Kentucky Irish American. (Louisville, Ky.) 1898-1968, 1899-04-01


hurried to the mountains and slain. The
manner of his death was particularly
horrible, for it is told that when the
murderers drew their weapons the be-
trayed King caught up a copy of the Holy
Gospels and placed the open volumes as
a shield against his breast. But neither
the sacred book nor the presence of two
priests, who had courageously followed
the doomed King, stayed the murderous
hands. The assassins closed around the
King, in a ring of leveled points, and
plunged their weapons again and again
through the book into his body. Mahon
fell to the ground dead; the priests caught
up the sacred volume, its pages torn with
treason's swords and blackened with
Dalcassia's noblest blood, and hurried
from the scene of slaughter to bear the
news of the murder far and wide.
Whether even such assassins were un-
willing to lay hands upon a holy man, or
whether they wished the news of WARS
vengeance and Molloy's treason to be
bruited abroad as soon as might be, they
seem in no wise to have interfered with
the departure of the priests. Perhaps the
murderers deemed that in slayiug Mahon
they had Slapped the strength of Munster.
But they reckoned without the young
chieftain who had been foremost in the
late war, and whose courage and genius
made him far more dangerous enemy
to the Danish strength than the monarch
who had been so foully done to death in
the Knocinrcorin mountains.
News of his brothers. death was
brought to Brian at Kinkora. Every
historian has recorded the passion of grief
and rage which seized upon the young
Prince; every historian has told how, like
leader of Israel or Hellenic hero, he
Immediately seized his harp and sang the
death song of his brother and King; every
historian has quoted the mighty words i'll
which he pledged himself to vengeance:
"My heart shall burst within my breast
Unless l avenge this great King;
They shall forfeit life for this foul deed,
Or l must perish by violent death"
Bravely and resolutely Brian fulfilled
his VOW Rousing all his following, he
flung himself first upon his Danish foes
under Ivar of Limerick, and routed them
completely. Ivar, the chief of the trait
ors, with his two sons, was slain. Then he
turned the edge of his sword against the
false Eugenian Donovan. Donovan
raised mighty power of his own people
and of Desmond Danes, but they could
make no head against Brian; they were
scattered like chaff, and Donovan him
self was slain. One alone now remained
of Mahon's murderers, Molloy, son of
Bran. Brian sent him a summons to
fight which Molloy answered by taking
the field with a swollen armament. But
these. too, like the others, were dispersed
and scattered by Brians army, and Mol
10y himself was slain in the thick of the
fight by Murrough, Brians valiant and
high-spirited son. Such was the swift
fate that overlook the slayer of Mahon.
While this blood-feud was being con-
summated Brian's dominions were in
vaded by Malachy Nor, the famous
Malachy of the Collar of Gold. The
precise cause of the quarrel between these
two illustrious Princes seems now to be
somewhat uncertain, but it must have
been fierce, indeed, when it moved so
gallant warrior as Malachy to the UNI
generous action of cutting down the
sacred tree of Adair, under which Brian
himself and the long line of his Dalcas-
sian ancestors had been crowned. AS
soon as Brian had his brothers. vendetta
off his hands he turned the strength of
his arm against Malachy by ravaging
Westmeath. For some time the quarrel
between Brian and Malachy ragged with
intermittent fury, victory sometimes in
clining to 'one Prince and sometimes to
another. At last, however, common
peril and a common enemy united those
hostile monarchs. The Danes, their de-
cimated ranks stiffened by reinforcements
from the far North, were again pursuing
their old policy of aggression against the
native Irish. Brian and Malachy clasped
hands in amity, concluded truce which
proved to be lasting one, joined their
forces, beat back the desperate Danes
and entered Dublin. With this crushing
defeat of the foreign foe came the hour
of Brians triumph. He claimed the
Kingship of Ireland, and called upon
Malachy Nor TO acknowledge him, a
course which Malachy, after little fall
tering and some unsuccessful attempts to
stir up certain Irish Princes to mutiny,
finally adopted.
Brians reign as King of Ireland was
brilliant and prosperous. Commerce, arts,
education, all fourished, and the wealth
and the peace of the country became pro-
verbal. But the old hatred of the Danes,
being smoldering, blazed at last into de-
termined insunection. Aided by treason
among the Irish chiefs and Princes, a
formidable army was levied against the
aged King. But age had not cooled the
fiery courage of Brian's nature. He raised
all his power and met his foes at Clon-
tart on Good Friday, April %, 1914.
The fortunes OF that fight are a familiar
story. The Danes were defeated, but
victory was scarcely less terrible to vic
tors than to vanquished, for in the very
ebb of the battle Danish chief struck