these princes, according to the Annals of Ulster, died in 874; as all came in the middle of the century, none could long survive that period; even then, if they were the sons of the Ragnar who was killed in 794, and who immediately afterwards descended on the Northumbrian coast, they must have reached an age nearly centennial. That there has been a sad confusion of names—for all were common in the Scandinavian annals—is undoubted. Then the confusion in the orthography of proper words—Anlaf, for example, being written Alaf, Olaf, Amlain, Amlaiph, &c.—must add to the hopelessness of the historian’s task. Three kings of this name, all celebrated during the first half of the ninth century, could not be the princes who, under the same names, obtained so much celebrity during the first half of the tenth. Either, therefore, the chronology is wrong, or the events are for ever confounded. In this, as in every other case, historians have adopted the same mode of solution,—that there were two individuals of the name existing at periods considerably removed from each other.[297] [Sidenote: 872 to 1000.] For many years after this period, we read that the Northmen were in possession of Dublin, Limerick, and Waterford, the chiefs of which had the regal title. Early in the tenth, indeed, they were expelled from the first of these cities by the people of Leinster; but the misfortune must have been soon repaired: for in a few years afterwards, we find Godfrey, grandson of Ivar, reigning there, and forcing tribute from most of the princes in the south. In 926, however, the pirates were signally defeated in Ulster, and eighty of their chiefs slain. The moral effect of these victories could be no other than to inspire the natives with new hope, and to procure them new successes. In 936, a greater loss was inflicted on the Scandinavians of Dublin. Five years afterwards, a similar advantage was gained over them; but either they must have had speedy means of reinforcing themselves, or their losses must have been grossly exaggerated. Nor could they be very unfortunate, if it be true that after their partial conversion to Christianity, in 948, they erected the great abbey of St. Mary, in the vicinity of Dublin. Yet they were sometimes tributary to Murkertach, one of the native kings, and the most celebrated hero of his age; and Dublin was frequently in the hands of the Irish; but it was as frequently retaken. These alternations of success and disaster comprehend the history of the Northmen in Ireland. But after the accession of Brian, surnamed Born, or the exacter of tributes, the decline which had for above half a century been visible in the affairs of the pirates, became signally rapid. Many were the successive engagements in which that heroic chief had the advantage. In 969, he took and destroyed Limerick; in 972, he recovered the island of Iniscathy, to which the natives attached no ordinary sanctity; in 980, a