Innishowen, the axes of Fanad, were in his ranks, ranged
closely round his own standard. The cause of the
Constitution and the Church prevailed, and Druidism
mourned its last hope extinguished on the plains of Moira,
in the death of Congal, and the defeat of his vast army.
King Donald returned in triumph to celebrate his victory
at Emania and to receive the benediction of the Church
at Armagh.

The sons of Hugh III., Dermid and Blathmac, zealous and
pious Christian princes, survived the field of Moira and
other days of danger, and finally attained the supreme
power--A.D. 656. Like the two kings of Sparta they
reigned jointly, dividing between them the labours and
cares of State. In their reign, that terrible scourge,
called in Irish, "the yellow plague," after ravaging
great part of Britain, broke out with undiminished
virulence in Erin (A.D. 664). To heighten the awful sense
of inevitable doom, an eclipse of the sun occurred
concurrently with the appearance of the pestilence on
the first Sunday in May. It was the season when the
ancient sun-god had been accustomed to receive his annual
oblations, and we can well believe that those whose hearts
still trembled at the name of Bel, must have connected
the eclipse and the plague with the revolution in the
national worship, and the overthrow of the ancient gods
on that "plain of prostration," where they had so long
received the homage of an entire people. Among the victims
of this fearful visitation--which, like the modern cholera,
swept through all ranks and classes of society, and