Bolougne-Sur-Mer | Page 7

the "Annals of the Kingdom of Ireland by
the Four Masters," assures us in a note, under the year 405, that Niall
of the Nine Hostages was assassinated by the banished Prince
Eochaidh at Muir N'Icht, which the translator identifies as Bononia, or
Boulogne- sur-Mer. Keating, on the other hand, narrates that King
Niall received his mortal wound on the banks of the Loire. It is easy to
reconcile the apparent difference between the two accounts, if we
assume that the wounded Monarch was carried in a dying state to join
the fleet which lay at anchor in the fine bay which then formed the
outer harbour of Boulogne, and that he had at least the consolation of
dying on board his own ship.
Muir N'Icht, or Portus Ictius, then possessed the finest harbour in
northern Gaul. From the days of Julius Caesar, Portus Ictius, or the
harbour of Boulogne, was the port from which the Roman troops sailed
to Britain, and the harbour to which they steered on their return. On
top of Caligula's tower there was a lighthouse for the guidance of
vessels at sea. The very fact that King Niall made use of this harbour
when he raided Armorica in the twenty-seventh year of his reign, makes
it likely that he sailed into the same harbour when first invading that
country in the ninth year of his reign. The sons of the soldiers who took
part in the second raid were still alive; and the memories of both
expeditions were still fresh in the minds of the brave Irish Scots when

St. Patrick wrote his "Confession."
The records of both expeditions were undoubtedly read at the annual
Feast of Tara, when the Kings, nobles and learned were accustomed to
meet annually and examine the National records (Keating, pp.
337--388).
The triumphant march of devastation made by the Irish Monarch in the
ninth year of his reign, when he led his troops "from the walls of
Antoninus to the shores of Kent"; the successful raid into Armorica
which commenced with the capture of the Roman encampment at Haute
Ville, Boulogne, and ended in the plundering of the surrounding
country, must have been the burden of many a warlike song whenever
the Irish minstrels chanted the glorious triumphs of King Niall's
invincible troops. It is, therefore, but natural to suppose every man,
woman, and child in Ireland had often heard the name of Bonaven,
where the soldiers of King Niall stormed the encampment, and where
the ever-conquering Monarch expired.
St. Patrick, who, according to the "Scholiast," the Fifth and Tripartite
Lives, and Heating's "History" (p. 312), was captured in Armorica, and
who, according to Hersart de la Villemarque and Dr. Lanigan, was
taken captive at Boulogne, was well aware that every Irishman would
know the town to which he was referring when he declared in his
"Confession" that his father, Calphurnius, and consequently he himself,
hailed from the suburban district of Bonaven Taberniae, or Bononia,
where the Roman encampment stood.

HISTORY OF THE TOWN BONAVEN, OR BONONIA.
THE ancient records of Bononia, or Boulogne-sur-Mer, date back to
about half a century before Christ--to the time when Julius Caesar,
anticipating Napoleon the Great, stood on the north-eastern cliffs of
that town gazing through the Channel mist on the dim outline of that
Britain which he had resolved to subjugate.

At that period two headlands stretched out into the sea for a distance of
three miles--one on the northeastern side of the town, near to what is
now known as Fort la Cresche; and the other from Cape Alpreck,
about three miles lower down on the south-western coast. These
headlands, stretching out into the sea, so encircled a bay as to form it
into an outward haven.
The inner harbour of Boulogne was approached by a narrow channel
dividing the north-eastern from the south-western cliffs; and the waters
of the bay, flowing through it and uniting with the River Liane in
covering the present site of the lower town, rushed onwards as far as
the valley of Tintelleries and the vale of St. Martin.
Facing the site of the present town there was an island called Elna, and
on it was built the ancient town of Gessoriac, which was connected
with the mainland by a bridge. Realising the future importance of the
place both for naval and military purposes, Caesar commissioned
Pedius, a native of Bononia, in Italy, to lay out a town on the declivity
of the Grande Rue, leading to Haute Ville, as the upper town and the
hill leading to it are called at the present day. (Bertrand's "History of
Boulogne-sur-Mer," pp. 17, 18. "Walkernaer's Geography," vol. i., p.
454).
The walls of the present fortifications of Haute Ville, built in the
thirteenth century, rest on the ancient foundations