The ancient annals of Ireland speak, indeed, of naval expeditions;
but these expeditions were always undertaken by a few persons in
one, two, or, at most, three boats, as that of the sons of Ua Corra;
and such facts consequently strengthen our view. The only fact
which seems contradictory is supposed to have occurred during
the Danish wars, when Callaghan, King of Cashel, is said to have
been caught in an ambush, and conveyed a captive by the Danes,
first to Dublin, then to Armagh, and finally to Dundalk.

The troops of Kennedy, son of Lorcan, are said to have been
supported by a fleet of fifty sail, commanded by Falvey Finn, a
Kerry chieftain. We need not repeat the story so well known to
all readers of Irish history. But this fact is found only in the
work of Keating, and the best critics accept it merely as an
historical romance, which Keating thought proper to insert in his
history. Still, even supposing the truth of the story, all that we
may conclude from it is that the seafaring Danes, at the end of
their long wars, had taught the Irish to use the sea as a battlefield,
to the extent of undertaking a small expedition in order to
liberate a beloved chieftain.

It is very remarkable, also, that according to the annals of Ireland,
the naval expeditions nearly always bore a religious character, never
one of trade or barter, with the exception of the tale of Brescan,
who was swallowed up with his fifty curraghs, in which he traded
between Ireland and Scotland.

Nearly all the other maritime excursions are voyages undertaken
with a Christian or Godlike object. Thus our holy religion was