Page:The Gaelic State in the Past & Future.djvu/47

 into the country, who would in time become part of its life. They did not conceive of such a thing as an attempted national conquest. Then when they rose to resist, they were handicapped. They had no national army; and, though the freemen could be called upon for military service, they could not be called for more than six weeks at a time, and then not during Spring or Harvest, whereas the Normans lived only by the sword in the close militarist organisation known as feudalism. The eleventh century in Ireland had seen a long dynastic war, but it had also seen a full scholarly and artistic activity. With the coming of the Normans all this activity was stilled and hushed for two centuries. And that was the sign-manual of the new era that had dawned.

After a while, preoccupied as they necessarily were with their economic life, the people invited their Hebridean cousins to come over as a paid militia. They came, at first into the north, and were quartered on the stateships; and from the time of their coming the Normans began to be pressed back toward Dublin, and the annals record the taking one by one of the Norman castles. That was the first attempt to throw off the national danger that was now appreciated. The second was to restore the executive authority. O'Neill, O'Brien and O' Conor had contended in rivalry, but the Ui Niall dynasty held the more ancient claim; therefore in 1258 Aodh O'Conor and Tadhg O'Brien made a hosting together to Brian O'Neill to offer their submission to him if he would lead