME NOTICE OF THK
Ostman inhabitants, who were numerous enough to form
juries of inquest more than fifty years after the Conquest,
King John directing his justiciary to inquire by the English
and Ostmen of Dublin, if the Prior and convent of the
Holy Trinity (now Christ Church) had of ancient right a
boat (for salmon fishing) on the Liflfey. 1
It has just been observed that frequent as are the notices
of the Scandinavian occupation of Ireland in the Icelandic
Sagas, almost all traces of them in the Irish records are lost
from the time of the English invasion.
Our early Chancery records to the end of the reign of
King Edward I., were all burned in the time of Master
Thomas Cantok, Chancellor, when his lodgings in Saint
Mary's Abbey took fire, amongst them the very enrolment
referred to by Maurice MacOtere. This is recorded
on the patent roll of Chancery of the second of King
Edward II. (A.D. 1309), when Thomas Cantok's executors
delivered up to the Lord Walter de Thornbury, his successor
in office, such writs, bills, inquisitions, &c., as had escaped
with an inventory or schedule of them. Calendar of the
Patent Rolls, p. 12, 6.
But few as are the traces of the lives and actions of the
Ostmen to be found in the public records, fewer still are
the monuments of their past habitation of Ireland, such as
castles, towers, walls, and tombs.
Reginald's Tower at Waterford is the only building that
remains as a subsisting memorial of their rule. Or, may we
say, was the only one until Mr. Haliday's energetic zeal in
research has revived and brought to light the Thingmount
and Long Stone of Dublin, which though swept away by
all-devouring time seem to be at length rescued from
oblivion, not only through the curious incidents and notices
1 Rot. Litt. Glaus., 17 Johann, the oaths of separate juries, one of
p. 224 (Folio Record Publications), twelve Englishmen, another of
In the " Registrum Decani Limeri- twelve Irishmen, and a third of
censis," there is a curious inquisition twelve Ostmen or Danes. Archceo-
conccrning lands and churches, on logia, V. 17, p. 3 ; 3.