With regard to the conversion of the Danes in Ireland, it seems that, after all, it was the ever-present spectacle of the workings of Christianity among the Irish which gradually opened their eyes and ears. They came to love the country and the people when they knew them thoroughly; they respected them for their bravery, which they had proved a thousand times; they felt attracted toward them on account of their geniality of temperament and their warm social feelings; even their defects of character and their impulsive nature were pleasing to them. They soon sought their company and relationship; they began to intermarry with them; and from this there was but a step to embracing their religion. The Danes of Waterford, Cork, and Limerick were, however, the last to abandon paganism, and they seem not to have done so until after Clontarf. It is very remarkable that, during all those conflicts of the Irish with the Danes, when the Northmen strewed the island with dead and ruins; when they seemed to be planting their domination in the Orkneys, the Hebrides, and even the Isle of Man, on a firm footing; when the seas around England and Ireland swarmed with pirates, and new expeditions started almost every spring from the numerous harbors of the Baltic--the Irish colony of Dal Riada in Scotland, which was literally surrounded by the invaders, succeeded in wresting North Britain from the Picts, drove them into the Lowlands, and so completely rooted them out, that history never more speaks of them, so that to this day the historical problem stands unsolved-- What became of the Picts?-- various as are the explanations given of their disappearance. And, what is more remarkable still, is, that the Dal Riada colony received constant help from their brothers in Erin, and the first of the dynasty of Scottish kings, in the person of Kenneth McAlpine, was actually set on the throne of Scotland by the arms of the Irish warriors, who, not satisfied apparently with their constant conflicts with the Danes on their own soil, passed over the Eastern Sea to the neighboring coast of Great Britain. During the last forty years of the tenth century the Danes lived in Ireland as though they belonged to the soil. If they waged war against some provincial king, they became the allies of others. When clan fought clan, Danes were often found on both sides, or if on one only, they soon joined the other. They had been brought to embrace the manners of the natives, and to adopt many of their customs and habits. Yet there always remained a lurking distrust, more or less marked, between the two races; and it was clear that Ireland could never be said to have escaped the danger of subjugation until the Scandinavian element should be rendered powerless.