lake swept with storm from the mountain-pass, where twice a week bread and water were brought him by a boat and a ladder up the rock. His life was spent in the effort for national peace and union, nor had Ireland a truer patriot or wiser statesman. Kings and chiefs sat with the clergy in the Irish synods, and in the state too there were signs of a true union of the peoples. The Danes, gradually absorbed into the Irish population, lost the sense of separate nationality. The growing union of the peoples was seen in the increasing power of the Ardri. Brian's line maintained at Cachel the title of "kings of Ireland," strengthening their house with Danish marriages; they led Danish forces and were elected kings of the Danes in Dublin. But in the twelfth century it was the Connacht kings who came to the front, the same race that a thousand years before had spread their power across the Shannon to Usnech and to Tara. Turlough O'Conor (1118-1156) was known to Henry I of England as "king of Ireland"; on a metal cross made for him he is styled "king of Erin," and a missal of his time (1150) contains the only prayer yet known for "the king of the Irish and his army"--the sign, as we may see, of foreign influences on the Irish mind. His son, Ruaidhri or Rory, was proclaimed (1166) Ardri in Dublin with greater pomp than any king before him, and held at Athboy in Meath an assembly of the "men of Ireland," archbishops and clergy, princes and nobles, eighteen thousand horsemen from the tribes and provinces, and a thousand Danes from Dublin--there laws were made for the honour of churches and clergy, the restoring of prey unjustly taken, and the control of tribes and territories, so that a woman might traverse the land in safety; and the vast gathering broke up "in peace and amity, without battle or controversy, or any one complaining of another at that meeting." It is said that Rory O'Conor's procession when he held the last of the national festivals at Telltown was several miles in length.