From the following passage in the Annals of Ulster at the year 839 it will be seen that the Cathedral was called Damhliag, or Stone Church. "Combustio Ardmachae cum oratoriis et ecclesiis lapideis suis." This event is recorded in the Four Masters, thus AD 839, Ardmacha cum sua basilica aliisq: sacris aedibus, incenditur per Nortmannos." Thus we find that the Churches at Armagh were built of lime and cement as early as the middle of the ninth century. "Seeing then," writes Petrie, "that a great Cathedral Church was built by St. Patrick at this early period, we have every reason to believe that it must have been of stone, inasmuch as it is spoken of as such by the Irish annalists at the year 839, and that there is no intimation in the whole body of our historical authorities that it was ever re-built, though it was undoubtedly often repaired, and had transepts added to it in the twelfth century. And I may remark as an interesting fact, that after all the calamities to which this venerable edifice has been subjected, it still retains in its present splendid re-edification nearly the same longitudinal measure-ment as in the time of its original formation. Should it be asked," continues Petrie, "if the great Church at Armagh were a stone building, why is there no earlier mention of it in those annals? The answer is-that the Irish annals seldom, if ever, make any mention of buildings, except in regarding their burning or destruc-tion; and that this was the first time the ecclesiastical edifices of Armagh were burned by the incendiary hands of the Northern barbarians, though they had plundered and occupied the place for the first time nine years before, as is stated in the Annals of the Four Masters. In the Easter of 852, Ardmacha was laid waste by the Danes. About this time many forsook their Christian bap-tism, joined the Lochlanns, and plundered Ardmacha, but some of them returned to make satisfaction. (Fragm. Annal: Hib. Firbisch.) -AD 873. Amlave, at the head of his Danes, entered Armagh, plundered and reduced the city to ashes, and desperately wounded and massacred above one thousand of the clergy and people. -AD 880. Domnell O'Neill, Monarch of Ireland, having retired to the Abbey of Armagh, died there penitently. -AD 885. During the time of Mael Brigid (MacDornair) a man of royal descent, being sprung from King Niall the Great, who governed the See of Armagh for forty years, the city was three times plundered by the Danes and once set on fire. -AD 889. A great riot and fight occurred in Ardmacha, on Whit-Sunday, between the people of Kinel Eogain, or Tyronians, and the Ulidians, County of Down. Maelbrigid, the Archbishop, put a stop to it, and induced both parties to make due compensation for the crime of having profaned the Church. In the next notice relating to the ecclesiastical edifices of Armagh, we have the Damhliag Mor, or Great Stone Church, recorded under the name of Ecclais. It is in the annals under the year 890, and thus translated, "Armagh was plundered by Gluniarm, and by the Danes of Dublin, and they carried off seven hundred and ten persons into captivity with them, after having pulled down a part of the church, and broken the derthac or oratory."