We must be satisfied with the general inference that Ireland was visited by the Northmen as soon, or nearly as soon, as Scotland, and the Scottish islands. The first visit of which we have any record was in 795, in the reign of Aidan, monarch of the country. Leaving Iona, the monastery of which they had laid in ashes, the sea kings proceeded to the north-western coast, landed, and ravaged the country as far as Roscommon. This was, probably, the work of years: here, as everywhere else, they would form intrenchments at the mouths of the great rivers, the banks of which, for twenty leagues round, they would lay waste as far as boats could ascend. They appear to have been twelve years in the country before any serious resistance was made. In 812 they were defeated; but defeat, so long as the sea was open, and communication with it maintained by navigable rivers, was speedily repaired. In 815, a Norwegian chief named Turges, or Thorgils, arrived with a more powerful armament, and, during thirty years, was a dreadful scourge not only to the northern, but to the eastern and southern districts of the island. Their fury was peculiarly directed against the holy places, especially the monastery of Banchor and the cathedral of Armagh, which they revisited and destroyed every time they heard of their restoration. Every cell, every chapel, every holy place to which the superstitious piety of the age resorted, naturally attracted their notice. But in the atrocities which they committed, and which the unanimous voice of every kingdom they visited—from Greece to Ireland—has immortalised, they must have been actuated by other motives than the hope of gain. If they were savage to the laity, they were demoniacal to the ecclesiastics. Probably their superior ferocity in the latter case may be explained by the deep hatred which the persecutions of Charlemagne had produced (as we have before intimated, under the term _Saxons_ must also be included the Scandinavians, and perhaps some tribes of the great Slavonic family). But against that great man, we are not disposed to join in the hostility of some modern writers. The men with whom the emperor had to deal were without honour, without virtue of any kind, men who regarded the most solemn oaths as empty sounds, who loved war as much for the plunder which it brought as for the gratification of shedding blood. But were not the Saxons and Danes fighting for their liberties? True, and the greatest of them was the liberty to plunder the rest of the world,—to trample under foot all humanity, all moral virtue,—to be the tyrants of Europe. Charlemagne triumphed over them, and we rejoice at his success; nor, had he exterminated the whole people, should he be censured by posterity.[295] [Sidenote: 820 to 848.]