The Diary of Finn O'Leary, an Irish Monk in 843.

Finn O'Leary-Irish Monk (Papar)
Donegal, Ireland. 843

It is almost winter and times are getting tough for the people around St. Mark's Monastery. I talk to some people and they say this could be a very harsh winter. I try to share what I have with the other people. Other of my fellow monks have told me to conserve what food I have so I can survive. I gave out some of my old robes to the poorer of my town today. As i was strolling about, a pagan man came up to me and same a cold wind will come from the northeast and destroy our town. "How do you know this sir?" I asked him. "I saw it in my dreams!" He spat back in my face. I felt bad for the old pagan man, for I believe he was homeless, and gave him a robe. I patted him on the shoulder and bade him farewell. I then walked back to the monastery for dinner. I discussed what the old man had told me in the street with the other monks. They told me that he was an old drunkard and to heed him no more. "You have to stop giving out your clothes Finn, its going to be a cold winter, and you going to need all the warmth you can get." Pat O'Sullivan, my good friend, warned me. "I have none left to give Patty." After we had finished up dinner and talking, I went off to my chambers for the night and pondered on the prophecy the pagan had told me.

Finn O’Leary

It’s been a week since the old man told me about his prophecy, and so far nothing bad has come. Although the weather has gone for the worse. People are burning their furniture just to stay warm. I mostly stay in the Monastery, only going out for minutes at a time. Yesterday when I went out side I could feel the biting cold against my face. I grew a beard to keep my face warm but it didn’t matter. While I was waling around checking up on some of the elder of the community, I saw a young boy walking along alone. I went up to him and sought to find out why he was out when it was so cold. “Why are you out little one? Where are you parents?” The boy didn’t answer me. “Where do you live?” Still nothing from the boy. “Hmm, would you like to walk with me?” The boy nodded his head at this and I felt good that I finally got him to respond and now I made it my job to befriend the young boy. He must have only been about 10 or 12 years old, stood only about 5 feet tall, had dark brown hair, and dark brown eyes. His eyes looked to be filled with sorrow, more sorrow than a young boy should ever endure. We walked to the rest of my visits and once done I asked him again where he lived. This time he started walking away and so I followed him. We walked for quite a long time and I grew very cold. I wanted to go back for the sun was also going down but I didn’t want to leave this young boy. My superior would also be mad at me for I was late to come back for prayer. We came upon a small shack. It had cracked boards and broken windows. Part of the roof had caved in and I wondered if this was where the boy lived. The boy stopped and looked up at me with his dark sorrowful eyes. I have to go, I’ll write again later!

Finn O’Leary

Sorry about that. It was time for night prayers and I had to go. Where was I, oh yes the house. I slowly walked over to the front door and timidly pushed open the door. What I saw inside astounded me, 10 kids about the same age as this boy and one young man of about 17. “What are you all doing here?” I yelled in shock. The younger kids kept their heads down but the young man came up to me and privately talked to me. “We are all orphans, papar, we have nothing but each other. The young boy who brought you here is Bryan, his family died during a fire last year and he walked 10 miles from his house to our city. I took him in and have cared for him, I care for all these kids.” He was tall, gaunt, long curly dark hair, freckles, and looked much older than he was. He also had a small beard. “By the way, my name is Sean.” The young man said and put his hand out for me to shake. I shook it then told him we had to get the children out of here. “Some do not have the strength to get up, let alone walk.” I looked around and saw that it was true. “We’ll carry the ones who can’t walk then. We will bring them to the Monastery.” The young man said no more and went over to the children. He told them what we were to do and then showed me the ones we needed to carry. I prayed to God that I would have the strength to carry them, and took 2 kids on each shoulder and another on my back. The young man then grabbed the last two who couldn’t walk. We went out the door and the rest of the children followed. They must have been confused; I would be if I just suddenly left my home with a stranger.

Finn O’Leary

Sorry about the abrupt ending there, I had to give care to one of the children. This answers what you probably thought; we made it back to the Monastery. Even though I was dead tired, I felt happiness in my heart for I had helped these kids. The monks and I have been caring for the children and I convinced the other monks to share their rations with the kids. The Monastery was also very warm for the kids because we had fires in every rooms going at all times. We have a tree garden in the back of the church, where we grow trees and cut them down for firewood. We replant every year. We do not give out much wood to the public for our town is surrounded by woods, but we do teach to replant trees after cutting them down so we never run out of firewood. The children have started to talk more and we are teaching them to pray, read, and write. This is a privilege for them because most people don’t learn read or writing. We teach the kids because they have nothing else and learning excites them. I even taught a few to juggle. They are starting to really like it here and we appreciate them here too. While we teach them, they teach us to have fun. We often go outside to play with them in the snow when the weather is mild. The snow is picking up and it has gotten so cold that it is unsafe for me on occasions to check up on the community. I pray for them often. I still think about that pagan man and how he is doing. I pray to Mary, the mother of God, to help the man. Sean often plays with the kids but doesn’t want to learn, saying he would rather work with his hands in a garden or building things. 

Finn O’Leary

Today we got a visitor, a young nun from a convent in Dublin. Her name was Kaitlyn, she was a quite a pretty girl, long red hair, and was average height. She came with news that some monks were coming back from the main land of Europe after a long evangelization journey. We were happy about this because we needed more help around the Monastery. They were to come back during the summer. While walking the halls I came upon Sean and the young nun talking. I overheard him say, “Thank you so much, I will make sure to be your very best student.” I found this odd because he didn’t want to learn. I hoped it wasn’t because of the girl’s beauty that he wanted it, because that’s the wrong reason. Although the young woman, as I should call her, is very new, maybe the convent wasn’t God’s path for her. We’ll just have to wait and see. At dinner we ate but I realized that Kaitlyn was not present. I excused myself and went to find her. I was lucky and found her in a few minutes at the chapel. She was praying out loud and noticed me coming in. She immediately got up and came to me. “Paper Finn, I need your help. I don’t know hat to do, I’m so confused.” She said to me. “What is the problem child?” I asked with care. She responded telling me of how she had joined the convent because her parents told her it was the only way she would get an education and live a good life. She said that she liked the convent but now that she met Sean wasn’t sure if it was the right choice. She didn’t want to disappoint her parents, but she said she wanted to be around Sean. I told her the only solution was to pray to God for the answer, and wait. While waiting I told her to get to know Sean and teach him because a good man like him shouldn’t go without an education.    

Finn O’Leary

It’s been a few days since I last wrote in here. I had been spending time with the children. Sean and Kaitlyn had been developing their relationship. I went outside and went for a check up on the community when I saw the old pagan running around wildly. I came up to him and grasped him by the shoulders and yell, “What is the matter sir?” “The cold wind is here.” At this I started hearing screams from all over the place, coming from houses, the woods, and far off. Then I saw them, the Vikings. “Everyone come! Come! Follow me! Get over here!” I started yelling, but for some it was too late. A Viking ran into a house and I could hear screams coming fro inside it. Several came running to me, and I grabbed the pagan and told him to run back to the monastery and warn the monks. “Everyone follow him!” I stayed back and tried holding off the Vikings. I was trained when I was younger as a squire but decided to become a monk instead, but I still remember the moves. A Viking ran up to me and swung at me and I ducked and punched him in the kidney. He fell to the ground crippled and I grabbed his sword and fought off four more Vikings before they swarmed my position. I ran back to the monastery and looked up and saw Sean with a bow aiming at the Vikings. I kept running and made it to the door. “How are we going to keep them out?” Yelled one of the monks. “Grab a sword and a bow, and barricade the doors. We are not losing this monastery.”  

Finn O’Leary

“We cannot fight, we are just monks, we must save the children and the sacred texts. We must find a safe route out.” Said Pat O’Sullivan. The other monks agreed and ran off to fetch the children and the bibles and other holy objects. Sean came running down the stairs to me and yell, “There’s too many of them, we will never make it out!” “We must keep them back as long as we can then, you and I Sean.” He nodded in agreement, and we both looked at the main door, which was now shaking madly and had a few ax heads in it. We backed up and took our stance, shield and sword in hand, and a bow on our backs. Behind us we could hear the scuffling of feet as the monks scrambled to get out. “Are you coming?” Yelled one of them. I shouted back that we meet up with them later. He ran out, and then all hell broke loose. The door blew open and the Vikings rushed towards us, more than I can count. Long beards on all of them, they had axes and lances and swords, shields, and helmets with horns. They had rage in their eyes, and wanted blood. Sean and I waited for them to take the first move, ducking then slicing them in the ribs. We’d slam others with our shields and pierce their amour with our swords. They were about to over take us so we ran up the stairs, some followed while others ran off to sack the monastery.   

Finn O’Leary

We fought off those who followed us, throwing them down the stairs to their death. We killed off around 30 of them before the stairs were clear again. I motioned to Sean to be quite and that he should follow me. I walked over to the Chapel, there were at least 12 inside. I walked slowly in and motioned to Sean to take them out quietly. We took out our bows and were able to take them out without a sound. They didn’t have enough time to realize what was happening before they too got an arrow through their back. We then went and retrieved the arrows. “Where to next? There are so many of them.” “We must find the small groups and eliminate them first.” I answered back. From there we went around to all the small rooms, taking out Vikings one by one. Retrieving the arrows and reusing them. We must have killed 50, maybe even more by then. I made sure to ask God for forgiveness after killing everyone of them. These men were savages and did not have good will in their hearts. We ran into the rooms of the monks and found Kaitlyn in there, dead. She had several bruises and broken limbs, stab wounds and cuts, and was lying askew across a bed with her dress ripped open.  This threw Sean into an angry rage, I tried to quite him but he ran out of the room to find the men responsible. I followed him all the way into the main hall where there were at least 60 Vikings destroying things and eating food.       

Finn O’Leary

Sean immediately started fighting them; I stood back and shot at them with my bow, used up all 20 arrows taking down 20 men. Then I got into the fight, slashing away at my right and left. A wild looking man with an orange beard hacked at my arm with a small ax. I yelled in anguish then returned the blow with a mighty swing that took the man’s arm off. We fought them like we were many men, taking out 2 or 3 at a time.  It felt like we had been fighting for hours when the largest of the Vikings came forward, breaking through the crowd, and stabbed his huge sword straight through Sean’s chest. He then lifted Sean up and threw him off his sword. I yelled as loud as I could, then ran back to the end of the hall and broke open the barrels of oil we used for lanterns. I then grabbed a stick from the fireplace and threw it in the oil. It lit up the whole place as I ran forward, and the barrels started exploding. I had anger in my eyes as I ran towards them. I had struck fear into them, and they now stood perplexed. I starting knocking them over with my shield and slashing their chests open with my sword. They finally realized what was going on and started fighting back but by now almost the whole hall was on fire. The walls were collapsing around us as our epic battle was going on. I had slain 20 men when I saw the large one. I ran towards him, he picked up his sword and brought it above his head ready to slice me in two. I was too quick for him and slid under his legs, blocking his sword with my shield as I sliced his leg off with my sword. Everyone stopped moving after this, not because the large Viking was dead but because we could hear a ferocious wind. Then it happened, the breath of God came and blew the walls down.

Finn O’Leary

I got up, opened my eyes and saw around me the rubble of the great hall. It was freezing and the cold wind blew hard against me as snow fell to the ground. The rest of the monastery was still standing, but barely. I looked around and saw that I had been almost killed, when the walls fell down, the piece that flew towards me hit the ground and was stuck deep in the earth. I thanked God for saving me, and went off into the woods where I found the rest of the monks, the children, and the townspeople that had survived. It was a very somber feeling and no one said a word. I lead them all to the ocean where we had our boat. We all got on and cast off. As we left we heard the crashing noise of the rest of the monastery falling. People were crying, others were praying, some sat shivering from the extreme cold and one man sat stooped over in the corner of the cabin. It was the pagan man; he had lost an arm in the raid. I went over to him and sat down next to him. “Don’t worry sir, we are off to Thule, where we have some monks stationed.” 

Epilogue

            Northern Ireland was attacked and raided by the Vikings during the 800s and 900s. Thule was an old name for Iceland, and in the early 900s, it was attacked by the Vikings and taken over. It is said that the Irish monks had come to Iceland before the Vikings did though.