There is considerable uncertainty as to the real date and the precise circumstances of Dermod’s arrival in Ireland.  According to one account, he returned at the close of the year 1168, and concealed himself during the winter in a monastery of Augustinian Canons at Ferns, which he had founded.  The two principal authorities are Giraldus Cambrensis and Maurice Regan; the latter was Dermod Mac Murrough’s secretary.  According to his account, Robert FitzStephen landed at Bannow, near Waterford, in May, 1169, with an army of three hundred archers, thirty knights, and sixty men-at-arms.[275] A second detachment arrived the next day, headed by Maurice de Prendergast, a Welsh gentleman, with ten knights and sixty archers.  Dermod at once assembled his men, and joined his allies.  He could only muster five hundred followers; but with their united forces, such as they were, the outlawed king and the needy adventurers laid siege to the city of Wexford.  The brave inhabitants of this mercantile town at once set forth to meet them; but, fearing the result if attacked in open field by well-disciplined troops, they fired the suburbs, and entrenched themselves in the town.  Next morning the assaulting party prepared for a renewal of hostilities, but the clergy of Wexford advised an effort for peace:  terms of capitulation were negotiated, and Dermod was obliged to pardon, when he would probably have preferred to massacre.  It is said that FitzStephen burned his little fleet, to show his followers that they must conquer or die.  Two cantreds of land, comprising the present baronies of Forth and Bargy,[276] were bestowed on him:  and thus was established the first English colony in Ireland.  The Irish princes and chieftains appear to have regarded the whole affair with silent contempt.  The Annals say they “set nothing by the Flemings;"[277] practically, they set nothing by any of the invaders.  Could they have foreseen, even for one moment, the consequences of their indifference, we cannot doubt but that they would have acted in a very different manner.  Roderic, the reigning monarch, was not the man either to foresee danger, or to meet it when foreseen; though we might pardon even a more sharp-sighted and vigilant warrior, for overlooking the possible consequence of the invasion of a few mercenary troops, whose only object appeared to be the reinstatement of a petty king.  Probably, the troops and their captains were equally free from suspecting what would be the real result of their proceedings.

[Illustration:  BARGY CASTLE.]

The fair of Telltown was celebrated about this time; and from the accounts given by the Annals of the concourse of people, and the number of horsemen who attended it, there can be little doubt that Ireland was seldom in a better position to resist foreign invasion.  But unity of purpose and a competent leader were wanted then, as they have been wanted but too often since.  Finding so little opposition to his plans, Mac Murrough