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P. C. KELLY 
 ROSLINDALt, MASS. 
 
THE 
 
 CAUSE OF IRELAND 
 
 PLEADED BEFORE THE CIVILIZED WORLD. 
 
 BY 
 
 BERNARD O'REILLY, D.D.;L.D.; Laval. 
 
 Not e'en the high anointing hand of Heaven 
 Can authorize oppression; give a law 
 For lawless power; wed faith to violation; 
 On reason build misrule, or justly bind 
 Allegiance to injustice. 
 
 — Brooke. 
 
 NEW YORK : 
 P. F. COLLIEE, PUBLISHER, 
 
 11 — 15 Vandewater Street. 
 
44493 
 
 CopyrigLted, 1886, 
 
 BY 
 p. F. COLLIEE. 
 
THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 "VTO Irish- American who has followed, with anything 
 like a kindly interest, the sufferings and struggles of 
 the Irish at home during the last fifty 3^ears, but must 
 have asked himself if these sufferings were never to end, 
 or if such struggles were, at length, to be crowned by the 
 long-prayed-for success. 
 
 Yes— we have been long waiting, in our free homes be- 
 yond the Atlantic, for the end of these awful trials, pro- 
 longed century after century down to the present year, and 
 borne with a fortitude and a hopefulness, which speak 
 more eloquently than inspired voice or pen for the heroic 
 temper of the Irish soul. 
 
 We have contributed by word and deed, as the trial 
 deepened, and the struggle became ever fiercer, to soothe 
 the suffering whose source we were powerless to _remove, 
 and to aid the brave men and true who were battling for 
 the cause of the Martyr- IN'ation. 
 
 No one, however, on either side of the Atlantic, or on 
 any point of either Hemisphere, where Irish hearts beat 
 responsive to Ireland's fears and hopes, but must have 
 read, in the signs of the times, that the crisis of her fate 
 had come ; and that if all her sons, at home and abroad, 
 will only be true to her isrow, and do each a true man's 
 part to help her, success is as surely to be won within the 
 
 iii 
 
iv The Autlior's Preface. 
 
 next decade, — perhaps within the next year, — as the sun 
 which sets to-day will rise to-morrow. 
 
 To every Irish- American whom this book may reach, — 
 layman, bishop, or priest, — vc^j prayer goes with this, For 
 the dear love of Ireland and the dearest hopes of Chris- 
 tianity, do NOW all that you can to help the cause of 
 Ireland ! 
 
 The conviction that this crisis had come in Irish affairs, 
 impelled me, after fifty-three years' absence from my na- 
 tive country, to re-visit it, to see with my own eyes the 
 land and the people, and to do what I might toward help- 
 ing on that sacred cause at a time when every day and 
 hour is pregnant with the fate of the Nation. 
 
 Before leaving New York, I thought I knew Ireland as 
 well as most men of my years and position, whose lives 
 have been mostly spent in laboring among her exiled 
 children ; and I' flattered myself with believing that I had 
 a fair conception and appreciation of our people's quali- 
 ties. The study of Ireland, present and past, on her own 
 soil, at this momentous conjuncture, and the attentive con- 
 templation of her people as they still subsist, amid the 
 ruins of three thousand years, on that to them most hal- 
 lowed soil, —have revealed to me a moral greatness of 
 which I could have had no adequate notion. 
 
 Seeing what this brave, bright, intellectual, and in- 
 domitable old race have endured and survived, how much, 
 through all the wear and grinding of ages, they have pre- 
 served of the noblest features of a great national character; 
 seeing, here in Ireland, how fresh and pure in heart they 
 are, how buoyant and hopeful still; how ardently they 
 love the Faith brought to them by. St. Patrick, and how 
 invincibly they cling to the certainty of beholding their 
 
The Author's Preface. y 
 
 own loved Erin a Nation;— the conviction forces itself 
 upon me that such a people must be free, and in the near 
 future, — and that before them lies a long lease of national 
 life, a long era of prosperity and hapx)iness, as befits a 
 people still young after thirty centuries of historical 
 existence. 
 
 As to this book itself and the purpose for which it is 
 sent forth, some words of explanation are due to the 
 reader. 
 
 It aims at showing, from authentic evidence, gathered 
 principally from non-Irish and non-Catholic sources, the 
 enormous Wrong done by England to the "Sister Island." 
 In this single word I would have the reader include the 
 manifold injustice and oppression of ages. 
 
 If there exists a fair-minded man, in any quarter of the 
 globe, who calls into question the fact that Ireland has 
 solid grounds for claiming redress from Great Britain for 
 such Wroistg; or who doubts whether Irishmen can justify, 
 by reference to the past, their undying hatred of British 
 domination, and their passionate resentment of the state 
 of inferiorit}", poverty, and degradation to which chronic 
 misrule has brought their native land; — let such a man 
 read this book, and judge for himself. 
 
 If, on the other hand, there exists anywhere a man of 
 Irish descent, whom the persistent misrepresentations of 
 the English Press, or the misleading voice of the public 
 opinion formed by it, have induced to believe, that the 
 Irish are an incurably inferior race, and that the perma- 
 nent misery of which Ireland complains is but the nat- 
 ural outcome of such inferiority, — I only ask him to study 
 carefully the testimony herein adduced to demonstrate 
 the contrary. 
 
Yl 
 
 The Author's Preface. 
 
 All such men, if they will only still further consult the 
 sources from which I have drawn my authorities, must 
 become convinced themselves of the great qualities and 
 virtues of a race whose undeserved misfortunes, and un- 
 paralleled resistance to all depressing and debasing influ- 
 ences, call forth the praise of all sincere lovers of truth and 
 goodness, as they have won the admiration of the most 
 enlightened publicists of Europe and America. 
 
 Indeed this book was chiefly, if not wholly, written 
 with the hope that it might be, in every Irish-American 
 household, a book from which old and young alike could 
 learn enough to make them proud of Ireland, proud of 
 their Irish blood, and firmly convinced that Ireland's 
 arraignment of British intolerance, cruelty, injustice and 
 misgovernment, is supported by the witness of her own 
 historians and writers. 
 
 The work was not undertaken or carried on with any 
 thought of reviving dead and profitless issues, or of stirring 
 up national animosity, antagonisms of race, political or 
 religious passions ; but simply for the purpose of estab- 
 lishing the claim of a long and sorely oppressed nation to 
 self-government and the other rights of nationhood, of a 
 sadly maligned and most ancient race to the esteem and 
 admiration of mankind,— the right of one Christian nation 
 grievously wronged by another to long-deferred but inev- 
 itable reparation. 
 
 The study of Ireland's tragic history, amid her own 
 people, and the records of her Capital Cit}', has filled the 
 writer with a love and reverence for his native country and 
 
The Author's Preface. vii 
 
 that same people, which are, in themselves, a rich reward 
 for his labors. He must cherish the hope that these 
 sentiments will pass from these pages into the hearts of 
 his readers. 
 
 Beenakd O'Reilly. 
 Dublin, Fehruary 9, 1885. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 PKELIMINAEY. 
 
 The Case Stated: Page 
 
 The Tribunal 1 
 
 Purpose of this Plea 1 
 
 It asks for an unprejudiced hearing 2 
 
 The English-speaking world biassed in favor of England, and against 
 
 Ireland 2 
 
 Peculiar grounds of Prejudice in the United States: 
 
 Colonized when England was fiercest in " rooting out Irish Papists". ... 3 
 
 Guilty in receiving and treating cruelly " White Slaves " from Ireland. 3 
 
 America's opportunity for repairing this great wrong 3 
 
 Our Plea goes to the source of the inferiority from which the Irish suffer 4 
 
 Irish unprogressiveness at home, and progressiveness abroad i. 
 
 Strange ignorance of Irish History in the English-speaking world 4 
 
 " What do the Iri.sh want ? " 4 
 
 Imperative need that Englishmen should know what they want 5 
 
 Ireland a necessary member of the British Power, but a " diseased" member: 
 
 Will it be " Cure " or " Amputation " ? 6 
 
 This Plea addressed also in the name of " Greater Ii-eland " 6 
 
 We plead that English chronic misrule condemns Irishmen to manifold infe- 
 riority 7 
 
 No field for skilled labor in Ireland 7 
 
 Irish energy and success abroad 7 
 
 Irish Industries and Commerce sacrificed to English monopolies 7 
 
 Revenues drained from Impoverished Ireland never spent in the country. 7 
 
 Crime of condemning a nation to enforced Idleness 8 
 
 The crime unpai'donable, where the nation is intelligent and energetic. . 8 
 The agricultural masses without interest in the soil; their very improvements 
 
 confiscated, or made a burthen 8 
 
 The recent Land-Law Reform rendered nugatory by the Land Courts 8 
 
 Centuries of systematic oppression aiming to create a nation of " drawers of 
 
 water and cutters of turf " 8 
 
 We plead that husbandry, handicraft, industry and commerce flourished in 
 
 Ireland, when not stamped out by England: Testimonies 9 
 
 ix 
 
X Table of Contents. 
 
 Page 
 
 What a blight "the Curse of Cromwell" Wcas for all social life and industrial 
 
 activity in Ireland 10 
 
 We plead that, in Ireland, the reign of iniquitous laws produces lawlessness; 
 
 that systematic judicial iniquity begets suspicion of all justice; that 
 
 chronic oppression causes chronic violence and reaction 10 
 
 The Priesthood the sole barrier against desperate insurrection 10 
 
 We plead that the Irish character is not sanguinary; but gentle, amiable, 
 
 sociable, and forgiving: Testimonies 11 
 
 The charge of Ignorance cast upon the Irish nation; and of " Ignorantism " on 
 
 their religion 12 
 
 We plead that such charge is monstrous 12 
 
 We plead that the one crime of the Irish nation is to have, in the beginning, 
 
 possessed land which the English wanted 12 
 
 We affirm that the one impelling motive of English aggression, exterminating 
 
 warfare, and religious pei-secution, is Laxd-IIunger 12 
 
 We plead, that, in spite of repeated confiscations of the national patrimony, and 
 
 the extinction of the ancient Proprietors, our heroic people have held on 
 
 to the Land as they did to their Ancient Faith 13 
 
 The Struggle is still for the possession of the lands of Ireland 13 
 
 The People must and will keep their " grip on the land " till the Wrong is 
 
 righted 13 
 
 The matter and method of our Plea marked out 13 
 
 PART I. 
 
 THE COUNTRY AND THE PEOPLE— BEFORE THE ENGLISH 
 
 INVASION. 
 
 DiflFerence between the Ireland of to-day and the Ireland of the Celtic period . . 15 
 
 I. 
 
 lEELAND IN THE YEAR A. D. 432. 
 
 Physical Aspect: 
 
 Covered with luxuriant forests 17 
 
 Interspersed with cultivated lands, pasturages, hei-ds, and flocks 17 
 
 Dwellings of the people 17 
 
 The Inhabitants: 
 
 A gentle race 18 
 
 Prepared for the Gospel 19 
 
 Intercourse with other nations 19 
 
 Phenician landmarks 19 
 
 Baal-Ti-More 19 
 
 Enchanting aspect of the southern coast 20 
 
 Literary landmarks of ancient times 21 
 
 A fruitful soil for Phenician culture 21 
 
Table of Contents. xi 
 
 Social Condition at St. Patrick's coming: Pag* 
 
 The people of one race and one tongue 22 
 
 Authority in the Family and the Sept 22 
 
 Principles of national unity 23 
 
 Was the ag-glomeration of Septs an organic whole ? 23 
 
 Solemn National Assemblies 23 
 
 A great National Code of Law 24 
 
 The Senchus Mor: The Law of Nature perfected by the Law of Christ. . . 24 
 
 Land Tenure in the Age of St. Patrick: 
 
 The land belonged to the Sept 25 
 
 The lands allotted for the life-use of all public officers, not given away. . 26 
 
 So for the support of Religion and all other public institutions 26 
 
 Peculiar disposition made by St. Patrick of his rural churches and clergy. 26 
 
 Prevalence of semi-monastic forms 27 
 
 Monasteries and Churches the creation of each Sept 27 
 
 Public Hospitality: — A Unique Institution 28 
 
 Magnificent provision for it 28 
 
 No poor in Ancient Erin 28 
 
 Celtic Social Hierarchy: 
 
 Nial of the Nine Hostages 31 
 
 Leogaire {pr. Layrie) in St. Patrick's time 32 
 
 The nation weakly organized to act as a unit for aggression or resistance. 32 
 
 Keserved for a higher purpose 32 
 
 Lands assigned to the Kings inalienable, because the property of the 
 
 Septs 32 
 
 Royalty and Chieftaincy partly hereditary, partly elective 32 
 
 Ceremony of installation 33 
 
 Strong tribal aiiection for the Chief 33 
 
 Peculiar Customs: 
 
 Fosterage — Gossipred 34 
 
 National Sports: 
 
 Revival of Celtic Games in Ireland and elsewhere 35 
 
 Hurling matches in Tipperary 36 
 
 How Goldsmith deplored their ceasing 37 
 
 National Celebrations: 
 
 The Feast at Tara mentioned in the Life of St. Patrick 37 
 
 The solemn proclamation of the Senchus Mor 38 
 
 Basis on which Civilization reposed in Ancient Erin 38 
 
 The Domestic Virtues 39 
 
 Laws of Inhei'itance : Tanistry 39 
 
 The Tribal Druid, Bard, and Brehon 39 
 
 The Gcilfine, a relic of the primeval world 40 
 
 Details of the Brehon Civil and Criminal Laws 41 
 
 OlTences compensated by Fines 41 
 
 Constitution of the Celtic Family 42 
 
 Sumptuary laws, &c 42 
 
 Love of Justice, characteristic of the Irish 43 
 
 Culture of the Arts: 
 
 High appreciation of learning in Erin 43 
 
 Art and industry regulated by the social needs 44 
 
xii I'aUe of Cunients. 
 
 Architecture: Pe«e 
 
 Light thrown on ancient architecture by Archaeologists 44 
 
 The Ancient Irish loved the freedom of the fields 45 
 
 Wood generally used in constructing their dwellings 45 
 
 Homes of the farmers and herdsmen 46 
 
 Industrial Art in the Fifth Century 46 
 
 Fabrics of linen and wool 47 
 
 Esthetic instincts of the Irish race 47 
 
 How they wore their garments 47 
 
 Ornaments 47 
 
 Poetry, Music, and Song: 
 
 Testimonies 48 
 
 The Harp 48 
 
 Enthusiastic love of the National Airs 49 
 
 St. Patrick's Day celebrated in Exile 49 
 
 Music and Song foster the love of Irish Nationality 50 
 
 The Ideal Natiox worshipped under the name of the Dark Kosaleex. 50 
 
 IL 
 
 PROGRESS. 
 
 Ireland become the Teacher and Apostle of Western Europe 52 
 
 A people intoxicated with the divine doctrine of the Gospel 52 
 
 The Missionary Spirit: 
 
 Columba (or Columkille) and lona 53 
 
 Columbanus in Gaul, Helvetia, and Italy 53 
 
 The Well-Springs in Ireland of Learning and Sanctity 54 
 
 Destruction among the Churches, Monasteries and Schools of Ireland 58 
 
 The Great Monastery of Kildare as an instance of these vicissitudes 59 
 
 St. Bridget and St. "Conlaeth 60 
 
 The Abbess sells the Priestly vestments to succor the poor 60 
 
 Christian Art conies from Home to Kildare 61 
 
 Description of the great Church of Kildare 61 
 
 Intestine wars destroy all these fair works 62 
 
 Invasions of the Northmen 63 
 
 Mac Murrough the Bane of Ireland 63 
 
 Parallel: 
 
 Saul's impiety and barbarity in the days of Samuel 64 
 
 Solomon's despotism and idolatry after the reign of David 65 
 
 Conclusion: The insane wars of the Septs and Kings no argument against Irish 
 
 culture and piety "^ 
 
 Appendix A: 
 
 Degeneracy of the Tribal System 513 
 
 The destruction of the great monastic schools by the Danes did not extin- 
 guish in Ireland scholarship, sanctity, or the missionary spirit 513 
 
 St. Sulgen or Sulgenus ^1^ 
 
 The English St. Dunstan. 51'* 
 
Table of Contents. xiii 
 III. 
 
 PROGRESS ARRESTED. 
 
 1. The Bancs or Ostmen, Pagg 
 
 They build walled towns on the principal estuaries 67 
 
 Ineffectual and ill-organized efforts to resist or expel the invaders 67 
 
 Barren victory of the Irish at Taragh, in 980 67 
 
 And at Clontarf , in 101-t 6S 
 
 The Danes embrace Christianity 6S 
 
 Inconceivable blindness of the Irish regarding the eacroachments of foreign 
 
 powers 69 
 
 Struggle of Christian Civilization in Ii-eland against these adverse circum- 
 stances 69 
 
 Parallel between the invasion of Barbarism on the Continent and in Ireland. . . 69 
 
 Review of the destruction wrought by the Ostmen 70 
 
 Grave Disorders in the Church consequent on the Ti'ibal System: 
 
 The Irish Cliiefs imitate Feudal Princes 71 
 
 They make Church dignities an heir-loom 71 
 
 Put a stop to by St. Malachy 71 
 
 Anarchy and chaos in the Irish Church consequent on non-intercourse with 
 
 Rome 72 
 
 The Synod of Kells, in 1152, reorganizes the Hierarchy and restores order 72 
 
 PROGRESS FURTHER ARRESTED. 
 
 2. The Anglo -Kor mans. 
 
 Causes of National Weakness 73 
 
 The Noruian Land-Hunger the sole motive for invading Ireland 74 
 
 The hyjiocritical motives assigned: 
 
 To lift Ireland to a higher civilization 74 
 
 Ireland persistently denied all the elements of English civilization 75 
 
 Froude speaks for England 73 
 
 Reply from Sir John Davies 77 
 
 Reply from Hume 79 
 
 Barbarities of the Normans in England as well as in Ireland 79 
 
 The English did not use Christian means to impart Christian civility SO 
 
 In Ireland the second generation of English are civilized by the Irish 81 
 
 Methods used to check this degeneracy of the Anglo-Irish 81 
 
 Atrocious legislation , «o 
 
 Ireland cut oft' from the Christian world 82 
 
 Persecution of the Irish: Tlic Statutes of Kilkenny 83 
 
 Parallel g3 
 
 Impolicy: sowing hatred, instead of brotlierly love, between two Christian 
 
 peoples 84 
 
 Were Irish institutions and customs barbarous ? 84 
 
 Irish fidelity to the glorious past 86 
 
xiv Table of Contents. 
 
 PART SECOND. 
 
 THE HISTOEICAL LAND QUESTION IN IRELAND. 
 
 I. 
 
 BY WHAT RIGHT IRELAND WAS INVADED, AND HER LANDS 
 TAKEN POSSESSION OF. 
 
 Page 
 
 Dermod Mac Murrougjli and Henry II 89 
 
 The Norman Adventurers 90 
 
 The slaughter at Waterford, an ominous beginning 90 
 
 Henry II. organizes a Vice-regal government and establishes English Law. ... 92 
 
 Heroic efforts of St. Lawrence O'Toole to unite the Irish princes 92 
 
 Ireland divided among the Adventurers 92 
 
 The Question of Right: 
 
 The cession of lands or titles by the Irish Princes null and void 94 
 
 Adrian's pretended Bixll no title at all 94 
 
 The establishment of Castle Rule 95 
 
 The great Instrument for confiscation and extermination 95 
 
 Officialism: 95 
 
 Made up of needy adventurers come to prey upon the country 96 
 
 Testimonies: Crawford, Leland, Count Murphy 96 
 
 The two first Lords Justices: 
 
 The two chief brigands appointed to rule and judge 97 
 
 The English Interest personified in the " land-hungry " 98 
 
 Opposed to both the Anglo-Irish and the Celtic Irish 98 
 
 Always promoting rebellion as a pretext for confiscation and extermi- 
 nation 99 
 
 The " English Rebels " and the " Irish Enemy " 99 
 
 The working of Castle Officialism: 
 
 The Lord Lieutenant Anthony Lucy 100 
 
 The Lord Deputy Ufford 101 
 
 400,000 acres confiscated by the latter 102 
 
 Officialism like the Car of Juggernaut 102 
 
 Made itself independent of royal control 102 
 
 The oppressed Irish welcome Edward Bruce 103 
 
 Address of the Irish to the Pope 103 
 
 Castle OSicialism in the reign of Elizabeth: 
 
 Burghley, in England, in favor of conciliating and fostering the Native 
 
 Irish 104 
 
 Raleigh and Spenser, in Ireland, thwart and defeat his policy 104 
 
 Coercion ( " fire and sword ") the order of the day at the Castle then, as it 
 
 is now 105 
 
 The Nemesis 105 
 
 Raleigh chiefly responsible for Elizabeth's " exterminations " 107 
 
Table of Contents. xv 
 
 U. 
 
 THE COUNTRY AND THE PEOPLE UNDER THE ENGLISH METHODS 
 OP "CIVILIZING" THEM, 
 
 1. The Country. 
 
 Devastation : Page 
 
 Pointed ont with its causes in Petition to Pope John XXII 110 
 
 Continual border-warfare and destruction 110 
 
 Extends into all the Provinces 110 
 
 Soil left long waste grows reedy Ill 
 
 The Celtic unmixed Districts still a land of plenty Ill 
 
 The Celtic wave constantly returning upon the " English lands " 112 
 
 Condition of this portion of the country in 1550 112 
 
 Munster wasted by the wars between Geraldines and Butlers 113 
 
 In spite of all these drawbacks Ireland might easily be " a Paradise of 
 
 Pleasaunce " 113 
 
 Cvilture of flax and manufacture of linen 113 
 
 The woollen industry 114 
 
 2. The People. 
 
 The prascriptive legislation of Kilkenny renewed by the Tudors 114 
 
 Alarmed at the Celts swarming evcrj'where 115 
 
 Alarmed at the Anglo-Irish "degeneracy " 115 
 
 " The Irish must go from Ireland " 116 
 
 The Policy of Proscription and Extermination 116 
 
 The Irish language; the Wai'-Cries 116 
 
 No Irish Patronymics in Baptism 117 
 
 New family names suggested 117 
 
 Irish "Obstinacy" ? 117 
 
 No place for an " Irishman" in the Catholic Church of Ireland 117 
 
 No Irish Monks or Nuns in the Monasteries 117 
 
 No Church-preferment for the Irish 118 
 
 No " Irish" Schools or Universities ior Irishmen 118 
 
 Dead failure of this atrocious legislation 118 
 
 PAET III. 
 
 THE PERIOD OF PLANTATION AND EXTERMINATION. 
 
 I. 
 
 THE LAND QUESTION UNDER THE TUDORS. 
 
 1. ffenrn VII. (1485-1509). 
 
 Boundaries of the English Pale in 1485 120 
 
 " Black Rent " levied by the Irish 120 
 
 Phenomenal vitality of the Celt 121 
 
xvi Table of Contents. 
 
 Page 
 
 Policy of Repression and Extermination 122 
 
 Parliament fitted for the purpose by the Poynings Act 122 
 
 The Earl of Kildare humbled by Poynings 123 
 
 Kildare appointed Lord Deputy 123 
 
 He is made the instrument of ruin to his class,— both English and Celts. 124 
 
 2. Hmry VIII. (1509-154:7.). 
 Wolsey's Irish Policy thoroughly English 124 
 
 Plans of " reform " in Ireland prepared for Wolsey 125 
 
 Condition of both " Englishry " and " Irishry " 125 
 
 The Sword to be the Regulator in Ireland 127 
 
 Pandar's description of Ireland 127 
 
 Divisions among the Irish open the way to English Plantations 128 
 
 Henry VIII. 's Policy: Coercion and C(mciliation 129 
 
 Kildare's government thwarted by the Castle Officials 130 
 
 The forged letters that Lord Thomas Fitz Gerald received 131 
 
 The House of Butler against the Pope 132 
 
 Henry's Historical Lie 135 
 
 The Reformation divides the Anglo-Irish nobles into two hostile parties 136 
 
 War on the Brehon System 136 
 
 Henry's Corruptionist Strategy: 
 
 Use made of the Church lands 137 
 
 Of English titles of Nobility 137 
 
 No grounds for reforming Irish Monasteries 138 
 
 A Protestant's .picture of their good works 138 
 
 Sequestration of Church lands the precursor of Confiscation of the People's 
 
 lands 1'^" 
 
 Lord I^eonard Gray 139 
 
 Plans for enlarging the Pale 140 
 
 Exterminating warfare proposed 141 
 
 Parliament of 1540: 
 
 Were the Irish Chiefs in it Fools or Knaves ? 143 
 
 O'Neill and O'Donnell not in the Parliament 144 
 
 The Chiefs get the spoils of the Church 144 
 
 The Procession of Noble Celts to Londcm 145 
 
 They sell their people for lands and a title 146 
 
 Tlie sale never ratified by the People 14:7 
 
 The Irish Race perhaps saved by the change of Religion in England 147 
 
 3. Edward and Mor>i (1547-1558). 
 
 The System of Extermination inaugin-ated: 
 
 The First Experiment in Offaly and Leix 148 
 
 How Mary and Philip dealt with the Irish 149 
 
 Powers given to the Duke of Sussex 150 
 
 Who and what the People are thus to be exterminated 151 
 
 Described by Lord Deputy St. Leger 151 
 
 Review of the Character of the Irish Celts: 
 
 Their love of Justice , 152 
 
 Dupanloup's splendid tribute 162 
 
Table of Contents. xvii 
 
 4. Elizabeth. 
 
 Page 
 
 Acts of Uniformity and Supremacy made instruments of Confiscation 163 
 
 Long and fearful road the Irish Catholics have to travel 163 
 
 Elizabeth and Shane O'Neill 164 
 
 Criminal agencies employed by her to crush him 164 
 
 Elizabeth's complicity in Assassination Schemes. . 164 
 
 Demonstration of the same 164 
 
 Sir Walter Raleigh's Defence of Assassination and Poisoning 169 
 
 Elizabeth's First Plantation 170 
 
 Essex tries his hand at extermination 170 
 
 Results of the Reformation in Ireland in the year 1576 171 
 
 Sidney describes the most edifying diocese 173 
 
 Sidney's Plans for " reforming " Ireland 174 
 
 Elizabeth's Southern Plantations: 
 
 An unchanging Policy 174 
 
 A first experiment in Connaught 175 
 
 The First Adventurers 176 
 
 Sir Peter Carew 176 
 
 Alarm and Conspiracy 177 
 
 Elizabeth's duplicity 178 
 
 The Munster Tragedy begins 179 
 
 Smerwick 179 
 
 " Six hiandred bodies laid out on the sands " 180 
 
 The tears of Lord Grey 180 
 
 Elizabeth's pity 180 
 
 She sanctions Raleigh's massacre 180 
 
 Ofiicial boasting of her Officers 181 
 
 The Irish People driven to despair 182 
 
 The Infernal Columns in Munster 183 
 
 Irish Victory at Glenmalure 183 
 
 The Satan of Dublin Castle 184 
 
 Munster ready for the Planters 185 
 
 Edmiind Spenser describes its condition 185 
 
 He instructs the Government of Elizabeth how to exterminate the Irish. 186 
 He describes the horrors and desolation of Munster as a model for imi- 
 tation 187 
 
 He exalts its loveliness to induce them to make it all their own 188 
 
 Raleigh's baneful influence over Elizabeth 188 
 
 The Munster Confiscations legalized 189 
 
 The division of the spoils 189 
 
 How the Irish People took it 191 
 
 Preparations for a Second Act in the Tra gedy 191 
 
 Sir John Perrot's policy of Justice 192 
 
 Thwarted by the Castle 193 
 
 Misrepresented to the Queen 193 
 
 Sir William Fitzwilliam sows the wind 194 
 
 The rising of the whirlwind 194 
 
 O'Neill and O'Donnell 194 
 
 The Confederation 195 
 
 The Period of Success 196 
 
xviii Table of Contents. 
 
 Page 
 
 Mountjoy turns victory into defeat 197 
 
 Edmund Spenser's programme executed 198 
 
 The Horrors of Mount joy's War described by English pens 198 
 
 Mountjoy thanked warmly by Elizabeth 202 
 
 11. 
 
 THE STUARTS AND THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 1. James I. (1603-1625). 
 
 His duplicity from the beginning 203 
 
 The Irish Catholics deceived into great hopes 204 
 
 The revival of Catholic worship 204 
 
 Confederation of the Southern Cities 205 
 
 The Irish Septs in 1603 207 
 
 How and where they taught and learned 209 
 
 The Brehon Institutions 210 
 
 Their experience of English Law 210 
 
 The Land Policy of James 1 212 
 
 How the pretext was found for the first great Confiscations 213 
 
 Royal falsehoods for justification 214 
 
 Sir Arthur Chichester's share in Ireland's misfortunes 217 
 
 The Plantation of Ulster 218 
 
 No Catholics and No Irish to be admitted as proprietors or tenants 219 
 
 The Plan brought home to the American Mind 219 
 
 Details of the Plantation Scheme 220 
 
 A long series of wrongs to illustrate its Avorking 220 
 
 Panegyrics pronounced on James' Plantation Policy 223 
 
 How the Ulster Undertakers dealt with the expropriated Irish in 1610 224 
 
 Thomas Blennerhassett's plans for securing prosperity to the plantations 226 
 
 The wonderful Grip the Kerne keep on the land 226 
 
 How this heoric race is to be hunted down like the wolf; gigantic " battues". . 227 
 
 How the Irish increase under the harrow in IGIO 229 
 
 What came of the Blennerhassett Plantations 231 
 
 The Inveterate Iniquity of Land Tenure in Ireland 232 
 
 Plantation and Extermination in Leinster 233 
 
 Radicalism on the Throne of England in 1610; and Radicalism among the 
 
 English People in 1885 233 
 
 The Wr(jxg done by the English Plantations in Ireland must be Righted 234 
 
 The Celtic counties of Leinster an obstacle to Anglification 234 
 
 Leland justifies the Confiscation and Extermination 234 
 
 Walpole condemns it 235 
 
 How James I. " found a title " to the lands of Leinster 236 
 
 The Packed Juries 236 
 
 It was also the work of the Castle 237 
 
 Curious apologies for James' wholesale Plunder 237 
 
 James' " General and Free Pardon " a trap for Irish Catholics 239 
 
Table of Contetits. xix 
 
 Page 
 
 Results of both Plantations 240 
 
 The eloquence of figjures 240 
 
 What became of the Leinster Celts ? 242 
 
 Planting and Protestantizing Munster 242 
 
 A typical instance of the manner in which Irish families were dispossessed: 
 
 The O'Byrnes of Wicklow 243 
 
 Sir William Parsons and fellow-conspirators 243 
 
 How they managed a trial in Dublin Castle in 1626-28 243 
 
 The Maamtrasua Trials compared 246 
 
 The Two Arch-Villains who wrought out the ruin of Ireland from 1600 to 1649. 246 
 
 Richard Boylk, the " great Earl of Cork " 247 
 
 Sir William Parsons, Lord Justice 2.50 
 
 How Irish Bishops, &c., feathered their nests 250 
 
 The Plantation of Connauoht: 
 
 First contemplated by James 1 251 
 
 An old man's dream of greed 251 
 
 The scheme of Protestantizing Counaught 252 
 
 2. Charles I. (1625-1649). 
 
 The Plantation of Connaught, — delayed perforce 253 
 
 Odious duplicity of James I. toward the Connaught landlords 253 
 
 Charles I. follows in the paternal footsteps 254 
 
 The Landlords of Connaught " the Goose that laid the Golden Egg". . . . 254 
 
 The men who aided James and Charles in their schemes of confiscation 254 
 
 " The scum of all Scotland and England " hungering for the lands of Ireland. . 254 
 
 The Ancestors of the Irish landed Aristocracy 254 
 
 The Irish Catholics alarmed by the Connaught scheme 255 
 
 They sue for the " Graces," and pay for them in advance, to prevent 
 
 " Plantation " 255 
 
 History of these " Graces " 255 
 
 A simple " petition of right " 255 
 
 How the King broke his faith with the Irish Catholics 257 
 
 A history of royal infamy 257 
 
 The storm of religious intolerance raised by the promised concessions to the 
 
 Catholics 258 
 
 Archbishop Usher's furious manifesto against the Papists 258 
 
 It excites all England 259 
 
 The King breaks his word 259 
 
 Lord Falkland's Proclamation against Catholic worship, Priests, &c 260 
 
 Adam Loftus and Richard Boyle at work brewing mischief 260 
 
 Lord Strafford and the Irish Catholics 261 
 
 Ireland to be treated as a conquered country 262 
 
 The Irish Celt to have no rights in Ireland 263 
 
 t'he Plantation of Connaught, and Strafford 263 
 
 How he went about it 263 
 
 The Lord Chief Justice and Chief Baron bribed by the King to " find the 
 
 King's title " 264 
 
 Roscommon yields, and is confiscated 264 
 
 Galway resists 264 
 
 Horrible tyranny of Strafford toward Sheriff and Jury 264 
 
XX Table of Contents. 
 
 Page 
 
 The Catholic Lawyers challenged to take the oath of supremacy 265 
 
 Connanght conquered 265 
 
 "A fair opportunity to root out the Irish " 265 
 
 Strafford sacrifices Irish trade to English interests 265 
 
 I^TERMEDIARY QrESTION. 
 
 The part Religion played and bore in this Persecution of the Celt 266 
 
 The Protestant Ascendancy under the Stuarts 266 
 
 Did they contemplate and encourage with the extirpation of "Popery" the ex- 
 termination of the " Papists " ? 266 
 
 Proofs that they did: 
 
 Leland's assertion 267 
 
 The Duke of Ormonde 267 
 
 The Lords Justices Parsons and Borlase make a formal proposition to 
 
 exterminate 267 
 
 The Catholic Body in Ireland affirm the existence of a conspiracy to cxttrminate . 269 
 
 " General Remonstrance " of the Irish Catholics in arms in 16il 269 
 
 " Remonstrance to the King " 270 
 
 Parsons and Borlase arraigned 271 
 
 The reign of the Stuart Kings "a continual servitude" for the Irish Nation. 271 
 
 Legislative machinery for oppressing the Irish Papists 272 
 
 Awful pressure of the Acts of Uniformity and Supremacy 273 
 
 Fines imposed for non-attendance at " church " in Dublin, in 1605 273 
 
 The same levied mercilessly all over Ireland 274 
 
 Ecclesiastical Courts pitiless engines of oppression 275 
 
 The Court of Wards described . 276 
 
 A great Proselytizing contrivance 277 
 
 The Irish Papist everywhere placed between Apostasy, beggary, or extermi- 
 nation 278 
 
 1641-1653. 
 
 THE WHIRLWIND AT LAST. 
 
 Sowing the wind since the death of Elizabeth 278 
 
 Revolt of the Irish spirit 279 
 
 The twin-fires that feed the Spirit of Irish Nationality 279 
 
 Strafford's tyranny one great cause of the Insurrection 279 
 
 Another Cause the acts and threats of Covenanters and Puritans 279 
 
 The Immediate Cause the conspiracy of the Irish Privy Council and the 
 
 English Parliament 280 
 
 Execrable Plot for provoking the Irish to revolt 280 
 
 Sweeping assertion of Leland 280 
 
 Carte's Testimony, clear and peremptory 281 
 
 " The Lords Justices had set their hearts on the extirpation of the ' mere 
 
 Irish ' and of the old Anglo-Irish families " 282 
 
 The Irish Nation thought it no rebellion 282 
 
 The alternative " of being hanged at their own doors or turning Prot- 
 estants " 282 
 
 A noble attempt, ill prepared, ill planned, and ill directed 283 
 
Table of Co7itents. xxi 
 
 The "Irish Massacres" of 1641. Page 
 
 The Truth about them 283 
 
 They were made the Pretext for the Cromwellian Exterminations and Settle- 
 ment 284 
 
 Examination of the figures and facts in the case 284 
 
 Proportion of Catholics and Protestants in Ireland in 1641 284 
 
 Palpable falsehood of statements about the massacres 285 
 
 Kefutation of these by impartial Protestants 286 
 
 Peremptory documentaiy evidence 287 
 
 Evidence from the Irish Insurgents: 
 
 Colonel Henry O'Neill's " Impartial Kelation " 289 
 
 Exasperation caused by Protestant massacres 290 
 
 Island Magee 291 
 
 Humane conduct of the first Insurgents 291 
 
 Sir Pheliin O'Neill's manifesto 292 
 
 The famous " Discourse of the Two Privy Councillors " 292 
 
 The tale of the Massacres a clever invention 293 
 
 How the Government fostered the Insurrection 294 
 
 Sir William St. Lcger drives all the Munstermen into rebellion 295 
 
 How the Lords Justices managed the Catholics of the Pale 296 
 
 The " Packed Parliament " that helped them 297 
 
 The Catholics hanged if found in Dublin, and hanged because they were in 
 
 their own houses in the country 298 
 
 Treaty between Dublin Castle and the English Parliament about "conquering" 
 
 Ireland 299 
 
 Collateral evidence: 
 
 Journals of the English House of Commons: " Proposition for the speedy 
 
 and effectual reducing of the Kingdom of Ireland " 299 
 
 They want the lands of Ireland 300 
 
 Parliament ratifies the Proposition 300 
 
 Cromwell's "Settlement " foreshadowed 301 
 
 Extermination begun in and around Dublin by Sir Charles Coote 302 
 
 The Idea kept before the English and Scotch minds: 
 
 " Ireland must be treated like the Land of Canaan " 302 
 
 Wholesale confiscations in Dublin by the Castle Officials 303 
 
 In Munster by the Earl of Cork 303 
 
 The Holy War for Irish Nationality: a desperate necessity 303 
 
 Sources of Strength and Weakness in the insurgent ranks 304 
 
 Noble and Christian Principles and Sentiments of the Confederated Catholics. 305 
 
 The first " Remonstrance " from Cavan 305 
 
 Dr. Henry Jones testifies 305 
 
 Protestant Bishops and their flocks protected in Cavan, while Seven Priests are 
 
 hanged in Engled " because they were Priests " 307 
 
 The Solemn " Declaration of Rights " at Kilkenny 308 
 
 Was Phelim O'Neill a monster of cruelty ? 309 
 
 Owen Roe O'Neill's principles and conduct 309 
 
 Influence of Archbishop Hugh O'Reilly: A great Christian and Patriot 310 
 
 Causes of failure in the Confederate body 311 
 
xxii Table of Contents. 
 
 PART IV. 
 
 CROMWELL. 
 
 Page 
 
 Cromwell's plan of " Settlement " foreshadowed 313 
 
 Public mind in England prepared for it 314 
 
 Agencies: the Solemn League and Covenant. . . .' 314 
 
 The parallel growth of Puritanism 314 
 
 Private interests and religious doctrines 315 
 
 Lord Forbes starts to conquer Ireland 315 
 
 Forbes and Willoughby's doings at Galway 316 
 
 Evangelical doings among the benighted Irish 316 
 
 Spreading the rebellion in the West 317 
 
 A fiendish Proclamation from Dublin Castle 317 
 
 The " Christian " spirit of the English Parliament 318 
 
 " These bloody Irish," indeed ! 319 
 
 The humane and Christian spirit of the Confederates 320 
 
 Sir Charles Coote in Dublin 320 
 
 The atrocious murder of Father Higgins, and of Father White 321 
 
 Sanguinary orders to the Soldiers 322 
 
 The Irish put outside the pale of humanity in England and Scotland 323 
 
 Genei'al Munro's massacres 324 
 
 Sir Henry Tichborne in Drogheda 325 
 
 The dogs fed with their masters' flesh 326 
 
 " Come forth, Cromvyell! " 327 
 
 Heralded by the " Cobbler of Aggawam " 327 
 
 The mighty force supplied to Cromwell by popular fanaticism 328 
 
 The heart of England goes with him on his expedition to Ireland 328 
 
 His godly beginning in Dublin 328 
 
 He shows his hand at Drogheda '. 329 
 
 Awful massacre 329 
 
 Some scenes of the Tragedy 330 
 
 Cromwell speaks: 
 
 " Glory to God alone ! " 331 
 
 False Ormonde speaks 331 
 
 Untimely death of Owen Roe O'Neill 332 
 
 The Tragedy of Wexford: 
 
 Treachery among the defenders of the city 333 
 
 The traitor James Stafford 333 
 
 Cromwell describes the slaughter 334 
 
 " It hath pleased God to give into your hands this mercy " 335 
 
 Other Voices from amid the ruin: 
 
 Bishop Nicholas French 335 
 
 300 women slaughtered at the foot of a cross 336 
 
 The Poet Harry speaks 336 
 
 Lingard the Historian speaks 336 
 
 The Bible and the Sword in Ireland 337 
 
 Bibles dealt out to the soldiers as military stores 338 
 
 " To preach and fight, and pray and murder ! " 338 
 
Table of Contents. xxiii 
 
 Page ' 
 
 How Bible and Sword cleared out the land o38 
 
 The Earl of Cork and his Sons 338 
 
 The Earl of Barry more 339 
 
 Sir William Cole 339 
 
 Lord Inchiquin 339 
 
 Ireton's performances 3i0 
 
 The massacre in the Cathedral of Cashel 341 
 
 The Sword " drunk with Irish blood " 341 
 
 The Desolation. 
 
 500,000 natives of Ireland destroyed 342 
 
 Exile and Bondage for the remnant 342 
 
 The " clearing out of the Celts " 343 
 
 The Soldiers go to Spain 343 
 
 Their wives and children sold to the West India Planters 344 
 
 Documentary evidence 346 
 
 The Settlement. 
 
 The Transplantation to Connaught 348 
 
 The motive — because they made perpetual war on the English colonists. 349 
 
 The condition of Connaught in 16.'33-54 3d0 
 
 Laid waste by Coote and Inchiquin 350 
 
 Hardships of the Transplanted 350 
 
 The Transplanting " God's Work "! 351 
 
 The Exodus into Connaught 351 
 
 The Title by which the New Landlords hold the inheritance of the Irish 352 
 
 The emigrants in their Connaught homes 353 
 
 Desolation and starvation surrounding them 353 
 
 The terrible spectacle Ireland presented 353 
 
 Placed between Connaught or Apostasy 3,54 
 
 Impatient voices from England urging " the work " forward 355 
 
 The " Tories " swarm in the deserted provinces 355 
 
 Delays: 
 
 The jails filled with those who cannot move forward 356 
 
 " English Principles " firm in the Army 3r)6 
 
 There are not jails enough 307 
 
 Courts and " martial law " organized to deal with the tardy 357 
 
 No dispensation or pity for Proprietors 357 
 
 " Constant Good Affection," a sine qua 7ion 358 
 
 " Renounce Popery " — and you shall obtain a delay 358 
 
 They prefer death to transplantation .358 
 
 Persons executed for not transplanting .359 
 
 A Voice in England denounces Transplantation: 
 
 Courageous Vincent Gookin 359 
 
 Physical impossibilities in the way 360 
 
 It only increases the anger of the " land-hungry '" 361 
 
 The Puritan Soldiers demand " Extermination " 361 
 
 Voices from Connaught: 
 
 The old inhabitants unwilling to " move on " 363 
 
 The new colonists "disturbed " by more favored people 363 
 
xxiv Table of Contents. 
 
 Page 
 
 The Transplanted plundered of every thing 363 
 
 The plunderers become the new aristocracy of Connaught 363 
 
 Instances of great hardship 364 
 
 The loyal Burgesses of Munster fare ill in the general " laud-hunger " 364 
 
 The Irish despair of Ireland 365 
 
 The fate of the real Celts 366 
 
 They suffered and kept the Faith 367 
 
 The noble words of Vincent Gookin: 
 
 Applicable to the present crisis in Ireland 367 
 
 Who took the place of the Transplanted ? 
 
 The appeal made to non-Catholics of every nation 368 
 
 Ineffectual attempts to establish a Protestant nation 368 
 
 Every Celtic trace of family descent to be blotted out 368 
 
 The English religion to be inculcated 369 
 
 The Puritans of New England invited to Ireland 369 
 
 The Celt getting mixed up with the Saxons 370 
 
 Thorough measures of Transplantation adopted around Dublin 370 
 
 Ireland undergoing a transformation 371 
 
 The story of Transplanted Connaught never yet told: 
 
 A story as marvelous as the Exodus 372 
 
 The Desolation Cromwell had made 374 
 
 Fearful scenes described by the Ci'omwellian troopers 374 
 
 A voice crying out in this Wilderness: " Hunt the Pi'iests " 375 
 
 The Priests are accused of creating the wilderness — " Hunt the Wolf ! " 376 
 
 The Priests cannot be kept out of Ireland 377 
 
 The jails filled, with them in 1656 377 
 
 Sent in .shiploads to the Barbadoes 377 
 
 The People's voice heard in the Wilderness 378 
 
 They believe in God and Ireland 379 
 
 "Rather throw themselves headlong into the sea than become loyal to 
 
 England " 380 
 
 The " Tories " in the Wilderness 381 
 
 How they were hunted down 381 
 
 The entire population held responsible for them 381 
 
 Instances - 382 
 
 PAET V. 
 
 THE LAST, LONG PERIOD OF WRONG (1660-1885). 
 
 I. 
 
 THE TWO LAST STUAETS. 
 
 SoDRCES of the right by which the present Irish landlords hold their property. . 385 
 
 " No other right but the power to take and keep it " 38« 
 
 Lord Broghill's Plan of dividing the Plunder • 38<5 
 
Table of Co?itents. xxv 
 
 Page 
 
 The First Act of Settlement 387 
 
 John Cooke's Sessions of the High Court 387 
 
 Every nican born in Ireland since October 23, 1641, declared a traitor. . . . 388 
 
 The real treason was the possession of landed property 388 
 
 This Wron^ sanctioned by Charles II 389 
 
 The Conspiracy to secure the possession of the Plunder 390 
 
 Precautions to prejudice English Public Opinion and the Eoyal Mind against 
 
 Irish Papists 391 
 
 They must be excluded from all hope of redress 391 
 
 Strategy resorted to 391 
 
 The Plunderers meet in Parliament 394 
 
 The Plunder Legalized 394 
 
 . The Protestant Ascendancy constituted 394 
 
 The Bill of Settlement by which the lands of the Nation are confiscated 395 
 
 The High Court of Claims, a farce and a fraud 399 
 
 Eesume of Irish Policy 399 
 
 The Acts of Settlement and Explanation, the Magna Charta of Irish Protestants. 400 
 
 Statistical Tables showing how the Plunder was divided 401 
 
 Crowning act of infamy of the Plunderers' House of Commons 402 
 
 Instances of perjury before the Court of Claims 403 
 
 The Protestant Episcopal Church in Ireland well provided for 404 
 
 What was left to the Church of St. Patrick 405 
 
 The Anglo-Iri.sh Catholics under the two last Stuarts 40G 
 
 Self-seeking 406 
 
 No thought of the Celt 406 
 
 The Final Struggle between the Old and the New English Interests 409 
 
 James II. and William of Orange 410 
 
 The Irish have a King of their own to fight for 411 
 
 Enthusiastic answer to the call to arms 411 
 
 Magnificent but unavailing courage 412 
 
 The triumph of the New Interest 413 
 
 Sorry that the Irish had not been exterminated 414 
 
 Famixk again ! 414 
 
 How the Treaty of Limerick was ratified 415 
 
 How the Irish were " confirmed in their possessions " 416 
 
 The Final Settlement 417 
 
 What became of the men of Ireland under the New Interest 417 
 
 II. 
 
 THE PEOTESTANT ASCENDANCY AND THE LAND. 
 
 The Penal Laws. 
 
 The Penal Laws, — a well-devised machinery for degrading a nation 419 
 
 It extended to all the relations and duties of public and private life 420 
 
 It began by degrading the Coxsciexce 420 
 
 Parents were morally forced to betray their duty to their children 420 
 
 Children to betray their duty to their parents 420 
 
xxvi Table of Contents. 
 
 Page 
 
 Its principal aim to prevent Catholics from being Proprietors 421 
 
 Disfranchisement 421 
 
 Disqualification for public office 421 
 
 Irish Papists excluded from cities and towns 421 
 
 Further penalties and disqualifications under Queen Anne 422 
 
 Further violations of the Law of Nature 422 
 
 Marriage between Protestant and Catholic 422 
 
 Instances of the practical operation of this Code 423 
 
 Arthur O'Leary, ' the Outlaw ' 423 
 
 Protestant testimony as to the Purpose of the Penal Laws 424 
 
 Degrading the Nation by enforced and hopeless Poverty 425 
 
 Degrading the Nation by enforced and hopeless Ignorance 426 
 
 Effects of extreme poverty on the body and on the soul 426 
 
 A whole people deprived of civilized homes 427 
 
 How ignorance was counted on to break down the spirit of a proud and intel- 
 lectual race 429 
 
 Perfect devices of the Penal Laws to make and keep the Irish Papist ignorant. 429 
 
 How the Irish defeated their purpose 430 
 
 The Irish youth flying away with the "Wild Geese," and seeking Con- 
 tinental schools 431 
 
 The Hedge-Schools at home 431 
 
 Love of the Irish Peasants for the Classics 432 
 
 The real danger of their degrading the People at length 433 
 
 The Irish intellect not quenched in 1885 433 
 
 What they held up to Ireland instead of the Old Church 433 
 
 Wealth of the Irish Protestant Bishops 434 
 
 Their intolerance 434 
 
 The Schools founded to entrap Catholic children 435 
 
 What the Catholic Clergy did to save their people 435 
 
 The Monks and Friars swarming back from the Continent 436 
 
 The Irish Bishoi)s and the life they led 436 
 
 How the Popes helped us in our poverty 437 
 
 The inseparable uniim of the Priests and the People 438 
 
 How the Catholic Gentry resisted these degrading agencies 439 
 
 W'hat the New Landlords did for the Country and the People 440 
 
 Terrible distress among the Peasantry in 1761 441 
 
 How it was brought about 442 
 
 Small farmers and laborers cleared out 442 
 
 The real effective cause of Secret Societies 442 
 
 III. 
 
 THE LAND, ITS POSITION, COMMERCIAL ADVANTAGES, MINERAL 
 WEALTH, AND INDUSTRIES. 
 
 1. The Land and its Natural Advantages. 
 
 Geographical Position for Commerce 444 
 
 Well known to the Ancients 444 
 
 Edmund Spenser's opinion 445 
 
Table of Contents. xxvii 
 
 The Soil: Page 
 
 Natural fertility 446 
 
 En'oneous opinions about it 446 
 
 Proportionate area under cultivation 446 
 
 Even the mountains not barren 447 
 
 Superiority over all Great Britain 447 
 
 The Climate: 
 
 Terra tcrrarum temperaUssima (' of all climates the mildest ') 448 
 
 The cattle of Munster fattened wholly on grass iu Winter 448 
 
 Disadvantages of excessive moisture 449 
 
 Paradisaical climate as compared with that of our Northern and Middle 
 
 States 449 
 
 Favorable to animal life 449 
 
 Mineral Wealth: 
 
 Unknown or shamefully neglected 450 
 
 Distribution per Counties 450 
 
 A wonderful display of natural treasures 452 
 
 Opinion of English Mining Engineers and Mineralogists 453 
 
 The richness of the Arigna Mines 453 
 
 M ismanaged 453 
 
 Admirable Water Communications: 
 
 Estuaries and Bays 454 
 
 Rivers and Lakes 454 
 
 Irish Canals 455 
 
 Magnificent Canalization Scheme of Irish Parliament in Grattau's time. 455 
 
 Partially carried out 455 
 
 The Fisheries of Ireland: 
 
 Neglected 456 
 
 Why are all these sources of National Wealth sealed up ? 456 
 
 Gradual destruction by England of Irish Industries and Trade 457 
 
 The servile Legislatui'e of the Protestant Ascendancy 458 
 
 An essential part of the Empire treated worse than a colony 458 
 
 English monopoly an incubus 459 
 
 Motives of British Policy toward Ireland: 
 
 Lord Strafford 460 
 
 William III. and the English Peers 460 
 
 Unblushing selfishness 461 
 
 Brave battle of the Irish manufacturers with the British Parliament 461 
 
 Beaten 461 
 
 Ireland cut off from trading even with the Colonies 461 
 
 Allowed to import Rum only, that it may kill the Irish distilleries 462 
 
 The Irish Breweries sacrificed 462 
 
 And the Glass manufactures 462 
 
 Incredible servility of the Irish Parliament 462 
 
 Disastrous effects of the destruction of Trade and Industry: 
 
 Euormous decrease of cultivated land; and of the farming population 463 
 
 English corn-growers jealous of the Irish 463 
 
 No Irish Corn ! 464 
 
 Potato blight of 1725 464 
 
 Irishmen cannot labor or live in Ireland 464 
 
xxviii Table of Contents. 
 
 Page 
 
 Fearful result of abusing the gifts of bountiful Nature 464 
 
 This result a pressing matter for consideration in our day 465 
 
 What the " English Minority " say about it 465 
 
 "What the " Majority " think and say 465 
 
 2. The Battle for Irish Trade in the Parliament of Ireland. 
 
 The Corrupt House of Commons 465 
 
 The Castle Agencies 466 
 
 The death of Industry and Trade resulting in exterminating the Celts 467 
 
 General distress: 
 
 The Whiteboys and Oakboys 467 
 
 The real source of Agrarian Crime in the last century: 
 
 Landlordism and Coercion 467 
 
 Opinion of Lord Chesterfield 467 
 
 Identity of this cause in 1767-68, and 1880-85 467 
 
 How the Castle bought and sold in those days 467 
 
 The first lightening of the burthen of Irish Papists 467 
 
 The War of American Independence 467 
 
 Irish Industries suffer at first by the War 468 
 
 Henry Grattan champions Free Trade for Ireland 469 
 
 Catholics allowed to hold leases oi fifty acres of bog ! 469 
 
 The beginning of concession 469 
 
 The first demand for Home Rule and Free Trade 470 
 
 The battle for Irish Trade and Manufactures in 1783 470 
 
 The Patriots defeated and Agrarian Violence begun 471 
 
 Miserable condition of the Munster Peasantry 471 
 
 Church Tithes added to Rack-rents 471 
 
 Despair, resistance. Coercion 472 
 
 3. Remedies. 
 
 Try the " Engine of Redress ! " 472 
 
 Begin with the Land: Cure its wounds and make it a field for Labor 472 
 
 Necessity of Drainage in Ireland 473 
 
 Why the lands aro not drained 474 
 
 Count Murphy's opinion 474 
 
 Government Drainage Works on the Shannon 476 
 
 A disastrous failure 477 
 
 This is what the Government has done and still continues to do with the Land 
 
 in Ireland 478 
 
 IV. 
 
 THE RELAXATION OF THE PENAL LAWS AND THE TRIUMPH OF 
 COERCION AND CORRUPTION (1794—1800). 
 
 Pitt's criminal duplicity in dealing with Ireland: 
 
 He sends over Lord Fitzwilliam with illusive powers 479 
 
 Allowed to believe he was authorized to relieve and emancipate the 
 Catholics 480 
 
Tahh of Contents. xxi^ 
 
 Grattan moves for their admission to Parliament 480 
 
 The Castle Clique besiege George III 480 
 
 Fitzwilliam ' authorized to resign ' 480 
 
 Disappointuient and despair drive men into the Secret Societies 481 
 
 The ' Peep-o'-day Boys ' and the ' Defenders ' 481 
 
 Birth of Oraxgkism 481 
 
 "A lawless banditti " bent on exterminating the ' Irish Papists ' 482 
 
 Lord Carhampton's wholesale deportation of Catholics 482 
 
 A " bloody Code " of Coercion 483 
 
 Only increases despair and secret associations 483 
 
 Hoche's French Fleet driven away by storms 483 
 
 The fiendish cruelties of the Orange Yeomen and the Welsh 'Ancient Britons ' . . 484 
 Reasonable demands of the United Irishmen: 
 
 Submitted to Parliament and rejected 485 
 
 Coercion not Concession must rule the Celt 485 
 
 Often tried and ever failing 485 
 
 The Secret Societies prosper 486 
 
 How the Castle got up the Rebellion of 1798 486 
 
 Its army of Informers 486 
 
 The Castle History repeating itself in 1880-85 487 
 
 General Abercromby's condemnation of Castle Rule 488 
 
 The Leaders of the Protestant Ascendancy 488 
 
 How a high-spirited people was maddened into revolt 489 
 
 Unprepared, and unarmed 490 
 
 The Insurgents in the South driven to revenge themselves 490 
 
 How Wexford was " dragooned " into rebellion 491 
 
 Instances: 
 
 Anthony Pei-ry and " Tom-the-Devil " 491 
 
 Joseph Holt 492 
 
 Father John Murphy and his people 492 
 
 The Castle has its will and its way: 
 
 How it stamped out the rebellion it had created 492 
 
 Lord Cornwallis photographs the Castle and its butchers 493 
 
 Hell let loose in Ireland 494 
 
 End of our Plea 494. 
 
 V. 
 
 THE CONCLUSION. 
 
 How England's manifold injustice must be repaired 495 
 
 Make Ireland a field of profitable labor for all her sons 495 
 
 Tlie surface of the island denuded, ravaged, neglected 495 
 
 The Celtic Population lilie weeds cast over the stile in Autumn 496 
 
 They must be given an interest in the soil 496 
 
 The Land Law of 1881 must be made beneficial by reconstructing the Land 
 
 Courts 4.97 
 
 Coerce the Landlords : Protect the Tenants ! 499 
 
XXX Table of Contents. 
 
 Page 
 
 Protect and encourage the Fishermen; and develop the Fisheries 4:99 
 
 This is of vital importance 499 
 
 Resuscitate Irish Industry and Trade 501 
 
 Cease to govern Ireland as you have done 502 
 
 Abolish Castle Rule 502 
 
 Restore Self-Government to Ireland 502 
 
 P'sa for Home Rule : 
 
 The National Heart ever set upon it 502 
 
 It is a restoration founded on the essence of things 503 
 
 The Union one long act of Coercion 504 
 
 Home Rule nmsl be granted ; and granted soon 506 
 
 Englishmen plead for it 507 
 
 Cease to revile the Irish People 507 
 
 Cease to encourage and foment religious and political antagonism among Irish- 
 men 508 
 
 Catholics ardently desire union with their Protestant countrymen 508 
 
 Cease the shocking and unjust system of rejecting Catholics from all public 
 
 offices 509 
 
 Eloquent figures showing this exclusiveness 509 
 
 Injustice in the distribution of the Public funds 510 
 
 Educational Institutions 510 
 
 Be promptly and generously just 511 
 
 It will repay to be so 511 
 
 It is England's interest to be so 511 
 
 She must make haste to be so 511 
 
 Perhaps there yet may be time to conciliate Ireland 511 
 
 The reason for haste not in Dynamite conspiracies 512 
 
 But in the ever-increasing numbers of intelligent but moderate Irish- 
 Americans ^12 
 
 And with these stand for Ireland all true Americans 512 
 
 England's " extremity " is also the " opportunity" of the Greater Ireland 512 
 
THE CAUSE OF IRELAND 
 
 PLEADED BEFORE THE CIVILIZED WORLD. 
 
 PRELIMINARY. 
 
 THE CASE STATED. 
 
 npHERE is, happily, a Court of Justice higher than any legal tri- 
 bunal known in the civilized world. There exists a more 
 august, independent, and incorruptible judicial body, than any Leg- 
 islature, imperial, royal, or republican; an assemblage at once more 
 formidable and more impartial than Commons or Congress, than 
 House of Lords or Supreme Court. 
 
 To this tribunal, composed of the fair-minded and enlightened of 
 every clime, this Plea is addressed with the absolute confidence, that 
 it is founded on justice long denied, that it asks for a reparation of 
 the wrongs of seven centuries, — wrongs so manifold and incredible 
 that history has nothing to compare to them in the recorded misdeeds 
 of man toward man, or of any one known people toward another. 
 
 And this Plea addresses itself to the great tribunal of public 
 opinion, and through it to the conscience of all mankind, not for the 
 purpose of arousing, increasing, or fostering angry political strife, 
 national animosity, antagonism between neighboring Christian peo- 
 ples of different race, or the fiercer flames of religious and theologi- 
 
 1 
 
2 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 cal passion; but for the sole purpose that Truth so long unheard or 
 misrepresented in the case of the oppressed nation, may at length so 
 speak to the justice-loving of both hemispheres, that her voice shall, 
 through them, reach the oppressor, and startle him into a sense of 
 his wrong-doing. 
 
 Indeed we only seek that, in the light of truth, the right and 
 wrong in the case be thoroughly discussed; and that on the wrong 
 clearly and fully proven Justice shall pronounce her verdict. That, 
 however, Truth may prevail, we are either to be on our guard against 
 prejudice, or to set it geiierously aside. Prejudice is like jaundice in 
 the eye of the soul : it gives a diseased hue to all the objects of 
 mental vision. This distemper must be cured, if we would see 
 things as they really are. 
 
 And prejudices spring up as naturally in the mind, and from a 
 variety of causes, as weeds in a garden. Their seeds are sown by 
 education, religious training, social intercourse, and national or per- 
 sonal bias. Habits of seeing things and persons in a wrong light and 
 of misjudging them in consequence, are formed in the atmosphere of 
 our parental home, in the school-room, the college, the university, in 
 every walk of public and private life. They become a second nature 
 with us. It requires no little courage to acknowledge that we are 
 prejudiced ; no little generosity, when we are convinced of it, to 
 reform our judgment, and to act and speak in accordance with the 
 new light of truth in our intellect. 
 
 In the United States, throughout the English-speaking world, in 
 fact, the teaching of the home, the school, the pulpit, and the press 
 has been, in most cases and in the greatest measure, in favor of 
 England and against Ireland, in the vexed question of the former's 
 treatment of the latter. We must not forget, — so far, at least, as the 
 United States are concerned, that they were colonized by English- 
 men at the very period, when England, under the Stuarts or the 
 Commonwealth, was putting forth her whole strength in a desperate 
 and final effort to extinguish in Ireland the Catholic religion and to 
 extirpate the remnants there of the Celtic race. 
 
What is expected of Public 02Jinion in United States. 3 
 
 We Americans, in the generous spirit Avhich is daily informing 
 our better judgments and swaying our sentiments, can now afford to 
 remember, with a regretful shame, the undeniable fact, that in the 
 Year of Grace, '1653, and all through the reign of the Common- 
 wealth, our New England as well as our Southern Colonies received 
 yearly by the thousands Irish men and women, Irish boys and girls, 
 hundreds of them of gentle blood, and sent into temporary, if not 
 perpetual, slavery by the decree of Cromwell and the English Parlia- 
 ment, for the sole crime of being "Irish Papists." We cannot, 
 should not forget that in New England, as in Virginia and the 
 Carolinas, and even in Maryland, these noble sufferers for the cause 
 of their cherished nationality and their baptismal faith, were treated 
 with a rigor, an intolerance, an unchristian cruelty, the very idea of 
 which at present revolts the descendants alike of Cavalier and Puritan. 
 The fact is that Episcopalian Virginia persecuted these poor Irish 
 "apprentices" (with this word was "White Slavery" disguised) more 
 releiitlessly than Massachusetts, or Connecticut, or Rhode Island. 
 
 The very men whose names are still most popular in connection 
 with our colonial infancy, are, many of them, men who were most 
 active and energetic in promoting, in their day, the extermination of 
 the Irish race. I need ox\\f mention the name of Sir Walter Raleigh. 
 In another part of this Plea, this worthy shall have to appear in his 
 true character. Now we are only appealing to the large-minded and 
 large-hearted liberality of our own generation, as contrasted with 
 past prejudice, narrow-mindedness, and bitter intolerance. 
 
 We ask of the people of the United States, who love truth, and 
 justice, and freedom for their ow'n sakes, and who would fain extend 
 their benefits to every nation and race, to put aside what remains of 
 the old prejudices; to remember that they too, in the persons of their 
 ancestors, wronged these struggling Irish, whom they were taught to 
 hate and despise. Now is the time to repair that wrong. 
 
 If the emigrants from the Emerald Isle come to settle on these 
 shores, which, according to some eminent writers. Irishmen were the 
 first or among the first to discover long before the age of Columbus, 
 
4 The Cause of Ireland, 
 
 let Americans consider the long ages of grinding oppression which 
 have produced the poverty, the apparent lack of culture, the un- 
 familiarity with so many precious things only to be found where 
 religious and civil liberty, social equality, and the development of 
 agriculture, industry, and commerce have made God's earth fruitful, 
 and raised man up to the full stature of manhood. 
 
 We shall presently see who is to blame for the unprogressive state 
 of Ireland, and for all the suffering and enforced inferiority apparent 
 in her social condition. We shall see also how wonderful it is, that, 
 after all the labor, the treasure, the blood spent in the endeavor to 
 extirpate this ancient Celtic race, some remnants are still left, and 
 that all the grinding of centuries has not succeeded in obliterating 
 the national features ; that all the bitterness with which the Irish 
 heart has been fed for uncounted generations has not deadened in it 
 all the instincts of humanity or quenched its generous warmth. If, 
 on the other hand, Americans remark and acknowledge with pleasure, 
 that in the rich nature of these millions of Irish exiles now become a 
 part of their own' great people, there are qualities and virtues which 
 promise to bear glorious fruit in the sunlight of American freedom 
 and prosperity ; nay, if that rich nature has, confessedly, already 
 borne such fruit, — then let our free public opinion, enlightened and 
 reformed by such inquiries as the present, react on public opinion in 
 Great Britain itself, and prepare the way for justice to Ireland. 
 
 For, strange as the statement may appear to such as have 
 examined what may be called the Irish Question in all its bearings, 
 there exist millions in Great Britain, millions of English-speaking 
 folk throughout her vast colonial empire, and millions in our own 
 Great Eepublic, who believe that Ireland has no injustice, no mis- 
 government to complain of ; Avho look upon the ills under which the 
 Irish are suffering as the natural result of Irish inferiority, improvi- 
 dence, and unprogressiveness. We have heard Englishmen, in Eng- 
 land, asking, with evident sincerity: "What have the Irish to 
 complain of? Ireland is one of the best governed parts of the 
 Empire. She is under British law, and enjoys an equal share of 
 
Englishmen Interested in fully Knowing tlie Wrong. 5 
 
 British freedom. Do not all her complaints, all this chronic unrest, 
 these periodical uprisings and rebellions, prove that the fault lies 
 with the Irish themselves, that they are unthrifty and ungovernable ? 
 that they are controlled by a creed and a clergy favorable to ignorance 
 and idleness, who encourage neither agriculture, nor commerce, and 
 are themselves the cause of these constantly recurring famines, that 
 plague us like Asiatic cholera, and cause foreign nations to cry out 
 against us ? " 
 
 Such questions and cruel words containing the quintessence of 
 inveterate prejudice, of blind national antipathy, of religious bigotry, 
 have beeu time and again uttered by the organs of English public 
 opinion. They can be read in the editorial cok^mns of the leading 
 London journals each time that some appeal for equal justice for 
 Ireland is made to the English Parliament, or tliat Irish discontent 
 assumes some new and startling form. Nay, it is from a portion of 
 the Irish press that come the fiercest denunciations of the rebellious 
 and impracticable spirit of the majority of the Irish people. In the 
 Capital of Ireland, as we write tbese lines, we hear the popular 
 leaders and representatives in Parliament accused of the treasonable 
 design of separating their country from British rule, and of dis- 
 membering the Empire. 
 
 What, then, is the real cause of this chronic discontent, agitation, 
 disorder, disregard and contempt of existing laws ? There must 
 surely be a cause. All right-minded persons in Great Britain and 
 Ireland are interested in discerning and clearly understanding the 
 cause. We are of those who believe that the Englishmen of our day 
 are not men who would be willing to perpetuate the reign of unrea- 
 son and injustice inaugurated by their fathers in another age. We 
 know too — and that is one firm ground of hope for Ireland, — that a 
 great party is fast springing up and gathering around itself the confi- 
 dence of the popular masses, one of whose avowed aims is the 
 restoration to Ireland of the confiscated right of self-government, 
 and the right as well of using all lawful means for the development 
 of her own natural resources. 
 
6 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 These men believe Ireland to be a necessary and integral portion 
 of the triple-unity, — the Three Kingdoms, — which constitute the 
 head and heart, the vital and ruling power of the great British 
 Empire. They believe her to be a most important member of this 
 body politic ; they wish her to be a sound, healthy, vigorous, well- 
 aifected member, instead of being the disaffected, discontented, dis- 
 eased, and dangerous limb that she is. Hence their frank recognition 
 that Irish political ills are serious and inveterate, and demand a 
 prompt and generous treatment. 
 
 It is to this growing sentiment in England that we address our- 
 selves. In Ireland, too, are generous Irishmen, differing from the 
 majority of their countrymen in religious belief, — but thoroughly 
 convinced of the justice of the former's claim for long withheld equal 
 justice ; thoroughly one with them in the faith that Ireland's confis- 
 cated nationality shall soon be restored, and that with the restoration 
 a mighty element of strength will be added to the Empire. At this 
 moment the Irish National Party is led by one of these men, — a 
 Protestant and' the descendant of an Anglo-Irish family. Others 
 belonging to the same race and the same creed, men of great minds 
 and greater hearts, distinguished Clergymen among them, lend their 
 names, their sympathy, and their active aid to the great movement 
 which enlists the hopes of the Irish Clergy and people, and of some 
 fifteen millions of people of Irish descent outside of Ireland. 
 
 It is, principally, for this Greater Ireland that this book has been 
 written, this Plea addressed to all civilized peoj^les. We Irishmen or 
 descendants of Irishmen all over the globe, wish to justify to our own 
 reason, and to see it brought home to the reason of others, — that our 
 Cause is a just and sacred one, — that the Case of our native country — 
 the native land at least of our ancestors, — is one which rests on irre- 
 fragable historical testimony, on the eternal principles of justice and 
 humanity violated in our regard. 
 
 Irishmen forced to seek homes for themselves and their dear ones 
 on every land where labor has its reward, and where industry is 
 fostered and lionored, have, in spite of the enormous disadvantages 
 
Irish Money Spent out of Ireland. 7 
 
 of their early training, shown both intelligence and energy in com- 
 peting with their fellow-workmen. Their success has been such as 
 to surprise and delight their well-wishers, and to silence their 
 detractors. No one of them emigrated to a foreign land to spend a 
 fortune inherited or acquired at home. They went to build up 
 fortunes. It is, and has long been, the misfortune of the laboring 
 classes in Ireland to be born and reared in a country, where agri- 
 culture is practised in all but the most pitiable forms, where manu- 
 facturing industry is confined to a few localities, and even then 
 narrowed by religious exclusiveness, where the mechanical arts find 
 no encouragement in any profitable market. Hence the helplessne&s 
 of the great masa of Irish emigrants wherever there was a great field 
 open for skilled labor. But few, comparatively, among them had 
 been bred craftsmen. These few, however, never failed to be among 
 the foremost of their class ; while the unskilled were not slow to 
 make of their opportunity a golden one. 
 
 Is the Celtic race at home to be held accountable for this back- 
 wardness in handicraft, and practical industry? Are Irishmen in 
 Ireland, and because they are Irishmen, to be blamed for the disap- 
 pearance from their native land of the industrial activity which has 
 made the fortune of both England and Scotland ? And, in replying 
 indirectly, at least, to one of the reproaches cast upon the inhabitants 
 of the Emerald Isle, we are j)ointing to one of the most serious 
 wrongs which English selfishness has inflicted on the Sister King- 
 dom,— the extinction of all Irish industries and commerce in favor of 
 Metropolitan Monopoly. 
 
 Intimately connected with this injustice, is another: that, of the 
 millions collected from the wretched tenantry of Ireland either by the 
 wholly-absentee or the partly-resident landlords, not one half-million 
 is spent for the benefit of the country. Ireland is the only country 
 in the civilized woi'ld where the proprietors of the soil take no inter- 
 est in improving it, and where the improvements made by the hard- 
 working tenantry, instead of belonging to themselves, are confiscated 
 by their landlords. Taking this undeniable fact in connection with 
 
8 The Cause of Ireland 
 
 the title on which the landlords of Ireland hold their property, we 
 find a complicated case of lk justice and oppression without a par- 
 allel in modern times. 
 
 There has been a long-standing imputation of idleness and un- 
 thriftiness cast upon the masses of the Irish people. A thousand 
 times it has been demonstrated that this enforced idleness is the re- 
 sult of such relations between land and labor, between the proprietors 
 and the tillers of the soil, as exist nowhere else; that it is produced 
 by land-laws devised originally for the express purpose of driving the 
 Irish Papists from the fields taken forcibly from them, or of permit- 
 ting them, at most, to occupy and cultivate them on conditions never 
 imposed on a Xegro slave by a master careful of that slaves health 
 and life. 
 
 This Plea must establish this fact once for all, and at the moment, 
 when in Ireland, the relief intended by the Gladstone land-legislation 
 is being made nugatory by the Land-Courts which control the work- 
 ing of the law, and when, in order to defeat the benefits of the Fran- 
 chise Eeform, a vigorous eviction-campaign has begun, crowding the 
 work-houses with thousands, compelling thousands more to seek of- 
 ficial outdoor relief, — and thereby disfranchising every man of these 
 unfortunates. 
 
 It is surely time that the American People, at least, should be 
 made to understand that the same iniquitous confiscations which de- 
 prived a whole nation of their patrimony, and the misgovernment 
 which sacrificed to the benefit of English manufactures and com- 
 merce all the industries and foreign trade of Ireland, rendered also 
 mechanical skill impracticable and purposeless in Ireland, made it 
 impossible for her increasing population to find employment and a 
 livelihood at home, and reduced her emigrants in foreign lands to be 
 "hewers of wood and drawers of water." 
 
 The Irishmen of the present generation bitterly feel the slur thus 
 cast upon their manhood; and that bitterness is increased a hundred- 
 fold by the consciousness that tlie fault lies not with themselves, but 
 with the tyrannical alien domination, which has systematically wrought 
 
Irish Husbandry Swept away by Cromwell. 9 
 
 to degrade and unman them. They remember the time, — a time 
 coming after successive periods of exterminating warfare, desolation, 
 and famine, when habits of thrift, skilled labor, and industry had so 
 survived among the sad remnants of the Irish people, that their ene- 
 mies could not help bearing testimony to the phenomenon. In a 
 book publislied in London in 1G55, by the then Member for Kinsale 
 in the English Parliament, the author all too courageously denounced 
 the cruelty and unreason of "transplanting" the Irish into Connaught 
 from the other provinces. Cromwell's officers and soldiers liad been 
 put in possession of the millions of acres given them by the Eight of 
 the Sword. It was urged both upon tlie fanatical Parliament and the 
 soldier-proprietors themselves, that they could not do without the 
 Irish in cultivating lands, which liad been purposely wasted and al- 
 lowed to lie fallow for years in order to starve out the native popula- 
 tion. "The soldiers" — the writer said — "had need of the Irish. 
 They liad neither stock, nor money to buy stock, nor for the most 
 part, skill in husbandr}^ But by the labors of the Irish on their 
 land, together with their own industry, they might maintain them- 
 selves, improve their lands, and inure themselves to their new mode 
 of life. Moreover, there were few of the Irish peasardry but were 
 skilful in husbandry, and more exact than a?iy English in the hus- 
 bandry jjroper to the country; few of the women but were sMlful in 
 dressing hemp and flax, and making woollen cloth. In every hundred 
 men there were five or six masons and carpenters at least, a^id those 
 more ready and handy in building ordinary houses, and much more 
 skilful in supplying the defects of instruments and materials than 
 English artificers. They have always been known as uncommon mas- 
 ters of the art of overcotning difficulties by cotitrivances.'*'' * 
 
 Such were the Irish peasantry, men and women, 230 years ago. 
 Did the English Parliament and the men who ruled Ireland for 
 Cromwell yield to the remonstrance of this writer, himself the son of 
 
 * " The Great Case of Transplantation in Ireland Discussed," &c., by Vincent 
 Gookin. 4to, London, 1655; as quoted by Mr. Prendergast, " Cromwellian Settle- 
 ment," p. 134. 
 
10 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 one of the "planters" of James I., but born in Ireland, and not to- 
 tally blind to the gifts and qualities of this detested Irish race? No; 
 — far from it. The fever of hatred caused in England by Cromwell's 
 massacres and all the blood shed by his lieutenants, was at its height. 
 Nothing was grateful to the ear of Parliament or to the public taste 
 of the hour, but what savored of the purpose of utterly exterminating 
 these "Irish idolaters." So the book which dared to suggest the re- 
 taining of these "transplanted" on the lands forcibly taken from 
 them, was condemned to be burned by the common hangman! 
 
 And, since the year 1655, what have the Kulers of Ireland and the 
 hostile landed aristocracy created by Cromwell's "Curse" done to pro- 
 mote industry, to stimulate labor, to reward the skill of the crafts- 
 man, to make of the lot of the laborer on Irish soil, or the home of 
 the tenant, a something superior to the lot of the Hottentot, or the 
 hut of the Greenland Esquimaux ? 
 
 Again, it is needful that this Plea should go forth in this present 
 year, that it may be clearly demonstrated, that the disposition of the 
 Irish peasant is neither murderous, nor vindictive, nor forgetful of 
 benefits received, nor callous to the noblest and tenderest feelings of 
 humanity; — that the education received around the lowly hearthstone 
 of the poorest Irish home, as well as the teaching of the Irish Pulpit, 
 and the whole influence of the Irish Priesthood, instead of fostering 
 the angry passions begotten by antagonism of race, by the oppression 
 of the laboring classes by the Proprietors, by such chronic maladmin- 
 istration of the law that it is only known to the people as a ministra- 
 tion of crying injustice; but, on the contrary, that the atmosphere of 
 these poverty-stricken homes is one of gentleness and purit}^, of kind- 
 ness and charity, and that nothing but the influence and interference 
 of the Priesthood and the ])ower exercised by the religion of the Cru- 
 cified over the souls tried by all the varieties of suffering, could pre- 
 vent the righteous wrath of a people so wronged and trampled upon 
 from rising like a mighty flood and sweeping away all barriers and 
 restraints. 
 
 We shall see in the course of our argument how often, since the 
 
The Irish Character in its True Light. 11 
 
 year 1162, the native Irish races in their unselfish trustfulness, allowed 
 the foreign settlers or conquerors to have access to the family circle, 
 never failing in the end to make friends of enemies, and to thor- 
 oughly tame and assimilate them. We have, to this effect, the re- 
 markable testimony of a living writer, himself a Protestant, and hear- 
 ing the name of one of the families who came over with the Anglo- 
 Norman invader. Become, like so many others, thoroughly Irish 
 himself, no prejudice of race or religion can blind him to the native 
 beauty of the Irish character. Speaking of the Vincent Gookin just 
 mentioned, he says: 
 
 "Living among the Irish, he had as usual learned to love them. 
 He had appreciated that hearty, affectionately loyal race of men, 
 who seem to be fresh from nature's hand, and to belong to an earlier 
 and uncorrupted world. His land-hunger had been appeased. He 
 was possessed of considerable estates. He had tasted of the social 
 freedom, the easy and animated life of an unsubdued people."* 
 
 Elsewhere, accounting for the suddenness with which the first Nor- 
 man invaders became Irish in manners, language, laws, and life, he says: 
 
 "In the spirited character of the Irish the new settlers found 
 themselves in the presence of a people of original sentiments and in- 
 stitutions, the native vigor of whose mind had not been weakened by 
 another mind. Nothing surprised the invader more than the natural 
 boldness and readiness of the Irish in speaking and answering even in 
 the presence of their chieftains and princes, accustomed as the invad- 
 ers were to the servile habits of the English, produced, as Giraldus 
 says, either by long slavery, or (more probably, Wadds) by the innate 
 dulness of men of Saxon and German stock. They were equally as- 
 tonished at the freedom and familiarity of the Irish gentry with their 
 poorer followers, so different from the haughty reserve of an aristoc- 
 racy of foreign descent towards the lower classes of a subject nation 
 reduced by conquest to the state of villeins and serfs. Free by nature, 
 the Irish were followers of nature and freedom in all things." f 
 
 * John P. Prendergast, " The Cromwellian Settlement of Ireland," 2d ed. (Dub' 
 lin), p. 135. + Ibidem, p. 11, 
 
12 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 When, therefore, we find a people by nature so gentle, so amiable, 
 so open to all the sweetest charities of social intercourse, breaking 
 forth into acts of savage vindictiveness, the obvious inference is or 
 ought to be that there must exist some extraordinary provocation. 
 This also we have to establish in our Plea. 
 
 As to the charge of ignorance cast so unreflectingly on the Irish 
 people, and the still graver charge of fostering ignorance, made 
 against their religious guides, we might be content to refer our kind 
 readers to a future chapter, where, unless we are sadly mistaken, the 
 tables are turned upon the accuser. Suffice it here to remark that 
 when it was made by the English Parliament a crime to the Irish 
 Catholic to teach or to be taught in conformity with the principles of 
 his own creed, the reproach of ignorance or ignorantism comes with 
 a very ill grace from the English Protestants who made the abomi- 
 nable law. 
 
 "They divided the nation into two distinct parties," says Edmund 
 Burke, " without common interest, sympath}^, or connection. One of 
 these bodies was to possess all the franchises, all the property, all the 
 education. The other was to be composed of drawers of water, and 
 cutters of turf for them." * 
 
 Such is one utterance among many condemnatory of this su- 
 preme and inconceivable injustice toward a Christian people, from 
 one of the greatest men of all time, another of these men of Anglo- 
 Irish blood, born and educated among that warm-hearted Celtic race, 
 fascinated by their many lovable and generous qualities, and indig- 
 nant at the unmerited wrongs heaped upon them. 
 
 The one great crime of the Irish people, — of the native Celtic 
 race whom Strongbow and Henry II. found in possession of Ireland, 
 — and of their descendants down to the time of the Commonwealth, 
 was that the land belonged to them by right, and that the English' 
 wanted it. The struggle between the two races, — the crimes, the 
 wrongs, the accumulated injustice of seven centuries and a quarter 
 
 * "Works," Boston Ed. 1807, vol. iii., p. 452. 
 
Tlie Struggle for the Land come to a Crisis. 13 
 
 were inspired \>\, and are the fruit of, one great moving force, Land- 
 Hunger in the English breast.* 
 
 This land-hunger, — so far as the possession and division of Irish 
 land could appease it, — obtained all that it craved for at the final 
 settlement under William and Mary. But the Transplanted and 
 dispossessed, — the descendants of the former tillers of the soil and 
 herdsmen, of the wandering Creaghts and wood-kerne, — kept what 
 hold they could of the soil. Little less than miraculous is the fact 
 that any of these persecuted, hunted, decimated people should have 
 survived the awful massacres, the exterminating warfare carried on 
 against them "to root them out " of their native soil ! But the roots 
 resisted fire and sword, though plied again, again, and again, century 
 after century. 
 
 They still keep "their grip" of the soil. And now the question 
 is: Which class shall survive — the lords of the soil or its tillers? the 
 landed Aristocracy created by "Cromwell's Curse" on L'eland, or the 
 oppressed, proscribed, half -starved, and cruelly wronged tenants and 
 farm-laborers of Ireland ? 
 
 We shall not prophesy here. We have only to say, — that the 
 whole question on which our Plea turns is the question of land in 
 Ireland. 
 
 It has been a struggle for land between Irishman and Englishman 
 from the beginning. It is so still. 
 
 We have only to show that Eight and Justice were on the side of 
 Ireland in this long battle; that Might and Wrong were on the side 
 of England. 
 
 To approach the question of Eight in this matter, and to qualify 
 one's-self for pronouncing a conscientious verdict, we must consider 
 
 * The London Times, commenting in its issue of Nov. 29, 1861, on a Resolution 
 of the Government of India, opening up the entire soil of India to English settlers, 
 remarks that " the Resolution .... appeals to one of the strongest passions in the 
 human breast, the love of land. In most nations this feeling is strong, but hi the 
 British population the love of land is powerful in the extreme. Our colonial wars 
 are simply wars for land. We tight for land in New Zealand, at the C...pe. and 
 wherever we settle." Quoted by Mr. Prendergast. 
 
14 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 what botli the Land and the People were before England put forward 
 her claim to the possession of the one and the obedience of the other; 
 under what pretence of justice, religion, or policy, she began her pro- 
 cess of expropriating the native owners of the soil; what methods she 
 employed in obtaining and holding the Land, and in dealing with the 
 dispossessed proprietors. 
 
 These inquiries will lead us to the further Question: What Eng- 
 land has done with the Land and the People thus conquered by brute 
 force ? 
 
 Our conclusion must be: What does she purpose to do? What 
 does her best interests counsel her to do ? 
 
PART FIRST. 
 
 THE COUNTEY AND THE PEOPLE— BEFORE THE ENG- 
 LISH INVASION. 
 
 Importance of not confounding the appearance of Ireland as she is 
 to-day, with the Ireland of the Celtic period. 
 
 TT is very important, in order to judge aright of the evils which 
 the English domination has inflicted on the Land and the Nation, 
 that we should have a correct notion of their condition in the year 
 llfiO. when the Anglo-Norman adventurers landed at Wexford. Did 
 they find on their arrival a country as wild and uncultivated as was 
 New England at the landing of the Puritan Pilgrims? Were the 
 Irish of the 12tli century as uncivilized as the Indian tribes of Massa- 
 chusetts and Rhode Island? Or was the coming of these foreigners, 
 like a heavy frost in midsummer, a calamity which marred the 
 development of a previous civilization, blighting all the promise of 
 an advanced springtide ? 
 
 That Ireland was not the moral wilderness certain English 
 Avriters would have the world believe, is certain beyond all question- 
 ing. That lier people were not the savages the English popular 
 mind pictures to itself even at the present day, is equally certain. 
 The denominations of "Wild Irish" and "Mere Irish," helped to 
 cover, during centuries, the enormities of the Conquerors, and to 
 justify to English public opinion the most terrible crimes against 
 humanity and civilization. 
 
 Nothing could be more misleading than to judge of the Ireland 
 
 (15) 
 
16 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 of 1169, by a hasty survey of the Ireland of 1885. Travelers from 
 America are exposed to form very wrong conclusions by a few days 
 or a few weeks spent in the country, satisfied with the imperfect 
 glimpses obtained from the windows of a railroad-carriage, or a day's 
 journey on an open car to the chief points of interest in the South, 
 West, and North of Ireland, or a stay of a few days in the principal 
 cities to visit the public edifices, the libraries, and museums. 
 
 To the superficial examiner the Ireland of our day affords very 
 few, if any, indications of what the country and the nation were in 
 the time of St. Patrick, or that of the Second Henry. Let us, 
 therefore, look both at the Land and at its Celtic population, as the 
 most trustworthy historians describe them. 
 
I. 
 
 Ieeland iisr THE Year of Christ 433. 
 
 npHE Island was oovered, in its length and breadth, with forests. 
 So was it found by the first colonists, whatever their name, who 
 reached this westernmost extremity of Europe after the Dispersion, 
 The stately grow^th of timber was favored by the genial mildness of 
 the climate, and by the perpetual humidity derived from the tepid 
 vapor-laden atmosphere of the Gulf-Stream coming here in contact 
 with the cold air of the northern seas. And so long as the ancient 
 inhabitants were left in possession of their lands, they not only 
 abstained from a wasteful destruction of their native woods, but were 
 careful to foster their growth wherever needed. Of this we shall 
 have evidence further on. 
 
 St. Patrick and his missionary companions, at their arrival, in 
 432, found these primeval forests interspersed with broad plough- 
 lands and pasturages, which bore the crops and fed the large herds 
 and flocks of a half-agricultural, half-pastoral people. Their habi- 
 tations, like most of those in Continental Europe, at that period, 
 were always erected in secure and easily defensible positions, some- 
 times on the fortified summit of a hill, or on a steep acclivity, or in 
 islands on their numerous beautiful lakes, and, in some instances, 
 they were built on strong piles driven into the lake itself, as were the 
 Lake Dwellings discovered and described in our day by scientists in 
 Switzerland and elsewhere. 
 
 For, before St. Patrick's time as well as then, Ireland was 
 exposed to visits from sea-rovers, as Avell as to regular invasion from 
 some of the wandering tribes impelled continually by the terrible 
 2 (17) 
 
18 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 land-hunger from the teeming soil of Asia toward the West. 
 Besides, Ireland itself, though apparently inhabited by people speak- 
 ing but the one Keltic tongue, had traditions and bore traces of 
 having received, at different intervals, colonies of wliich the last 
 come would displace or subdue the earlier. And, moreover, the 
 tribal communities which then divided the Island among themselves, 
 even if they did coalesce occasionally for defensive purposes, or 
 assemble for certain annual festivities, lived a very independent life. 
 Then, unhappily, as long afterward, the great tribal chieftains of 
 one province made war on each other. And the inferior chiefs imi- 
 tated those above them. So that, if the inhabitants of the sea-coast 
 and the interior could feel secure against attacks from without, they 
 were never safe from the raids of their neighbors. 
 
 And yet, nothing of what authentic history relates of the bicker- 
 ings and Avars of the 5th century in Ireland, would authorize the 
 conclusion, that the Celts of that age were a savage and blood-thirsty 
 race. On the contrary, the very attraction which Patrick, escaped 
 from his bondage in Ireland, felt for that kindly, gentle race whom 
 he had left in Pagan darkness. There is no instance in the history 
 of Christianity of a people converted to the belief in the doctrines of 
 the Gospel and the practice of its divine morality, with so little of 
 bloodshed or violence. Tlie nature-worship brought by the ancient 
 Kelts from the cradle of their race in Asia, and additions made to it 
 later by the Phenician traders and the colonies founded by them 
 along the coast, had a deep hold of the peojole. They were a part 
 of the dear, mysterious, sacred land of Asia to which all looked back 
 with a reverential and filial love, and a part as well of the national 
 life in their island-home in the Far West. The Druidical teaching 
 with its mystic rites, its solemn celebrations, its occasional awful 
 sacrifices, and the perfect system of Brehon law, which regulated 
 every relation of public and private life in connection with the 
 national worship, — could not be set aside and utterly abandoned 
 without a struggle. 
 
 At any rate, the struggle was virtually a bloodless one. A sim- 
 
Plienician Landmarhs in Ireland. 19 
 
 pie, peaceful, pastonil race, intelligent withal and keenly alive to the 
 sense of the true, the morally beautiful, the Godlike in life and i^rac- 
 tice, — soon opened their minds and hearts to the light of the Gospel, 
 illustrated especially by the saintly examples of its apostles, and the 
 virtues of their first followers. When Patrick died, in a patriar- 
 chal old age in 492, the entire nation had embraced the Christian 
 faith. 
 
 This fact itself and its attendant circumstances afford an argument 
 in favor of the people. Presently we shall examine the structure of 
 the Celtic society which St. Patrick found in the Island, and the feat- 
 ures of the principal social institutions. A word about the intercourse 
 then held by Ireland with the rest of the world, in the first centuries 
 of the Christian Era, and of its effect on the state of civilization among 
 them, will not be out of place here. 
 
 Under the name of lerne the island had been well known to all 
 the nations of the Mediterranean sea-board. Long before Eome was 
 founded the ships of Aradus, Tyre, and Sidon, had found their way 
 to the eastern and southern shores of Spain. They had founded 
 Gades (the modern Cadiz), and erected the beautiful city. They 
 had ascended the broad and deep bosom of the Boetis, and founded, 
 or, rather, enlarged, beautified, and strengthened Hispalis (the mod- 
 ern Seville). They had explored the western shore of the Peninsula, 
 from Lisbon to Cape Finisterre, learning from the Kelts of Galicia, 
 if they had not already learned it from the Kelts of Andalusia, — that 
 long before their arrival, a colony of the Gael had settled on the ut- 
 termost verge of Europe, on that leme, the last spot of land on which 
 the sun's light rested, before the great luminary disappeared from the 
 eyes of men. 
 
 One spot, at least, on the southern coast of Ireland still bears a 
 name which points to a Phenician settlement or trading station. 
 Baltimore {Baal- Ti- More) 'the Great House of Baal,' keeps its an- 
 cient title in spite of the long lapse of ages and of all the revolutions 
 and destructions which its broad bay, and the adjoining archipelago 
 of ' Carbery's hundred isles,' have witnessed. Most beautiful was the 
 
20 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 aspect of islands and mainland, when the Phenician galleys entered 
 the roadstead, and cast anchor within the shelter of that encircling 
 amphitheatre of wooded hills. They built a mart for commerce 
 aronnd the rocky point on which later The O'Driscoll reared his Cas- 
 tle, and there, most probably, stood the tower on whose summit Baal's 
 sacred fire burned for many a long year afterward. They ascended 
 the Hen up almost to the walls of the modern Skibbereen, but which 
 in the remote past, was only one of the populous centres of a fruitful 
 region. The neighboring isles were not then the treeless, wind-swept, 
 poverty-stricken wastes which Mount joy and Carew, Broghill and 
 Cromwell afterwards made them. No portion of the sunny Galician 
 coast in Spain, not even the Italian Kiviera and the lovely shores of 
 Sorrentnm, no, not even those more enchanting still of their own Phe- 
 nicia, afforded to these explorers of the deep a series of more restful, 
 fresh, and blissful scenes than were presented by the succession of 
 broad estuaries, embowered harbors, grand mountain scener}^, and a 
 climate, which, at that period, must liave seemed one perpetual 
 spring-tide. 
 
 For, as science with its careful observations has taught us, the 
 mean temperature of both winter and summer in the whole northern 
 hemisphere, has been gradually getting lower for ages. We can, 
 therefore, picture to ourselves what the climate of Ireland must have 
 been 3,000 3^ears ago, when the warm waters of the Gulf-stream and 
 its tepid atmosphere were more in harmony with the ever-lasting soft- 
 ness of the native air, and when the luxuriant woods and ever-green 
 pastures, could have made the new-comers fancy that this was, in 
 truth, the Isle of the Blessed. 
 
 Further south, and nearer still to the ocean-pathway followed by 
 these venturesome seafarers, is another lovely river, the modern 
 Blackwater, forming at its mouth the once much-frequented harbor 
 of Youghal, and across the peninsula which protects town and har- 
 bor from the fury of the Atlantic storms, is the lofty promontory of 
 Ardmore with another broad bay between its precipitous cliffs and 
 the gently sloping hills more southward still. Few are the traces now 
 
A Fruitf'id Soil for the Plienician Culture. 21 
 
 left of the magnificent forests of oak whicli clad promontory, hills 
 and plain. Sir Walter Raleigh's axe was busily plied along these 
 shores, when in reward of the blood he spilt like water, Elizabeth be- 
 stowed npon him Youghal with 43,000 acres, and the ancient monas- 
 teries founded by the Geraldines. Many and many a ship bore the 
 felled timber to France and Spain. But in the palmy days of Plieni- 
 cian commerce, and when the Mithraic or Stellar worship of the an- 
 cient Kelt held its sway all over the land, Ardmore was a centre of 
 Druidical learning. Near the Eound Tower on the hillside, and 
 within the roofless sanctuary of St. Declan's Cathedral, they will show 
 you the ancient stones with the Ogham characters, which are the old- 
 est known to Western Europe. Were these anterior to the Plienician 
 Alphabet ? 
 
 It was not an infertile soil, at any rate, to which the Plienician 
 traders brought their intellectual culture, with their commercial 
 wares. We give these bold navigators, so far advanced in all the in- 
 dustrial arts, credit for the invention of the alphabet. It would be 
 hard to establish this in a satisfactory maniier. There is a tradition 
 among the Jews that one of the ante-diluvian patriarchs, in prevision 
 of the coming destruction of mankind, inscribed on stone monuments 
 a history of the world down to his own time. The Greeks attribute 
 the invention to one of their own race. And then, we have to ac- 
 count for the traditions of the Babylonians, Egyptians, Indians, and 
 Chinese. The ancient Kelts came from that same Asia which gave 
 birth to all these civilizations and literatures. They were not sav- 
 ages, but a civilized race, when they turned their faces westward, 
 only stopping when the limitless Ocean left them no further lands to 
 conquer or explore. Was there between the Ogham characters and 
 the Phenician Alphabet any connection? 
 
 Few as are the relics of Keltic literary and artistic genius spared 
 to us by the destruction successively wrought all over Ireland by • 
 Heathen Dane, Christian Norman, by English Catholic Kings and 
 Lord-Deputies in pre-Eeformation times, as well as by Tudors, Stu- 
 arts, Roundheads, and the "Protestant Ascendency" since then, — 
 
22 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 these few suffice to prove that St. Patrick and his companions found, 
 on their arrival, a civilized people in Ireland. 
 
 The archaeological treasures of the Eoyal Irish Academy in Dub- 
 lin, those of Trinity College Library, of the British Museum, and of 
 other public and private collections in the Three Kingdoms demon- 
 strate this truth beyond the possibility of Doubt. The "Book of 
 Kells" is nearly contemporary with St. Patrick. The pictorial art 
 which it reveals bears unmistakable traces of Phenician and Eastern 
 origin. With all its imperfections it is a marvel in its w^ay. And 
 yet, it was only one work among liundreds, — among thousands, we 
 might say without venturing too far, — which might have been found 
 in the monastic homes of learning. 
 
 We shall see in another place how Keltic art may have been im- 
 proved by contact with the Phenician. Did civilization go back- 
 ward in the Island when Sidon and Tyre and Byblos fell, and the 
 Carthaginians possessed themselves of Gades and Hispalis, without 
 continuing the traditional voyages of their more nobly ambitious 
 kinsmen? AYe can only say that St. Patrick found the people of 
 lerne or Hibernia, as the Eomans called it, not only worthy of the 
 Gospel, but ready to obey the mighty impulse which the new doctrine 
 was to give to their entire social system. 
 
 The population of the Island w^as divided into tribes or Septs. 
 These were composed of groups of families bearing the name of their 
 common ancestor, or some patronymic indicating their common de- 
 scent. And this name designated the district or territory allotted to 
 them or conquered originally by the founders of the Sept. All over 
 the Island, in 432, the Keltic or Gaelic was the only language spoken. 
 There is, therefore, every reason to think that the people were of the 
 same stock. 
 
 Their tribal organization seemed to be a consequence of this com- 
 munity of origin. The entire structure of society among them indi- 
 cated a patriarchal and primitive state. The family was the social 
 unit. The father's absolute authority resembled that of the head of 
 a family in Kome in the early ages of the Great Eepublic. The head 
 
EUmants of Naliunal Organization and Life. 23 
 
 of the Tribe wns, i^robably, at first, the nearest in direct descent to 
 the common ancestor. When the necessity oi" offensive and defensive 
 warfare compelled the tribesmen to choose the foremost in valor^ in 
 ability, and influence, then the chieftaincy became elective. At any 
 rate they had, at a very early date, a national code of laws, fixing the 
 relations of all the members of the community toward each other, 
 regulating the whole civil and religious life of the tribe and the na- 
 tion, establishing public officers to keep sacredly the written code, 
 the genealogy of each family and the records of the entire Tribe, 
 Judges to administer the law, and schools in which both the minis- 
 ters of religion and those who were to be in their turn the lawyers 
 and judges of the Tribe might acquire their professional knowledge. 
 
 Let us look a little more closely into all the conditions of society 
 in the Ireland of the 5th century. To very many persons wliat is re- 
 lated of them even by the most reliable historians, seems like the 
 half-fancies half-realities of mythological lore. Still are they no fan- 
 ciful inventions on which rests our knowledge of Brehon Law and the 
 institutions derived from it. 
 
 Looking at the Irish people of St. Patrick's age, we find them, in 
 many respects, so divided, that one could scarcely call this agglomer- 
 ation of Septs, with their loose provincial governments, by the name 
 of that compact organic whole we call a nation. 
 
 Indeed the Septs and their territorial divisions might appear at 
 first sight to be rather a loose aggi*egation of organisms, than one well 
 organized body, with a recognized head and dependent members, act- 
 ing in subordination for all the purjxtses of a common social life. 
 Yet, though Ireland's remote insular position did not compel her 
 Septs about the middle of the 5th century, to form a solid, perma- 
 nent union, acting like one man against enemies from without, the 
 biographers of St. Patrick and other native writers of the century 
 next following, attest that the Irish had then their solemn national 
 assemblies. It was at one of these that the Apostle made his most 
 successful appeal to the reason of his hearers, and in favor of the doc- 
 trines of Christianity. There was an obstinate, though not a bloody. 
 
24 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 struggle between the popular idolatry with its powerful and influen- 
 tial institutions and the new creed, preached by strangers, inculcating 
 self-denying and self-sacrificing virtues, as well as belief in mysteries 
 far transcending the natural sphere of reason. 
 
 Nevertheless the religion of the Crucified prevailed. It had be- 
 come the national religion ere the death of St. Patrick (492). And 
 the law of the Gospel, admitted as the law of the true life by the 
 entire Irish people, was incorporated with the Brehon Law. 
 
 We are not left in doubt respecting these important facts. The 
 Senchus Mok still remains to us, like the "Book of Kells," as a 
 monumental witness, almost mii'aculously preserved through the long 
 and savage warfare waged against all that belonged to the " Mere . 
 Irish," all that could recall the Catholic civilization of the first age of 
 Christianity in Ireland. 
 
 What, then, is tliis SencJitis Morf It is a compilation of the an- 
 cient Brehon Laws as thus modified by Christianit}', — the old and the 
 new being fitted together and harmonized under the united superin- 
 tendence of th^ Apostle and of the converted Brehons, Bards, and 
 Druids. From the middle of the 5th century to the year 1613, under 
 James I., the Senchus Mor regulated the public life and the private 
 dealings of the Irish people. In tlie year last mentioned, Sir John 
 Davies, the King's Attorney General, with the Lord Deputy, Sir 
 Arthur Chichester, made the circuit of Ulster, holding assizes in 
 various localities, superseding the Brehon by the English LaAv, and 
 compelling the people to deliver up their ancient manuscript codes. 
 
 Happily the great Code itself has survived the vandalism of that 
 age and the following. There is a singularly pregnant passage in the 
 Introduction to the Body of the Work itself. Evidently the writer 
 wished to express the great truth taught by St. Paul, again and again 
 declared by Doctore, Popes, and Councils, and so solemnly pro- 
 claimed in 1870 by the Council of the Vatican, that God is the 
 creator of the natural and supernatural orders, that from Him come 
 to us both the Law of Nature and the Law of Grace, and that the 
 same Spirit who spoke to the holy men of old is the same who in- 
 
Land in the Age of St. Patrick. 25 
 
 spired the Apostles and writers of the New Law. "How the judg- 
 ment of true nature" — so the text reads — "which the Holy Ghost 
 had spoken through the mouths of the Brehons and just poets of the 
 men of Erin, from the first occupation of the island down to the 
 reception of the faith, were all exhibited by Dubhtach (the Chief 
 Brehon) to Patrick, what did not clash with the word of God in the 
 written law and in the New Testament, and with the consciences of 
 the believers, was confirmed in the Law of the Brehons by Patrick, 
 and by the ecclesiastics and chieftains of Erin. For the Law of 
 Nature had been quite right, except the Faith and its obligations, 
 and the harmony of the Church and the people." 
 
 The Catholic theologian will have no difficulty in seizing the 
 sense of this passage, in spite of the obscurity induced by a literal 
 rendering. It is clear enough, however, that this Harmony between 
 the Christian precepts and the old Heathen legislation was the joint 
 work of "Patrick and the Brehons," together with "the Ecclesiastics 
 and Chieftains of Erin." Here are the elements of nationality drawn 
 and bound together by the mighty forces of a common faith, a com- 
 mon jurisprudence, a common language, and a common descent. 
 The Senchus Mor is thus an eloquent witness to the ancient nation- 
 ality and high civilization of the Irish. 
 
 Long before St. Patrick, moreover, the Celts of Ireland had 
 codified separately their criminal law. About the middle of the 3d 
 century (350) was compiled the Book of Aicill. These compilations, 
 with other literary Celtic remains collected from different points of 
 the British Isles and Continental Europe, are now the object of 
 scientific study, and bring more and more distinctly into light the 
 polity, literature, and arts of a people represented as a myth. 
 
 How, then, was the possession of land, the very basis of national 
 existence, regulated by the Brehon Code ? This question has not a 
 little importance, as bearing upon the crying "impositions" practised 
 upon the Celtic population of Ireland, in all the changes in land 
 proprietorship and tenure afterward made by the English. 
 
 As we have already briefly stated, each Sept held their lands in 
 
26 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 common. It was only when the chieftaincy became hereditary in the 
 same family, that the liberal portion of land allotted to the Chief, 
 began to be viewed by himself or his kinsmen in the liglit of what 
 we should now call "jiroperty." These encroachments on the rights 
 of the Sept, and the prescriptions of the Brehon Law, came in with 
 the practice of Feudalism in Ireland by the Anglo-Xorman nobles. 
 But, even under the Tudors and Stuarts, when the great Irish 
 Chieftains were driven into rebellion, that their lands might be 
 seized as forfeited to the Crown, the Irish protested against the 
 injustice thus done to the members of the Sept or Septs subject to 
 the attainted Chief, on the ground, that, according to Irish Law, the 
 lands did not belong to the chief to be by him disposed of, or for- 
 feited by any act of his. 
 
 Lands were also allotted to the Druids for religious purposes and 
 their own maintenance, without, however, ceasing to belong to the 
 Sept. When the Druidical Corporations were superseded by the 
 Christian Clergy, the lands allotted to the former Avere, naturally, 
 assigned to the maintenance and use of the latter. Lai'ge grants are 
 mentioned as made to St. Patrick by the Kings or Overlords, and by 
 various inferior chieftains. Grants and assignments were also made 
 for the support of the numerous Churches with their respective 
 clergy, established and multiplied all over the Island by the Apostle. 
 He was anxious that every Sept throughout the land should be well 
 provided with the spiritual ministrations of the new faith. The 
 people were a pastoral people living in dwellings that were in con- 
 formity with their occupations, their manners, and the needs of the 
 climate. The Creaghts, or that portion of them specially occupied 
 in pasturing the herds and flocks, followed with their families their 
 charge as these changed their pasturage in summer and winter. 
 Patrick, who, during his first captivity in Erin, had been employed 
 as a herdsman, knew well what the needs of this, the greater portion 
 of the population, were, and provided chapels and priests for them, 
 whithersoever they had to migrate. Xo part of his flock was thus 
 neglected by this good shepherd. The priests, whose numbers the 
 
Magnificent Provision for Hospitality. 27 
 
 holy man thus multiplied, were men, who wished to emulate the 
 devotion of himself and his saintly companions. The Irish people 
 were a people of brothers; the first priests, no matter what their 
 birth, were of the people, and devoted, heart and soul, to this 
 people of fervent neophytes. 
 
 The whole Island, therefore, before the close of the 5th century, 
 swarmed with churches, each one of which, served by zealous priests, 
 became a centre of incredible religious activity. The priests kept 
 up the literary traditions of their predecessors, the Druids, and not 
 only made of their churches schools of Christian Doctrine, but of 
 their houses schools of secular knowledge. 
 
 More than this: — St. Patrick, trained in the monasteries founded 
 by St. Martin near Tours in France, in the great Monastic Schools of 
 the Island of Lerius founded by St. Honoratus, and who had after- 
 ward seen the semi-monastic rule given in Milan to the clergy by St. 
 Ambrose, and flourishing in Rome itself in the dwelling of the Popes, 
 — gave to the Irish clergy that same semi-monastic form. At any 
 rate Monastic Houses of men and women arose and flourished in every 
 direction. 
 
 Each Sept, as Christianity thus penetrated every home and heart, 
 and as Church and Monastery and School sprang up, like the sudden 
 growth of some marvelous spring-tide, — made a generous allotment of 
 lands for each of these institutions. The Monasteries and the great 
 and world-renowned Monastic Schools thus founded in the territory 
 of each Sept, were considered as a part of the Sept itself. The lands 
 set apart for their maintenance, though consecrated to sacred uses, 
 were not so entirely given to God, as to be alienated and lost for ever 
 to the Sept. The Irish Tribes never yielded up their altiim dominium 
 in Church property. 
 
 Another public institution for which the Pagan Irish provided 
 most liberally was Hospitality. This, of course, was too much in con- 
 formity with the spirit and letter of the Gospel, not to be taken up 
 and fostered by St. Patrick and his successors. The function of dis- 
 pensing hospitality in the name of the Sept was deputed to some of 
 
28 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 their noblest men. These were called Hospitalers (Irish, Biatacli). 
 The office always deemed to be sacred in pagan times, was held to be 
 much more so by the Christian Irish, both because ail the beautiful 
 examples of patriarchal hospitality shone out like bright pictures 
 from the pages of the Old Testament, and because the New Testament 
 enjoined its practice as one of the functions of Christian Charity. 
 When the Eighth Henry suppressed and seized upon Keligious 
 Houses all over Ireland, he found of these noble establishments, — an 
 unique institution even among Christian nations, — 90 in Connaught, 
 90 in Ulster, 120 in Leinster, and 1030 in Munster, — in all 1,330! 
 "For the Irish knew (to quote the words of Dr. Lynch in his Cam- 
 hreiisis Eversus *) and obeyed the admonition of the Apostles and the 
 precept of St. Peter, that Christians should observe hospitality one 
 towards another, without murmuring; and also of St. Paul, ' Hospi- 
 tality do not forget, for by this some, not being aware of it, have en- 
 tertained angels,' — namely, Abraham and Lot among others." 
 
 Eight royally, therefore, did these great-hearted Celts provide for 
 all public needs. But where, in St. Patrick's time, was there a pub- 
 lic provision made for the poor? The answer is a very simple one: 
 in St. Patrick's age, in Ireland there was no class at all resembrnig 
 our ]X)or. The land was, literally, teeming with milk and honey. 
 For, besides the innumerable herds of kine which formed tlie chief 
 wealth of the people, there were laws protecting and regulating api- 
 culture or the rearing of bees and the production of honey, — hydro- 
 mel or a mixture of water and honey being the chief beverage among 
 all classes. And, further still, the nation was a nation of brothers, 
 among whom every man and woman born on Irish soil had their 
 places at the hearthstone of their own families. A people who so 
 generously provided for the entertainment of the wayfarer and the 
 stranger, were not likely to forget the infirmities or the need of their 
 own near flesh and blood. 
 
 But, while thus displaying a wise and liberal munificence, the 
 
 * Vol. ii., pp. 243-47, Edition of Celtic Society, Dublin, 1850. 
 
Various Blemenfs of Future Progress. 29 
 
 Septs, tlie whole people, were tenacious of their right to the land. 
 They looked upon that right as undisputed and imprescriptible. It 
 was, together with their loyalty to the Faith of St. Patrick, the one 
 thing which they never would yield, or barter away, or bargain for 
 through their long national misfortunes. It is the one thing to which 
 they still hold in their heart of hearts, for the restoration of which 
 they are willing to wait, to suffer and to struggle, in the undying 
 hope that Eight shall at length prevail over Might. 
 
 The principal public institutions which existed in each tribe were 
 those for education and hospitality. The spirit of Christianity after- 
 wards enlarged and perfected them; but they were so admirable in 
 themselves that they easily obeyed the laws of the highest progress. 
 The Druids and Bards were at the head of the schools of Ireland, 
 when the first Christian missionaries landed there. Secular and re- 
 ligious learning were combined and imparted by the same masters. 
 We find, under Elizabeth, the Brehon Schools bestowing as much as 
 they were permitted to do, of university education, to the Irish youth 
 who were driven with their masters into the wilderness — the deep 
 forest, the bog, and the mountain-cave. The extraordinary ardor 
 with which the youth, if not the manhood of all Ireland flocked to 
 the schools established by St. Patrick and his companions, proves how 
 powerfully the appetite for intellectual culture had been developed in 
 the nation before their arrival. ' 
 
 The other great tribal, — we should say national, — institution, was 
 the exercise of public hospitality. This proves the frequent and 
 brotherly intercourse which obtained between Sept and Sept, between 
 what we might call province and province. Strangers coming at any 
 time and no matter in what numbers, were entertained at the public 
 expense. In order that hospitality should be exercised without stint 
 in the name of the tribe, the province, and the whole nation, a por- 
 tion of the public lands were set aside, proper buildings erected and 
 furnished, and one of the most distinguished tribesmen selected to 
 preside over the establishment, cultivate, develop, and administer the 
 estate set apart for this important purpose. 
 
30 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 These Hospitality Houses became still more important as the fame 
 of the great Monastic Schools of Ireland afterward increased, and as 
 scholars and others flocked in great numbers from Britain and the 
 Continent to these great nurseries of leai'ning and piety. 
 
 To this large, liberal, and progressive spirit of these ancient Celts 
 no slight incentives were brought by the commerce which the 
 Phenicians, even in their decline, contrived to keep up with Ireland, 
 and which the maritime nations inheriting the commercial spirit of 
 Tyre and Sidon, maintained with Spain and Gaul and the Western 
 Isles. The Irish themselves loved the sea. Their large craft made 
 warlike expeditions to Britain and the Continent and as far east as 
 the Mediterranean, — just as in later times they visited Iceland, 
 Greenland, and the nearest coasts of Xortli America. From this 
 mutual intercourse learning, the fine arts, and every branch of 
 industry must have received a beneficial impulse. 
 
 Just as the traders' ship which bore from the near port of 
 Cffisarea the fugitive disciples of the martyred St. James, with the 
 precious body of their master, to the coast of north-western Spain, 
 up the magnificent Bay of Arosa to the shores near which arose 
 Compostella, even so from Galicia merchantmen sailed in those ages 
 to the westernmost land of the Gael, and entered that Bay of Galway, 
 whose very name bears witness to the ancient brotherly intercourse 
 between East and West. There is another witness to the existence 
 of a thriving commerce in these far-off times, and that is the Great 
 Walled Highway from Galway to Dublin. . . . Strange, that men 
 should, at this very moment, busy themselves with the idea, — a 
 noble and fertile one, — of opening a mighty ship-canal along that 
 same great highway of commercial travel in ancient times, — whicli, 
 as the Twentieth Century is about to aawn, should, by the divine 
 right of ISTature, become the shortest path for the commerce of two 
 worlds, nay, the commerce of the entire globe. The ship-canals of 
 Panama and Nicaragua will draw to them the commerce of Further 
 Asia and the Pacific. From the Gulf of Mexico the pathway of com- 
 merce lies straight to Galway Bay. "Who will open a short and safe 
 
Social Hierarchy. 31 
 
 foad for the mercantile fleets of the next century from Gal way to 
 Dublin, the coast of Britain, and the European continent? England 
 will surely, ere another quarter of a century has passed, find it her 
 interest to spend her millions in such enterprises as this. 
 
 That the highways of commerce were for Celtic Ireland the high- 
 ways of civilization, we have ample proof, No one can visit the 
 treasury of the Eoyal Irish Academy, and examine carefully the 
 pure gold ornaments collected there, collars (or torques), rings, 
 bracelets, magnificent shawl- and mantle-pins or fibulfe, and recall 
 the gold orname]its just discovered in the home of the Atridse or 
 among the ruins of Troy, without comparing Irish art with the far- 
 off contemporaneous art of Greece and Asia. Alas, in unfortunate 
 Erin the graves of the dead have been again and again rifled of their 
 treasures. The golden ornaments our museums can boast of, have 
 been yielded up by bog and morass or ploughed with the soil on 
 the field. So is it with the prehistoric weapons of the ages of bronze 
 and iron, spearheads, knives, hatchets, swords, as well as with other 
 relics of the remote past. 
 
 Before the arrival of the Christian Missionaries in 432, the Irish 
 Septs had followed their great chief, Niel of the Nine Hostages, on 
 warlike expeditions not only against the neighboring island of 
 Britain, but against the Gallo-Eomans on the adjoining continent. 
 His progeny, the O'Neills, formed a kind of sacred stock in the eyes of 
 the Irish, and were the hereditary overlords or kings of Ulster. In 
 the other great territorial divisions some one of the most warlike and 
 powerful Septs managed to obtain by free choice or force the local 
 overlordship. Certain it is, that the rank of supreme ruler of the 
 whole island never became the appanage of any one family. Down 
 to the 12th century both the provincial kings and the monarch o^ 
 all Ireland were elective. 
 
 The democratic form, based on the Sept or tribal organization, 
 prevailed not only in each Sept, but in the groups of Septs forming a 
 province, and in the assembled nation. 
 
 Taken, together with the densely wooded condition of the 
 
32 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 country, and the lack of cohesion between the Septs and groups of 
 Septs, — this state of things offered but little prospect of union or 
 unity for defensive or offensive purposes. We shall have evidence of 
 this organic weakness in the ineffectual and straggling efforts made 
 to repel the first Danish invasions, as well as in the apparent listless- 
 ness with which the nation, as a whole, afterward resisted the settle- 
 ment and encroachments of the Anglo-Normans. 
 
 However, the biographers of St. Patrick unite in saying, that, in 
 his day, Leoghaire (pronounce Laijrie) seems to have had all the 
 power and influence of supreme ruler over the whole Island. 
 
 The warlike passion which took possession of some Princes and 
 made them lead their followers on some conquering expedition or 
 plundering raid, only flamed out on rare occasions. Their military 
 prowess effected nothing permanent either abroad or at home. The 
 nation were contented and happy within their own insular position. 
 Like the Twelve Tribes of Israel within their national territory, — they 
 had a nobler, higher purpose in their existence, the culture of all the 
 elements of CWistian civilization and social progress. They too were 
 to be the Salt of the earth. 
 
 The person elected to this overlordship, whether in each province 
 or in the whole Island, was assigned certain lands and certain rights 
 of tribute in each Sept in the Province, and in each province in the 
 Kingdom, as the case might be. But whatever lands were thus as- 
 signed or whatever tax or tribute permitted to be levied, — it was well 
 defined and understood that both land and tribute were only given 
 for the use of the ofl&ce and the life of the office-holder. No part 
 of the land of the Sept could be alienated to even a king. And as 
 there existed no State properly so called, there was no national do- 
 main, no State property, apart from the sacred and inviolable patri- 
 mony of the Septs themselves. 
 
 These great Chieftains, even when the rank they held was hered- 
 itary in one line, did not always transmit their dignity from father 
 to son. The Sept was jealous of its right to choose its chief; and he 
 was only acknowledged as such, even after election, when he was con- 
 
strong Tribal Affection for the CJiief. 33 
 
 ducted solemnly, in a full convention of the Tribesmen, to the tradi- 
 tional site on the hill-side, and seated on the sacred stone on which 
 his predecessors had been installed. Christianity in due time gave 
 additional solemnity and sacredness to these installations. But they 
 retained the same forms, substantially, so long as it was possible to 
 appoint a chief recognized by any Sept in Ireland, so long, at least, 
 as a single Sept was left entire and without being broken into frag- 
 ments, and scattered throughout the land. 
 
 Only when thus installed on the sacred stone, and proclaimed 
 by his tribesmen, could King or Chief call himself The O'Neill, or 
 The O'Donnell, or The MacCarthy More, The O'Brien, The Mac- 
 Murrogh, or The O'Connor. These revered names of the common 
 ancestor, or benefactor, of the national hero, defender, or conqueror, 
 was the magic title which appealed to the respect and loyalty of the 
 Celtic tribesmen. The titles equivalent to King were not used by the 
 Irish until a late period, and even when used, the word rigli, or arcl- 
 righ, had not the magic power of the simple title of "The O'Neill" 
 or "The O'Connor," &c. 
 
 Far stronger was the claim which, within each particular Sept, 
 the chief had upon his clansmen or members of the Sept. This, no 
 matter how numerous and dominant, was in the eyes of all who bore 
 the tribal name, one family descended from one Avell known ancestor, 
 whose representative the chief was. The homage and obedience paid 
 him were a mixture of brotherly love and filial devotion. The High- 
 land Clans of Scotland long preserved a similar organization; and 
 "Walter Scott has faithfully described the sentiments entertained by 
 the clansmen toward their chief. In Ireland, unhappily, not a ves- 
 tige has been left subsisting of these patriarchal organisms out of 
 which Nature intended that nations of brothers should groAv, like 
 forests out of the same genial soil, fostered by the same sunlight a]";d 
 warmth, watered by the same fertilizing showers, each tree protecting 
 its neighbor from the storm, and all arching their arms together 
 overhead to protect from the too ardent summer-sun and from the 
 frosts of the winter the young undergrowth. 
 
34 The Cause of Ireland 
 
 One peculiar custom, that of fosterage, witli its inviolable bonds of 
 affection between the child adopted and the members of its adopted 
 family, grew out of the mingled reverence and love felt in the Irish 
 Septs toward the person of the Chief and his immediate family.* 
 However the sentiment which hallowed this bond in the beginning 
 and made it stronger than death, may have been mixed up with the 
 calculations of self-interest on one side or on both it was a beautiful 
 and admirable custom. The Chief could always feel sure of the at- 
 tachment of every member of the Sept, but his foster-parents and 
 their children would at any moment lay down their lives for him. 
 Of this we have many striking and most touching examples in Irish 
 history, — even where the child given in fosterage belonged to the 
 hostile Anglo-j^Iorman race. 
 
 Christianity grafted on this same robust trunk of brotherly love 
 between tribesmen the custom of gossipred, that is the spiritual 
 afiEinity arising between God-father, God-mother and tlie child held 
 by them over the baptismal font to receive the second birth. The 
 mystic bond of spiritual parentage thus contracted by the Sponsors 
 toward the baptized infant, extended in a relative sense toward the 
 child's parents. Indeed gossipred became a powerful link of friend- 
 ship between families; and to make its influence wider, noble or 
 wealthy families often had for each child several sponsors of both 
 sexes, thus binding to themselves and to the fortunes of the child as 
 many powerful persons as they could. And, to the conscientious 
 Christian, this tie was no less sacred and inviolable than that formed 
 by fosterage. 
 
 "The Irish custom of fosterage," — says Mr. Prendergast, — "was 
 in the nature of wardship; but the object being to make the j^oung 
 chief the beloved of his followers, he was brought up in tlie bosom of 
 the family of his foster-parents. . . . Nursed up in a sense of his 
 own importance^ he became the proud and spirited head of the clan, 
 
 * In his novel of " The Fair Maid of Perth," Scott has left a memorable exam- 
 ple of this devotion. The foster-father and his numerous sons perish to the last 
 man to protect the life of their cowardly chief. 
 
National Sports and Pastimes. 35 
 
 their pride and their joy, and bound to his foster-family and they to 
 him by ties of affection stronger than tliose of blood." * 
 
 The earliest English writers on Ireland speak in terms of great 
 praise of the strength of body and beauty of limb conspicuous among 
 the Celts of their time. Nor was there, in this respect, any 
 difference between the sons and daughters of the tribesman, what- 
 ever his rank and occupation, and the children of the highest Chief. 
 Besides the fact of a common descent, the nurture and life of the 
 children of all classes, were much the same. In infancy the limbs of 
 the babe were not subjected to the tight bandaging so customary 
 even in the most civilized lands. Nature, with the tender care and 
 watchfulness of the mother, was allowed to mould, develop, and 
 invigorate freely the limbs of childhood. Living for the most part 
 in the open air, caring little for the changes of the weather, giving 
 unrestrained scope to the natural passion of youth for all kinds of 
 healthful exercises, and living on a diet simple, abundant, and 
 nutritious, the ancient Irish grew up beautiful in features, fair and 
 strong of limb, capable of every feat of strength and agility. Their 
 powers of endurance even in the time of the Nuncio Rinciccini 
 (1645), were a subject of admiration to this dignitary and his Italian 
 Chancellor. 
 
 Athletic sports among them, as among the Greeks, a kindred 
 race, were in the greatest honor. To this day the Irish race all over 
 the world feel especial pride in keeping up such of these sports as 
 were the delight of their forefathers. The great city of New York 
 has her CJan-na-Gael, with their yearly athletic festivals, contests, 
 and prizes. Ireland, too, awakening from the lethargy and discour- 
 agement begotten of the disappointment of so many fond hopes, and 
 the prostration caused by seemingly endless suffering, is at this 
 moment reviving the much-loved national pastimes of other genera- 
 tions. Tipperary, famed in all past history for her stalwart sons, is 
 taking the lead. She is only keeping up her own traditions. 
 
 * " Cromwellian Conquest," p. 20, 21. 
 
36 The Cause of Ireland, 
 
 "There is a very ancient custom here (county of Tipperary)," 
 says Arthur Young, writing more than a hundred years ago, — "for a 
 number of country neighbors among the poor people to fix upon 
 some young woman that ought, as they think, to be married. They 
 also agree upon a young fellow as a proper husband for her. This 
 determined, they send to the fair one's cabin, to inform her that on 
 the Sunday following she is to be horsed, that is, carried in triumph 
 on men's backs. She must then provide whiskey and cider for a 
 treat, as all will pay her a visit, after Mass, for a hurling match. 
 As soon as she is horsed, the hurling begins, on which the young 
 fellow appointed for her husband has the eyes of all the company 
 fixed on him : if he comes off conqueror, he is certainly married to 
 the girl; but if another is victor, he as certainly loses her, for she is 
 the prize of the victor." * 
 
 It is a wonder that, a century ago, and when the Penal Laws 
 were just beginning to relax somewhat of their intolerable rigor, our 
 "poor people" (for were they not all ground down to a common level 
 of poverty ?) found heart to practise this ancient game of hurling. 
 Even Arthur Young, fair-minded though he was, "little knew the 
 hearts full of the noblest fire that beat under the poorest rags in 
 Ireland, nor the unconquerable mind of the inhabitants of those frail 
 dwellings of wattle covered with collops or long stripes of turf. Here, 
 however, after 500 years of conquest, dwelt an unsubdued people, 
 impatient of English laws, much more of suppression and servi- 
 tude." t 
 
 The hurling-match, the carrying the bride in triumph, the 
 contest, and the bestowal of the fair prize on the victor,- — all this is 
 but an echo of the far-off centuries, when two neighboring Septs 
 were wont to assemble to contest the prize in Athletics; and when 
 the noble maiden, who had been chosen queen of the feast, bestowed 
 her hand, as a prize, on the victor. Our Celtic forefathers only live 
 
 * " A Tour in Ireland in the years 1776, 1777, 1778," vol. ii., p. 250. 
 t " The Cromwellian Conquest," p. 330. 
 
National Celebrations. 37 
 
 in the Irish peasantry of our day. Noble, gallowglass, and Creaght, 
 
 under the crushing level of British bondage, have been ground down 
 
 to this equality. But the souls of the fathers seem to pass into the 
 
 sons, with the faithful and undying memories of the past. 
 
 Goldsmith, who saw what Arthur Young saw, and who, as an 
 
 Irishman, mourned over the desolation of his native land, thought, 
 
 sadly, that tyranny at home and wholesale emigration would all too 
 
 soon put an end to 
 
 These healthful sports that graced the happy scene, 
 Lived in each look, and brightened all the green, 
 These, far-departing, seek a kinder shore. 
 And rural mirth and manners are no more. 
 
 Thank God, "the unconquerable mind" still remains, at home 
 and abroad ! 
 
 It would be equally interesting and instructive to complete, — 
 from the very imperfect description given us by the biographers of 
 St. Patrick of the great festival at Tara about Eastertide, — tlie 
 picture of this national assemblage : kings, princes, chiefs, with the 
 elite of the various Septs, and the Druids, Bards, Brehons, and 
 Shannahs, all arrayed in their official robes, with the prescribed 
 colors, — warriors and civilians, every order well represented. We 
 should have the scene in the Eoyal Hall at Tara, and the scene out- 
 side. The multitude outside awaiting in darkness the first kindling 
 and flashing forth of the King's Fire from the hill-top, and the 
 people far and wide expecting the signal to illuminate in one instant 
 the entire Island. And then, all of a sudden, the appearance of the 
 Paschal Fire lit by St. Patrick, because it is Holy Saturday, the eve 
 of the Resurrection, when the Light of the "World burst from the 
 Sepulchre, and the earth shook to its centre, conscious of the victory 
 over Death and Sin. 
 
 Then there is a terrible commotion in Tara, — King Leogaire 
 rushing with his war-chariots to avenge the insult offered to him by 
 the strangers ; and the struggle which followed between the two 
 Religions thus suddenly brought into open conflict in presence of the 
 Chiefs and representatives of the whole nation. 
 
38 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 It is an historical scene worthy the pen of some great scholar, and 
 the brush of some great painter. 
 
 There is another assemblage, — that in which the nation, now 
 converted to Christianity, met to adopt tlie Senchus Mor, the great 
 Celtic Code of our forefathers, put in harmony with tlie teaching 
 and prescriptions of the Gospel. We have the Book, like the Ark 
 of the Ancient Alliance between Pagan Wisdom and Eevealed 
 Truth. It is a monument that speaks eloquently for the civilization 
 of these distant ages. But who will describe the memorable da}^, — 
 when the chosen men of all the Families and Septs in Ii-eland met 
 together to accept the Book thus prepared, and to pledge themselves 
 to obey its injunctions ? 
 
 Had the ancient Druidical or Mithraic ritual of the Celts lent its 
 consecration to such a solemnity as this, we know what blood might 
 have stained the altar and stamped the Book with its awful sanction. 
 But there stood Patrick, the Pontiff of a purer religion and a worship 
 more worthy of the God to whom man liveth and dieth. The Sacri- 
 fice which he offered up on that da}^, to invoke the divine blessing on 
 the People and its Eulers, on the Law and the Nation, reminded 
 all present of the Victim of Calvary, who is the End and the Sanction 
 of all laws human and divine. 
 
 As the Apostle of Ireland, robed in the sacred vestments of his 
 office, stood on that Altar, surrounded by his troops of bishops, 
 priests, and inferior ministers, Avhile kings, princes, warriors, and the 
 adoring multitudes knelt or stood reverent, far and near, satisfied to 
 see and follow the movements of their High Priest and Parent, — it 
 must have reminded these ardent students of the Scriptures of 
 Moses at the foot of Mount Nebo, closing his mission of teaching and 
 liberation, by giving solemnly to his people the Book of the Law. 
 
 Who will fill up from authentic history the details of the picture 
 faintly outlined here? 
 
 The ancient Irish in these days of national independence, of un- 
 limited plenty in a land sparsely inhabited and teeming with all the 
 fruits of natural fertility and assiduous culture, of fervent religious 
 
Laws of Iiilierltance, 39 
 
 faith and domestic purity and happiness, gave themselves up to thej 
 enjoyment of all that is most lawful and self-improving in the social 
 affections. They were warm-hearted and ardent by nature; and 
 where religion widened, deepened, and hallowed for them the legiti- 
 mate channels for all these strong alfectious, such a people in such 
 conditions must have advanced rapidly in true civilization, — that 
 which rests on the culture of the heart and the elevation of the 
 moral sentiments. 
 
 In these patriarchal families, where the father's authority was 
 absolute, the law of primogeniture had no existence. It did not 
 regulate the tenure or transmission of power in the Sept or in the 
 State; it had nothing to do with the transmission or tenure of 
 property in the family. Whatever right, in the course of time and 
 in return for special services, a family might have acquired to certain 
 lands, these, as well as the movable property in herds and flocks, &c., 
 were to be equally divided among all the sons of the deceased accord- 
 ing to the law of gavelkind. This law was the common law both in 
 England and in Ireland, while the two countries were under Celtic 
 rule. It moreover enacted that when a brother died childless, his 
 land was to be equally divided among his brothers. 
 
 Another feature, in connection with the transmission of property 
 and political power, was the custom of Tanidry. As the free 
 election of the members of the Sept determined who should hold the 
 chieftaincy, so to prevent high office and the power it conferred from 
 becoming an heirloom, and thereby a danger to the common free- 
 dom, the electors chose generally at one and the same time both the 
 Chief and his Tanist, or successor. The Tanist was selected among 
 the members of the Chief's own family. The tribesmen were sup- 
 posed to choose the man most fitted in every way. If the son of the 
 Chief, like Saul in Israel, surpassed all the others in merit, then the 
 suffrages would be likely to fall on him. If he was not of such 
 surpassing merit, the tribesmen looked for a proper jjerson among 
 the other relatives. 
 
 Each Sept had also its oAvn Druid, Bard, and Brehon, who were 
 
4Q The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 elected from among the most distinguished of tlieir respective classes. 
 To each of these was allotted a portion of the tribal lands for their 
 maintenance during their tenure of office. The Brehon, besides, for 
 his services in long and weighty law suits, was entitled to a fixed fee, 
 always paid in cows, which were the representative of all commercial 
 values. 
 
 One peculiarity in the transmission and division of landed prop- 
 erty deserves special mention here, if for no other purpose, for that, 
 at least, of showing that such a custom must have survived as a relic 
 of the iH'imeval state of society when the Creator of land and sea had 
 to use commands and threats to force men, few in number then, to 
 go forth and possess the beautiful earth and people it. 
 
 This exceptional mode of holding and transmitting land is known 
 as the Geilfine system. "The original acquirer of the land, as each 
 of his sons grew up and was ready to leave the home, gave him his 
 share in the paternal acres, and planted him out to maintain a house- 
 hold of his own. This was done successively to the number of four 
 sons, if he had as many; the fifth and youngest remained with his 
 father and inherited the original home. The father and the four 
 sons formed a famil}^ group of Lve households, which went by the 
 name of the Geilfine,'^ or ' right hand group,' from the five fingers on 
 the right hand {gilla). The youngest son in his turn, when he had 
 succeeded to the residue of the property, and his sons grew up, 
 planted them out one by one on portions of the remainder of the 
 family land. He and his four sons then became the Geilfine, and his 
 brothers' four households were in this way pushed, further off from 
 the household of the stirps, and were known as the Deirblfine, or 
 'particular group.' The youngest and the fifth son of the new 
 Geilfine chief in his turn repeated the process, forming for himself 
 and his sons a fresh Geilfine on his own account. The last Geifine 
 then became the Deirblfine in its turn ; and the old Deirblfine 
 became the larfine or ' after group.' Again the process was repeated, 
 
 * Perhaps from geil or geal, ' white ' or ' fair,' and fine, ' a family,' 
 
Eve7i Murder Compensated by an Eric or Fine. 41 
 
 and yet another and a newer Geilfine was formed; each group, as 
 before, took the place of the group more remotely related, and the 
 larfine became the Indfine or 'end group.' Here the process ceased, 
 and no further sub-division was made. Each group acquired a sepa- 
 rate instead of an undivided share in the paternal acres, and became 
 a fresh stirps, retaining the tract allotted to it, and repeating the 
 plotting out of its own share its own way. Each family worked out 
 on this plan consisted of seventeen households — four in each of the 
 four groups, plus the original home. Where a group became extinct, 
 the lands were taken j^er stirjjes by the other groups of the family. 
 On failure of a male representative the land reverted to the tribe, 
 though in later days, when the tribe-system was becoming weakened, 
 the daughters were in such cases permitted to inherit." * 
 
 So much for the great features of social legislation among the 
 ancient Celts of Ireland, and the tenure and disposition of land. To 
 judge of the degree of civilization which prevailed in the commerce 
 of private life, we have to look more closely both at the criminal and 
 the civil codes. The crime of treason is unknoAvn in this Celtic leg- 
 islation. As there was no State to challenge the fealty of Irishmen, 
 so there was no treason against it. Every infraction of the law, 
 whether it was a crime committed against the person, or against 
 property, or against public order, was punished by a fine (eric), to be 
 paid in a stated number of cows. If the offender did not possess a 
 sufficient number, then the family to which he belonged made up the 
 deficiency. The fine Avas only levied on the entire Sept, when both 
 the offender and his family were too poor to satisfy the demands of 
 justice. 
 
 In cases of wilful murder, the family who had lost a member 
 claimed an eric as compensation from the murderer; and, in case he 
 could not afford the amount, he lost his civil rights, and the blood- 
 fine was levied on his family, — the share of the homicide in the lands 
 of the Sept going to satisfy or help satisfy the claim against him. 
 
 * C. G. Wsflpole, " A Short Hist, of the Kingdom of Ireland," pp. 8-10 
 
43 Tlie Cause of Ireland. 
 
 In all doubts and contestations which arose the Brelion decided, 
 and his decision was final. 
 
 Crimes against every precept in the Decalogue were punished in 
 the same way. Wrongs such as a breach of contract, a trespass, 
 fraud, slander, wilful failure in paying one's debts, or in fulfilling 
 one's bond, were visited with an eric. 
 
 Thus the spirit of this ancient Celtic legislation was anything but 
 a bloody one, while being strict and rigorous in exacting the legal 
 compensation for guilt. The whole community was made to have a 
 direct and real interest in preventing the transgression of the law, as 
 well as in punishing the transgressor. Is it not toward that spirit, 
 one at bottom of brotherly love, that our most enlightened modern 
 jurists would wish to bring back our criminal legislation? 
 
 We have been able to form an estimate of the property-basis on 
 which the ancient Celtic family reposed: it will be not a little instruc- 
 tive to examine how the Brehon Law regulated the most sacred do- 
 mestic relations. Apparently, judging from what has been said on 
 the transmission of property, women only held a secondary place in 
 the household. When the wife, however, brought to her husband 
 property of her own proportionate to his, she was, before the law, and 
 in all respects, esteemed and called 'the wife of equal dignity.' 
 There was, besides, nothing in the customs or life of these Celtic 
 populations, favoring the enslavement of woman in any respect, or 
 Veducing her to the inferiority which characterized the condition of 
 woman elsewhere. 
 
 When Christianity came to perfect all things among the Irish, the 
 reverence for woman, founded on the filial love enjoined toward the 
 Mother of Our Lord, the second Mother of all humanit3', only served 
 to make every mother's place in the family higher still and more 
 sacred in the eyes of all. 
 
 We may conclude this brief survey of Celtic legislation by saying 
 that the law-makers, — the tribesmen themselves, — were careful to 
 protect by exact prescriptions not only the rights of private families 
 and individuals, but the rights of the entire community. "The 
 
Culture of the Arts. 43 
 
 property and security of woods, the regulation of watercourses, but 
 above all the property of bees, on which depended the principal bev- 
 erage of the people, were guarded "^ — says Leland — "by a number of 
 minute institutions, which breathe a spirit of equity and humanity. 
 We are not to wonder that a people accustomed to the refinements 
 found in their own laws, should be pronounced of all others the 
 GREATEST LOVERS OF JUSTICE. This is the honorable testimony 
 of Sir John Davies and Lord Coke. With shame we must confess 
 that they were not taught this love of justice by the first English 
 settlers." * 
 
 This would naturally lead us to examine a little more closely the 
 character and virtues of the Irish People, — the people of that little 
 known and much slandered Celtic race, — whom it was politic in 
 the 12 til century to represent as Savages, only fit to be outlawed and 
 plundered, and whom, at the close of the 19th century, it is still the 
 policy to coerce and to starve, in order to drive them from the land 
 of their fathers, to which, though taken from them by their enemies, 
 they still so fondly cling. But the gentle qualities, the generous 
 virtues, the rich and progressive nature of the race, can only serve to 
 aggravate the wrong done them by the spoiler and oppressor. It is 
 no justification of my guilt, that my neighbor, whose house I have 
 seized, whose lands I have got into my possession by sheer fraud and 
 force, was a violent man, an ill-mannered or unrefined man, and that 
 he managed his property ill. 
 
 Of intellectual culture in general, and of the learning which 
 sprang from it, the ancient Irish entertained the highest esteem, and 
 embodied their estimation of it in more than one of their laws. "So 
 much was learning prized by the ancient Irish," — says Count Murphy, 
 "that learned men ranked next to kings and princes of the blood. 
 This was marked by the number of colors in their garments. The 
 kings and princes wore seven colors, historians and learned men six, 
 nobles five, those who exercised hospitality four, officers three, sol- 
 diers two, and the mechanics or working-classes one." f 
 
 * Hist, of Ireland, i., p. 35. f "Ireland Political, Industrial, and Social," p. 238. 
 
44 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 In tlie next chapter we shall see what marvelous fruits tliis admi- 
 ration for the learned and this general love of intellectual culture 
 produced in the nation, after it had embraced Christianity. Their 
 practical knowledge of both the industrial and the fine arts, would 
 also be an index to their advancement in learning and scholarship. 
 But the requirements of physical life, and the enjoyments authorized 
 by social intercourse, regulate everywhere the exercise of industry and 
 the sale of its productions. 
 
 The great importance attached to archaeological studies has led 
 many Irishmen, some of them of noble rank, to devote their time as Avell 
 as their fortune to illustrate the antiquities of their native land. A 
 single afternoon spent in the Library of the Eoyal Irish Academy, in 
 Dublin, will convince the scholar that not a little has been achieved 
 in this field of science. Alas! the whole face of the country is strewn 
 with the ruins of noble edifices, reared to Eeligion and Learning most 
 of them, and all torn down in hatred of the faith professed by the 
 majority of Irishmen. 
 
 What proportion of these ruins point to Celtic times, — to those 
 preceding the advent of Christianity, and to those erected before the 
 Anglo-Norman invasion ? These are questions to which the purpose 
 of our argument will not permit us to give an answer. AVorks, 
 already become classical, are to be found in all public libraries, and 
 they alone can satisfy the curiosity of the student. Many prehistoric 
 remains are found on the Islands all round the Irish coast. Others 
 are scattered here and there on the mainland. Tlie architectural rel- 
 ics of unquestioned Celtic origin, and of a well ascertained period, 
 are few. But, such as they are, they afford evidence of no small skill 
 in the art of construction. 
 
 What, however, the readers who are especially interested in our 
 inquiry would wish to know, is the state of Architecture in Ireland in 
 the age of St. Patrick. Certain it is that, in those days, there existed 
 nothing like the walled towns, or the large cities, which sprung 
 up at a later period. What the author of the "Cromwellian 
 Conquest" says of England and Ireland in the 12th century, applies 
 
Arcliitecture. 45 
 
 in a very great measure to the two countries, as they were in the 
 year 432. 
 
 "Unlike England then covered with castles on the heights, where 
 the French gentlemen secured themselves and their families against 
 the hatred of the churls and villeins (as the English peasantry were 
 called), the dwellings of the Irish chiefs were of wattle or clay. It is 
 for robbers and foreigners to take to rocks and precipices for security; 
 for native rulers there is no such fortress as justice and humanity. 
 
 "The Irish, like the wealthiest and highest of the present day, 
 loved detached houses, surrounded by fields and woods. Towns and 
 their walls they looked upon as tombs or sepulchres, where man's 
 native vigor decays, as the fiercest animals lose their courage by being 
 caged. They wore woolen garments much in the present fashion, 
 and disdained to case themselves in iron, thinking it honorable to fight 
 naked {i.e., unprotected by armor), as it was called, with the mailed 
 French of Normandy, and their Flemish and English followers, just 
 as the Gauls fought naked with the well-armed soldiers of Eome." 
 
 It may, therefore, be said, that, generally speaking, the most 
 sumptuous dwellings were built of wood. The surrounding forests, 
 with their magnificent timber, furnished the best material in lavish 
 abundance. And, so far back as we can go into the history of the 
 Celtic Irish, we find them to be expert and intelligent craftsmen and 
 builders. The best houses were Avhat we Americans call frame 
 houses; the frame of squared timber; the intervals filled in by 
 lighter material. The Icelandic Sagas describe the construction, 
 decorations, and furniture of the chief Norsemen. The Celts of 
 Ireland were Hot inferior either in civilization or in mechanical skill 
 to their northern neighbors. 
 
 As to the dwellings of the people in general, much would depend 
 on individual taste, as well as on custom. The much milder climate of 
 1,400 and 2,000 years ago in Ireland, required but little comparative 
 additional warmth in the winter-time. Even in our days the labor- 
 ing classes in Ireland are astonishingly hardened against the rigors of 
 that season. The houses made of wattles and clay are thus easily 
 
46 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 accounted for. The pastoral population, tlie great majority of the 
 nation, followed their herds and flocks in their migrations from one 
 pasturage to another. They built for themselves and their families 
 temporary shelters with tall wattles, which they covered with long 
 stripes of the green turf, and being warmly clad, and used to wet and 
 cold, and having, besides, abundance of the most wholesome and nour- 
 ishing diet, — this great component element of the ancient peasantry of 
 Erin, lived a laborious, simple, innocent, and joyous life. They 
 were free men, often, if not always, tlie owners of their ovm. flocks 
 and herds. No one oppressed them, and no man dared to despise 
 them. 
 
 There were, nevertheless, villages in those primitive times. 
 Each Sept had its own centre, where was the abode of the Chief, and 
 where, with the introduction of Christianity, was the residence of the 
 Bishop, and his cathedral church. Around these, other institutions 
 soon arose. With the Church, the Monastery, and the School, 
 Architecture came into being, and flourished. And with Christian 
 Architecture all the Arts, born in the Sanctuary, were perfected in 
 the Sanctuary, beautifying their home, and making it an image of 
 the House of God on high. From the Churcli and the School the 
 love of the Beautiful, like the love of the True and the Good, 
 necessarily spread through the land, creating tlie edifices whose very 
 ruins are fast perishing through the stolid indifference of the men 
 to whom Protestantism or the sword of Cromwell gave their 
 possession. 
 
 In the age of St. Patrick, therefore. Christian or ecclesiastical 
 architecture was only in its rude beginning. Of the condition of 
 civil architecture we can only guess. 
 
 In Ireland, among a primitive people enjoying in abundance all 
 the means of supplying the table, all the materials for building their 
 homes and making them comfortable, luxury was little likely to have 
 many votaries. The laws regulating the color of the dress worn by 
 the different classes in the community, point to an advanced stage of 
 the textile arts. It would have been strange indeed, if a people 
 
Irish Industry and Art in tlte Fifth Century. 47 
 
 coining originally from Western Asia, where the richest and finest 
 fabrics were manufactured, and where both Phenicia and Persia vied 
 with each other in inventing for them the richest dyes, should have 
 forgotten their native cunning. Even had they lost, in their wander- 
 ings westward over Continental Europe, somewhat of their refine- 
 ment and culture, the needs of the more northern climate of Ireland 
 must have stimulated anew their invention. Then, later, the arrival 
 of tlie Plienician navigators, and the settlement among the Irish of 
 Phenician colonies, would have re-awakened, in a race of a highly 
 eestlietic temperament, the taste for soft fabrics, graceful vesture, 
 and the glorious colors that recalled the Asiatic home of their fathers. 
 Foreigners, foreign artists particularly, are wont to contrast the 
 inborn good taste of the peasant women of Ireland, in the art with 
 which they fold their poor garments around them, and their instinc- 
 tive sense of color, as compared with the English, whose sculptors 
 never can learn to drape a figure, and whose women bedeck 
 themselves with the colors the most dissonant. Art-critics have 
 remarked in tlae celebrated "Book of Kells" a comminghng of 
 colors, and certain hues bearing a striking resemblance to the far- 
 famed dyes of Tyre. 
 
 Be that as it may, the Irish were renowned for their fabrics of 
 linen and wool. The former was worn in ample folds round the 
 person, and these folds were held together on the shoulder or chest 
 by the fihulcB of gold, silver, or other exquisitely wrought metals, 
 which we still admire in the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy. 
 The heavy cloth cloaks or mantles would require the enormous 
 fibulae, which have still survived the destruction of ages. 
 
 Many of these beautiful ornaments, like the torques or collars, 
 armlets, bracelets, ear-rings, &c., arc of pure gold, and strikingly 
 akin to those recently discovered in the Tomb of Agamemnon, and 
 in the ruins of ancient Troy. These remains of ancient Irish Art, 
 contemporary, most probably, with Ilion it its palmy days, were not 
 taken out of tomb or sepulchre. These were again and again rifled 
 and desecrated by fanatical hatred or lust for gold. It is from tlie 
 
48 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 peat bog, — the refuge of our native population in tlieir darkest days, 
 — that most of those archaic treasures have been taken. 
 
 Of the love for Music and Song for Avhich Ireland has ever been 
 famous, much need not here be said. The Harp, which is still the 
 acknowledged national emblem, recalls not only tlie passionate love 
 of the people for poetry, song, and music, but the existence of 
 national treasures in all these departments, which are the glorious 
 fruit of native genius. Like the golden and bronze ornaments 
 discovered by accident in morass or ploughed field, like the frag- 
 mentary remains of ancient architecture and literature, our ancient 
 national poetry and music are only broken relics of a buried past. 
 The Harp survived the first stages of English violence as an insti- 
 tution. Every Sept, so long as a single Sept remained in Erin, had its 
 Bard and its Harpists, who fired the heart of the assembled Tribes- 
 men on their solemn festivals. "The harp that had long been silent 
 in Gaul, and was heard in Britain only in the mountains of Wales, 
 was universally played in Ireland; and the gaiety of the airs, and the 
 skill of the artists, astonished and delighted those accustomed to the 
 slower airs of the Welsh." So speaks Mr. Prendergast. Elsewhere, 
 quoting from another Irish digger among the ruins of the Celtic past, 
 he says : "The English became as fond of the harp as the Irish. In 
 the inventories of the household goods of the gentry confiscated at 
 the Eevolution of 1688, the ancient English families of the Pale are 
 found possessed of one Irish Tiarpe. . . . Ten years afterward it 
 survived in Connaught, where the old Irish gentry are described as 
 careful to have their children taught to speak Latin, write well, and 
 play on the harp." Besides, if the national music, like everything 
 Celtic or Irish, was proscribed and ruined by English bigotry, we 
 cannot wonder that a general disuse of seven centuries, and a sup- 
 pression of all the national usages with which the harp was con- 
 nected, have only left it a memory, but a treasured memory of other 
 days. 
 
 The Harp and the National Music, Irish Poetry and Song, like 
 the old Celtic national sports, so innocent and so manly, in which our 
 
Poetry, Music, and Song. 49 
 
 ancestors delighted on the great hoHdays that brought all the people 
 together, — will only revive again when Ireland is allowed the same 
 liberty accorded to Catholic Canada, — that of making her own laws, 
 cultivating her own literature, and living through her own institu- 
 tions.* 
 
 Canada, while the French Kevolution with the successive social 
 upheavals that have come after it has swept away the old order of 
 things, was allowed to remain on the shores of the St. Lawrence, in 
 peaceful, blissful enjoyment of native tongue, French Laws, and the 
 Catholic religion. The little American colony, as it developed and 
 grew, retained all the dear and precious elements of her own 
 nationality. To that idea of a separate nationality the French 
 Canadians still cling with a touching devotion. 
 
 Let Irishmen not lose heart. Even in the United States, even 
 throughout the Provinces forming the Canadian Confederation, 
 Irishmen still worship with unfailing love this ever-cherished ideal of 
 Irish nationality figured by the Irish Harp. How vivid in the 
 memory of him who writes this page, is still the recollection of St. 
 Patrick's Day celebrated in dear old Quebec, "the walled city of the 
 Xorth." It is all present to his mind's eye yet : the various Xational 
 Societies, English, Scotch, Irish, and Canadian, with their banners, 
 marching in solemn procession to St. Patrick's Church, and headed 
 by the bands of the English regiments in garrison, one of them the 
 
 * The author in oonversation with a high official of the Irish Government, some 
 months before this was written, dwelt with real pleasure on the enlightened 
 liberality with which England had treated French Canada after its conquest in 
 1759. The articles of Cession stipulated that the French Colony should be pro- 
 tected in the Institutions derived from France. Hence the French Canadians 
 have ever maintained intact their Church organization, the Civil Laws derived 
 from the mother country, and the French Language. England, — though certain 
 Governors-General and certain Colonial Ministers showed a disposition to do away 
 with these ' relics of a by-gone age,' — has always been faithful to her part of the 
 compact. When the high official had listened to this history of Canadian civil and 
 religious freedom : " If England had only done so to Ireland," he said, " what a 
 different state of things we sh<nild have here ! " 
 
 The cry of Canadian patriots has ever been : Nos Institutions; notre Langue, 
 and nos Lois. 
 
50 The Cause of Ireland 
 
 87th. Members of Parliament, Judges, the Bar, the Governor- 
 General and Council, filling the seats of honor near the Sanctuary; 
 the Irish Soldiers crowding the vast galleries with the red masses of 
 their uniform; the golden Irish Harp on a ground of green flaming 
 on the breasts of the men, hanging from a green ribbon round the 
 neck of the preacher. And, — as all were waiting for the beginning 
 of the Solemn Mass, the organ giving voice, softl}', in tones of heart- 
 melting sweetness and tenderness to some one of these national 
 melodies, "The Exile of Erin," "The Coolleen," "The Harp of 
 Tara"; and 3'ou could see every head bowed down, and tears on every 
 cheek. 
 
 Xo ! Xo ! Irish Nationality is not dead. In the hearts of any 
 other people it would be dead and buried out of sight long ago, after 
 such destruction, desolation, desertion, and despair. But in the 
 heai'ts of such a people as we shall show the Irish to be in the 
 following chapters, — such a sacked ideal can never die. It will 
 survive all disappointments and disasters, as long as a single Irishman 
 is left to wait and to hope for the dawn. 
 
 Hear how these Celtic generations of the past idealized their 
 suffering and almost annihilated nation under the name of Dakk 
 EOSALEEN : 
 
 Woe and pain, pain and woe 
 
 Are my lot, iiigbt and noon. 
 To see yonr bri<^ht face clouded so, 
 
 Like to the mournful moon. 
 But 3'et — will I rear your throne 
 
 Again in golden sheen ; 
 
 'Tis you shall reign, shall reign alone, 
 
 My Dark Rosaleen ! 
 
 My own Rosaleen ! 
 
 'Tis you shall reign, shall reign alone, 
 
 My Dark Rosaleen ! 
 
 Over dews, over sands 
 
 Will I fly, for your weal : 
 Your delicate white hands 
 
 Shall girdle me with steel. 
 At home, in your emerald bowers. 
 
 From morning's dawn till e'en, 
 
Poetry, Music, and Song. 51 
 
 You'll pray for inc, my flower of flowers, 
 
 My Dark Kosaleen ! 
 
 My own Kosaleen ! 
 You'll pray for me, my flower of flowers, 
 
 My Dark Kosaleen ! 
 
 Oil ! the Erne shall run red 
 
 With redundance of blood. 
 The earth shall rock beneath our tread, 
 
 And flames wrap hill and wood 
 And fifun-peal, and slog:an-cry. 
 Wake many a glen serene. 
 Ere you shall fade, ere you shall die 
 My Dark Kosaleen ! 
 My own Kosaleen ! 
 The Judgment Hour must first be nigi)., 
 Ere you can fade, ere you can die, 
 My Dark Kosaleen. 
 
If. 
 
 Progress. 
 
 TTTHAT has already been said of the social condition of the Irish 
 race when St. Patrick brought them, with the Gospel, the 
 germs of a higher culture and civilization, must have enabled the 
 reader to form a sufhciently correct opinion on the progress they had 
 then made in all the arts of peace and war, in all the industries be- 
 longing to a civilized community. 
 
 They were mainly a pastoral people, subsisting on the butter, 
 milk, and flesh of their herds, deriving their clothing from the wool 
 of their flocks, and the flax so extensively cultivated. The growth 
 of wheat and corn was a precious source of agricultural wealth, which 
 all the Celtic Tribes had brought with them from the East. The 
 climate of Ireland, far more genial 1,400 years ago, than it is at the 
 present clay, permitted the husbandman to look forward to plentiful 
 harvests. So that it was indeed a land of abundance. Besides the 
 produce of the land there were the teeming lakes and rivers, and the 
 exhaustless treasures of the deep sea all around the coasts. The 
 Irish, whose war-galleys searched the coasts of Britain, Gaul, and 
 Spain, and whose adventurous spirit sought and discovered the north- 
 ern continent of America, were not men to allow their own sea-fish- 
 eries to lie idle near their hand, like golden grain on the field perish- 
 ing for lack of sickles. 
 
 And then as the 5th century closed over the scarcely opened grave 
 
 of St. Patrick, and while the 6th opened on a people running swiftly 
 
 forward toward the attainment of the elevated ideal civilization held 
 
 forth by Christianity, the doctrine and morality of the new faith 
 
 (52) 
 
Columhanus' Apostleship. 53 
 
 acted like an intoxicating wine upon these fervent generations of 
 Irishmen. ISTo heroic efforts, no sublime personal sacrifices, seemed 
 impossible to men and women, who had drunk deeply of this divine 
 cup. Then ceased the piratical expeditions abroad in quest of plun- 
 der and slaves; then disappeared from the length and breadth of the 
 island the property of man in man. Then, impelled by that super- 
 natural charity springing from the idea of the brotherhood of all men 
 in Christ the Eedeemer, the Son of God, and the first-born of the 
 race to the possession of the eternal Kingdom, — Irishmen went forth 
 to communicate to their fellow-men everywhere the treasure of this 
 fraternity and its everlasting hopes. Then did Columba with his 
 companions seek lona, as a place fitted to plant a nursery of apostolic 
 men; and from lona, his disciples in their wicker hide-clad coracles 
 sailed to the Arctic Circle and planted the Cross in Iceland, long be- 
 fore the Norsemen dreamed of seeking a refuge there. Then, too, 
 from lona the sacred fire passed to the neighboring shores of Albion, 
 and spread among the rude and warlike Picts from sea to sea, and 
 southward till Lindisfarne sprang up, the daughter of lona, fairer 
 and greater than her parent. 
 
 Then, too, inflamed by the examples of Columba and his sons, 
 Columhanus, as if bearing the very soul as well as the name of the 
 Patriarch of lona, hastened to Gaul as to a battle-field on which 
 Christ's forces were being defeated, and where reinforcements were 
 sadly needed to uphold the Cross. The great mass of well-educated 
 Christians even have read too rapidly, studied too superficially, the 
 history of these dark ages, to know how utterly and inconceivably 
 barbarous were the Prankish Kings in the days of Columhanus ; and 
 how seemingly hopeless a task it was to make them, their courtiers, 
 their feudal nobles, and their armies of retainers, — like flocks of 
 ravenous vultures descended on the fairest regions of Western 
 Europe, — practice any one of the gentle virtues recommended by 
 Christ. Yet the Irish Apostle succeeded in establishing in several 
 places among these ever-wai'ring Prankish Kingdoms monasteries and 
 monastic schools, which became the central springs of the intellectual 
 
54 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 and moral life. The prevailing spirit of evil drove the old man and 
 his disciples into the wilds of Northern Germany. There, too, they 
 scattered broadcast the seeds of the higher life. St. Gall remained 
 behind on the shores of Lake Constance, when Colnmbanus was 
 forced to fly into Italy, and to find a refuge amid the summits of the 
 Ligurian Alps. There he planted a monastery, around which soon 
 sprang up a city, and which, in course of time, became one of the 
 great schools of Southern Europe. 
 
 But these missionary enterprises, from which Christian Europe in 
 her darkest days derived immortal benefit, Avere only the overflowing 
 of that supernatural piety and learning which could not bo contained 
 within the narrow limits of a single island. 
 
 But, just as we love to trace to their source the great rivers which 
 fertilize the earth, and are the great channels of intercourse betAveen 
 tlie peoples of each continent, so let us go back a moment to the 
 well-springs in Ireland of that extraordinary learning and apostolic 
 spirit. 
 
 We have seen what a magnificent provision the Brehon Laws made 
 for the public exercise of hospitality. In very truth, if w^e consider 
 what Avas happening all over the Island through the two centuries 
 immediately following the death of St. Patrick, Ave might be justified 
 in saying that the framers of the Senchus j\Ior Avere inspired in some 
 at least of their legislative provisions. 
 
 Tlie generous hospitality prescribed by law was conspicuously 
 shown during the memorable period when the monastery-schools of 
 Ireland were frequented not only by crowds of native students, but 
 by a multitude of scholars from the neighboring islands and the Con- 
 tinent. A contemporary, St. Bede, revered in England as the "Ven- 
 erable Bede," says of this cuvstom: "The Irish received wdth kindness 
 strangers Avho came from CA'ery country, at these periods, to be in- 
 structed among them, and gi'atuitously supplied them with food, 
 books, and teachers." 
 
 Another Englishman, who wrote in 1607, for the purpose of de- 
 crying the Irish race and their religion, cannot help bearing this tes- 
 
Well-Spriiigs in Ireland of Learning and Sanctity. 55 
 
 timony: "The Saxons of tliat age (the 9th century) flocked thither, 
 as to the great mart of learning ; and this is the reason why we find 
 it so often said in our writers of Lives of the Saints, such a one was 
 sent over to Ireland to he educated; and hence the reason also of this 
 passage in the Life of Sulgenus, who flourished 700 years ago: 
 
 ' Exemplo patrum, commotus amore legendi, 
 
 Ibat ad Hibernos, sophia mirabile claros. 
 
 Athirst of knowledge, he the well-known road 
 
 Towards Erin by onr fathers trod, pursued, 
 
 And found supernal wisdom in her lov'd abode.'" 
 
 The most illustrious orators and writers of our day, men of oppo- 
 site creeds and political parties, like Guizot and Montalembert, have 
 drawn a truthful and most attractive picture of Ireland, when her 
 Saints and her Schools, her swarming monasteries and apostolic mis- 
 sionaries, caused Europe to call her Insula Sanctorum and Doctorum- 
 The records of these universities of all learning and piety, of these 
 nurseries of Christian education, when Christendom was as yet in the 
 cradle, — have perished, alas! with the monasteries where they were 
 written. Monks, monasteries, Masters and Missionaries had made 
 Ireland the wonder of the world and the resort of all who thirsted for 
 learning and the true law of life: the Enemy of all human progress 
 came in an evil hour, and all these well-springs of human science and 
 heavenly wisdom were filled up, choked, and obliterated by the ruins 
 heaped upon them. Yet, from the fragments which time and fanat- 
 icism have spared, we can glean enough of detail to fill up the picture 
 sketched in "The Monks of the AVest." 
 
 Scarcely had the glorious career of the Apostle of Ireland come to 
 its close together with that great Fifth Century, so fertile in illustri- 
 ous Christian men, when his beloved Island was thickly dotted all 
 over with these famous monastic schools, whose example and influ- 
 ence St. Leander, the Apostle of the Visigoths, set about emulating 
 in Seville, about the year 570. The study of the Scriptures opened 
 up to the bright and active Irish intellect a new and boundless spirit- 
 ual world. The positive knowledge afforded by Eevelation, afforded 
 inquirers after truth a large, high, and firm footing from which they 
 
56 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 could direct their investigations into the visible and invisible worlds, 
 — each glorious horizon illuminated by Faith opening out into still 
 vaster horizons beyond. Ireland, who had already her universally 
 honored colleges of Druids, Bards, and Brehons (or Judges), and who 
 had evidently always favored the pursuit of learning as well as its 
 professors, saw all at once, — as did Augustine at the feet of Ambrose 
 in the preceding century, — the boundaries of all familiar knowledge 
 pushed back by the light of Christian Truth. This can explain the 
 avidity with which Princes, Bards, Brehons, and people flocked to 
 St. Patrick and his companions, and hung upon their lips, while they 
 exposed the doctrines and unfolded the history of the Old and ISTew 
 Testaments, It was a part of Patrick's system of ecclesiastical ad- 
 ministration to multiply churches and missionary centres. lie and 
 his disciples cared but little for personal ease or physical comfort. 
 The church or chapel might be, and was in most instances, con- 
 structed of the rudest material. But beneath its lowly roof was the 
 Altar of the New Law and the Ark within which the Awful Presence 
 was ever abiding. Near it was the Well, blessed by the Apostle and 
 affording water for Baptism, and for those abUitions typical of the 
 cleansing and sanctifying operations of sacramental grace. The hut 
 of wattles in which the Pastor and Teacher took his brief repose, was 
 the first Christian School. Presently, it could no longer contain the 
 number of scholars who came to listen and to learn. They became a 
 multitude covering field and hillside : the master had to instruct 
 them, as Christ was wont, from some gentle elevation from Avhich he 
 could be seen and heard. One day's teaching did not satisfy this mul- 
 titude, who hungered for the bread of life eternal, and in whom the 
 first draughts of divine knowledge only kindled a thirst they were 
 fain to satisfy. Kude temporary abodes, after the model of the 
 primitive Irish church and pastoral residence, sprung up all around. 
 Men who had come to learn and had found out the better way, would 
 not depart from those who had been for them the guides to Salvation: 
 they had come to learn, and they now remained to pray, to live, to 
 labor with their masters. 
 
Well-Springs in Ireland of Learning and Sanctity. 57 
 
 So grew these early Irish schools, these lowly but fervent monas- 
 teries of both sexes. For the women would not be outrun in the race 
 of learning, holiness, and apostolic zeal. I am writing this almost 
 within sight of the Round Tower of Kildare — of the spot where 
 Bridget built herself the oaken church and cells, and lighted the fire 
 of Christian sanctity, learning, and hospitality which burned so 
 brightly for more than a thousand years. 
 
 Ireland had become one vast seminary in which all claisses and 
 sexes vied with each other in cultivating both sacred and profane 
 science. For, — and the civilized woi'ld must not be allowed to forget 
 it, — these priests and monks of the early ages kindled the torch of 
 secular knowledge and set it on high near the sanctuary where flamed 
 night and day the lamp which burned before the Holy of Holies. 
 The happiness begotten of the possession of this twofold treasure was 
 too great to be shut up within the home or the heart of the unselfish 
 Irishman. He must go abroad to carry the light to other lands, and 
 to enkindle there in men's souls the sacred thirst which still con- 
 sumed his own. And the men of the neighboring Britain, of 
 Gaul and Germany and Northern Spain, are impelled by a divine 
 instinct to cross the seas and to seek in the land of Columkille, 
 Columbanus, and Fridian, the knowledge and sanctity which 
 had made of these apostolic men shining lights amid the universal 
 gloom. 
 
 It was inevitable, it was ]iatural, considering the character of the 
 Irish people in these remote times, and the existing laws and institu- 
 tions, that the scholars who flocked to the Universities of Ireland, 
 should be welcomed heartily and made sharers of the hospitality so 
 bountifully provided for the stranger, the wayfarer. There is no evi- 
 dence that the great Schools of Cork and Lismore and Armagh, could 
 boast of structures as substantial and splendid as medieval Oxford or 
 Cambridge. The stiaiiger-stu dents shared with their Irish school- 
 fellows lodging and fare. What the great Teachers and the people 
 of the neighborhood had to give, that they gave with a hearty good 
 will. It was the Water of Life, the sublime doctrines of Eevelation 
 
58 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 together with what then constituted human science, — that the eager 
 multitudes had come to seek: and as they stooped to drink of the 
 gushing spring, what cared they if the cup they put to their lips was 
 of gold or of wood ? They drank and drank only to find their thirst 
 increasing ever^ and the blessed waters even more deliglitful to the 
 taste. 
 
 To this golden age of intellectual progress in Ireland succeeded 
 ages of Barbarian invasion and misrule, when churches and schools, 
 monasteries and monks, the devoted Masters and their grateful 
 pupils were involved in one fearful tornado of fire and blood. All 
 through the domination of Dane and Norseman, of Norman and 
 Anglo-Saxon; when Elizabeth's hordes swept over the land like flame 
 through a forest, and the devastation was perfected by Cromwell and 
 the soldiers of Third William, — the Irish mind was not turned away 
 from the pursuit of knowledge, or the hospitality of Irish homes 
 denied to the wandering "Poor Scholar," who traversed the land in 
 search of teachers. It is only one feature of that long Period of 
 Terror, that the mass of tlie Irish people could not be taught by men 
 of their own faith either the doctrines of their baptismal creed or the 
 elements of secular knoAvledge. Catholic education was a treasure 
 for the giving and getting of which men imperilled their fortunes, 
 their liberty, and their lives. 
 
 There are few men in Ireland of between sixty and seventy years of 
 age, who may not recall the Poor Scholars so kindly received, before 
 the rise of the National Schools, into every house where the poor 
 Catholics could pay for a master to teach the children of the neigh- 
 borhood. "In Ireland it is a custom immemorially established for 
 those petty schoolmasters who teach in chapels, or temporary huts, 
 freely to instruct such poor boys as come from remote places, and are 
 unable to pa}^ The poor scholar, while he remains at the school, 
 goes home, night and night about, with his schoolfellows, Avhose 
 parents that can afford it occasionally supply him with a few old 
 clothes, as well as food and lodging. This appears to be a faint 
 emanation of the ancient custom in Ireland, so celebrated by his- 
 
The Vicissitudes of Kildare. 59 
 
 torians^ of supplying, at tlie national expense, all foreign students 
 with meat, drink, clothes, lodging, hooks, &c." * 
 
 Hospitality so exercised by a whole people and toward all 
 strangers and wayfarers, bespeaks the existence of a high degree of 
 civilization, — of such, at least, as supposes great moral culture and 
 refinement, whatever may be the state of the mechanical and 
 industrial arts. This refinement, based, as it is in the Brehon Laws, 
 upon the supernatural motives furnished by Sacred History in the 
 Old and New Testaments, is further displayed in the extraordinary 
 and unique spectacle afforded by these early Irish Universities, where 
 the multitudes of scholars are supported at the public expense. 
 
 On this peaceful home of Christian Civilization fell the scourge 
 of a Norse invasion. The forests that covered the Island, while 
 making it difficult for the natives to unite for defensive operations, 
 allowed them a safe retreat from the sword of the invaders. But the 
 deep estuaries along the coast, and the rivers navigable to the light 
 craft of the sea-rovers, opened up access to the interior. It was near 
 those estuaries and along those watercourses that Christianity had 
 planted her monasteries. They were utterly destroyed. 
 
 The Anglo-lSrormans who came with Strongbow to Ireland, found 
 churches, monasteries, and schools, rising and re-flourishing slowly 
 from the ruin and chaos wrought by the Danes and Norsemen. But 
 the religious establishments then struggHng into existence, were only 
 like fair shoots timidly rising above the blackened earth, where once 
 the lordly forest-trees had stood in close array like an army, ere the 
 hand of the destroyer had unchained against them the devouring 
 flames. 
 
 I have spoken of Kildare. Let me glance at its history as illus- 
 trating the fate which befell one of the most glorious creations of 
 Christian piety in Ireland. Its vicissitudes are those of every other 
 great centre of spiritual life and learning in Ireland, resuming in 
 itself the story of Christian civilization therein. 
 
 * Dr. R. R. Madden, " Hist, of Irish Periodical Literature," vol. ii., p. 153, note. 
 
60 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 While the Holy Abbess busied herself chiefly in promoting and 
 spreading among her own sex throughout Ireland the practice of 
 spiritual perfection, of Christian hospitality, and care of the poor, she 
 was assisted and directed in all her labors by St. Conlaeth, the first 
 Bishop of Kildare, Their lives and names are inseparably connected 
 in church history, as well as i]i the veneration of Catholic Ireland; 
 for theirs was one common life-work, to make of their people true 
 children of God. 
 
 That the collection of cells in which Bridget and her nuns lived, 
 was of the simplest construction, is a thing well known; and of the 
 same simple if not rude material and form was the church in Avhich 
 not only the lieligious but the surrounding lay community worshiped. 
 As it always happens in the early missionary stage in all countries, — 
 the first care was to provide sufficient accommodation for the faith- 
 ful: architectural beauty was of very secondary consideration. Still 
 there soon took place a great change in the outward appearance of 
 things. 
 
 St. Conlaeth went to Eome ere his tragic death in 519, bringing 
 back with him, among other things, precious vestments for the 
 celebration of the divine liturgy. These were given over to Bridget; 
 who, probably in a season of great distress, "gave to the poor the 
 beautiful vestments brought from over the sea by Bishop Conlaeth, 
 which he was wont to use at the oblation of the Sacred Mysteries 
 of the Altar, in the festivals of our Lord and the Vigils of the 
 Apostles." * 
 
 We must not forget, that one of St. Patrick's contemporaries in 
 Italy, St. Paulinus of Xola, gave the sacred vessels off the Altar to 
 redeem from captivity some members of his flock. The Holy Abbess 
 thought, in like manner, that nothing was too precious or too holy to 
 be employed in relieving the pressing needs of God's people. 
 
 Doubtless Conlaeth and such of his fellow-laborers as went to 
 Rome, brought back with them not only artistic treasures which 
 
 * Colgan, Trias Thaum., p, 622. 
 
Christian Art comes from Rome to Ireland. 61 
 
 served as models for the quick imitative genius of the Irish, but the 
 forms of Eoman Architecture, painting, sculpture, &c. Some of the 
 earliest specimens of the Christian Jeweler and Silversmith's art were 
 ' the shrine of gold and silver ' in which were placed the relics of the 
 holy bishop himself, in 799. Moreover, he is designated by the early 
 chroniclers as the "Brazier," or worker in brass of St. Bridget. One 
 of his cares, therefore, was to prepare for the House of God vessels 
 and ornaments befitting the Sacred Liturgy. And so ecclesiastical 
 art flourished from the beginning. 
 
 Early in the 9tli century, — soon after this translation of the relics 
 of St. Conlaeth, — a contemporary Irish writer composed a Life of 
 St. Bridget, which is still extant. In it he describes the interior of 
 the cathedral church of Kildare, which was still not only the monas- 
 tery-church of the place, but the only church devoted to public wor- 
 ship there. The biographer describes a miracle which took place 
 while they were ' repairing ' or restoring the sacred edifice. Thus 
 before the 9th century a first transformation had taken place in the 
 structure. The high altar was richly decorated; on the right were 
 deposited the remains of St. Conlaoth, on the left those of St. Bridget, 
 both "in monuments adorned Avith various ornaments in gold and sil- 
 ver, in which were set gems and precious stones; while above the 
 shrines hung crowns of gold and silver." It is evident from the con- 
 text that the ground plan of the church was cruciform, as it is at the 
 present day, the Nuns having a separate portion, the clergy another 
 for vesting and reciting the divine office, the laymen and women oc- 
 cupying distinct places in the main aisle, and all having a view of the 
 Altar during the celebration of the Holy Sacrifice. The walls were 
 of a ' threatening ' height, embellished with mural paintings; "the 
 greater house," corresponding probably with the existing central 
 dome, "having within three places of prayer, spacious and separated 
 by wooden partitions." One of these, "covered with paintings over 
 which were linen hangings, shut off the eastern wing of the church, 
 extending from wall to wall." 
 
 In this eastern portion were celebrated the Divine Mysteries. A 
 
62 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 door on the riglit side admitted to the sanctuary the Bishop and his 
 regular attendants, together with all who are qualified to take part in 
 the sacred functions. Through a door on the opposite side the Ab- 
 bess and her IsTuns, with the * widows among the faithful/ ap- 
 proached the communion-table. The western wing was partitioned off 
 in the same way. Two doors corresponding to those in the eastern 
 division, admitted the priests and the men of the congregation, and 
 the Nuns and women, respectively. The door-way which gave ad- 
 mittance to the priests and persons of the male sex, was the principal 
 door: it was distinguished by a higher degree of ornament. Several 
 lofty windows lighted the entire edifice. "And thus," — concludes the 
 description, — "in one very great temple, a multitude of the faithful, 
 in different order, rank, sex, and situation, worship with one mind 
 the Almighty Lord." * 
 
 Before the restoration mentioned in this Life by Cogitosus, the 
 church (and, in all likelihood, the monastery) had bjsen twice de- 
 stroyed by the flames (in 770 and in 774). A community of monks 
 had, during this early period, been established among the oak -groves 
 of Kildare; their services, both in the work of education, and in 
 keeping up the beautiful custom of perpetual prayer and praise, not 
 being subject to the distractions and interruiDtions to which the secu- 
 lar clergy in their ministrations are constantly liable. In 694 died, 
 murdered by some person not mentioned in existing records, Lio- 
 chene the Wise, Abbot of Kildare. Keating relates, in speaking of 
 one of Liochene's successors in 707, that King Congal Kennmagar 
 persecuted the church in those days, and condemned to the flames 
 both the regular and secular clergy of Kildare. Were the conflagra- 
 tions of 770 and 774 due to some such violent act of persecution ? 
 Certain it is that a great fire ravaged Kildare in 709. 
 
 In 830 came Ceallach Mac Brann, ' who slew many of the clerg}' 
 in their own house.' In 835, while the Abbot of Armagh and 
 his retinue were on a visit to Kildare, Fethlemid, at tbe head 
 
 *See Petrie's " Round Towers," p. 198. 
 
A Parallel 63 
 
 of an armed force, seized churcli and abbey and carried off the 
 clergy. 
 
 These facts prove that some, at least, of the more powerful chief- 
 tains were but little influenced by respect for religion and its minis- 
 ters. And thus we are prepared for the coming, in 83G, of a Danish 
 fleet of thirty ships, which ascended the Liffey, while another landed on 
 the banks of the Boyne. The savage warriors they bore spread death 
 and devastation on every side, plundering every church and abbey 
 they happened upon, destroying Kildare with fire and sword, and 
 carrying away the shrines of St. Bridget and St. Conlaeth. "From 
 this period till the commencement of the lltli century, the annals of 
 Kildare present only a continued series of Danish rapine and massa- 
 cre; and scarcely had the ravages of these invaders ceased, when the 
 town was plundered by the people of H3'faslan. It was either wholly 
 or in part destroyed by fire in 1038, 1040, 1071, 1088, and 1089; 
 and, in 1135, the abbess of the m-onastery was forcibly taken from 
 her cloister by Dermod Mac Murrough, King of Leinster, who com- 
 pelled her to marry one of his followers, — on which occasion not less 
 than 170 inhabitants of the town and inmates of the abbey were 
 slaughtered."* 
 
 From the year 519, when the holy bishop of Kildare ended his 
 labors with his life, till 1135, when the fatal name of Mac Murrough 
 stands forth, like that of the Destroyer, amid the flames of Kildare, 
 — we see through what chequered vicissitudes the great monastic cen- 
 tre founded by St. Bridget, pursued its career of blessed usefulness. 
 We are not so much surprised at the fearful deeds of sacrilege and 
 massacre, before which a Christian King of Leinster did not draw 
 back, conscience-stricken, in the 12th century, as at kindred^acts of 
 murder, rapine, and sacrilege committed in the 8th and the 9th. 
 
 We ask ourselves, therefore. What then were the lasting fruits of 
 civilization, gentleness of manners, respect for human life and prop- 
 erty, security of law and order, and that peace and prosperity ever 
 
 * Samuel Lewis, " Topographical Diet, of Ireland," v. li., p, 84. 
 
64 Tlie Cause of Ireland. 
 
 flowing from order and reverence for law, — which were gathered in 
 Ireland from that glorious era of literary and moral culture, so 
 praised by foreign historians and philosophers ? 
 
 Let us, in order to give a satisfactory answer to this question, go 
 back and find, in the pages of inspired history, a period among God's 
 people offering a similar contrast of extraordinary progress in mate- 
 rial civilization and religious fidelity, all through which are found 
 red-handed deeds of sacrilege and lawlessness committed by Princes 
 directly chosen of God Himself, and favored witli the most extraordi- 
 nary graces ever bestowed on temporal rulers. 
 
 Kemember the reigns of Saul and Solomon. The former suc- 
 ceeded to Samuel, whose glorious administration of the Confederated 
 Eepublics of Israel had not only freed the land from foreign domina- 
 tion, confirmed the faith, and encouraged the piety of his country- 
 men, but, by giving them peace, promoted the growth of every 
 industry. Samuel's sanctity, wisdom, and experience, together with 
 the assurance of Jehovah's special and ever-present assistance, were 
 given to Saul, who was at one and the same time designated by the 
 Divine Will, and chosen by popular election. These aids were to 
 enable the new King to perfect the conquest of the national territory, 
 to crush effectually and for ever the idolatrous enemies round about, 
 and to give to the material and moral development of the Twelve 
 Tribes an impulse onward and upward such as they had never received. 
 
 Who, that believes in the divinity of the Bible, but knows that 
 such a people with such a Prophet, and such a Prince, should have 
 been invincible in war, most blessed in peace, and irreproachable in 
 morals? And yet, we read in the sacred narrative of that King's 
 continued acts of public disobedience to the divine commands, of his 
 ferocious persecution of his own son-in-law, the Saviour of the King- 
 dom, of four score and five priests massacred by the King's order, of 
 an entire city — one of the Levitical Cities of Israel, — enveloped in 
 that same sanguinary decree, "both men and women, children and 
 nurslings, oxen, asses, and sheep" being mingled in one indiscrimi- 
 nate massacre! 
 
Conclusion Reganling Ireland. 65 
 
 "Was there, then, no true religion, no substantial civilization, no 
 respect for humanity, to be found in Israel in the days of Saul ? 
 
 Who does not know of the wisdom bestowed upon the King-boy 
 Solomon on his accession to the throne? Who does not know, as 
 well, of the high degree of intellectual and moral culture to which 
 David, his father, the "Sweet Singer of Israel," had brought his 
 people ? The Psalms sung in every household throughout the land, 
 the splendid public worship instituted and ordered by this pious 
 prince, are eloquent of a mighty progress made since the days of 
 Samuel. All this culture, all this prosperity, all this political pre- 
 dominance Solomon carried to such a point, that his name remains 
 to this day among the populations of the East, as that of a man 
 endowed with wisdom and powers far above the reach of ordinary 
 humanity. 
 
 And 3'et how low did Solomon not fall ? With what crimes and 
 immorality did he not darken the meridian of his glory, and disgrace 
 in the eyes of the world the religion, the people, the Kame of the 
 True God ? 
 
 We are not to judge hastily, that, because almost in the life-time 
 of Columbanus, deeds of savage and sacrilegious violence were com- 
 mitted by some of the great ones of the land, therefore the work of 
 St. Patrick and St. Bridget had come to naught. Unfortunately, 
 the calamities of the Danish and Norman invasions have destroyed 
 the records of that early period of our church history. But had not 
 a single fragment of our annals survived, or a single monument 
 remained to attest the Christian virtues of the people or their una- 
 bated ardor in the pursuit both of sanctity and of learning, the con- 
 stancy shown by them as a nation, while under the Dane and the 
 Norseman's savage rule, and while mider Anglo-Norman domination, 
 is more than sufficient to prove to the world that Irish practical faith 
 and Irish culture were not the swift growth of the seed cast in shallow 
 soil, which gave forth a fair promise, but never reached harvest-tide. 
 
 They were no such deceptive prospects of solid and lasting fruit 
 which Columkille left behind when he sailed for lona, or which 
 5 
 
66 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 Columbanus beheld, as he turned him away from his native shores 
 forever, or that Venerable Bede bears witness to, when he extols the 
 schools which flourish all over Ireland, as the nurseries of the apostolic 
 spirit and the learning of Western Europe, and lauds the boundless 
 hospitality to strangers of a pastoral people without a single one of 
 the great commercial or industrial resources even then abounding in 
 Gaul and Italy and Spain. 
 
 From the year 493, till the year 836, when the Dane and his fleets 
 appeared simultaneously in the Liffey and the Boyne, we can rest 
 assured that Irishmen labored nobly and with no obscure success, to 
 make of Ireland a nation worthy of taking a foremost seat in the 
 great family of Christian nations.* 
 
 * See Appendix A 
 
III. 
 
 Progress Arrested. 
 
 1. The Danes. 
 ^I^HE Danes and Norwegians, after having repeateuiy ravaged the 
 fairest and most populous districts of Ireland, resolved to make 
 their conquest permanent. They seized, therefore, the most favor- 
 able position on the principal estuaries, erected fortresses there, 
 invited their countrymen to join them, and formed prosperous 
 settlements. Thus arose the cities of Dublin, Waterford, Wicklow, 
 Cork, Limerick, and others. After a century and a half of conflict 
 vs^ith the native Irish, the Danes embraced the Christian faith, and 
 endeavored to form treaties of peace and amity with the Princes 
 between wliom the government of the Island was divided. But as 
 the Danish cliiefs, from first to last, — those of Dublin particularly, — 
 assumed the title of King, this assumption, apart from their fanatical 
 paganism, made conciliation impossible. 
 
 It is a melancholy reflection to any Irish student of the history of 
 these times, that the political division of the country, and the lack of 
 cohesion among the people and their leaders, should have made the 
 invasion of Ireland so easy to any warlike adventurer, and enabled 
 him to form settlements all along her seaboard, while at the same 
 time preventing the settlers from enjoying lasting peace or security. 
 
 Even when, in 980, Malaghlin, King of Ireland, defeated the 
 Danes with great slaughter at Taragh, and carried fire and sword to the 
 very walls of Dublin, he stopped short in his victory, accepted a tribute 
 from the Danish King, Keginald, and withdrew his forces, — while 
 the defeated and despairing Dane went on a pilgrimage to lona, to 
 
 (67) 
 
68 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 implore St. Columkille to secure himself and his followers in their 
 possessions ! Eeginald died at lona. It was the hour to strike for 
 the national liberation. But no heroic voice aroused the people; no 
 heroic hand was raised to smite the invaders. 
 
 Again, in the year 1000, a still more favorable opportunity 
 offered. Brian Boroimhe captured Dublin itself. Patriotism and 
 policy counseled the prompt expulsion of the Vikings from every 
 inch of Irish soil, — from Dublin, their chief stronghold first, and 
 then in succession from all their other settlements. It was the 
 golden opportunity sent by Providence. The victorious Irish only 
 made "concessions" and then disappeared, leaving the Danes free to 
 fortify their positions everywhere. Then came the war of 1014, and 
 the battle of Clontarf. The Danes were defeated; the Irish army 
 won a dear and an incomplete victory. Dublin remained in the 
 hands of the strangers; so did every one of their maritime settle- 
 ments. ISTo statesman, no soldier was found among the Irish allied 
 hosts to avenge the death of the magnanimous old King, by uniting 
 their forces and driving the panic-stricken Norsemen from the land 
 once and for ever. 
 
 On the contrary, in 1038 we find the now converted Danes giving 
 Dublin a Danish bishop, and building him the Cathedral of Christ 
 Church. Their power waxes so strong that they send a large fleet to 
 Wales, two years in succession, to aid one of their Welsh allies. 
 Both expeditions proved disastrous, the Danes being driven back to 
 Dublin by their enemies. And no Irish King either -watched these 
 events, or cared to profit by them to vindicate the independence of 
 his native land, or to recover the integrity of the national territory ! 
 
 In 10G6 a still more favorable opportunity presented itself to 
 achieve a result, Avhich it is impossible to believe was not a cherished 
 dream of the Irish heart. The Danes of Dublin were attacked by 
 Godred Crovan, King of Man; the city was taken, Leinster was over- 
 run by the conqueror, who, in his turn, assumed the title of King of 
 Ireland, and bore it till his death. 
 
 Were there no patriot Bishops or Princes left in the land to call 
 

 
The Danes. 69 
 
 upon the Irish to form au alliance with Dane against Manx or Manx 
 against Dane, and thus crush one with the other? During the re- 
 mainder of the century, Danish Dublin is permitted to make war on 
 Danish Waterford and to ruin it utterly; then all the Danish colonies 
 unite against Cork, and are defeated by the latter. But the Irish 
 Kings do not appear on the scene to take advantage of these dissen- 
 sions. And so ends the 11th century, a century illuminated, in the 
 eyes of the Irish patriot, by the solitary splendors of the victory at 
 Clontarf. And then dawned for us the dark and fateful Twelfth. 
 How came it about that, in 1131, Turlogh O'Brien, King of Ireland, 
 accepts from the hand of King Henry I. of England an archbishop 
 of Dublin (Gregory) consecrated by the Archbishop of Canterbury? 
 Had our Hierarchy so degenerated that they were utterly forgetful of 
 the privileges and dignity of their national Church, allowing a for- 
 eign King to nominate and a foreign prelate to consecrate an arch- 
 bishop for an Irish see, without resistance or remonstrance ? 
 
 And then we find Dermod Mac Murrough, King of Leinster, 
 ravaging the country around Dublin as he had ravaged and ruined 
 Kildare, and blotting out from the city and its territory the last 
 vestige of Danish power. We could have forgiven him all his deeds 
 of blood and rapine, had he only appealed to Irish Princes, Prelates, 
 Priests, and People, to unite in one mighty bond all the nation's vital 
 forces, and make Ireland mistress of her own destinies. The civili- 
 zation which had, since the days of Charlemagne, been struggling, 
 all over Continental Europe, to a higher level, like grain sown in 
 autumn growing timidly through the frosts of a late spring, — would 
 have shed its blessings on Ireland. The Danish period in our Island 
 had more than one resemblance to the Feudalism which had 
 destroyed the first growth of Christian civilization on the Continent, 
 and so long delayed and neutralized the creative action of the Church. 
 The very evils of which St. Bernard complains in his Life of our 
 St. Malachy, had their parallel in France, Germany, Northern Spain, 
 and Italy. But these evils did not altogether stop the growth of the 
 glorious seeds of education and morality, which the Church of Christ 
 
70 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 had never ceased to sow and cultivate in the minds and hearts of 
 every nation. 
 
 If we take into consideration the disadvantages of Ireland's 
 insular position, there is no reason to suppose that she was not ready 
 to take her place, — a not obscure or inglorious one, — in the forward 
 movement inaugurated in Christendom by the Crusades. 
 
 It is not denied that, during the three centuries and more of the 
 partial occupation of the Island by the "Ostmen," their presence 
 caused serious disorders in the entire social structure, in ecclesiastical 
 discipline, intellectual and moral progress. "Wherever they came, 
 they desecrated churches, burned monasteries, destroyed books, 
 pictures, and sculptures; murdered priests, monks, and poets. To 
 the ferocity of the wild beast they joined the persevering energy of 
 the Teuton; their arms were better than those of the Irish, and per- 
 haps they had more skill in handling them. Confusion and lamen- 
 tation were soon in every part of the island. Men, after a while, 
 seeing the continued success of these odious pagans, began to doubt 
 of Providence and grow slack in faith. . . . The generosity toward 
 the church of the converts of St. Patrick underwent a selfish but not 
 unnatural reaction in their descendants." * Such is the judgment of 
 Mr. Thomas Arnold. To his testimony let us add that of the great 
 Irish scholar, Eugene O'Curry. "When foreign invasion aiid war 
 had cooled down the fervid devotion of the native chiefs, and had 
 distracted and broken up the long-established reciprocity of good 
 offices between the Church and the State, as well as the central 
 executive controlling power of the nation, the chief and the ]ioble 
 began to feel that the lands which they or their ancestors had offered 
 to the church, might now, with little impropriety, be taken back, to 
 be applied to their own purposes, quieting their conscience bj the 
 necessity of the case." f 
 
 There were other changes, however, of a far more scandalous 
 
 * " Catholic Dictionary," art. Irish Church. 
 
 t O'Curry, " Materials of Ancient Irish History," 343. 
 
The Danes. 71 
 
 nature, which arose out of the prolonged disturbance, the moral 
 chaos created by the successive bands of Ostmen, who ravaged and 
 held the entire Irish coasts, prevented all communication with Eome, 
 the great centre of authority and enforcer of discipline, while they 
 spread ruin and desolation throughout the interior of the island. 
 The interior, indeed, they never succeeded in maintaining possession 
 of; the wretched kinglings, who could not or would not combine to 
 resist or drive out the Pagans, managed so to harass their bands, 
 as to render impossible their retaining a foothold at any distance 
 beyond the seaboard. 
 
 But, although the Brehon law continued to govern the'nation, 
 some of the worst eifects of Continental Feudalism were not slow in 
 making their appearance. Not only, as we have seen, did the great 
 families make no scruple to take back the grants of land made to the 
 Church in the first age of fervor succeeding the introduction of 
 Christianity, but they endeavored, not without partial success at 
 least, in thrusting their sons into the episcopal office, and in making 
 this an heir-loom. We have in the archiepiscopal see of Armagh, at 
 the close of the 11th and during wellnigh the first half of the 12th 
 century, a scandal strikingly similar to that which had fallen on the 
 Koman Church and See during the preceding centuries: powerful 
 families making superhuman efforts to possess and transmit to their 
 sons the office and influence of great central sees. In Ireland the 
 Clan-law favored these usurpations. 
 
 St. Malachy, Archbishop of Armagh, who died in 1148, gave his 
 friend, St. Bernard of Clairvaux, an account which sheds a vivid 
 light on the condition of the Irish Church at that period. For two 
 hundred years one of the noble families in the north had claimed and 
 held the primatial chair as an heir-loom. During fifteen generations 
 the sacred office of St. Patrick was usurped successively by the mem- 
 bers of this family. Of these fifteen Archbishops only six were ever 
 in holy orders. They delegated their jurisdiction to others, Avhile 
 enjoying the temporalities of the see. They were married laymen. 
 St. Malachy, in 1135, was chosen by Celsus, the last of the fifteen, to 
 
73 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 be his successor. This was in derogation to the traditional claim of 
 the usurping family; and was resisted by them. Murchadh, who 
 was substituted perforce to Malachy, only died in 1133; and then 
 alone was Malachy allowed to take peaceful possession. 
 
 This is only an instance of the grave disorders ever sure to follow 
 on successive invasions and barbaric warfare and misrule. There 
 can be no discipline without recognized and ever-jn-esent authority; 
 but the insular position of the Irish Church, while the Northern 
 Barbarians held the sea-ports and swept the coasts with their fleets, 
 rendered all communication with the great central authority of Rome 
 either impossible or exceedingly precarious. And so, there being no 
 one to curb the ambition, pretensions, and covetousness of the great 
 nobles, or to regulate the nomination to church dignities and bene- 
 fices, — the world had its own way. Irish human nature, like human 
 nature everywhere, needs the grace of God and the action of God's 
 lawful representatives to keep it steadfastly on the high level of 
 supernatural goodness and progress. Where these necessary aids and 
 restraints are lacking, the most privileged nature, like the richest 
 soil, deprived of the husbandman's watchful care, is overgrown with 
 hurtful weeds. 
 
 That, in spite of these acknowledged disorders, both the ancient 
 culture of the Irish race and the supernatural virtues Christianity 
 had grafted on such goodly tree, had only degenerated somewhat 
 from their former excellence, and not perished amid the inroads of a 
 ferocious Paganism, — is a fact demonstrated not only by the facts re- 
 corded in the preceding Chapter, but by the era of trial which fol- 
 lowed, beginning with the )'ear 1169. 
 
 Before that fatal year, however, St. Malachy succeeded in reor- 
 ganizing the Irish Hierarchy, and in effecting reforms which prom- 
 ised a new era of progress to the Church and the Xation. In 1152 
 was held the National Synod of Kells, Cardinal Paparo, the Pope's 
 legate, presiding. The pallium was bestowed on the Archbishops of 
 Armagh, Dublin, Tuam, and Cashel, distributing between them the 
 thirty-four suffragan sees on the Island. The episcopal dignity was 
 
Cause of National WeaTcness. 73 
 
 thus rescued from all subjection to any lay power; and from the 
 tribal lands assigned to the parochial clergy it was ordained that, 
 tithes should be paid annually. 
 
 Peogress Further Arrested. 
 
 3. The Anglo-Normans. 
 
 In 1152, while the Holy See through its legate and the powerful 
 influence of Archbishop St. Malachy, was restoring discipline and 
 order in the Irish Church, Turlough O'Connor, King of Connaught, 
 was titular Monarch of Ireland. He died in 115G, and one of the 
 Ulster family of O'Keill, Murtagh O'Loughlin O'Keill, succeeded 
 him. 
 
 It will help the general reader to understand the causes of the 
 national weakness in Ireland, to know that there had then sprung up 
 four confederacies, or groups of allied Septs, nearly corresponding to 
 the modern division into provinces. Each of these groups had an 
 acknowledged overlord or King of their own: the O'Neills claiming 
 the allegiance of the Septs of Ulster and Meath, the O'Connors that 
 of Connaught, the O'Briens that of Munster, and the Mac Mur- 
 roughs that of Leinster. The O'Neill's, again, claimed, as an hered- 
 itary right, the rank of Monarch of all Ireland, But this was dis- 
 puted by the other overlords, ambition and might deciding in favor 
 of the boldest. The Irish chieftains, during the last three or four 
 centuries, had seen enough, or heard enough of the doings of Feudal- 
 ism on the European Continent, to conceive the desire of perpetu- 
 ating, each in his own family, both the absolute title to the rank he 
 held, and to the land, on which all social greatness and stability re- 
 posed. These men began to consider both the country and the peo- 
 ple as things belonging to themselves. 
 
 Just then, as if to awaken the Irish people from their lethargic 
 acquiescence in these usurpations and encroachments, happened the 
 invasion of the first Normans under Strongbow, Earl of Pem- 
 broke. 
 
74 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 The first question which presents itself to the mind to ask is, 
 " What brought to Ireland Pembroke and his Adventurers ? " The 
 answer to that must be, that just as the Northmen were brought in 
 former times to France by Land-Hui^gee, and as the Danes, their 
 cousins, were brought to Ireland by the same, so, in succession, the 
 Normans, finding in their portion of France no more unappropriated 
 lands to satisfy that hunger, crossed over and took England; and 
 now here they are in Ireland. 
 
 There is no use in turning to the right or to the left to find a mo- 
 tive for their invasion of a Christian country, a peaceable and un- 
 offending people. The true impelling force which drove Strongbow 
 to the Irish shores, was the land-hunger. This was also the motive 
 which impelled Henry II. to follow with a powerful armament after 
 Strongbow. 
 
 They tell us, to be sure, that after the return of Cardinal Paparo 
 from Ireland, the Holy See, anxious to urge forward in Ireland the 
 religious reforms planned in the Synod of Kells, gave the Island over 
 to the King of England. It would be, in the circumstances, which 
 prompted misinformed Eome to adopt such a course, a grave w^arning 
 against yielding in the present to similar influences. 
 
 But we do not believe in the fact of Pope Adrian's gift. Land- 
 HunCtEE was at the bottom of it all. 
 
 We must, liowever, examine here tlie pretence of bringing back 
 the Irish to a purer Christianity. 
 
 The Anglo-Normans came with Strongbow, and Miles de Cogan, 
 and Henry II. It were foreign to our purpose to discuss here the in- 
 ternal dissensions which afforded a motive to this new invasion, or 
 the very doubtful claims, even when founded on Pontifical Authority, 
 which were alleged by Henry himself. They came; they possessed 
 themselves of most of the Danish colonies, with strips of territory 
 round about the towns and fortified positions they held. They came 
 to conquer and to rule by the sword. No pretence was ever so hol- 
 low, or maintained by such unhallowed means, as that put forward 
 by the invaders, — that they had come to reform a degenerate Chris- 
 
Hypocritical Motives Assigned for it. 75 
 
 tian people, to reclaim Ireland from the semi-paganism and barbarism 
 into which it had lapsed. 
 
 The two races struggling thenceforward for mastery on Irish soil 
 were Catholic, both of them, and both civilized; for the pretended 
 superiority of the invaders consisted, like the superiority of the Danes, 
 in being better equipped for war on sea and land, in being more ad- 
 vanced in the mechanical and industrial arts, and in being nearer, 
 geographically, to Italy, whence all social, intellectual, and moral 
 progress spread over the European continent, like life-giving light 
 from the sun. 
 
 Unfortunately for the false plea set up by England, and the falla- 
 cies of which still maintain their hold on the greater portion of the 
 English-speaking world, — impartial and incorruptible History is there 
 to prove, that the English, in planting themselves in Ireland, made 
 little or no effoi't to impart to the Irish the boon of that pretended 
 higher civilization, and that their attempts to reform ecclesiastical 
 abuses, indiscipline, or immorality, were just about as serious and as 
 successful as the labors by them undertaken to reform and convert 
 the Hindoos, the Burmese, or the Chinese in modern times. 
 
 England was a Christian Catholic nation the day on which her 
 first king set his foot on the shores of Ireland. If she came, in the 
 persons of her sovereign, her warriors, her priests, and her magis- 
 trates to labor seriously for the elevation of a neighboring, kindred, 
 and Catholic people to a higher degree of civilization, to a purer doc- 
 trine, a more enlightened faith, a severer morality; if she wislied to 
 establish wiser laws, a better regulated government; to bestow on the 
 land educational establishments, Avhich should perfect and complete 
 those already in existence, once so flourishing, and fallen into decay; 
 to reconstruct the holy places ruined by the heathen Ostmen, to 
 restore monasteries and churches, — and extend to their brother- 
 Christians of Irish origin the right hand of Christian fellowship and 
 fraternity while working together for a common and most holy pur- 
 pose; — where is the historical evidence of the fact that, from the days 
 of the Second to those of the Eighth Henry, any such noble attempt. 
 
76 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 or any concerted action towards carrying it out, had been thought of 
 by English Kings, Nobles, Prelates, or Priests ? 
 
 What, on the contrary, has been the invariable line of policy pur- 
 sued toward the native Irish race, all through these long centuries, 
 when Catholic England had not the pretext of difference of creed ou 
 which to found her invariable hostility, her incredibly unwise policy, 
 and her savage cruelty towards the people, who in past ages had so 
 hospitably received, entertained, and educated her own Thanes, 
 Bishops, and Priests? 
 
 Let us here, as a preliminary to a full and satisfactory answer, 
 place side by side, for the calm consideration of the reader, the con- 
 tradictory testimonies of two Englishmen, one the Historian Froude 
 still livhig, the other. Sir John Da vies, the illustrious Attorney Gen- 
 eral of James I. in Ireland. 
 
 Mr. Froude says of the policy pursued by England in the sister- 
 isle: 
 
 "Everything which she most valued for herself — her laws and lib- 
 erties, her orderly and settled government, the most ample security 
 for person and property, — England's first desire was to give to Ireland 
 in fullest measure." * 
 
 Sir John Davies, who while fulfilling in Ireland his high judicial 
 functions, was at the very source of authentic information on the sub- 
 ject, and made of the study of the archives a special occupation, 
 writes as follows: 
 
 "This then I note as a great defect in the civil policy of this 
 Kingdom, — i]i that for the space of 350 years at least after the con- 
 quest first attempted, the English laws were not communicated to the 
 Irish, nor the benefit and protection thereof allowed unto them; 
 though they earnestly desired and sought the same. For as long as 
 they were out of the protection of the laws, so as every Englishman 
 might oppress, kill, and spoil them without controuhnent, how was it 
 possible they could be other than outlawes and enemies to the crown 
 
 * " The English in Ireland," vol. i., p. 13. 
 
Contradictory Testimonies of Froude and Davies. 77 
 
 of England ? If the King would not admit them to tlie condition of 
 subjects, how could they learn to acknowledge and obey him as their 
 sovereign ? "When they might not converse or commerce with civil- 
 ized men, nor enter into any town or city without peril of their lives, 
 whither should they fly but into the woods and mountains, and there 
 live in a wild and barbarous manner." * 
 
 In another work this illustrious jurist and statesman, commenting 
 on the "Statutes of Kilkenny," of which we shall presently speak, 
 says: 
 
 " It is manifest that such as had the government of Ireland, under 
 the crown of England, did intend to make a perpetual separation and 
 enmity between the English and the Irish, pretending that the English 
 should i?i the end root oiit the Irish: which the English not being able 
 to do caused a perpetual war between the nations, which continued 
 four hundred and odd years, and would have lasted to the world's 
 end, if, in the end of Queen Elizabeth's reign, the Irish had not been 
 broken and conquered by the sword, and since the beginning of his 
 Majesty's (James I.) reign had not been protected and governed by 
 the laws."f 
 
 These tAvo unimpeachable witnesses are more than sufficient to 
 upset the gratuitous affirmation of one so reckless and untrustworthy 
 as Froude. Other witnesses, however, will appear in the course of 
 the argument to take away the last shadow of authority of one whose 
 very name is identified with historical fraud. 
 
 Let us note the words italicized in the quotation, "pretending, no 
 doubt, that the English should root out the Irish." That this, and 
 not the specious purpose of civilizing a savage race, or reforming a 
 corrupt Christian peo})le, — was the aim of the English conquest and 
 the constant purpose of the English governors in Ireland, is shown by 
 English writers. AVhen we come to describe the means resorted to in 
 order to carry out such purpose, Ave shall see hew perfectly these 
 
 * Davies' " Discovery of the True Caiises why Ireland was never Subdued," 
 &c., p. 90. 
 
 t Davies' " Tracts," p. 85. 
 
78 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 squared with the inhuman and unchristian motives of English 
 rule. 
 
 From the very first stage of the Anglo-Norman invasion, we find 
 the native inhabitants contemptuously mentioned as "the Irishry," 
 "the Wilde Irish"; and later they are invariably designated in official 
 documents as "the Irish Enemy," for whom there should be neither 
 pity, nor clemency. 
 
 We are unwilling to believe for a moment, in the absence of the 
 most peremptory proof, that the Holy See ever authorized the claims 
 or reforming projects of Henry II., or that he and the adventurers 
 who preceded him, had at heart any other object than that of con- 
 quest. 
 
 There had been between the peoples of Great Britain and Ireland, 
 ever since St. Patrick had put an end to the slave-trading expedi- 
 tions, too continuous and brotherly an intercourse, too generous an 
 interchange of hospitality and spiritual benefit lovingly bestowed, on 
 the one hand,, and of heartfelt gratitude and friendship, on the other, 
 to predispose the Anglo-Saxon people of England, either to regard 
 the Irish as savages or degraded Christians, or to willing assail them 
 as barbarous foes with whom there could be no peace. 
 
 The same lust of conquest which had induced the Northmen to 
 invade France and their descendants to possess themselves of Sicily, 
 Naples, and England, the same unchristian and tyrannical spirit 
 which placed so heavy a yoke on the conquered Anglo-Saxons, were 
 manifest in the invasion of Ireland, and in the treatment of its inhab- 
 itants for centuries. 
 
 With Henry II. came over to Ireland one of those official clerical 
 libellers, whose works, apart from any other evidence, go to prove the 
 passionate antipathy of race against race, instead of that priestly 
 charity which should ever distinguish the words and writings of a 
 minister of the Gospel. This man (Gerald Barry) is known hi 
 history as Giraldus Cambrensis, a Norman born in Wales, and 
 unacquainted with or forgetful of the priceless services which Irish 
 Saints and Scholars had rendered to the land of his birth. He be- 
 
Testimony of Hume. 79 
 
 came the hired apologist of Anglo-Normon ambition and misrule in 
 Ireland, and set about calumniating the Irish Church and people, in 
 order to justify in the ej^es of the Roman Court excesses and barbar- 
 ities that merited the reprobation of all Christendom. He succeeded 
 in imposing on so true and great a man as Pope Alexander III. We 
 need not wonder, however, that a Welsh Monk should be perverse 
 enough to imagine and to write in the 12th century, such atrocious 
 accusations against a whole people, when an English Historian in the 
 19th would dare to brave the censure and contempt of the world by 
 adding to his "History of England" such a master-piece of effrontery 
 as "The English in Ireland." 
 
 Another English Historian, Hume, differs widely from Mr. 
 Froude, although he is scarcely less bitter in his hostility to Ireland 
 and the Irish. Speaking of the English invasion and the policy 
 pursued by the conquerors, he says : 
 
 "The English carried still further their ill-judged tyranny. 
 Instead of inviting the Irish to adopt the more civilized customs of 
 their conquerors, they even refused, though earnestly solicited, to 
 communicate to them the privilege of their laws, and everywhere 
 marked them out as aliens and enemies. Throwm out of the pro- 
 tection of justice, the natives could find no security but in force; and 
 flying the neighborhood of cities, which they could not approach with 
 safety, they sheltered themselves in their marshes and forests from 
 the insolence of their inhuman masters. Being treated like wild 
 beasts, they became such; and, joining the ardor of revenge to their 
 untamed barbarity, they grew every day more intractable and dan- 
 gerous." * 
 
 Hume adopts, without verifying the truth of it, the common 
 assertion of English writers, that the native Irish populations were 
 barbarians in 1169, and that the barbarities inflicted on them, only 
 made them still more barbarous. This assumption is contrary to the 
 known truth; and is in no way necessary either to excuse or to 
 explain the violence used toward them. 
 
 * " History of England," vol. v., p, 412. 
 
80 llie Cause of Ireland. 
 
 The fact is, tliat the Irish, riglitly or wrongh^, looked upon the 
 Normans as the unjust invaders of England, and as the kindred of 
 the Ostmen who had inflicted such misery on Ireland, and whom the 
 Irish had at length won over to the Christian religion, and made one 
 with themselves in faith, language, and nationality. The intolerable 
 oppression exercised toward the Anglo-Saxons by William the Con- 
 queror and his successors, had created in Ireland no little sympathy 
 for the former and no little hatred of the latter. All English 
 historians describe the long guerilla wai'fare carried on by the Saxons 
 against their oppressors. The ballad-poetry of the country has 
 immortalized this spirit of resistance in Eobin Hood and his 
 Foresters. 
 
 "Some bold men," says Macaulay, "the favorite heroes of our 
 oldest ballads, betook themselves to the woods, and there, in defiance 
 of curfew-laws and forest laws, waged a predatory war against their 
 oppressors. Assassination was an event of daily occurrence. ]\Iany 
 Normans suddenly disappeared, leaving no trace. The corpses of 
 many were found bearing the marks of violence. Death by torture 
 was denounced against the murderers, and strict search Avas made for 
 them, but generally in vain; foi' the wlwie nation was in conspiracy 
 to screen them.'''' 
 
 Again we beg the reader to bear in mind this passage, particu- 
 larly the concluding sentence. Those who invaded Ireland were not 
 the Anglo-Saxons, — the English proper; they were the Normans, 
 equally feared and detested by English and Irish alike. The latter, 
 as poorly equipped for resistance in the open field as their Saxon 
 brethren across the Channel, had recourse to the only legitimate 
 means of Avarfare in their power both against Henry II., and against 
 his successors. That warfare has been carried on ever since; for 
 Ireland never has been wholly conquered, nor has her people ever 
 bent the neck to the yoke. 
 
 But we are, just at present, examining the assertion of such men 
 as Fronde and Giraldus Cambrensis. 
 
 It is necessarv that we should demonstrate to evidence, that the 
 
The Anglo-Normans Civilized hij the Irish. 81 
 
 I 
 English did not act in Ireland as one Christian nation aiding another . 
 
 by gentle and Christian means to rise to a higher level of civilization. 
 
 It is a fact that ere a second generation of Anglo-lSTormans had 
 passed away on Irish soil, the gentle virtues of the people whom they 
 had at first been taught to hate or despise, had so gained upon their 
 esteem and affections, that they adopted their customs, their dress, 
 their very language. It was the fulfilment of the social law so often 
 manifested in History, — that where a rude and warlike race possesses 
 itself of a country inhabited by a people intellectually and morally 
 superior, the conqueror is soon subdued by the conquered, and lifted 
 up to the latter's level of civilization. The comj)laint of the Norman 
 rulers of Ireland soon was, that the great feudal nobles living outside 
 the Pale or on its borders were fast becoming iiJsis Hibernis Hiher- 
 niores, more Irish than the Irish themselves. 
 
 "The Normans who fixed their homes in Ireland," says a recent 
 and well known writer, "naturally modified their policy. They 
 desired to live in friendship with the natives, and even to protect 
 them from new aggressions. The succeeding generation came to 
 have some affection for the country and the people; they often took 
 Irish wives, and their children were fostered in Irish families. Their 
 heirs spoke the native tongue, wore the national mantle and barret, 
 called themselves by native names, cherished the legends and laws of 
 the Celts; and, when in turn they came to rule, entertained bards 
 and Brehons, and desired to be no more than Irish chiefs. The 
 great proprietors who lived in England, the new arrivals who in each 
 reign came in fresh swarms, as men visit a wreck on a neighboring 
 coast, in search of plunder, and the officials of the Pale, hated these 
 ' old English ' — so they came to be called — as bitterly as they hated 
 the natives. They could not invariably be relied on to promote the 
 Lord Deputy's designs; they began to have some pride of country, 
 and were not always ready to make war on their kith and kin in the 
 interests of the Pale. To check these offenses a law was passed in the 
 reign of Edward III., which peremptorily forbade these relations 
 with the natives under penalty of forfeiture or death. To speak the 
 6 
 
82 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 native tongue, to use an Irish name, to wear the Irish apparel, or to 
 adopt any of the customs of the country, — ' anie guise or fashion of 
 the Irish' — was punishable by loss of their entire lands; but to 
 marry an Irish-woman, to intrust their children to an Irish nurse, 
 or give them Irish sponsors at baptism, — these grave offenses were 
 declared high treason. All men of Irish blood were forbidden to 
 reside within a walled town, and, lest the Celts should obtain influ- 
 ence in a powerful spiritual confederacy, no native was to be received 
 as a postulant in any monastery within the Pale." * 
 
 Such legislation, such a policy pursued for centuries in dealing 
 with any nation, any race of men, on any point of the globe, must be 
 qualified by any enlightened Statesman as high treason against 
 humanity, and by the Christian moralist and publicist as treason 
 against high Heaven. This impolitic, inhuman, and unchristian 
 spirit, marking, even before the Eeformation, and all through the 
 Catholic middle ages, the misgovernment of Ireland by the Norman 
 masters of England, naturally excited the indignant condemnation of 
 such men as Sir John Davies, Lord Coke, and the historian Leland, 
 himself a chaplain to the Vice-Kegal government. We have yet to 
 quote his testimony, that of an eye-witness, about the incredible 
 barbarity with which the Catholic Irish were treated by the men, 
 who, if we were to believe Froude, had exhausted every measure 
 calculated to civilize and pacify them. 
 
 But there is one inevitable result of this cruel persistence in 
 wrong-doing, that we would not have overlooked, by those to whose 
 final verdict we appeal in this book. 
 
 Not only were "the native Irish " systematically excluded — and 
 under the severest penalties — from all participation in whatever there 
 was of an elevating, refining, and progressive character in English 
 institutions, but they wei'e shut off effectually, — so far as English 
 might and misrepresentation could effect it, — not only from the 
 upward social movement throughout Christendom, from a free com- 
 
 * Sir C. G. Duffy, " Young Ireland." 
 
The Irish Shut off from Intercourse with Europe. 83 
 
 munication with Rome, the central spiritual authority, — but from 
 the good opinion and good will of the Roman Pontiff and his court, 
 and from the friendship of all Christian peoples. The same system 
 of defamation pursued in our day toward the Irish }3eople by the 
 organs of English public opinion, has been practised from the days 
 of the Second Henry and the Third Edward. 
 
 And they upbraid us not only with the helpless poverty, which 
 politico-economical injustice has created, working through centur- 
 ies, but with the ignorance, the rudeness, the downright savagery 
 which their oppression and misrule tended to create ! We say 
 "tended to create": that such atrocious policy did not bear its law- 
 ful fruits, is due, not to our tyrants, but to the magnificent qualities 
 of the Irish nature, and to the providence of God. 
 
 But let us bestow more than a passing word on that famous — 
 infamous rather — legislation of Edward III., — the well-known and 
 oft-quoted "Statutes of Kilkenny," passed in the year 1366, — nearly 
 two hundred years after the arrival of Strongbow and his adventurers. 
 
 "In the Parliament of Kilkenny, summoned in 1366, by Lionel, 
 Duke of Clarence, son of Edward III., it was enacted that marriage, 
 nurture of infants, and gossipred with the Irish, should be considered 
 and punished as high treason. ... It was also made highly penal to 
 the English to frequent the fairs or markets of the Irish, to permit 
 their Irish neighbors to graze their lands, to present them to eccle- 
 siastical benefices, or to receive tliem into monasteries or religious 
 houses. These statutes were confirmed in a parliament held at 
 Drogheda, under Heniy VII., in 1495." * 
 
 Our American Indian Tribes, North and South, wherever they 
 were left to the disinterested and devoted care of the Catholic Mis- 
 sionaries, of the Jesuits in particular, made notable progress in all 
 that constitutes civilization, — the refinement of life, the reformation 
 of morals, and the creation of a regular government. The sole 
 obstacle to their becoming stable and well-ordered Christian com- 
 
 * Count Murphy, " Ireland Industrial," &c., p. 2i3. 
 
84 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 inanities, has been the short-sighted policy of the secular govern- 
 ments, so thwarting the beneficent action of the religious guides, 
 that the Aborigines could only judge that either the latter were 
 actuated in their labors by some hidden motives of selfish ambition, 
 or that their superiors in the Grovernment disapproved of their 
 methods and principles. In the United States, since we set aside, in 
 1869, the mediation of the Jesuit Missionaries, and delivered up the 
 Rocky Mountain and Pacific Tribes to the mercy of canting hucksters 
 and traders without a conscience, we have been at war with the 
 Indians : our policy is now, practically, one of extermination. 
 
 It is alike reproved by humanity, religion, and a wise economy. 
 In the dealings of England with Ireland, the common Faith of both 
 nations, and the close and friendly intercourse of mutual benefits 
 between the two Islands for upwards of six hundred years, could have 
 been a strong bond of friendship even after the Xorman Conquest. 
 But all religious principles and pretences were set aside, and war to 
 the knife was, inaugurated, when peace and conciliation might have 
 secured such glorious results. As Sir John Davies puts it, "Eoot out 
 the Irish," and plant the English everywhere in Ireland, became the 
 sole maxim of the Governors, the sole rule of conduct of their sub- 
 ordinates. 
 
 "What then was there in the institutions, the laws, customs, and 
 morality of the ancient Celtic race, which could justify such a policy ? 
 The Normans had implanted in England the feudal land tenure that 
 prevailed in France: they resolved to establish the same in Ireland. 
 Now the Brehon Land-Law, — the expression of the national life from 
 the beginning, — declared that the land held by each Sept, Clan, or 
 Community belonged to them as a bod)^ not to the chief. The death 
 or deposition, or exaltation of such chief to a higher dignity, left the 
 community lands in their integrity. 
 
 This system of land tenure was an eye-sore to the Norman Adven- 
 turers, as well as to all the Knights and Gentlemen who came after 
 them, doAvn to the time of the Tudors. Modern jurists and political 
 economists will not readily agree with writers of the school of Froude, 
 
Were Native Irish Institutions and Customs Barbarous? 8£ 
 
 that sucli land tenure was a relic of barbarism, or that ' the people ' 
 would be benefited by replacing it by the systems long in use in 
 Ireland and England. 
 
 Deeds of blood, such as murder, were punishable, according to the 
 Brehon Law, not by taking blood for blood and life for life, but by 
 the infliction of an eric, a fine or blood-tax, paid by the murderer and 
 his kins-folk. The solidarity thus established in each family, in each 
 neighborhood, for the preservation and protection of life and limb, 
 was, illustrious modern jurists say, a more desirable form of criminal 
 jurisprudence, than decapitation, or garroting, or hanging, or perpet- 
 ual imprisonment with hard labor, or solitary confinement. 
 
 This was another subject of reproach, another proof that the 
 Irish were mere barbarians. English legislators who hanged a man 
 for slaying his enemy, or the destroyer of his family honor, would 
 only impose a fine on the man who had dishonored his neighbor's 
 wife, destroyed the peace of his home, left an eternal stain upon his 
 children, and rendered his domestic hearth desolate for ever. 
 
 Logists in the 19th century will be slow in giving, on those 
 points, a preference to the English over the Brehon Law. 
 
 "But there were barbarous customs, which the interests of civili- 
 zation required to be done away with," we are told. 
 
 In the days of St. Patrick, there were national yearly festivals 
 when Princes and people met in the open air, and celebrated by 
 poetry and song and banquet the glories of their forefathers. The 
 pagan accompaniments of these festivities had been superseded, after 
 the conversion of the nation, by appropriate religious rites, which 
 gave a consecration to patriotic sentiment. What the whole nation 
 did in common on these solemn occasions, that each great chief did 
 among his own people on stated anniversaries. This custom was 
 taken up and held in honor by the great Anglo-Korman families, 
 who, after a time, identified themselves with the Celtic race around 
 them. Bards, harpists, Seannacliics or men especially learned in the 
 local and national traditions, graced the chieftain's board on these 
 great feasts. The Bard, who was, not unfrequently, both Poet and 
 
86 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 Musician, sang the ancient glories of the Sept, the Clan, or the ances- 
 tors of the Chief; and the SeaimacJiic delighted his audience by 
 rehearsing some glorious or thrilling tale of by-gone times. In 
 the pre-Norman times, when hydromel — the mixture of water with 
 honey — was the only beverage used at these banquets, there was no 
 danger of intoxication. Intoxication, — unless we are very sadly mis- 
 taken, was but little known among the Celtic Irish for several gener- 
 ations thereafter. But, taking these touching celebrations as Irish 
 historians describe them, they remind us of the customs of the civil- 
 ized East, when Homer sang his cantos of the Iliad to the assembled 
 citizens of some Grecian Eepublic, or when Pindarus thrilled with his 
 lyrics the representatives of all Greece in the Olympiac meetings, or 
 when Sophocles and ^schylus and Euripides reenacted, on the Pana- 
 thenaic stage, the heroic achievements of the godlike men, v/ho had 
 created Grecian civilization. 
 
 On their little island, at the westernmost extremity of Europe, 
 with the untrg,veled, mysterious Ocean extending westward and north- 
 ward beyond them, this old Celtic people clung with reverent affec- 
 tion to these inherited customs, which recalled the time when the 
 entire human family held their anniversaries on the sunny plains of 
 Asia. Christianity could do so mncli toward refining, elevating, hal- 
 lowing these national customs, which kept the glorious past ever 
 present, while laboring to prepare a still more glorious future. 
 
 All these festivities, all these kindred customs, were, in the eyes 
 of such men as Giraldus Cambrensis and the historical school of the 
 present day, — remnants of paganism, to be done away with in com- 
 mon with everything Irish, as savoring of paganism and savagery. 
 
 "In all the Parliament rolls which are extant from the fortieth 
 year of Edward III., when the Statutes of Kilkenny were enacted, 
 till the reign of King Henry VII., the natives are styled 'the Irish 
 enemy,' and the Anglo-Irish ' English rebels.' " Such is the affirma- 
 tion of Sir John Davies. Another historian adds to this: "The Irish 
 had always been considered not as subjects but as aliens, and even as 
 enemies out of the protection of the law; in consequence whereof all 
 
''The Parish-Schools Act:' 87 
 
 marriages and alliances and even commerce with them were prohib- 
 ited; and they might be oppressed, spoiled, and killed by the English 
 at pleasure, not being allowed to bring any action nor any inquisition 
 lying for the murder of an Irishman:'' * 
 
 We resume. 
 
 It is, — we repeat it, — a matter of history that the whole aim and 
 effort of the Anglo-Norman Government in Ireland, from 1169 to 
 1530, were directed toward the subjugation, the extermination rather, 
 of the Irish race, and the extinction of everything distinctively Irish 
 or Celtic, — institutions, laws, customs, language, and literature. No 
 candid-minded man who takes up the authentic records of Irish his- 
 tory, the official acts of the Government, the calmest, most impartial, 
 and most enlightened writers of both nations, but must come to this 
 conclusion. 
 
 The Parliament which confirmed, in 1496, the Statutes of Kil- 
 keimy, and revived the old and somewhat dormant spirit of race- 
 antagonism and persecution, showed that England had learned no 
 wisdom from the utter failure of centuries of proscription. The 
 Churchmen who sat in the English House of Lords, and gave their 
 vote in continuance and confirmation of these odious and unchristian 
 laws, had, seemingly, no sense of that high Christian charity which 
 sees only brothers in all nations and races. And Henry VII., — the 
 English Solomon, did not veto these disgraceful enactments, this fatal 
 and ferocious policy, which would rather unpeople a country, than 
 admit to the protection of English law and Justice a neighboring 
 people, because they differed from the Norman masters of England 
 in blood, language, and manners. 
 
 In 1537, Henry VIII. had a law passed by Parliament, ordaining 
 that an elementary school should be established in every parish in 
 England. In the same year, and by the same Parliament, a similar 
 
 * Carte's " Life of Ormonde," vol. i., p. 13. These two quotations are from 
 Count Murphy's admirable book on Ireland. James I., in the beginning of his 
 reign, repealed most of these odious enactments. He did not long act consistently 
 with such beginnings. His good intentions remained without effect in Ireland. 
 
88 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 law was enacted for Ireland: this is known as "the Parish-Schools 
 Act." 
 
 This act stipulated that every candidate for holy orders should 
 have an oath administered to him (by the archbishop or other prelate 
 conferring them), obliging him to endeavor to learn the English lan- 
 guage, and "move endoctrine, and teacli all other being under his 
 order, rule, and governance, to accomplish and perform the same," 
 and "bid the beades in the English tongue, and preach the word of 
 God in English, if he can preach;" and also would keep or cause to 
 be kept within his parish, "a school for to learn English, if any chil- 
 dren of his parish come to him for to learn the same, taking for the 
 keeping of the said school, such convenient stipend or salary, as in 
 the said land is accustomably used to be taken."* 
 
 * 28 Henry VIII., ch. xv. Irish Statutes, vol. i., p. 125. 
 
PART SECOND. 
 
 THE HISTORICAL LAND-QUESTION IN IRELAND. 
 
 By what Right Ieelaitd was Ikvaded, and her Lands 
 TAKEN Possession of. 
 
 ^T^HE fact which first led to the invasion of Ireland by Norman 
 noblemen and Knights^, vassals of Henry II., King of England, 
 and Duke of Normandy, is familiar to every school-boy. Dermod 
 Mac Murrongh, king or overlord of Leinster, had abducted the wife 
 of O'Rourke of Breffny, a powerful chieftain of Connaught. It so 
 happened that Roderick O'Connor, King of Connaught, was, in 1169, 
 Monarch of all Ireland, and as such demanded satisfaction of the 
 King of Leinster for the wrong done to O'Rourke. This reparation 
 Mac Murrough refused to give. The latter, some of whose doings 
 we glanced at in the preceding chapter, was unscrupulous, un- 
 principled, and cruel. His crimes had alienated from him the 
 affections of his own Leinstermen, and driven into rebellion the 
 Danish colony of Dublin. Obliged to fly from his own estates, he 
 crossed over to England in 1168 in order obtain help from a foreign 
 nation against his own suzerain and subjects. From England he 
 passed into France, sought Henry II., then in Aquitaine, and from 
 him got permission to enlist in his cause such of the Norman Knights 
 and Nobles, as would like to better their fortunes in Ireland. 
 With this permission Mac Murrough hastened back to England, 
 
 (89) 
 
90 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 found in' Eobert de Clare, Earl of Pembroke, an impoverished 
 Norman noble, who hungered for land and wealth. De Clare, 
 better known by his nickname of Strongbow, soon rallied round 
 himself and Mac Murrough a band .of Norman-Welsh knights as 
 needy and land-hungry as himself, who eagerly embraced Mac 
 Murrough's offers of broad lands and lordly power in Ireland. The 
 principal of these were Maurice Fitz Gerald, Eobert Fitz Stephen, 
 Kaymond le Gros, and Hervey Mountmorres. 
 
 Wexford was the first place to fall into the power of Fitz Stephen 
 and Mountmorres, who led the invaders' vanguard, and who gave the 
 native Irish a taste of what they had to expect from the new civil- 
 izers, by making an expedition into the adjoining country, wasting, 
 destroying, slaughtering indiscriminately. AVhat had the peaceful 
 inhabitants done to deserve such inhumanity ? . . . . 
 
 And so began Anglo-Norman rule in Ireland. 
 
 Eaymond le Gros was not far behind these first destroyers. He 
 landed at Waterford, committed great havoc among the half-armed 
 peasants who dared to oppose himself and his mail-clad followers; 
 seized seventy of the principal citizens of Waterford, had their arms 
 and leo-s broken in presence of the terrified multitude, and then 
 hurled from the summit of the neighboring cliffs into the sea. The 
 town was next stormed and sacked, and reduced, for the most part, 
 to a smoking ruin. 
 
 Amid these ruins, with the corpses of the slain still imburied 
 around him, Dermod ]\Iac Murrough caused the nuptials of his 
 daughter Eva to be celebrated with Strongbow. To his son-in-law 
 he gave, as a dower with the hand of his daughter, the Kingdom of 
 Leinster. To Strongbow's principal followers princely territories 
 were assigned. 
 
 Eoderick O'Connor, meanwhile, and the other Irish Princes made 
 no effectual or concerted effort to repel this handful of lawless 
 adventurers, to whose success, indeed, the partisans of Mac Mur- 
 rough, and the intelligence which the latter maintained in Dublin, 
 and the other fortified towns, contributed greatly. For Dublin fell 
 
Landing of Henry II. 91 
 
 into their power after Wexford and Waterford; the knights, men-at- 
 arms, and archers, inured to warfare, and acting under perfect disci- 
 pHne, swept through the fairest and most populous districts of 
 Meath and Connaught, marking their way with fire and blood. 
 
 King Dermod glutted his revenge to the full. His enemies fell 
 or fled before the Norman steel. But he did not live long to enjoy 
 his unnatural triumph over his countrymen. He died in 1170. 
 
 That same year Strongbow returned to England to offer to his 
 liege-lord, Henry, the Kingdom of Leinster which he had already 
 won, the positions held by his followers, and the whole of Ireland, 
 which he looked upon as good as won. 
 
 In 1172 Henry, at the head of a fleet of 240 sail, bearing 400 
 knights and 4,000 men-at-arms, landed himself in Ireland. In the 
 interval, and after the death of Dermod Mac Murrough, the Irish 
 Sovereign and his confederates had taken heart and counsel together. 
 The subordinate chiefs and their followers threw themselves on the 
 Normans everywhere, and drove them behind the walls of the towns. 
 Dublin was besieged in vain. The Irish were entirely unequal to a 
 contest with the well-armed and disciplined bands of the invaders. 
 They were driven back in disorder from Dublin. 
 
 What chance had they now to resist Henry's formidable and well- 
 appointed army? Eoderick O'Connor withdrew with his forces 
 behind the Shannon, and the English King marched through 
 Munster like a conqueror who had subdued every foe. There was a 
 feud between The O'Neill and Eoderick O'Connor, which neither 
 was magnanimous enough to forget in presence of the common 
 enemy of their country. So, the minor princes submitted or seemed 
 to submit to Henry, as he continued his unopposed progress from the 
 sea-coast to Cashel, and from Cashel to Dublin, 
 
 In this city he spent the Christmas holidays, holding a splendid 
 court, and surprising the native chiefs by a magnificence and a cere- 
 monial which were intended to dazzle and overawe. Much time was 
 spent in getting Strongbow, who now assumed the right to the King- 
 dom of Leinster, and all his subordinate chieftains, to go through the 
 
93 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 form of surrendering their lands to the King, and in receiving them 
 back from him as fiefs. It was a form the Irish princes could not 
 understand. 
 
 One man was there, the saintly Archbishop of Dublin, who had a 
 clear and full knowledge of the revolution which was taking place in 
 his country, and who foresaw and foretold its consequences. St. 
 Lawrence O'Toole had vainly endeavored to unite against the 
 invaders the Kings of Connaught and Ulster, all the available forces 
 of his native land. To encourage Roderick O'Connor, to stimulate 
 the patriotism of Princes and Prelates, he had himself taken the field 
 against the men who came to Ireland only to enslave and to destroy, 
 whose deeds of blood had filled the land with horror, and whose path, 
 as they ravaged the country far and wide, was marked by the smok- 
 ing ruins of churches and monasteries, by the corpses of the peaceful 
 and unoffending populations massacred on their own hearthstone. 
 The Christian Normans were more pitiless, more impious than the 
 Pagan Ostmen of old. 
 
 Henry divided among the chief adventurers the fairest portions of 
 the Island, acting as if it were his by right, and enjoining on them to 
 win and hold it for him by the sword. He organized in Dublin all 
 the branches of a regular government, appointed De Lacy and 
 Strongbow Lords Justices, De Lacy, to whom the Kingdom of 
 Meath was given, and Strongbow, who held the inheritance of 
 Dermod Mac Murrough. Later, in 1775, Kaymond le Gros, the 
 butcher of Waterford, was made the first Lord Deputy. The cap- 
 tains of the robber-band were thus charged, by this Christian King, 
 with the duties of the executive government and the administration 
 of justice in the land, which was still red with the innocent blood 
 they had shed, and whose inhabitants it must be their policy not to 
 rule or to pacify, but to exterminate. 
 
 The King organized also in Dublin, which he intended should be 
 the residence of a vice-regal court, an official hierarchy exactly resem- 
 bling that of Windsor, marshal, justiciary, constable, seneschal, 
 chamberlain, butler, standard-bearer, &c. English law was to 
 
The Question of Right. 93 
 
 supersede Brelion law in the districts conquered from tlie Irish, and 
 which he divided into three counties, with their Sheriffs, and other 
 officers. The Judiciary was also constituted on the English model. 
 Dublin had its Courts of the King's Bench, Common Pleas, and 
 Exchequer; and the Judges were to go their regular circuits and the 
 King's Writ to run freely as in England. A Council of State or Privy 
 Council was also established, with a Lord High Chancellor, and Lord 
 Treasurer. The city of Dublin, which had been built by the Danes, 
 and had till then been a Danish colony, tributary to the Kings of 
 Leinster, was now incorporated and handed over to the citizens of 
 Bristol to colonize and care for. To such of the clergy as accepted 
 his authority, Henry offered the privileges enjoyed by ecclesiastical 
 persons and property in England, exempting them from the burthens 
 and penalties to which all lands and persons were subject under the 
 Brehon Law. He produced, it is said, the Bull of Pope Adrian, 
 bestowing on him the lordship of Ireland. But the latest and ripest 
 scholarship * has discovered, in what must be accounted the genuine 
 letter of Pope Adrian, instead of an absolute gift of the Island, a pos- 
 itive injunction laid on Henry in his projected expedition to Ireland, 
 that " he should attempt nothing of the kind without the advice and 
 consent of the Princes, Bishops, and people of Ireland." 
 
 Henry having thus regulated all things to his own satisfaction in 
 what he considered as his new dominions, returned to England to 
 answer before the Pope's legates for the murder of St. Thomas a 
 Becket. 
 
 On such grounds rests English domination in Ireland. Let us 
 look into them a little more closely. 
 
 JSTow as to the question of right: "The feudal system," says Mr. 
 Walpole, "could not be applied to Ireland, where the tribal system 
 prevailed, without revolutionizing the whole structure of society; and 
 its application was in the eyes of the Irish nothing but a high handed 
 invasion of the rights of property, and an act of shameful injustice. 
 
 * See number 185 of Analecta Juris Pontificii, 18S2. 
 
94 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 " We find" — he continues — " the thin end of the wedge introduced 
 by Dermot (Mac Morrough) surrendering to Henry and his heirs a 
 kingdom of which he was only tlie elected monarch; to which no 
 ruler, according to tlie law of the land, could have any rightful claim 
 but through the free suffrages of the tribal chiefs. We find him 
 again making grants of territory to Strongbow, Fitz Stephen, and 
 others, over which he had not the shadow of a right: kinds which 
 belonged to various native Septs, whose chosen overlord he was, but 
 over whose lands he had no right of control. The lands thus illegally 
 granted were occupied by the Norman adventurers, who held them 
 by force, the tribes who dwelt thereon either being expropriated or 
 reduced to the position of tenants. 
 
 "Again, Henry based his title to be lord paramount over the 
 island on the papal bull, which was, obviously, no title at all; and he 
 affected to treat those who opposed him as rebels, and claimed to 
 escheat their lands by branding them with treason, and to re-enjoy 
 that which he never possessed, and to which he could have no claim. 
 
 "The Normans had, as yet (1189), made but slight lodgments on 
 the coasts; but the tim.e was coming when this fiction of feudal ten- 
 ure was to be forced gradually upon the whole island, and to be con- 
 verted into an engine for the transfer of the soil from the native Celt 
 to the colonizing Norman. Every effort of the people to assert its 
 independence was to be punishable as treasonable offence, entailing 
 the resulting penalty of a forfeiture of the land. When the owners 
 were dispossessed, they might be permitted to occupy as tenants at 
 will, to support themselves by tilling the ground, and to pay for the 
 privilege in rent to the new landowner. What was begun in 1170 
 was continued in after generations, until the whole island came into 
 the possession either of English immigrants, or those natives who 
 accepted the new order of things, and received again the lands as 
 grants from the English crown. 
 
 "It should be remembered also that the invasion of Ireland in the 
 twelfth century was not an invasion by England, but by the Normans 
 of the continent. Henry was Duke of Normandy and Count of 
 
EstaUishnient of Castle Rule, 95 
 
 Anjon, and he also happened to be King of England. His ancestors 
 had reduced England to a dependency of the Norman duchy, and in 
 like manner the Normans of his day proceeded to spread through 
 England over to Ireland. England had been occupied by the penni- 
 less riffraff of Normandy; after a hundred years' occupation of Eng- 
 land, the Norman adventurers of that day swarmed upon the coasts 
 of Ireland, in order to win a Kingdom after the manner of their fore- 
 fathers. It was a fresh invasion of Northmen by a circuitous route 
 through Normandy and Britain. 
 
 "Henry had accomplished his primary object, that of securing his 
 authority over the colonists. He left it to them to maintain them- 
 selves, and to extend their borders as best they could, relying on the 
 incentives of self-preservation and rapacity." * 
 
 Henry II., then, before returning to England, organized in 
 Dublin a Vice-royal government, with Courts of Law as in London. 
 Thus was established that system of rapine and oppression, miscalled 
 the Irish government, which has ever since cursed the land with its 
 presence and its acts. Then appeared the first Lords Justices and 
 the hateful Irish Judiciary, which dealing out iniquity from the 
 Bench, instead of administering justice with a firm and impartial 
 hand, has made the Irish soul sick of the very name of law, and 
 skeptical about the very existence of justice in Ireland. 
 
 Then began the rule of Dublin Castle, with that abominable 
 Officialism, the very odious nature of which Englishmen are begin- 
 ning at length to understand, but which they must appreciate thor- 
 oughly, if they would inaugurate the reign of Justice in Ireland by 
 removing it once and for ever. 
 
 Once and for all let us have unimpeachable testimony as to the 
 existence and nature of this Officialism, which we have designated as 
 organized Rapine, Oppression, and Injustice, under the sacred name 
 of Government, — of government for a Christian people, whom the 
 English had come over to civilize and elevate. 
 
 * " Hist, of the Kingdom of Ireland," pp. 39-41. 
 
96 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 "A set of needy and rapacious adventurers passing over from 
 Britain, in a constant succession, made no scruple of enriching 
 themselves by the most unjustifiable methods. There was not a 
 native who could be secure from their rapacity." * 
 
 Here is the testimony of another writer, still living, and whose 
 work on Ireland has won the praise of the most bitter opponents of 
 Irish claims : 
 
 "Never was a country afflicted for centuries by a more unjust and 
 more feeble administration. Never was a country more in need of a 
 just and firm government. Unfortunately, one after another the 
 sovereigns of England, preoccupied by foreign wars and domestic 
 broils, were obliged to leave Ireland almost entirely in the hands of 
 their Lords Deputies. Even these latter, as a rule, spent the gi'eater 
 part of their time in England; the government in their absence being 
 carried on by two or more Lords Justices. Of the Lords Deputies and 
 Lords Justices, especially the latter, the private interests lay directly in 
 the opposite direction to their public duty. Their policy, accordingly, 
 was shaped altogether to suit their own private ends and not to pro- 
 mote the welfare of the country they governed. This went on for 
 centuries. The monarchs saw it; but, generally speaking, were 
 unable to prevent it. It is one of the many strange anomalies of the 
 histoiy of Ireland." f 
 
 Hear another writer, a chaplain to the Vice-Regal Government in 
 Dublin : 
 
 "At a distance from the supreme seat of power, and with the 
 advantage of being able to make such representations of the state of 
 Ireland as they pleased, the English Vicegerents acted with the less 
 reserve. They were generally tempted to undertake the conduct of 
 a disordered State, for the sake of private emolument, and their 
 object was pursued without delicacy or integrity, sometimes with 
 inhuman violence." X 
 
 * Crawford, " History of Ireland," vol. i., p. 177. 
 
 + Count John Nicholas Murphy, " Ireland Industrial," &c., p. 242 
 
 X Leland, " Hist, of Ireland," vol. ii., p. 12. 
 
The two first Lords Justices. 97 
 
 Such Avas the System whicli Leland knew well in his own day, 
 and in the preceding six centuries. Here is how he describes, in 
 another passage, the working of this system: 
 
 "The oppression exercised with impunity in every particular dis- 
 trict; the depredations everywliere committed among the inferior 
 orders of the people, not by open enemies alone, but by those who 
 called themselves friends and protectors, and who justified their out- 
 rages by the plea of lawful authority; their avarice and cruelty, their 
 plundering and massacres were still more ruinous than the defeat of 
 an arm}^, or the loss of a city. The wretched suiferers had neither 
 power to repel, nor law to restrain or vindicate their injuries. In 
 times of general commotion, laws the most wisely framed and most 
 equitably administered, are but of little moment. But now the very 
 source of public justice was corrupted and poisoned." * 
 
 English scholars of impartial mind, inquiring into the causes of 
 the irreconcilable liatred borne toward England and English rule in 
 Ireland by the natives of the latter couiitry, and Protestant Clergy- 
 men even who read the facts of Irish history with tbe sincere desire 
 of knowing the truth, have alike arrived at the same conclusion. 
 
 "The true cause which for a long time fatally opposed the gradual 
 coalition of the Irish and English race, imder one form of govern- 
 ment, was, that the great English settlers found it more for their 
 immediate interest, that a free course should be left to their oppres- 
 sions; that many of those, whose lands they coveted, should be con- 
 sidered as aliens; that they should be furnished for their petty wars 
 by arbitrary exactions; and in their rapines and massacres be freed 
 from the terrors of a rigidly impartial and severe tribunal." f 
 
 To illustrate the perfect truth of what is here asserted Avith a 
 'moderation' easily accounted for in the writer, we have only to 
 remember the names of the two men whom Henry II. left to govern 
 in his stead, under the title of Lords Justices, the Kingdom of Ireland, 
 or as much of it as they could control. These were Hugh de Lacy, 
 
 * Leland, " Hist, of Ireland," i. 328. + Ibidem, i. 267. 
 
98 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 Earl of Meatli, and Eichard de Clare, Earl of Pembroke (Strongbow). 
 That is to say, he left behind him to rule with justice and humanity, 
 a people whose blood these adventurers had ruthlessly shed without 
 cause, and wliose lands they had taken, and more of whose lands they 
 were given to take and hold with the sword. From tliat day forth 
 the English Interest, governing from Dublin Castle, was to obtain by 
 all means available the lands of the Irish people, and to treat as ene- 
 mies the people whose lands they wanted. That English Interest was 
 thenceforward upheld by every needy adventurer who hungered for 
 land, and whose conscience accepted as lawful all means of get- 
 ting it. 
 
 Thus begins the long series of Lords Deputies and Lords Justices, 
 perpetuating the land-hunger, and the gigantic system of wrong and 
 rapine which is still bearing such deadly fruits for both countries. 
 
 "By the new adventurers," says Leland, describing how the sys- 
 tem worked at a later period, "employed in the service of the Crown, 
 both (the old Anglo-Irish and the Celtic Irish) were regarded indis- 
 criminately as one people equally disaffected, and dangerous to the 
 Englisli interest. These men who had raised large fortunes in Ire- 
 land and frequently upon the ruin of the old nativeg, affected to be 
 considered as the only loyal subjects of the realm; and artfully con- 
 trived that even the most respectable of the old English families 
 should be regarded by the Crown with suspicion, and excluded from 
 every office of trust and honor." * 
 
 As generation succeeded generation after 1173, the Norman and 
 English adventurers with their families became to a very great extent 
 identified with the Celtic population around them. Having obtained 
 the object for which they had left IS'ormandy or England, they were 
 content to enjoy what they had, and to live in peace with their Irish 
 neighbors. As the Lords Deputies and Lords Justices, who had 
 recently arrived from England, and the swarm of land-hungry adven- 
 turers who were always hanging about Dublin Castle or filling the 
 
 * Leland, iii. 101. 
 
The ''English Rebels,''' and the ''Irish Enemy.'" 99 
 
 government offices, — were still under the influence of the Land-Hun- 
 ger, they did not want the old settlers to thwart their schemes. 
 They kept them out of office. 
 
 So a bitter feud arose between the old English colonists and the 
 Government in Dublin Castle, with its Privy Council, and the army 
 of needy adventurers, — men of good birth most of them and of 
 broken fortunes, wlio came over recommended for patronage, and 
 with the belief that Ireland and the Irish were only made to be the 
 prey of their English masters. 
 
 The former, born in Ireland, and brought up among its Celtic 
 population, had adopted the manners, the dress, and even the very 
 language of a race, who, if less warlike or far less efficiently equipped 
 for war than themselves, were their superiors in all that constituted 
 true civilization. Without ever becoming identified with their Celtic 
 neighbors in political interests or national aspirations, the Anglo- 
 Norman colonists were perfectly satisfied with their lot in Ireland. 
 The great nobles lived like independent princes. They had usurped 
 the place of the ancient native chieftains, and had won, in many 
 instances, the devoted adherence of the members of the Septs. They 
 ruled their possessions in accordance with the Brehon Law, and 
 cared but little for the King's Writ, his Sheriffs, or his Judges, defy- 
 ing, amidst the fastnesses of a thickly wooded country, the authority 
 even of the Lord Deputy, or the Lords Justices. 
 
 Thus it happened that the Castle Officials, and the hungry crowd 
 who ever hung about the Castle precincts, as well as the London 
 Privy Council, came to look upon these descendants of the De Lacys, 
 De Clares, and Fitz Geralds as little better than rebels : thus, indeed, 
 arose the denomination of "English Rebels" by which they soon 
 came to be distinguished, — the name of the "Irish Enemies" being 
 reserved to the ISTative Celts, against whom both the new and the old 
 English Interests combined when it suited them. 
 
 It was quite a convenient policy both for the Dublin Officials and 
 the King's Government in London, to place the Old English in 
 Ireland on a footing of permanent rebellion, — to have, at least. 
 
100 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 public opinion regard them as such, in order, when the land-hunger 
 around the Castle became irresistible, some pretext could be devised, 
 some fair occasion found, for seizing and confiscating all, or a portion 
 of their estates. 
 
 It became a necessary policy for the Lord Deputies and Lords 
 Justices to break down and weaken, if they could not destroj^ the great 
 Anglo-Irish lords, who were one of the chief obstacles to a new divis- 
 ion of the spoils. We have a sti'iking instance of this in the reign 
 of Edward III. Edward was sadly in want of money for his con- 
 tinental wars, and was quite earnest in his endeavors to obtain sup- 
 plies from his Irish Parliament. But the lords spiritual and tem- 
 poral, who were continually harassed by the Castle Government, 
 were unwilling to grant money till they had obtained redress for their 
 own grievances. The most powerful among the Anglo-Irish barons, 
 the Earl of Desmond, had, on one occasion (1331), been arrested and 
 imprisoned by the Lord Lieutenant, Sir Anthony Lucy, who without 
 any process of law, or formal proof of guilt, kept the young noble- 
 man in strict confinement for eighteen months, and confiscated a 
 large portion of his estates. This high-handed act of tyranny pleased 
 the king, whose need was great, and who furthermore announced his 
 purpose to take back all the grants of land made to the Irish 
 proprietors, under pretext that these had not paid their dues to the 
 crown. A Parliament was summoned to meet in Dublin, thereupon, 
 and the lords were served, in due course, with the Avrit requiring 
 their attendance. But they, at the instigation of the Earl of 
 Desmond, refused to answer the summons, meeting, instead, at 
 Callan, in Kilkenny, and drawing up a Remonstrance to the King. 
 
 "Chiefly, and with particular warmth and earnestness, they rep- 
 resented to the King," says Leland, "that his English subjects of 
 Ireland had been traduced and misrepresented to the throne, by 
 those who had been sent from England to govern them; men who 
 came into the Kingdom without a knowledge of its state, circum- 
 stances, or interest; whose sole object was to repair their shattered 
 fortunes; too poor to support their state, much less to indulge their 
 
Officialism like the Car of Juggernaut. 101 
 
 passions, until they had filled their, coffers by extortion, to the great 
 detriment and affliction of the people; that, notwithstanding such 
 misrepresentations, the English subjects of Ireland had ever adhered 
 in loyalty and aljegiance to the Crown of England, had maintained 
 the land for the King and his progenitors, served frequently both 
 against the Irish and their foreign enemies, and mostly at their own 
 charges." * 
 
 Here comes in the Car of Juggernaut, directed this time by the 
 Lord Deputy, Sir Ralph Ufford. So long as this terrible engine of 
 oppression only moved into the Celtic districts it might crush with 
 perfect impunity its thousands of victims without arousing, seem- 
 ing! }-, remonstration, indignation, or any sentiment of horror. But 
 when the rolling of its wheels were heard on the lands of the Fitz 
 Geralds or the De Burgos, or the De Lacys, and a single fair English 
 limb was mangled or maimed by it, the 'prelates, earls, barons, 
 and community of Ireland,' — that is the whole Pale, lifted up their 
 voice and called for vengeance or redress. 
 
 Sir Ralph Ufford, — as Holiinshed informs us, "was verie rigorous, 
 and through persuasion (it is said) of his Avife, was more extreame 
 and covetous than otherwise he would have beene." This "singular 
 good justicer," as Davies calls him, had "extreame" land-hunger; 
 and there was a host of the land-hungry behind him, who propelled 
 the Car of Juggernaut into Desmond, the King's standard waving in 
 front. In 134-A, he "seized Desmond's estates, treacherously got pos- 
 session of Castle-island and Iniskisty in Kerry, and hanged Sir 
 Eustace de la Poer, Sir William Grant, and Sir John Cottrel," says 
 Walpole. But the oppression was more odious than this historian 
 describes it. 
 
 The refusal to answer a writ of summons to Parliament, especially 
 when supported by a remonstrance to the King, signed in a conven- 
 tion of the Estates of the Kingdom, was not an act either of rebellion 
 or of high treason. Yet Ufford hastened to confiscate, by his own 
 
 * " Hist, of Ireland," i. 358. 
 
102 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 arbitrary act, the broad lands of Desmond, and let them out to farm 
 at an annual rent. "And whilst he yet remained in Munster," says 
 the historian of Kerry, "he devised ways how to have the Earl of 
 Desmond apprehended; which being brought to pass, he afterward 
 delivered him upon mainprise of these sureties, whose names 
 ensue." * 
 
 These sureties were no less than two noblemen and twenty-four of 
 the gentry. The trick of requiring an extraordinary number of 
 sureties among the great landed proprietors, — if it be really the first 
 of the kind resorted to, served as a precedent for succeeding Lords 
 Justices and Lord Deputies. L^iford foresaw that Desmond would 
 make default; at any rate, he was one to contrive that the impetuous 
 Earl should do so, and thereby afford the pretext of seizing and con- 
 fiscating tiie estates not only of Desmond but of liis sureties. The 
 two noblemen alone and two of the gentry were spared: "The others 
 were utterly ruined thereby." Thus three or four hundred thousand 
 acres fell into the hands of the Lord Justice, who, so long as he 
 lived, kept as close and deadly a grip of his prey, as any gigantic 
 cuttle-fish on the coasts of Newfoundland. 
 
 Encouraged by the success of his tyranny toward Desmond and 
 his gentlemen-sureties, Ufford next moved against the other branch 
 of the Geraldines. The Earl of Kildare and a number of other 
 noblemen and landed proprietors were cast into prison, the charters 
 and letters-patent grantin-g them their estates were annulled, and the 
 entire Pale was filled with alarm and dismay. 
 
 Yet Edward III., on reading the remonstrance from the Kil- 
 kenny Convention, gave up his project. The Earl of Kildare was 
 knighted by him for his bravery at the siege of Calais; and in 1354, 
 the Earl of Desmond, now restored to all his estates, was made Lord 
 Justice. 
 
 But so long as L^fford ruled Ireland from Dublin Castle, he made 
 himself practically independent of the King's government. No one 
 
 * Smith's " Kerry," 245. 
 
Address of the Irish to the Pope. 103 
 
 could leave an Irish port for England without his permission; and he 
 took good care that no complaints about his own misdeeds should 
 ever reach the royal ear. 
 
 If the Officialism of Dublin Castle contrived to secure itself im- 
 punity in wrong-doing, reign after reign, during centuries, even 
 when its tyranny only oppressed the men of English blood, — what 
 freedom must it not have enjoyed when there was only question of 
 oppressing or massacring "the Irish Enemy"? 
 
 In 1314 the victory of Bruce at Bannockburn induced the 
 Northern Irish, who had never come to terms with the English, to 
 ask Edward Bruce, descended of their own royal line, to head a 
 revolt in Ireland against the common enemy. "A petition from the 
 Irish chieftains," says Mr. Walpole, "was sent to the Pope, setting 
 forth their complaints against the English, and praying him to inter- 
 fere and restrain the King of England from molesting them. But 
 the Irish (Anglo-Irish?) clergy were true to the English cause, and 
 the only answer vouchsafed was the excommunication of the Bruces 
 and all who took up arms against the English."* 
 
 We give this author's statement without approval or comment. 
 But if ever such an "answer" was returned from Eome to the com- 
 plaints of tlie Irish nation or a part thereof, it must have been on 
 misrepresentations made by England, not on the ground that the 
 Irish had no fault to find with English rule. 
 
 Listen to the voice of the Irish themselves addressing their griev- 
 ances to what may possiblv have been the unwilling and prepossessed 
 ear of Pope John XXII., in 1316. 
 
 "Ever since the English first appeared upon our coasts, they 
 entered our territories iinder a certain specious pretence of charity, 
 and outward false show of religion, endeavoring at the same time, by 
 every evil artifice, to extirpate us root and branch. And, without 
 any other right than that of the strongest, they have so far succeeded 
 by base fraud and treachery, that they have driven us from the fair 
 
 * " Kingdom of Ireland," p. 56. 
 
104 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 and fertile lands in which we dwelt, and wliich we had inherited from 
 our fathers, and forced us to seek a refuge in the mountains, forests, 
 and morasses, like hunted wild beasts. Nor can the caverns and 
 recesses in the wilderness protect us against their covetousness. They 
 pursue us even into these dismal retreats, taking from us the posses- 
 sion of the barren mountain tracts and naked rocks, claiming as their 
 own every inch of soil on which we can leave our foot-prints." * 
 
 In quoting the words of this remonstrance, or petition, or address, 
 — as it may please historical scholars to call the document, — we had 
 a twofold purpose, to place in the mouths of the native Irish an 
 expression of their own sense of the atrocious wrongs under which 
 they were suffering, and that this should be understood in connection 
 with the complaints of the Anglo-Irish about English misgovernment 
 and the oppression of Castle Officialism. 
 
 As this latter continued ever to be, and continues to this day to 
 be, a monstrosity and a scandal in the eyes of all fair-minded English- 
 men, we shall conclude this chapter by quoting here the opinion of a 
 recent writer, one occupying a position of trust under the British 
 Government. AVe must ask the reader to pass with us from the 
 reio-n of Edward III. to the last decade of the reign of Elizabeth. 
 Everyone knows what influence Cecil, Lord Burghley, had in her 
 councils. It will be instructive and edifying to see how his wise and 
 moderate policy toward Ireland was thwarted and counteracted not 
 only by Irish Loi'd Deputies and Lords Justices, but officials like 
 the celebrated Irish Secretary, Edmund Spencer, and his friend Sir 
 Walter Ealeigh. 
 
 "Burghley saw \A\q evil consequences to England as well as to Ire- 
 land, of this anti-Irish policy. But he stood almost alone. At rare 
 intervals and in the earlier part of her reign Elizabeth supported him. 
 Tier officials in Ireland, however, obstructed Burghley at every point. 
 In those days the Irish judges were politicians as well as jurists. In 
 those days the Irish Privy Council represented one interest only. 
 
 * Quoted by Carey, Vindidm IliberniccB, c, iii. 
 
The Dublin Castle under Elizabeth. 105 
 
 The liead of the judicial bench spoke of the Prime Minister's sugges- 
 tions of pardons and remedial measures as 'agreeing to recompense 
 felonious offences,' and, instead, the Lord Chancellor's policy was 
 summed up in one word 'hanging.' . . . This representative of jus- 
 tice in Ireland wrote a letter to Walsingham, in which he expresses 
 his opinion that it would ' have been better, if ten years past the 
 Governor had put on determination to subject the whole Irishry to 
 the sword.' The members of the Irish Privy Council were as much 
 opposed to Burghley's views as the judges, and so indeed were nearly 
 all the officials. From the permanent staff of Dublin Castle, down to 
 the newly appointed magistrates in Kerry and Cork, there appeared 
 to be a dogged determination to act against the wishes of Burghley, 
 and to rule Ireland by coercion alone. The combination of the im- 
 politic official element in Ireland was too strong for the wise Lord 
 Treasurer. Carefully selected Lord Deputies failed him. Secretaries 
 that he sent to Dublin Castle armed with his prudent counsel and 
 their own good intentions, gave way to the dominating spirit of the 
 Pale and became coercionists. He had no real Parliament, no Eng- 
 lish Press, no influential public opinion to support him. But though 
 he could not carry his policy, he lived long enough to see the Neme- 
 sis that was coming. . . . 
 
 "In vain he said 'do not drive the Irish from the soil; do not 
 give confiscated lands to individuals.' . . . Sir AYalter Ealegh was 
 one of the first to feel the consequences of his own injustice. The 
 remnant of the Irish peasants that escaped the sword had hardly been 
 forced to cross the Blackwater, to the mountains and woods, leaving 
 the fields of Desmond to the new tenants from Devonshire, when the 
 grievances of the landlord reached the ears of Cecil. The Lord 
 Treasurer and the English Council had received a significant report 
 from the Commissioners for surveying the seigniories of the escheated 
 lands, dated from Youghal, October, 158G. 
 
 "'At Lismore and Youghal,' they wrote, 'we have stayed these 
 eight days in meeting and bounding such lands as we hear Sir "Walter 
 Rawley is to have, which hath been exceedingly difficult and painful 
 
106 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 by reason that the lands having been long waste, and generally over- 
 grown with deep grass, and in most places with heath, brambles, and 
 furze, whereby, and by the extremity of rain and foul weather, we 
 have been greatly hindered in our proceeding; and for that we find 
 all the gentlemen undertakers and their associates that came hither 
 to be again departed into England, we surcease from further dealing 
 therein until the spring.' 
 
 "The following year a rough survey was completed, and Ealegh's 
 courage and vigor enabled him to begin, in the words of his leaves, 
 'the repeojjUng of the Province of Munster.' At first he murmured 
 about the physical difficulties of reclearing the sort of secondary 
 jungle that had sprung up on the removal of the old agricultural 
 population. Any natives that came from the woods and mountains 
 were unfriendly to the new settlers. Even when a sort of truce was 
 proclaimed, and they were offered sustenance and wages instead of 
 the rope or tlie edge of the sword, Ealegh could not get them to 
 assist in moving the timber his colonists cut down, or to do a stroke 
 of useful work. This form of passive resistance annoyed the Under- 
 taker, who turned to the Government — what was called the Govern- 
 ment — for a remedy. At first the Government tried to assist him. 
 The refusal of workmen to do work was to be treated as a sort of 
 treason. New schemes of coercion were invented ; but they did the set- 
 tlers no good. Dublin Castle at length got tired of Ealegh's suggestions. 
 
 " Ealegh then turned to England and complained of Dublin 
 Castle. Whilst he could not get his own rents and profits, the 
 trifling sum payable to the Crown was dragged from him by distress 
 warrants, evictions, and costly legal proceedings. His English are 
 not protected by the Lord Deputy. The Lord Deputy encourages 
 rebels to push out Englishmen from his castles and farms. The 
 Sheriff carries off five hundred milch kine from his people for an 
 alleged debt of fifty marks which Ealegh believed he had paid, but 
 which was not only enforced again, but magnified into a debt of four 
 hundred pounds. . . . 'The doting Deputy,' he finally adds, 'hath 
 dispeopled me.' 
 
Walter Raleigh's Baneful Lifluence 107 
 
 "Ealegh's despairing cry might have been the eclio of the last 
 words of the hunted Earl of Desmond, of whose penalties as well as 
 of whose forfeitures, he seemed to be the political heir." * 
 
 As we are standing at the fountain-head of Irish misgovernment, 
 misery, and suffering, these witnesses whom we call before the bar of 
 public opinion, will throw light on the present while accounting for 
 the past. 
 
 "One part of Ralegh's Irish policy which affected his own fate 
 and contributed to the apparently never-ending troubles of the two 
 Kingdoms, was his successful opposition to the conciliatory schemes 
 of the second Essex. It was rumored that the Queen had offered 
 Ealegli the post of Deputy before Essex was sent to Dublin. How- 
 ever that may be, Ealegh was her most intimate adviser on Irish 
 affairs during the Lord Lieutenancy of Essex. 
 
 .... "The Irish manuscripts known as the Annals of the Four 
 Masters, speak of Essex as having displayed ' the most splendid regal 
 state ever exhiljited by the Saxons in Ireland.' As to his Irish 
 policy they say, ' When the Earl of Essex arrived, the first thing 
 proclaimed was that every one of the Irish who was sorry for having 
 gone in opposition to the Queen should receive forgiveness, that any 
 of the men of Ireland whose estates had been taken by the Saxons 
 through oppression, violence, or illegality, would have a restitution 
 of the same.' No wonder the undertaker should determine to trip 
 up a Lord Lieutenant whose views Avere so interpreted by the natives. 
 
 "The trenchant style of Ralegh can be detected in the Queen's 
 answers, censuring and destroying the plans of Essex. ' Your pen 
 flatters you with phrases, that you are disgraced from hence, that 
 poor Ireland suffers in you. We will not tolerate this.' And in a 
 more official despatch to the Lord Lieutenant in Council, she tells 
 him : ' Your opinions deserve reproof rather than answer. . . . You 
 have been the cause of corruption in religion by favoring popery.' 
 As to Essex's agreement with the gallant Hugh O'Xeill, Elizabeth 
 
 * Sir John Pope Hennessy, " Ralegb in Ireland," c. 15. 
 
108 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 writes: ' To trust this traitor upon oath is to trust a devil upon his 
 religion.' 
 
 "Eeplying from Ireland, he said: 'Is it not known that from 
 England I receive nothing but discomfort and soul's wounds? Is it 
 not lamented of your Majesty's faithful subjects, both here and there, 
 that a Cobham and a Ealegh should have such credit and favor with 
 your Majesty ? ' 
 
 . . . . "At the trial he (Ealegh) Avas a witness against Essex, 
 wdien the latter exclaimed, 'What booteth it to swear this fox?' 
 
 .... "The biographers of Essex still keep speculating on the 
 mystery that surrounds his fall, instead of turning to the mass of 
 Irish correspondence now available to writers and students. For the 
 months of remorse, the worry and sleepless nights that preceded the 
 death of Elizabeth, ample material can also be found in that unpub- 
 lished history. One day the Queen adopts Ealegh's advice, the next 
 he is in disgrace. Then in a sort of despair she calls him back to read 
 another batch, of Irish despatches. Many years had passed since 
 Ealegh told her how Ireland could be held, by vigorous measures, 
 without any cost to her exchequer. He had gone on repeating that 
 the true policy was to uphold the ' Inglishe inhabitants in Ireland 
 which are yet strong enough to master the Irishe without any charge 
 to the Queen.' She acted on this advice, and now after forty years 
 of repression, she finds Ireland more Irish than ever, more costly to 
 her treasury, and kept down by the largest army of occupation that 
 any English sovereign had sent across the seas. Though Ealegh 
 had foreseen something of this, — though in 1593 he had written — 
 
 " ' That accursed kingdom hath always bynn but as a trafique for 
 which Her Majestye hath paid both fraight and costome, and others 
 received the merchandize; and other than such it shall never be;' 
 "though in the same letter he had said, — 
 
 "'A million hath bynn spent by Her Majestye in Ireland. A 
 better kingdome might have bynn purchased att a less price.' 
 "and though he added, — 
 
 " ' Destiney is stronger than councell ' — 
 
Walter Raleigh's Baneful Influence. 109 
 
 "Yet he continued to advise the sending of more soldiers and the 
 wasting of more money. Up to the hour of the Queen's death he 
 continued to pit his counsel against the destiny that destroyed Eliza- 
 beth's Irish policy and was to overwhelm himself. 
 
 .... "The Irish policy of the Stuart kings was halting and 
 defective. But it was perfection itself compared to what had pre- 
 ceded it and what followed it. The early years in that glimmering 
 of justice and common sense brought some hope to Ireland and cor- 
 responding disaster to Ealegh." * 
 
 This is but a peep into Elizabeth's Privy Council room, and into 
 the council-chamber of Dublin Castle, where Edmund Spenser is 
 Chief Secretary, and where such men as Sir George Carew, and 
 Kichard Boyle, Earl of Cork, and Charles Blount, Lord Mountjoy, 
 are planning the settlement of Ireland by the policy of exterminat- 
 ing the Irish, and planting the land with English Protestants. 
 
 We shall see this policy carried out. It is only a brief glance at 
 one of the terrible prospects before us. 
 
 * Sir John Pope Hennessy, " Ralegh in Ireland," c. 40, 
 
11. 
 
 What Became of the Country aistd the People ukder the 
 "Ciyilizixct" Methods of the English. 
 
 1. The Country : — Devastation. 
 ^T^HE address or petition of the Irish to Pope John XXII., 
 describes truthfully, in a few lines, the "devastation" com- 
 mitted systematically on these portions of the Island held by the 
 native Celts. It asserts with no less truth the process of "extermina- 
 tion" carried on by Lord Deputy after Lord Deputy, as well as by 
 every noble or' gentle "land-grabber" who could obtain a slice of the 
 territory won by force or fraud from the "Wilde Irishe." 
 
 The border-land between the English Pale and the rest of the 
 Island was continually wasted either by the Settlers, who considered 
 it lawful to make forays into the Irish country, carrying fire and 
 sword whithersoever they rode, destroying harvests and habitations, 
 massacring indiscriminately the unfortunate people, as they would so 
 many wild beasts, and carrying off their flocks and herds ; or by the 
 enraged Irish who retaliated upon the inhuman "Sassmach," by 
 falling upon their settlements on every favorable occasion, and 
 emulating their deeds of rapine and blood. 
 
 But we should only convey a very incorrect idea of the mischief 
 done to the land, and to all the dearest interests of industry and 
 humanity therein by this mutual destruction, were we to leave the 
 reader to believe that this border-land only extended around the 
 narrow zone limiting northward and westward the small district com- 
 prised, in the 14th century, within the Pale proper. 
 
 The enormous grants of land — of territory, rather — made to 
 (110^ 
 
The Soil of Ireland needs Careful Culture. Ill 
 
 the Fitz Geralds, Lacys, De Coureys, De Burgos, &c., embraced the 
 greatest part of Munster, Connaught, and Leinster, with the whole 
 of Meath, and no small part of Ulster. These great Barons, even 
 when they liad become to the English eyes Hibernis ipsis Hiberniores 
 ('more Irish than the Irish themselves'), were English all the same, 
 and at continual war wdtli the surrounding Septs, or with their 
 powerful neighbors and rivals of Anglo-Xorman descent. The wars 
 of the Desmonds and Butlers often made a desert of the loveliest and 
 most fertile portions of the South. Connaught was as often 
 desolated by its own intestine fueds or by the incursions of the 
 O'Neills from Ulster, or the hostile bands of the O'Briens, Butlers, 
 and Geraldines. So was it with Meath. Thus there was no peace 
 for the land, no rest for the earth from the ravages of fire and sword, 
 and from the successive year's flood after the desolating fires. 
 
 For nothing is more injurious to the plough-lands of Ireland, 
 than to lie long fallow. The soil is not of very great depth, and 
 retains, in a very moist climate, too much of the water. This, for- 
 merly, was pumped up by the magnificent forests; it is so still by the 
 growing crops. But when the land is idle long, it grows reedy and 
 deteriorates. Culture does not restore to it the elements which 
 absorb the excessive humidity, and foster its fertilizing qualities. 
 
 Within the districts exclusively peopled by the Native Celts the 
 old system of culture prevailed. The corn was superabundant for 
 the needs of all ; the great flocks and herds supplied a superabun- 
 dance of animal food, of ' white meats ' especially. There were every- 
 where great fields of flax; for down to the age of the Reformation 
 the manufacture of linen as well as that of wool were household 
 industries. 
 
 It still — we mean Celtic Ireland — was a land teeming with milk 
 and honey, the golden harvests waving in the open, the glorious 
 herds of kine and the flocks of sheep pasturing on the hill-sides or 
 within the recesses of the forests. 
 
 The border-lands and what might be termed the mixed territory, 
 where Celt and Anglo-Irish lived together in comparative peace, 
 
112 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 shared in this abundance. Indeed the keen eye of the "land- 
 hungry" Barons had from the first selected the most fertile portions 
 of the country. The Golden Yale of Tipperary obtained its name 
 from the rich harvests it bore, and the over-plenty it yielded in 
 medieval, as Avell as in post-Reformation, times. Throughout all 
 these centuries, this "Land of the West" had been, for hungry 
 English fortune-seekers, like the Garden of the Ilesperides, in -which 
 apples of red gold loaded the trees. 
 
 In spite of the alternate neglect and rapacity of the English 
 Government and its representatives in Ireland, in spite of the 
 frequent ravages of guerilla wai'fare going on over its surface, the 
 Pale and the English settlements generallv, would revive and flourish 
 in a single season of peace and thrift. But, as we shall see, the 
 entire population in these parts were native Celts. 
 
 Hear what is said of this part of the country during the first half 
 of the sixteenth centur}^ just as the old order of things was under- 
 going so deep and momentous a change. 
 
 "The English Pale, which was now an extending instead of a 
 contracting area, was growing in prosperity. There was a steady 
 rise in the value of its produce; the land was well tilled, and full of 
 cattle; the cities and towns were populous; the houses well built, and 
 furnished 'with plate, furniture, and apparel'; the youth (in con- 
 sequence of the suppression of Cathohc Schools) were sent abroad for 
 education to Louvain, Dole, and Kome, and to study law at the inns 
 of court in London. The condition of the walled towns, both those 
 on the coast and those in the interior, which were almost exclusively 
 inhabited by people of unmixed English blood, was a great contrast 
 to that of the open country : a brisk traffic was carried on between 
 the citizens and the country-folk, and the seaboard cities were the 
 emporia of an increasing trade with other countries, more especially 
 Spain. There had been a considerable addition to the 'Shireland.' 
 Anathy, by the submission of O'Farrell, had been converted into the 
 county of Longford; the county of Connaught had been sub-divided 
 into the counties of Mayo and Galway; and Roscommon had had 
 
Condition of the Englisli Pale. - 113 
 
 Sligo and Leitrim carved out of it. Thornond had been denomi- 
 nated County Clare, and transferred from the province of Monster to 
 that of Connaught, The territory of Desmond, however, was in a 
 wretched condition. The hereditary quarrels between the Earls of 
 Desmond and Ormonde had turned the country into a wilderness; 
 and Sir Henry Sidney, in the description he gives of it, says that ' he 
 never saw a more waste and desolate land, no not in the confines of 
 other countries where actual war hath continually been kept by the 
 greatest princes of Christendom.' " * 
 
 Such were the effects of the wars between two of the most power- 
 ful Anglo-Irish nobles. It was the policy of the Government to 
 provoke and foster these feuds, in order to weaken, break down, and 
 destroy the power of these nobles, whom the Tudors and the Stuarts 
 alike treated as enemies. 
 
 Bat w^e return from this brief glance bestowed on the Pale, to the 
 real Irish country and people. 
 
 Ireland, on the whole, was, as we have said, still a land of beauty, 
 fertility and plenty. It is not a little curious to find in the con- 
 clusion of a Memoir presented, it is thought, to Henry A^IIL, and 
 drawn up at the instance of Cardinal Wolsey, the following picture 
 of Ireland as nature made her, and as man's industry could keep her. 
 
 "Also the Pandar saitli : 'That if this land (of Ireland) were 
 put once in order, as aforesaid, it would be none other but a very 
 paradise, delicious of all pleasaunce, in respect and regard of any 
 other land in this world, inasmuch as there never was stranger or 
 alien person, great and small, that would leave it willingly, notwith- 
 standing the said mis-order, if he had the means to dwell therein 
 honestly (i. e. honorably and as became his condition), much greater 
 would be his desire if the land were once put in order.' " 
 
 We have spoken above of the culture of flax ; one word about the 
 manufacture of linen. In general it must be said, that the in- 
 dustries of the native Irish received from their English neighbors as 
 
 * " Kingdom of Ireland," p. 124. 
 
114 Tlie Cause of Ireland. 
 
 little encouragement, as did the Irisli literature and language. But 
 what the former had of home manufacture, not only sufficed abun- 
 dantly for their own need, but were coveted by their rivals of the 
 Pale, and sought after by continental peoples. The linen which was 
 the great staple of clothing among a pastoral and peaceful race, was 
 produced by their own looms. It was, as we have seen, extensively 
 used in the church services, on the Altar, in priestly robes of every 
 description (for silk only began to be prescribed by rule in the 14th 
 century); in the embroidered hangings that decorated sanctuary, 
 nave, and transepts. It was no less used in decorating the halls of 
 the wealthy and the great. Its quality was so superior that it was 
 exported in considerable quantities, — till commercial jealousy de- 
 manded and obtained acts suppressing the trade. 
 
 So shall we presently see the woollen industry sacrificed, and, in 
 due course of time, every single source of skilled and profitable labor 
 in Ireland, dried up by legislative enactments, and farming alone 
 left, (and such farming !) as the sole resource of the nation, while 
 the very produce of this wretched agriculture was, yearly, drained 
 out of Ireland, as her rivers are drained into the ocean, never to flow 
 back again. 
 
 Unfortunate country ! And still more unfortunate people ! It 
 were to the hasty reader of history difficult to say, which of the two, 
 the naturally fertile and teeming land, or the naturally intellectual, 
 lore-loving, religious, and generous people, has been treated with 
 more unreason, more injustice to the Giver of all good, who made 
 both so rich and so responsive to the hand of intelligent husbandry. 
 
 3. The People. 
 
 What is, perhaps, most saddening to a man of true Christian 
 feeling and temper, is the reflection, that all this horrible Avrong was 
 perpetrated by one Catholic people against another. 
 
 We, therefore, take up the thread of our argument. We are 
 going to account for the measures taken under the Tudors for a re- 
 conquest and a re-plantation of Celtic Ireland. 
 
Limits of the Pale in the Year 1500. 115 
 
 We see that the prescriptive legislation embodied in the Statutes 
 of Kilkenny, instead of touching the conscience of a people who 
 called themselves Christians and prided themselves on being Catho- 
 lics, was only a prelude to more oppressive measures. 
 
 At the close of the reign of Henry VII., the re-enactment of aU 
 these anti-Irish laws was deemed a necessary step toward recovering 
 in the island the ground which English ascendancy had lost. The 
 fact is that the men who governed in the Castle of Dublin were bent 
 on reconquering the country by the sword, and in enforcing by the 
 sword the reign of feudal or English law and the supremacy of the 
 English race and language. This was an idea again and again 
 urged upon the English Privy Council by men who had been sent 
 over to Ireland to inquire into the condition of things there. And 
 their suggestions agreed with the ophiion and sentiment of the 
 nation and its rulers. That Henry VII. did not, before he died, 
 adopt energetic measures to carry out and supplement the Statutes 
 of Kilkenny, was due to no lack of good will to do so, but to the 
 civil broils at home, and to the King's reluctance to engage in an 
 expensive and protracted military undertaking, such as the reduction 
 by force of a whole country to uniformity of law, language, govern- 
 ment, and civil discipline. 
 
 It is not generally understood to what very narrow limits the 
 refluent wave of Irish "barbarism " and guerilla warfare had reduced 
 the territory over which, in the year 1500, the English domination 
 extended. The authority of the Lord Deputy and his Privy Council 
 did not extend beyond Drogheda and the line of the Boyne toward 
 the north, and southward beyond the line of the Liffey, and a very 
 narrow circuit around Dublin. Even within these limits the great 
 majority of the inhabitants were of the Irish-Celtic race, speaking 
 the Gaelic tongue, following the customs of their ancestors, and ap- 
 pealing to the decisions of their Brehon judges in all differences 
 and law-suits. On the borders of their very narrow Pale, and be- 
 yond it, wherever in any of the Provinces the great Anglo-lSTorman 
 families lived, they had adopted the language, dress, customs, and 
 
116 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 laws of the Celts among whom their lot was cast. Feudal tenure 
 and English law existed not for them or their numerous dependants, 
 or it existed only in name. Burkes, Butlers, Fitz Geralds, and their 
 fellows, were thoroughly identified in affection, and every patriotic 
 interest with the nation of which they were a part. Their very 
 names, in the districts Avhere they lived, and among their people, liad 
 been assimilated to the Irish surnames : frequent intermarriage with 
 the noble Irish families had left in their blood but a very small 
 admixture of the Norman or Anglo-Saxon. They were content to 
 be ruled by Brehon jurisprudence : tliey were happy in the free, 
 simple, and virtuous hfe which they led with their people around the 
 monasteries and churches which their own munificence had founded 
 and endowed. They cared not for the honors and enjoyments shared 
 by their class in England. They asked of the English King only to 
 forget them in the midst of the little principalities which they ruled 
 with no tyrannical sway. 
 
 But English Kings and their greedy and unscrupulous representa- 
 tives in Ireland, had more than one motive for not forgetting either 
 the " degenerate English" — the " English rebels," as they were con- 
 veniently designated, — or the "Irish Enemy." 
 
 Any student or reader of the annals of both countries during the 
 16th and 17th centuries must be blind, who does not see how the 
 "public opinion" pre^»iling in the court circles both of London and 
 Dublin, pointed steadily, year after year, to renewed and energetic 
 efforts toward the complete and final subjugation of this "Irish 
 Enemy," toward the establishing of the English law and the English 
 tongue and customs throughout the length and breadth of the rebel- 
 lious isle. 
 
 Already Henry VII. had anticipated his granddaughter Elizabeth 
 not only in proscribing the Irish language, customs, and laws, but iu 
 forbidding the very use of Irish patronymics and war-cries. To the 
 dainty ears of the men and women familiar with the open licentious- 
 ness, coarse language, and coarser vices of the English Court and 
 nobility at that very time, the battle-cries of Shanet-ahou ! or Crom- 
 
Blotting out and Mac in Baptism. IIV 
 
 abou ! savored of ''Scythian barbarism." The clan-names of and 
 Mac, recalling or perpetuating as they did the clan-organization with 
 its patriarchal customs, were suppressed by act of parliament. They 
 went further, even in these good old Catholic times, — as if to sliow 
 how little the sweet charities of the Christian religion influenced the 
 savage legislation and heathen State-policy of the English Govern- 
 ment. They devised a scheme for ''anglifying" the entire hierarchy 
 of Ireland with the Priesthood, and the great monastic communities 
 which were the schools or nurseries of the clergy both secular and 
 regular. It was sought to prevent Eeligious Communities from 
 admitting to the noviciate any persons who were not English descent. 
 And ecclesiastical superiors were forbidden to hold out any hope 
 of preferment to priests of Irish blood. Thus the entire body of 
 those who were the teachers and guides of the Iri&h people were to 
 be either of the race or the tongue so deservedly hateful to the nation. 
 
 This odious policy was sought to be enforced in every household 
 in the land: the family names were to disappear, and Irishmen, 
 instead of calling themselves and Mac, like their forefathers, were 
 enjoined to select the name of some town, or trade, or color, or office. 
 Thus originated among us»the innumerable tribes of the Smiths, 
 Taylors, Carpen^ters, Brewers, Bakers, Carters, Cookes, 
 Coopers ; of the Blacks, Browstes, Grays, Green^es and Whites ; 
 of the Judges, Clarkes, Sargents, Marshalls, Stewarts, Pre- 
 VOSTS, — and the long catalogues of family-names ending in ton, 
 ville, ford, ham, &c. 
 
 Of course, Irish obstinacy, perversity, or by whatever term you 
 choose to designate their invincible attachment to their own national 
 past, to their race, language, and ancestral institutions and customs, 
 — resisted all legislation, all attempts at coercion or persuasion. Shall 
 we not give to this sentiment of undying attachment to the Celtic 
 traditions its true name, and call it self-respect? 
 
 '•The demarcation between English and Irish," says Mr. Thomas 
 Arnold,* "which the civil government thus did its utmost to main- 
 
 " Catholic Dictionary," Art. Irish Church. 
 
118 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 taiii;, was partially introduced, and with the most unhappy results, 
 into the administration of C-hurch affairs. In the counties of the 
 Pale it was scarcely possible for an ecclesiastic of Irish race to obtain 
 preferment. The invasion by the Scots under Edward Bruce in 
 1315, though ultimately defeated, caused great confusion, and called 
 forth during its continuance many tokens of sympathy from the 
 Irish clergy. This, says Mr. Malone, was made a pretext for ' throw- 
 ing off the mask,' and under color of disloyalty Irishmen were 
 excluded from all the higher dignities and benefices. Yet it would 
 appear that this exclusion could not have extended much beyond the 
 Pale; for if we examine the lists of bishops occupying the Irish sees 
 in 1350, we find that out of thirty-three names eighteen are certainly 
 Irish, thirteen English, while two may be doubtful. All through 
 this period of confusion and disunion a stroiig religious feeling was 
 abroad, animating the men of both races alike, and directing them 
 to common objects. In the 13th century we liear of one hundred 
 and seventy monasteries being founded; about fifty-five in the 14th; 
 and about sixty in the 15th. Two unsuccessful attempts were made 
 to found universities: one at Dublin (1330) by Archbishop Bicknor; 
 the other at Drogheda, by the Parliament which sat there in 14G5."* 
 
 In 1475 Pope Sixtus IV. by a solemn bull authorized the estab- 
 lishment of a university in Dublin. But as all these educational 
 enterprises were directed by the prime-movers therein toward not 
 only denationalizing an entire ancient race, but extinguishing the 
 race itself, — we cannot wonder that they utterly failed of their j)ur- 
 pose, and that the universities were never founded. 
 
 Nor do we regret it at this day. Catholics, Irish Catholics in par- 
 ticular, should be thankful that the twofold antagonism of race and 
 language stood as an effectual barrier against the projects of the 
 "anglifiers," first, and, afterward, against the spread of the reformed 
 doctrines. It is a mercy, — both in respect of the national, future now 
 dawning on Ireland, and in respect of the perils threatening Kevealed 
 
 * Thomas Arnold, A.M., art. Irish Church, in " Cath. Diet." 
 
Failure of Anti-Irish University in Dublin. 119 
 
 Eeligion in England as well as on the Continent, — that the native 
 Irish youth should not have been drawn, in the last half of the 15th 
 century, into such hostile and proselytizing schools as the proposed 
 universities. Their clergy would have none of them; and they were 
 well inspired. Had the Irisli Clei*gy become '^angiified/ and the 
 whole of our episcopal sees been filled by men of English lineage, or, 
 still worse, by Irishmen of English culture and ambitious to Justify 
 their training; had our monastic and cathedral schools seconded the 
 proposed universities in their work of anglification, — the whole Island 
 must, without a miracle, have followed England and Scotland in 
 their revolt against the Holy See. As it is, the Irish race preferred 
 to lose everything, to suffer everything, rather than give up their own 
 hopes of an independent nationality together with their devotion to 
 the Centre of Catholicity. 
 
 We are thankful that it is so. But we must now examine at how 
 fearful a cost the existence of the Irish race and the preservation of 
 the faith of St. Patrick were secured. 
 
PART THIRD, 
 
 THE PERIOD OF PLANTATION AND EXTERMINATION. 
 
 The Land Question under the Tudors. 
 
 1. Henrij VII. (U85-1509). 
 TTENRY VII. ascended the throne in 1485. The English land, 
 or the English Pale in Ireland was confined to the territory 
 included within the Boyne and the Lilfey. " Dykes and forts were built 
 round its borders for the protection of the inhabitants. The seacoast 
 towns were isolated; and the great Earls of Desmond and Ormonde 
 received licenses to absent themselves from the Parliament at Dublin 
 by reason of the danger and difficulty of passing through the Irish 
 enemy's country. The native Irish had reco\ered the greater portion 
 of the island; exacting tribute from the few English settlers who 
 remained, and demanding and receiving ' black rent ' from the surviv- 
 ing English counties." 
 
 In this emergency a frantic effort was made to enforce all the 
 restrictive legislation against the native Irish enacted since the Stat- 
 ute of Kilkenny. The Celts were simply outlawed once more, and 
 treated as such inside and outside every town and .stronghold where 
 English might prevailed. But, in spite of the energetic efforts made 
 to drive back the rising Celtic wave^ it overspread even the Pale. 
 
 The O'Neill received annually a tribute of £20 from the barony of 
 Lecale, and £40 from the county of Louth. "O'Connor of Offaly 
 (130) 
 
Policy of Repressioyi and Extermination. 121 
 
 received £60 from the county of Meatli, und £20 from the county of 
 Kildare; Mac Murrough of Leinster received 80 marks from the 
 Crown. Even the walled towns, which had hitherto maintained their 
 independence, now purchased protection by the payment of an annual 
 cess. . . . The Lord Deputy was within measurable distance of being 
 driven into the sea." * 
 
 How repress this phenomenal vitality of the Celt ? So far fire and 
 sword have availed but little to extirpate the race, or to extinguish 
 that indomitable courage, which rises superior to defeat, disaster, and 
 seeming destruction. The vigorous Anglo-Norman offshoots planted 
 on Irish soil, should, one would think, act on the native population, 
 as do the gigantic and fast-growing parasites of the Tropics on the 
 trees of sturdiest growth, inevitably strangle them in their embrace, 
 and draw all vitality out of them. In Ireland, on the contrary, both 
 the parasite and the native oak seemed to grow healthily together, 
 and to become at length identified as one tree, defying the passing 
 storm and the waste of time. 
 
 This close union, — or what appeared to be a close union, — of both 
 races, and the fact that they were fast rooted in tlie soil, were the very 
 things which aroused all the evil passions of the Officials in Dublin, 
 and fed, as well, the anti-Irish feeling in England. In the latter 
 country it was the national determination that Ireland must belong to 
 England, and to become wholly English, it must be peopled by Eng- 
 lishmen. In Dublin, where "land-hunger" was the living soul of 
 the Government, the anti-Irish passion had never meant anything else 
 but "the rooting out the Irish" and the planting the land with an 
 English population. 
 
 "England," says Mr. Walpole, "distracted with foreign wars and 
 evil strife, had for two hundred years allowed the Irish question to 
 drift. She was now about to take matters seriously in hand, and to 
 carry out a stern policy of repression and extermination, not only 
 against the Celtic race, but against the Anglo-Irish also. Henceforth 
 
 * " The Kingdom of Ireland," pp. 68, 69. 
 
122 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 we shall find but little distinction made between the natives and the 
 old colonists — if any^ it was in favor of the former — and a disposition 
 to make a fresh conquest and a fresh settlement, and to subordinate 
 the old blood to the new. ' The English by birth ' were to be the 
 children of promise; ' the English by descent ' were to be the sons of 
 Ishmael." * 
 
 Henry VIL had a long head, and took effective means to help 
 forward this policy of "extermination," as our latest historian rightly 
 calls it. He began by so modifying the constitution of the Irish Par- 
 liament, as to make it only a passive instrument in the hands of his 
 Officials in Ireland; and then he prepared to lay the axe to the roots 
 of the tree by weakening and destroying the great Irish Chieftains of 
 both English and Celtic blood. 
 
 In 1494, Sir Edward Poynings arrived in Dublin as Lord Deputy, 
 accompanied by a formidable body of English lawyers, and by one 
 thousand men at arms. 
 
 The Statute of Kilkenny was forthwith reenacted, omitting only 
 the clause about the use of the Irish language, which it had been found 
 impossible to enforce. The owners of ' marsh,' or border, lands were 
 enjoined to reside on their estates: to permit the "Irish Enemy" 
 (native Celts) or the "Irish rebels" (native English) to pass the 
 borders, was made felony, for which the marsh lords were punish- 
 able. No citizen of any town could enter the service of a lord with- 
 out forfeiting his citizenship. None but lawful apprentices could be 
 admitted to the freedom of the towns. This was a terrible blow 
 aimed at the power of the great nobles. 
 
 The English Lawyers next took in hand the Irish Parliament. 
 Henceforth it must be made a docile tool of English state policy. 
 "It was provided that all statutes which had up to that date been 
 passed by the English legislature, should thenceforward be binding 
 and effectual in Ireland; that no Parliament should in future be 
 summoned in Ireland till the lord-deputy had first obtained the 
 
 * " The Kingdom of Ireland," p. 73. 
 
Kildare governs Ireland. 123 
 
 king's license for its being held, and liad snbmitted to the king and 
 the privy-council the heads of all bills which it was proposed should 
 be brought in; and that the consent of the king and the council to 
 such bills should be obtained before the}^ could be proceeded with. 
 Thus, in effect, making all legislation to come cut and dried from the 
 Ci-own, to be merely pro forma registered by the Irish Houses of 
 Parliament." * 
 
 This is known in Irish history as "Poynings' Act." But Poynings 
 had a purpose for his one thousand men-at-arms, as he had for his 
 brigade of lawyers. He compelled both the Geraldines and the 
 Butlers to march with him into Ulster to give a lesson to the Septs of 
 O'llanlon and Mac Gennis. Meanwhile some evil genius, an imp 
 from the Castle, most probably, had persuaded another of the 
 Geraldines, a brother of the Earl of Kildare, to seize the Castle of 
 Carlow, and luifurl the flag of York. It was just what the Deputy 
 wanted. He turned back from the north and crushed this abortive 
 attempt at rebellion, — for which the Earl of Kildare was to be held 
 further accountable. 
 
 But although attainted for high treason in the Parliament held at 
 Drogheda by Poynings, and sent to England as a traitor, Kildare won 
 the good opinion of Henry VII. All Ireland, he was told, could not 
 govern the Earl of Kildare. "Well," replied Henry, "then shall 
 Kildare govern all Ireland" ; and the Earl was sent back as Lord 
 Depvity. 
 
 He served Henry's policy well. He enforced English law and 
 established the power of the Crown in every part of Ireland, save 
 Tyrone, where his nephew, Turlough O'Neill, still reigned over his 
 sturdy Celts. He reorganized the borough-towns, garrisoned those 
 that were fortified, built strongholds to protect the Pale or to over- 
 awe the Irish in the remote districts; broke down the power of the 
 Earl of Desmond, unconscious in so doing of preparing the way for 
 the destruction of his own house; and summoned Turlough O'lSTeill 
 
 * "The Kingdom of Ireland," p. 78. 
 
124 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 and his Celts to join the royal forces in a campaign into Connaught 
 against the Earl of Clanrickarde, and O'Brien of Thomonde; gained 
 a great victory at Knoctow near Gal way, and gave a blow to the 
 power of the native Chieftains from wliich they never wholly 
 recovered. 
 
 They had formed two hostile leagues : Kildare placed the sword 
 of England at the service of one of them, and turned the fortune of 
 war against the other. 
 
 They had not known, or had not seemed to know the hour when, 
 by uniting and striking together, they could easily have driven the 
 English Lord Deputy — and his Officials with him — into the sea. 
 Xow the Lord Deputies, -working successively and perseveringly on 
 one line of policy, will drive into the sea or out of existence whole 
 generations of Irishmen. 
 
 2. Henry VIII. (1509-15Jf7). 
 We should mislead the reader, if we were to allow him to believe 
 that Cardinal Wolsey, so powerful during the first half of this reign, 
 in any way favored toward Celtic Ireland a policy of peace and con- 
 ciliation tending to elevate and develop the elements of Christian 
 life among the people. It is, rather, to the credit of Henry himself 
 that he did in reality entertain, at first, a sincere desire to win the 
 Irish by a kindly government, bind them to England by solid and 
 substantial benefits, and thus prepare them to adopt by degrees the 
 language and literature, the manners and customs of their English 
 neighbors, together with the laws and institutions of England. 
 "Two distinct courses were the constant subject of discussion be- 
 tween the king and the Irish government. The latter warmly 
 advocated a policy of extermination and plantation. The Irish were 
 to be driven from their lands; the chiefs deposed; the cattle, their 
 principal source of wealth and subsistence, driven off or slaughtered; 
 and the whole native population decimated by starvation. The land 
 was then to be granted out to English freeholders, who should pay 
 a head rent to the Crown. Henry shrank from the expense, if not 
 
Vivid Description of tlie English Pale. 125 
 
 from the brutality of sucli a course. His plan was coercion and con- 
 ciliation." * 
 
 To all who wish to look into the currents of deep thought then 
 moving men's minds^ and to the drift of social currents, as well, — it 
 is of no small interest to pause a moment here, and examine how 
 clearly the mighty events and changes about to occur in the Christen- 
 dom of the sixteenth century, were foreshadowed in the documents 
 laid before Cardinal Wolsey, his royal master, and the members of 
 their Privy Council. 
 
 We are in the year 1515. In the English State Paper Office is 
 still preserved a manuscript Eeport on the condition of Ireland, drawn 
 up, most likely, by order of Wolsey, and submitted to the Privy 
 Council in that year. In spite of the energetic administration of the 
 Earl of Kildare, the English Pale did not extend far beyond the very 
 narrow limits assigned to it above, — that is, beyond the counties of 
 Uriel or Louth, Meath, Dublin, Kildare, and Wexford. Even within 
 this very limited space, '^the great mass of the population . . . con- 
 sisted of native Irish, the English having everywhere deserted their 
 lands on account of the exactions and oppressions to which they were 
 exposed.' In that portion of the island exclusively under the rale of 
 the ancient Celtic chieftains, there were some sixty different districts 
 belonging to the native clans or Septs, and governed solely in accord- 
 ance with the Brehon Law. The author of the Keport enumerates all 
 the great families who still held sway over these patriarchal commu- 
 nities, and assigns to each its proper dwelling place. 
 
 Among the English folk outside of the Pale, who live absolutely 
 like their Irish neighbors and acknowledge only the Brehon Law, are 
 thirty ' Great Captains' or Lords. "All the English folk of the said 
 counties be of Irish habit, of Irish language, and of Irish conditions, 
 except the cities and the walled towns. Also, all the English folk of 
 the said counties, for the most part, would be right glad to obey the 
 King's laws, if they might be defended by the King from the Irish 
 
 * "The Kingdom of Ireland," pp. 81, 82. 
 
126 Tlw Cause of Ireland. 
 
 Enemies. And because the King defends them not, and the King's 
 Deputy is not able to defend tliem, therefore they are all turned from 
 the obedience of the King's laws, and live by the sword after the 
 manner of the Irish Enemies." The picture he draws of the masses 
 in the districts nominally under English rule, but ravaged alternately 
 by their own Lords and the hostile native Chieftains, is dismal 
 enough. "What common people," he says, "in all this world is so 
 poor, so feeble, so evil beseen in town and field, so greatly oppressed 
 and trodden under foot ? " 
 
 The remedies suggested in this Keport would seem to be taken 
 from 'the Book of Pandarus,' a famous work denouncing Feudalism 
 and Aristocracy, advocating the cause of the Commons or laboring 
 and industrial classes, and urging the King to befriend them, to pro- 
 mote their interests, and to make of them the supporters of the 
 Throne as against the feudal nobles. In Ireland, according to Pan- 
 darus, the masses were oppressed and plundered and unable to pro- 
 tect themselves against the aristocracy. "To I'aise the King's power 
 in Ireland, it was necessary to raise and encourage the commons, and 
 to repress the aristocracy. The former were to be made to feel that 
 they were under the immediate protection of the King, and they were 
 to be armed and disciplined under responsible officers, the Deputy to 
 be assisted by an army sufficient to enable him to enforce the King's 
 authority." 
 
 This proposal contains the germ of the entire military system to 
 be established in Ireland. One sees that there is a consistency in the 
 various English plans of reconquest and subjugation, rooting out the 
 Irish, and planting Ireland with English colonists, from 1515 to 1884. 
 Whether put in execution by Mountjoy and Carew, by James I. and 
 Sir John Davies, by Wentworth or Cromwell, by Ireton and Coote, or 
 by Orange William, or by each successive British Minister, Lord 
 Lieutenant, or Chief Secretary, down to Gladstone, Spencer, and 
 Trevelyan, — it amounts to the same: get rid of the Irish; they have 
 no rights we need respect on their native soil; and get English colo- 
 nists, and in default of English and Scotch, turn the country into 
 
Proposed Military Organization of Ireland. 127 
 
 pasture-land, and let sheep and cattle take the place of the "Irish 
 Enemy." 
 
 The sword, according to Pandarus and the Eeport in the State 
 Paper Office, is to be the sole successful regulator in Ireland. 
 Neither the Privy Council nor the men sent to investigate matters in 
 Ireland and to report on them, seem to think for a moment that the 
 Native Irish have any right to oppose to these projects of conquest 
 and extermination. They proceed on the assumption that the King 
 of England has a right as indisputable to possess himself of the land 
 and to exterminate, if need be, the people, as if Ireland were an un- 
 inhabited island near the Pole, or as if the lives of its people were of 
 no more account than those of the wild fowl or the beasts of prey. 
 
 The whole scheme detailed at length, and, probably, discussed by 
 Wolsey and his fellow-councillors, is entitled a plan of 'reformation.' 
 The name is ominous. Those in authority in Ireland, are "to ordain 
 and procure that every village and town within six miles of the wild 
 Irish, be ditched and hedged strongly about the gates. ... If the 
 King were as wise as Solomon the Sage, he shall never subdue the 
 wild Irish to his obedience, without dread of the sword and of 
 the might and strength of his power, and of his English subjects, 
 ordered as aforesaid." This 'ordering' of the English in Ireland 
 consists in drilling the male population everywhere, in reviving the 
 use of Archery, in familiarizing the military with the use of muskets 
 and artillery; in one word, the entire population of the Pale and of 
 the counties under English rule must be made the garrison of a vast 
 fortified camp in a country partially conquered and to be wholly sub- 
 jugated. " If this land were once furnished in order as aforesaid, who 
 durst be so bold within the realm of Eno-land to rebel against the 
 King, as the noble folk of that land have done right oft ? And if the 
 King fortune hereafter to be at such distress, which God avoid, where 
 might he be received for sure, and succoured so mighty and so 
 strong, as with his subjects of Ireland? . . . This also the Pandar 
 saith, that if this land were put once in order as aforesaid, it would be 
 none other than a very paradise, delicious of all pleasaunce, in respect 
 
128 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 and regard of any other land in this world, inasmuch as there never 
 was stranger nor alien person, great and small, that would leave it 
 willingly, notwithstanding the said misorder, if he had the means to 
 dwell therein honestly; much greater would be his desire if the land 
 were once put in order." * 
 
 It is, unhappily, too true that the everlasting bane of Ireland — 
 intestine strife and warfare not only among the Septs themselves 
 but among the great Anglo-Irish nobles, who were equally hateful 
 to the English, — furnished, in 1515, and all through the reign 
 of Henry VIII., an opportunity to English Statesmen to carry out 
 these plans of conquest and military plantations. The English were 
 always sure to find ready and willing allies in some of the Irish Chief- 
 tains in every war they chose to undertake. Thus, in 1535, we find 
 Donogh O'Brien, the heir to The O'Brien, the great Irish Chieftain 
 of Limerick, and the descendant of her kings,— making war on his 
 own father, identif3dng himself with the Butler family at the very 
 time their chief was forsaking the old faith for the reform of Henry 
 VIII., and devoting all his energies to forwarding the English cause 
 in Ireland. He demanded from the Lord Deputy, Leonard Gray, a 
 troop of one hundred English horse with their commander to make 
 war on his father and uncle He wishes to possess himself of a 
 country and stronghold near the Shannon, "which never was none 
 Englishman's this two hundred years. I will desire of the King no 
 help," he says, "but this English Captain to go with me upon my 
 father and mine uncle, the which are the King's enemies, and upon 
 the Irishmen that never Englishman was amongst. . . . And for all 
 the land that I shall conquer, it shall be the King's pleasure to set 
 Englishmen in it, to be holden of the King as his pleasure shall be; 
 and I to refuse all such Irish fashions, and to order myself after the 
 English laws, and all that I can make or conquer." f 
 
 We have anticipated the order of time and the logical succession 
 of events, in mentioning Lord Leonard Gray and his "exterminating" 
 expeditions. 
 * Wright, " History of Ireland," Vol. I., book iii., c. 1, pp. 276-78, t Ibidem. 
 
IIe7iry VJII.'s Policy toivard Ireland. 129 
 
 Henry pursued, whenever he could turn aside from Continental 
 politics, his own twofold policy of coercion, first, and then, concili- 
 ation, toward t'eltic Ireland. He began by playing off the great 
 house of Butler against that of Kildare. The Butlers had never 
 identified themselves with the native Irish to the extent to which the 
 Fitz Geralds, — those of Desmond in particular, — had gone. It was 
 Henry's game to exalt the Butlers while humiliating, and, if possi- 
 ble, destroying the Geraldines. Kildare was (1519), therefore, sum- 
 moned to England, and (1520) the Earl of Surrey, a connection of 
 the Butlers, was sent over as Lord Deputy. After thus feeling his 
 way, Henry appointed (1521) Sir Piers Butler, the head of the 
 family, to Surrey's place. Wolsey, who detested the Fitz Geralds, 
 and had laid his own plan to bring about their ruin, allowed the 
 magnificent Irish nobleman to shine and flutter about Henry's 
 splendid and gay court. Kildare was even allowed to form a matri- 
 monial connection with Royalty itself by marrying the Lady Elizabeth 
 Gray. He was even encouraged to accompany Henry to the "Field 
 of the Cloth of Gold," where he shone next to the King. Then he 
 was sent back once more to Ireland as Lord Deputy. During this 
 interval of three years, the Earl of Desmond had been impelled, by 
 what evil counselor we need not say, to enter into correspondence 
 with Francis I., who wanted to create a rebellion in Ireland, and to 
 assume somewhat the airs of an independent and sovereign prince. 
 If a plot had been laid skilfully by Wolsey to secure the ruin of the 
 Geraldines, and if he had been seconded therein by the Dublin 
 officials, events could not have conspired more happily for his 
 purpose. 
 
 Kildare returned to Ireland in 1522, and was placed at the head 
 of the government in 1524, just when all was ripe for Wolsey's design. 
 The Lord Deputy was ordered to arrest Desmond; and having failed 
 to do so, laid himself open to the charge of abetting treason. 
 Besides, all through the administration of Sir Piers Butler, Earl of 
 Ormonde, the O'Neills and their confederates had waged incessant 
 warfare with the O'Donnells. And when, in 1524, Kildare was 
 9 
 
130 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 sworn into office at Dublin,, it was his kinsman, Con O'lSTeill, who 
 bore the Sword of State before him. All these circumstances and 
 many more Avere reported to Wolsey by the Butlers, and by Wolsey to 
 the King. In 1526 Kildare was summoned to London and lodged in 
 the Tower. Keleased on the responsibility of the Duke of Norfolk, 
 he is detained in London Avhile the question of Henry's divorce 
 agitates the whole Kingdom. Meanwhile the Lord Deputy Delvin 
 is taken prisoner by O'Connor of Offaly, and Desmond once more 
 enters into a treasonable correspondence with the Emperor Charles 
 V. That very year (1529) beheld Wolsey's fall from power. Strange 
 to say, it was Wolsey who counseled the King to send Kildare back to 
 Ireland to quell the disorders there, because he judged Sir Piers But- 
 ler unequal to the task of doing so. Henry, however, who had not 
 taken from Kildare his title of Lord Deputy, was content with leav- 
 ing him this empty title. 
 
 Such was the state of affairs when Desmond's treason and O'Con- 
 nor's revolt made Kildare odious to the King. In June 1529 Sir 
 William Skeffington was appointed Lord Deputy, and went to Ireland 
 accompanied by Kildare as his adviser. They worked together for 
 some time, in spite of the bitter feud which would break forth 
 between the Geraldines and the Butlers. But the fall of Wolsey, — 
 the deadly foe of Kildare, raised the hopes of the latter, and made 
 him intrigue at court for the removal of Skeffington and his own res- 
 toration to power. He succeeded. In 1532 Henry consented to his 
 becoming again Lord Deputy, much as he distrusted him and all his 
 house. 
 
 The Irish Privy Council, in which Archbishop Allen, a creature 
 of the fallen Wolsey, was all powerful, viewed the restoration of Kil- 
 dare with anything but favor. Toward the end of 1533, Sir John 
 Allen, the Master of the Polls and also Clerk of the Privy Council, 
 was sent to London with secret instructions to make serious charges 
 against the Lord Deputy. 
 
 A private report to Mr. Secretary Cromwell, who had succeeded 
 to Wolsey in the royal favor, purported to be on the state of Ireland. 
 
The Forged Letters that ruined Kildare's House. 131 
 
 It was a skilful arraignment of Kilclare's administration. Private 
 letters^, — a force well known in the Castle strategy, — poured in upon 
 Cromwell, all supporting the charges made by Allen and the Privy 
 Council. The King was told, in the report of the latter, that the 
 land 'Svas brought to such ruin, that neither the English order, 
 tongue, or habit was used, or the King's laws obeyed, above twenty 
 miles in compass." As to the cause of all this mischief, it arose, the 
 Council affirmed, from "the committing of the government of this 
 land to the lords who are natives of the same, and the frequent 
 change of deputies." The remedies suggested are almost identical 
 with those mentioned in the Book of Pandarus. The private and 
 lengthy report to Cromwell mentions names, enters into details, 
 arrays facts and anecdotes in so skilful a manner that they could not 
 fail to impress a mind like the King's or the Secretary's with the 
 conviction that Kildare was aiming at making himself independent of 
 all royal control in Ireland. 
 
 Kildare, as was evidently foreseen by the Officials in Dublin, was 
 summoned to London and committed a close prisoner to the Tower. 
 Before leaving Ireland, however, he was unwise enough to appoint his 
 young son, the Lord Thomas Fitz Gerald (called "Silken Thomas," 
 on account of his gaudy dress), as Vice-Deputy. 
 
 Here comes in one of those detestable agencies in such favor both 
 with the English Government and Avitli its representatives in Ireland, 
 — forged letters dropped conveniently, and destined to hurry rash 
 men into the commission of desperate deeds, or to furnish some shad- 
 owy ground for a charge of rebellion or conspiracy. 
 
 Forged letters* were sent to Dublin purporting to convey the 
 information that the Earl of Kildare had been beheaded as a traitor. 
 
 *"The enemies, therefore, havinj^ wellnip^h knedded the dough that should 
 have been baked for the Geraldines' bane, devised that secret rumors should 
 sprinkle to and fro, that the Earle of Kildare his execution was intended in England, 
 and that upon his death the Lord Thomas and all his bloud should have been ap- 
 prehended in Ireland. . . . This false muttering . . . was holpen forward by 
 Thomas Canon and others of Skeffington his servants, who sticked not to write to 
 certeine of their friends, as it were verie secret letters how that the Earle of Kil- 
 dare . . . was alreadie cut shorter," &c. — Holinshed's Chronicle. 
 
132 Tlie Cause of xveland. 
 
 The son, thereupon, flies into open rebellion, and all Ireland is in a 
 flame. 
 
 This was what the Government wanted. The tidings of this 
 unhappy outbreak so j)reyed upon Kildare, that he died of grief. 
 The new Lord Deputy, Sir William Skeffington, arrives, bnnging 
 with him new military weapons, a train of artillery, and troops armed 
 with hand-guns. All resistance goes down before such a force. The 
 Lord Thomas surrendered and was sent a prisoner to the Tower of 
 London. Five of his uncles, three of whom had been openly opposed 
 to the rebellion, were entrapped by Skeffington into accepting an 
 invitation to a banquet. They were seized at the table and sent to 
 join their nephew in London, where, in 1537, all five were hanged at 
 Tyburn. 
 
 It were foreign to our purpose to bring in here the change of 
 religion, which was happening at this verj' moment. Outside of the 
 Government officials, and the usual swarm of English fortune-hunt- 
 ers, to whom the King's favor was the breath of life, — there were 
 found in all Ireland few indeed to accept the new doctrines. Still, 
 and looking only to the influence which the great Anglo-Irish families 
 had on subsequent events, we must remark here, that it was in 
 1534, while the Lord Deputy Kildare was a close prisoner in the 
 Tower of London, and Skeffington's ' friends ' in England and the 
 Castle Officials in Dublin were laboring so successfully to drive the 
 Geraldines into open rebellion, — the Earl of Ossory* had gone to 
 London to secure the ruin of Kildare and his family, and to become 
 the 'King's man.' . . . 
 
 Then did the head of the house of Butler renounce his allegiance 
 to Rome and to the ancient faith, and contract with the King that 
 momejitous alliance, which was to be fraught with such evil conse- 
 quences to Ireland, — to Irish Catholics, especially. Kildare liad left 
 Drogheda for London, in answer to the King's summons in February, 
 
 * He had given up his title of Earl of Ormonde to the head of the house of 
 Boleyn, and taken that of Ossory, 
 
The Butlers go over to the Neiv Religion. 133 
 
 1534. In the May following occurred an event which we leave it to 
 the historian Wright to narrate. 
 
 "The Butlers were the first great Anglo-Irisli family that carried 
 their devotion to the King so far as to give their zealous support to 
 the new order of things in the Church. In the May of 1534, the 
 King made a grant to the Earl of Ossory of the government of Kil- 
 kenny, Tipperary, Waterford, Ossory, and Ormonde, and the Earl 
 entered into a written indenture promising certain services to the 
 Crown, in the conclusion of which there was a special agreement 
 tliat, ^considering that it is manifest and notorious that the pro- 
 visions and usurped jurisdiction of the Bishop of Rome hath been, 
 and continually is, the most and principal cause of the desolation, 
 division, ruin, and decay of the said land of Ireland, by the abomi- 
 nable abuse whereof the cathedral churches, churches in monasteries, 
 parish churches, and all other, regular and secular, for the more 
 part, in effect, through the land, be in utter ruin and destroyed; for 
 the said Bishop of Rome commonly hath preferred, by his provisions, 
 to the administration and government of them, not only vile and 
 vicious persons, unlearned, being murderers, thieves, and of other 
 detestable disposition, as light men of war, who for their unjust 
 maintenance therein, some time to expel the rightful incumbent, and 
 other seasons, by force of secular power, to put the true patrons from 
 their patronage, and other their misorders, — have not only spent, 
 wasted, and alienated such lands as the King, his noble progenitors, 
 and his nobles, gave to the augmentation of God's divine service, in 
 the churches of that land, the exhibition and maintenance of the 
 ministers of the same, and the utensils and ornaments there, but also 
 by occasion of the same great wars hath been stirred amongst the 
 King's people, and countries burnt, bishops and divers other persons, 
 spiritual and temporal, murdered, and many other detestable things 
 have ensued thereby, which would abhor any good Christian man to 
 liear, to the high displeasure of God, the violation of his laws, the 
 derogation of the King's jurisdiction and regality, and the great det- 
 riment of his nobles and people; and the King's highness, like a 
 
134 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 most virtuous and most Christian prince, minding and desiring above 
 all things the repression and extincting of any abuse and enormity 
 which \\\ any wise may be contrary to the laws of God, or be occasion 
 to his people to fall from charity or Christian manners, hath willed 
 his said Deputy to resist with all his power the abuse and usurped 
 jurisdiction of the said Bishop of Rome in the premises; according 
 to which his Grace's pleasure, the said Earl of Ossory hath promised 
 to his Highness, and by these presents bindeth himself, that he 
 and his son, and every of them and their heirs, shall not only by 
 themselves resist with all their possible powers, everywhere under 
 their rules, the said provisions and the Bishop of Rome's usurped 
 jurisdiction; maintaining also and assisting the King's Deputy and 
 all his officers for repressing thereof, according to the statutes there- 
 upon provided, but also shall practice Avith all others, and induce 
 them as much as they possibly may to do likewise.' 
 
 ''This is the earliest notice we have," the historian continues, "of 
 an attempt to introduce the church reformation, which had been 
 effected in England, into Ireland. . . A few days after the date of 
 the Earl of Ossory's indenture just quoted, the rebellion of Silken 
 Thomas broke out. . . Ev^en at this moment the question of religion 
 was not put forward prominently by the insurgents; although their 
 leaders found a justification in the plea which had so often been set 
 up by the English themselves on former occasions, that the Pope was 
 the temporal lord of the Island, that the English monarchs derived 
 their right of sovereignty from him, and that, since the King of Eng- 
 land had turned heretic, he (the pope) could transfer it to another; 
 and they now applied to him for encouragement and assistance." * 
 
 The modern world has heard of "Historical Falsehoods," invented 
 to justify or excuse some great wrong done to a whole body of men, 
 or to a whole nation. Some of them have been very successful, and 
 their being so seems to very many a sufficient apology for the man 
 who first set forth the lie, and for those who propagated and per- 
 petuated it. 
 
 * " Hist, of Ireland," vol. i., pp. 345, 346. 
 
A G/'eat Historical Lie. 135 
 
 No man who knows the facts of Irish history in the first half of 
 the 10th century, or who lias made himself acquainted with the 
 motives which influenced Henry VIII. in rejecting the papal juris- 
 diction and authority, but will smile, when he reads here, that "the 
 principal cause of the desolation, division, ruin, and decay of the land 
 of Ireland," was either the use or the abuse of the papal power to 
 appoint to or provide for vacant episcopal sees and ecclesiastical bene- 
 fices. Thomas Wright, who quotes at length this lying indenture, is 
 so carried away by anti-Irish and anti-Catholic prejudice, as either 
 not to perceive the utter falseness of this statement, or not to have 
 courage to nail the patent lie. The account he gives, up to chapter 
 viii., of the reign of Henry in Ireland, is made up chiefly of civil 
 wars and insurrections, — growing out of feuds between the great Irish 
 lords themselves, between them and the English of the Pale, or be- 
 tween the great Anglo-Irish families. There are, again and again, 
 plans and schemes of " reformation " proposed and detailed. But in 
 these no mention is made of the acts of the Papal Power, or the vices 
 of churchmen, or the immorality of the native races, as among the 
 crying evils which demanded the strong hand of the reformer. Cer- 
 tainly, no allusion is made to the disposition of beneficed livings, or 
 the overshadowing influence of the Church of Rome, as being the 
 primal or principal source from Avhich sprang all the social ills and 
 political disorder prevalent in Ireland. 
 
 Henry knew better than to believe his own falsehood. The 'ruin 
 and desolation ' of which he complained existed when he wrote, in 
 his youtli, his defence of Catholic doctrines and practices against 
 Martin Luther; when he penned his famous dedicatory epistle at the 
 beginning of the book to the Sovereign Pontiff, and expressed such 
 veneration for the papal office, such devotion to the See of Peter. 
 The title bestowed on him in return of ' Defender of the Faith,' was 
 worn by him as his proudest guerdon, and still, by some strange 
 fatality, which might be deemed a providential Nemesis, is con- 
 tin^ied to be worn by his successors on the English throne. 
 
 What intrigues, besides the moral force employed by Thomas 
 
136 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 Cromwell on the Lord Deputy Kildare in 1533-34, impelled the 
 latter to outward acts that might appear to be disobedience, if not 
 constructive treason? What part had the religious convictions of 
 the Geraldines and of the other great Anglo-Irish nobles in the 
 double tragedy which cast the Earl into the Tower of London, urged 
 his spirited young son, the Lord Thomas Fitz Gerald (the Silken 
 Thomas of the English Chroniclers), to raise the standard of rebel- 
 lion, and finally brought himself and his uncles to the gallows at 
 Tyburn. 
 
 Henry the Eighth's reforming zeal in Ireland, — in spite of the 
 quasi-manifesto contained in the indenture of the Earl of Ossory, 
 was not so great as to make him spend men and money in forcing his 
 Irish subjects to take the oath of supremacy. Theology was only a 
 feeble stimulant to Henry's action in Ireland, as compared with his 
 desire to anglicize the island. The Protestant doctrines in the 
 Dublin Privy Council, and the reformed ministers who aided Arch- 
 bishop Browne in his proselytizing labors, furnished a cloak for the 
 worldly ambition and the appetite for broad Irish acres, which 
 entered so largely into the motives of "reformers" on both sides of 
 the Channel. 
 
 But, it must be confessed, it was good strategy on the part of 
 Henry to exalt the House of Butler over the ruin of that of Fitz 
 Gerald; and by binding the former to the cause of the Eeforraation 
 to use it as a mighty instrument in propagating the new Gospel in 
 Ireland, while beating down in succession the Geraldines, and all the 
 great Catholic nobles both Anglo-Irish and Celts. 
 
 The name of Butler is to be henceforward one intimately con- 
 nected with the disasters and persecutions both of the Irish Pace and 
 of their religion. 
 
 The new legislation about Henry's supremacy in spiritual mat- 
 ters, was, however, destined to help him very effectively toward 
 breaking up the entire Brehon or Celtic System in Ireland. Carry- 
 ing into Ireland the plan, so successfully executed in England, of 
 confiscating to the Crown all church property of every kind, movable 
 
Corrupfionist Strategy. 137 
 
 and unmovable, Henry held in liis hand the most tempting bribes to 
 be offered to the nobles who should elect to follow the example of the 
 Earl of Ossory. 
 
 The offer of Church lands and edifices with their revenues, on the 
 one hand, and, on the other, the bestowing on the Irish Chiefs of 
 titles of nobility and peerages, and of the grant of the tribal lands in 
 fee simple to be held from the King in perpetuity, and independent- 
 ly of their subject Septs, — this was a prospect of emolument, security, 
 and splendid rank which few apparently could resist. 
 
 Let us see how this campaign of corruption succeeded in Ireland, 
 ending with the confiscation of vast tracts of land, taken unrighteous- 
 ly from THE People, the only lawful possessors, and acknowledged 
 as such. It is most important here, in order to establish on firm 
 historical grounds the Case of the Irish People under its twofold 
 aspect, — of their Rights of Property violated, and their Rights of 
 Conscience ignored, tliat we should base every position we take upon 
 the testimony of our adversaries. 
 
 "Henry," says Mr. Walpole, "having carried his point in Eng- 
 land, proceeded to do the same in the sister isle. The only oppo- 
 sition likely to be met with was from the clergy, who smelt heresy 
 afar off. But the mass of the Irish people, both natives and 
 colonists, had hardly so much as heard of Lutheranism. The 
 English lords and Irish chiefs looked on the King's usurpation of the 
 headship of the church as a matter of complete indifference, only 
 concerning himself and the Pope; and never having had themselves 
 the smallest scruple in burning and plundering churches, cathedrals, 
 and monasteries, were ready enough to see the church lands appro- 
 priated when there was a prospect of liaving a share in the spoil." * 
 
 The sacrileges and horrors committed against ecclesiastical edifices 
 and persons during the incessant wars of province against province 
 and Sept against Sept, justify, unhappily, the first part of this last 
 statement; the other part is justified by the conduct of the great 
 Irish nobles, as we shall see presently. 
 
 * " Kingdom of Ireland," 89, 90. 
 
138 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 But was there, in Ireland, any solid ground for reforming even, 
 not to say dissolving, the monastic institutions, and thereby affording 
 a pretext for seizing on their property and revenues ? Here is the 
 peremptory answer: 
 
 "There was considerably less ground for dissolving the religious 
 houses in Ireland than those in England. The charge of immoral 
 and sumptuous living was not even attempted. It was true that, as 
 in England, they were corporations holding large tracts of land in 
 mortmain; * but, in the hideous condition of turbulence and poverty 
 in which society in Ireland then groaned, the religious houses, like 
 those on the continent in the middle ages, were as lamps in the 
 darkness, and as rivers in a thirsty land. Though frequently 
 plundered by all contending parties, they held together the frag- 
 ments of learning and enlightenment, which would otherwise have 
 died out. They, to some extent, occupied the position of universi- 
 ties and schools, being the only places where any education could 
 be obtained. .They served as inns and hostelries, where any who 
 traveled from place to place could obtain accommodation, and fre- 
 quently provided the Lord Deputy himself with food, forage, and 
 lodging. Like the houses in England, they dispensed charity to 
 the needy, and, unlike the houses in England, themselves served the 
 ruined parish churches instead of absorbing the revenue and appoint- 
 ing a vicar on a pittance to do the work. These pleas, however, 
 were not considered by Henry. He had abolished the abbeys and 
 the priories, the monasteries and the nunneries, in England, and he 
 would do the same in Ireland. Besides, lie wanted tlieir lyroj^erty for 
 purposes of his own.'''' f 
 
 A few pages further on the same author tells us that "The bulk 
 of the land surveyed in Henry's reign was granted either for a real or 
 a nominal price to the Englishmen composing the King's council in 
 
 * As we remarked in speaking of land tenure under the Brehon Law, Church 
 and Monastery lands were not absolutely alienated; the altum, dominium belonj^ed 
 to the Sept. 
 
 + " The Kingdom of Ireland," p. 89-91. 
 
Lord Leonard Gray. 139 
 
 Dublin, the corporate towns, and some of the Irish and Anglo-Irish 
 chiefs; the principal recipients being the judges, the lords of the 
 Pale, and a few officers of the army."* 
 
 Upward of 400 houses with tlieir landed property were thus swept 
 away into the King's power. Of the struggle in the Irish Parlia- 
 ment, when the Bill of Supremacy and the Acts connected with the 
 religious innovations were brought in, we need not make lengthened 
 mention. The Lords in the upper house and the Gentlemen in the 
 lower were not a little interested in letting matters proceed smoothly. 
 The Clergy were not to be bought over by bribes or promises, nor to 
 be awed by any threats which the King or his subordinates might 
 make. The representatives of the Clergy in the Commons were at 
 length excluded from all "voice and suffrage"; and so the Act of 
 Supremacy became the law of the land, and all appeals to Eome were 
 forbidden under the penalties of high treason. 
 
 Thus, besides the sequestration of ecclesiastical property, wide 
 doors were opened by these Acts toward constructive treason, forfeit- 
 ure of estates, and wholesale confiscation. Such were the terrible 
 shadows which coming events were casting on men's minds and 
 hearts in that doomed land of Erin. 
 
 Lord Deputy Leonard Gray, who imposed these measures on the 
 Irish Parliament, was a kinsman of Henry VIII., and, like his 
 master, one whose will knew no obstacles toward its purpose. He 
 came to Ireland in 1535, and carried fire and sword among the 
 O'Connors of Offaly, as well as into the territory of the O'Briens, and 
 into the domains of Desmond and the Barrys. Connaught next felt 
 the weight of Leonard Gray's arm, and the hardness of his heart of 
 steel; and, finally, O'Neill, in the north, was overawed by the Lord 
 Deputy's energy and unvaried success, while O'Donnell was encour- 
 aged to lay waste the territories of his rival and neighbor. 
 
 What plans the English entertained at this time with regard to 
 the extirpation of the Irish, and how the wars of Leonard Gray were 
 
 * "Kingdom of Ireland," p. 92. 
 
140 The Cause of Ireland, 
 
 carried on, and how it was recommended to his successors and sub- 
 ordinates to wage war with the Irish, — it will be worth our while to 
 see. All through these fearful details, so coolly drawn up and 
 calmly considered by an English Privy Council, — one idea predomi- 
 nates: that all means to wrest the soil of Ireland from the Irish are 
 to be made use of; and that Ireland must, at all costs, be colonized 
 by Englishmen. 
 
 In a lengthy memoir prepared for the King and his councillors, 
 and preserved in the State Paper Office, suggestions, most probably 
 inspired by the Butlers and Lord Leonard Gray, if not drawn up by 
 them, — are given on the best method of securing and enlarging the 
 Pale. O'Connor of OfFaly was to be reduced. Wicklow was to be 
 strongly fortified and well garrisoned. It was, the memior said, abso- 
 lutely necessary "to inhabit the same with a fourscore English free- 
 holders, and the residue to be of the English Pale, and that every of 
 the same eighty have a hundred acres of the lande next about the 
 town, paying for every acre yearly to the King two pence, which shall 
 be a good living for them, profitable for the King, and surety for all 
 the country." In like manner the most favorable strategic positions 
 throughout the borders of Leinster should be occupied and peopled. 
 "Then shall all Leinster be clear English without any of the Irishry 
 among them." A thousand well armed men were to occupy Ulster 
 simultaneously, "walling and inhabiting" the northern part of the 
 island in its length and breadth, Carlingford, Ardglass, Armagh, 
 Carrickfergus, Sligo, and other towns, — establishing purely English 
 settlements in the neighboring districts. Athlone, under Lord Delvin 
 and his son, with six hundred men-at-arms, was to become a great 
 central English stronghold, which should overawe and reduce the 
 surrounding Septs. Another thousand men should concentrate in 
 Limerick, to be joined their by Lord Ossory and his forces. The 
 two Thomonds were then to be overrun, and planted with similar 
 garrisons and colonies. After which Connaught was to be attacked, 
 the Burkes of Clanrickard, who "bear hatred to the Irishry," being 
 counted on as powerful allies. All the "Englishry" in Munster were 
 
Proposed Methods of Warfare against the Celt. 141 
 
 to combine, meanwliile, and assail the Mac Carthys and other Celtic 
 Chiefs. Cromwell was urged so to bestir himself in this matter, that 
 "these devices be begun this next March (1537) and so to be through- 
 out continued all that next year following; and then the King's 
 Highness, with certain of his council, to come the next somer there- 
 after, with no great power, and to establish for ever continual lauda- 
 ble order, according to the laws of God, and of this realm." * 
 
 "The cruel manner in which this war was to be carried on, i^ 
 described in a paper supplementary to the one just mentioned — the. 
 only excuse for it is (says Wright), that it is a system which the Eng- 
 lish had partly learned from the Irish themselves, who were certainly 
 according to this plan, to be treated on the footing of Savages." f 
 
 Now, dear Keader, weigh attentively each sentence in the folloW'- 
 ing extract from this supplementary paper: 
 
 "The very living of the Trishry doth clearly consist in two things; 
 and take away the same from them, and they are past for ever to re- 
 cover, or yet to annoy any subject in Ireland. Take first from them 
 their corn, and as much as cannot be husbanded and had into the 
 hands of such as shall dwell and inhabit in their lands and country, 
 to burn and destroy the same, so as the Irishry shall not live theve- 
 upon; then to have their cattle and beasts, which should be most 
 hardest to come by, for they shall be in the woods, and yet with 
 guides and policy, they be oft had and taken in Ireland at this day. 
 And again, by the reason that the several armies, as I devised in ray 
 other paper, should proceed at once, it is not possible for the said 
 Irishry to put or flee their cattle from one country into another, but 
 that one of the armies, with their guides and assistors, by hap, policy, 
 espial, or some other mean, shall come thereby; and admitting the 
 impossibility, so that their cattle were saved, yet, in continuance of 
 one year, the same cattle shall be dead, destroyed, stolen, strayed, 
 and eaten; for by reason of the continual removing of them, going 
 from one wood to another, as they shall be forced to do, their lying 
 
 * Quoted by Wright, vol. i., pp. 321, 322. t Ibidem. 
 
142 Tlie Cause of Ireland. 
 
 out all tlie winter, and narrow pastures, tliey shall be stolen, lost, 
 strayed, and dead, and, almost all of them, when all the great num- 
 ber of the Irishry, so being in exile, being together, with their 
 tenants and followers, taking their corn and other victual, shall have 
 no manner of sustenance, but only the residue of the same cattle, — 
 if there shall be any, — whereby their said cattle must in short time 
 be consumed; and then they shall be without corn, victuals, or cattle, 
 and thereof shall ensue the putting in effect of all these wars against 
 them." * 
 
 This means simply one thing, Extermination. What the sword 
 will have failed to reach, that starvation shall surely overtake. We 
 seem to be already in the days of Elizabeth, and to see her Chief 
 Secretary for Ireland, Edmund Spenser, writing for her instruction 
 his "View of Ireland," in 1598, and within the walls of Dublin Castle: 
 we hear him describing for the Mountjoys, the Carews, the Chiches- 
 ters, the fearful desolation of !Munster, and amid the wasted, corpse- 
 strewn fields the famine-stricken fugitives creeping forth on hands 
 and feet, prowling among the dead for some kind of food. 
 
 Spenser wrote, not for the purpose of moving English Lord Depu- 
 ties, or Lord Justices, or brave English soldiers in Ireland, to com- 
 miseration by the spectacle of what inhuman warfare can bring a 
 whole province to; but for the express purpose of encouraging all 
 such officials so to deal with the other provinces, in order to ac- 
 complish thoroughly the work of England in the Sister Isle, — 
 Extermination. 
 
 We shall see, hereafter, how Cromwell, — another of this ill-omened 
 name, — will take up the sword of Leonard Gray, and carry out to the 
 letter not only the suggestions presented in these two papers, but 
 those of Chief Secretary Spenser. 
 
 The fate of the five Geraldines hung in one day at Tyburn, and 
 the terrible hostings of Lord Leonard Gray, taught the Irish that the 
 Tudor Eule differed essentially from that of any preceding line of 
 
 * Quoted by "Wright, vol. i., pp. 321, 322. 
 
Were the Celtic Chieftains Fools or Knaves f 143 
 
 English Sovereigns. The high-handed measures employed in the 
 Parliament of 1537 to get rid of the Popish recusants and to sanction 
 the sequestration of Church property, as well as — what was far more 
 repugnant to the national heart — the suppression of the religious 
 communities, spoke plainly enough, and meant, that the King's will 
 was the supreme law. 
 
 Now, will the Irish Chieftains, — not the representatives, mark 
 well — for the Septs are not constituencies, — but the freely chosen 
 rulers and guides of the tribal communities, — will they accept the 
 bribe which Henry VIII. is about to offer them ? Will they abjure 
 their dependence on their people, to be dependent on the royal will ? 
 Will they barter away the most sacred, the most cherished, the most 
 inviolable rights of their brethren for feudal rank and title, and an 
 entailed estate ? 
 
 Let us see. 
 
 We are in 1510. A Parliament is sitting m Dublin. "There was 
 seen a sight which had never been witnessed in Ireland before: the 
 English lords and the Irish chiefs sitting beside each other in a 
 national assembly. The Earl of Ormond with McGillapatrick of 
 Upper Ossory; the Earl of Desmond, and tlie Lords Barry, Roche, 
 and Fitzmaurice, with the Tanist of Thomond; the barons of the 
 Pale with O'Moore, O'Reilly, and McMurrough; Lord Bermingham 
 of Atheury, and McWilliam Bourke. The Speaker's address con- 
 cerning the business of the session was translated into Irish by 
 Ormonde. The Act of Supremacy Avas accepted and confirmed; and 
 a bill was passed conferring on Henry and his heirs the title of King, 
 instead of Lord, of Ireland. The chiefs flung down their girdles, 
 skeins, and caps in acknowledgment of Henry as their liege lord. 
 Dublin was en fete: bonfires were lit, guns fired, wine flowed in the 
 street; all prisoners, except those detained on capital charges, were 
 set at liberty; and a general pardon was published by the King 
 throughout all his dominions." * 
 
 * " Kingdom of Ireland," p. 94. 
 
144 Tlie Causa of Ireland. 
 
 We should be glad to believe tliat this narrative is so highly col- 
 ored that its substantial truth might well be questioned. The facts 
 are taken from Wright's History of Ireland. All the liturgic forms 
 had as yet undergone no alteration, so that the Irish members of 
 Parliament, who rode in procession to St. Patrick's, where Arch- 
 bishop Browne celebrated Pontifical High Mass, may have been easily 
 deceived into the belief that no change was contemplated in their 
 religion. The substitution of the King for the Pope as supreme head 
 of the Church in his own realm, was looked upon, probably, as a mere 
 political or feudal change. 
 
 Be that as it may, many of these Irish lords and chieftains lived 
 to look back on that day with shame and grief. Henry, thanks to 
 the energy of Lord Leonard Gray, had achieved in Ireland a success 
 that no English sovereign before him could boast of. And yet, a 
 fortnight before the meeting of this Parliament, Leonard Gray had 
 been beheaded as a traitor, for his conduct in Ireland. He had fa'ilen 
 a victim to the enmity of the Dublin Privy Council. 
 
 Such was Henry VIII. 
 
 The two great northern Chiefs, O'Neill and O'Donnell, had not 
 appeared in this Parliament. The Lord Deputy, Sir Anthony Sent- 
 leger, lost no time in enforcing and obtaining their submission. One 
 after the other, all the great lords, Anglo-Irish and Celts, were 
 bullied, coaxed, or bribed to make their submission to the King, to 
 acknowledge themselves his vassals, accept in return a title and a 
 peerage, with their lands in fee simple, and ample grants of church 
 property to bind them to the new order of things. 
 
 It was a strange and humiliating spectacle. 
 
 First, there was a division of the spoils of the Church, and, next, 
 a division of the spoils of the People. In 1538 twenty-four abbeys 
 and priories were surrendered to the Crown, or, rather, forcibly 
 taken possession of. These were within the Pale. In the Irish 
 districts the religious communities had continued to subsist and 
 do their work among the people. But with the submission of 
 the Irish Chieftains these communities came within the law of 
 
The Celtic Cliiefs sell their People. 145 
 
 suppression, and were handed over, as a general rule, to the 
 Chief of each Sept or district as a reward for his accepting the 
 King's supremacy. 
 
 In Thomond, the O'Brien's country, this great Chief, now created 
 Earl of Thomond and Baron Inchiqui]i, had a gift of all religious 
 houses, except those belonging to the bishops. The Tanist of Tho- 
 mond, Sir Donough O'Brien, petitioned hard for "some name of 
 honor," and that he might hold his own lands in fee simple. To him 
 waf: ^^iven the great abbey of Clare with the title of Baron Ibrackan, 
 and the earldom of Thomond after the death of his uncle. Mac 
 Gillapatrick was created Baron of Upper Ossory, and was made pro- 
 pr; jtor of the monasteries of Aghadoc and Aghmacarte. Mac William 
 Bourke was made Earl of Clanrickard, and gratified with the owner- 
 ship of many a broad church-land in Galway. Mac Murrough 
 became Baron of BallN^an; O'Connor Baron of Otfaly, O'Donnell Earl 
 of Tyrconnell, Con O'Neill Earl of Tyrone, and his illegitimate son 
 Baron of Dungannon. 
 
 In Ireland gold and silver money had hitherto been very scarce; 
 and, sooth to say, the people had but little felt the need of it. The 
 new nobles were now given large sums of money from the royal treas- 
 ury, and to the highest even among them suitable apparel for wearing 
 in Parliament or appearing at Court. And to each a house in Dub- 
 lin was made over, as a residence during the sessions of the legislature. 
 Men's heads, like those of children on a birthday, were turned by all 
 this novelty, and unusual splendor. 
 
 In August, 1542, O'Neill went in person to London to solicit from 
 the King the title of Earl of Ulster. He had, however, to content 
 himself with that of Tyrone. His example was followed by all the 
 other great Irish Chieftains, who presented themselves to the King, 
 and preferred their respective claims. 
 
 "A paper is still preserved in the State Paper Office containing an 
 
 abstract of the requests which these Irish chiefs came to present to 
 
 the throne, which was drawn up as a memorial for the King previous 
 
 to their presentation. They all desired a grant from the Crown of 
 
 10 
 
]46 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 their lands and jurisdictions^ by English tenure, and a general pardon 
 for all past offences." * 
 
 All entered into formal indentures with the King. The great 
 lords promised to send their sons to be educated at the English court. 
 The inferior chiefs bound themselves to pa}^ a head-rent for their 
 cattle, and to assist the Lord Deputy in his "hostings." The King 
 was to protect them from invasion, allowing them to rule their own 
 subjects according to customary law. 
 
 "The principal inducement, however, ^to the greater chieftains to 
 accept the King's suzerainty, was the alteration in the tenure of the 
 land. Henry insisted on the old fraud ])ractised by the Plantagenets 
 of recognising the feudal laws as the laws of the country, and shutting 
 his eyes to the Irish system of tenure. The chief surrendered his ter- 
 ritory to the King, and the King regranted it to him to hold of the 
 Crown by knight's service. The King was benefited by obtaining a 
 recognition of his sovereign rights, and the invaluable leverage of the 
 law of forfeiture for treason incident to the English tenure. The 
 chief was benefited by getting a grant to himself and his heirs of the 
 land, which never was his, which belonged to his tribe, and of which 
 he was only the demesne lord for life by virtue of the will of the 
 tribesmen. The arrangement was colourable and collusive, and in 
 effect confiscated every acre in the island. Though the practical 
 effect was not at first apparent, the foundation was laid for a huge 
 future injustice." f 
 
 Thus did the Irish Chieftains prove faithless to their trust. They 
 had given away, unauthorized, the sacred and inalienable patrimony 
 of the Irish people. Each of the new Peers or Knights had bar- 
 gained with the King for a matter over which neither contracting 
 party had a shadow of right. 
 
 The Earl of Thomond and his nephew. Baron Ibrackan, and the 
 Earl of Clanrickard, had been solemnly invested in London, by the 
 King in person, Avith the insignia of their new dignity. Meanwhile, 
 
 * Wright, " Hist, of Ireland," vol. i., p. 365. + " Kingdom of Ireland," p. 97. 
 
The People never consented to the Sale. 147 
 
 the Irish people, Avho only saw in all these pompous displays both in 
 Dublin and in Loudon, a something which seemed like cringing to 
 the Sassmach, began to be deeply dissatisfied, to murmur, and to agi- 
 tate. On their return from England the new Nobles found their 
 tribesmen in revolt. This was more especially the case in Ulster, 
 where Con O'Neill's sons headed the clansmen, and refused to ac- 
 knowledge the Earl of Tyrone or the Baron of Dungannon. It was 
 the same with the sons of O'Donnell. They and their people would 
 have none of these innovations. 
 
 And so Lord Deputy Sentleger had to march an army into the 
 revolted provinces and to support the new injustice against the an- 
 cient right. 
 
 Thus, in the reign of the Eighth Henry, did the Irish Chiefs 
 themselves conspire with the King to confiscate the land of Ireland. 
 But to this confiscation, unrighteous and unlawful as it was, the Peo- 
 ple of Ireland, the Tribesmen of every district, the sole lawful pro- 
 prietors of the land, not only never gave their consent, but made all 
 the resistance in their power. 
 
 Perhaps it was providential that the change in religion came in at 
 this very period, to prevent the immediate consummation of this 
 great iniquity, and to place a new and formidable barrier to the fusion 
 of the two races. It is our conviction, that had Henry remained 
 true to the Pope and saved his throne and his kingdom from Prot- 
 estantism, Ireland must have become subject to English rule and law 
 within one or two generations. 
 
 The Keformation, coming to the help of English hatred of the 
 Irish, has kept them a distinct race. 
 
 3. Edward VI. (15Jf7); Mary (1553-58). 
 
 THE SYSTEM OF "EXTERMINATION" INAUGURATED. 
 
 "Henry VIII., had, in spite of the Irish counsel, carried out his 
 plan of conciliating the Irish by ' sober ways, politic drifts, and 
 amiable persuasions of law and reason,' and the fruits of his system 
 
148 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 promised well for the future. Upon liis death the contrary counsels 
 prevailed: it was believed to he better to drive the Irish than to lead 
 them. The timorous counsels of the Dublin oligarchy could look for 
 safety only in harsh and cruel measures, and little by little a course 
 was entered upon of extekmixatioi^ and plantation", which was 
 pursued for two centuries, and which, when combined with the policy 
 of forcing a novel form of faith upon a reluctant people, has imbued 
 the Irish nation with a hatred of the English government, which 
 bids fair to be ineffaceable for generations to come."* 
 
 So speaks a liberal Englishman in our own days. 
 
 As hinted in the foregoing passage, this policy of exterminating 
 the native Septs, and replacing them by English settlers, was the 
 policy of the Castle Officials. In the Privy Council the Protestant 
 Archbishops played a predominant part; and to the "land-hunger" 
 which had ever been there the moving force, was now superadded 
 religious intolerance. The Irish must be '^rooted out" not merely 
 because they are Irish, but because they are "Papists." For now 
 this odious term takes its place in the English language, and ex- 
 presses the two fiercest passions of the human breast combined, the 
 hatred of religioii and the hatred of race. 
 
 The first theatre chosen for the crucial experiment of "rooting 
 out" and "planting," was that large territory embraced within the 
 limits of Avhat are now the King's and Queen's Counties. This was 
 the native home of the Septs of O'Moore, O'Connor, O'Dempsey, 
 O'Dunn, O'Molloy, and O'Carroll. 
 
 When the lords of the Privy Council wanted an insurrection as a 
 preliminary to, and a pretext for, a war of extermination, they were 
 too well skilled in the matter to have to wait long for a fitting oppor- 
 tunity. O'Connor and O'Moore, taking part in a feud between the 
 neighboring Geraldines and the English of the Pale, took up the 
 cause of the former, invaded Kildare, burned the town of Athy, a.nd 
 slaughtered many of the inhabitants. Here was the opportunity. 
 
 * " The Kingdom of Ireland," p. 112. 
 
How Mary and Philip dealt loitli the Irish. 149 
 
 Sir Edward Bellingliam was forthwith summoned by Seiitleger to 
 join him with his forces, and they overran together the districts of 
 Offaly and Leix, driving the insurgents into Connaught. Then came 
 into operation the law of forfeiture. Both of the insurgent chiefs 
 had signed their indenture to the King. They were by Privy Coun- 
 cil proclaimed traitors, outlawed, themselves and their people perse- 
 cuted with fire and sword, and all their lands declared forfeited to tlie 
 Crown. The Dublin Officials never cared to abide by the slow forms 
 of the law courts. They waited for no investigation, no trial by 
 jury, no calm decision from the bench of justice. They were them- 
 selves lawmakers, judges, jury, and executioners. They struck in- 
 stead of deliberating, and they struck with no merciful hand. 
 
 In Leix and Offaly "the Irish landholders were dispossessed and 
 driven from their homes, sometimes, as it is said, with circumstances 
 of great cruelty, and strong garrisons were placed ... to keep these 
 countries, which Avere now added to the English Pale, in sub- 
 jection."* 
 
 This is a very mild statement. Mr. Walpole gives it more truth- 
 fully: "Eesistance," he says, "there was none; O^Connor and O'Moore 
 Avere captured, and sent over as prisoners to England; the strongholds 
 of Daugen and Campa were taken; the tribes were thrust from their 
 homes and dispersed, their cattle driven off, and their land laid waste. 
 The rightful owners of the soil having been ejected, the next step was 
 to repeople it with English colonists. This was accomplished, and a 
 revenue to the Crown of £500 per annum secured by the granting of 
 leases of twenty-one years in the confiscated lands to various English 
 colonists: notably to Sir Francis Bryan, who had married the Dow- 
 ager Countess of Ormonde, and to other families who came over from 
 England — the Barringtons, the Crosbies, the Breretons, and the 
 Hovendens, the Harpools, the Deavils, the Grahams, the Pigotts, and 
 the Bowens. 
 
 "For nine years a guerilla warfare was kept up between the dis- ' 
 
 * Wright, "^Hist. of Ireland," vol. i., p. 373. 
 
150 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 possessed tribesmen and the settlers, of a most fierce and bloody char- 
 acter, which ended in the almost total expulsion of the latter. Again 
 the Government stepped in, and this time proceeded to do its work 
 more thoroughly. The natives were either shot down in the field, or 
 executed by martial law, and the remnant driven into the neighbor- 
 ing bogs and mountains, where for a few years longer they preyed 
 upon and spoiled the settlers, and in their turn were hunted as 
 brigands and put to death as outlaws. The confiscated territories 
 were converted into ' shireland,' the greater part of Oifaly, Fercal, 
 and Ely, being denominated King's County, . . . while Leix, and a 
 portion of Offaly, and the Barony of Upper Ossory became Queen's 
 County. . . . The reinstated settlers (English all) were called upon 
 to adhere to the English language and habits, to subscribe to the Eng- 
 lish laws, and to abjure Irish marriages and fosterage."* 
 
 We may iippreciate this sole benefit bestowed on Ireland by the 
 united liberality of the Catholic Sovereigns Mary and Philip, when 
 we read of the power bestowed on the Lord Deputy, the Duke of 
 Sussex, for disposing of the lands of Leix and Offaly: "full power and 
 authority during the time he shall be Lord Deputy there, to give and 
 to grant to all and every their Majesties' subjects, English or Irish, 
 born within this realm, or within the realm of England, at his elec- 
 tion and pleasure, such several estates in fee simple, fee tail, leases for 
 term of years, life or lives, of all and every the lordships, manors, 
 castles, patronages of benefices, lands, tenements, and all other hered- 
 itaments temporal loith their appurtoiances, piarcel of any of the said 
 countries of right appertaining or belonging, as for the more sure 
 planting or strength of the countries with good subjects shall he thought 
 unto his wisdom and discretion meet and convenient.''^ f 
 
 Thus did tliese two dispose of the territory out of which they had 
 exterminated the Catholic Irish, their co-religionists and subjects, 
 with a ruthless ferocity worthy of Iroquois savages. What right 
 could Irish Papists have to live or breathe in their native land? 
 
 But before we see Elizabeth pursuing toward these Irish the same 
 * " Kingdom of Ireland." t " Irish Statutes," i. p. 240. 
 
WJio and what are the People thus to he Exterminated? 151 
 
 abominable policy inaugurated by lier sister Mary, let us pause a 
 moment, and hear a contemporary writer describe that magnificent 
 race, who were thought unworthy of having a foothold within the 
 land of their fathers. 
 
 We quote from no less a personage than the Lord Deputy, Sir 
 Anthony Sentleger himself. He had been consulted by Henry 
 VIII. as to the class of Irish soldiers he should send to his army in 
 France. Beginning with the horsemen, Sentleger says: 
 
 "In case your Majesty will use their service into France, your 
 Highness must then be at some charges with them. For there is no 
 horseman of this land but he hath his horse and his two boys and 
 two hackneys, or one hackney and two chief horses, at the least, 
 whose wages must be accordingly: and of themselves they have no 
 riches to furnish the same. And assuredly I think for their feats of 
 war, which is for light scourers, there are no irroperer horsemen in 
 Christian ground, 7ior more hardy, nor yet that can better endure 
 hardness. ... 
 
 "As to their footmen, they have one sort, which be harnessed in 
 mail and bassinets, having every of them his weapon, called a sparre, 
 much like the axe of the Tower, and they be named Galloglasses; 
 and for the more part their boys bear for them three darts apiece, 
 which darts they throw before they come to the hand strife. Tliese 
 sort of men he those that do not lightly abandon the field, and hear the 
 hntnt to the death. 
 
 "The other sort, called Keexe, are naked {i.e. unarmed) men, 
 except only their shirts and small coats; and many times when they 
 come to the bicker (fight), but barenaked, saving their shirts for 
 decency; and these have darts and short bowes; which sort of people 
 be both hardy and deliver (quick) to search woods and marshes, in 
 which they be hard to be beaten. And if your Majesty will convert 
 them to morespikes and hand-guns, I think they would, in that feat, 
 with small instructions, do your Highness great ser\'ice; for, as for 
 gunners, there he no hetter in no land than they he, for the number 
 they have. . . . 
 
152 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 " And also these two sorts of people be of sucli hardness, that there 
 is no men that ever I saw, that will or can endure the jm ins and evil 
 fare that tliey will sustain; for in the summer, when corn is near 
 ripe, they seek no other meat in time of need, but to storke or swyll 
 (scorch or stew) the ears of wheat, and eat the same, and water to 
 their drink; and with this they pass their lives; and at all times they 
 eat such meat as few otliers could live with." * 
 
 "The greater part of the thousand Kernes raised for the King's 
 service, appear (says Wright) to have been carried into France, where 
 they were actively employed in the siege of Boulogne in the Septem- 
 ber of 1544. There they are said to have astonished everybody by 
 their ferocity (?) as well as by their bravery, until, if we believe {and 
 why should ive not f) the story told by Stamhurst, the French sent a 
 messenger to the English monarch to inquire whether they were men 
 or devils whom he had brought against them." * 
 
 The civilized world needs not to be told at the close, almost, of 
 the nineteenth century, what are the soldierly qualities of this old 
 Celtic race. But, ere we see these glorious materials for a great 
 nation cast aside by the hand of English statesmanship, and sub- 
 jected to a process aiming at grinding them into the mud of the 
 street, it is but right that we should examine more closely than ever 
 the qualities of a people, who, /or centuries, are to be treated on their 
 own native soil, as if they were incurable savages, creatures fallen 
 away from the attributes of humanity, without the intelligence, the 
 sentiment, the mind, the heart, or the will susceptible of culture, 
 refinement, or the benefits of civilization. 
 
 And here it is that their enemies should bear witness once more 
 to the very qualities denied them — in practice, at least — by Mary and 
 Elizabeth Tudor, by the Stuarts, the Commonwealth, and their 
 successors. 
 
 "AVe are not to wonder," says Leland, "that a people accustomed 
 to the refinements found in their own laws, should be pronounced of 
 all others the greatest lovers of justice." 
 
 * " Hist, of Ireland," i., p. 363. + Ibidem. 
 
Revieiv of the CTiaracter of the Irish Race. 153 
 
 Never was it so needful to affirm in favor of the people of Ireland, 
 that one of their chief characteristics is a love of justice, than at the 
 present day, when secular injustice and the accumulated wrongs of 
 centuries beget in the Irish peasant a fierce resentment that oversteps 
 or overturns all barriers. Legislative injustice, continued through 
 ages, inspires men with a hatred of the law and its ministers; the 
 perversion of proprietary right, v/hich persists in setting property 
 above "and before life, denying practically to the ancient race born on 
 the soil the right and liberty to live on it, to find a shelter on it, or 
 to draw from it the means of subsistence,— lias challenged the atten- 
 tion and provoked the verdict of the civilized world. . . But who 
 and what is the people thus condemned to starve amid tlie inheri- 
 tance of their fathers? 
 
 Let English jurists and judges answer. "They (the native Irish) 
 would gladly continue in that condition (i. e., of subjects to the Brit- 
 ish Crown) as long as they might be protected and justly governed, 
 without oppression on the one hand, or impunity on the other: for 
 there is no nation of people under the sun that doth love equal and 
 indiiferent (impartial) justice better than tlie Irish, or will rest better 
 satisfied Avith the execution thereof, although it be against them- 
 selves, so that they may have the protection and benefit of the law, 
 when upon just cause they do desire it."* 
 
 Such is the testimony of Sir John Davies. It is the simple truth, 
 re-echoed by a Lord Chief Justice of England in words which deserve 
 never to be forgotten. "Of the Kingdom of Ireland I have been 
 informed by many that have had judicial places there, and partly of 
 my own knowledge, that tliere is no nation in the Christian ivorld 
 that are greater lovers of justice, .... tha?i they are, which virtue 
 must he accompanied hy many others." \ 
 
 How does the national character of the Irish race, at the begin- 
 ning of the last quarter of the 19th century, agree with that which 
 
 * " Historical Tracts," p. 123, Dublin, 1787. 
 t Cole's " Institutes," vol. iv., p. 76. 
 
154 The Cause of Ireland. . 
 
 history has transmitted of the half-warlike, half-pastoral, and learn- 
 ing-loving Celts of 1200 years ago? 
 
 Twelve hundred years are a long period in the world's history, for 
 moulding and remoulding a people, for changing every aspect of 
 their national life; for diverting their every aim and energy into new 
 channels; for totally modifying laws, manners, virtues, and institu- 
 tions; for bringing into language itself new words and terms expres- 
 sive of new ideas and sentiments, so that the sj^eech of to-day may be 
 straugely and utterly in dissonance with that used by the men and 
 women of a thousand years before. 
 
 And, it is simply stating a familiar historical fact to say, that of 
 the 1200 years just mentioned, 1000 were to the Irish race a period 
 of such terrible and uninterrupted trial, as no nation, no people 
 known to history ever had to endure. How have the Irish come 
 out of it ? 
 
 As these words are being written the Irish people, recovering 
 from the last famine of 1880, are struggling resolutely to wrest from 
 the British Parliament such legislation as Avill free both tenant and 
 farm-laborer from the constant fear of cruel eviction and starvation 
 on this land of their forefathers. Hitherto land-law has been 
 supreme over life. The struggle is still on most points of the Irish 
 soil, to prevent life from being ruthlessly sacrificed to law; to give to 
 the occupiers and cultivators of the soil not only the right to live on 
 its produce, but that of claiming as their own the liberty to improve 
 their holdings, the right to own such improvements, and the security 
 against sudden and arbitrary eviction. Of such evictions, executed 
 with circumstances of incomprehensible cruelty, many, too many are 
 taking place every week, every day. In one instance, 300 persons 
 are put out on the road, and there left shelterless, to starve, to 
 perish in the rain and cold. Is it wonderful that, following fast on 
 such high-handed acts of authority, of inhumanity rather, we hear of 
 ^'agrarian outrages," of agents or landlords murdered or shot at? 
 
 When, in a Christian countiy, the fundamental laws of justice and 
 Christian policy have been perverted by a dominant and alien class, 
 
Eeview of the Character of the Irish Race. 155 
 
 and only administered for the destruction and oppression of the 
 ancient native race, — would it not be wonderful if outraged human 
 nature, driven continually to the wall, did not turn on the wrong- 
 doer and oppressor, and, in sheer self-defence, take life for life? 
 When law and the administration of Justice have been made for 
 centuries the instruments of the most odious passions and prejudices 
 of race, caste, and religion, it would be strange indeed if the down- 
 trodden should look with any other feehng than that of fiercest 
 hatred on the law and the men who execute it, and on the law- 
 making and land-holding class, in whose favor it is enforced ? 
 
 No ! the fearful acts of retaliation we have heard of all through 
 these years, do not detract from the national love of Justice which 
 pre-eminently distinguished the Irish people even in the dreadful age 
 of Elizabeth. The keener the sense of Justice and right in a warm- 
 hearted, generous, and quick-witted race, the more intolerable be- 
 comes to them the feeling of the deepest wrong, — especially when 
 the wrong-doer in his might avows his determination to perpetuate 
 the evil. 
 
 Nor do these extremities of violence detract from the natural gen- 
 tleness which belongs to the Irish temperament, — any more than the 
 cries, the imprecations, the contortions of the meekest of men sub- 
 jected to protracted torture. 
 
 Of the secret associations which sprang up in succession all over 
 the Island, opposing red-handed violence to the exterminating policy 
 of the landed proprietors, and seeking, too often by murder, to force 
 the Government and the Courts of Justice to acknowledge the right 
 of the tenant and the farm-laborer to subsist on their native soil, — 
 only one word need be said at present. They were the natural and 
 legitimate offspring of a state of things enduring for centuries, and in 
 which Might alone was Eight. Irishmen were treated as if they had 
 no riglits in Ireland: when the crisis of this monstrous system of 
 injustice came, and both tenant-farmers and farm-laborers beheld the 
 roofs which had sheltered themselves, their children, and their fore- 
 fathers torn down and the walls leveled to the earth, they were driven 
 
156 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 by despair to create a mysterious and dreadful Power, that could 
 withstand the Might of the wrongdoer and oppressor. 
 
 These organizations should be considered as the lawful offspring 
 of wrong perpetuated and reaching its very extremity, rather than as 
 the natural manifestation of the oppressed people's disposition or 
 temper. 
 
 We can, therefore, continue our study of the admirable national 
 character of the Irish People, convinced that these clouds, which 
 seemingly darken its brightness, no more touch its substantial reality 
 than the shadows in our atmosphere reach the orb of the sun. 
 
 The writer of these lines, after fifty-three years spent outside of 
 Ireland, in almost continual contact with men of Irish birth or par- 
 entage, as pastor and teacher, has, surely, had some knowledge of 
 both the qualities and the defects of his exiled countrymen. Eeturn- 
 ing to Ireland with this acquired experience, he has sought to com- 
 pare and complete this knowledge of their character with what 
 attentive study reveals of Irish life at home, in every class of society. 
 "What has been 'the result of these observations ? 
 
 In the cities and back-wood settlements of Canada, as well as on 
 every point of the grteat neighboring Republic, visited by him, his 
 professional duties have afforded him the best opportunities of seeing 
 Irish human nature without veil or mask; and he has had no reason 
 to blush for the race from which lie is sprung. He has labored, in 
 1847-48, among the famine and fever-stricken multitudes sent from 
 Ireland to perish at Grosse-Isle and along both shores of the St. Law- 
 rence, and, with the dead around him and death threatening himself 
 as it had stricken down so many of his brother-priests, he declares 
 now, as he solemnly declared then and since: That the virtues which 
 shone forth in these victims of British misrule in Ireland, were such 
 as are recorded of no other people since the birth of Christendom. 
 
 More than that, and searching his own memory for the names of 
 peoples, before the Christian Era, distinguished for great fortitude 
 under a succession of unmerited and crushing calamities, he can 
 recall no race mentioned in all history Avhom Fortune has pursued so 
 
Eeview of the Character of the Irish Race. 157 
 
 pitilessly, so persistently, and whose soul, like pui-e gold tried by the 
 quenchless flame, has only come forth from the ordeal brighter and 
 more pure. The fierce fury of anti-national hate and religious big- 
 otry, like the mighty forces of electro-magnetism concentrated to 
 destroy, fuse, vaporize the pure gold itself, seemed to have triumphed 
 at length, and annihilated these detested Irish. But if the golden 
 jewel presented at one pole, did indeed disappear from the eye, the 
 gold itself was found in one solid mass at the other pole. Not one 
 particle had been lost; nothing had perished but the baser metals 
 mixed with the gold by the hand of the jeweler, and the accidental 
 form given to the precious material. This, still further separated 
 from all dross, was now ready to receive a new and diviner form from 
 the Supreme of Artists. 
 
 How often, in my missionary excursions, have I not come upon 
 these infant Irish settlements amid the primeval forests, in which 
 even the most laborious had been only able to build themselves and 
 their families log cabins, surrounded by a few acres of cleared and 
 cultivated land. There they would give to the Priest of their Faith 
 a welcome as right royal as if he were a King, and with manners and 
 phrase as courtly as if they were princes every one of them. No 
 queen in her drawing-room could greet her lieges with more ease and 
 dignity and unstudied grace, than these wives of the backwoodsmen 
 of the United States and the Canadas. I have listened to their con- 
 versations, when they fancied no ear was listening; and I have been 
 filled with amazement at the refinement of their language, the noble- 
 ness of their sentiments, the sagacity of their judgments even on pub- 
 lic affairs and political parties; at the brilliant fancy and quick play 
 of wit and hnmor with which they can enliven any topic of conversa- 
 tion or discussion. These seemed to be the gifts of all, though prac- 
 ticed conspicuously by a leading few. But wit and humor, to pro- 
 voke repartee and jest, to awaken laughter and general merriment in 
 a large circle, are like latent electricities, which spring into life at the 
 first play of a skilled hand, sparkling and lighting up the darkness, 
 and giving to silence the soul of mirth and enjoyment. 
 
158 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 Many a time have I heard persons of other nationalities, even 
 when bitterly prejudiced against the Irish, ask me, after visiting the 
 poor dwellings of these laborers and colonists, Where these people 
 had learned their exquisite phraseology, and found such refined and 
 noble sentiments ? 
 
 Had I never been able, during my fifty-three years of absence from 
 my native land, to reconcile the contradiction between a hovel and 
 the courtly manners of its occupants, to point out the source from 
 which the Irish peasant or laborer derives his refinement and his wit, 
 — a few months in Ireland, spent in conversing with the poor people 
 themselves, would have removed every doubt from my mind, 
 and given me a triumphant answer for every question asked 
 me. 
 
 Americans talk among themselves, laughingly, of what they term 
 the harmless delusion of Irish sei'ving men and women, wdio would 
 pass themselves off as descendants of Celtic Kings or Princes. There 
 is some ground for the delusion, however. The mass of the Irish 
 agricultural population are indeed descended from the former pro- 
 prietors and lords of the soil. History has abundant proofs of this. 
 In another part of this book we give authentic details of the violent 
 and unjustifiable spoliation of the native Irish race in favor of all for- 
 eigners who would "undertake" to hold the land, and exterminate 
 from it the Irish and Popery. 
 
 A century ago this was the purpose of all English legislation and 
 government in Ireland. The force of public opinion has modified 
 the spirit of English Statesmen and Ministers. Has the spirit of the 
 English landlords, to Avhoni the sword of Strongbow, of Henry VIIL, 
 of Elizabeth, and Oliver Cromwell gave up Ireland as a mine to work, 
 exhaust, and then abandon, been mollified by the change in public 
 opinion ? or been taught to look upon the Irish Papist in any other 
 light than that of a natural enemy to be destroyed, or a Helot to be 
 kept in perpetual bondage and irredeemable inferiority? 
 
 Let that man answer, who having spent a year, or even six months 
 in studying the country, its classes, and the various currents of social 
 
Eeview of the Character of the Irish Race. 159 
 
 thought and sentiment, will have made himself competent to give an 
 enlightened judgment on the Irish Question. 
 
 You cannot go into the outskirts of a single city, into a town, vil- 
 lage, or hamlet, in which you will not meet with families compelled 
 by sheer and dire necessity, — not by any fault of their own, — to live 
 in dwellings unfit to be a dog-kennel. In these squalid abodes the 
 only articles of furniture are often found to be a bedstead, chairs, 
 and table of mahogany, oak, or cherry-wood, of rare design and good 
 workmanship. When questioned, how they have come by these arti- 
 cles, so utterly out of harmony with their other surroundings, these 
 poor creatures will tell you, that these w^ere bridal-gifts expressly 
 made and bestowed on themselves by their deceased parents, or on 
 the latter by their dear fathers and mothers: to these they have 
 clung, while everything else has gone for rent to the landlord, or for 
 the bare necessaries of life to the auctioneer or pawnbroker. 
 
 Everywhere, as you travel through town and country, you meet 
 with the evidences of this descent from affluence, or competence, to 
 what seems hopeless poverty. You are ever in presence of a race, 
 who cherish fondly the memory of better days, of a higher social po- 
 sition, of civil spoliation and degradation consummated \n hatred of 
 the faith they professed and the race to which they belonged. 
 
 In only one province, — that of Connaught, — has a more fearful 
 accumulation of ills, ploughing its way slowly through every class 
 of society, with the irresistible force of the Unterwald Glacier, suc- 
 ceeded in making on the souls of the people, or a large portion of 
 them, deep and degrading impressions. Even in our Western States, 
 our Irish Bishops have observed with pain, that the poor Connaught 
 colonists had contracted certain habits of secretiveness, and untruth- 
 fulness. In the free land of America, and surrounded with none but 
 friends, some of these poor settlers reminded one of birds, who having 
 seen their nests again and again destroyed or spoiled by a cruel hand, 
 will no longer build in the open, but seek to make their home and 
 rear their brood in the remotest corner of the wilderness. The con- 
 duct of these poor settlers has somewhat of the cunning of certain 
 
160 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 birds of the partridge tribe. If you come upon the parent while it is 
 still nestling, it will run swiftly before you, or stumble and roll over 
 as if it were wounded and its W'ing broken, and thus mislead 
 you in pursuit, till far enough away from the nest to warrant its 
 security. 
 
 Alas, poor people! What weapons have the long-oppressed, the 
 oft-despoiled and plundered, the defenceless victims of Might without 
 conscience and without pity, than fawning and servility, than deceit- 
 ful Avords, dark ways, and manners which make true manhood blush ? 
 Blame we not them; — their excuse is easily found in the long and 
 desperate struggle for bare existence. Let us lay the sin and the 
 shame on the only true authors of this degradation of a noble nature; 
 on the unmanly men, the titled landlords of Connaught, who refuse 
 even to the wretched Islanders of Arran, the ownership of the sea- 
 weed fished at the base of the precipitous cliffs of their native isles. 
 In every country under the sun, boasting the name of civilized, — save 
 in Irelpaid alone, — the man who claims to be the owner of the land, 
 will build for the farmer who cultivates it and makes it fruitful, not 
 only a comfortable and durable habitation, but outhouses to garner 
 the grain, to shelter cattle and flocks; he will fence it round to divide 
 it from the neighboring farms, construct drains through it, dig wells 
 to provide man and beast with wholesome water, help and encourage 
 the tiller of the soil to make the barren places fertile, the bountiful 
 fields more bountiful still. He will set a premium on skill and in- 
 dustry and energy which ever works to improve all around it. 
 
 But how is it in Connaught ? We need only allude here to what 
 astonished Europe and indignant America daily learn through the 
 press of England of incredible stories of wrong brought before the 
 law-courts, — and which, alas, the laws of Ireland are powerless to 
 remedy. 
 
 Do we wonder that the Connaught farmer cannot or will not im- 
 prove ? or that when he ventures on a few timid ameliorations in his 
 farmstead or his narrow plot, — he is as anxious to conceal them from 
 the eye of the landlord, as if each additional turnip, or head of cab- 
 
Review of the C'liaracter of the IrUh Race. 161 
 
 bage, or bushel of potatoes, were a something obtained by dishonesty, 
 and which must be kept out of sight ? 
 
 We know that the continuous action of rain and wind will, with 
 the lapse of time, wear away the surface of the hardest granite. I 
 have just seen and examined, within the close of St. Bridget's great 
 Monastery at Kildare, the great mutilated medieval cross which 
 once, doubtless, stood amid the cloister, and around which so many 
 generations reverently knelt while commemorating the mysteries of 
 Eedemption. Sacrilegious hands tore it away from its massive base 
 at some distance, broke off the upper extremity of the cross propei' 
 with its circular nimbus, and planted it in an obscure corner of the 
 enclosure. Shaft, remnant of cross, and the massive base itself, are 
 honeycombed by the elemental friction. The day will come,^ — no 
 distant day, let us hope, — when the noble monolith will be replaced 
 in its primitive position, and the crumbling stone encased in some 
 more precious material, and the cross above completed and adorned 
 by the loving hand of Irish art. 
 
 And are not some of the features of a nation's character susceptible 
 of being thus modified or even utterly destroyed in the course of time 
 and by the slow but sure action of the elements ? How many nations 
 have disappeared in the lapse of centuries? how many others have 
 merged their characteristics in those of a dominant race ? 
 
 But the national physiognomy of the Irish race is like that 
 gigantic, wonderful, and mysterious creature, whose humian counte- 
 nance towers above the sands of the desert at the foot of the great 
 Egyptian Pyramids. From afar its aspect fascinates the beholder. 
 One only discerns at a near approach the injuries wrought on these 
 majestic features by wind, and rain, and the hand of barbarous man. 
 These are, after all, but trifling. And the pilgrim as he gazes from 
 a distance on these unwearied eyes, keeping watch over the graves 
 and monuments of the mightiest and most ancient of empires, fancies 
 that there is an immortal soul in the chiseled rock, looking into 
 futurity and calling the eternal ages its own. 
 
 So is it with the Ireland of the 19th century : she has not 
 11 
 
162 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 changed in lier faith, her undying hope, and all those divine chari- 
 ties deposited in her soul by St. Patrick's bajotism. All the noble 
 virtues of the old pagan race were purified, elevated, and made inde- 
 structible by the grace of the redeeming Blood. The national soul, 
 as the new era of freedom and justice dawns upon Ireland, looks for- 
 ward with exultation, confident in the promises of a divine mission 
 and a glorious career. 
 
 One last testimony from a friend, — the illustrious Bishop of 
 Orleans, whose voice was ever raised to defend all noble causes, will 
 close this defense of the Irish character. 
 
 "What shall I say of the Irish race, of its high origin, of its 
 antiquity ? . . . . It is evident that the races of the north and of the 
 south mingled here their blood and their different qualities to form a 
 distinct people: expansive ardor and patient tenacity, fertile imagi- 
 nation and unbending courage, truthfulness and constanc}^, love of 
 solitude and a passion for noble adventures. . . . They have pre- 
 served, as we have, that sort of everlasting youth, that generous 
 enthusiasm, which takes such pleasure in the memory of the past, 
 and in the aspirations toward the future, more than in the realities of 
 the present. They have preserved nobility of sentiment; and nobility 
 of sentiment, with piety of heart, is the finest flower of the soul. A 
 people religious and ardent, monastic and warlike, missionary and 
 civilizing; — and, when Faith demanded that mighty testimony of love, 
 a people of martyrs. Never more grand, according to the strong 
 expression of the Sacred Scriptures, than in that long death, or, 
 rather, that life ever verging on death, ever resisting : Grandis 
 interihc (Ezechiel xxii. 6). 
 
 4. Elizabeth. 
 
 Under Mary, whatever she may have done to injure the Irish race 
 in Ireland, and, as we have seen, she did much and left a pernicious 
 precedent to after times; or how powerless soever she may have felt 
 herself to do good, — she deserves at least this praise, so far as Ireland 
 
Acts of Uiviformity and Supremacy. 163 
 
 is concerned, that she did not shed there a single drop of blood for 
 conscience' sake. 
 
 "There was no persecution on account of the new faith (says jMr. 
 AYalpole), for the simple reason that there had been no converts. 
 Those who filled the State offices had easy consciences, and took tlieir 
 religion from the Crown. The great Earl of Ormonde conformed 
 with the rest. 
 
 "Elizabeth's first act in Ireland was to reverse all that her sister 
 had done in church matters. . . . She directed a Parliament to be 
 summoned on Jan, 11, 1560, and care was taken that its composition 
 should be of a satisfactory character. . . . This deliberately packed 
 body repealed the Acts of Philip and Mary relating to the Pope's 
 jurisdiction, and passed the Act of Uniformity as it stood on the 
 English statute-book, ordering all persons under pain of fine and im- 
 prisonment, to attend church and hear the new liturgy. ... A new 
 oath of supremacy w^as also imposed, to be taken by all persons, on 
 pain of forfeiture of office and promotion during life."* 
 
 We mention these facts, and quote the passage relating to the 
 "deliberately packed Parliament," the Act of Uniformity, and that 
 imposing the Oath of Supremacy, because all these are henceforward 
 to be made potent and ever-ready instruments of proscription and 
 confiscation. 
 
 "Within the English Pale," continues Mr. Walpole, "English 
 ministers, professing the reformed faith and wholly ignorant of the 
 Irish language, were largely intruded, with the consequence that 
 their congregations refused to attend church. It is not surprising 
 that the mass of the people were driven into the arms of the begging 
 friars, who preached the ancient faith in the native tongue upon the 
 bare hillsides, and enjoined an undying hatred of the Anglicizing 
 Church of the Establishment." f 
 
 Oh! the weary, blood-stained road that the Irish race have to 
 travel down the long centuries from that memorable year 1560 ! 
 
 * " Kingdom of Ireland," p. 109. t Ibidem, p. 111. 
 
164 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 We pass over an interval of nine years. The cliief events in 
 Ireland during that interval, are those connected with the brave and 
 ill-fated Shane O'i^eill, for whose life the Queen as well as her Lords 
 Deputies did not blush to lay snares abhorrent to honor and civ- 
 ilization. 
 
 It is important to consider that the Irish nation had not sanc- 
 tioned the submission of Con O'Xeill, Shane's father, to Henry VIII. ; 
 and still less liad they acquiesced in any of the indentures or contracts 
 by wdiicli the native chiefs had made over to the Crown the lands of 
 their respective Septs. The sons of the O'Neill, like the sons of The 
 O'Donnell, had rebelled against their parents on the return of these 
 from London, and were sustained enthusiastically in their revolt by 
 the tribesmen. 
 
 Shane O'JS'eill, on his father's death, assumed the title of The 
 O'Neill, and was solemnly inaugurated into tlie cliieftaincy in the 
 accustomed place and with the solemn traditional ceremonies used 
 from time immemorial. This plainly told the English Government 
 that he owed them no allegiance. Then ensued a series of wars in 
 which, had the Irish Septs and their Chiefs given united and hearty 
 support to O'Neill, they might all together have dictated their own 
 terms even to Elizabeth. Let us see what means she employed, when 
 the fortune of arms failed her, to bring her Irish enemy to her feet. 
 
 The truth here is of no little moment to the Cause of Ireland. 
 We quote from Sir John Pope Ilennessy. 
 
 EUzabetNs Complicity in Assassination Plots. 
 " The manuscripts calendared in onr time by the Rolls office ter- 
 minate a controversy raised by John O'lSTeill, tlie great chief of 
 Ulster, three hundred years ago. When Sir Henry Sidney invited 
 liim to an interview Avithin the Pale, the answer was that ' he had 
 much affection for Sir Henry, but that the Deputy's predecessor, the 
 Earl of Sussex, had twice attempted to assassinate him. That after 
 such experience his timorous Irish would not trust him any more in 
 English hands.' Up to a recent period historians denounced this as 
 
Elizabeth's Complicity in Assassination Plots. 165 
 
 a 'foul libel upon the blunt and honest Sussex.' The national tradi- 
 tions, however, had always supported O'Neill's charges. It was a ques- 
 tion of the belief of the long-memoried people on the one side, and the 
 incredulity of ill-informed writers on the other. But now this contro- 
 versy is at an end. Mr. Froude himself has given the conclusive 
 evidence to the world. In a letter from the Earl of Sussex to Queen 
 Elizabeth, written from Ardbrachan on the 24th of August, 15G1, he 
 describes the arrival of two messengers from the camp of the victori- 
 ous Irish chief, one of whom, named Grey, he proceeded to bribe. 
 
 " ' I swore him upon the Bible,' writes the Lord Deputy, 'to keep 
 secret that I should say unto him, and assured him, if it were known 
 during the time I had the government there, that besides the breach 
 of his oath it should cost him his life. I used long circumstance in 
 persuading him to serve your Highness, to benefit his country, and 
 to procure assistance of living to him and his for ever by doing of 
 that which he might easily do. He promised to do what I would. 
 In fine I brake with him to kill Shane O'Neill: and bound myself by 
 an oath to see him have a hundred marks of land by the year to him 
 and to his heirs for his reward. He seemed desirous to serve your 
 Highness and to have the land, but fearful to do it, doubting his own 
 escape after with safety, which he confessed and promised to do by 
 any means he might escaping with his life.' 
 
 " Having quoted this despatch, Mr. Froude says: ' Elizabeth's 
 answer — if she sent any answer — is not discoverable. It is most 
 sadly certain, however, that Sussex was continued in office.' . . . Two 
 years after this the English troops were again routed. A treaty of 
 peace was accordingly made. 'Indentures were drawn,' says Mr. 
 Froude, 'on the 17th of December, 1563, in which the Ulster sov- 
 ereignty was transferred to O'Neill in everything but the name; and 
 a treaty — such treaty as it was — required only Elizabeth's signa- 
 ture, when a second dark effort was made to cut the knot of the 
 Irish difficulty. As a first evidence of returning cordiality a present 
 of wine was sent to Shane O'Neill from Dublin. It was consumed at 
 his table, but the poison had been unskilfully prepared. It brought 
 
166 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 him aud half -his household to the edge of death, but no oue actually 
 died. The guilt could not be fixed on Sussex. The crime was 
 traced to an English resident in Dublin named Smith; and if Sussex 
 had been the instigator, his instrument was too faithful to betray 
 him.' Smith put upon his trial, ' confessed his guilt, took the entire 
 responsibiUty upon himself, and declared that his object was to rid 
 his country of a dangerous enemy.' He was convicted, but got off 
 
 WITHOUT PUXISHMEXT. 
 
 '"' Mr. Fronde thinks the treachery of the Lord Deputy, the con- 
 duct of the inquiry, and the anomalous termination of it, would have 
 been incredible had not the original correspondence, in which the 
 facts are not denied, been now before us. Referring to the Queen's 
 answer to John O'Xeill's remonstrance against being thus practised 
 upon, Mr. Froude says: 'After the repeated acts of treachery which 
 had been at least meditated towards O'Xeill with Elizabeth's knowl- 
 edge, she was scarcely justified in assuming a tone of innocent anger.' 
 
 "Ealegh knew all tbis. He knew also that Sir Henry Sidney had 
 finally succeeded where Sussex had failed, and that he succeeded by 
 employing a friend and companion of Ealegh. Dr. Taylor describes 
 how the Irish chief proceeded to the camp of the Hebridean Scots. 
 ' But ' — lie goes on to say — ' an emissary of the Government had pre- 
 ceded liim. Piers, a British officer, a disgrace to his country and his 
 profession, had undertaken the task of persuading the Scottish chief 
 to murder his unsuspecting guest. At a given signal, the banquet- 
 ing-room was filled with soldiers, and all the Irish were slain. 
 O'Xeill's head was sent to Dublin, and Piers received a thousand 
 marks from the Government as a reward for the murder.' Hooker 
 tells us that the head was carried to the Lord Deputy ' by Captain 
 Piers, by whose device the stratagem, or rather tragedie, was prac- 
 tised.' Mr. Froude, while admitting that O'Xeill and his friends in 
 the banqueting- hall were murdered, says but little of Captain Piers' 
 conduct. * Four days later,* he tells us, ' Piers hacked the head from 
 the body and carried it on a spear's point through Drogheda to Dub- 
 lin, where, staked upon a pike, it bleached on the battlements of the 
 
Elizabeth's Complicity in Assassinatioti Plots. 167 
 
 Castle, a symbol to the Irish world of the fate of Celtic heroes.' But 
 Mr. Froude, perhaps, sees that it was a symbol to the Irish world of 
 something else too." * 
 
 "This Captain Piers, Captain Ealegh, and Sir William Morgan 
 were subsequently joined in the one commission under which they 
 exercised martial law, or rather martial executions without law, in the 
 county Cork. . . . The Lord Treasurer did not like such work. . . . 
 The year after Ealegli had written from Cork complaining that the 
 Earl of Ormond was not severe enough in Munster, and that what 
 was wanted was the fire and sword of Sir Humphrey Gilbert (his half- 
 brother), who boasted of 'putting man, woman, and child to deatli.' 
 Lord Burghley wrote to Sir Henry Wallop, the War Treasurer for 
 Ireland, on the 10th of June, 1582, ' that the Flemings had not such 
 cause to rebel against tlie ojjjyression of the Spaniards as the Irish 
 against the tyranny of England.' 
 
 .... "Lord Burghley touched the root of the evil, when lie 
 instructed the Treasurer Wallop, that confiscated lands in Ireland 
 were not to be given to persons, but to offices. . . . Lord Burghley's 
 instructions would have enabled some lands to be attached to the 
 office of Governor or Deputy Governor of Cork, but Sir Walter 
 Ealegh would not have got the castles and farms and abbey lands 
 along the shores of the Blackwater. . . . 
 
 "Ealegh has been censured for recommending his half-brother's 
 vigorous measures, but in Justice to him it should be remembered 
 that his most intimate companions have recorded similar deeds of 
 their own when claiming Irish lands or seeking preferment. . . . 
 
 "In stigmatizing such acts, ]\Ir. Froude refers to Sir Peter Carew 
 ' murdering women and children and babies that had scarcely left 
 the breast.' . . . The English nation were shuddering over the 
 atrocities of the Duke of Alva. The children in the nurseries were 
 being inflamed to patriotic rage and madness by tales of Spanish 
 tyranny. Yet Alva's bloody sword never touched the young, the 
 
 Ralegh in Ireland," pp. 40-45 
 
168 Tlie Cause of Ireland. 
 
 defenceless, or those whose sex even dogs can recognize and re- 
 spect." * 
 
 These testimonies from unimpeachable witnesses will cast a vivid 
 light on Elizabeth's policy of confiscation, extermination, and planta- 
 tion in Ireland. 
 
 There can be no more terrible arraignment of the conduct of a 
 Christian nation than the simple publication, from her own records, 
 of such damning evidence as is contained in the preceding extracts 
 and in those by which we conclude this demonstration of ofl&cial 
 assassination reduced to a system. Let us also tear the mask from 
 the faces of men whom we hold up as models, as idols to the admira- 
 tion of the young, and put them in the pillory. 
 
 Sir Walter Raleigli's Apology for Official Assassination and 
 Poisoning. 
 
 "The Captains of Elizabeth introduced an infamous system as 
 new to Ireland in the days of llalegh as the English muskets. In 
 the fifth book of his 'History of the World' Ealegli discusses the 
 difference between ' killing a man in open field with even weapons, 
 and killing by guile.' Writing in the prison of the Tower, he con- 
 demns the Hying in wait for blood privily,' 'as guilfull murder,' yet 
 there seems little doubt that he had previously encouraged, if not 
 practised, the assassination of the Irish landlords and chiefs of his 
 time. He had high official examples to guide him. 
 
 "'Practice and subornation,' writes Secretary Fenton to Walsing- 
 ham, 'is as necessary as force.' Instead of killing the greatest land- 
 owner in Munster by what he calls 'the iincertain end of arms,' the 
 Chief Secretary of that day records how he told the Lord President 
 to get some one to undertake that service 'for the hire of a thousand 
 pounds with some further gratification of Desmond's lands.' The 
 latest biographer of Ralegh, Mr. Edward Edwards, thus deals with 
 his complicity in such transactions : 
 
 " ' On one oth«r important matter, Ralegh, Carew, and Cecil were 
 
 * " Hist, of England," vol. x., c. 59, 
 
Official Assassination and Poisoning. 169 
 
 at one. In regard to wliat, in the plirase of their day, were called 
 "practices against rebels," they were as little troubled with scruples of 
 conscience as Sir Humphrey Gilbert, or Sir Henry Sidney, or Arthur 
 Lord Grey of Wilton had been a few years earlier. In plain English, 
 "practices against rebels" meant the deliberate assassination of reb- 
 els, or even of persons vehemently suspected of an intention to rebel. 
 Cecil indeed avov/ed that he had a rooted objection to the killing of a 
 rebel by poison.' 
 
 "Mr. Edwards here refers to Cecil's objection to the proposal to 
 get rid of the Earl of Tyrone by poison; but I doubt if it is fair to 
 place him exactly on the same footing in this matter as Ealegh and 
 Carew. The latter certainly thought any means lawful by which the 
 lands of the Irish chiefs could be obtained. Mr. Froude quotes a 
 letter of his, written in 1602 to the Lord Deputy Mountjoy, in which 
 he describes how Hugh O'Donnell, who had gone to Spain for assist- 
 ance, was followed by a hired assassin, who poisoned him in the castle 
 of Simancas. The assassin, Carew writes, 'at his coming in Spain 
 was suspected by O'Donnell, because he embarked at Cork; but after- 
 wards he insinuated his access and O'Donnell is dead. He never told 
 the President in what manner he would kill him; but did assure Mm 
 it sliould be effected.' In Carew's original letter in the Public Eecord 
 Ofhce, he says 'O'Donnell is poisoned.' The words 'poisoned,' 
 ' President,' and 'kill,' are in cipher. That Ralegh and Cecil were 
 not entirely of one mind on this subject seems probable from the fol- 
 lowing letter, written, Mr. Payne Collier thinks, when Ralegh was in 
 Ireland in October 1598: — 
 
 " ' To the Riglit Honorable Sir Robert Cecil, KnigJit, Princijmll 
 Secretary to Her Majestie. 
 "'Sir, — It can be no disgrace if it weare knowen that the killing 
 of a rebel weare practised; for you see that the lives bi anoynted 
 princes are daylye sought, and we have always in Ireland geven head 
 money for the killing of rebels who are evermore proclaymed at a 
 price. So was the Earle of Desmonde and so have all rebels been 
 practised against. Notwithstanding I have written this enclosed to 
 Stafford who only recommended that knave to me upon his credit. 
 
170 The Cause of Ireland, 
 
 Butt for yoursealf, you are not to be touched in the matter. And 
 for me, I am more sorrye for beinge deceaved than for being declared 
 in the practise. 
 
 " ' Your Lordship's ever to do you service, 
 
 "'W. Ealegh. 
 " ' He hathe nothinge under my hand butt a passport.' " 
 
 The knave who got the passport was a paid murderer. Mr. 
 Edwards surmises that the ' beinge deceaved ' refers to a case in 
 which Sir George Carew describes how he himself had hired an assas- 
 sin, to whom he gave ' a pistoll, some munitions, and ten pounds in 
 money,' to kill John Fitz Thomas, the owner of a fine estate, but 
 ' one Coppinger, sometime a footman to Sir Walter Ealegh, who 
 had promised him (the assassin) faythfullye to assist him,' snatched 
 the weapon from his hand as he was about to shoot Fitz Thomas in 
 Arlow Woods, where they were passing with him alone. 
 
 We have seen by what agencies Shane O'Neill was got rid of. Of 
 course he was declared a traitor after death ; an act of attainder was 
 passed against him; all Tyrone was proclaimed forfeit to the Crown; 
 and the Chiefs who acknowledged Shane as their prince became 
 Elizabeth's vassals. The Irish people did not care for Elizabeth's 
 proclamations. After Shane's death, his Tanish, Terlough Luinagh 
 O'JSTeill, was inaugurated as The O'N^eill. 
 
 These brave hearts were not to be cowed by Elizabeth. 
 
 Elizahetlis First Plantation. 
 
 In 1570 Shane O'Neill's territory was given out to be colonized by 
 English settlers. A portion of Armagh was sold to one Thomas 
 Chaterton and his heirs; the district of Ardes and Clanaboy in 
 Down was granted to an illegitimate son of Sir Thomas Smith, the 
 Queen's Secretary of State. He was to found an English Protestant 
 colony. The colonies were begun; but the O'Neill tribesmen swept 
 them out of existence. 
 
 In 1573 appears on the colonization scene no less a personage than 
 Walter Devereux, Earl of Essex. Elizabeth had resolved that her 
 favorite should succeed in his undertaking. She gave him a grant of 
 
What the Eeforniatlo7i had Effected up to 1576. 171 
 
 one half of the county of Antrim, and the barony of Farney in 
 Monaghan. She advanced him a sum of £10,000, a large sum for 
 that period, and especially in the crippled state of her finances. He 
 was given the title of President of Ulster. The territory to be 
 colonized was occupied by the Argyleshire Scots called in by Shane 
 O'Neill, and who had proved his bane. The Queen ordered them to 
 be expelled or exterminated. The enterprise from first to last was a 
 series of fearful tragedies. 
 
 Of course the Irish stoutly resisted the intrusion on their lands; 
 nor were the Scots willing to be slaughtered like sheep. 
 
 Fair means failing to overcome the opposition of these Celts and 
 their Chiefs, the Earl of Essex had recourse to foul. He had learned 
 a lesson from Sidney and Sussex. He invited Con O'Donnell to 
 attend a eonference, treacherously seized his person, and sent him a 
 prisoner to Dublin. O'Neill of Clanaboy was lured, in like manner, 
 to a banquet in Belfast with his wife, brother, and retainers: Essex 
 seized upon them, "and put them all to the sword, men, ivomen, 
 youths, and maidens, tivo hundred in number. He attacked Eathlin 
 Island, the stronghold where the Scots had left their wives and their 
 children, their sick and aged, and after receiving the surrender of its 
 scanty garrison, massacred them to a man, and hunted out and slew 
 every living soul, man, woman, and child, who had taken refuge in 
 the caves and fastnesses of the island, in all some six hundred and 
 fifty persons."* 
 
 Such were the methods employed to civilize out of existence these 
 incurable Celts ! 
 
 Before describing Elizabeth's "Plantation of Munster," it will not 
 be out of place to show what had come, in the year 1576, of the 
 labors of the religious ''reformers" even in the part of Ireland best 
 ruled by English law. The sequestration of all church property by 
 Henry VIII. , the persecution of the ministers and professors of the 
 ancient faith by himself and his son; Elizabeth's still more rigorous 
 
 * "Kingdom of Ireland," p, 127. 
 
172 Tlie Cause of Ireland. 
 
 measures — the tyrannical enforcement of the Acts of Uniformity and 
 Snpremac}^, as well as of the fierce edicts against all Catholic or 
 "Papist" bishops, priests, and monks, — were an enormous grievance 
 added to all those which made the yoke of England intolerable to the 
 Irish. The historians of Henry's reign tell us with what needless 
 vandalism, and what display of sacrilegious contempt for the national 
 religion, the armies accompanying the Lord Deputies, Leonard Gray 
 and others, despoiled, unroofed, and mined churches and monas- 
 teries. Of like performances in the reign of Elizabeth, we have 
 ample details in the State Paper Office. 
 
 It made the Irish heart very sore to behold such desecration and 
 ruin. And now, up to this same year 1576, what have Elizabeth and 
 her "reformers" given to Ireland in return for the Faith they had 
 been laboring to proscribe, in return for the religious institutions 
 which were the creation of the Irish people's piety, and to which, as 
 the well-tried fidelity of ages proved, they clung with such fond 
 memories? 
 
 Let the Lord Deputy Sir Henry Sidney inform us. In a report 
 to Elizabeth he gives his opinion as to the measures required for " the 
 reformation of the island." From the first years of Henry YIII. 
 there has been continually question of reformation, reformation, ref- 
 ormation. They have shed torrents of blood to effect it, spent incal- 
 culable treasures, wasted and ruined the country: What kind of a 
 reformation have they effected ? 
 
 Sir Henry Sidney is describing the "Church by Law established in 
 Ireland," her clergy, and institutions. 
 
 "The church," he says, "is now so spoiled, as well by tlie ruin of 
 the temples, as the dissipation and embezzling of the patrimony, and 
 most of all for want of sufficient ministers, as so deformed and over- 
 thrown a church there is not, I am sure, in any region where Christ 
 is professed." 
 
 In a letter to the Queen he enters at greater length upon tlie same 
 subject. He is "advertised of the particular state of tlie church in 
 the bishoprick of Meath (being the best inhabited country of all this 
 
Sidney's Picture of tlie Model Diocese in Ireland. 173 
 
 realm) by the honest, zealous, and learned bishop of the same, Mr. 
 Hugh Bradye, a godly minister for the gospel, and a good servant to 
 your highness, who went from church to church himself, and found 
 that there are within his diocese two hundred and twenty-four parisli 
 churches, of which number one hundred and five are impropriated to 
 sundry possessions now of your highness, and all leased out for years, 
 or in fee-farm to several farmers, and great gain reaped out of them 
 above the rent which your majesty receiveth; no parson or vicar resi- 
 dent upon any of them, and a very simple or sorry curate, for the 
 most part, appointed to serve them, among which number of curates 
 only eighteen were found able to speak English, the rest Irish priests, 
 or rather Irish rogues, having very little Latin, less learning and 
 civility. All here live upon the bare alteragies (as they term them), 
 which, God knoweth, are very small, and were wont to live upon the 
 gain of Masses, Dirges, Shrivings, and such like trumjjery, godly 
 abolished by your majesty, no one house standing for any of them to 
 dwell in. In many places the very walls of the churches down, very 
 few chancels covered, windows and doors ruined and spoiled. There 
 are fifty-two parish churches more in the same diocese, which have 
 vicars endued upon them, better served and maintained than the 
 other, yet but badly. There are fifty-two parish churches more, res- 
 idue of the first number of two hundred and twenty-four, which per- 
 tain to divers particular lords, and these, though in better estate than 
 the rest commonly, are yet far from well. 
 
 " If this be the estate of the church in the best peopled diocese," 
 — he continues — "and best governed country of your realm (as in 
 truth it is), easy is it for your majesty to conjecture in what case the 
 rest is." * 
 
 Was it worth while to ravage and waste this peaceful and fertile 
 land, to oppress and exterminate its people, only to effect " in the 
 best peopled diocese and best governed country " in the Kingdom 
 such a "reformation" as is here described? We request the atten- 
 
 * Sidney's Orig-inal Dispatches, MS. Cotton, Titus B. X. in the British Museum. 
 
X74 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 tion of the reader to tlie extraordinary amount of parish churches 
 within a single diocese, found by the first "reformers" sent by 
 Henry, without mentioning the monasteries. Were these the' crea- 
 tion of an uncivilized race ? Were they evidences of the barbarity of 
 the people ? And is this the way that one Christian nation helps 
 another to ascend to a higher plane of civilization ? to taste the fruits 
 of a diviner form of religious belief? 
 
 It is curious, after this description of the condition of the Re- 
 formed Eeligion in Ireland, to read the proposal made by Sidney of 
 the o-reat measure to be taken for maintaining these commencements 
 of a new and higher order of things. 
 
 "Let this be a maxim indisputable, that a garrison of three hun- 
 dred horsemen and seven hundred footmen may be continually kept 
 here, without any great charge to England. This charge now must 
 be reared hy the new rents of the Irishry, and by an alteration of the 
 old burthen of the English Pale; for though the Irishry be now 
 mollified and nialleable, so that you may have of them what reason- 
 ably you will ask, but yet never without an army." 
 
 And now we come to Elizabeth's Plantations in the South of 
 Ireland. 
 
 The extracts given a few pages above show what agencies were 
 at work both in Elizabeth's English Privy Council, and among tlie 
 Officials in Dublin Castle to prepare the way for an energetic and 
 decisive policy of confiscation and extermination, — so as to leave the 
 land free for English Protestant colonists. This policy alone fur- 
 nishes a key to the insurrections, conspiracies, correspondence with 
 foreign powers, and the desolating wars that swept over every province 
 of Ireland during the last quarter of the sixteenth century. 
 
 The attempts at colonization in Ulster and the atrocities commit- 
 ted there by the Earl of Essex, warned all Ireland that the "Irishry" 
 in every province were to be dealt with as Mary and Philip had dealt 
 with the inhabitants of Leix and Offaly. The certain knowledge— no 
 longer a mere rumor, but a certain knowledge based on the avowed 
 intentions of the Government, — that none but Protestants and Eng- 
 
Fittori's Experiment hi Connmight. 175 
 
 lisli would be tolerated in Ireland, filled the souls of all classes with a 
 spirit of fierce resistance. 
 
 English historians of our day wonder at the facility with which 
 the threatened Irish looked heyond the seas for some help which 
 would stand between them and the Extermination which loomed up 
 in the near distance, terrible and inevitable like the Final Doom. 
 They blame the leaders of the Irish People— both Celts and Anglo- 
 Irish — for thus harboring and fostering treasonable plots. What 
 else, after all, was concealed under all the most conciliatory forms of 
 English policy and English rule but the crushing of the religion 
 of the Irish, even when there was not an open and avowed purpose of 
 extirpating the race itself ? And, — it surely is plain enough from 
 the authentic evidence daily brought to light from official sources, — 
 whatever moderation the English Privy Council may have felt dis- 
 posed to show toward Irishmen and their religion, the Dublin Privy 
 Council never wavered, never relented in the determination to make 
 of Ireland West Britain, one in religion, language, and blood with 
 the larger island. 
 
 The Kildares and the Desmonds; the Ormondes and the O'Briens; 
 the great Irish Chieftains of South and West and North, were per- 
 fectly aware, in the Year of Grace 1575, that such was the fixed 
 policy of Dublin Castle, — and Dublin Castle had always ruled and 
 misgoverned Ireland in spite of English Kings and English Privy 
 Councils. 
 
 The plan proposed by Sidney, and first originated by Sussex, of 
 making the " new rents of the Irishry " support all the expenses in 
 Ireland of Church and State, even though Church and State com- 
 bined to oppose them, was put in operation in this wise. A Presi- 
 dent was placed at the head of each province with a large military 
 establishment. The soldiers were to live upon the people, while 
 enabling the Lord President to enforce the Uniformity and 
 Supremacy Acts, and to collect from recusants the heavy fines im- 
 posed by the law for non-attendance in "church.'^ 
 
 "The first experiment was made in Connaught by the appoint- 
 
176 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 ment of Sir Edward Fitton, a judge of the Queen's Bench in Dubhn, 
 to the office of President with a commission to execute martial law. 
 The immediate consequence of this suppression of the ordinar}^ law 
 of the land was a rising of various members of the O'Brien and 
 Bourke families, wdiich he endeavored to put down by a succession of 
 acts of violence; and when he had been all but driven out of the 
 country the Government was compelled to recall him. 
 
 "But the scheme which found most favor in the eyes of the 
 Queen and in the eyes of her iron deputy. Sir Henry Sidney, ivas the 
 old one of planting the country with English settlers. England was 
 full of men who aspired to be soldiers of fortune; the discovery of 
 the New World had made them drunk with the spirit of adventure; 
 they looked upon Ireland, as indeed did even the majority of sober 
 Englishmen, as a country ripe for colonization, inhabited by a race 
 who deserved no better treatment than the wild beasts, and whose fat 
 lands were the proper birthright of enterprising but impecunious 
 younger sons. 
 
 "But the most serious effort made toward a plantation, and the 
 one attended by the most serious consequences, was the proposal made 
 to colonize Munster by a number of gentlemen from the west of Eng- 
 land, There were some twenty-seven volunteers — Sir Humphrey 
 Gilbert, Sir Wareham St. Leger, Sir Peter Carew, Sir Eichard Gren- 
 ville, Courtmay, Chichester, and others — who offered to relieve the 
 Queen of all expense and trouble in Southern Ireland, in return for 
 tlie permission to confiscate the counties of Cork, Limerick, and 
 Kerry. The leading spirit in this enterprise was an adventurer of 
 ancient blood but broken fortune, Sir Peter Carew, who laid claims 
 to vast estates in Carlow and Cork, the lands granted to Fitz Stephen 
 in the days of Henry II., which had passed by marriage to Carew's 
 ancestors, but which had been deserted by them two hundred years 
 since, had been reoccupied by the Cavanaghs and the Earl of Des- 
 mond, and had passed into the hands of third parties. . . . There 
 were other estates which had, in a similar way, been lost to their 
 Anglo-Saxon owners in consequence of their deserting the country. 
 
Sir Peter Carew tries his hand at 3Iassacring. 177 
 
 the claims to which were doubly statute-barred . . . ; and these stale 
 claims were brought up as speculations by the enterprising undertak- 
 ers above referred to. St. Leger and Grenville took possession of a 
 number of farms belonging to Desmond and Mac Carthy More, but 
 were promptly expelled by the owners. Sir Peter Carew surrounded 
 himself with a gang of ruflSans, established himself at Leighlin, and 
 seized some lands belonging to Ormonde's brother, Sir Edward 
 Butler. The Butlers fell upon him, and tried to drive him out by 
 force, cruelly wreaking their vengeance upon some miserable Irish 
 who had joined themselves to him; and Carew retaliated by attacking 
 Sir Edward's house and massacring every hiiman being he found 
 there, down to a child of three years old. 
 
 "The story of Carew's atrocities spread like wildfire. A suspicion 
 of the secret plans for confiscation ran through the South. A league 
 for self-defence was formed between the Cleraldines, the Mac Carthys, 
 and Ormonde's brothers, which was countenanced by Thomond, 
 Clanricarde, and Turlough Linagh (O'Neill). The Archbishop of 
 Cashel was sent to beg for help from Philip II. and the Pope, and 
 the standard of revolt was actually raised by Sir James Fitzmaurice 
 Fitz Gerald, a cousin of the Earl of Desmond. The Earl and his 
 brother. Sir John, bad shortly before been seized by Sir Henry Sid- 
 ney and forwarded to London, where they were lodged in the Tower, 
 in order to compel them to accept an adverse decision on their 
 quarrel with Ormonde, whose steady loyalty to the Tudor family was 
 to be rewarded by a correspondingly steady support. The Govern- 
 ment, afraid that even Ormonde might grow disaffected if the C07}fis- 
 cation conspiracy were authenticated, hastened to disavow all such 
 intentions, loaded him with favors, and persuaded him to detach his 
 brothers from the rebel (?) cause. Sidney then collected a force 
 and marched into Waterford, Tipperary, and Limerick, burning vil- 
 lages, blowing up castles, and hanging their garrisons. He overawed 
 Connaught by occupying Galway and Eoscommon; and he established 
 Humphrey Gilbert at Kilmallock to strike terror into the people, 
 which he effectually did by the indiscriminate slaughter of all who 
 12 
 
178 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 came in his way, irrespective of age or sex. Ormonde succeeded in 
 pacifying liis brothers, who made their submission and were forgiven, 
 and James Fitzmaurice retired with his followers to lead an outlaw's 
 life in the Kerry mountains." * 
 
 Such was the prologue to the Great Tragedy of the Desolation of 
 Munster. 
 
 Now, before lifting the curtain on a series of horrors which 
 Christians fancy could only have been committed by the followers of 
 Genghis Khan, we must see if Elizabeth herself really sanctions the 
 diabolical schemes of the Dublin Privy Council. The measures put 
 in practice by Sir Henry Sidney for making the Irish support all the 
 expenses of the army and the government, having caused great dis- 
 content, the Gentlemen of the Pale sent three of their number, 
 eminent lawyers, to present a remonstrance to the Queen. 
 
 "Four Irish lords," says Wright, f "who happened to be attendant 
 at court, the Earls of Kildare and Ormonde, and Lords Gormanstown 
 and Dunsany, were summoned to attend, and, being required to give 
 their opinion on the allegations of their countrymen, they declared 
 that an assessment had always been customary for the maintenance of 
 the Queen's garrisons and the household of her deputy, but cautiously 
 avoided touching on the point of prerogative, by confining themselves 
 to the necessities and condition of her subjects in Ireland, and hum- 
 bly pleaded the grievousness of the present imposition, and prayed 
 that it might be moderated. The Queen listened, at least with 
 affected tenderness and compassion to these allegations, and on this 
 occasion she is said to have uttered the exclamation. Ah ! how I fear 
 lest it he objected to us as it was to Tiberius by Baho, concerning the 
 Dalmatian commotions : 'You, you it is, that are in fault, who have 
 committed your flocks not to shepherds but to wolves.' This com- 
 passion, however, if real, was but the weakness of a moment, for she 
 was very easily persuaded by her ministers that the most important 
 principle involved in, the question was the maintenance of her prerog- 
 
 * " The Kinsdom of Ireland," pp. 128-130. + " Hist, of Ireland," i. p. 456. 
 
The Munster Tragedy begins. 179 
 
 ative. Under the influence of this consideration, the Irish agents, 
 instead of being allowed to appeal to law and justice, were committed 
 to the Fleet, for their alleged contumacy in opposing the ro_yal 
 authority. The Queen then addressed letters to Sir Henry Sidney 
 and the Irish council, reprimanded them for their oversight in not 
 having immediately committed and punished those who had presumed 
 to deny the legality of their measure. . . . The agents in England 
 were brought a second time before the Privy Council, and, as they 
 appeared equally determined on their resistance, . . . they were 
 removed ... to the Tower, which implied that their offence was con- 
 sidered to be of a treasonable nature. This new rigor excited 
 a general feeling of alarm and indignation through the Irish 
 Pale." 
 
 This passage, however, is only quoted here to show that Eliza- 
 beth's moments of womanly "weakness," in showing any kind of 
 commiseration for Irish suffering, were rare indeed, and as transitory 
 as a flash of lightning illumining a long dark night. It has been 
 the boast of English writers that Elizabeth never sanctioned whole- 
 sale massacre. We beg our readers to peruse the following extract. 
 By giving it we rather anticipate on the exploits of the two gentle 
 poet-friends and companions in arms, Walter Raleigh and Edmund 
 Spenser. 
 
 We are in Xovember, 1580. The South of Ireland was up in 
 arms. On the coast of Kerry, at a place called St. Mary Wick or 
 Smerwick, a foreign force come to the aid of the insurgents had oc- 
 cupied a stronghold, which they strengthened still more. It is 
 beleaguered by sea and land. Lord Grey, the Deputy, who com- 
 manded in person the siege, had with him both Spenser and Ealeigh. 
 After three days' fighting, the Spanish commander offered to capitu- 
 late but had to surrender at discretion. 
 
 The surrender took place on November 10. What followed is 
 related by the historian Froude. 
 
 "Don Bastian with the officers came out with ensigns trailing, 
 and gave themselves up as prisoners. The men piled their arms out- 
 
180 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 side tlie walls, and waited defenceless to learn the pleasure of their 
 conquerors. They were strangers, and, by this time, alone. The 
 officers were reserved for their ransom. Common prisoners were 
 inconvenient and expensive, and it was thought desirable to read a 
 severe lesson to Catholic sympathizers in Ireland. ' The Lord of 
 Hosts,' wrote Grey, ' had delivered the enemy to us, none of ours 
 being hurt, Mr. Cheke alone excepted. Then I put in certain 
 bands, who fell straight to execution.' A certain number of the 
 original party had fallen sick, and had been sent back to Spain. 
 With the exception of these and of the officers, the entire party were 
 slaiightered. A few women, some of them pregnant, were hanged. 
 A servant of Saunders, an Irish gentleman, and a priest were hanged 
 also. The bodies, six hundred in all, were stripped and laid out 
 upon the sands, '^as gallant goodly personages,' said Grey, 'as ever 
 were beheld. ' " 
 
 "Mr. Fronde, after referring to Camden's statement that Lord 
 Grey had shed tears and Queen Elizabeth had wished the cruelty 
 undone, surmises that they might possibly ' have felt some pity for 
 the subjects of the King of Spain which was refused to the wives and 
 babies of the Irish chiefs.' But he gives good reasons for doubting 
 Lord Grey's tears or the sincerity of the Queen's pity. 
 
 "Mr. Froude is the first English historian who admits that Queen 
 Elizabeth had sanctioned this early exploit of Grey and Kalegh. 
 For nearly three centuries the royal approbation of the Mahometan 
 lesson of Smerwick was denied or doubted by British writers, whilst 
 on the other hand the popular belief in Ireland was universal, that 
 Grey had broken faith, and that Elizabeth had approved of the mas- 
 sacre. . . . The two letters, from Elizabeth to the Lord Deputy, 
 printed in the appendix, show that the popular Irish view was well 
 founded. The first letter is dated December 12, 1580, and is in 
 reply to Lord Grey's despatch of the 12th of November. In this 
 letter she says the deed performed by him was ''greately to our 
 lyking.' The second letter was Avritten by the Queen two years sub- 
 sequently, and refers with satisfaction to his exploit. They were 
 
Wholesale Massacres boasted of to Walsingliam. 181 
 
 both rendered accessible to the public only a few years ago when the 
 State Papers were calendared at the Public Record Office. 
 
 " What real ground the Irish people have for the proverb, ' The 
 Faith of Grey/ is difficult to determine. 
 
 "The Abbe Mac Geoghegan had asserted that one or two of the 
 prisoners had been tortured or mutilated before being put to death. 
 This was denied as a malicious fable. . . . One of the official reports 
 however to Sir Francis Walsingham, the Queen's Secretary of State, 
 in the seventy-eighth volume of the State Papers relating to Ireland 
 for 1580, makes the following mention of the torture and muti- 
 lation: — 
 
 " ' The ffortes were yielded, all the Irishmen and women lianged, 
 and four handred and upwardes of Italyans and others put to the 
 sworde. ... A Ifrayer and others kept in store to be executed after 
 examination had of them. . , . Next day was executed an English- 
 man who served Dr. Saunders, one Plunckett, and an Irishe Priest, 
 theire armes and legges were broken and hanged upon a gallows.' " * 
 
 Down to the day of her death, as we have already said and proved 
 on evidence, Elizabeth was swayed in all her policy towards Ireland 
 by the counsels of the Dublin Castle, by the greedy passions of that 
 sanguinary Club of Adventurers made up of such men as Raleigh, 
 Spenser, the Carews, Humphrey Gilbert, Drury, Pelham, Lord Grey, 
 Mountjoy, Fitz Williams, and Richard Boyle — the cleverest villain of 
 them all. 
 
 The dispatches still extant in the State Paper Office, addressed to 
 Secretary Walsingham, and to the Lords of the Privy Council, were 
 read before Elizabeth. Where is there evidence that any of them, 
 suggesting more rigorous measures against the Irish Papists, or 
 reciting such horrors as the following, drew forth from Elizabeth a 
 single word of reprobation ? 
 
 Sir Nicholas Malbie writes to Walsingham, in April, 1580 : 
 
 "This day the forces which I have entertained took the strong 
 
 * Quoted from " Kalegli iu Ireland." 
 
183 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 Castle of Dwnemene from Shane Mac Hubert, and put tlie ward, 
 both men, women, and children to tlie sword." 
 
 Captain Zouche, another of the band of exterminators associated 
 with Ealeigh and Spenser, writes to the Secretary of State, on the 
 taking of a castle in the county of Limerick : 
 
 " They made no defence of fight, but the house being entered they 
 yielded, and some sought to swim away; but there escaped not one, 
 neither of man, v/oman, nor child." 
 
 Sir Richard Bingham, Lord President of Connaught, describing 
 the battle, or rather the slaughter, at Ardnary in Connaught, says : 
 
 "The number of their fighting men slain and drowned that day 
 we estimated and numbered to be fourteen or fifteen hundred, besides 
 boys, 2vomen, churls, and children, which could not be so few as so 
 many more and upwards." 
 
 That is to say, that about two thousand non-combatants, com- 
 prising boys, women, and children, were pitilessly butchered by that 
 inhuman monster, whose cruelty Sir John Perrott could not restrain, 
 and who was the ancestor of that Bingham family, one of the perma- 
 nent curses of the County Mayo. 
 
 Sir William Drury's "bloody assize," completing the terror, the 
 despair, the frenzy of the unfortunate populations, drove the whole 
 Irish people to cast their fate with the weak and vacillating Des- 
 mond, and to fight "For God and Country" while vainly expecting 
 men and arms from Spain. Sir James Fitzmaurice perished early 
 in the great Desmond Eebellion, and left the men of the South 
 without an experienced or able chief. 
 
 From England came Ormonde, with Sir "William Pelham as Lord 
 Justice, to continue Drury's reign of terror. Ormonde, who had 
 detached his brothers from the national cause, and had received 
 great favors from the Queen, felt himself bound to prove to the 
 Irish that he was both a good Englishman and a good Protestant. 
 In 1579, consequently, began in good earnest the campaign of ex- 
 termination, of which all preceding commanders had only given a 
 mere foreshadowing. 
 
The Infernal Columns in Munster. 183 
 
 "Pelham and Ormonde advanced in two columns, the one from 
 Dublin, the other from Kilkenny; while the fleet, under Sir William 
 AVinter, sailed round to support them on the coast of Kerry. The 
 path of the two forces was marked by pitiless destruction of life 
 and property: crops and cabins were burnt, and every living being 
 — tJie sick, the aged, the women, the infants — were all ruthlessly 
 slaughtered. A junction was effected at Tralee, and they turned 
 northward to destroy Desmond's castles in Limerick. . . . The two 
 English commanders then continued their raid to the extremities 
 of Kerry, plundering, burning, and murdering,^ as far as Dingle 
 and Valentia ; they then brought their forces back to Askeaton 
 and Cork. Eesistance there had been none. Their small but dis- 
 ciplined forces, well armed with firelocks, had marched from one 
 end of Munster to the other. The rebels, half-naked, and armed 
 with spears and knives, had been unable to meet them in the 
 field, and when resistance had been attempted, it was behind stone 
 walls. The ferocity of the English commanders had cowed the 
 people into sullen quiet. . . . Ormonde, in a state paper enum- 
 erating his services, is said to have put to death '88 captains and 
 leaders, with 1,547 notorious traitors and malefactors, and above 
 4,000 others.'" 
 
 We omit to mention at any length such bright gleams of success 
 for the Irish as the terrible defeat of Lord Grey's forces in the gorge 
 of Glenmalure, where Sir Peter Carew fell, and that no less ferocious 
 Colonel Cosbie, the fiend of the treachery and massacre at the Kath 
 of Mullaghmast. What chance had the unarmed, undisciplined, and 
 ill-led Irish gatherings against the veteran soldiery of England. Yet, 
 they would not submit to see their wives and children with their aged 
 fathers and mothers massacred before their eyes without risking their 
 own lives in their defence, — or the land of Ireland wrested from them 
 foot by foot, without contesting its possession at all risks and with 
 every means at their disposal. 
 
 * The Italics are our own. 
 
184 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 Adam Loftus, — anotlier of Elizabeth's boy-favorites, was now 
 Arclibisliop of Dublin, Lord Chancellor, Lord Justice, and all power- 
 ful; with liini was associated, as Lord Justice, Sir Henry Wallop, a 
 spirit as unscrupulous and as sanguinary as his own. The Desmond 
 rebellion had been extinguished in a deluge of blood. But, as it had 
 been waged against Catholics, and because they were Catholics, their 
 co-religionists in the Pale of English descent, had, very naturally, 
 sympathized with them. The insurrection had been systematically 
 provoked. Those engaged in it were looked upon more in the light 
 of men persecuted and slain for conscience' sake, than as rebels. 
 The Desmond estates were now ready for confiscation. But these did 
 not appear sufficient to the Castle Officials. They hungered for the 
 lands of the Pale belonging to the Anglo-L'ish Papists. Both branches 
 of the House of Fitz Gerald must be annihilated. 
 
 "Gray swiftly returned to Dublin. There ho arrested Kildare 
 and Lord Delvin on suspicion, and flung them into prison; he turned 
 savagely on the Wicklow insurgents, and, taught by his experience at 
 Glenmalure, organized a number of small bands to hunt them from 
 the mountains. Two of the Eustaces and Gerald O'Toole he caught 
 and beheaded; Lord Baltinglass escaped to the continent. A reign 
 of terror then began in Dublin. A conspiracy to seize the Castle and 
 liberate the imprisoned peers was discovered, and martial law was 
 proclaimed: the smaller m.en were hanged in batches, and nineteen 
 of the best blood of the Pale were brought to trial for treason. Short 
 work was made by pliant juries, and the whole of them were con- 
 victed and hanged; while Kildare was removed to England and sub- 
 sequently died in the Tower. 
 
 " Nothing was now left to be done but to hunt down The Des- 
 mond, and those of his adherents who still clung to him. Ormonde 
 was placed in supreme command in Munster; Captain Raleigh was in 
 command at Cork; Captain Loach at Kilmallock; and Captain Acliin 
 at Ad^-e. The sword and the gallows were the instruments for paci- 
 fying the country. Achin seized the Castle of David Purcell at Kil- 
 dimo, and slew one hundred and fifty women and children; Ormonde 
 
Edmund Spenser Speaks. 185 
 
 caught and hanged Lady Fitz Gerald of Imokelly, and reports in his 
 despatclies the execution of one hundred and thirty-four persons, and 
 that the pardoned chiefs were bringing in the heads of other rebels 
 by the sackful. So merrily went the reign of blood."* 
 
 Come now, ye Planters, Undertakers, Adventurers, — or by what- 
 ever other name your English brethren and cotemporaries desig- 
 nated you ! The land of Munster is ready for you. The estates of 
 Desmond, and those who held under him, number 574,038 acres of 
 good and profitable lands; those of the Eustaces in Kildare amount 
 to 7,800 acres. 
 
 Oh! the beautiful country these southern lands of Ireland made 
 in that age, in spite of all the havoc and ruin of centuries of war- 
 fare ! But who can describe its desolation and the misery of the 
 wretched remnant in the year of Grace 1586? — But one moment, 
 dear reader, to hear Edmund Spenser explain to Queen Elizabeth 
 how ALL Ieeland may be "reformed," — and giving her as a sample 
 how they had "reformed" Munster. He is denouncing pity and mod- 
 eration in the Governors. 
 
 " The longer that government thus continueth, in the worse 
 course will the realm be; for it is all in vain that they now strive and 
 endeavour by fair means and peaceable plots to redress the same, 
 without first removing all these inconveniences, and new-framing as it 
 were in the forge all that is worn out of fashion. For all other 
 means will be but as lost labour, by patching up one hole to make 
 many; for the Irish do strongly hate and abhor all reformation and 
 subjection to the English, by reason that having been once subdued 
 by them, they were thrust out of all their possessions. . . . Every day 
 we perceive the troubles growing more upon us, and one evil growing 
 upon another, inasmuch as there is no part now sound or ascertained; 
 but all have their ears upright, waiting when the watchword shall 
 come, that they should all arise generally into rebellion, and cast 
 away the English subjection." 
 
 * " The Kingdom of Ireland," pp. liO, 141. 
 
186 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 How was rebellion to be prevented, and this total '^ reformation/' 
 civil and religious, to be brought about? Spenser answers: 
 
 " Even with the sword. For all these evils must first be cut away 
 with a strong hand before any good can be planted." 
 
 Let a strong army be sent into Ireland, such as "should tread 
 down all that standeth before them on foot, and lay on the ground 
 all the stiff-necked people of the land." 
 
 Establish powerful garrisons here and there in the most central 
 and unassailable positions. Pay the soldiers well, victual and clothe 
 them well. Let them not burthen or oppress the people. Eeduce 
 the insurgents to starvation by cutting them off from all relief and 
 destroying all their resources. 
 
 "It is not with Ireland as it is with other countries, where the 
 wars flame most in summer. But in Ireland the winter yieldeth best 
 services, for then the trees are bare and naked, which used both to 
 clothe and house the kerne; the ground is cold and wet, which useth 
 to be his bedding; the air is sharp and bitter to blow through his 
 naked sides and legs; the kine are barren and without milk, which 
 useth to be his only food, neither if he kill them will they yield him 
 any flesh, nor if he keep them will they give him food, besides being 
 all with calf (for the most part), they will, through much chasing 
 and driving, cast all their calves and lose their milk, which should 
 relieve him the next summer." 
 
 The war recommended by Spenser — -Wright says — was a war of 
 extermination against all who did not make an immediate submission 
 to the government. After the twenty days named in the first sum- 
 mons or proclamation to submit, "I would have none received, but 
 left to their fortune and miserable end. My reason is, for that those 
 which will afterwards remain without are stout and obstinate rebels, 
 such as will never be made dutiful and obedient, nor brought to labour 
 or civil conversation, having once tasted that licentious life, and 
 being acquainted with spoil and outrages, will ever after be ready for 
 the like occasions, so as there is no hope of their amendment or 
 recovery, and they are therefore needful to be cut off. 
 
Let them learn from Munster Jiow to Exterminate. 187 
 
 "The end will, I assure you, be very short and niucli sooner than 
 can be in so great a trouble, as it seemeth, hoped for, — although. 
 there should none of them fall by the sword, nor be slain by the sol- 
 dier, yet thus being kept from manurance, and their cattle from 
 running abroad, by this hard restraint they will quickly consume 
 themselves and devour one another. The proof whereof I saw suffi- 
 ciently exampled in these late wars of Munster. For, notwithstanding 
 that the same was a most rich and j)lentiful country, full of corn and 
 cattle, that you would have thought they should have been able to 
 stand long, yet ere one year and a half they were brought to such 
 wretchedness, as that any stoney heart would have read the same. 
 Out of every corner of the woods and glynns, they came creeping tovtk 
 upon their hands, for their legs could not bear them. They looked 
 lik?' anatomies of death; they spake like ghosts crying out of their 
 graves. Thev did eat the dead carrions, happy where they could find 
 them; yea, and one another soon after, insomuch as the very car- 
 casses they spared not to scrape out of their grave. And if they 
 found a plot of watercress or shamrocks, there they flocked as to a 
 feast for the time, yet not able long to continue therewithal!; 
 that in short space there were none almost left, and a most 
 populous and plentiful country suddenly left void of man and 
 beast. Yet sure in all that war, there perished not many by the 
 sword, but all by the extremity of famine which they themselves 
 had wrought." 
 
 Surely it was not commiseration for Irish suffering that moved 
 Spenser to write that page: he only wished to point out to the Eng- 
 lish government, in the utter ruin and desolation wrought in Munster 
 (and in which he had borne his part), the example of the most suc- 
 cessful strategy to pursue in subduing the rebellious inhabitants of 
 the other provinces. His was a pitiless spirit, where there was ques- 
 tion of the best moans of conquering or exterminating these indomi- 
 table Celtic Papists. 
 
 In view, however, of that "most populous and plentiful country 
 left void of man and beast " by the hosts of Sir George Carew, — we 
 
188 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 may like to survey another picture of Ireland colored by tlie hand of 
 the same Edmund Spenser : 
 
 "Thus was all that goodly country utterly wasted! And sure it is 
 yet a most beautiful and sweet country as any is under heaven, being 
 stored throughout with many goodly rivers, replenished with all sorts 
 of fish most abundantly, sprinkled with many sweet islands and 
 goodly lakes like little inland seas, that will carry even ships upon 
 their waters; adorned with goodly Avoods, even fit for building of 
 houses and ships, so commodiously as that if some princes in the 
 world had them, they would soon hope to be lords of all the seas, and 
 ere long of all the world; also full of very good ports and havens 
 opening upon England, as inviting us to come unto them, to see what 
 excellent commodities that country can afford, besides the soil itself 
 most fertile, fit to yield all kind of fruit that shall be committed 
 thereunto. And, lastl}', the heavens most mild and temperate, 
 though somewhat more moist than the parts toward the west." 
 
 "And here the question may perhaps be asked, how comes it that 
 Mr. Froude tells us nothing of Ralegh's doings in Ireland and of his 
 Irish policy ? The one vague reference to him as having accompanied 
 Lord Grey to the west of Ireland in 1580, is all he tells us about 
 Kalegh. Mr. Froude says not a word about his being for twenty 
 years the favourite adviser of the Queen on Irish affairs; not a word 
 about the special training she desired, under her royal warrant of 
 February 1582, that he should continue to receive in Irish affairs; 
 not a word about his successful intrigue against Ormond, and barely 
 a word about the reward he got of forty thousand acres in Munster. 
 Of his doings as Deputy President of Munster, as Governor of Cork, 
 as Mayor of Youghal, as the daring leader of the English soldiers in 
 many a raid from the mouth of the Blackwater to the sources of the 
 Lee, Mr. Froude is also silent. But on the last and not least im- 
 portant point — the result of the policy so recommended and enforced 
 — Mr. Froude speaks out. ' The entire province of Munster,' he 
 says, ' was utterly depopulated. Hecatombs of helpless creatures, 
 the aged, and the sick, and the blind, the young mother and the 
 
The Division of the Spoils. 189 
 
 babe at lier breast, had fallen under the English sword; and though 
 the authentic details of the struggle have been forgotten, the memory 
 of a vague horror remains imprinted in the national traditions.' 
 
 "The contemporary chronicle. Hooker's Supplement to Holinshed, 
 which is so often quoted by Mr. Fronde, describes all this and gloats 
 over it as a notable and rare example of a people being Justly rooted 
 out, as the true and rational settlement of the Irish difficulty. 
 Hooker appi'opriately dedicates his record of those Irish wars to Sir 
 "Walter Ealegh, on the ground that the ' right worthie and honorable 
 gentleman and knight' was 'a partie and a dooer, a painful and 
 a faithful servitor ' in those transactions, the effect of which he thus 
 sums up in the same ' Epistle Dedicatorie': — ^The common people 
 such as escaped the sword all for the most part are perished of 
 famine or fled the countrie. The land itself, from being verie fertile, 
 is waxed barren, yeelding nor corne nor fruits — the pastures without 
 cattell: nothing there to be scene but miserie and desolation.'"* 
 
 "Are these terrible traditions all that remain of Ealegh's days in 
 Ireland ? How long are they to remain ? AVhat has been their effect 
 in a country where the two main elements of social order — the 
 religion of the people and the national sentiment — have not been 
 allowed to play their legitimate part in the Government? Are those 
 traditions grov.-ing, as political agents, less powerful with the in- 
 creasing strength of popular spirit in Europe? How far does a frank 
 admission of their vitality and their force enable us to look into the 
 future ? " * 
 
 In 1584 an Irish Parliament summoned by Sir John Perrot, now 
 Lord Deputy, passed two acts of attainder, in order to give to the 
 confiscation of the escheated lands a varnish of legality. Therein 
 were mentioned one hundred and forty knights and gentlemen, all 
 Irish Catholics of both English and Celtic blood. 
 
 The lands confiscated were divided into seigniories of from 4,000 
 to 12,000 acres, "to be held in fee of the Crown at a quit-rent of 
 
 * " Kalegh in Ii*eland," c. xxxiii. t Ibid., c. xxxiv. 
 
190 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 threepence per acre in Limerick and Kerry, and twopence per acre 
 in Cork and Waterford. Xo rent was to be payable till A. D. 
 1590, and for three years after that only half-rent; for ten 
 years the undertakers were to export their produce duty free. 
 Younger sons and brothers were invited to come over from England 
 to take up the land; and large tracts were given to those who had 
 been engaged in the war. The conditions of the grants were that no 
 native Irish should be taken as tenants; that the owner of every 300 
 acres should provide one horseman and one infantry soldier; that 
 farmers, hop-planters, gardeners, wheelwrights, smiths, masons, car- 
 penters, thatchers, tilers, tailors, shoemakers, and butchers, should 
 be procured from England by the undertakers, and settled on the 
 land; that each grantee of 12,000 acres should plant on portions of 
 his estate eighty-six different families, of which twenty were to be 
 freeholders, forty copyholders, and the rest small tenants of the 
 laboring class, and should retain 1,600 acres for his own demesne 
 lands. Every precaution was taken to keep the colonists from amal- 
 gamating with the remnant of the native population, who were to be 
 cleared out of the plains into the upland country. The colony was 
 to be planted on the profitable land only." 
 
 Who got the land ? About one-half was restored to the former 
 owners who had 'friends at Court'; good care being taken that 
 they should, if possible, be made to conform with the State Religion, 
 or that they should hold out some fair promise of conforming. Forty 
 English gentlemen obtained one or more seigniories. Walter Ea- 
 leigb, who was high in favor with Elizabeth, got no less than 42,000 
 acres along the valley of the Blackwater, with the Town of Youghal, 
 its college, monasteries, and the monastery of Lismore. Among 
 other large grantees were Arthur Eabins, with 18,000 acres in the 
 County Cork; Sir William Herbert and Sir George Bouchier, with 
 13,000 acres in Kerry and Limerick, respectively; Fane Beecher, 
 Hugh Worth, Arthur Hyde, and Henry Billingslej^, who each received 
 13,000 acres in Cork and Limerick; Sir William Courtenay, Sir 
 Edward Fitton, and Sir Christopher Hatton, who obtained 10,500 
 
The Irish Peo]jle did not sanction the Robbery. 191 
 
 acres in Limerick and Waterford. Amongst others, Ormonde got 
 3,000 acres in Tipperary, and Sir Wareliam St. Leger and Edmund 
 Spenser 6,000 acres and 3,000 acres respectively in County Cork." 
 
 How did the remnants of the Irish population take this robbery 
 of their lands ? They never submitted to it. They made life in- 
 tolerable both to the new landlords and to their tenants. Coercion, 
 suasion, bribery, coaxing had to be used, and used in vain to make 
 them work for tlie usurpers of the lands of Munster, when they had 
 frightened away the few farmers and artisans who ventured to come 
 over from England. They banded themselves into " Kobin Hood " 
 societies who held the woods and sallied forth to burn and destroy. 
 Against them the settlers employed the sword and the halter. They 
 retaliated with fire and steel, never slumbering in their watchfulness 
 for the fitting opportunity to destroy or expel those who had done so 
 much to exterminate the Celts and their families. 
 
 Shall we blame these untameable defenders of their native land, 
 of their ruined homes and altars? No! not so long as the Bible holds 
 up to our admiration the heroic father of the Macchabees and his 
 noble sons, — so long as the exploits of Debborah and Judith are glo- 
 rified in the Divine Book, — No! not so long as England recalls with 
 hearty praise the deeds of the Spanish Guerillas in the early years of 
 this century, or so long as we Americans yearly recite the resistance 
 of Washington and his generals, and of the people of the confederated 
 colonies, to British misrule and tyranny. 
 
 Never, since the world began, was national struggle more legiti- 
 mate or more sacred than that of Ireland against Elizabeth. 
 
 And now comes the Second Act in the great Irish Tragedy under 
 Elizabeth. 
 
 She was exasperated by the utter failure of all her plans for the 
 colonization of Munster. Her armies, her fleets, all the treasure 
 and bloodshed, the destruction of life and property, the depopulation 
 of the country, — all had proved unavailing. The outlawed and 
 hunted Kekne of Munster prevailed over all the statesmanship of 
 England, all the designing of Dublin Castle. 
 
193 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 But Dublin Castle has infinite resources in the very absence of 
 CoNSCiEN'CE from its councils, backed by the land-hunger of the 
 fortune-hunters, the blind hatred of the Celt by the Saxon, and the 
 religious fanaticism which was the offspring in Ireland of both of 
 these passions. "The only result of the ten years' desolation (says 
 Mr. Walpole) was the enriching of a few adventurers and a knot of 
 Elizabeth's courtiers." The result was not at all pleasing to the fam- 
 ished hordes disappointed of their prey. They will manage to bring 
 about a second war, and with it the satisfaction of all their desires. 
 
 Was, then, the War with Tyrone, and the insurrection which 
 broke out in all the provinces in 1595, the mere fruit of Irish unrest 
 and the consequence of the inveterate hatred of the Irishman for his 
 English tyrant? or was it deliberately planned and provoked by the 
 persons who governed Ireland for the Queen ? 
 
 "After the suppression of the rebellion in Munster," — says the 
 historian we have been quoting, — "there was an interval of compara- 
 tive peace in Ireland, which might have been prolonged until the 
 tendency toward improvement which had been growing in the coun- 
 try had borne satisfactory fruit, — had not the blind folly of the Eng- 
 lish Government precipitated a fresh quarrel. The south had been 
 'pacified' by fire and sword; so had Connaught by the merciless 
 sternness of the President, Sir Richard Bingham. There had been 
 no concerted rising in Connaught, the great Earls of Thomond and 
 Clanrickarde had been steadily loyal to the Crown; but there had 
 been much smouldering disaffection among the cadets of the house of 
 Bourke, which from time to time burst out into open insurrection, 
 and which had equally from time to timio been suppressed by mas- 
 sacre. . . . 
 
 "In Ulster the chiefs were loyal, and both trusted and respected 
 Perrot (the Lord Deputy), Avho, though sternly severe with those 
 whom he considered traitors, was animated by a strong spirit of jus- 
 tice. He even persuaded them, as he had persuaded the lords of 
 Connaught, to agree to the payment of an annual tax for the support 
 of eleven hundred men in Ulster. . . . Sir John Perrot had many 
 
Sir John Ferrot Recalled. 193 
 
 enemies. He was a man of hasty temper, who quarreled with liis 
 subordinates. He had sent a challenge to Bingham, who detested 
 him for endeavoring to curb his severities in Connaught; he had 
 knocked down Sir Henry Bagnal at the council board . . . ; he made 
 an enemy of Adam Loftus, the archbishop, by proposing to endow a 
 university in Dublin out of the revenues of the cathedral of St. Pat- 
 rick, which had fallen to Loftus and his kinsmen as their share in the 
 spoil of the monasteries. These and others were ever ready to whis- 
 per slanders of the lord-deputy to the Queen. It was always the fate 
 of Irish deputies to have the ground cut from under them by the 
 intrigues of the Irish council. . . . Perrot was recalled to eat liis 
 heart out and die in the Tower." 
 
 He was the best governor Ireland had known for ages, and was 
 sincerely regretted. But neither the Irish Privy Council, nor the 
 English, nor Elizabeth herself, whose ear at this time was only open 
 to AV alter Ealeigh and his pestilential clique, — wanted such men as 
 Sir John Perrot. Just and honest men, who sought the good of 
 the country and the happiness of the people, were not the men for 
 Dublin Castle and Adam Loftus. 
 
 Sir William Fitzwilliam, who succeeded Perrot, was cruel and 
 avaricious. " Perrot's policy of conciliation was thrown to the winds, 
 and every opportunity was recklessly taken by the incompetent new 
 viceroy to exasperate the natives." 
 
 The son of the Earl of Tyrconnell,— the Red Hugh O'Donnell 
 of the war of 1595, — had, by an act of unpardonable treachery, been 
 kidnapped and confined for two years in Dublin Castle. It was the 
 act of Sir John Perrot, who, in this, was only pursuing a mild form 
 of the policy so often resorted to by other viceroys. 
 
 In Fermanagh the Maguires and their people were goaded into 
 madness by the raids of Bingham from Connaught, and the English 
 (Seneschal of ]\Ionaghan from the other. The cattle of the Sept 
 were carried off, the villages burned, the people slaughtered. 
 In one of these raids Edmund Maguire, the chief, was slain. 
 And the English soldiers, cutting off his head, kicked it about 
 13 
 
194 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 as a football, compelling some of his relatives and tribesmen to 
 witness the sport. 
 
 The six years of Fitzwilliam's misgovernment, oppression, and 
 peculation, ended in 3 594. Complaints and remonstrances were sent 
 to the Qiieen from all parts by the aggrieved Irish Chieftains. But 
 the Privy Council in Dublin took good care that they never crossed 
 the sea; and from Ireland no man could go to England without a 
 special permit from the Lord Deputy. 
 
 Ked Hugh O'Donnell escaped from his confinement, it is said, 
 through the connivance of Fitzwilliam, who had received a hand- 
 some bribe. He was burning with revenge. He found Fermanagh 
 in a flame, and all the northern Septs oppressed by sheriffs and 
 worried by the government officials. Connaught was watching for 
 an opportunity to throw off the yoke of Bingham. 
 
 Hugh O'Neill, who was brother-in-law to Ked Hugh O'Donnell, 
 had been in his boyhood spirited away to the English Court, where 
 they vainly endeavored to make a Protestant of him. He was unwil- 
 ling, at first, to provoke a war with England. But circumstances 
 proved stronger than his firm conviction of England's superior might, 
 or his reluctance to engage, or to have his country engage, in an 
 armed contest with her. His first wife having died, he induced the 
 daughter of Sir Henry Bagnal, lord marshal of Ulster, to elope with 
 him and marry him. This made a mortal enemy of Bagnal. From 
 that moment the latter joined hands with Adam Loftus and the 
 Privy Council, and they again and again accused O'Neill of treason- 
 able intentions and conspiracy, taking every precaution that his 
 answers should never reach the Queen. 
 
 Believing in O'Neill's guilt and in the existence of a treasonable 
 conspiracy, Elizabeth reinforced her army in Ireland by three thou- 
 sand choice troops under Sir John Norris, brother to the President of 
 Munster. Thus did the Government employ in statesmanship the 
 process so well known to logicians of forcing a needed conclusion 
 from their own premises— /"ftct^m te bene venire: they wanted a 
 general Irish war, because they wanted a general confiscation of 
 
The Irish Catholics a Nation: not a Party, 195 
 
 Irish lands; and they compelled circumstances to bring on that 
 war. 
 
 It is useless to deny that the Religious Grievance at this time in 
 Ireland was not an intolerable one, and becoming more and more 
 felt in every part of the Kingdom. "Tyrone was now beginning to 
 see that there were two divergent courses open to him: he must 
 either abide by the Government which distrusted him, and was 
 swayed by Bagnal, who had vowed his destruction; or he must throw 
 in his lot with the northern chieftains, who would welcome him as a 
 mighty acquisition to their cause. He was rapidly drifting in the 
 latter direction. He knew that if he was to hope for success there 
 must be union amongst the Irish, and that a determined effort must 
 be made to obtain the hojia fide assistance of Spain. O'Donnell, 
 since his escape, had been at open war with the Government, and 
 had repeatedly endeavored to induce his brother-in-law to join him; 
 his counsels at length prevailed; and these tM'o now set themselves to 
 work to form an extensive confederation against England." 
 
 With such historians as Wright, and even with Walpole, who fol- 
 lows AVright in his narrative, while differing much from him in 
 spirit, — it is customary to treat the Catholics as if they were only "a 
 party," and sometimes even "a mere faction" in Ireland. From the 
 year 1534, when Henry VIII. began his open rupture with the Holy 
 See, and when, with the exception of Ormonde, not one Irisliman of 
 any note had sided with the King, and not one Irishman, perhaps, in 
 all Ireland professed the faith of Luther or Calvin, — Wright speaks 
 of the Popish party, and the Popish faction, the recusant faction. 
 
 It would seem to any person of sound judgment and moderate 
 mind, that a whole people can never be either a party or a faction. 
 It is also most unjust to designate the loyalty to the Holy See of peo- 
 ple, priests, prelates, and nobles, — as treason. It is the distinctive 
 feature of Catholicism to believe in the Papal supremacy as of divine , 
 institution, and to cling to communion with Eome as to the only 
 means of external union between all the members of Christ's Church- 
 That proscribed, hunted, hanged, drawn and quartered as priests. 
 
196 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 prelates, and laymen were under Elizabeth for this conscientious 
 loyalty to the Central Authority in Christendom, it would be other- 
 wise than natural that, in the death-struggle going on in Ireland 
 between two creeds and two races, the oppressed race and the per- 
 secuted professors of the old creed should invoke the sympathy and 
 the aid of the Pope and of all Catholic peoples, — is apparent to any 
 Judicial mind. 
 
 "A solemn engagement was entered into between all the Confed- 
 erates to stand by each other, and to make no submission and accept 
 no terms which did not include them all. An appeal was distinctly 
 made to Eoman Catholics as Roman Catholics to treat the question as 
 a religious one, and to join the movement in defence of their faith. 
 Tyrone and O'Donnell wrote joint letters to Philip, to Don Carlos, 
 and to Don Juan de Aguila, pressing them to send them troops ' to 
 restore the faith of the Church, and to secure to the King a Catholic 
 Kingdom.' "* 
 
 It went hard with the English forces during the first stages in the 
 war. Spain sent timely aid. In August, 1598, Sir Henry Bagnal 
 with 4,000 men was defeated on the river Callan, perishing himself 
 on the field with 2,000 of his followers. The Provinces were all up 
 in arms, the nobles of both races, with few exceptions, joining the 
 insurgents. Elizabeth, alarmed, but determined to crush this rebeU 
 lion, sent over a magnificent army of 20,000 infantry and 3,000 horse, 
 under the command of Essex, her favorite. The Castle influence 
 was too much for him: he was persuaded to march into Munster 
 instead of attacking the Confederates in the north. The insurgents, 
 on his way, declined a pitched battle, harassing the Earl's columns, 
 and inflicting terrible losses, which soon reduced his forces by one 
 half. He sought to gain by negotiation, what he could not by strat- 
 egy; had a secret interview with O'Neill, which the Officials in Dub- 
 lin and the jealous courtiers in England turned into a treasonable 
 conspiracy. Elizabeth wrote to him, indignantly saying, that "to 
 
 * " The Kingdom of Ireland," p, 156. 
 
What a Hell upon 3arth EUzahetli had created. 197 
 
 trust tliis traitor upon oath, is to trust a cleril upon liis religion." It 
 would be curious to know what, at bottom, constituted lier religion. 
 
 Essex gave up the contest in Ireland and went to England to expi- 
 ate on the scaffold his own incapacity or lack of success. 
 
 Then entered upon the scene tlie Puritan Mount joy, who could 
 fight as well as write, and whose strategy was no holiday parading. 
 The new forces which he brought with him were admirably distrib- 
 uted on land and sea, and placed under men who could handle them, 
 and who perfectly understood the war of extermination which was 
 now the order of the day. 
 
 The Spaniards in vain sent a large fleet with 3,000 soldiers, who 
 landed at Kinsale, and were soon besieged there by Mountjoy and Sir 
 George Carew, President of Munster. The Lord Deputy had sum- 
 moned to his aid every man he could dispose of. O'jSTeill and O'Don- 
 nell also hastened from the North, baffling Mountjoy's attempts to 
 stop them on their march, and placing the English army at Kinsale 
 between two fires. But treason was at work in O'Neill's councils. 
 His plan of attack was revealed to the English commander, who soon 
 made the Confederates assume the defensive, broke through their 
 lines and drove them in utter route from the field. O'Neill never ral- 
 lied his scattered followers, and O'Donnell fled to the Court of Spain 
 to solicit fresh aid for his country. Thither an emissary of Mountjoy 
 followed him, and cut him off by poison. In 1603, — just as Elizabeth 
 was breathing her last, — O'Neill concluded with the Lord Deputy the 
 Treaty of Mellifont, by which he submitted to the Crown, was for- 
 given, his followers amnestied, and religious liberty promised, — a 
 promise which never was kept. 
 
 If the spirits of the departed, of those especially who wield upon 
 earth the power of doing to humanity incalculable good, or of causing 
 incalculable misery, are sent by Him who is Judge of the whole earth, 
 to contemplate the scene of their good or evil deeds, — what a hell it 
 must have been for the spirit of Elizabeth to survey Ireland as her 
 lieutenants had made it at her death in 1G03 ! 
 
 Let English and Protestant pens describe the awful scene. 
 
198 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 "The rebellion in Munster was stamped out with awful ferocity. 
 No quarter was given on either side. The returning Planters and 
 Carew's flying columns laid waste the whole country, ' not leaving be- 
 hind man or beast, corn or cattle.' . . . Tyrone, though not yet a 
 hunted fugitive, saw that all hope of final success was gone. His 
 country was so wasted that his people were dying of starvation by 
 hundreds; the country was strewed with unburied carcasses; while an 
 active and determined enemy was gradually drawing the net more 
 closely round him. . . . 
 
 " The power of the Irish was completely broken by the process of 
 starvation. The system pursued both in the south and in the north 
 of destroying the crops, removed the wbole source of sustenance on 
 which the mass of the people depended. To add to the loss of the 
 food at hand, Elizabeth's practice of debasing the coin had doubled 
 and trebled the price of every purchasable article, and a fatal pesti- 
 lence had followed upon the famine. . The jjeople in Ulster died of 
 hunger by the thousands." * 
 
 So, the plan drawn up by Edmund Spenser for the Queen and her 
 Government, for the instruction, indeed, of officers and soldiers, and 
 to feed the anti-Irish passions of the English nation, were now liter- 
 ally carried out. Pregnant as is the passage just quoted, — it cannot 
 convey a correct idea of all the methods used to desolate the land and 
 destroy all life in it during the terrible years of Mountjoy, Carew, 
 and Chichester's joint rule. 
 
 Once for all the story must be told by the English themselves. 
 Even though they suppress very many things, and soften the colors 
 wliich they use, the picture is as graphic as the descriptions of 
 Dante's Circles in the Inferno. 
 
 1600. "It was in the month of August, that, having taken 
 measures of protecting against any attack from Ulster, whither he an- 
 nounced his intention of making a general hosting, . . . Mountjoy 
 marched with an army of somewhat more than six hundred men, of 
 
 * " The Kingdom of Ireland," p. 169, 
 
The Greater Part of Ireland a Desert. 199 
 
 whom sixty only were cavalry, into Offaly and Leix, counties which 
 had long been in the undisturbed possession of the Irish, and wliich 
 therefore offered rich plunder to the English troops. The army 
 committed great havoc, retaliating on the Irish with the same devasta- 
 tion which had been so often perpetrated by the insurgents in other 
 parts. These districts were the chief supports of the rebels of Lein- 
 ster, and it was therefore a part of Mountjoy's policy to destroy their 
 provisions. 'Oiir captains,' says Moryson, 'and by their example {for 
 it was otherwise painful) the common soldiers cut down ivith their 
 swords all the rebels' corn to the value of £10,000 and upwards, the 
 only means by which they were to live, and to keep their bonaghts or 
 hired soldiers. It seemed incredible, that by so barbarous inhabi- 
 tants the ground should be so manured, the fields so orderly fenced, 
 the towns &o frequently (populously) inhabited, and the highways and 
 paths so well beaten, as the Lord Deputy here found them. The 
 reason whereof was that the Queen's forces, during these wars, never 
 till then came among them.' " * 
 
 1601. "By this time the greater part of Ireland, by continual 
 wasting and spoiling, had been reduced to a mere desert, and the 
 insurgents, deprived of supplies at home, were compelled to depend 
 upon importation from abroad; and this they were enabled to pro- 
 cure with the Queen's own treasure, a large portion of which fell 
 into their hands. ... It was found that, by the regular payment 
 of the army in sterling money, an alarming quantity went into the 
 hands of the insurgeiits, either directly by inroads and plunder, or 
 indirectly, through commerce, and was used in procuring from the 
 continent a regular supply of arms, ammunition, and provisions. 
 The government hit upon an extraordinary method for remedying 
 this inconvenience, which the Queen is said to have adopted with 
 great reluctance. It was no less than the total exchange of the ster- 
 ling coin, then iTsed in Ireland, for a base currency. . . . This new 
 scheme reduced the rebels to greater distress than ever. . . . Lord 
 
 * Wright, " Hist, of Ireland," vol. i., p. 550, 
 
200 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 Mountjoy kept the soldiers in continual employment against the 
 rebels in different quarters, so that they made up in some measure 
 by plunder for the real deficiency in pay caused by the change. 
 Thus the desolation of the country was increased. ..." * 
 
 " In a letter written from Xewry to the lords of the English 
 council the lord-deputy gives, in a few words, a picture of the ex- 
 terminating warfare in which he was now engaged. 'Tyi'one/ 
 he savs, ' is already beaten out of his country, and lives in a 
 part of O'Kane's, a place of incredible fastness, where, though it 
 be impossible to do him any great hurt so long as he shall be able 
 to keep any force about him, the ways to him being inaccessible with 
 an army, yet by lying about him, as we mean to do, we shall in short 
 time put him to his uttermost extremity, and if not light upon his 
 person, yet force him to fly the kingdom. In the meantime we can 
 assure your lordships thus much, tJiat from O'Kane's country, where 
 no'iv he liveth, vjhich is to the northward nf his oivn country of Tyrone, 
 we have left none to give us ojjposition, nor of late have seen any hut 
 dead carcasses, merely starved for want of meat, of which kind we 
 found many in divers places as we passed.' " \ 
 
 Intelligence having been brought Mountjoy that O'Neill had quit- 
 ted this lurking place and fled into Fermanagh, a district still in a 
 State of insurrection, — the Lord Deputy thereupon "resolved, first, 
 to spoil all the country of lyrone, and to banish all the inhabitants 
 from thence, enjoining such of them as would become subjects to live 
 on the south side of Blackwater, so that if Tyrone returned he should 
 find nothing in the country but the Queen's garrisons." X 
 
 "So effective was this ruthless policy of destruction"— says Wright 
 — " that Mountjoy, in a letter written on the 12th of September 
 (1602), the day after his return to Newry, acknowledges that not only 
 in Tyrone itself, which had been now reduced to a desert, but in the 
 surrounding countries, he had \found everywhere men dead of fam- 
 ine, insomuch that O'Hagan protested unto us, that between Tullag- 
 hoo-e and Toome there lay a thousand dead, and that since our first 
 * Wright, " Hist, of Ireland," i., 559. + Ibidem, p. 583. J Ibidem, p. 584. 
 
The Famine-Mad. 201 
 
 drawing this year to Blackwater there were above three thousand 
 starved in Tyrone.' " * 
 
 Wright in a foot-note thus corroborates the assertion of Mount- 
 joy. "To give some idea of the horrors of this Irish war, we have 
 only to repeat the facts stated by Moryson, an eye-witness, and our 
 only autliority for the particulars of Mountjoy's proceedings in the 
 north. Moryson, describing the conclusion of the war, ssiys: 'Now, 
 because I have often made mention formerly of destroying the rebels' 
 corn, and using all means to famish them, let me by two or three 
 examples show the miserable estate to which the rebels were thereby 
 brought. 
 
 " 'Sir Arthur Cliiehester, Sir Richard Moryson, and the other 
 commanders of the forces sent against Brian Mac Art (O'Neill) afore- 
 said, in their return homewards, saw a most horrible spectacle of 
 three children (whereof the eldest was not above ten years old), all 
 eating and gnawing with their teeth the entrails of their dead mother, 
 upon whose flesh they had fed twenty days past; and having eaten 
 all from the feet upwards to the bare bones, roasting it continually 
 by a slow fire, were now come to the eating of her entrails in like 
 sort roasted, yet not divided from the body, being as yet raw. 
 
 " ' Former mention hath been made in the Lord Deputy's Letters, 
 of carcasses scattered in many places, all dead of famine. And no 
 doubt the famine was so great, as the rebel soldiers taking all the 
 common people had to feed upon, and hardly living thereupon (so as 
 they besides fed not only on hawks, kites, and unsavoury birds of 
 prey, but on horseflesh, and other things unfit for man's feeding), 
 the common sort of the rebels were driven to unspeakable extremities 
 (beyond the record of most histories that ever I did read in that 
 kind), the ample relating whereof were an infinite task, yet will I not 
 pass it over without adding some few instances. 
 
 " ' Captain Trever and many honest gentlemen lying in the 
 Newry can witness, that some old women of those parts were used to 
 make a fire in the fields, and divers little children driving out the 
 
 * " Wright, " Hist, of Ireland," vol. i., p. 5S5. 
 
202 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 cattle in the cold mornings and coming hither to warm them, were 
 by them surprised, killed, and eaten, which at last was discovered by 
 a great girl breaking from them by strength of her body; and 
 Captain Trever sending out soldiers to know the truth, they found 
 the children's skulls and bones, and apprehended the old women, 
 who were executed for the fact. 
 
 " ' The Captains of Carrickfergus and the adjacent garrisons of 
 the northern parts can witness, that upon the making of peace, the 
 receiving the rebels to mercy, it was a common practice among the 
 common sort of them (I mean such as were not sword-men) to thrust 
 long needles into the horses of our English troops, and they dying 
 thereupon, to be ready to tear out one another's throat for a share of 
 them. And no spectacle was more frequent in the ditches of towns, 
 and especially in wasted countries, tlian to see multitudes of these 
 poor people dead with their mouths all colored green by eating 
 nettles, docks, and all things they could rend up above ground. 
 These, and very many like lamentable effects followed their rebellion, 
 and no doubt the rebels had been utterly destroyed by famine, had 
 not a general peace shortly followed Tyrone's submission.' " * 
 
 "The cruel persecution " — says Wright — "which had been carried 
 on during the autumn, seemed now to be yielding gradually to a 
 more lenient policy, which was enforced upon the English govern- 
 ment by the great expenditure of the war, and by the fear that the 
 obstinate courage shown by the natives might still encourage the 
 Spaniards to come to their assistance." 
 
 On the 31st October, 1602, Mountjoy received from Elizabeth a 
 letter, which, among other things, most explicitly indorses his course 
 of action in this war. " ' We would have you know for your comfort 
 that we approve all the courses you have held since 3"ou took the 
 sword in your whole government to have been accompanied with 
 diligence, wisdom, and good successes, and so we accept the same at 
 your hand.'"f 
 
 * Wright, " Hist, of Ireland," vol. i., p. 585. + Ibidem, p. 586. 
 
II. 
 
 The Stuarts and the Commonwealth. 
 
 1. James I. (1603-1625). 
 TTTHILE James was still King of Scotland only and was looking 
 forward with hope to be Elizabeth's heir, he took great pains 
 to conciliate the good will of the Catholic Continental Princes.* He, 
 therefore, held out in his correspondence with them, promises that 
 he would deal leniently with the Irish Catholics, to whom Elizabeth's 
 despotic and intolerant sway was a yoke of incandescent iron. But 
 even had James been sincere in his professions of tolerance, and had 
 he possessed firmness sufficient to carry them out, the temper then 
 cherished towards Ireland by the English people, and the dearest 
 interests of the men of blood and greed who ruled Ireland from Dub- 
 lin Castle, must have rendered abortive the King's best intentions 
 and tried his firmness to the utmost. James, however, possessed 
 neither sincerity, nor firmness. That the favorable opinion gained 
 for him in Eome and in the Catholic Courts, as well as among the 
 adherents of tlie old faith in England, should have reached Ireland 
 and there raised liigli the hopes of the population oppressed by 
 Mountjoy, Carew, Chichester, and such adventurers as Edmund 
 
 * " Kin^ James was. at the utmost pains to gain the friendship of the Roman 
 Catholic Princes, as a necessary precaution to facilitate his accession to the Eng- 
 lish throne. Lord Home, who was himself a papist, was entrusted with a secret 
 commission to the Pope. The archbishop of Glasgow was an active instrument 
 with those of his own religion. The Pope expressed such favourable sentiments 
 both of the King and of his right to the throne of England, that James thought 
 himself bound some years after to acknowledge the obligaticm in a public manner. 
 Sir James Lindsey made great progress in gaining the English papists to acknowl- 
 edge his majesty's title." — Carte, " Life of James Duke of Ormonde," London, 
 1776, vol. i., p. 21. 
 
 (203) 
 
204 The Cause of Irelayid. 
 
 Spenser, Walter Kaleigh, and Humphrey Gilbert, — was natural and 
 inevitable. The Irish, after his accession, committed the imprudence 
 of seiiding a deputation to James, asking for the free exercise of their 
 religion. "This act," says Wright, "was premature and indiscreet, 
 and it irritated the King, who subsequently behaved with more 
 reserve to the Irish lords, and was less lavish of his professions of 
 grace. Nevertheless, various expressions uttered by James from 
 time to time in the freedom of conversation, were eagerly seized upon 
 by the priests as proofs of his secret inclinations, and he seemed to 
 give some authority to the rumors they propagated, by his first 
 speech in parliament, in which he spoke of popery as the ' mother 
 church.' Encouraged by these appearances, the popish ecclesiastics 
 laid aside the caution which had previously attended their move- 
 ments, and they not only practised openly with their votaries, but 
 they denounced the vengeance of their spiritual authority on all who 
 should attend the worship established by the English government, or 
 dissemble the religious principles which they had received from their 
 forefathers."* 
 
 The extraordinary enthusiasm with which the Catholic worship 
 had been openly restored in all the cities of the south of Ireland, pro- 
 duced a great sensation in Dublin Castle, in the Court circles in Lon- 
 don, and throughout Ejigland. The cities of Ireland had been made, 
 every one of them, military strongholds for the English religion as 
 well as English supremacy. They were so many garrisons in a con- 
 quered and wasted country. The land for many a mile round about 
 each of them had been ravaged and depopulated by the commanders 
 in the last Elizabethan wars; the Irish inhabitants had been either 
 banished from every incorporated town, or had been ruthlessly put to 
 the sword; so that, at the death of Elizabeth, Protestants on both 
 sides of the Channel had good reason to believe, that the largest and 
 by far the fairest portion of Ireland was held by Englishmen, their 
 co-religionists, and that, from cities and incorporated towns, at least, 
 
 * " History of Ireland," vol. i., p. 596. Of course we cannot expect this writer 
 to mention Catholics or the Catholic Faith with either respect or courtesy. 
 
The Pajxists reappear in the Cities. 205 
 
 ' Popery and Papists ' had disappeared for ever. And lo ! at the first 
 tidings of the Queen's death, in all these places the Old Eeligion 
 starts up as from the grave, and there is a veritable confederation of 
 these cities against Protestantism and the Lord Deputy Mountjoy with 
 his sturdy fellow-exterminater, George Carew! The land had been 
 desolated by fire and sword, and lo! fi-om out the still smoking ashes 
 the rank weeds of " papistry," which it had cost so much to eradicate, 
 lift up their heads on every side! 
 
 What ! were not the Irish People crushed, exterminated, or, at 
 least, demoralized? 
 
 Wonderful to say — No ! 
 
 Though hunted from city, town, and fenced village, and shot 
 down like wild beasts Avhen they dared to appear in their neiglibor- 
 hood within a circuit of many a mile, the proscribed and outlawed 
 Celts could not be kept away from the gi-aves of their sires, from the 
 site of their former homes, from within view of the monasteries and 
 churches so dear to their childhood. They reappeared, like ghosts, 
 all over the fields and amid the ruins which had drunk the blood of 
 their kindred. They alarmed and terrified the stranger-occupants 
 of tlie old homesteads as with the spectres of the massacred dead, as 
 with the fearful importunity of spirits which would not rest in their 
 unhallowed graves, but would persist in reappearing to demand rep- 
 aration or to threaten revenge on the wrong-doers. 
 
 How came these Irish Catholics to insinuate themselves and to 
 establish a foot-hold, even in the cities of the Pale, even in Cork and 
 Waterford and Dublin ? In spite of the awful extermination wrought 
 in Ulster by Mountjoy, in Munster by Carew, in Connaught by Bing- 
 ham, how did living men arise from amid the pools of blood poured 
 out by the sword of the exterminator, as if the very slain were restored 
 to life ? Sir Walter Kaleigh, while Mayor and Governor of Cork, had 
 erected gallowses on both sides of Main Street from the North Gate 
 to the South, and on them hanged up the hundreds of Catholic pris- 
 oners captured in one of his raids. The skeletons, the skulls of Irish 
 Catholics, dangled in chains from battlements and city walls, or 
 
206 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 bleached, stuck on pikes above the city gates, — for years and years, 
 througli successive generations. Yet all this bloodshed, these hor- 
 rors, this terror, which made of the fair earth an image of Hell, did 
 not quell the revolt of the Celtic conscience, or crush the spirit of 
 Celtic patriotism. 
 
 When Carew had written his Pacata Hihernia {' Ireland Pacified ') 
 amid the desolated fields of Munster, and while her soil was still 
 reeking with the blood of hundreds of thousands, — Elizabeth dies, 
 and lo! the Cities of the South, the strongholds of Protestantism and 
 of the English power, rise up and celebrate the Mass, and sing the 
 Te Deum in their long-desecrated cathedrals ! Here is Wright's 
 account of this surprising event: 
 
 "Mountjoy considered the rebellion so far at an end, that he was 
 demanding the permission to return to England, and repose him.self 
 after his labors. On the 12th of April (1603) he received letters 
 from Carew, informing him that the last of the rebels of Munster, 
 Mac Maurice, was blocked up in his castle of Ballingarry, and on the 
 point of surrender; and three days afterward O'Eourke, the last of 
 the insurgent chiefs of the north, made his submission. The Lord 
 Deputy was already preparing to leave Ireland when, on the 16th of 
 the same month, he received an insidious letter from the mayor or 
 governor of Cork. . . . This was followed the same day by alarming 
 letters from various parts of Munster. . . . The citizens of Waterford 
 had broken open the doors of the hospital, had introduced a popish 
 priest. Dr. White, to officiate at St. Patrick's Church, and, having 
 taken from the sexton the keys of the Cathedral, they liad ' muti- 
 nously ' set up the celebration of mass, and done ' many insolencies in 
 that kind.' ... At Kilkenny, a Dominican friar, assisted by some of 
 the town, had proceeded to the Black Friars, then used as a session- 
 house, where they had broken open the doors, pulled down the 
 benches and seats of justice, and built an altar in their place. . . . 
 The citizens of Limerick with their priests had entered into all the 
 churches of that city, and there had erected altars and restored the 
 rites of the Ptomish Church; and the citizens of Wexford had done 
 
Condition of the Irish Septs in 1603. 207 
 
 the same. . . . The citizens of Cork took possession of the Protes- 
 tant churches; ... a pretended legate of the Pope, with a numerous 
 body of priests, went in solemn procession to consecrate the Cathe- 
 dral, and sang mass there publicly, while the townsmen placed guards 
 of armed men at the church doors; and the latter swore on the sac- 
 rament, that they would spend their lives and goods in defence of the 
 Romish religion. . . . The violence of the Catholic party in Cashel 
 was more conspicuous even than in the other towns which had joined 
 in this sedition. . . . 
 
 "This league of the cities of Manster — for it was found that they 
 had confederated together — presented a new feature in the history of 
 Irish politics. It had no direct connection with that of the Irish 
 chiefs, nor does it appear to have been stirred up by any foreign 
 agency or promise of assistance. It was the work of the priests, and 
 it was the beginning of that agitation to obtain relief from harsh 
 restrictions placed upon a religious creed, which was then persecuted 
 by the State, which have continued without interruption to our days. 
 The population of the cities was for the most part of English 
 descent, and had no feeling or interest in common with the Irish 
 Septs."* 
 
 What was the condition of these Septs, now broken up, with their 
 fragments scattered over the land by the process of plantation begun 
 by Henry VIII., and enforced at the point of the sword by Elizabeth? 
 
 They still occupied two-thirds of the Island, and, wherever they 
 maintained their precarious sway, the old faith, the Brehon Law with 
 its institutions, and the old social customs and manners of the Celtic 
 race, prevailed in spite of all the fear inspired by the English arms 
 and the persecuting religion which these upheld and propagated. 
 
 The Sept still clung to its patriarchal organization, in so far as its 
 fragmentary condition permitted it to do so. But the wars of Eliza- 
 beth aimed at breaking up the Septs; and they did their work pretty 
 thoroughly. The fate which had befallen the Celts of Olialy and 
 
 * " History of Ireland," vol. i., p. 596. 
 
208 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 Leix had already overtaken the Septs of Tyrone and Tyrconnell. 
 The Plantations of James I. were only to prepare the way for the 
 Transplantation into Connanght, The Chiefs were to be annihilated, 
 and the Tribesmen separated and scattered over the surface of the 
 island. Still they clung to Avhat was left them of their institutions. 
 The love of them was fostered in the homes of the Celtic Clergy. 
 
 In 1603 the monasteries of Ireland, — which were also the homes 
 of hospitality, as well as the nurseries of learning and art, — had either 
 fallen into the hands of the Protestant Clergy and laity, or been 
 reduced to ruins. In those which were outside of the Pale, while the 
 English language and literature may have not been neglected, — and, 
 of course, English letters were of a necessity cultivated in the city 
 monasteries, — the native Irish tongue, and the Latin of Catholic 
 Pome were the subjects of special stud}^ Of the medieval literary 
 monuments which escaped the hate of the Reformation and the 
 destroying rage of the Parhamentarian fanatics, — exquisite works 
 both in the Native Celtic and in Latin survive to attest the high 
 degree of culture imparted in these great national schools. The 
 most learned of the Brehons and Seannachies often became monks or 
 entered the ranks of the secular priesthood. Thus the knowledge of 
 the Brehon Law and the national institutions was imparted in the 
 monastic schools together with that of theology and literature. 
 When the Eeligious Houses were destroyed or given over to Prot- 
 estant uses, the faithful guides and teachers of the people imparted 
 knowledge wherever they might. Fugitive priests and bishops col- 
 lected their scholars around them in the bogs to which they were 
 driven, or in the depths of the forest, or amid the solitude of the 
 mountain heaths and rocks. Most touching instances are recorded of 
 the difficulties which masters and pupils had to contend with in these 
 evil days. 
 
 The Jesuit martyr, Edmund Campion, who wrote, in May 1571, 
 an account of his mission among the Catholic Irish in the preceding 
 year, seems to write rather contemptuously of the Brehon Schools, 
 without accounting to himself for the fact that the Brehon Law and 
 
How and wliere the, hunted Irish Tcmght and Learned. 209 
 
 the Irish Language, like the Cathohc religion itself, were proscribed 
 by English Sovereigns. In the temporary huts where Irish Law and 
 Letters were clandestinely taught, amid the forest or the morass, the 
 missionary was shocked to find so little that reminded him of Oxford. 
 "They" — the Brehon law-students — "speak Latin like a vulgar lan- 
 guage, learned in their common schools of leachcraft (medicine) and 
 law, whereat they begin children and hold on sixteen or twenty years, 
 conning by rote the aphorisms of Hippocrates and the Civil Institutes, 
 and a few other parings of these two faculties. I have seen them 
 where they kept school, ten in some one chamber, grovelling upon 
 couches of straw, their books at their noses, themselves lying pros- 
 trate; and so to chaunt out their lessons by piecemeal, being the most 
 part lusty fellows of twenty-five years and upwards." * 
 
 Stanihurst, who came later and wrote in the last years of Eliza- 
 beth's reign, describes the law-courts held by the Brehon-Judges for 
 chiefs and people, in the open air and on the consecrated spot on the 
 hill-side. The spectacle and the proceedings testified to the demo- 
 cratic spirit, the practical Christian communism, and the veneration 
 for the laws derived from the forefathers. These peaceful gatherings 
 always afforded proof of the brotherly spirit which ruled the liti- 
 gants. When the assembly broke up, all present were invited by the 
 chiefs to partake of their hospitality; and he was the happiest and 
 proudest who was followed down the hill by the largest crowd of 
 friends and dependants. 
 
 A memorable instance of the fondness with which the Catholic 
 Irish clung to these institutions and customs, is related by Sir John 
 Davies, Attorney General of James I. This magistrate accompanied 
 the Lord Deputy in a circuit made through the northern counties for 
 the purpose of holding assizes, abolishing the Brehon Law with its 
 courts, and of establishing everywhere the administration of English 
 law. 
 
 " It was from a priest who had once been a Brehon, that Sir John 
 
 * Edmund Campion, " Account of Ireland," p. 18. 
 
 14 
 
210 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 Davies, in 1610, received the treatise on 'Corbes and Hermachs'; 
 and few who have read his account of the first assizes held for the 
 county Fermanagh, in the ruins of the Abbey, in the island of Lough 
 Erne, will forget the aged Brehon of the Maguires drawing from his 
 bosom with trembling hand the ancient roll, and refusing to part 
 with it, until the Lord Deputy, Sir Arthur Chichester, liad given 
 him his hand and faith that it should be restored to him. It was 
 only at this period of the reign of James I. that the practice of the 
 Brehon law was forbidden in Ireland; for the Statutes of Kilkenny 
 . . . only prohibited the use of it in ruling differences between the 
 English. The Irish had no other as they were denied the use of the 
 English law. But after the subduing of Tyrone's rebellion, the Eng- 
 lish judges who had hitherto gone their circuits round the Pale, were 
 sent all round Ireland to administer English law; and the practice of 
 the Irish code was superseded, and declared 'to be no law, but a 
 lewd custom.'"* 
 
 English law, all through the long forty-four years of the reign of 
 Elizabeth (and the same may be said with truth of the three preceding 
 reigns), only came to the Irish Catholics either in the shape of the 
 Law of Supremacy and that against Eecusants, or accompanied by 
 these fearful edicts of persecution. And these laws, in nearly every 
 district in Ireland, were only enforced through the oppressive agency 
 of Martial Law. Indeed this last may, without exaggeration, be said 
 to have ruled the land not only in war, but at all times. It was in 
 the power of the Lord Deputy, and of the Presidents of Provinces, to 
 authorize their inferiors to execute martial law in their localities. 
 This simply meant the power to do away with the landed proprietors, 
 and to seize, retain, and confiscate their property. 
 
 The spectacle, therefore, of the feeble remnants of the once pow- 
 erful Sept of the Maguires of Fermanagh, assembling in the Island of 
 Lough Erne, to meet in solemn assize, held in the ruined cloisters of 
 the Abbey, the Lord Deputy and the English Judges, conveys to the 
 
 * John p. Prendergast, " The Cromwellian Settlement of Ireland," p. 16. 
 
Holu English Laiu was Presented to the Irish. 211 
 
 mind a pretty exact picture of the social and political condition of the 
 country and its people. James I. was then carrying out, under 
 the veil of a philanthropical statesmanship, the traditional purpose of 
 England to annihilate the Irish race, beginning with whatever re- 
 mained of the ancient Celtic institutions. It is well known, that even 
 while Sir John Davies endeavored to temper the administration of the 
 English laws, and to make the people entertain some sense of security 
 and hopefulness, the laws against Popery and those enjoining the 
 attendance at Protestant worship were rigorously enforced within 
 and outside of the Pale. The poor Brehon-Priest, who with trem- 
 bling hand delivered up a portion of the venerated ancestral Code, 
 could only by stealth and at the risk of his life celebrate mass in 
 ruined abbey or church, or minister by night and hurriedly to the 
 spiritual comfort of the sick or the dying. 
 
 At this point in Irish history, as from a high dividing line, where 
 we can look back over the past, and forward to the eventful ages 
 before us, we may well ask ourselves the question. Whether the ex- 
 perimental education so long given to the Irish people were fitted to 
 inspire them with a respect for authority personified in British rulers, 
 or for law as embodied in the cruel and irrational legislation, so often 
 held to their lips, like a cup full of unmixed bitterness and deadliest 
 poison? And, then, after the experience of the fearful past, was to 
 come the new legislation of James, and Charles I., and the Puritan 
 Commonwealth; and then . . . , and then . . . ! What horrors fill 
 up the intervals between Cromwell and the close of the 18th century! 
 How could a people so oppressed and legislated against be a law- 
 abiding people, Avhen law was to them a red-handed tyrant clad 
 in steel, imposing on the Christian conscience the violation of all 
 the most sacred obligations, and ignoring all right, human and 
 divine? 
 
 In the million or million and a half of Catholic Celts who, in 
 1603, still lived all over Ireland, in perpetual dread of new persecu- 
 tions, new rebellions, massacres, confiscations, and transplantations, 
 there were magnificent materials with which to build up a great. 
 
212 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 prosperous, and cultivated Christian community. For that it was 
 only needful to engraft on the institutions, the civilization derived 
 from a not inglorious past, what was most in conformity with 
 true liberty and the progress achieved by the other nations of 
 Christendom. 
 
 No! extermination, not conciliation, is the historic policy of Eng^ 
 land in Ireland. 
 
 James I., in giving up his scheme of peaceful, legislative reforma- 
 tion, for one of "extirpation," was only the tool of that Policy. 
 
 Any fair-minded person who has read in the authentic State 
 Papers, which are daily brought to light in the Eecord Office, Lon- 
 don, the proofs of the nefarious methods resorted to by Lord Lieu- 
 tenants, Lord Deputies, Lord Justices, and Lord Presidents in 
 Ireland, methods expressly sanctioned by their Sovereign, — will not 
 be surprised that James I. was, in this respect, as unscrupulous as 
 Elizabeth. "The Irish Enemy" had been the designation under 
 which all the native Irishmen of Celtic race were outlawed before 
 1534. Up to that year nothing but the sheer impossibility of driving 
 them by force from their native land, prevented their extermination. 
 When Henry VIII. and Elizabeth attempted to enforce the Acts of 
 Supremacy and Uniformity by making the refusal high treason, then 
 the word "Traitors" was substituted for the "Irish Enemy," or 
 rather included it, adding the bitterness of religious fanaticism to 
 the old fierce hatred of race. Ireland must not be permitted to re- 
 main in the hands of "traitors" and "papists." Ireland was, as 
 James himself expressed it, 'a back-door to England'; it must not be 
 permitted to remain in possession of any but Englishmen, Scotch- 
 men, and Protestants. 
 
 The substitution of the English Common Law for the Brehon In- 
 stitutions and Customs was only a covert way toward that end. It 
 did not work fast enough to gratify the theological passions which 
 were fermenting so fiercely in England, still more so in Scotland, and 
 more fiercely still among the numerous Scotch Puritans in the north 
 of Ireland; and more impatient than they were the officials of Dublin 
 
How the first Confiscations were brought about. 213 
 
 Castle and the crowd of hungry adventurers, who preyed on confis- 
 cation, and were skilled in devising or discovering conspiracies and 
 rebellions. 
 
 The broad and fertile lands of the Geraldines were in the hands 
 of the English "Undertakers," to whom was left the task of "bury- 
 ing " for ever in the south the nationality and religion of Ireland. 
 The northern half of the Island, still, — in 1603, nominally held by 
 O'Xeill and O'Donnell, with the fragments of Septs who still clung to 
 these chiefs, — must be brought under absolute subjection to British 
 Protestantism. O'Xeill and O'Donnell had just been pardoned and 
 restored, with restricted rights, to their ancient inheritance in Tyrone 
 and Tyrconnell. The Lord Deputy, Chichester, and the Justices 
 who had accompanied him on his circuit through the north, had 
 convinced themselves that there could be no hope of lasting success 
 for the English and Scotch colonies of Ulster, so long as the great 
 Irish chieftains were permitted to remain in the land, holding up, 
 even in their altered titles and sadly diminished power, a shadow of 
 the old sovereignties so dear to the Irish heart. The two Earls must 
 go ! Think you Dublin Castle will be at a loss to devise a conspiracy 
 or rebellion? 
 
 Forged letters had been successful devices employed by the Lord 
 Presidents and Lord Deputies in getting rid of the Geraldines and 
 getting hold of their broad lands. Such letters play a conspicuous 
 part in the tragic drama of persecution enacted in the Three King- 
 doms during the 10th and 17th centuries. 
 
 "A letter dropt in the Privy Council Chamber (Dublin)," says 
 Leland, "intimated a traitorous scheme of rebellion formed by the 
 Earls of Tyrone and Tyrconnel, and other Irish lords and gentle- 
 men of the north; that they had solicited assistance from Spain 
 and Brussels, and intended to begin the war with surprising the 
 Castle of Dublin, and assassinating the lord-deputy and council. 
 It seems extraordinary, that the northerns who were still smarting 
 under the chastisement they had received in the late rebellion, 
 whose consequence and influence were considerably diminished, and 
 
214 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 who were very lately reconciled to government, should precipitately 
 involve themselves in the guilt of a new rebellion."* 
 
 A contemporary historian, one whose account of the rebellion of 
 1641 has been lately published from the original manuscript, states 
 the opinion now generally received in the following terms: "When 
 O'Neill observed his nearest and dearest kinsmen to flinch from him 
 by degrees, (he) condescended to make peace. The State of Ireland 
 being jealous of his greatness, informed Her Majesty of some private 
 practices of Tyrone and Tyrconnel, . . . which was truly and really 
 a misinformation. Many such tricks were used between Her Majesty 
 and the State of Ireland, tending to his destruction, as observable in 
 the Chronicle of Fynisse Morrisson, Secretary of State in England and 
 Ireland. However his men, weary of war and tasting now of the 
 security of peace, being in continual danger, fled away, (and he) went 
 to Eome himself and Tyrconnel." f 
 
 "The King himself," says Dr. Curry, "was so apprehensive that 
 this affair of the Earls ' might blemish (as he expresses it in a proc- 
 lamation on that occasion) the re])utation of that frieiidshi]} which 
 ought to be mutually observed between him and other jJf'inces, that he 
 thought if not amiss to publish some such ^natter by way of proclama- 
 tion, as might better clear men's judgments concerning the same.' At 
 the same time solemnly promising, ' that it should a-p])ear to the world 
 as clear as the sun, by evident jjroof, that the only ground of these 
 earls' departure was the private knowledge and inward terror of 
 their own guiltiness.' But neither in that proclamation, nor in any 
 manner whatever, did his majesty design, ever after, to enlighten the 
 world, even with the least glimpse of evident proof, that such was 
 the only motive of these earls' departure. And I shall leave it to the 
 decision of every candid reader, whether the non-performance of his 
 majesty's solemn promise be not a better negative proof of the nullity 
 and fiction of this conspiracy of the Earls, than the bare non-appear- 
 ance of a memorial in their vindication can be deemed of its reality." J 
 
 * " History of Ireland," ii., 4J)8. 
 
 t John T. Gilbert, " Contemporary Hist, of Affairs in Ireland," i., pp. 5, 6. 
 
 X Joliu Curry, " Review of Civil Wars in Ireland," i., 86. 
 
James I. on Irish Immorality I 215 
 
 Consulting James' silly and hypocritical proclamation itself, we 
 find that it professes to reply to the causes of flight assigned to them 
 hy popular report among Irish Catholics, — that they were refused 
 justice for manifest grievances, and persecuted for conscience' sake. 
 He descends to the base expedient of aspersing both the religion of 
 the Irish people, the morality of the chiefs, and the social conditions 
 created by Catholicism. It would, he thought, be preposterous to 
 trouble men about religious opinions when they had no religion at 
 all, and lived in such barbarous and unchristian ways, that they 
 regarded "murder as no fault, marriage of no use, nor any man 
 deemed valiant, who did not glory in rapine and oppression. . . . We 
 do hereby profess, on the word of a King (the hypocrite goes on to 
 say) that there never Avas so much as any shadow of molestation, nor 
 purpose of proceeding in any degree against them, for matter con- 
 cerning religion." 
 
 As to the flimsy fabric set forth by Bishop Carleton and dwelt on 
 so complacently by Wright, it can deceive no serious-minded person. 
 From the concluding portion of the royal proclamation, it is clear 
 that the Dublin Castle officials had been trumping up accusations of 
 plots and conspiracies, and sedulously fostering in the royal mind the 
 notion that the Earls were only husbanding their resources for a new 
 rebellion. "Their only end was," he saA's, "to have made themselves 
 by degrees more able than now ... to resist all lawful authority 
 (when they should return to their vomit again) by usurping power 
 over other good subjects of ours, that dwell among them, better born 
 than they, and utterly disclaiming from any dependency upon them. 
 .... They have (before running out of our kingdom) not only 
 entered into combination for stirring up sedition and intestine re- 
 bellion, but have directed divers instruments, as well priests as others, 
 to make offers to foreign States and Princes. . . . Under the con- 
 dition of being made free from the English government, they re- 
 solved also to comprehend the utter extirpation of all those subjects 
 that are now remaining alive within that kingdom, formerly de- 
 scended from the Ensrlish race." . . . 
 
216 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 Not only did James never afterward attempt to furnish the slight- 
 est proof of these grave assertions, but no such proof ever has been 
 adduced or found in the State Papers. All these rumors of con- 
 spiracy and combination with foreign powers were easily believed by 
 the English people, as were the resolutions to exterminate in Ireland 
 all persons of English birth or race. These helped to foster the 
 national hatred of the "Irishry," and justified in advance every pro- 
 ject set on foot for another attempt to "root out" the "Enemy." 
 
 Soon after the flight of the Earls, and while the Govei'nment was 
 bus}^, on the one hand, in taking possession of the lands of the fugi- 
 tives, and, on the other, in preparing, by such utterances as the above 
 proclamation, to justify James' vast schemes of "Plantation," a young 
 northern chief. Sir Cahir O'Dougherty, was provoked into open re- 
 bellion. He was closely allied to both the exiled princes. He was 
 killed on the battle-field by "an accidental shot," and all his vast 
 estates and those of his adherents were declared forfeited to the 
 Crown. Thereby, and by the forfeiture incurred by the fugitives, 
 upwards of 800,000 acres of arable land in Ulster were at the dis- 
 posal of the King for protestantizing and anglifying the Kingdom. 
 
 The King was not fortunate in his attempt to put forth the pre- 
 tended treason of Tyrone and Tyrconnell as a reason for his change 
 of policy toward the populations of Ulster. In the scheme first 
 divulgated, James purposed to restore to the great chieftains and 
 principal landholders their own immediate demesnes, as distinguished 
 from the lands of the whole Sept. The lands thus given back to 
 these great nobles were to be held under the King for the perform- 
 ance of Knight's service. The Creaghts, or wandering pastoral pop- 
 ulation, were to live thenceforward in villages with fixed pasture 
 lands. They were to pay a money-rent to their lords instead of the 
 ancient burthens of coigne and livery. The months spent by Sir 
 John Davies and Chichester in introducing this change into Ulster 
 and makhig it accepted, — the poetic Attorney General conceives to 
 have been so Avell spent that this year was to the people "a year of 
 jubilee." 
 
The King Promises ; and Deceives, 217 
 
 Perhaps it might have been regarded as such, had the King been 
 in good faith, or compelled his subordinates in the government of 
 Ireland to execute every part of his compact with the people. But 
 the promises made, and the hopes held out, in 1607 were alike 
 brought to naught in 1608. 
 
 To say that the flight of O'Xeill and O'Donnell forced the King to 
 change his purpose and undo what he had just done, would be to say 
 what is not warranted by the facts of history. In two different proc- 
 lamations issued on the occasion of this flight, the King declared, 
 that, in taking possession of the territories belonging to the fugitives, 
 he shonld see to it that the inhabitants were protected and main- 
 tained in their holdings. The advice of Chichester, who was to profit 
 so largely by the new scheme of plantation of 1608, prevailed over all 
 other considerations. "He (Chichester) joined with great abilities 
 .and attainments a thorough knowledge of the country to be planted, 
 of the manners and character of its present inhabitants, and of the 
 Avishes and exigencies of their chiefs. He caused surveys to be taken 
 of the counties where the new settlements were to be established, 
 drew up particular descriptions of them, jwinting out the situations 
 proper for building towns and castles, and made a full report of the 
 character of the Irish chiefs, and tlie manner in which they should 
 be treated, and pointed out the impediments which Avere to be 
 expected, and how they ought to be remoA^ed." * 
 
 No one man, Avith the sole exception of CroniAvell, has done more 
 toAvard extirpating the old Irish race from the land of their fathers, 
 or has left behind a greater name for mingled cruelty aiid ability, 
 than Arthur Chichester. The search into the public records of both 
 Kingdoms, and a conscientious study of the documentary treasures in 
 possession of the great families, will surely bring to light the formal 
 and explicit proof of Avhat is now only a matter of circumstantial 
 evidence, — that the first plantation scheme of James, based on an 
 unsuccessful attempt made by him,f before his accession to the Eng- 
 
 Wright, " Hist, of Ireland," i., p. 602. t Ibidem, p. 602. 
 
218 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 lish throne, to colonize the most fertile portions of the highlands of 
 Scotland with planters from the southern counties, was given up at 
 the instance of the Irish Lord Deputy, who substituted one of his 
 own, one which effectually planted the Anglo-Scotch Protestant 
 ascendancy in the confiscated territories of Tyrone and TyrconnelL 
 
 The Plantation of Ulster on the grand scale proposed by the Lord 
 Deputy and adopted by the King, began in earnest in 1608-9, 
 though not before 1613 did the Irish Parliament packed by the King, 
 the Lord Deputy, and the Attorney General, sanction the enormous 
 iniquity committed against the two fugitive Earls, and, what was in- 
 finitely worse, confiscate the patrimony of an entire people, who had 
 neither rebelled, nor conspired, and were guilty only of the crime of 
 being Celts and Catholics. 
 
 The ancient inhabitants of six entire counties were thus doomed 
 to be disinherited, and driven from one corner of Ireland to another, 
 as if they were herds of wild buffaloes, that could be surrounded by 
 the hunters, and forced at the point of the lance far away from the 
 path of advancing civilization. But what that civilization was Avhich 
 such men as Chichester could implant anywhere, we must not and 
 need not stop to inquire. 
 
 There were three divisions made of the spoils : 
 
 First, to ' English and Scotch Avho are to plant their proportions 
 with English and Scottish tenants; ' 
 
 Secondly, to ' servitors in Ireland, who may take English or 
 Irish tenants, at their choice; ' 
 
 Thirdly, to * natives of those counties who are to be free- 
 holders. ' 
 
 The largest and fairest portion of the lands was bestowed on the 
 favored few of the first class; * on the next were bestowed those of 
 
 * Orders and Conditions of the Plantation of Ulster. 8. That in the surveys obser- 
 vation be made what proportions, by name, are fittest to be allotted to the Britains; 
 what to the Servitors; and what to the natives; wherein this respect is to be had 
 that the Britains be put in places of best safety; the natives to be dispersed; and 
 the Servitors planted in those places which are of greatest importance to serve 
 the rest. 
 
The Plan hroiufat home to the American Mind. 219 
 
 the second quality; and the despoiled Irish were planted on those of 
 inferior quality. But a mialignant feature of this transaction remains 
 behind, — a feature unique in its character. The wretched Irish, 
 victims of a vile scheme of depredation, deprived of their paternal 
 liomes, and exiled to the most sterile spots, were barbarously cut off 
 from all chance of ever regaining their possessions; as the under- 
 takers and servitors were bound, under penalty, never to sell to the 
 mere Irish, nor to Roman Catholics of any nation: for the disposal to 
 persons who did not take the oath of supremacy, and ' conform them- 
 selves in religion according to his majesty's laws,' was rigorously pro- 
 hibited and punished. 
 
 "To bring this point home to the feelings of an American reader," 
 — says the author of Vindicice HiberniccB, — "I venture to suppose an 
 analogous case, to which I require particular attention. Suppose 
 that the resistance of America in 1776 had terminated as fatally as 
 the various insurrections of Ireland have done; or, to come nearer to 
 the true state of the case, to make the analogy more complete, sup- 
 pose a wild incoherent letter had, in 1774, been dropped in the court 
 of St. James's, accusing George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Pat- 
 rick Henry, and Peyton Randolph, of a conspiracy; suppose that 
 such threats were held out, and such underhand means used, as to 
 induce them to have recourse to flight; suppose that in consequence 
 of their flight, George III., imitating the pious example of James I., 
 had seized on the entire province of Virginia; had taken the in- 
 habitants like so many merino sheep, and planted, in the Dismal 
 Swamp, North Carolina, those whose ancestors, for time immemorial, 
 had had lordly palaces in the great Limestone Valley; and suppose 
 further, that these wretched victims planted in the Dismal Swamp, 
 were condemned to vegetate there, and that the intruders on their 
 possessions in the Valley were bound, under heavy penalties, never to 
 sell any part of their own lands to them; suppose, too, that a large 
 portion of the ill-fated inhabitants, who could not be placed ad- 
 vantageously in the Dismal Swamp, were 'transported into such other 
 parts as, by reason of the waste lands therein, were fittest to receive 
 
220 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 them, and not planted together in one place.' What judgment 
 would he form of such an odious system of rapine and cruelty? 
 Would he not regard it as a violation of the most sacred rights of 
 human nature? and as branding with infamy the vile projectors of 
 the spoliation and their accomplices ? Such a judgment ought he to 
 form of the '' famous northern plantation, so honourable to the King ' 
 — so Leland calls it: and ought not the historians who have not 
 merely palliated, but justified and eulogized such unjust pro- 
 ceedings, partake of the disgrace of those whose crimes they dare 
 to vindicate ? " * 
 
 "Manors of 1,000, 1,500, and 3,000 acres were offered by this pro- 
 ject to such English and Scottish as should undertake to plant their 
 lots with British Protestants, and engage to allow no Irish to dwell 
 upon them. For the security of the Plantation, all Irish who had 
 been in arms were to be transplanted with their families, cattle, and 
 followers, to waste places in Munster and Connaught, and there set 
 down at a distance from one another; while those who should be 
 suffered to remain, were to remove from the lands allotted to the 
 planters, to places where they could be under the eye of the Ser- 
 vitors, as those planters were called who had shares given them in 
 reward for their services after a war or rebellion. 
 
 "The Irish gentlemen who did not forfeit their estates received 
 proportions (intended to be three-fourths of their former lands, but 
 too often only one half or one third, or none at all, as the English 
 ' were their own carvers,') as immediate tenants of the King. Tlieir 
 lands were liable to forfeiture if the chief took from any of his former 
 clansmen any of his ancient customary exactions of victuals; if he 
 went coshering on them as of old; if he used gavelkind, or took the 
 name of 0\XeiIl or O'Donnell, 0' Carroll or O'Connor, by tanistry. 
 On his death, his youthful heir was made ward to a Protestant, to be 
 brought up in Trinity College, Dublin, from his twelfth till his 
 eighteenth year, in English habits and religion, — often after this 
 
 * VindicuB HiberniccB, pp. 179-80. 
 
Hoiv James I. dealt justly with Catholic Pro2)rieto7's. 221 
 
 enforced conformity, all the more embittered, like Sir Phelim 
 O'lSTeill, against English religion. The wandering Creaghts were to 
 become his tenants at fixed money rents. He covenanted that they 
 should bnild and dwell in villages, and live on allotted portions of 
 land, ''to them as grievous as to be made bondslaves.' Unable to 
 keep their cattle on the small portions of land assigned to them, 
 instead of ranging at large, they sold away both corn and cattle.* 
 Unused to money rents, though of victuals they formerly made 
 small account because of their plenty, they were unable to pay their 
 rents; and their lords finding it impossible to exact them, and being 
 thus deprived of their living, numbers of them fled to Spain. Sim- 
 ilar plantations followed in Leitrim, Longford, King's County, and 
 Wexford, except that in some (as in Leitrim) one half of the lands of 
 the L'ish were to be seized."! 
 
 The same writer, further on and in pursuance of the same subject, 
 thus illustrates the practical working of the royal plan of extermina- 
 tion. "Li the AYexford plantation of IGll, the lands to be planted 
 lay between the Eiver Shaney and the sea, consisting of 66,800 acres, 
 besides woods and mountains. Of four hundred and forty-seven Irish 
 claiming freeholds only twenty-one were to retain their ancient 
 houses and habitations, thirty-six others were to be elsewhere pro- 
 vided for, and all the rest of the freeholders, three hundred and 
 ninety in number, together with the other inhabitants, estimated to 
 be 14,500 men, women, and children, were removable at the will of 
 the planters. I 
 
 "On the '7th of May, 1613, the Sheriff of Wexford proceeded to 
 put the latter in possession of the several portions of the land speci- 
 fied in their patents, broke open the doors of such of the ancient pro- 
 prietors as resisted, and turned them out.§ 
 
 "They probably felt this all the more, as they had been previously 
 
 * Letter of Sir Arthur Chichester to the King, Oct. 30, 1610. Ellis's Original 
 Letters, 3d Series. 
 
 + " Cromwellian Settlement," p. 45. 
 
 i " Return of Sir Arthur Chichester and other Commissioners to the King" 
 {Desiderata Curiosa Hibernica, vol. i., p. 376). § Ibid., p. 389. 
 
223 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 informed that ' nothing was intended unto them by the plantation 
 but their good; and that the civilising the country was the chief 
 thing aimed at.' * 
 
 " ' They all offered, but in vain, to pay such rents, and to perform 
 such buildings, as the new undertakers were to perform.' f 
 
 "The men of Longford, in their address to the Koyal Commission- 
 ers authorized (A. D. 1622) to hear the grievances of Ireland, say, 
 that, instead of losing one-fourth, many had all taken from them; 
 and that divers of the poor natives, or former freeholders, after the 
 loss of all their possessions or inheritance, some went mad, and others 
 died instantly for very grief: 'as one O'Feraill, of Clayrad, and Don- 
 agli McGerald O'Feraill, of Cuillagh (and others whose names for 
 brevity are left out), who on their death-beds were in such a taking 
 that they by earnest persuasion caused some of their friends to bring 
 them out of their said beds, to have abroad the sight of the hills and 
 fields they lost in the said plantation, every one of them dying 
 instantly thereafter. ' " J 
 
 We have mentioned Longford and Wexford here in connection 
 with the Plantation of Ulster, — though the exterminations in the 
 former belong to a later date, and to a different scheme of confisca- 
 tion devised by the Irish Privy Council and readily embraced by the 
 royal mind. 
 
 AVas the success which attended the gigantic experiment in Ulster 
 such as to induce the King and his counselors to try others on a like 
 scale in Leinster and Connaught ? 
 
 Let us, before we follow the Exterminators into these two last 
 Provinces, glance at the practical measures employed by the Ulster 
 Planters to "civilize" such of the Catholic Celts as were allowed to 
 remain beneath their native skies. We use the word civilize 
 advisedly. For the pretext put forth by the historians who attempt 
 to justify James' spoliations, as well as his merciless treatment of 
 
 * " Retvirn of Sir Arthur Chichester and other Commissioners to the King" 
 {JDesiderata Curiosa Hibernica, vol. i., p. 374'). t Ibid., p. 390. 
 
 X Harris MSS., p. 68. Folio. Royal Dublin Society's Library. 
 
Success of this gigantic Exjjerime^if — James praised for if. 223 
 
 the Catholic population, dwell with special emphasis on the benefits 
 to "civilization/' which the King had in view, and which these 
 measures tended to promote. Here are a few of these historical judg- 
 ments, which Ave beg the reader to reconsider and revise. 
 
 "To consider James in a more advantageous light," says Hume, 
 "we must take a view of him as the legislator of Ireland: and most of 
 the institutions which he had framed for civilizing that kingdom, 
 being finished about this period, it may not here be improper to give 
 an account of them. He frequently boasts of the management of 
 Ireland as his masterpiece; and it will appear upon inquiry, that his 
 vanity in this particular was not altogether unfounded. . . . After 
 abolishing these Irish customs, and substituting English law in their 
 place, James, having taken all the natives under his protection, and 
 declared them free citizens, proceeded to govern them by a regular 
 administration, military as well as civil." 
 
 Wondering if Hume ever studied the facts of Irish history in the 
 original records, we next quote the words of a reverend author, who 
 wrote his history of Ireland within the precincts of Dublin Castle, of 
 which he was chaplain, and with the authentic documents piled up 
 around him. 
 
 "The passion for plantation which James indulged," says Leland, 
 "was actuated by the fairest and most captivating motives. He con- 
 sidered himself as the destined reformer and civilizer of a rude people; 
 and was impatient for the glory of teaching a w-hole nation the 
 valuable arts of life; of improving their lands, extending their com- 
 merce, and refining their manners." 
 
 To the favorable opinion of these two authors w^e might add that 
 of Sir John Davies, the King's Attorney General, delivered iu 
 answer to a remonstrance from the dispossessed Irish of Ulster, were 
 it not superfluous. As we have seen, this good man was well 
 rewarded in fertile Irish lands for his services in forwarding these 
 plantations, and the eloquence spent in justifying them. The popu- 
 lations of Tyrone and Tyrconnel pleaded before the Dublin Privy 
 Council, " that they had estates of inheritance in their possessions 
 
224 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 which their* chief lords couhl not forfeit. . . . That they might have 
 the benefit of a proclamation made about five years since, whereby 
 the persons, lands, and goods, of all his majesty's subjects, were taken 
 into his royal protection," 
 
 To this appeal, the Attorney General, in conclusion, would have 
 the disinherited and beggared people of Ireland be satisfied with these 
 assurances: that "civility cannot possibly be planted among them 
 (incorrigible barbarians as they are) but by this mixed plantation of 
 (English and Scottish) civil men"; that, whereas under Henry II. 
 "not one Irish family had so much as an acre of freehold in all the 
 five counties" of the Pale, now, on the contrary, "these natives of 
 Cavan have competent portions of land assigned to them, many of 
 them in the same barony where they dwelt before; and such as are 
 removed are planted in the same county; so as his majesty doth in 
 this imitate the skilful husbandman, who doth remove his fruit trees, 
 not with a purpose to extirpate and destroy them, but that they may 
 bring, better and sweeter fruit after the transplantation." 
 
 Poetic and ' candid soul of Sir John Davies, how fortunate the 
 English Solomon was in having in thee such a mouthj^iece ! 
 
 But let ns see how it fared in Cavan and throughout Ulster with 
 those privileged not to be transplanted. 
 
 Hoiv the Ulster Undertahers dealt with the Native 
 Irish in 1610. 
 
 Three kinsmen of the name of Blenner-Hassett, with nine other 
 English gentlemen, were among the first to undertake the "planta- 
 tion" of GO, 000 acres around Lifford, in the county Fermanagh. 
 Apj^arently the enterprise was under the patronage of Gilbert, Earl 
 of Shrewsbury, who may have contributed largely toward the com- 
 mon funds. In 1610, after carefully surveying the whole country, 
 and calculating all the chances and difficulties of their nndertaking, 
 Thomas Blennerhassett addressed to Prince Henry of England, "A 
 Direction for the Plantation of Ulster." The memoir, although 
 written for the son, was sure to be carefully read by the father. 
 
Securily oiilij in Castles. 225 
 
 Indeed the main recommendations in it, are substantially the same 
 as those Edmund Spenser addressed to Queen Elizabeth in 1598. 
 "Your most loving Father's wonderful wisdom and Industrie," the 
 memorialist says to the Prince, has "redeemed, delivered, and quite 
 acquitted . . . Ulster, from the usurping tyranny of traitors. . . . 
 Despoiled, she presents herself in a ragged and sable robe, — ragged 
 indeed, there remaineth nothing but ruins and desolation. ... Of her- 
 self she aboundetli with many the very best blessings of God. . . . 
 Fair England, she hath more j^eople than she can well sustain: 
 goodly Ulster for want of people unmanured, her pleasant fields, and 
 rich grounds, they remain if not desolate, worse." 
 
 When Thomas Blcnnerhassett first arrived in the north of Ire- 
 land, to prepare the way for his associate-undertakers, he sought 
 out the Lord Deputy, Chichester, who, with the other Commis- 
 sioners, was in the neighborhood of Lifford, making a careful sur- 
 vey of the escheated lands. "I being there conversant with some 
 of the chief knights and captains," he proceeds to say, "desired of 
 them to know the cause why they themselves were not forward 
 to undertake these profitable seats and rich grounds." The answer 
 was that it was a ruinous and bootless venture, as things then 
 stood. A manor-house protected by twenty or forty tenants would 
 ailord no security for person or goods. A castle or a fort might 
 serve as a refuge in case of sudden attack. But " the cruel wood- 
 Kerne and the devouring wolfe, and other suspicious Irish" would 
 sweep the country outside. He gives, as a striking illustration, the 
 case of Sir Toby Caulfield, who had erected one of the strongest 
 castles in Ulster, Chaidemount, and supplied it with a good gar- 
 rison and abundance of ammunition. "Yet now (even in this fair 
 calm of quiet) his people are driven every night to lay up all 
 his cattle as it were in ward. . . . The like I have observed in 
 many other places : and to speak the truth, all men there in all 
 places do the like, and that within the English Pale. ... Sir 
 John King he dwelleth within half a mile of Dublin, Sir Henry 
 Harrington within half a mile on the other side thereof: few men 
 15 
 
226 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 that ever I have seen better seated for much good soil. The}' 
 also do the like ; for these fore-named enemies do every night 
 survey the fields to the very walls of Dublin ; whatsoever is left 
 abroad is in danger to be lost. So they cannot for the foresaid 
 causes contrive anything to much profit, although it hath been 
 inhabited a long time. 
 
 "The consideration whereof satisfied me with the impossibility 
 of planting a manor under the protection of any strong-built castle; 
 but after I had travelled amongst the mere Irish, and had suflBcient- 
 ly informed myself with their conditions, their nature, and manner 
 of life, I found it most certainly impossible by such kind of planta- 
 tion to improve anything with security, to any great profit, neither 
 any with whom I conferred, would or could set down how with 
 security anything could be undertaken." 
 
 The writer does not undervalue the importance and necessity of 
 "many castles and forts well fortified" for the purpose of overawing 
 the sparse population around, especially "being at this present with- 
 out men of conduct or armour." These strongholds, he maintains, 
 with their military garrisons, coming to the support of each other in 
 every emergency, would make the country secure in time of war. 
 They could then scour and ravage the country, taking from the 
 "Wood-Kern " all means of subsistence. But in peaceful times "the 
 wood-kerne and many other .... do threaten every hour .... to 
 burn and steal whatsoever: and besides them there be two, the chief 
 supporters of all their insolency, the inaccessible woods and the not 
 passable bogs." 
 
 It is a wonderful and thrilling story, this of the heroic and un- 
 conquerable resistance of a people, more than decimated again, and 
 again, and again by wars of extermination, in which all the advan- 
 tages of warfare were on the side of their foes, — the best defensive and 
 offensive weapons of the age, discipline in the well-appointed bodies 
 of infantry and cavalry, and scientific skill in the commanders. And 
 here are these poor hunted Kern, the light spearmen of the Irish 
 (for their swordsmen or Gallowglasses have been slain, transplanted. 
 
Heroic tenacity of the Irish Kerne. 227 
 
 or incorjoorated into the Englisli armies outside of Ireland; and their 
 nobles are dead or in exile, or bought over by the English) — here are 
 these brave Kern, the remnants of the popular soldiery, who hold the 
 land in spite of defeat, disaster, and successive massacre, hold it with 
 an iron grip up to the fortified palisade of the Undertaker, up to the 
 strong walls of castle, fortress, and corporate town, up to the very 
 walls of Dublin. James and Elizabeth, Mary and Edward, and 
 Henry VIII. in vain confiscate and declare Ireland in its length and 
 breadth to be the domain of the British Crown; they hang, quarter, 
 and burn the Geraldines of the South; they hang tlie Burkes of the 
 West at their own castle-gates; they assassinate and poison, when 
 they cannot hang; they banish in the North the O'JS'^eills and O'Don- 
 nells; and divide the lands of the Septs among the Protestant English 
 and Scotch, Avho will venture to colonize them and promise to rid them 
 of these "mere Irish." But the mere Irish, as if they were given back 
 their souls and new energy by the mother-earth that had drunk up their 
 blood, stand everywhere before the unjust invaders, like the incarnate 
 Spirit of a Land which will not be the inheritance of the stranger. 
 
 "What shall we then say? or to what course shall we betake our- 
 selves ? " Sir Thomas Blennerhassett exclaims. The planters must 
 build themselves fortified towns in well-selected positions, towns 
 within supporting distance, and capable of furnishing each a thou- 
 sand armed men in time of war, and five hundred armed cavaliers in 
 time of peace. But wherefore in time of peace ? Ah, here we have 
 the key to the methods of extermination so mercilessly and per- 
 severingly resorted to in order to effect this Plantation of Ulster. 
 
 "So there will be help on every side to defend and offend. For, 
 as in England, if a privy watch be set, many malefactors are appre- 
 hended, even amongst their cups. So here when the spaces in the 
 woods be cut out, and the bogs be made somewhat passable, then 
 these new-erected Towns, intending a reformation, must often times 
 at the first set a Universal geeat hunt, that a sudden search may 
 be made in all suspicious places, for the wolf and the wood-kern, 
 which being secretly and wisely appointed by the governors, they with 
 
228 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 the help of some Irish well acquainted witli the holes and holds of 
 their offenders, the generality shall search every particular place, 
 
 "For an example, the 4th day of March, the Lifford, the Omigh 
 (Omagh), they in Fermanagh, Dongannon, and Coleraine, shall on 
 that day send forth from every one of these places an hundred men; 
 which five hundred men shall as then make search in all, or in all the 
 most suspicious places: and by being at one instant dispersed with 
 furniture fit for such business, they shall discover all the caves, holes, 
 and lurking places of that country, even for an hundred miles com- 
 pass. And no doubt it will be a pleasant hunt, and much prey will 
 fall to the followers. For what doth escape some will fall to the 
 hands of others, and bring such a terror that the wolf himself will 
 not dare to continue his haunt, where such so sudden incursions shall 
 be used, although it be but once a month: the charge none, the 
 pleasure much, the profit more. Then may they make inclosures 
 and venture their cattle abroad. . . . Then may they sow, mow, 
 plant, thrive, and be merry. . . . And those good fellows in trowzes, 
 I mean the everywhere dispersed creatures in the Creaghts, seeing 
 this course, they Avill no longer hearken after change, nor entertain 
 the lurking wood-kern, as now they do." 
 
 English and Irish writers of novels in our day have given us vivid 
 descriptions of the fox-hunt in both kingdoms. 
 
 These gigantic "meets" to chase the wood-kern, much more than 
 the wolf, afford a new and rich subject to that class who grow rich on 
 "sensations." Describe each Hundred Cavaliers marching gaily forth 
 from these famous Evangelical Cities of the North, with their Irish 
 Guides, their wolf-dogs, and their bloodhounds, and such other "fur- 
 niture" as may help to run down and kill the game to a certainty. 
 From the point of rendezvous they spread over "a compass of a hun- 
 di'ed miles," slaughtering .... shall we continue? 
 
 Unhappily, we have worse, far worse to narrate of English rule in 
 Ireland during the 17th century; so, we pass on. 
 
 And were these the methods used "even in the fair calm of quiet," 
 when the land was untroubled by war, to supplement the methods of 
 
Ho^o the Irish People increased under the Harrow. 229 
 
 extermination employed by the Lord Deputies, Lord Presidents, 
 Lords Justices, and Lord Generals of Henry and Mary and Elizabeth ? 
 Better, however, let Sir Thomas Blennerhassett continue his own 
 details of his precious system of successful plantation. 
 
 "Throughout all Ireland where there be forts and garrisons in 
 pay, if all those places were planted loith this hind of undertaking, 
 and the old wortliy soldiers .... were rewarded with fee simple 
 thereof, .... their security would be much better and the society far 
 excel, .... and all Ulster a hundred times better secured: for the 
 generation of the Irish i^who do at tliis time increase ten to one 
 more than the English, nag I might well sag twentg) will never other- 
 wise be sufficiently bridled." .... 
 
 Certes, if the Irish did increase at all in the midst of the fearful 
 ordeal they are undergoing, it must be due to some preternatural in- 
 tervention. The "bridle" which the utmost might of England kept 
 on the oppressed race, was a tighter and a more effective one than 
 that devised by the Pharaohs and their people to restrain the 
 Hebrews from waxing numerous and formidable. We do not read in 
 Scripture of general "hunts" got up by the nobles of Memphis or 
 Thebes to run down, capture, and slay without mercy the Hebrews. 
 . . . Blennerhassett pleads eloquently for the erection in Lifford, the 
 ancient seat of the O'Donnell's power, of a fortress capable of awing 
 into submission the surrounding district. James l\. was not slow to 
 see the wisdom of such counsels; and in 1611, indeed within a few 
 months after the presentation of this memoir, he took the most effi- 
 cient measures for creating beneath the protection of the fortress a 
 walled and corporate town, which he made one of the strongholds of 
 the new religion. For religion was, outwardly at least, the great 
 object for which the country was to be depopulated, first, and 
 then repeopled by Protestants. "If the Lyfford," says the memo- 
 rial, "and the lands adjoining near thereunto were undertaken by 
 many, . . . they would not regard charge, nor be weary with labour 
 and pains to frame a perpetual security and good success to their 
 business. ... I might say the like of Omigh (Omagli) and Dungan- 
 
230 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 non, and of many such other places, and so there would he instead of 
 Popery, true religion, and a comfortable society, whereas at this 
 present there is small appearance and much defect (want) of them, 
 and of all other the chief est things to make the life of man happy, 
 only plenty of good victual excepted," 
 
 It sounds like blasphemy to introduce religion into such an argu- 
 ment, and to pretend to make of the holiest of all interests a motive 
 or a pretext for sanctioning or palliating these cold-blooded plans for 
 exterminating an entire Christian population. The use of blood- 
 hounds to capture fugitive slaves in Jamaica and the Southern States 
 of our own country, was a means resorted to by some inhuman mas- 
 ters, and reprobated by the majority of slaveholders: the books of 
 Mayne-Eeid and Beecher-Stowe describe these hunts. But the pur- 
 suit, capture, mangling, and subsequent punishment of a poor 
 viarroon or runaway negro, although it makes the reader's blood boil 
 with indignation, sinks into insignificance by the side of the gigantic 
 battues proposed and executed by Thomas Blennerhassett and his 
 compeers; and then to hear these blood-stained men talk of "true 
 religion" and against " Popery "! 
 
 "Then proclaim," he continues, "and let all the inhabitants of 
 spacious Britain know, that, in respect even of their own good, it is 
 convenient and most necessary that every one of them should in some 
 proportion put to his assistance. . . . with horse, with munition, 
 and money, oftentimes, and ever anon to abate their insolency, 
 whose pride sought to bereave from thee and them, your right and 
 interest in her (Ulster's) fields and forests. . . . Do, then, and let 
 thy people willingly finish their work. . . . County of Fermanagh, 
 sometime Mac Guire's country, rejoice! Many Undertakers, all in- 
 corporated in mind as one, they there with their followers, seek and 
 are desirous to settle themselves. Woe to the wolf and Wood-Kerne. 
 .... Go on, worthy gentlemen, fear not, the God of Heaven will 
 assist and protect you, the rather for that simply of yourselves, you 
 do desire to perform so honourable an action." * 
 
 * " History of Aflfairs in Ireland, 1641-52," vol. i., 317-27. 
 
Huw the Blennerhassets extennmated the Irish. 231 
 
 Some nine years pass; Thomas Blennerhassett and his two kins- 
 men settle down, each on the broad acres assigned to him. In an 
 official report of 1618-19 from the Eoyal Commissioners, who kept a 
 close eye on the Undertakers, it is said of the author of the memoir, 
 that he had built himself a stately stone mansion seventy-five feet 
 long, twenty broad, and two stories in height, surrounded by a 
 " bawn" or court walled in and flanked by turrets. I'here is a church 
 begun, a village of six liouses, "built of cage-work, inhabited with 
 English. ... In toto seven families, who with their under-tenants 
 can make . . . tweiity-six men; but I saw them not; for the Under- 
 taker and many of his tenants were absent." 
 
 On a second "proportion" of 1,000 acres belonging jointly to 
 Tliomas and Edward Blennerhassett, the reporter says: "there is 
 nothing at all built, and all the land inhabited with Irish." 
 
 On the 1,500 acres belonging to Francis Blennerhassett, there is a 
 strong and spacious family mansion, with a well-fortified bawn, a vil- 
 lage of nine houses built in "cage-w^ork." "The Undertaker was in 
 England, and I came suddenly upon them. But by a Jury I found 
 the land to have twenty-two British families upon it, which with 
 their under-tenants were able to make forty men, and store of arms 
 in the house, and I saw not one Irish family upon all the lanriy 
 
 So where any member of the Blennerhassett family had fixed his 
 abode, he had succeeded in exterminating or hunting out the "mere 
 Irish." 
 
 As to the remnants of the aboriginal population whom it was 
 found impossible to "root out" altogether from the soil, or whom 
 sheer necessity compelled the planters to retain and employ, — what 
 were the conditions on which they were permitted to till the land ? 
 The Undertakers, — n>en like the Blennerhassetts, were allowed to 
 pick and choose what was best: they had to pay to the crown a yearly 
 rental of six shillings and eight pence for every sixty acres, — a pretty 
 heavy burthen at the beginning. The Servitors paid ten shillings for 
 each sixty acres. But the native Irish, for the privilege of cultivating 
 as tenants the lands which had belonged from time immemorial 
 
232 Tlie Cause of Ireland. 
 
 to their fathers, — had to pay thirteen shillings and four pence, — exact- 
 ly the double of what the Undertakers had to pa3\ Moreover, both 
 these and the Servitors were allowed to hold their lands rent-free for 
 two years; but the Irish were only allowed to be one year free of rent ! 
 
 The inveterate iniquity implanted by British legislation in the 
 conditions on which land is held by tenant-farmers in Ireland, can 
 only be understood by going back to these "plantations" or "settle- 
 ments," in which Might wilfully ignored Eight, violated all the dic- 
 tates of natural Equity, and seemed to have but one great purpose in 
 view: — either to make it impossible for the Catholic Celt to live on 
 the land and by the land, or to render his existence more dependent 
 and more precarious than that of the helot or the slave. 
 
 Sir John Davies, whose ability as a lawyer was chiefly employed 
 in covering all this great scheme of wholesale wrong and spoliation 
 with a thin varnish of legality, tells us that : 
 
 "The natives seemed not unsatisfied in reason, though they re- 
 mained in their passions discontented, being much grieved to leav6 
 their possessions. to strangers, which they had so long after their man- 
 ner enjoyed; howbeit my Lord Deputy (Chichester) did so mix threats 
 with entreaty — precibusque minas regaJiteraddit — as they promised 
 to give way to the Undertakers, if the Sheriff, by warrant of the 
 Commissioners, did put them in possession." * 
 
 "We know, happily, what such a man as Chichester could threaten. 
 While Governor of Carrickfergus he had wasted the country through 
 a circuit of thirty miles, burning the houses, slaughtering indiscrimi- 
 nately the inhabitants, destroying the harvest, and leaving not a liv- 
 ing thing behind him. We know what he did and ordered to be 
 done in Munster. We need not, therefore, inquire by what "threats" 
 he enforced his "entreaties," He was given the CO, 000 acres confis- 
 cated from Sir Cahir O'Dougherty; and the Stratford Papers tell us 
 that he obtained "at one gift land worth at this day ten thousand 
 pounds a year." 
 
 And so they settled Ulster. 
 
 * Davies, " Tracts," 284. 
 
Landlords of England in 1885, and Riglits of Property. 233 
 
 Plantation and Extermination in Leinster. 
 While we are writing these chapters the " nobihty and gentry " 
 in Great Britain and Ireland are sorely distressed by the deep and 
 widely-spreading agitation against landlordism and monarchical in- 
 stitutions. The rising tide of public opinion and popular power 
 threaten the very existence of the entire land-holding organization, 
 from the throne to the hereditary proprietor of one thousand or five 
 hundred acres. Let them who see in all this but the unrighteous 
 triumph of radicalism or socialism, reflect, while they yet have time, 
 how the Kings of England in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries 
 did so effectually and persistently the very work which is now 
 threatened by the revolutionary forces let loose in England. Eliza- 
 beth, Mary, and James showed no respect for the rights of the Irish 
 people, for the proprietary system in vigor among them for long ages 
 before the dawn of Christianity. The possessions of the Irish 
 Princes, — the O'Neills, O'Donnells, Mac Guires, O'Keillys (to name 
 only a few of the Chieftains of one Province), were confiscated to the 
 crown against the spirit and forms of the Constitutional and Common 
 Law of England, and irrespective of the inalienable rights and 
 loudly asserted claims of the Septs or Tribal Communities, the real 
 owners of the soil. Celtic Irish and Anglo-Irish ISTobles were alike 
 driven into rebellion, into exile, or made away with systematically, 
 and through the agency of low-born, unprincipled, and needy adven- 
 turers, who were, in every instance, raised by the Sovereign, — in 
 conspiracy with them, — upon the ruins of their victims, and the 
 lands of this Kingdom of Ireland divided between these adventurers, 
 their soldiers, and all who would help by their money and their 
 personal co-operation to "root out" the former owners of the land, 
 and to repeople it anew. Surely the process was radical, revolution- 
 ary, and unrigldeous enough. And now, that Irishmen, who have, 
 through every species of trial and suffering that the more powerful 
 can inflict upon the weaker, kept such hold of the land as they 
 might, see the day of retribution coming apace, — will not the landed 
 aristocracy of both countries, and those who have shared with them 
 
234 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 the spoils of a nation, — bethink them that weoxg was done; and tJiat 
 
 it must he I'igltted ? 
 
 Those who hold the throne of James I. and William III., as well 
 
 as the heirs of the men to whom these Kings gave the inheritance of 
 
 a people, mnst understand that the infinitely just and good God can 
 
 never 
 
 .... Aiithorize oppression; give a law 
 For lawless power; wed faith to violation; 
 On reason build misrule, or justly bind 
 Allegiance to injustice. 
 
 The Plantation of Ulster was only the first successful essay made 
 by James in his wide plan of Anglification. But between the strag- 
 gling colonies iu that northern province, and those which he was con- 
 templating in Counaught as well as the cities of Munster, there inter- 
 vened the northernmost counties of Leinster. These, although 
 ravaged and depopulated by the Duke of Sussex under Mary, by 
 every Lord Deputy almost who had come after him, and by the wars 
 waged by the Irish chieftains among themselves and against the 
 English of the Pale, — contained many favored wilds and fastnesses 
 mto which an army did not care to venture. There, contented with 
 being free to follow their native customs and to practice their religion, 
 shorn albeit of all outward state and splendor, grew up and multiplied 
 what the sword and famine had spared of the Leinster Septs, with 
 numerous bands of fugitives from Tyrone and Tyrconnell. 
 
 James was advised to "reform" and "regulate" these central 
 counties, as he had the neighboring counties of Ulster. The his- 
 torian Leland, who was interested in Justifying the confiscation to the 
 crown of all this territory, thus speaks of the motives which actuated 
 the Sovereign and his Ministers: 
 
 "Naturally strong and difficult of access, they afforded, in the very 
 heart of the island, a safe retreat and shelter to the old inhabitants, 
 who were tenacious of their barbarous customs, nestling in their 
 filthy cottages in winter, in summer wandering with their cattle over 
 the desert mountains. Through these districts the Irish insurgents 
 had usually passed from Counaught or Ulster to annoy the Pale. . . . 
 
WalpoWs Opinion: ''Legal Plundering." 235 
 
 In time of peace they were the safe recejjtacle of robbers, where they 
 defied the ministers of justice; and, surrounded with woods, bogs, 
 and mountains, lived in a sort of independence, and contemptuous re- 
 sistance to the law. To reduce these savages to subjection, inquisi- 
 tions were held to examine the King's title to the whole or any part 
 of their lands. It was found that some parts had been anciently 
 possessed by English settlers, who, in the disorders of the kingdom, 
 had been expelled by the old natives, and v/hich were tlierefore vested 
 in the Crown, as lands of absentees; others appeared to have been 
 forfeited by rebellion. So that James deemed himself entitled to 
 make a distribution of 385,000 acres in these counties, to such pro- 
 prietors, and in such proportions, as might promote the general wel- 
 fare and security, the extension of commerce, and the civility of the 
 natives. The large portions regranted to the old inhabitants on per- 
 manent tenures, reconciled many to this new scheme of plantation." * 
 
 To Lelaiid's apology for iniquity, coupled with aspersions on the 
 Irish " savages " and their " barbarous " customs, we shall oppose the 
 opinion of a living writer. 
 
 "James," — says Mr. Walpole, — "was so pleased with the success 
 of his plantation in Ulster, that he determined to apply the process 
 of planting to the rest of Ireland. There had been no rising, no 
 attempt at disturbance, so that the old excuse for confiscation was not 
 available; it was necessary to invent a system of plundering by process 
 of laic to provide the wherewithal for the vain monarch to reconstruct 
 the map of Ireland. 'A commission to inquire into defective titles' 
 was sent down into those parts of the country with which it was 
 determined to deal, to collect evidence as to the number and condi- 
 tion of the inhabitants and their lords, what rents were paid, and 
 what and how estates were held; and to inquire into the title which 
 the Crown had to any part thereof. ''"' 
 
 So much for the impelling motive in this new campaign of spolia- 
 tion. Now as to the districts marked out for the exterminators : 
 
 * " History of Irelaud," ii., 539. 
 
236 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 "The countries which were still principally inhabited by the 
 native Irish, were, first, the mountainous strip which runs from 
 Dublin towards Wexford Haven, sloping to the sea upon the east, 
 and comprising the counties of Wicklow and Wexford; secondl}-, the 
 broad belt of low country, then largely consisting of bog and forest, 
 whicli skirts the great chain of lakes and rivers lying between Sligo 
 on the north and Lough Derg on the south, and comprises the coun- 
 ties of Leitrim and Longford, and the western portion of Westmeath, 
 King's Count}", and Queen's County. These tracts were still occu- 
 pied, the one by the tribes of Mac Murrough, O'Toole, and O'Byrne, 
 and the other by those of O'Eourke, O'Farrel, O'Melaghlin, O'Mollo}", 
 O'Doyne, and McGilpatrick," 
 
 How can the Crown find a title against these possessors and pro- 
 prietors of the soil, since God commanded the descendants of Xoah 
 to go forth and people the earth ? 
 
 "It was gravely said that whereas these countries had been origi- 
 nally granted to English colonists in the days of the Plantagenets by 
 the Crown, which had no right to make the grant, and these colonists 
 bad, in the evil days of the Anglo-Xorman settlement, been driven 
 from their land by the native owners, and had retired into England; 
 and further, that by various statutes concerning absentees, the 
 deserted lands had reverted to the King — the native tribes now in 
 occupation had no prescriptive right by virtue of three hundred years' 
 possession of what was after all their own property, and that the 
 whole of the land was vested in James. Leitrim and Longford had 
 been surrendered by the O'Eourke and O'Farrel of that day to Eliza- 
 beth, and subsequent acts of rebellion were sufficient to show the 
 King's title in these cases, while Art Mac Murrough's indenture with 
 Eichard 11. in 1394, was raked up to do duty for a title to Wexford." 
 
 All this seems incredible. But it is true, nevertheless. Let us 
 follow the proceedings of English justice in the days which beheld 
 King James' Bible come forth to illumine and civilize these islands. 
 
 "To give an appearance of legality to these iniquitous proceed- 
 ings, juries were empanelled, and forced to give verdicts in favor of 
 
English Ajjologies for Confiscation and Extermination. 237 
 
 the Crown; witnesses were co^npelled to give satisfactonj evidence; and 
 both jurors and witnesses, if they had the boldness to withstand the 
 pressure of the Crown lawyers, were hauled before the Castle Chamber, 
 imprisojied, pilloried, and branded.'''' * 
 
 In very truth the Castle was the moving energy in all these trans- 
 actions. The Dublin Officials knew how to play upon the King's 
 inordinate vanity, and to hold out a bait to liis insatiable greed in the 
 plunder to be derived from tliese campaigns. 
 
 "Wherever land could be declared forfeit, so it went by every 
 low trick and legal artifice that could be practised. It became a 
 regular trade to jiick holes in people's titles; every trifling flaw that 
 could be hit upon was carefully noted. . . . One of the principal 
 motives for these proceedings Avas the replenishing of the royal 
 exchequer. If a flaw could be found in a man's title, he could be 
 frightened into accepting a round sum by way of composition. If he 
 refused, the land could be granted to some one else at an annual 
 quit-rent, the enterprising 'projector' or 'discoverer' sharing the 
 plunder with the King." Axd so the game sped merrily. 
 
 It is an interesting study to follow, throughout all the sliifting and 
 winding of their one-sided and most untruthful narrative, the apolo- 
 gist-historians of Eoyal Despotism, Official rapacity, and Protestant 
 intolerance. The iniquity which is so closely allied with greed in all 
 the administration of Chichester, as well as in those of Falkland and 
 St. John, stands forth in such bold colors, that cloak it over as the 
 writers will, it pierces the whole tissue of their discourse. "The 
 scheme of plantation " — says "Wright — "proceeded with all its errors 
 and grievances, and these arose more from the way in which it was 
 carried into effect, than from the scheme itself. The means taken to 
 enforce the claims of the Crown were of the most arbitrary kind, 
 and were often founded upon oppressive injustice. Men were 
 deprived of lands which their ancestors had held through several 
 generations, on pretence of some old resumption or forfeiture, be- 
 
 * " The Kingdom of Ireland," 194-196. 
 
238 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 cause they had no written proofs of the regrant. Juries refusing to 
 give a verdict for the Crown, were committed to the Castle Chamber, 
 and punished with fine and imprisonment; .so that however weak its 
 claims, the Crown was seldom disappointed of its j)rejj. Where titles 
 were forthcoming, the slightest neglect in performing the conditions 
 imposed on the possessors, even amid the turbulence of civil war, 
 when the power of the Crown was confined within narrow limits, 
 was construed into a breach of covenant, and was made a plea for for- 
 feiture. A door was thus opened to a band of discoverers and in- 
 formers, needy and unscrupulous adventurers, who made a profit of 
 hunting over the records of the public offices, and seeking flaws in 
 Irish titles, until nobody could feel secure in the possession of his 
 own lands, and many agreed to pay large compositions for new 
 grants rather than risk their property to the partial and constrained 
 verdicts of juries. . . . 
 
 "In the distribution of the lands, the King's directions were often 
 neglected, as far as they related to provisions for the original pro- 
 prietors, and the natives were deprived entirely of those possessions 
 which were to have been reserved for them. Thus in the small 
 county of Longford twenty-five members of one Sept were all deprived 
 of their estates without any compensation, and were actually left 
 without the means of subsistence. Thus exjiosed to the avarice ctnd 
 7'apine of foreign adventurers, the Irish, instead of being conciliated, 
 were hardened in the hatred they bore to their rulers."* 
 
 Surely, after all the solemn professions made in the King's name, 
 and the hopes held out that all persons in Ireland would be con- 
 sidered only as the King's subjects, "and, as such, protected in all 
 their rights and interests," — this wholesale confiscation of the prop- 
 erty of the native populations was only calculated to arouse the hatred 
 that comes of the deepest wrong deliberately consummated in the 
 teeth of repeated royal promises. 
 
 The Irish proprietors were cheated out of the miserable shreds set 
 
 * " Hist, of Ireland," i., 612. 
 
James I.'s "General and Free Pardon" ! 239 
 
 apart for them from their patrimonial estates, or the lands over which 
 their fathers had ruled from time immemorial. 
 
 This was not the only act of grievous oppression instead of prom- 
 ised justice which the Irish Catholics had to complain of at the 
 King's hands, nor tlie worst breach of faith solemnly pledged. It 
 would seem as if both King and Government only promised to lighten 
 the intolerable yoke borne by the Irish Papist, to render it ten times 
 heavier. 
 
 Here is another instance of the same systematic deception. 
 
 Be it borne in mind, that in the first jbQjVS of his reign James pro- 
 claimed to all his subjects oblivion and pardon for all past acts of 
 rebellion. In the packed parliament of 1613, where an illegal and 
 fraudulent majority passed an act of attainder against the fugitive 
 Earls of Tyrone and Tyrconnell, and vested in the Crown the im- 
 mense estates of these princes, or rather of the clans who had 
 acknowledged them as chiefs, — they also introduced the famous *''Act 
 for the King's Majesty's most gracious general and free pardon." To 
 this general and free pardon, however, there were fifty-one classes of 
 exception, each class comprising four or five different sorts of offence, 
 to which this 'most gracious general and free pardon' must not be 
 extended. It was a cunningly — one might say, without exaggerating, 
 a diabolically — devised scheme to bring within the laws of treason and 
 forfeiture every single inhabitant of Ireland professing the Catholic 
 religion and belonging either to the Celtic race or the "old Eng- 
 lish" stock. 
 
 The same grand process of disinheriting, dispossessing, out- 
 lawing, and "uprooting" of the old religion and the old race still 
 invincibly clinging to it, after having cleared the ground in Ulster, 
 must now be applied in Connaught and Leinster. Of course all these 
 adventurers with whom Chichester had filled, for the King's pur- 
 poses, the Parliament of 1G13, were to have their share in the new 
 distribution of 385,000 acres. And of course Chichester, to whom 
 was to be entrusted the duty of devising a legal basis for this whole- 
 sale process of expropriation of the great and noble, of outlawry and 
 
240 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 extirpation for tlie laboring masses, was the man to direct, in con- 
 junction with Wingfield, Archbishop Jones, Parsons, and Sir John 
 Davies, the entire scheme from its germinal conception to its com- 
 plete execution. 
 
 Davies, in speaking of this act of "General and Free Pardon," has 
 the effrontery to write: "They passed an act of general indemnity for 
 late crimes, with an exception of Tyrone, Tyrconnell, and O'Dough- 
 erty." And this act was of his own framing! Carte, who wrote 
 later, misleads still more: "The session concluded with an act of ob- 
 livion and general pardon." And Leland, the eighteenth century 
 apologist of these monstrous iniquities and base frauds perpetrated by 
 Legislators and a King, — does not hesitate to say: "An act of general 
 pardon and oblivion was made, in confirmation of the royal edict." * 
 
 The general research for titles, and the regranting to old proprie- 
 tors their ancestral estates on the English tenure of fee simple, were 
 the opening up a road to new confiscations and peculation which was 
 to be followed up to the bitter end by the Lord Deputies of Charles I. 
 It was all a cloak for spoliation. 
 
 Figures have a singular eloquence by affording at a glance the 
 results of great economical operations. Let us see what were the pro- 
 portions left to the People of Ireland in these two great Plantations 
 of James I. 
 
 l.—Li Ulster. 
 
 "The whole of the six counties which were confiscated contained 
 about 2,830,837 Irish, or according to modern surveys in English 
 measure, 3,785,057 acres. Of this four-fifths were barren or 'lean' 
 land, and 511,465 Irish acres Avere valuable or 'fat' land. The bulk 
 of the Irish were cleared from the fat land into the lean land; and 
 the 511,465 acres were partly reserved for public purposes, and 
 
 *" James exulted in the cunning; with which he had on this occasion weathered 
 the storm of Irish faction; and no sooner had the subsidy bill passed, than the Irish 
 Parliament was suddenly and unexpectedly dissolved, leaving untouched several 
 measures for the improvement of Ireland, which had been recommended to the con- 
 sideration of government" (Wright, " Hist, of Ireland," vol. i. p. 610 , 
 
Results of the Plantations. 241 
 
 partly divided amongst fifty English and fifty-nine Scotch undertak- 
 ers, sixty Servitors, two hundred and eighty-six natives of 'good 
 merit/ and the London companies. The two hundred and eighty-six 
 natives obtained only about one-tenth of the whole. The following 
 table will show the way in which the land was apportioned : 
 
 ACRES. 
 
 English undertakers, 50 in number 81,500 
 
 Scotch undertakers, 59 in number 81,000 
 
 Servitors, 60 in number 49,914 
 
 Meritorious natives, 386 in number 52,279 
 
 London Guilds 61,437 
 
 Trinity College, Dublin' 9,600 
 
 Bishops, deans and chapters 77,666 
 
 Glebes for parochial clergy 19,268 
 
 Free Schools 2,700 
 
 Corporate towns and forts 47,101 
 
 Several persons as abbey lands 21,552 
 
 Eestored to certain individual Irishmen .... 7,448 
 
 Total 511,465 
 
 "The object of James was to introduce a thoroughly Protestant 
 and anti-Irish element which should dominate the Roman Catholics 
 and natives. The success of the Plantation was apparent in a few 
 years, when Commissioners were sent down to inspect the progress 
 which was being made." * 
 
 Of this progress we have had already some idea, as well as of the 
 means taken to obtain it, in the recital of Thomas Blennerhassett and 
 extracts from the Commissioners' Report. 
 
 2. — In Leinster. 
 
 The King, by the packed juries and forced verdicts described 
 above, obtained a title to 66,800 acres in Wexford alone, and in the 
 midland counties to no less than 385,000. 
 
 What became of the native proprietors and their people ? They 
 
 " Kingdom of Ireland," pp. 184, 185. 
 16 
 
243 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 Avere cheated out of the small pittance allotted to them by a lingering 
 sense of justice or shame in the King. The English officials in Ire- 
 land were well skilled in defeating every measure which was intended 
 to benefit the Celt. There was no attempt at armed resistance; the 
 spirit of the living generation had been broken by a succession of dis- 
 asters, — as bathers on the beach are overwhelmed and prostrated by 
 the swift rollers pouring in on them without intermission. 
 
 " Many of the old proprietors who were removed from their lands 
 betook themselves to the woods and an outlaw's life. Agrarian out- 
 rages began to occur ' when the nights grew darker and the winter 
 came on.' The Lord Deputy, St. John, the successor of Chicester, 
 endeavored to hunt down the expelled land owners, and boasts of 
 having exterminated three hundred of them in three years, though he 
 adds ' when one sort is cut off others arise in their places, for the 
 countries are so full of the younger sons of gentlemen who have no 
 means of living and will not work, that when they are sought to be 
 punished for disorders they commit in their idleness, they go to the 
 woods to maintain themselves by the spoil of their quiet neighbors.' 
 
 " In the mean time Sir Eichard Boyle, the Lord Chancellor, who 
 had got possession of Sir Walter Ealeigh's extensive grants of land in 
 Munster, had been making a most methodical plantation on liis own 
 account at Tallow. It was an armed colony of 522 men: ' horsemen,' 
 ' pikemen,' and 'shot-furnished'; every one was a sound Protestant; 
 villages were planned, and schools and churches built for their ac- 
 commodation. The Company of East India merchants also planted 
 three colonies near Dundaniel, on the coast of County Cork, where 
 they started iron works, and constructed a dock, and built ' offices, 
 houses, smiths' forges, and other storehouses.' So plentiful and so 
 fine was the timber, growing even to the water's edge, that the shi]-)- 
 building trade grew apace. ' Two ships of 400 and 500 tons apiece ' 
 were launched in the spring of 1613." 
 
 The very first buds of such commercial or industrial enterprise 
 were sure to be nipped by English jealousy. But, considering the 
 powerlessness of the expropriated and outlawed Irish, and the enter- 
 
Hoiv theij managed it in Dublin Castle. 243 
 
 prise of these English and Scotch colonists, backed by all the power 
 of England, is it not a wonder that a single Papist or a single Celt 
 was allowed to survive in Ireland? 
 
 One's soul grows wearied and sick in reading, even in Protestant 
 historians, the record of such shameless wrong-doing. However, as 
 the effects of all this injustice still remain, it is but right to show 
 by one example at least, how the Harpies of Dublin Castle managed, 
 despite the reiterated decision of the King to the contrary, and the 
 clearest legal evidence, to strip a Celtic family of their inheritance. 
 Carte, the biographer of the l^uke of Ormonde, quotes at length the 
 case of the O'Byrnes of AVicklow, which came up while James was 
 putting into execution his scheme for the plantation of Leinster. 
 
 The Commissioners appointed by James to examine into titles in 
 Wicklovv, as well as the other counties of Leinster, reported that 
 Pheagli Mac Hugh O'Byrne had forfeited his estates in the rebellion 
 of 1577, but had been pardoned by Elizabeth, who directed the then 
 Lords Justices Loftus and Gardiner to make out letters-patent for the 
 O'Byrne's eldest son, Phelim, granting him and his heirs all his 
 father's estates. King James gave a like direction. But the officials 
 in Dublin had been careful never to carry out these orders. A sec- 
 ond time King James ordered that letters-patent should be issued 
 granting the estates to the O'Byrne family. 
 
 Just then a conspiracy was entered into by Sir AYilliam Parsons, 
 Sir Eichard Graham, Sir James Fitz Gerald, Sir Henry Bellings, and 
 Lord Esmond, for the purpose of getting these estates into their own 
 hands. Parsons was then Surveyor General, and at the bottom of all 
 the iniquities perpetrated in measuring the lands of the new plan- 
 tations, securing to himself, besides enormous bribes in money, a large 
 share of the lands declared to vest in the Crown. 
 
 A charge was lodged by the Conspirators before the Lords 
 Justices and the Privy Council against Phelim O'Byrne and his five 
 sons, accusing them of treasonable correspondence with the outlawed 
 Cavenaghs. On March 13, 1G25, Bryan O'Byrne, the oldest son, 
 and his brother Turlogh were committed close prisoners to Dublin 
 
244 * The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 Castle,, upon the information, real or fictitious, of three of the 
 Cavenagli Sept. Meanwhile Sir William Parsons obtained from the 
 Lord Deputy Falkland a warrant to the Sheriff of Wicklow, to put 
 him in possession of a part of the O'Byrne lands, that were actually 
 held by Phelim. One Thomas Archer, on whose testimony at the 
 trial much reliance was placed, was a very unwilling witness. The 
 Cavenaghs were known to be worthless fellows, whom O'Byrne had 
 punished for old misdemeanors, and they testified willingly enough. 
 But Parsons and his friends on the Bench attached the utmost 
 importance to the statements expected from Archer. He, however, 
 could not or would not inculpate the O'Byrnes. "He was first miser- 
 ably tortured, pnt naked on a burning gridiron, then on a brand iron, 
 and burned with gunpowder under his flanks, and at last suffered 
 the strapado till he was forced to accuse the two brothers; and then 
 he obtained his pardon. Dermot Mac Griffin and Caliir Mac Art 
 (two of the three Cavenagli witnesses) were afterwards executed at 
 Kilkenny, declaring at the hour of death that they had accused 
 Bryan and Tu'rlogh O'Byrne falsely. Such were the witnesses that 
 deposed against them; yet on their information two bills were pre- 
 ferred against them, and two several grand juries at Catherlogh, not 
 finding the bills, were prosecuted in the Star-Chamber, and fined." 
 
 A fresh indictment was preferred at the Wicklow assizes. This 
 time Parsons and his confederates took care to have the Grand Jury 
 well packed with the undertakers of the neighborhood, men all 
 interested in rooting out the O'Byrnes. This time also, the father, 
 Phelim O'Byrne, and his other three sons were included in the 
 indictment. 
 
 One of the principal witnesses, another Cavenagh, was held in 
 prison by Lord Esmond till the assizes were near at hand. "He sent 
 this man to Dublin to accuse Phelim and his sons, wliich the threats 
 of being hanged, and the promise of life and pardon, prevailed with 
 him to do.''"' Two other Cavenaghs were made use of for the same 
 purpose. "One Nicholas Notter, a notorious thief, had been prose- 
 cuted so hard by Phelim for stealing seven cows and five garrons 
 
How they managed Witnesses in Dublin in 1628. 245 
 
 from his tenants that he was forced to fly the county of Wicklow. 
 But being afterwards condemned for a robbery in the North, lie was 
 sent back to Dubhn to purchase his Ufe by accusing Phelim and his 
 sons; for which lie was likewise rewarded with apparel and other 
 necessaries." 
 
 None of these witnesses dared to appear in court. Their examina- 
 tions, or what purported to be such, were read to the Jury. Their 
 testimony had been interpreted by two of the conspirators, Bellings 
 and Graham. Lord Esmond had his own nephew, who was also a 
 tenant of Sir William Parsons, appointed High Sheriff to conduct 
 these proceedings. The foreman of the Grand Jury was Sir James 
 Fitz Gerald, another confederate, and a mortal enemy of Phelim 
 O'Byrne. With him sat Sir Henry Bellings. The rest were men of 
 straw, dependants and creatures of the conspirators. 
 
 Of course a true bill was found. Two days after this Phelim's 
 wife died of grief at the dreadful prospect before her husband and 
 her family. Other witnesses were now required for the trial of the 
 parties. Bellings and Sir Kichard Graham's son, being provost-mar- 
 shals, undertook to press all the witnesses they needed into the 
 service. "'Tis almost incredible," says Carte, "what a number of 
 persons they took up and detained in close prison for weeks and 
 months together, soliciting them all the while with promises of 
 reward and threats of hardships, even of death itself, to accuse the 
 gentlemen whose inheritance they wanted to seize. Some they put 
 to the rack, others they tried and condemned by martial law, at a time 
 when the courts of justice were sitting. Some of the latter were exe- 
 cuted at Dublin, as Shane O'Toole, Laghlin O'Clune, Cahir Glasse 
 and his brother, declaring at their death, in the hearing of thousands, 
 that they were executed because they could not accuse Phelim and his 
 sons, and the like declarations were made by others who suffered in 
 the country." * 
 
 The scandal was so great that it excited public opinion even in 
 
 * Carte, vol. i., p.27. 
 
246 The C'atise of Ireland. 
 
 England, and the King sent over a commission to inquire into the 
 facts of the case. The inquiry fully established the truth of what we 
 have said, and the innocence of the O'Byrnes. Thereupon, they were 
 set at liberty (in 1628); but "not restored to their estates," says 
 Carte, "a considerable part whei'eof, particularly the manor of Car- 
 rick in the Kanelaghs, had been during their imprisonment passed to 
 Sir William Parsons by a patent dated August 4th, 1C29." 
 
 "Their estates," says Mr. Walpole, "covering half the county of 
 Wicklow, of which during the prosecution Parsons and Esmond had 
 been put in possession by the sheriff of Wicklow, were not restored to 
 them, and the plot in that respect was eminently successful."* 
 
 AVriting this page in Dublin, in the beginning of 1885, while the 
 facts of the Maamtrasua murder trials, and those connected with the 
 Phoenix Park murders, are still passionately discussed in the Three 
 Kingdoms, as well as in the Greater Britain and Greater Ireland be- 
 yond the seas, — we ask ourselves if the methods of criminal justice, 
 as it is administered in the reign of Queen Victoria, under the direc- 
 tion of Dublin Castle, differ so very much from those pursued under 
 the two first Sti;arts? 
 
 If the Irish People are tenacious in their faith in Catholicism and 
 in the Eesurrection of Ireland, and tenacious as well in holding on to 
 the land of their birth, — Dublin Castle and the men who support it 
 in England are strangely tenacious in holding on to their traditional 
 infamy. 
 
 And so, under James, the men who ruled Ireland continued to 
 sow the wind. 
 
 Two, at least, of these, will live long enough to reap the whirl- 
 wind. Unfortunately, neither they nor their households were to 
 perish in the storm they raised. And the prosperity of such men was 
 not one of the least trials which the religious faith of the persecuted 
 Irish had to endure. As both of them were conspicuous among the 
 English fortune-hunters who found an El Dorado in Ireland at the 
 
 * " Kingdom of Ireland," p. 201. 
 
Par Nobile Fratrum. 247 
 
 beginning of the 17th century, by giving a brief sketch of their 
 career, Ave shall throw a bright side-light on the monstrosities of 
 English misrule in Ireland at that memorable epoch. The two men 
 are, Eichard Boyle, afterward Earl of Cork, and that William Par- 
 sons, whose name occurs on the preceding i)age. 
 
 Richard Boyle, Earl of Cork. 
 
 The real character of this great Master in Rascality was first 
 brought to the knowledge of the British public and the scholars of 
 both hemispheres, in the Congress of British Archseologists at Can- 
 terbury, in 1844. The revelation was made by Mr. Crofton Croker, 
 and was founded on original documents in the collection of Sir Wil- 
 liam Betham. 
 
 "Half the peerage of Ireland," says Mr. Walpole, "at the time of 
 the Union was composed of persons whose ancestors had come to Ire- 
 land as fortune-hunters after the Elizabethan wars Of the 
 
 new nobility which sprung up at this time and swamped the old 
 nobility of the Pale the most remarkable was Eichard Boyle, ' the 
 great Earl of Cork.' He was the son of a Herefordshire squire, a 
 man of very considerable ability, but utterly unscrupulous. Having 
 found it advisable to absent himself from England, by reason, as his 
 enemies say, of his 'forgeries, rasings, and perjuries,' or because, as 
 he himself puts it, 'it pleased divine Providence to lead him into 
 Ireland,' he arrived in Dublin in 1588, with little else in the world 
 but two suits of clothes, a diamond ring, a gold bracelet, and £27 35. 
 in money. He managed to wriggle himself into the oflEice of deputy- 
 escheator of the lands of Munster, under cover of which, by a series 
 of i'niuds, he became possessed of a considerable extent of the for- 
 feited estates. He Avas twice indicted for felony, and committed to 
 prison in Dublin six times in five years; but by his adroitness, and 
 the skilful use of bribes, succeeded in cheating justice, and becoming 
 secretary to Sir George Carew." 
 
 But we must not let this successful villain down from the pillory, 
 till we have said something more explicit about these methods so skil- 
 
248 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 fully employed to get into liis possession the immense extent of 
 landed property, still in possession of the family founded by him in 
 Ireland. 
 
 "Some tracts of escheated lands/' says Wright, "he appropriated 
 to himself, and made no return of it to the Queen. Where men 
 came over from England with grants of Irish lands, he threw so 
 many difficulties in their way by power given him by his office, that 
 they were at last glad to sell him their grants for a trifling sum of 
 money. Some of these particular charges are worth quoting, as 
 showing the reckless manner in which the plunder and confiscation of 
 the Irish lands were at this time carried on. One Henry Deane, who 
 was a principal witness against Boyle, deposed that an Englishman 
 named John Rawson came with letters from England, ordering him to 
 be rewarded with a lease of £20 of land for twenty-one years ' wher- 
 ever it might be found in Ireland.' When Ilawson arrived in 
 Ireland, he soon found himself among a heap of sharpers, and learnt 
 that there was nothing to be done without giving some of them a 
 share in his profits. He accordingly addressed himself to Deane, and 
 gave him one-half of his grant of lands, on condition that he should 
 forward his business, and share equally in the payment of fees. 
 
 "They then applied to Boyle, as deputy-escheator, to obtain the 
 fulfilment of their grant, and it remained with him to particularize 
 the lands which were to pass under this nominal rent of £20. Thus 
 left to his discretion, they were not only offered lands of very small 
 value, but the deputy-escheator '^ asked £1G0 to make up the offices 
 and return, otherwise he would lay such heavy rent upon survey, as 
 it should not be worth six-pence to them.' Rawson and Deane, 
 'finding this extremity,' and perceiving that they lay entirely at 
 Boyle's mercy, sold him their lease for a small sum of money. The 
 grant was still blank as to the lands which were to be granted, and 
 Boyle having now obtained it for his own use, filled it up with a fine 
 estate in Connaught, ' inserting in the particular ninety-three plougli- 
 lancU, three qnatrojis of land, three parsonages, and ten castles and 
 water-mills for the same twenty pound rent per annum, and hath 
 
Hoiv Boyle managed the Dublin Land Office. 249 
 
 gotten a lease in reversion thereof at the same rent for many years.' 
 It was further deposed that ' one Mr. Tath obtained a letter from her 
 majesty to have a lease of £30 per annum, which letter Boyle bought, 
 as himself hath confessed, and thereupon at very small rates and 
 undervalues hath passed all O'Connor Eoe's country, who has since 
 become a rebel. His country thus passed away is about ten miles 
 long and six broad, of the best land in those parts. Boyle hath con- 
 fessed to this examinate and others at sundry times, and namely to 
 one Kichard Leman, that he had in Connaught three hundred and 
 sixty plouglilands and thirty-eight parsonages.' . . . 
 
 "From the circumstantial form in which these charges were 
 made," says Wright, "and the equivocal manner in which some of 
 them were denied, we can hardly doubt that they were substantially 
 true. They show us how the ' Xew English,' who repaired to 
 Ireland at the end of the sixteenth century, made their fortunes, and 
 we cannot be surprised at the hostile feelings between them and the 
 old landowners and their tenants." * 
 
 ' Hostile feelings,' indeed ! How was it possible that, humanly 
 speaking, any but the most intense hatred should be created in the 
 souls of the oppressed ? while, as human nature also teaches us, no 
 one hates more bitterly than the wrong-doer himself. 
 
 "This accomplished swindler was also, as one might expect, a 
 consummate hypocrite. 'God having blest him with a reasonable 
 fortune and estate,' he piously says in his memoir, his new patron, 
 the President of Munster, increased his fortune still further. He 
 advised and assisted him to advance money to the amount of £1,500 
 to Sir Walter Ealeigh on the security of his vast grant of land 
 (42,000 acres) in Cork and Waterford. The mortgage was foreclosed, 
 and Raleigh's widow and children afterwards complained, in a fruit- 
 less petition to the Crown, that the estates had been 'juggled away.' 
 Carew introduced him to Sir Geoffrey Fenton, the Queen's surveyor- 
 general, whose daughter he married; and he knighted him on the 
 
 * " Hist, of Ireland," vol. i., pp. 618-620. 
 
350 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 day of his wedding. Protected by Carew, Essex, and Cecil, with all 
 of whom he was careful to ingratiate himself, he escaped the reward 
 of his misdeeds, and was successively created Baron Youghal, 
 Viscount Dungarvan, Earl of Cork, and a privy councillor."* 
 
 Sir WUliam Parsons. 
 
 This is one of the blackest names among the bolci, bad men who 
 have been the curse of Ireland. He came to Ireland about the same 
 time as Kichard Boyle; but rose from a lower origin. lie could 
 barely read and write, succeeded in getting, like Boyle, into the es- 
 cheator's office in Dublin, laid the foundation of his fortune by arts 
 not unlike those of his worthy compeer, married a niece of Sir 
 Geoffrey Eenton, and, in 1602, succeeded him as Surveyor-General. 
 He was one of the Commissioners for the escheated lands in Ulster, 
 obtaining 1,000 acres in Tyrone, afterward increased to 1,890, and 
 2,000 acres in Fermanagh. In Wicklow, by the infamous conspiracy 
 mentioned above, he secured above 8,000 acres. He amassed an 
 enormous fortune; and together with the Earl of Cork, labored hard, 
 and successfully, to prepare all things in Ireland for the insurrection 
 of 1641. 
 
 "Another class of persons who made their fortunes at this time 
 were clergymen. A newly ordained youth, like Adam Loftus or Dr. 
 Jones, would come over as chaplain to the Lord Deputy, and quickly 
 be pushed into a deanery, or a bishoprick, and living comfortably at 
 Dublin, draw his large income, which he invested in land. Others 
 leased out the Church-lands, and took large fines for renewals, or 
 secured long leases of Church-lands to themselves at low rents. More 
 than one ample estate was put together in this fashion, and more 
 than one family founded which will be found in the Peerage of 
 Ireland. 
 
 "It was at this time and in this way that the new English interest 
 became developed. The new adventurers hung together and inter- 
 
 * " Kingdom of Ireland," p. 205. 
 
The New English Interest under James. 251 
 
 married with each other. . . . They were essentially strangers in the 
 land, who felt that they had gone in for a good speculation, and who 
 would have to do their uttermost to maintain their position. At the 
 same time they knew that they must have ■England at their back, and 
 so they studiously cultivated the Enghsh Government, and supplanted 
 the old Anglo-Irish families in the favor and good will of the depu- 
 ties. They were the embryo of the ' Protestant Ascendancy ' of the 
 .eighteenth century."* 
 
 The Plantation of Connaught Conceived. 
 
 Of the religious grievances we have as yet said nothing : they de- 
 mand a separate chapter. But James, as he grew old, grew more 
 needy, and eagerly grasped at every scheme which could bring him 
 money. He also grew more vain with age. And, as plantations 
 were his hobby, he sought to extend them to the rest of Ireland. 
 Quite an army of veteran officials— the worn out tools of a long series 
 of oppressions and spoliations, — were pensioned on the Irish treas- 
 ury. But the Irish treasury was never known to contain money. 
 Land or plunder were the only coin with which public services were 
 paid. James was advised to discontinue the payment of that multi- 
 tude of Irish pensions. But he dared not. His authority in Ireland 
 was only felt where it killed and confiscated, and divided the spoils. 
 Where it was directed towards restraining or despoiling its OAvn 
 servants, it found itself utterly powerless. The corporate towns and 
 the cities, the strongholds of the English power in Ireland, had been 
 given large landed estates. It was suggested to James to resume 
 these grants, and bestow them anew on the payment of a large sum 
 in each case. But here, also, the royal greed was baffled; and the 
 project was abandoned at the first show of a determined opposition. 
 
 Then loomed up before the eyes of the weak-minded old man the 
 grand scheme of claiming for the Crown all the lands of Connaught. 
 A first regranting, according to the forms of English law, of the 
 
 * "Kingdom of Irelaud," p. 207. 
 
253 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 landed estates of this province, had occurred under the administration 
 of Sir John Perrot. But the clerks took good care not to register 
 the new titles. For these clerks were, at the time, men of the con- 
 scientious metal of Richard Boyle and his associates in scientific vil- 
 lany. In the thirteenth year of his reign James discovered this fatal 
 defect of formality in the Connaught title-deeds, and claimed the 
 estates for the Crown. Of course, the newly-born and fully-fledged 
 brood of vultures, called ' discoverers,' were welcome aids ready to 
 James' hand. The re-granting of these lands brought a handsome 
 sum to the King's coffers, without counting the profits reaped by the 
 informers and the registry officials. A second time, whether those 
 high in office were or not cognizant of the fact, the titles were not 
 registered. And a second time, a King who knew not what shame 
 was, enacted over again the same comedy of oppressive peculation. 
 
 Then came the design of confiscating all the lands of Connaught 
 and replanting them with Protestant Scotch and English, as had 
 been done in Ulster, and, indeed, in the other two provinces of Lein- 
 ster, and Munster. These projects seem so strange to men of this 
 late 19th century, and all these proceedings and the wholesale in- 
 justice and misery they involve, appear so monstrous to a generation 
 accustomed to the reign of law and a well-ordered liberty, that one is 
 bewildered on reading of them. 
 
 James died before he could put this last pet scheme of his into 
 execution, and Connaught with all Ireland fell to the rule of Charles 
 I., of Wentworth, Earl of Strafford, and of Cromwell. 
 
 2. Charles I. (16S5-1649). 
 Whatever may have been the humanitarian motives entertained 
 by James I. in the plantation of Ulster and Leinster, or how much 
 soever he may have deserved for these achievements the praise of 
 Hume, certain it is that the " civilizing" of the Irish had nothing to 
 do with his scheme for extending the plantation sj'stem to Con- 
 naught. It was simply conceived as a device for squeezing money 
 out of the landed proprietors. 
 
Tlie Plantation of ConnaugM. 253 
 
 The Commissioners sent over to Ireland in the last years of his 
 reign, were to examine into the state of the revenue, and to inquire 
 into the state of the incorporated towns. These had, at their foun- 
 dation, received extensive grants of land on the condition of building 
 and keeping in good repair the bridges. Avails, and fortifications in 
 each borough. The Commissioners were to discover if these con- 
 ditions had been kept. If not, the King was to resume the cor- 
 poration lands, and each town, on receiving the charter back with 
 these lands, was to pay a fine of £50,000. The resistance provoked 
 by the first intimation of carrying out this scheme was so violent, 
 that the King did not dare to pursue it. 
 
 The western province promised to be a more successful field of 
 speculation. We have seen that Sir John Perrot had induced the 
 Connaught landlords, under Elizabeth, to grant the Queen an annual 
 cess, or stipulated sum for the maintenance of the army, instead of 
 quartering the troops upon the people. They had, at the same time, 
 surrendered their lands to the Crown, and received them back on new 
 titles. These titles, for one reason or another, had not been duly 
 registered, nor had the new patents been taken out. The "Discov- 
 erers " of James' time saw in this a rich gold vein to be worked, and 
 the King was but too glad of the discovery. In 1616 there was, all 
 through Connaught, a fresh surrender, and a second re-grant of titles. 
 The patents were made out and received the impress of the great 
 seal. But the offices in Dublin which had produced such apt profi- 
 cients in knavery and fraud as Boyle and Parsons, knew better than 
 to register these patents, although £3,000 had been paid by the 
 patentees for the enrollment. 
 
 So James, in his last years, and his extreme need of money, either 
 discovered or remembered, or was reminded by the sharpers of Dub- 
 lin Castle, that the registration had never taken place. Here was a 
 glorious opportunity for the resuming by the Crown of all the Lands 
 of Connaught, and of replenishing anew the exchequer, which was as 
 insatiable as the maw of Niagara. What cared James that he, the 
 King who had been paid for these same patents, had himself signed 
 
254 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 them and sealed them with his royal seal, — was hound in lionor to see 
 the omitted formality fulfilled at length, as became a royal contract 
 in which a King's faith is pledged ? James was by nature a trickster, 
 a shuffler, a liar, and a fraud; and now he wanted money and would 
 have it. 
 
 There was great and just indignation among the landlords of Con- 
 naught. They knew it was useless to protest against the wrong or 
 the flagrant dishonesty of the proceeding threatened by the Sov- 
 ereign. They appeased the royal greed for the moment by offering 
 to double the annual cess, and to pay into the exchequer a sum 
 equivalent to what the King would receive if the plantation were car- 
 ried out in the way proposed. 
 
 At this point the King died; leaving to his successor to make 
 what he could out of the Plantation of Connaught. And Charles I. 
 was too much of his father's son, not to appreciate the golden oppor- 
 tunity and make the most of it in his own good time, lie was sure, 
 whenever he chose to undertake a Plantation Campaign, to have at 
 his beck an army of well equipped "discoverers" and adventurers. 
 
 "The general result of the plantation policy," says Mr. Walpole, 
 "was to flood Ireland with a host of needy Englishmen and Scotch- 
 men, who looked upon the country as a grand field for enterprising 
 persons with slender means. The colonists in Ulster were in a great 
 measure the scum of both nations, — debtors, bankrupts, and fugitives 
 from justice. Shoals of land-jobbers and land-speculators came over 
 to obtain a share in the general division. The hangers-on of the 
 Castle, the conforming lawyers, the poor relations of the Council of 
 State, became large landowners and country gentlemen, and were put 
 into the commission of the peace. Every act of spoliation was carried 
 out under the protection of the law; every legal form and legal step 
 was strictly adhered to with a surprising ingenuity which makes the 
 account of the most unfair and arbitrary acts read like a narrative of 
 strict but inevitable justice. . . . The penniless adventurer, having 
 become possessed of acres, frequently by means which would not bear 
 the light of day, was promptly made a country magistrate, and often 
 
"The Graces." 255 
 
 elevated to tlie peerage. ... He became a small despot in his own 
 part of the country, having very considerable control over the liber- 
 ties of his neighbors. . . . The institution of a local magistracy . . . 
 was a local tyranny in Ireland, where the large landowner had it all 
 his own way." * 
 
 Charles I., on ascending the throne, found an empty exchequer. 
 When one reads, in the pages of Macaulay, of the hideous scenes of 
 drunken debauchery which disgraced the court of his aged parent, 
 one can guess readily what became of the revenues derived from 
 Ireland, botli by the confiscation and plantation schemes, and by the 
 Discovery of Titles for the King and the regranting estates to their 
 owners. Charles was too needy and too unscrupulous a king to have 
 the titles regranted by his father registered faithfully as had been 
 promised. This would have deprived himself of too tempting an 
 opportunity to tread in the devious but profitable paths followed by 
 James. 
 
 "A deputation from the principal nobility and gentry in Ireland 
 waited on the King, and offered a voluntary contribution of £120,000, 
 to be paid in three years, in return for the concession of civil and 
 religious liberty. The concessions to be made were reduced into 
 writing, and were comprised in fifty-one articles; they were denomi- 
 nated '' Graces,' and were in the nature of a ' petition of right.' 
 The substance of them was. that the King's title to land should 
 not be set up where the owner had had sixty years' possession. The 
 surrenders in Connaught were to be enrolled without payment of fur- 
 ther fees. The Connaught landlords were to be confirmed in their 
 estates by statute, and a parliament for effecting that object was 
 shortly to be summoned. All undertakers were to be allowed an 
 extension of time for the fulfilment of their covenant. The extortion 
 practised by the Court of Wards was to be restrained, as also was the 
 oppressive levying of the King's taxes by means of the soldiery. The 
 jurisdiction of the Court of Castle Chamber — the Irish Star Chamber 
 
 * " Kingdom of Ireland," p. 203, 
 
256 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 — in private causes was to be restricted; and the testimony of con- 
 victed and condemned felons was to be refused where the liberty of 
 the subject was concerned. Eecusants were to be allowed to practise 
 in the courts of law, and sue the livery of their lands out of the Court 
 of Wards, an oath of civil allegiance being substituted for the Oath of 
 Supremacy, while the clergy were to be prohibited from committing 
 the ' contumacious ' to their own private prisons. 
 
 " Such was the very reasonable liberty asked for by the leading 
 men of Ireland, which — it is hardly too much to say— if Charles had 
 honestly conceded it, would have reduced the Rebellion of 1641 to a 
 local rising without a prospect of success." * 
 
 This rebellion contributed not a little to cost Charles his crown 
 and his head; — but he began by walking in crooked ways, and they 
 led him to the precipice. His duplicity, his greed, his despotic tem- 
 per, blended inseparably together in one fatal strand from the begin- 
 ning of his reign till its end, drove the Irish Catholics to despair by 
 making promises which he never meant to keep, by letting loose on 
 them all the forces of religious fanaticism and all the agencies of 
 political oppression, at the very time he gave his word to restrain 
 them. 
 
 No one, who reads even superficially the history of the administra- 
 tion of Ireland during his reign, but will say, that the Irish were 
 driven to rebel against Castle Eule and Religious Intolei-ance by an 
 uninterrupted series of acts of oppression, scarcely paralleled in the 
 reign of Elizabeth. 
 
 So, the motive which led to promise "the Graces," also led to 
 defer the Plantation of C-onnaught. 
 
 Let us follow Charles I. on his course, sowing as he goes along the 
 seeds of political and social revolution, the seeds out of which is to 
 spring the bane of Ireland, the death, almost, of the Nation. 
 
 The Irish Catholics, oppressed and impoverished as they were by 
 all the machinery constructed by the Reformation to crush them or 
 
 * " Kingdom of Ireland," p. 213. 
 
Ho2v Charles kept faith with the Catholics. 257 
 
 to cruslx gold out of tliem, lieltl forth to tlio needy King the promise 
 of supplying him with a voluntary subsidy, if he woukl only stop the 
 terrible grinding of the Penal Laws against Eecusancy, and the pecu- 
 lations of the army of officials and adventurers who preyed uj^on the 
 land; if they could only practise freely their religion, and have 
 security for the possession of their lands, their homes, and their 
 lives. 
 
 Charles gladly, greedily accepted the offer; and in return (162G) 
 pledged his royal word to grant them the relief they demanded. 
 This relaxation of various laws, by virtue of the royal prerogative, 
 was called "the graces." Moreover, in 1025, Charles had begun his 
 reign by raising to the number of 5,000 effective men his army in 
 Ireland, and by quartering these troops on the disaffected counties 
 and chief towns of Ireland, eacli district to be responsible for the 
 maintenance of the force thus sent to it. It was a heavy burthen to 
 bear for a country without industry, commerce, or currency of its 
 own, and its surface ravaged and wasted by a succession of savage 
 wars. The people protested, and almost revolted: "they only re- 
 mained quiet because they were told by the Lord Deputy that their 
 submission should be rewarded ultimately by some substantial acts of 
 grace and indulgence." These promises gave new courage to the 
 Popish party, who hoped to extort from the King's necessities an 
 exemption from the penal statutes, while many were anxious to profit 
 by the opportunity in procuring relief from the apprehensions ex- 
 cited by the recent inquisitions into their titles to their estates. 
 Charles extricated himself from his difficult situation with regard to 
 his two classes of subjects in Ireland, by that habitual duplicity which 
 ended with bringing him to the scaffold. 
 
 "At a great meeting of the principal nobility and gentry in the 
 Castle of Dublin, in which the Catholics were in a very great ma- 
 jority, they made an offer to Lord Falkland of large contributions for 
 the uses of the State, in exchange for security for their lands and a 
 suspension of the penal statutes.'" * 
 
 * Wright, " Hist, of Ireland," vol. i., p. 615. 
 
 17 
 
258 The Cause of Ii-eland. 
 
 There is, as we know too well, sucli a thing as garbled testimony 
 in grave historical writing, just as there is in the witness-box. The 
 historian whom we here quote has an inveterate habit of so sup- 
 pressing the whole truth, or so mixing up truth with falsehood, or 
 of so casting doubt over the plainest evidence, that the prejudiced 
 reader is confirmed in his prejudices, and the candid reader is led 
 astray by his statements. In his pages "the Catholics" — as he very 
 rarely condescends to call his "Papists" or "popery party" — are rep- 
 resented as forthwith acting as if the "graces" had already been 
 granted, and exhibiting their exultation "in a form calculated to be 
 most offensive to tlieir opponents. Their conduct alarmed the Prot- 
 estant clergy in general, and excited the utmost indignation of the 
 large body -of Puritans, who were now settled in Ireland. The ex- 
 citement became general; and Archbishop Usher (he now ruled the 
 see of Armagh) called a meeting of the prelates to deliberate on the 
 danger to which the Protestant church in Ireland was exposed by 
 the concessions to Popery meditated by the civil power. After due 
 consideration and debate, they put their names to a protest in which 
 they declared that: 
 
 " ' The religion of the Papists is superstitious and idolatrous; their 
 faith and doctrine erroneous and heretical; their Church, in respect 
 of both, apostatical. To give them, therefore, a toleration, or to 
 consent that they may freely exercise their religion and profess their 
 faith and doctrine, is a grievous sin, — and that in two respects: for, 
 first, it is to make ourselves accessory not only to their superstitions, 
 idolatries, and heresies, and, in a word, to all the abominations of 
 Popery, but also (which is a consequence of the former) to the perdi- 
 tion of the seduced people, which perish in the deluge of the Catholic 
 Apostacy. Secondly, to grant them a toleration in respect of any 
 money to be given or contribution to be made by them, is to set re- 
 ligion to sale, and with it the souls of the people whom Christ hath 
 redeemed with His blood. And as it is a great sin, so is it also a 
 matter of dangerous consequence: the consideration whereof we com- 
 mit to the wise and judicious, beseeching the God of truth to make 
 
Fanatical Outcry at tlie "Graces.^' 259 
 
 tliem who are in autliority zealous of God's glon^ and of the advance- 
 ment of trne religion, zealous, resolute, and courageous against all 
 Popery, superstition, and idolatry.' 
 
 "This remonstrance," the historian goes on to say, "made a deep 
 impression in England, and is said to have had a considerable effect 
 in retarding any agreement between the agents of the Irish recusants 
 and the King. The insolence of the Papists in Ireland, and the 
 effrontery with which they exercised their rights (rites ?) in public, 
 were looked upon with intense apprehension, and became subjects of 
 reprehension even in Parliament, which complained of the open en- 
 couragement given to Papistry in the Sister Island, where, it was 
 stated, monasteries w^ere being newly built, and filled with monks and 
 nuns," * 
 
 We gi ve the comments of the chronicler in his own words. They 
 are as eloquent of the bitter and fanatical spirit which fills his ov/n 
 breast, as the remonstrance drawn up by Usher, and signed by himself 
 and his brother-bishops of the Church by law Established, is an elo- 
 quent monument of the intolerance with which Irish Catholics were 
 pursued in the land of their birth, even at a period in which Claren- 
 don says: "The whole nation generally speaking enjoyed an undis- 
 turbed exercise of their religion." 
 
 In the month of May, 1028, the King sent to the Lord Deputy 
 and Council his answer, conceding the "graces" demanded, and 
 instructing them to act accordingly. A parliament was called for the 
 purpose of giving the concession the form of law; but a formality was 
 omitted in the convocation, which had the effect of invalidating the 
 act passed to sanction the graces. It was easy for the King to correct 
 the error; it was incumbent on him to redeem his honor pledged to 
 make these "gi'aces " a reality. He had received the money promised 
 him by the Catholics. And yet he allowed the English Privy Coun- 
 cil to declare the act passed by the Irish Parliament to be null and 
 void. His subsequent conduct proved that he was glad to be thus 
 rid of the obligation he had accepted. 
 
 * Wright, " Hist, of Ireland," p. 616. 
 
360 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 On April 1, 1629, Lord Falkland, the Deputy, issued a proclama- 
 tion suppressing altogether the public exercise of the Catholic relig- 
 ion, and prohibiting all its ministers from "celebrating their service 
 in any church, chapel, or other public oratory or place whatever, or 
 to teach any school, in any place or places whatsoever within the said 
 Kingdom. And we do further charge and command " (the document 
 proceeded) "all and singular the owners of such houses of friars, col- 
 leges, monasteries, schools, oratories, mass-houses, and nunneries, 
 that they, and every of them respectively, in default of the persons 
 before-named, their voluntary relinquishing of the said houses, . . . 
 upon pain to have their said houses seized upon to his Majesty's use; 
 and both the one and the other to be proceeded against for their un- 
 lawful assemblies, and maintenance of such unlawful conventicles, 
 and corrupt nurture of children, in the severest manner tliat by the 
 laws and statutes of this Kingdom and ecclesiastical government of 
 the same, may be had or extended." * 
 
 Lord Falkland's administration was not vigorous enough to please 
 the Parliamentary Party in both countries, especially the army of 
 officials in Ireland who throve on the substance of the disfranchised 
 and persecuted Catholics. He was recalled, and the government of 
 the kingdom committed to the Lords Justices, Eichard Boyle, Earl 
 of Cork, and Adam Loftus, Viscount Ely. No fitter types of the 
 reckless adventurer class, grown to wealth and power on the ruins of 
 the country, than these two men. No more willing tools could be 
 found for the Calvinistic School, already risen to prepotency in both 
 countries, and bent on the extirpation of Popery and Papists, than 
 were these two men, as their acts have too well shown. It fared ill 
 with the Irish Catholics. 
 
 At length, in 1632, Charles sent to Ireland, as Lord Deputy, the 
 celebrated Lord Wentworth, afterward better known as Earl of Straf- 
 ford. The King found that the "Graces" stirred the Protestant 
 heart to its deepest depths of bitterness in both countries. Wentr 
 
 * Eushworth, " Historical Collection," ii. 21. 
 
Strafford and the Irish Catholics. 261 
 
 worth was the man to do away witli them, while managing to make 
 the Cathohcs pay up to the last shilling the subsidies promised in 
 return for these *' graces/' He was also the man, — if indeed such a 
 man could be found, — to make the legions of officials commanded by 
 Boyle and Loftus cease plundering the people at the expense of the 
 Koyal Exchequer. Thenceforward the plunder must go to the King. 
 Wentworth was also determined to work out to good purpose the two- 
 fold scheme of James I. in his last years, to revoke all the proprietary 
 titles in Ireland, and to plant Connaught with English Protestants. 
 The Lords Justices had suggested to the King the strict enforcement 
 of the Acts of Supremacy and Uniformity. These, the latter 
 especially, as we have seen, were happy inventions for obtaining pos- 
 session of men's property, and of draining their revenues. Went- 
 worth, acting upon the King's instructions, set in motion all the 
 machinery of these two Acts throughout the Kingdom. The Irish 
 were filled with consternation; but the Lord Deputy profited by the 
 first moment of alarm to enter into secret negotiations with them. 
 "The instrument I employed," he writes, "was himself a papist, and 
 knows .... that I do this privately, in favour and well-wishing, 
 to divert the present storm, which else would fall heavily on them all 
 (the Papists), being a thing framed and prosecuted by the Earl of 
 Cork." Thus, by threats and cajolery, the Catholics were induced to 
 grant a new subsidy. This success, however, was gained by the new 
 Lord Deputy before he had as yet left England. 
 
 When he did appear in Dublin, he was accompanied by Bramhall, 
 a creature of Archbishop Laud's. This at once set against him the 
 entire body of the Irish Established Church, as well as the Lords 
 Justices, and Sir William Parsons, Master of the Court of Wards, — 
 the most influential personages in Ireland. This sentiment of dis- 
 trust was speedily turned to aversion and hostility by the affected 
 contempt with which the Lord Deputy treated, on his arrival, the 
 entire Privy Council. They readily assented to all measures that 
 could compel Catholics to contribute money toward the expenses of 
 the local government and the replenishing of the royal exchequer. 
 
262 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 A key to this unsparing tyrant's conduct is given by "Wright : 
 
 "Lord Wentworth proceeded to Ireland with the resolution to 
 treat and govern it on the principle that it was a conquered country, 
 and that there at least the power of the Crown was absolute, and 
 dependent on no rights or liberties of the subject. He looked upon 
 the population of the Island as men who had forfeited their civil 
 rights." 
 
 He convened a parliament in spite of the Privy Council, violating 
 the customs and privileges both of the Council and the Lords of the 
 Pale. He packed the parliament with his own creatures, so far as he 
 could, the Catholic clergy opposing his candidates and resolutely 
 advising their people to vote for none but men of their own faith. 
 The House of Commons and the Privy Council were brow-beaten and 
 bullied into granting the subsidies demanded by the Lord Deputy. 
 The House of Lords resisted vigorously, but to no purpose. He then 
 induced the Privy Council to declare many of "the Graces " incon- 
 sistent with the interests of the Crown, and made them petition the 
 King to repeal them. 
 
 He had obtained all he wanted from Parliament and the Privy 
 Council, — abundant supplies, and the virtual abolition of the 
 "Graces." He now called together the clergy of the Established 
 Church, and bullied them in the same way. 
 
 "The Confession of the Anglo-Irish Church, as drawn up by 
 Usher, was more anti-Catholic than that established in England; and 
 it was one of the objects of Wentworth's mission to establish a uni- 
 formity between the tAvo churches in form and doctrine. . . . (The 
 clergy) willingly granted the subsidies and then entered upon the 
 consideration of ecclesiastical reforms, which were rendered necessary 
 by the disorders that had crept into the Protestant Church in that 
 island — sectarian- differences, alienation of church property, ignorance 
 and negligence in the clergy. The Lord Deputy .... reckoned fully 
 upon the same subserviency among the clergy which he had found 
 elsewhere." He wished them to accept entire the Articles of the 
 Church of England; Usher had encouraged him to hope for a ready 
 
Hoit) Strafford went about the work of Confiscation. 263 
 
 acquiescence. Everything, at first, took a course quite in opposition 
 to his wishes. He drew up himself a Canon adopting the Church of 
 England Articles in their integrity, had it voted and accepted with- 
 out discussion! And he boasted of his triumph as of a something 
 great and meritorious.* 
 
 Such was the man, who then bent his whole mind and his whole 
 strength on taking away from the Irish Celt and the Anglo-Irish 
 Catholic every acre of land left unconfiscated in Ireland. "The 
 landholders of Connaught," says Wright, "had, by their share in 
 giving the voluntary contribution, the privilege of being no longer 
 molested in their just titles to their estates, which had been threat- 
 ened by the late King's rage for plantations. The plunder (for in 
 the manner the inquiry was conducted it deserves no better name) 
 was too tempting to be foregone, and the equitable law established in 
 England, which made sixty years' possession a title, was refused, 
 because it stood in the way of the royal designs of confiscation. In 
 the correspondence between the King and his Ministers and the Lord 
 Deputy, the existence of this scheme of inquisition into the titles of 
 the estates of the lords and gentlemen of Connaught, as one of the 
 grand objects of Wentworth's mission, is not denied. But it was an 
 act of bold rapacity at wliich the Lord Deputy at first shrunk, and in 
 some of his letters he confesses his inability to discover any pretext . 
 for laying claim to them. By Hhe graces,' as originally granted, the 
 King had virtually pledged his own word that the Irish landholders 
 should not be molested in their titles. Of these '^graces,' however, 
 the King had now been relieved by a discreditable stratagem, and in 
 the summer of 1635 Wentworth proceeded to find what he calls the 
 King's 'just and honourable title ' to the estates in Connaught." 
 
 He would trust to no subordinate, no matter how able and 
 willing, the carrying out of this grand scheme of plunder. Com- 
 manding the attendance of the Judges and the Crown lawyers, 
 Wentworth opened his "inquisition" in Roscommon, summoned 
 
 * Wrij^bt, i., p. 638. 
 
364 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 before himself and the Commissioners the leading landholders of tiie 
 county. He said the purpose of their coming was ' to find a clear and 
 undoubted title in the Crown to the province of Connaught/ and 
 urged them to be the King's advocates with their fellow landlords. 
 He then formed a jury of the wealthiest men^ with the avowed deter- 
 mination to make them "find for the King," or beggar them by fines, 
 and kill them by the hardships of imprisonment. He told them, — 
 which was another cover for crushing the class of Catholic lawyers, 
 — that in the inquiry they, the proprietors, should have the unprece- 
 dented favor of using counsel. 
 
 The proceedings were opened, and the landholders petitioned for 
 delay; but the demand was derided as a false pretext. The jurymen 
 were advised to find for the King, else means of more effective per- 
 suasion should be used against them. And to enlist the Judges' 
 personal interest in the cause, the Lord Chief Justice and the Lord 
 Chief Baron were promised four shillings in the pound out of the 
 entire yearly rent to accrue to the King from the results of this 
 Commission. 
 
 Of course Eoscommon was terrified into yielding all that Went- 
 wortli demanded. The jurymen found and the Judges ratified the 
 King's title "without scruple or hesitation." So did the counties of 
 Sligo and Mayo. The practical working of the newly introduced 
 English Law was irresistible. Men submitted to be plundered. 
 Tliey had plundered the Native Celts some time before; and now 
 their own turn had come. 
 
 There remained the county Galway, where the Earl of Clanrick- 
 ard, knighted at the battle of Kinsale by Mountjoy, was lord para- 
 mount. The Commission held its court in Clanrickard's own house 
 at Portumna. Wentworth plied the Sheriff and Jury with alternate 
 cajoleries and threats. But they "most obstinately and perversely 
 refused to find for his Majesty." 
 
 The threats were now put into execution. The Sheriff was fined 
 £1,000 for having "packed" his jury with such perverse individuals; 
 and the jurymen were cited before the Star Chamber in Dublin Castle 
 
Strafford destroys the Woollen Trade. 265 
 
 and fined £4,000 each for daring to resist the self-evident justice of 
 the King's title. The Earl of Clanrickard himself died soon after- 
 ward, humiliated and broken-hearted. The Catholic lawyers who 
 had dared to take up the cause of the landholders, were peremptorily 
 challenged to take the Oath of Supremacy; and, on their refusal, dis- 
 barring and disqualifying them for their profession. When their 
 clients sent some of their number to England as a deputation to the 
 King, the selfish and unscrupulous tyrant was persuaded to send them 
 back prisoners to the Lord Deputy, to be dealt with as he might 
 determine. 
 
 Such was Charles I.; and such was Wentworth, his deputy in 
 Ireland. 
 
 That Wentworth's purpose in thus despoiling the landholders of 
 Galway, — of the whole of Connaught indeed, — was to root out the 
 Irish, we are assured by himself. "There is now," he says, "a fair 
 opportunity put into liis Majesty's hands to lay a sure foundation for 
 reducing and securing this county of Galway .... by fully lining 
 and planting it with English, which could not have been so thor- 
 oughly done, as for the public safety is necessary, if the pretended 
 owners of lands in this county have not a greater proportion taken 
 from them than is appointed by the articles of plantation to be 
 applied to his Majesty's benefit in the other three counties." * 
 
 From the articles of impeachment drawn up against him, we find 
 that "he did declare and publish that Ireland was a conquered 
 nation; and that the King might do with them (the Irish) what he 
 pleased.'''' f 
 
 His arbitrary rule destroyed the woollen trade in Ireland, the 
 chief industry in an agricultural and pastural country, where a state 
 of chronic warfare and disturbance was so baneful to trade and com- 
 merce. The woollen industry, moreover, was suppressed by him for 
 the express purpose of rendering Ireland more dependent on Eng- 
 land, by compelling her to receive from the latter the very raiment 
 
 * Strafford Papers, ii., 453. 
 
 t Baker, " Chronicles of the Kings of England," p. 499. 
 
266 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 necessary in a northern clime. He is credited with having founded 
 or revived the manufacture of linen. This industry, so flourishing in 
 the island from ancient times, may have indeed declined, as was 
 natural and inevitable, during the Elizabethan wars and the calami- 
 tous reign of James I. But the revival, — if indeed he should be 
 credited with it, — was far from compensating the loss entailed on the 
 country by the sacrifice of the woollen trade. That he did greatly 
 encourage the growth and manufacture of linen, may be confessed to 
 his credit. Still, it is no less certain that he ruined the woollen 
 manufactures in which Ireland successfully competed with England 
 in foreign markets. 
 
 The Religious Side of the Question of Wrong -doing. 
 
 In the last century a Protestant by birth, education, and life-long 
 profession, and the greatest man whom Ireland has ever produced, 
 wrote these pregnant and memorable words: "Protestant ascendancy 
 is neither more nor less than the resolution of one set of people 
 in Ireland to consider themselves as the sole citizens in the common- 
 wealth — and to keep a dominion over the rest by reducing them to 
 absolute slavery, under a military power." * 
 
 This mucli must be said, however, in speaking of Protestant As- 
 cendancy as it existed in the days of Burke, that it is only a|>ts alter , 
 imposed by the necessity of circumstances, and accepted even at this 
 day (December, 1884), with extreme reluctance by the dominant 
 party. All the attempts to exterminate the Irish race, and with them 
 the Catholic religion, having failed, the Puritans and Irish Church- 
 men agreed upon effective measures to stop the growth of the hated 
 creed, and to degrade it utterly by making of it the proscribed 
 religion of slaves. 
 
 But there is a large class of most estimable men, whose souls re- 
 coil from the idea that it could have been at any time the deliberate 
 purpose of English or Irish Protestants to exterminate the pro- 
 
 * Burke's "Works," vol. v., p. 239. 
 
Parsons and Borlase for Extermination. 267 
 
 fessors of "popery," still less to involve in one indiscriminate decree 
 of extirpation and slaughter all the Celtic Irish and Catholics. It is 
 not a pleasant task to convince them that such is unquestionably the 
 fact. 
 
 "The favourite object of the Irish governors, and the English par- 
 liament, was the utter extermination of all the Catholic inhabitants 
 of Ireland. Their estates were already marked out and allotted to 
 their conquerors; so that they and their posterity were consigned to 
 inevitable ruin." * 
 
 Such is the general purpose attributed to the English rulers of 
 Ireland by one who was an ordained minister of that same Protestant 
 Ascendancy. Elsewhere, he is more particular. 
 
 "The great body of the Covenanters in Ulster despised the whole 
 negotiation (the ' cessation of arms ' between the Confederated Cath- 
 olics and the Marquis of Ormonde); the Parliamentarians of Munster 
 opposed any peace with the Irish. These reformers, in the fulness 
 of their zeal, could be contented only with the extirpation of popery 
 and the rebellious Irish race." f 
 
 That it was the deliberate purpose of the government adminis- 
 tered, in 1641-42, by the Lords Justices Parsons and Borlase, we 
 have from the then Lord Lieutenant himself, Ormonde: 
 
 "There is too much reason to think, that, as the lords Justices 
 really wished the rebellion to spread, and more gentlemen of estates 
 to be involved in it, that the forfeitures might be the greater, and a 
 general plantation be carried on by a new set of English Protestants, 
 all over the Kingdom, to the ruin and expulsion of all the old Eng- 
 lish and Natives that were Roman Catholics; so to promote what 
 they wished, they gave out speeches upon occasions, insinuating such 
 a design, and that in a short time there would not be a Roman Cath- 
 olic left in the Kingdom. It is no small confirmation of this notion, 
 that the Earl of Ormonde, in his letters of January 27th, and Feb- 
 ruary 25th, 1641-42, to Sir W. St. Leger, imimtes the general revolt 
 
 * Leland, " Hist, of Ireland," iii., 192. t Ibidem, 331. 
 
268 Tlie Cause of Ireland. 
 
 of the nation, then far advanced, to the jJitMishmg of such a design j 
 and when a person of his great modesty and temper^ the most averse 
 in his nature to speak his sentiments of what he could not hut con- 
 demn in others, and who, when obhged to do so, does it always in 
 the gentlest expressions, is drawn to express such an opinion, the case 
 must be very notorious. I do not find that the copies of those letters 
 are preserved: but the original of Sir W. St. Leger's, in answer to 
 them, sufiiciently shows it to be his lordship's opinion; for, after 
 acknowledging the receipt of these two letters, he usetli these words: 
 * The undue promulgation of that severe determination to extirpate 
 the Irish and papacy out of the Kingdom, your lordship rightly 
 apprehends to be too unseasonably published.'"* 
 
 Elsewhere Carte is, if possible, more explicit still on this design of 
 the Dublin Officials in conjunction with the English Parliament, the 
 Puritans in both countries, and all who upheld the Solemn League 
 and Covenant. "These propositions," he says, ^' certainly came from 
 some of that party of men which first formed the design of an extir- 
 pation of the Eoman Catholicks, and, by publishing that design, 
 made the rebellion so general as it proved at last. They all breathed 
 the same spirit; and though extirpation both of nation and religion 
 was not expressly mentioned, yet it seemed to be contrived effectually 
 in all the propositions. Tliey appeared so monstrous and unreason- 
 able, that it was thought they could proceed from nothing but a high 
 degree of madness or malice." f 
 
 The existence of the desigii, and the manifestation of it long 
 before the rebellion of Oct. 23, 1641, and for the avowed purpose of 
 inciting to this rebellion and making it general, — are historical facts 
 too well established by Protestants themselves, to require more than 
 a mere mention. 
 
 One class of documents have been overlooked in connection with 
 this point, — the "remonstrances " and "declarations of grievances" 
 issued by the Catholics themselves, when driven to defend, by force 
 
 * Carte, i., p. 263. t Ibidem, p. 502. 
 
The Catliolic Body affirm tlie existence of suclt a Purpose. 269 
 
 of arms, the dearest and most essential riglits of liuman beings and 
 Christian men, — liberty of conscience and the riglit to live on their 
 native soil. 
 
 "1. It was plotted and resolved by the Puritans of England, Hoot- 
 land, and Ireland, to extinguish quite the Catholic religion, and the 
 professors and maintainors thereof, out of all those kingdoms; and to 
 put all Catholics of this realm to the sword, that would not conform 
 themselves to the Protestant religion, 
 
 "2. The State of Ireland (that is, the local government in Ire- 
 land) did publicly declare that they would root out of this realm all 
 the natives, and make a total second conquest of the land, alleging, 
 that they were not safe with them. 
 
 "3. All the natives here were deprived of the benefit of the 
 ancient fundamental laws, liberties, and privileges, due by all \xv*r^ 
 and justice to a free people and nation, and more particularly duo by 
 the municipal laws of Ireland. 
 
 "4. That the subjects of Ireland, especially the Irish, were thrust 
 out forcibly from their ancient possessions, against law, without color 
 or right; and could not have propriety (ownership) or security in 
 their estates, goods, or other rights, but were wholly subject to an 
 arbitrary power, and tyrannical government, these forty years past, 
 without hope of relief or redress. 
 
 "5. Their native youth here, debarred by the practice of the 
 State from all learning and education, in that the one only Uni- 
 versity here excludes all Catholics thence; neither are they suffered to 
 acquire learning or breeding beyond seas, of purpose to make them 
 rude and ignorant of all letters. 
 
 "6. The Catholics of this realm are not admitted to any dignity, 
 place, or office, either military or civil, spiritual or temporal, but the 
 same conferred upon unworthy persons, and men of no quality, who 
 purchase it for money, or favour, and not by merit. 
 
 "10. All their heavy and insufferable pressures prosecuted and 
 laboured by the natives of this Kingdom, with much suit, expense, 
 and importunity, both in Parliament here, and in England before his 
 
270 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 Majesty, to be redressed, ^ — yet could never be brought to any happy 
 condusion, or as much as hope of contentment, but always eluded 
 with delays. 
 
 "11. Common justice, and the rights and privileges of Parliament, 
 denied to all the natives of the realm; and the ancient course of par- 
 liamentary proceeding wholly declined. 
 
 "16. The many horrid murders, robberies, pillages, waste, burn- 
 ings, and other execrable crueltie, perpetrated of late by the Protes- 
 tant armies here, by public direction of the State of this realm. . . . 
 
 " 17. All the natives in the English Plantations of this realm were 
 disarmed by proclamation, and the Protestant Plantators armed, and 
 tied by the conditions of their plantations to have arms, and to keep 
 certain numbers of horse and foot continually upon their lands, by 
 wliicli advantage many thousands of the natives were expulsed out of 
 their possessions, and as many hanged by martial law, without 
 cause, and against the laws of this realm; and many of them other- 
 wise destroyed, and made away, by sinister means and practices. 
 
 "18. Half this realm was found to belong unto his Majesty, as 
 his ancient demesne and inheritance, upon old feigned titles of three 
 hundred years past, by juries, against law, their evidence, and con- 
 science, who were corrupted to find the said titles, upon promise of 
 part of those lands so found for the King, or other reward, or were 
 drawm thereunto by threats . . . . , or by heavy fines, mulcts, or cen- 
 sures of pillory, stigmatizings, and other like cruel and unusual pun- 
 ishments." * 
 
 In the Remonstrance addressed to the King in person, the same 
 grievances are stated more at length. 
 
 "4. Neither can we in any way admit the power and jurisdiction 
 that the new Parliament of England doth assume over the parlia- 
 ment and the whole kingdom of Ireland, . . . against whose power 
 and arrogancy we absolutely protest, as having no dependency on 
 them, or any other, but only of your Majesty; and we are confident 
 
 * " Contemporary Hist, of Affairs in Ireland," vol. i,, part ii., pp. 450-51. 
 
Parson's odious Tyranny Denounced. 271 
 
 we should receive (were we subordinate to them) the lil^e, if not far 
 worse measure of cruelty and tyranny, than they now practice and 
 exercise against the native Catholics of their own realm. 
 
 "7. There was a petition framed by the Puritans of this Kingdom 
 of Ireland, subscribed by the hands of many hundreds of them, and 
 preferred to the House of Commons of the now Parliament in Eng- 
 land, for suppressing our religion, and us the professors thereof, 
 residing within this Kingdom of Ireland, which as we are credibly 
 informed, was condescended unto by both Houses of Parliament 
 there, and undertaken to be accomplished to their full desires. 
 
 "14. We your Highness's subjects, the distressed Catholics of Ire- 
 land, cannot, but with much grief, express our sense of our general 
 sufferings and pressures within this realm, since the beginning of 
 your Majesty's late Eoyal father's reign, being almost forty years, 
 and the only time of continued peace we enjoyed these later ages; in 
 all which time, through the corruption of the Governors and State of 
 this realm, though, for redress of our grievances, often suit hath been 
 made by us; yet, therein, could we never obtain any part of our 
 desires, but rather have endured a continual servitude, than the free- 
 dom of subjects, being not permitted, in all this space, to enjoy our 
 birthright, or the benefit of the fundamental laws of this realm, they 
 being the very same that are in England, nor admitted to have prop- 
 erty in our goods or lands; for that a tyrannical government hath 
 been continually exercised over us all this time, in more strict and 
 cruel manner, than in Turkey, or any other infidel country; though, 
 by the ancient fundamental laws of the realm, no subjects in Europe 
 can challenge more freedom or liberty." 
 
 The Eemonstrance, after enumerating other grievances, substan- 
 tially the same as those mentioned above, dwells with particular stress 
 on the outrageous acts of the Lords .Justices, Parsons and Borlase. 
 A remonstra-nce sent by the aggrieved Catholics to be laid before Par- 
 liament, was not only not presented, but the Parliament itself was 
 illegally prorogued lest it should take cognizance thereof, and the re- 
 monstrants were declared by proclamation to be traitors and rebels. 
 
272 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 The evil practices of Sir William Parsons are specially denounced; his 
 packing Juries and obtainhig verdicts for the crown, under promise to 
 the jurors of dividing with them the confiscated estates of Catholics. 
 A petition was before Parliament against Parsons for a similar case in 
 the O'Byrnes' country, in Wicklow; but he prorogued the Parliament 
 in violation of the King's express command. 
 
 He "hath been a mean to supplant out of their ancient possessions 
 and inheritances many of the inhabitants of this realm, though of 
 your best subjects; ... he having the survey and measuring thereof, 
 did most partially and corruptly survey the same, making the best 
 land 'waste and unprofitable' in his survey, . . . the same wholly dis- 
 posed of by the said Parsons at his pleasure . . . ; and did plot in the 
 Earl of Straffoi'd's government to supplant all the old Irish in all the 
 places of this Kingdom. ..." 
 
 "29 The Governors and State of this Kingdom procured 
 
 their own followers and dependants, who had no estate nor settled 
 residence within this land, to be unduly elected and returned to Par- 
 liament here, as lawful members, and thereby exceeding in votes the 
 lawful members thereof, have caused divers pernicious and bloody 
 statutes and laws to be enacted in this Kingdom, and others of no 
 less danger and malice to be transmitted into England to pass here 
 for laws, with intention to woi'k the final destruction of our 
 nation." 
 
 The remonstrants address the King in terms of respect and ob- 
 sequiousness, which to us at this distance of time and with our 
 knowledge of Charles' base conduct toward Ireland and Irish Cath- 
 olics, — savor strongly of servility. But though they should, crushed 
 and gi-ound into the dust as they had been for generations, fawn and 
 crouch at the foot of the throne, the wrongs which they complained 
 of there were not the less real, not the less incredible. 
 
 They speak of the forty years of the Stuart rule over them as 
 "the only continued time of peace we enjoyed these later ages"; but, 
 nevertheless, truth compels them to affirm that "therein" they 
 "rather have endured a continual servitude than the freedom of sub- 
 
Catholics '"'' Squeezed " by the Act of TJniformity. 273 
 
 jects, being not permitted in all this space, to enjoy our birthright, or 
 the benefit of the fundamental laws of this realm." 
 
 In one word, all through the reigns of James I. and his son, the 
 Irish Catholics were dealt with by the local government and its 
 abominable subordinates, as if they were the merest slaves and out- 
 Ums, deprived, in their native land, of all the rights of citizenship, 
 and all the protection due to human beings. 
 
 The "comparative quiet" which the Catholics enjoyed during the 
 "forty years of peace" spoken of by Lord Clarendon, is to be ap- 
 preciated by impartial readers by referring to what really both James 
 and Charles did for the relief of their oppressed and persecuted sub- 
 jects. It was the boast of the Koyalist writers that the reign of the 
 two first Stuarts was a kind of golden age for the Irish Catholics. 
 
 The Acts of Uniformity and Supremacy were the twofold lever 
 used by the administration to force Catholics into the Protestant 
 Church, or to squeeze out of them whatever money could be got for the 
 King's need or to satisfy the covetousness of the officials, high and low. 
 
 Who can forget the rigor with which the Act of Uniformity was 
 enforced by James at the very opening of his reign ? 
 
 A glance at its operation will satisfy us as to its terrible power to 
 oppress the conscience. 
 
 Fines on Eecusants. 
 Every poor man who refused to attend Protestant service on Sun- 
 day, was fined t^velvejMnce, that is, one-third of his weekly earnings. 
 And the fine had to be paid, as there were too many greedy and 
 lynx-eyed officials who were interested in collecting it. Lord Straf- 
 ford, while governing Ireland, denounces the practice as both 
 ineffective for its purpose, and tyrannical toward the people. "This 
 course alone will never bring them to church, being rather an engine 
 to drain money out of their pockets, than to raise a right belief and 
 faith in their hearts, and so doth not indeed tend to that end it sets 
 forth."* 
 
 * Strafford Papers, ii. 39. 
 
 18 
 
374 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 As "draining money" was the real object of the administrators of 
 this law, they applied it rigorously to the rich as well as to the poor. 
 During Lord Chichester's rule, nine Catholics were at one time fined 
 the sum of £750 for recusancy. Yet Chichester boasted that the 
 amount of fines imposed in the whole county of Dublin for a year's 
 recusancy did not exceed £14 or £15. Here is the peremptory 
 answer to this unblushing assertion. 
 
 1605. "The Lord Deputy (Chichester) and council convened 
 before them the aldermen and some of the principal citizens, and 
 endeavoured by persuasions and lenity to draw them to their duty. 
 They also exemplified under the Great Seal and published the statute 
 of uniformity of the 2d of Elizabeth in regard there was found to be 
 some material difference between the original record and the printed 
 copies, that none might pretend ignorance of the original record, and 
 added thereto the King's injunction for the observance of the said 
 statute. But these gentle methods failing to have any effect, sixteen 
 of the most eminent of the city were convened into the Court of Cas- 
 tle Chamber, of whom nine of the chief were censured, and six of the 
 aldermen fined each £100, and the other three £50 apiece, and they 
 were all committed prisoners to the Castle during the pleasure of the 
 court; and it was ordered that none of the citizens should bear office 
 till they conformed. The week following the rest were censured in 
 the same manner, except Alderman Archer, who conformed."* 
 
 How much " the rest " had to pay is not told us. This was in the 
 city: how many more were heavily "censured" throughout the 
 county, may be guessed at easily. Rev. Mr. Rooth, a Catholic priest 
 and a contemporary, affirms that in the single county of Cavan, the 
 fines inflicted on recusants amounted yearly to £8,000. 
 
 These fines, levied mercilessly all over Ireland, were one of the 
 chief resources of the government. The Reverend Fernando Warner 
 tells us, with a grim irony, that: "The Papists had for many years 
 ■enjoyed a great calm, being upon the matter absolved from the 
 
 * Harris, " Hist, and Antiquities of the City of Dublin," p. 322. 
 
Pitiless Engines of Ojjpression, 275 
 
 sevel'est parts of the law, and dispensed with for the gentlest; and 
 were gro^vn only a part of the revenue, without any prohaljle danget 
 of being made a sacrifice to the law." 
 
 The vexations and oppression exercised toward recnsants all 
 through these years, were such, that Strafford himself protested 
 against them as impolitic, — at least, as adding an intolerable 
 grievance to the confiscations by which he and his royal master 
 were preparing to dispossess every Catholic and Irishman in the 
 country. 
 
 "It were too much at once to distemper them by bringing 
 plantations upon them, and disturbing them in the exercise of 
 their religion, so long as it be without scandal; and so indeed very 
 inconsiderate, as I conceive, to move in this latter, till that former be 
 settled, and by that means the Protestant party become by much the 
 stronger, which, in truth, as yet I do not conceive it to be." And, 
 again, speaking of the impolicy of doing violence to the Catholic con- 
 science by enforcing the Act of Uniformity: "This course alone will 
 never bring them to church, being rather an engine to drain money 
 out of their pockets, than to raise a right belief and faith in their 
 hearts, and so doth not indeed tend to that end it sets forth."* 
 
 The Ecclesiastical Courts, set in motion everyAvhere, under the 
 pretence of exacting uniformity in religion, Avere only machines of 
 pitiless peculation. Bishop Burnet bears unimpeachable testimony 
 to this fact: 
 
 "The officers of the court made it their business to draw people 
 into trouble by vexatious suits, and to hold them so long in it that for 
 threepence worth of the tithe of turf, they would put to five 
 pounds charge. And the solemnest and sacredest of all the church 
 censures, which was excommunication, went about in so sordid and 
 base a manner, that all regard to it, as it was a spiritual censure, was 
 lost; and the effects it had in law made it be cried out on as a most 
 intolerable piece of tyranny. The officers of the court thought they 
 
 * " State Letters of the Earl of Strafford," ii. 39, Dublin, 1740. 
 
276 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 had a sort of right to oppress the natives, and that all was well got, 
 that was wrung from them."* 
 
 This single concluding sentence is more eloquent, and gives a 
 more vivid description of the grinding oppression inflicted on the 
 Irish people by the Established Church alone, independently of the 
 good work performed by the Chichesters, Borlases, and Parsonses, — 
 that it says more even than the Kemonstrances published during or 
 before the insurrection of 1641. 
 
 No less odious and oppressive was the celebrated "Court of 
 Wards." It had been enacted that Avhen any Catholic nobleman or 
 landed proprietor died without conforming to the Established Church, 
 his heirs were handed over to this Court, which placed its wards 
 under the guardianship of Protestant families, in order to their being 
 brought up in the State religion. Such guardianship became an 
 object of competition among the royal favorites or the friends of the 
 judges. "The wardship and marriage of the heir" — says Carte — 
 "were reserved to the Crown. These lands and wardships were 
 usually granted to favourites, and men of power and interest, who, 
 though they gave security to the Court of Wards to take care, as well 
 of the education and maintenance of the heir, as of the good condition 
 of the estate, too often neglected both; destroyed the woods, and 
 committed horrible waste upon the lands; brought up the heir in 
 ignorance, and in a manner unwortliy of his quality; and, selling his 
 person to the highest bidder, matched him unequally in point of birth 
 and fortune, as well as disagreeably with regard to the character, 
 qualities, and figure of the person that was picked out to be the com- 
 panion of his life." f 
 
 In the work of a contemporary writer now become classic, we are 
 informed of the last criminal intrigues of Lord Justice Parsons, and 
 of the remonstrances to Charles I. against the tyrannical and op- 
 pressive rule of this infamous magistrate. In spite of his desperate 
 opposition the King's Commissioners met the Chiefs of the Con- 
 
 * Burnet, " Life of Bishop Bedell," p. 89. + Carte, ii. 248. 
 
The Court a great Proselytizing Machiiie. 277 
 
 federated Catholics at Trim, on March 17, 1G43, and duly received 
 and transmitted to the King the remonstrance drawn up by his 
 aggrieved subjects. One of the articles said: 
 
 "The illegal, arbitrary, and unlawful proceedings of the said Wil- 
 liam Parsons, and one of the said impeached judges, and their 
 adherents and instruments in the Court of Wards, and the many wil- 
 fully erroneous decrees and judgments of that Court, by which the 
 heirs of Catholic noblemen and other Catholics were more cruelly and 
 tyrannically dealt Avithal; destroyed in their estates, and bred in dis- 
 soluteness and ignorance; their parents' debts unsatisfied; their 
 younger brothers and sisters left wholly unprovided for; the ancient 
 tenure of mesne lands unregarded; estates valid in law, and made for 
 valuable considerations, avoided against law; and the whole land filled 
 up with the frequent swarms of escheators, feodarics, pursuivants, 
 and others, by authority of that Court."* 
 
 Of course, this Court of Wards was, originally, one of the 
 principal agencies devised to prevent the growth of Popery, and to 
 do away with Avhat remained of the Old Irish great families or the 
 ancient Anglo-Norman aristocracy. " Our kings," says Bishop 
 Burnet, " were according to the first institution the guardians of the 
 wards. They bred them up in their courts, and disposed of them in 
 marriage as they thought fit. Afterwards they compounded or for- 
 gave them; or gave them to some branches of the family, or to 
 provide the younger children. But they proceeded in this very 
 gently: and the chief care, after the Reformation, was to breed the 
 wards Protestants. Still all were under a great dependance by this 
 means. Much money was not raised this way; but families were 
 often at mercy, and were used according to their behaviour. King 
 James granted these generally to his servants and favourites; and 
 they made the most of them; so that what M'as before a dependance 
 on the Crown, and was moderately compounded for, became then 
 a most exacting oppression, by which several families were ruined." f 
 
 * See Rev. C. P. Meehan, " Confederation of Kilkenny," ed. *1882, p. 82; and 
 Plowden, "Historical View," Ac, I., Append. 84. 
 t Burnet, " Hist, of his Own Times," i. 16. 
 
278 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 The Remonstrance presented at Trim, and the energetic repre- 
 sentations made to the Royal Commissioners, were instrumental in 
 obtaining the deprivation of Sir William Parsons, but not before he 
 and his multitude of followers had been gorged Avith the spoils of the 
 Irish Catholics. We dismiss him for the moment. But no one who 
 has read in authentic history of the doings of this bad man, can 
 wonder that Catholic Ireland, oppressed and tortured bej^ond the 
 limits of human endurance, should have turned in her despair upon 
 the wrong-doers. 
 
 Apostasy from their baptismal creed, from the faith of their 
 fathers and people, from what they believed in their inmost con- 
 science was the only true religion, was forced upon the nation at 
 every turn, if they would enjoy the simplest rights and privileges of 
 citizenship or human fellowship. They could not sue out livery of 
 their lands without taking the Oath of Supremacy. If they entered 
 on possession without doing so, they were punished as intruders on 
 the property of the Crown. 
 
 The Irish' Catholics, following in this the lead of the nobility and 
 gentry of the Pale, sought earnestly and with united action a relief 
 from all these burthens and disabilities. The removal sought for is 
 known in history by the name of " the Graces." But we now know 
 what became of these. 
 
 Ireland from 16^0 to 1653. 
 
 To any man who has read the history of tlie confiscations and 
 plantations which filled up, in Ireland, the reigns of the two first 
 Stuart Kings, it will not seem strange or unexpected that the entire 
 Celtic population, as well as the Anglo-Irish Catholics, should rise 
 against their persecutors and oppressors whenever a favorable oppor- 
 tunity offered them any prospect of throwing off a crushing yoke and 
 recovering some portion of civil and religious freedom.. 
 
 Without recurring to the intolerable ills endured under Elizabeth, 
 we may fairly say that the administration of the Irish Government 
 under her two successors from 1G04 to 1G40 was simply organized 
 
Twin Flame wMcli fed Irish Patriotism and Endurance. 279 
 
 plunder, legalized iniquity, a tyranny so blindly oppressive and fero- 
 cious, that we wonder how men in their senses could have imagined 
 for a moment that this wholesale system of wrong-doing and savage 
 cruelty could produce in tlie oppressed any other feelings than those 
 of unquenchable hatred and an insatiable desire of revenge. 
 
 But in the bosoms of the immense majority of the Irish nation 
 there burned a nobler fire than that of hatred toward the oppressor, 
 — the ardor begotten of religious Faith deeply rooted in every recess 
 of the soul, and grown all the more vigorous and imperishable, that 
 its professors, from generation to generation, had sacrificed and suf- 
 fered everything rather than pluck it out of their hearts. And there 
 burned together with the pure, bright fire of religious faith the 
 scarcely less pure and no less ardent flame of patriotism, — the love of 
 native country foully wronged, and the pride of an ancient and war- 
 like race whom it was England's avowed aim to exterminate. 
 
 The united perfidy, greed, and oppression which characterized the 
 conduct of the First Charles toward the Catholics of Ireland, coupled 
 with the abominable falsehood, fraud, and tyranny of Wentworth, his 
 tool, had disposed such of the Irish as were not given up to despair, 
 to rise up in rebellion. And the rapid progress of the Covenanters 
 and Puritans in the three Kingdoms, the open professions made 
 inside and outside of the English Parliament to destroy utterly 
 Popery and Papists, left no choice to Irish manhood between abjectly 
 submitting to be exterminated, after having been outlawed and 
 despoiled, or vindicating by armed resistance their right to live as 
 freemen on the land of their birth. 
 
 The uprising of the Irish nation, like one man, in 1641-1642, 
 would, to the eyes of any unprejudiced and enlightened reader of 
 contemporary history, be the natural and inevitable result of the 
 threats and acts of the triumphant Covenanter and Puritan Party on 
 both sides of the Irish Channel, coming so closely after the adminis- 
 tration of Wentworth. 
 
 They did rebel, without concert, unhappily, in one corner of the 
 island, and, even there, without general premeditation or preparation. 
 
280 ^''^^ Cause of Ireland. 
 
 It was the breaking forth of the fierce flame from the fires so long 
 smoukleriug beneath the surface, and fed by so many years of the 
 cruelest heartburnings. Men were, or pretended to be, astonished 
 that the fierce conflagration spread so rapidly. They might have 
 thought that Celtic Ireland was conquered, crushed, and that its 
 spirit was quenched in a deluge of blood. But the spirit was there: 
 and Oh! that there had been found men to direct and control the 
 forces of a movement as legitimate, as holy as ever won the admira- 
 tion of past ages ! 
 
 The rebellion of 1641 has been qualified as "execrable " by those 
 who provoked it, and by those who profited by the " Protestant As- 
 cendancy," which grew up, like the Upas Tree, amid the waste left 
 behind by those who exterminated the "rebels." 
 
 Let us turn the tables on these men, and prove beyond the possi- 
 bility of denial or even of doubt, that this "rebellion " was provoked, 
 fostered, and extended by the Pailiamentary party in England and by 
 their zealous co-operators in Ireland, the local Grovernment having its 
 seat in Dublin Castle, and the army of officials, adventurers. Planters, 
 &c., who were interested in advancing the work of confiscation and 
 extermination. 
 
 There did exist, before the 23d October, 1641, an Execrable 
 Plot for inciting to rebellion all the Catholics in Ireland, and for 
 utterly extirpating them. 
 
 Leland, naturally biassed as he must have been in favor of this 
 Protestant Ascendancy and of those who had laid its foundations, 
 reared, and secured its duration,— still acknowledges, that the aim 
 of England and of those who ruled Ireland in her name was to root 
 out everything bearing the name of Catholic. 
 
 "The favorite object," he writes, "of the Irish Governors and 
 the English Parliament was the utter extermination of all the Cath- 
 olic inhabitants of Ireland. Their estates were already marked out 
 and allotted to their conquerors; so that they and their posterity were 
 consigned to inevitable ruin. 
 
 }} * 
 
 * Leland, " History of Ireland," iii., p. 192. 
 
Parsons and Borlase pack a Parliament to foment PebelUon. 281 
 
 This is a sweeping indictment of the entire policy of English rule 
 in Ireland, a terrible censure of the Protestantism, which professed 
 to have in view the "civilizing" of the Irish race and supplanting of 
 Komish superstition by the pure morality of the Gospel. And this is 
 the testimony of a clergyman of the Established Church, an official, 
 moreover, of the Dublin government, 
 
 Warner, Clarendon, and Carte bear no less convincing testimony 
 to the existence of this design of extermination. The last-named, in 
 particular, attests the existence of the plot long before the breaking 
 out of the rebellion: 
 
 "The reason of their (the Justices Parsons and Borlase) advice 
 is founded upon their darling scheme of an extirpation of the old 
 English proprietors, and a general plantation of the whole Kingdom 
 with a new colony; for this is the meaning of what they allege, to 
 show it to be ' unsafe for his Majesty, and destructive to the King- 
 dom, to grant the petitioners' request; as being altogether in- 
 consistent with the means of raising a considerable revenue for his 
 crown, of settling Eeligion and Civility in the Kingdom; and of 
 establishing a firm and lasting peace, to the honor of his Majesty, the 
 safety of his royal posterity, and the comfort of all his faithful 
 subjects.'"* 
 
 Elsewhere Carte affords us still more complete evidence. "These 
 difficulties and considerations were of little weight with the Lords 
 Justices; who, having got a thin House of Commons to their mind, 
 of persons devoted to their interests and measures, resolved to im- 
 prove the opportunity offered, and to get such acts passed as might 
 distress the King, exasperate the bulk of the nation, spread the 
 rebellion, and so promote their darling scheme of extinguishing the 
 old proprietors and making a new plantation of the Kingdom, "f 
 
 And elsewhere: 
 
 "Such considerations as these were not agreeable to the views of 
 the Lords Justices, wiio had set their hearts on the extirpation not 
 
 * Carte, i. 391. t Carte MSS., vol. v., p. 272. 
 
283 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 only of the ' mere Irish/ but likewise of all the old English families 
 that were Eoman Catholics, and the making of a new plantation all 
 over the Kingdom, in which they could not fail to have a principal 
 share; so all their reasonings, upon all occasions, Avere calculated and 
 intended to promote that their favorite scheme." 
 
 It was the deliberate and well-matured design, therefore, of the 
 men who, unhappily for the Irish people, had the principal share in 
 the government of the Kingdom, to provoke and promote rebellion. 
 
 The "rebellion" began Oct, 23, 1641. From the foregoing we 
 are prepared to accept as the simple truth the statement of the Irish 
 General, Owen Eoe O'Neill: 
 
 "We imagine we are not in rebellion ourselves, but do really fight 
 for our Prince in defence of his royal crown and prerogative, wherein 
 we shall continue and die to the last man." 
 
 " The native Irish being well informed, as they thought, that they 
 must either turn Protestants, or depart tlie Kingdom, or be hanged 
 at their own doors, took up arms in their own defence, especially in 
 Ulster, where the six counties had been forfeited. " * 
 
 And the author of the " Aphorismical Discovery of Faction," says 
 on his part: "It was blazed abroad by the best note of Protestants 
 that all Ireland by that time twelvemonth must either go to ' church,' 
 be executed, or endure banishment or exile." f 
 
 Echoing the report gone abroad through Ireland of the purpose 
 to exterminate all mere Irish and Catholics, Lord Castlehaven says: 
 "The Catholics were urged (i. e., pushed) to rebellion; and the Lords 
 Justices were often heard to say, that the more there were in re- 
 bellion the more lands would be forfeited." X 
 
 Let the men who provoked and drove the nation to rise, without 
 previous concert, or preparation, or necessary provision, against the 
 ferocious greed which coveted the land and thirsted for the blood of 
 its children, call the movement a rebellion, an execrable rebellion, — 
 
 * Anderson's "Royal Genealogies," in Curry, vol. ii., p. 371. 
 
 + Aphor. Dis., i. 12. 
 
 X " Keview of Civil Wars of Ireland," p. 28. 
 
Was the Insurrection stdlied by Wholesale Massacred 283 
 
 we who view this terrible drama and its actors at the distance of two 
 centuries and a half, will pronounce it to be, on the part of the in- 
 surgents, one of the noblest revolutions ever attempted to be carried 
 out in favor of civil and religious liberty by a people the most cruelly 
 wronged of all those whom liistory mentions. 
 
 It was a noble attempt to resist the threats of the Puritan Cove- 
 nanters and the blood-thirsty plunderers directed by Parsons and 
 Borlase. 
 
 Was this insurrection, justified as it was by every principle and 
 motive which render armed resistance to the oppressor and ex- 
 terminator not only justifiable but a matter of duty, — was it, then, 
 sullied in its beginning and throughout its course by the wholesale 
 massacres, first mentioned by Sir John Temple in his "History of the 
 Irish Rebellion," published in 1G46? 
 
 The Truth about the 3Iassacres of 16Jfl. 
 
 The incredible numbers asserted to have been massacred within 
 two years after Oct. 23, 1641. 
 
 Sir John »Temple affirms, that: "Tliere being, since the rebellion 
 first broke out, unto the time of the cessation made Sept. 15, 16-13, 
 .... above 300,000 British and Protestants cruelly murdered in cold 
 blood, destroyed some other wa}^, or expelled out of their habitations, 
 according to the strictest conjecture and computation of those who 
 seemed best to understand the numbers of English planted in Ireland, 
 besides those few which fell in the heat of fight during tlie war." * 
 
 Eapin says: "Above 154,000 Protestants were massacred in that 
 Kingdom, from the 23d October (1641) to the 1st March following."! 
 
 Hume does not hesitate to write : "By some computations, those 
 who perished by all these cruelties are supposed to be 150,000 or 
 200,000. By the most moderate, and probably the most reasonable 
 account, they are made to amount to 40,000, if this extenuation 
 itself be not, as is usual in such cases, somewhat exaggerated." X 
 
 * Temple, " The Irish Rebellion," p. 43. 
 
 + " Hist, of England," ix., 340. J " Hist, of England." 
 
284 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 Clarendon tells us tliat: "A general insurrection of the Irish 
 spread over the whole country, in such an inhuman and barbarous 
 manner, that there were 40,000 or 50,000 of the English Protestants 
 murdered before they suspected themselves to be in any danger, or 
 could provide for their defence, by drawing together into towns or 
 strong houses." * 
 
 REFUTATION. 
 
 To confine ourselves to the North of Ireland where the in- 
 surrection began, and particularly to its seat, the province of Ulster, 
 we have only to arrive at as near an estimate as we can of the num- 
 bers of its Protestant population in 1641. 
 
 In the report of a survey made in 1619 (already mentioned on 
 page 231) by a Eoyal Commission, it is stated that in all the Plan- 
 tation of Ulster, comprising the six forfeited counties, there were in 
 all 1,974 families, giving 6,215 men between fifteen and sixty able to 
 bear arms.f In 1633, we have it from the State Papers of the Earl 
 of Strafford, that the number of men on the Plantation able to bear 
 arms was 13,092, which would indicate as a proportional number of 
 families between 4,000 or 5,000. 
 
 Sir William Petty, at the end of this dreadful war, gave to the 
 world the only statistical information ever published about the rel- 
 ative numbers of Catholics and Protestants in the Kingdom both 
 when the insurrection began, and when extermination had run its 
 bloody course. He gives 1,466,000 souls as the total for all Ireland 
 in 1641. In that total the Protestants were to the Catholics as two 
 to eleven, which would give 225,000 Protestants for all Ireland, as 
 against 1,241,000 Catholics. 
 
 Now Carte states, that the numbers said to have been massacred 
 "were more than there were of English at that time in all Ireland." 
 And again: "It is certain, that the great body of the English was 
 settled in Munster and Leinster, where very few murders were com- 
 
 * " Hist, of the Irish Rebellion."- 
 
 + Gilbert, " Contemporary Hist, of Affairs in Ireland," vol. i. App. 
 
A Cartiival of Falsehood. 285 
 
 mitted; and that in Ulster, which was the dismal scene of the mas- 
 sacre, there were above 100,000 Scots, who before the general plan- 
 tation of it, had settled in great numbers in the counties of Down 
 and Antrim; and new shoals of them had come over, upon the plan- 
 tation of the six escheated counties: and they were so very powerful 
 therein that the Irish, either out of fear of their numbers, or some 
 other politic reason, spared those of that nation, making proc- 
 lamation, on pain of death, that no Scotsman should be molested in 
 body, goods, or lands It cannot therefore reasonably be pre- 
 sumed that there were at most above 20,000 English souls, of all ages 
 and sexes, in Ulster at that time. And of these, as appears by the 
 Lord Justices' letter, there were several thousands got safe to Dublin, 
 and were subsisted there for many months afterwards; besides 6,000 
 women and children which Captain ]\Iervyn saved in Fermanagh, and 
 others that got safe to Derry, Colerain, and Carrickfergus, and went 
 from these and other ports into England." 
 
 Taking the official figures given in the Official Survey of 1619, in 
 which every family in the Plantation was visited, as we have seen in the 
 case of the Blennerhassetts; and taking into account the "new shoals 
 of Scots that liad come over, upon the plantation of the six escheated 
 counties;" 20,000 English souls may seem a very high estimate of 
 the non-Irish and non-Scotch settlers in Ulster in 1641. Had all 
 these been swept out of existence in the beginning of the war, a thing 
 which no one has dared to affirm, — the number of the pretended vic- 
 tims of the "massacre" would have fallen far short of that mentioned 
 by that Prince of Liars, Burton. Let us, — since we are Just review- 
 ing that Carnival of Falsehood, Fraud, and Forgery, the historical 
 conspiracy to stain with blood the rising of the Irish in 1641, let us 
 examine the assertions of this Burton. 
 
 "It would be almost endless to give an account of all the cruelties 
 acted by these incarnate devils upon the innocent English, of whom 
 they destroyed near 300,000 in a few months." * 
 
 * Burton, " Hist, of the Kingdom of Ireland," Westminster, 1811, p. 37. 
 
286 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 Where on earth did they find such a number to destroj^ ? But 
 even this monstrous feat of mendacity is, in a manner, eclipsed by Sir 
 Phihp Warwick's achievement: "In one week," he says, "they (the 
 Irish) massacred very near 100,000 persons, men, women, and 
 children."* 
 
 Eapin, after these master-liars, attempts to cap the climax by 
 telling us, that: "On the 23d of October and the following days, 
 above 40,000 English Protestants were massacred by the Irish." \ 
 
 Borlase is not behindhand with his compeers: "The greatest and 
 most horrid massacres were acted before the Parliament could possi- 
 bly know there was a rebellion; for after that the plot was detected, 
 the rebels somewhat slacked in their first cruelties." % 
 
 Leaving altogether aside Catholic writers on this subject, we need 
 only call the most accredited Protestant historians to contradict flatly, 
 and refute triumphantly these conspirators, and to upset the edifice 
 of calumnious falsehood they have reared. 
 
 Warner, himself a clergyman of the Church of England, who 
 spared no labor to examine all the original sources of the history of 
 the Cromwellian epoch, avers that: "It is easy enough to demonstrate 
 the falsehood of the relation of every Protestant historian of this 
 rebellion. ... To any one who considers how thinly Ireland was at 
 that time peopled by Protestants, and the province of Ulster particu- 
 larly, where was the chief scene of the massacre, those relations upon 
 the face of them appear incredible. Setting aside all opinions and 
 calculations in this affair, which, besides their uncertainty, are with- 
 out any precision as to the space of time in which the murders were 
 committed, the evidence from the depositions in the manuscript 
 above mentioned, stands thus: — The number of people killed, upon 
 positive evidence collected in two years after the insurrection broke 
 out, adding them all together, amounts only to 2,109; on the reports 
 of other Protestants, 1,619 more; and on the report of some of the 
 
 * " Memoirs of the Reif^n of Charles I." (London, 1703\ p. 199. 
 
 + " Hist, of Enf!:land," vol. ix., p. 3-10. 
 
 % " History of the Execrable Irish Rebellion " (Folio, London, 1680), p. 50. 
 
A Decisive Documeiitary Proof. 287 
 
 rebels themselves, a further number of 300: the whole making 4,028. 
 Besides these murders, there is, in the same collection, evidence on 
 the report of others, of 8,000 killed by ill usage: and if we should 
 allow that the cruelties of the Irish out of war extended to these 
 numbers, which, considering the nature of several of the depositions, 
 I think in my conscience we can]iot, yet to be impartial we mast 
 allow, that there is no pretence for laying a greater number to their 
 charge. This account is also corroborated by a letter which I copied 
 out of the Council Books at Dublin, written on May 5, 1653, ten 
 years after the beginning of the rebellion, from the Parliament Com- 
 missioners in Ireland to the English Parliament, After exciting 
 them to further severity against the Irish, as being afraid * their 
 behavior towards this people may never sufficiently avenge their mur- 
 ders and massacres, and lest the Parliament might shortly be in 
 pursuance of a speedy settlement of this nation, and thereby some 
 tender concessions might be concluded,' the Commissioner^ tell them 
 that it appears 'besides 840 families, there were hilled, hanged, 
 burned, and drowned, 6,062.'"* 
 
 This is the total of the victims of Irish barbarity sent to England 
 by the Commissioners of Parliament, in a document in which they 
 appealed to the English Commons and Lords for additional measures 
 of rigor toward the Irish insurgents. Surely they were not likely to 
 give too low a figure. 
 
 "The proper evidence (says Mr. Prendergast, himself a Protes- 
 tant) to prove or disprove this dreadful massacre, are of course 
 authentic contemporaneous documents, — not compilations of a later 
 age, like Hume's 'History of England,' or even the ponderous pam- 
 phlets of party writers of the day, like Milton and Clarendon, stran- 
 gers to Ireland and its transactions. 
 
 "There is one document that ought to be decisive in this case, 
 and it would have been so if the English of Ireland were not inter- 
 ested enough, and the English of England prejudiced enough, to 
 
 ♦Warner, " Hist, of the Civil War in Ireland," pp. 296, 297. 
 
288 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 propagate and perpetuate any calumny to the damage of the fame 
 and national character of the people of Ireland. It is the following: 
 — Just two months after the outbreak the Government issued a Com- 
 mission under the Great Seal to seven despoiled Protestant Ministers, 
 to take evidence upon oath ' to keep up the memory of the outrages 
 committed by the Irish to posterity.' 
 
 "The Commission dated 23d December, 1641, was, in its original 
 form, to take an account of losses. It Avas amended on the 18th of 
 January, 1642, to include murders. So that this was an after- 
 thought; a thing scarce possible if there had been a general massacre. 
 The first Commission recites ' that many British and Protestants have 
 been separated from their habitations, and others deprived of their 
 goods'; the Commissioners are accordingly to examine upon oath 
 concerning the amount of loss, the names of the robbers, and what 
 traitorous speeches were uttered by the robbers or others. The sec- 
 ond adds, 'and what violence was done by the robbers, and how 
 often, and what numbers have been murthered, or have perished 
 afterwards, oh the way to Dublin or elsewhere.' And the remon- 
 strance shows that the outrages, in spite of the Commissioners' 
 attempt to present the most terrible pictures, were, for the most 
 part, only such as necessarily followed the stripping the English and 
 driving them from their possessions, as those Planters had driven the 
 Irish from theirs thirty years before, and that the murders were fewer 
 than have occurred in similar insurrections, where of course some 
 would be slain resisting the pillagers of their homesteads. The Com- 
 missioners seem unconscious of any general massacre. The murders 
 they record are the occurrences of four months, collected from differ- 
 ent parts of Ulster. In the few instances where any numbers were 
 slain, some of them, at least, were plainly acts of war, though the 
 Commissioners would have them supposed to be cold-blooded mur- 
 ders, and occurred late in December. So far, therefore, from 
 warranting the supposed extensive massacre of the English, this 
 official account disproves it, and shows how baseless is Clarendon's 
 storv of 40,000 or 50,000 English murdered before they knew where 
 
Colonel Henry O'Neill Speaks. 289 
 
 they were, or of an incredible number of men, women, and children 
 promiscuously slaughtered in ten days, as he elsewhere has it ; or of 
 154,000 or 300,000 massacred in cold blood. The letters of the 
 Lord Justices during the first months of the Eebellion are equally 
 silent concerning any massacre; and their proclamation of 8th Feb- 
 ruary, 1642, while it falsely charges the Irish with the design, says it 
 had failed."* 
 
 We also possess, happily for the cause of historical truth, another 
 authentic contemporary document, which, while giving us a clear and 
 simple statement of the motives of the insurgents, disproves the 
 reckless assertions of Temple, Clarendon, Hume, and Warwick. 
 That is Colonel Henry O'J^eill's "Impartial Eelation" of the Con- 
 federates under Owen Eoe from 1641 to 1650. 
 
 "1641. — After the commotions betwixt England and Scotland, 
 about the beginning of October, Sir Phelim O'JSTeill, Sir Con Ma- 
 genis, Colonel O'Brien, Colonel Butler, with several others of the 
 nation, had several regiments of foot ready to march for Catalonia, 
 with the King's permission, the Spanish ambassador having prevailed 
 then with his majesty to send over such levies of the Irish, when a 
 noise came amongst the Koman Catholics of Ulster (confirmed soon 
 after by a letter intercepted from Scotland, to one Freeman of An- 
 trim) that a puritan army was ready to come for Ireland, under the 
 command of General Leslie, to suppress and extirpate the Roman 
 Catholics of Ulster from amongst the Scotch; and to that end a pri- 
 vate declaration passed in their private meetings or council, to lay 
 heavy fines on each of them as would not appear at their Kirk the 
 first and second Sundays, and the third Sunday to hang (without 
 mercy) at their own doors, as many as would prove obstinate; which 
 rigid and inhuman way of reforming, struck such a terror in the 
 minds of the people, that every one thought of his own safety, or 
 some general method of defence against so great a danger. Where- 
 upon a convocation of the prime gentlemen of the province met, and 
 
 *' Cromwellian Conquest," pp. 60, 61. The Abstract of the Lord Justices' 
 Letter Book, from 1611 till 1644. Carte Papers, vol. 68, No. 132. 
 
 19 
 
290 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 communicated their thoughts and apprehensions to each other, and 
 to some gentlemen in Leinster, who joining their heads together, 
 resolved to send immediately an express by one abbot Conally, abbot 
 of Climes, to Owen O'JSTeill and other Irish officers in Flanders, to 
 acquaint them of the present state of the Kingdom, and how the 
 Roman Catholics were threatened by the Scotch puritans aud Eng- 
 lish presbyterians, and that they would for their own present safety, 
 endeavour to secure as many magazined forts and garrisons in the 
 north as possible, &c. In order to which, on the 2 2d of October, 
 1641, Sir Phelim O'Neill surprised Charlemont, and Sir Con Magenis 
 the Newry and other places; and at the same time gentlemen em- 
 ployed on the same design to Dublin, being discovered, took no 
 effect. 
 
 "Soon after this, the Scots in the north began their bloody mas- 
 sacres iu the counties of Downe and Antrim, at Island Magee, Bally- 
 dary, Clonleck, Cumber, Gallagh, and Magheravorn, 500 poor souls 
 destroyed without regard to age or sex, and that before one drop of 
 blood was spilt by any Eoman Catholic; though afterwards, when 
 these unparalleled murthers were known, some of the loosest of the 
 Irish rabble, being exasperated thereat, did, by way of retaliation, 
 murther some British at Portadown, Clancan, Curbridge, and 
 Belturbet."* 
 
 This narrative bears the stamp of soldierly simplicity and trutli. 
 Not only were Sir Phelim O'Neill's first feats of arms unstained by 
 wholesale massacres of the defenceless and im warlike; but not "one 
 drop of blood was spilt by any Roman Catholic," till the mass of the 
 people became "exasperated" by the "bloody massacres" that began 
 at Island Magee, and fired the national heart with a fierce indignation 
 which Religion alone could moderate or control. 
 
 This narrative, moreover, seems to fix the date of the massacre at 
 Island Magee, a point much debated among historians. On the 15th 
 
 * Gilbert, "Hist, of Affairs in Ireland, 1641-16")2," vol. iii., part ii., pp. 196, 197. 
 Also in Carte Papers, Ixiv., p. 453. 
 
Humane inte7itions of the first Insurgents. 291 
 
 November, 1641, the Castle of Lurgan surrendered to Sir Phelim 
 O'Xeill, wlio, — in violation, it is said, of the conditions stipulated, 
 kept the commander and his family prisoners, "killed most of his 
 servants, and treated all the townsmen in the same manner.'' This 
 behavior of Sir Phelim's at Lurgan on Nov. 15, is absolutely ojjposed 
 to that which had distinguished him on the 5th at Ballaghie, where 
 the articles of capitulation were scrupulously observed, and the 
 people were allowed to carry away all they possessed, with "trunks 
 full of plate and money." If Sir Phelim did shed blood on this 
 occasion, it must be after the massacre at Island Magee and in re- 
 taliation for that atrocious deed. But Colonel Henry O'NeiU's 
 silence about this occurrence at Lurgan, would induce any fair- 
 minded reader to suspend judgment about its truth. He speaks of 
 the deeds of revenge committed by "the Irish rabble," after the mas- 
 sacres enumerated above had been bruited abroad. 
 
 What, then, was this massacre of Island Magee, which some 
 writers assign as the immediate cause of the rising of October 23, 
 1661? The country folk, the poor oppressed and enslaved native 
 Catholics around Carrickfergus, in the first alarm and terror con- 
 sequent on the uprising, fled for safety into a peninsula on the coast 
 known as Island Magee. The Protestant refugees in Carrickfergus, 
 in revenge for the loss of their homes, united with the Scotch gar- 
 rison, and fell by night on the multitude assembled in the Peninsula, 
 and put them to the sword without discrimination of age or sex. 
 Carte, though himself uncertain as to the exact date of this slaughter, 
 says "it is confidently asserted, that the said massacre happened in 
 this month of November." 
 
 The Irish need no justification for rising against the tyranny of 
 the men who ruled the land from Dublin Castle; they would have 
 been less than men, if believing that Scotch and English Puritanism 
 was invading Ireland to blot out with the last Celt the last vestige of 
 Catholicism, they did not make a supreme effort to defend their 
 ruined altars, their hunted bishops and priests, their own threatened 
 lives and the lives of their dear ones. We must take the Proclama- 
 
292 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 tion issued on the very day of the rising, as the solemn expression of 
 the aims and spirit of the insurgents. 
 
 "These are to intimate and make known unto all persons whatso- 
 ever in and throughout the whole country, that the true intention 
 and meaning of us whose names are hereunto subscribed. . . . The 
 present assembling ... is no ways intended against our sovereign 
 Lord the King, nor the hurt of any of his subjects, either of the 
 English or Scottish nation; but only for the defence and liberty of 
 ourselves and the Irish natives of this kingdom. And we hereby 
 further expressly declare that whatever hurt hitherto hath been done 
 to any person or persons whatsoever shall be presently repaired. 
 And we will that every person forthwith, after proclamation hereof, 
 make their speedy repaire unto their own houses under pain of death, 
 and that no further hurt be done to any one under like pain." 
 
 "One work out of many written at the time in defence of the 
 Irish, and thus destroyed (by order of the Government), has survived. 
 It seems to be a reprint at Kilkenny, in December, 1642, of a work 
 published in London, in the form of a discourse between a Privy 
 Councillor of Ireland and one of the Council of England. The Privy 
 Councillor of Ireland treats of the causes of the Insurrection, taking 
 up Irish grievances from the Earl of Strafford's government in 1G33, 
 and touches towards the end upon the collection of outrages by the 
 seven despoiled ministers, called the Remonstrance, which was pub- 
 lished in the month of April, 1642. He does not confute the massa- 
 cre, only because none is charged. His complaint is that they have 
 given an exaggerated account of murders and outrages. — 'Doubtless 
 the Irish did, in many places,' he says, '' kill men resisting them in 
 their pillaging; but the report of their killing women, or men desir- 
 ing quarter, and such like inhumanities, were inventions to draw 
 contributions, and make the enemy odiou-s. But sure I am (he con- 
 tinues) that there was no such thing done while I w^as there in Ireland 
 about six months after these sturres began. And though unarmed 
 men, women, and children were killed in thousands by command of 
 the Lords Justices, the Irish sent multitudes of our people, both 
 
The '"''Popish Massacres" a Cimning Invention. 293 
 
 before and since these cruelties done, as Avell officers and soldiers as 
 women and children, carefully conveyed, to the seaports and other 
 places of safety; so let us call them lohat we will, — bloody inhuman 
 traitors, or barbaroics rebels, — we have suffered ourselves to be much 
 exceeded by them in charity, humanity, and honour.' To hear the 
 English complain of massacre is about as entertaining as it proved to 
 the Rhegians to hear the Carthaginians complain of anything elfected 
 by guile. For it was only Victory that decided, with her usual con- 
 tempt for justice, that the Irish, and not the English, should be 
 noted to the world for massacre."* 
 
 Tliese "Popish Massacres" are, therefore, an invention of Protes- 
 tant Irish and English writers. Sir John I'emple, whose work, pub- 
 lished in London, was written to fan the flames of national and relig- 
 ious hatred against the Irish Catholics, succeeded in his ignoble 
 purpose. The mischief he helped to do we care not now to estimate. 
 But he lived to blush for the evil notoriety his abominable falsehoods 
 had gained him. The booksellers of London, in 1674, finding that 
 the work was out of print and that its popularity was undiminished, 
 urged the author to issue another edition. He refused. Lord Es- 
 sex, who was at the time Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, writing to Mr. 
 Coventry, Secretary of State, on Jan. 6, 1674-5, thus mentions the 
 fact: "You mention a book that was newly published, concerning 
 the cruelties committed in Ireland, at the beginning of the late war. 
 Upon further inquiry I find Sir J. Temple, Master of the Eolls here, 
 author of that book, was this last year sent to by several stationers of 
 London, to have his consent to the printing thereof. But he assures 
 me that he utterly denied it; and whoever printed it, did it without 
 his knowledge. Thus much I thought fit to add to what I formerly 
 said upon this occasion, that I might do this gentleman right, in case 
 it was suspected he had any share in publishing this new edition."! 
 
 * Prendergast, " The Cromwellian Conquest," 70-71. The work here quoted 
 by Mr. Prendergast— himself a Protestant — is entitled: " A Discourse between two 
 Councillors of State, the one of England, and the other of Ireland." Kilkenny, 
 Dec. 10, 1612. Copy in MSS., Carte Papers, vol. iv.. No. 54. 
 
 t " Letters of Essex" (4to. London, 1770), p. 2. 
 
294 The Causa of Ireland. 
 
 What, then, could have been the purpose of this Conspiracy of 
 Falsehood and Perjury into which Sir John Temple entered Avith his 
 fellow-calumniators Buijton, Warwick, Kapin and Borlase, — without 
 mentioning the Historian Hume ? 
 
 To nurse to its full growth that ferocious and fanatical public 
 opinion, then prevailing in the Protestant Communit}" on both sides 
 of the Channel, and calling for the annihilation of the Celtic race 
 and the Catholic Eeligion in Ireland. This public opinion held up 
 as legitimate and meritorious a war of extermination against the 
 "Irish Papists." The pretended massacres, while exciting to the 
 highest pitch the hatred of race against race and of the followers of 
 one religion against those of another, — stimulated the characteristic 
 land-hunger of the Anglo-Saxon and the Xorman, by urging all who 
 had money to contribute it toward the war in Ireland, and holding 
 out the broad lands of the Irish Catholics as the result of the venture 
 and the prize to be won by the soldier. 
 
 The Lords Justices in Dublin Castle, as well as the men who pros- 
 tituted their pens and their conscience in the work of misrepresenta- 
 tion, were all laboring together to further that war of extermination, 
 which culminated in the massacres of Cromwell, the driving of the 
 Catholic-Irish into Connaught. 
 
 The insurrection for several months after October 23, 1641, was 
 confined to Ulster. It was the interest and the purposes of the men 
 who governed in Dublin to cause it to extend to every province and 
 county in Ireland. This is evident from the manner in which the 
 Lords Justices and their subordinates goaded to madness and per- 
 secuted the Catholics, whether of English or of Celtic stock, in those 
 provinces to wliicli the insurrection had not spread. 
 
 In Munster, which remained perfectly tranquil while the ^orth 
 resounded with the clash of arms. Lord Muskery, a Catholic, offered 
 to raise and equip at his own expense one thousand men. This offer 
 was rejected by the Lords Justices. About the middle of December 
 some bands of idle vagabonds from various parts of Tipperary began 
 to pillage and ransom the rich proprietors; among the sufferers was a 
 
Si. Lege?' spreads the Insurrection in Munster. 295 
 
 brother-in-law of Sir William St. Leger, the Lord President of Mun- 
 ster. Thereupon the latter, under pretence of following up the 
 marauders and recovering the cattle they had driven off, scoured the 
 country with a body of horse, killing, hanging and burning, without 
 stopping to inquire who were the innocent and which the guilty. 
 The chief nobles and gentlemen of the country waited upon St. Leger 
 and remonstrated with him on this wanton and indiscriminate 
 cruelty. The people, they said, were exasperated, and were assem- 
 bling tumultuously. To secure the peace they — the nobles and 
 gentlemen — requested to be actively employed in maintaining order. 
 
 "The President" — says Carte — ". . . in a hasty and furious man- 
 ner answered then, ' that they were all rebels; and he would not 
 trust one soul of them; but thought it more prudent to hang the best 
 of them.' And in this extraordinary passion he continued all the 
 while these and other persons of quality, their neighbors, were wait- 
 ing upon him. This made them all withdraw ajid return to their 
 houses, much resenting this rudeness and severity, as well as very un- 
 certain about their own safety; some of them imagining that this 
 distrusting of their loyalty and destroying of their reputations was 
 only the preface to a design of taking away their lives. 
 
 "From Clonmell, Sir W. St. Leger marched into the county of 
 Waterford, and his soldiers on the way, as they went and returned 
 from the rout of the Wexford rebels, killed several harmless poor 
 people, not at all concerned in the rebellion, or in the plunder of the 
 country; which also incensed the gentlemen of that county." * 
 
 All this, as the reader already foresees, is only the carrying out of 
 the design conceived by the Lords Justices, communicated to such 
 willing subordinates as St. Leger, and by them accepted and acted 
 upon. 
 
 It is better, however, in order to establish the fact of this nefarious 
 plot beyond all doubt, to give at once our proofs. 
 
 In Wright's one-sided history, where the "massacres" perpetrated 
 
 * Ccarte, vol. i., p. 261. 
 
296 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 by the Ulster insurgents are set forth in order to excite the wrath of 
 the Enghsh public, — we still find the author forced to confess that 
 the Lords Justices Parsons and Borlase acted, all through these days 
 of terror and alarm, consistently with their cherished purpose of pro- 
 voking a general insurrection, and of inducing the English Parlia- 
 ment and nation to make of its suppression a war of extermination. 
 
 Their first step was to usurp all the executive and legislative jiow- 
 ers, so as to have no check in carrying out their contemplated meas- 
 ures. The Irish Parliament stood prorogued till the beginning of 
 November; they prorogued it still further till the following February. 
 The Courts of Law were adjourned; that of Exchequer alone being 
 kept open to receive and collect the royal revenues. The Catholics 
 of the Pale who had little, if any, sympathy with the northern insur- 
 gents, offered their services to the Privy Council, and asked for arms. 
 This embarrassed the Government. "For the Lords Justices were 
 actuated by a puritanical hatred of Papists. . . . They delivered out 
 a small quantity of arms and ammunition to those who were more 
 exposed to danger, with the determination not to arm the Pale effect- 
 uall}^ until they were driven to it by absolute necessity." 
 
 The alarm and confusion in the capital, though very deeply felt 
 by the mass of the citizens, were not, assuredly, shared in by the 
 Government. All their movements were those of men who were 
 playing a part. They had laid the train, and fired the fuse, and 
 could not be astonished by the explosion. Two regiments were lev- 
 ied among the fugitives who came crowding into Dublin; one of them 
 was sent to Drogheda under Sir Henry Tichborne, the other was 
 placed under the command of Sir Charles Coote. "And these troops, 
 as might easily be expected from the materials of which they were 
 composed, were but too ready Avhen the occasion offered, to revenge 
 their own sufferings by savage reprisals upon their enemies," Thus 
 Mr. Wright. 
 
 On the 25tli of October, two days after the first outbreak in the 
 North, the Lords Justices sent the informer Owen O'Connolly, with 
 a letter to Lord Leicester, the Lord Lieutenant in London, de- 
 
Eiiglaml to ^'' Cuajuar''' Ireland over again. 297 
 
 manding ii lai'ge subsidy from the English Parliament and a pension 
 for the informer, who had well acted his part in the farce of "dis- 
 covering" a Plot, which Parsons and Borlase had so sedulously 
 hatched from the beginning. 
 
 Parliament acceded to both demands, and decreed "that the Eng- 
 lish Papists of any quality should be secured in the counties in which 
 they were residing, and that no person except merchants should be 
 allowed to pass over into Ireland without a certificate from the Com- 
 mittee of both Houses of Parliament, which was appointed at the 
 same time for the exclusive consideration of Irish affairs." To this 
 Joint Committee, from tiiis moment forward, belongs in fact all the 
 sovereign powers of the Executive in dealing with Ireland. Parsons 
 and Borlase will use it as an instrument for their own purpose, while 
 seemingly only executing its decrees. 
 
 Every possible means is taken to raise to the highest i^itch in Eng- 
 land and Scotland the terror and fierce anger caused by the first news 
 of the "massacres" in Ireland. Steps were taken to have 2,000 Scots 
 sent directly from their own country to the aid of their countrymen 
 in Ulster, though these, as we have seen, had suffered no molestation 
 from the insurgents. In England, it was resolved to raise for the 
 same purpose a force of G,000 foot and 2,000 horse. 
 
 Meanwhile Parsons and Borlase remained inactive, allowing the 
 tidings sent to England, like fire set to o, prairie in midsummer, to 
 spread all through the land. In Ireland the Earl of Ormonde, who 
 commanded the army, was impatient to march against the insurgents; 
 but was prevented from doing so by the Lords Justices. "The 
 timidity of the Governors gave rise to a variety of rumors; some 
 attributing it to a want of courage; others to jealousy of the Earl of 
 Ormonde; and others, who look further into the causes of things, 
 acrupled not to say that tJie Lords Justices were unwilling to put a 
 speedy end to the insurrection, but that they were desirous of urging 
 the great Catholic families into it, with a view to new and extensive 
 confiscations The first intelligence of the proceedings in Eng- 
 land, and of the preparations for sending over an English army, was 
 
298 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 received with the utmost exultation, and decided the Lords Justices 
 in exhibiting more openly their hatred to the Catholics in general. 
 They no longer concealed their suspicions of the loyalty of the Cath- 
 olics of the Pale, and they recalled those arms which they had in- 
 trusted to them, thus leaving them Avithout means of defence. This 
 step was followed by several other unpopular or unwise measures. 
 
 "A new proclamation appeared, commanding all persons, except 
 the ordinary inhabitants of the Capital, to leave it wdthin twenty-four 
 hours, under pain of death. The pretext for this measure was, that 
 the landholders and tenantry of the Pale, by flying to the Capital, 
 left their lands without defence; but its effect, luliicli could hardly 
 have been unforeseen, was to compel them to seek that protection 
 which was denied them in Dublin, by joining in the rebellion. 
 
 "The Irish Government suppressed or rendered ineffective by 
 their exceptions and qualifications, the order of the English Parlia- 
 ment to offer a general pardon to such of the rebels as would submit 
 within a given time, a measure Avhicli could hardly have failed at 
 that moment to produce the most beneficial effect; and their object 
 in the suppression could hardly be doubted, when it was observed 
 that in the few counties least affected by the rebellion, where the 
 pardon w^as offered, it was combined 2vith a general exce]3tion of the 
 freeholders.^'' * 
 
 The historian, after describing the assembling of the Irish 
 Chambers for the 17th of November, — a single day session, at first, 
 and then lengthened by a second day, — says that two memorials were 
 sent to England: one to the King, asking for a confirmation of "the 
 graces," and the appointment of Ormonde to the lord-lieutenancy; the 
 other from the Lords Justices to the Earl of Leicester, representing 
 to him and the English Privy Council, that the demands made of the 
 King were only to "benefit the Irish at the expense of England." 
 They said his (i. e.. Lord Dillon, bearer of the memorial to the King) 
 object was to possess the King Avitli the belief that Ireland might be 
 
 * Wright's "Hist, of Ireland," under year 1641, vol. i. 
 
Why they were glad of the ReheUion in England. 29J 
 
 reduced to obedience by its own resources; whereas if the Parliament 
 would enter vigorously upon the work of conquest with an English 
 army and English money, it would soon repay itself with immense 
 advantage by the extensive forfeiture of the estates of Irish Catho- 
 lics. This bait took with the House of Commons. When Lord 
 Dillon had embarked with Lord Taafe to carry the memorial to the 
 King, a sudden storm drove them from their direct course; and when 
 at length they proceeded on their way to London, on reaching Ware 
 they were seized by a warrant of the House of Commons, their papers 
 were taken and suppressed, and they were retained in custody until 
 their mission was of no importance, and then they were suffered to 
 escape." * 
 
 We quote this writer because his evident partiality will only per- 
 mit him to say against the English side what no ingenuity can enable 
 him to suppress or to disguise. 
 
 It is forever placed on record, therefore, as unquestionable histor- 
 ical truth, that the Irish Government, controlled by Parsons and 
 Borlase, not only did not suppress the insurrection which they had 
 provoked, but laljored to spread it; that they withheld or mutilated 
 the proclamation of pardon issued by the English Parliament; and 
 entered into a conspiracy with that Parliament, "to conquer Ireland 
 with an English army supported by English money; and that the 
 object held out to Parliament and People was the extensive forfeiture 
 of the estates of Irish Catholics." 
 
 In the Journals of the House of Commons is recorded collateral 
 evidence, which should be read to convince one's self of the condition 
 of the public mind of England in relation to this conquest. Let the 
 most incredulous read the following and then judge for himself. 
 
 " February 1, 1641-2. 
 ''^Proposition made by divers gentlemen, citizens, and others, for the 
 speedy and effectual reducing of the Kingdom of Ireland. 
 " 1st. They do compute that less than a million of money will not 
 perfect that work. 
 
 * " Hist, of Ireland," i., p. 697. 
 
tJOO The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 "2d. Tliey do conceive, that the work being finished) tliere will 
 be in that Kingdom, of confiscated lands, such as go under the name 
 of profitable lands, ten millions of acres, English measure. 
 
 "3d. That two millions and a half of those acres, to be equally 
 taken out of the four provinces, will sufficiently satisfy those that 
 shall advance the million of money. 
 
 "4th. That the two millions and a half of acres may be divided 
 amongst them after this proportion, viz. : 
 
 For each adventure of £200, a thousand acres in Ulster. 
 
 " " £300, " " Connaught. 
 
 " " £450, " " Munster. 
 
 " " £600, " " Leinster. 
 
 "All English measure, consisting of meadow, arable and profitable 
 pasture: the bogs, woods, and barren mountains being cast in, over 
 and above. 
 
 "These two millions and a half of acres to be liolden in free and 
 common socage of the King, as of his Castle of Dublin. 
 
 "5th. That out of these two millions and a half of acres, a con- 
 stant rent shall be reserved to the Crown of England, after this 
 proportion, viz.: 
 
 " Out of each acre thereof in 
 
 Ulster Id. 
 
 Connaught 2^c7, 
 
 Munster 2|f/. 
 
 Leinster 3f?. 
 
 "Whereby his Majesty's revenue, out of these lands, will be much 
 improved, besides the advantage that he will have, by the coming to 
 his hands of all other the lands of the rebels and their personal 
 estates, without any charge to his Majesty." * 
 
 As we have seen from the narrative of the historian Wright, the 
 English Parliament was but too ready to accept such "propositions." 
 An act was passed without delay, declaring that "Whereas, divers 
 worthy and well affected persons, perceiving that many millions of 
 acres of the rebels' lands of that kingdom (Ireland), which go under 
 
 * '< 
 
 Journals of the House of Commons of England," ii., 435. 
 
Result of this Macchiavellian Policy. 301 
 
 the name of profitable lands, will be confiscate and to be disposed of, 
 and that in that case two millions and a half of those acres, to be 
 equally taken out of the four provinces of that kingdom, may be 
 allotted for the satisfaction of snch persons as shall disburse any 
 sums of money for the reducing of the rebels there, which would 
 effectually accomplish the same, have made these propositions en- 
 suing, &c."* 
 
 Leland records the same fact; and with his acknowledgment we 
 close this particular argument. 
 
 "The Commons of England had very early petitioned that the 
 King would not alienate any of the esclieated lands, that might 
 accrue to the Crown from the rebellion in Ireland: and they had 
 lately proceeded in a scheme for raising money from the lands thus 
 expected to escheat, A bill was framed for repaying those who 
 should advance certain sums, for repressing of the rebels, (as was 
 pretended) by vesting them with proportional estates in Ireland. It 
 evidently tended to exasperate the malcontents, and to make all 
 accommodation desperate; but it was not on this account less accept- 
 able to the popular leaders." f 
 
 By this Macchiavellian policy the entire Catholic population of 
 Ireland was driven into insurrection; rebellion we cannot, must not 
 call it, knowing that the King encoiiraged the rising, though he 
 dared not openly give it his approbation. Nay, when the conflict 
 with the Long Pai'liament was about to enter on its last stage, Charles 
 was only prevented from crossing over to Ireland and placing himself 
 at the head of the Catholic forces, by the threat of the Commons that 
 they would consider his departure to be an abdication of the throne. 
 They were but too well aware that the King's only hope, in his then 
 desperate strait, was to use O'Neill's army as his own. The rebels, — 
 in the real legal sense of the term, — were the Irish Government in 
 Dublin Castle and the Parliament that sat in Westminster, with the 
 
 *Rusbworth, "Historical Collection of Private Passages of State," vol. iv,, 
 p. 556. 
 
 t " Hist, of Ireland," iii., 186. 
 
303 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 armed bands of English and Scotch Puritans then leagued against 
 the royal authority. 
 
 Why should we deem it necessary to relate here the steps by which 
 Parsons and Borlase forced the Catholics of the Pale, and with them 
 the Anglo-Irish Catholics throughout the other provinces, to unite 
 with the insurgents? Or why should we relate the horrible cruelties 
 committed in Dublin and the adjoining counties by Sir Charles Coote, 
 and the men who disgraced the sacred names of religion, humanity 
 and civilization by excesses worthy of the most ferocious savages of 
 Africa, or Xortli America ? 
 
 The two Irish Chambers, from which all Catholics had been ex- 
 pelled, acted entirely under the direction of the Lords Justices and 
 the Privy Council. "A declaration was drawn up by them in an 
 address to the King and Parliament of England, praying that a pres- 
 ent course might be taken for executing the penal laws in force in 
 Ireland against all the Papists in that Kingdom, and particularly in 
 the City of Dublin; that bills might be transmitted into England in 
 order to make all the laws there against the Popish clergy and their 
 relievers to be enacted in Ireland : and that it might not be in the 
 power of any governor of that Kingdom, to suspend, inhibit, or con- 
 nive at, the exemption from such laws, or any of them. If it was the 
 design of the Council that the rebellion should be thought a war of 
 religion, and a total extirpation of all Catholics and of Popery was 
 the scheme proposed, then nothing was more to the purpose than 
 this declaration. But it was a measure of which all wise and good 
 men dreaded the consequence."'* 
 
 Then the pamphleteering crusade undertaken in England against 
 the Irish Papists, as well as the fierce homilies and harangues de- 
 livered for months from Puritan pulpits, — all tended to impress the 
 excited imaginations of the English public with the firm belief that 
 Ireland was another land of Canaan, and that to exterminate wholly 
 and without pity the entire Catholic population, was a work as pleas- 
 
 * Warner, p. 212. 
 
Tlie Holy War for Irish Nationality. 303 
 
 ing to God as the slaughter of the Canaauites in the days of Moses 
 and Joshua. 
 
 Tliis is also an historrcal fact. 
 
 In Ireland, once the ISTobility and Gentry of the Pale were driven 
 into the insurgent ranks, they hastened in Dublin and elsewhere to 
 indict by name all landed proprietors, so that the taint of treason 
 should at once entail the forfeiture of their estates. Their lives, 
 after that, were also forfeited. Carte tells us, that "above a thou- 
 sand such indictments had been found by one Grand Jury in the 
 space of two days." Of 3,000 persons indicted on the same grounds, 
 "2,000 were persecuted to outlawry by Sir Philip Percival, clerk of 
 the Crown," and their estates were confiscated. They were cited to 
 appear, when to appear was certain death ; and, not appearing, they 
 were outlawed! 
 
 Thus in Dublin. In Munster the Earl of Cork, with the assist- 
 ance of Lords Barrymore, Dungarvan, and Broghill, found juries to 
 bring in similar bills of indictment against 1,100 persons, all of whom 
 were outlawed. 
 
 These are only specimens of the way in which Law was adminis- 
 tered in Ireland by the men who professed only to aim at civilizing, 
 refining, and elevating the natives. 
 
 But the war itself? It attracted the attention and won the 
 sympathy of Christendom. The accession of the Lords and Gentle- 
 men of the Pale, and of their compeers in Munster and Connauglit, 
 to the forces under Phelim O'Neill, came too late to ensure the suc- 
 cess and the prestige which a first course of unsullied victories would 
 have gained. They came too late: and they did not bring their 
 heart to the work of war. And because they did not go heart and 
 soul into it, they proved to be an element of confusion, of strife, of 
 division, of weakness. 
 
 Utterly unprepared and unprovided as were the bands of half- 
 armed or wholly unarmed Gallowgiass and Kerne who rallied round 
 the standards of O'Neill, O'Donnell, Maguire, and O'Eeilly, — they 
 gave to the cause their whole heart and soul and strength; all the 
 
304 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 lofty devotion inspired by a love of religion persecuted and down- 
 trodden, all the fiery enthusiasm of the Celtic nature fired by the love 
 of country and the memory of such wrongs as a people had not en- 
 dured since the days of Egyptian bondage and oppression. The Celtic 
 tribal or clannish organization, though shattered to fragments by the 
 preceding wars, the proscription and annihilation of the ancient 
 chieftaincies, and the breaking up of all the old ties of village, district, 
 and provincial communities by the plantations of Strafford, James and 
 Elizabeth, — was still a great force of aggregation at the beginning of 
 this new struggle for Nationality and Religion. It drew Creaghts, 
 and Kerne, and Gallowglass from every part of Ireland around the 
 representatives of the ancient and honored chiefs. But this very at- 
 tachment to the heir of each one of the great Celtic names, turned 
 out, when there was need of unity of command, and U7idivided 
 counsels, to be the source of their greatest weakness and disorgan- 
 ization. The members of each clan would fight only under their 
 traditional chief. Transcendent military genius and the ripest expe- 
 rience in strategy, counted for nothing when their professor did not 
 bear the magic name of Maguire, or O'Donnell, or O'Neill. It was 
 a bitter humiliation for the Celtic soldiers to march under the com- 
 mand of an Irish Catholic Noble, no matter what his rank or his 
 abilit}^, when he was only of the Sassmach blood. 
 
 A common religion and the love of a common country formed the 
 unitive forces which drew the men of both races together in arms 
 against the common foe of all that they held dearest and most sacred. 
 The attachment to the ancient Celtic chiefs acted like opposite elec- 
 tricities in repelling from each other elements, which, if united 
 firmly, must, by the very weight of numbers, have borne down in the 
 beginning all opposition; and, as the war advanced, and experience 
 gave discipline, and success self-reliance, they would, from mutual 
 contact, have learned mutual esteem and trust. 
 
 But in this paragraph we have foreshadowed the issue of this 
 noble, this heroic struggle, and accounted for its failure. 
 
 We must not pass it by, however, without recording the true 
 
Protestant Testimony to bloodlessness of tlie Insurrection. 305 
 
 Christian principles of brotherly love and humanity which mark the 
 public declarations of the Confederated Catholics^ as well as the 
 conduct of officers and soldiers toward the enemy, armed and un- 
 armed. 
 
 We have seen above the proclamation issued by Phelim O'Neill at 
 the very first moment of the insurrection. The Eemonstrance 
 addressed by the Insurgents of the County Cavan to the Lords Jus- 
 tices and Council in Dublin, is that of men, who, though sorely 
 aggrieved, despoiled, oppressed, and refused the privileges of citizen- 
 ship, and the protection of the laws, — yet have refrained from blood- 
 shed while rising to vindicate their national rights. They do not 
 deny that, in the first insurrectionary movement, disorders and 
 regrettable acts of violence have been committed. These are inevita- 
 ble where any long-suffering people rise to shake off the yoke of civil 
 or religious oppression. "As for the mischiefs and inconveniences," 
 they say, "tliat have already happened through the disorder of the 
 common sort of people against the English inhabitants, or any other 
 person, we, with the noblemen and gentlemen of this and each other 
 several county of this Kingdom, are most willing and ready to use our 
 and their best endeavors in causing restitution and satisfaction to be 
 made, as in part we have already done." And they press the Gov- 
 ernment to return a speedy and favorable answer to their demands, 
 "for avoiding the continuance of the barbarity and uncivility of the 
 Commonalty, who have committed many outrages and insolencies 
 Avithout any order, consent, or privity of ours." 
 
 Dr. Henry Jones, who bore this Remonstrance to Dublin, and who 
 has left us a detailed account of all that happened in Cavan during 
 the first year of the war, — gives to all the actions and motives of the 
 O'Reillys and their followers as unfavorable a coloring as he can, but 
 has, nevertheless, no deed of blood to register against them. They, 
 a despoiled, disinherited, and disfranchised people, rise in arms to 
 defend their lives and the wretched and precarious homes left to 
 them by the Plantations of James and Elizabeth, — against the threat- 
 ened extirpation of their race and religion by the Parliamentarians. 
 20 
 
306 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 How have the popular masses been treated by the Planters, and by 
 their civil and military rulers for the last half century, not in Cavan 
 only, but all through the North ? We have only to recall Thomas 
 Blennerhassett's "hunting parties" to have a conception of the 
 lessons of hnmanit}^, Justice, and civilization the O'Eeillys and Ma- 
 guires with their people have been taught. That Creaght, and 
 Kerne, and Gallowglass, when they rose to recover their own, had no 
 grateful memories and showed no tender feelings of commiseration to 
 these Planters, who had run them down and slaughtered them, as 
 they did the wolf, — was surely not unnatural. And yet there was 
 neither massacre, nor bloodshed, nor brutal violence in the proceed- 
 ings of these " rebels " during these weeks, which have been repre- 
 sented as weeks of indiscriminate slaughter, when "blood ran in rivers 
 all over the land." The "1,500 souls — men, women and children," 
 who set forth together under escort for the Pale, were set upon, 
 in leaving Belturbet, by the lawless crowd, eager for plunder, and 
 stripped of all they possessed. In spite of the insinuations of Dr. 
 Jones, there is nothing to connect the insurgent chiefs or their sol- 
 diers with this outrage. "Was it wonderful, if the murderous exploits 
 of Sir Charles Coote and Sir William St. Leger had already reached 
 Cavan, and inflamed to fury the popular mind ? Yet, even the men 
 who plundered the fugitives, abstained from further violence. "Some 
 were killed," says Dr. Jones. Of course the men thus set upon re- 
 sisted, and murderous weapons were used. But the "some" would 
 not have failed to be "many," had any but the merest "few" perished 
 in the mclce. As to outrages of another nature, they are not so much 
 as hinted at by tlie narrator, from his first page to his last. If we 
 place the manifold causes of resentment and revenge by the side of 
 what occurred at Belturbet, we shall pause before we accuse a whole 
 people of inhumanity for the acts of a rabble every one of whom was 
 still smarting under the memory of some wrong. But where can we 
 find 1,500 unarmed and defenceless men, women and children of the 
 odious race and creed of the Insurgents, and ]3laced at the mercy, — 
 I do not say of an English rabble, — but of the soldiery of Sir Charles 
 
Protestant Blsliojjs and Clergymen protected in C'avan. 307 
 
 Coote, or Sir William St. Leger, or Lord Forbes, or even the Earl of 
 Ormonde,. — who would have suffered as little from the brutal 
 and ferocious passions let loose and encouraged by these com- 
 manders ? 
 
 It is one feature of this last desperate struggle of the Irish for all 
 that they held most dear, — that the honor of woman was safe wher- 
 ever their standard waved. Can their enemies make such boast as 
 this? . . . But we abstain. 
 
 The author of the "Cromwellian Conquest," who refers to origi- 
 nal documents for every one of his statements, and gives them 
 generally in the very words of the original, thus speaks of the insur- 
 rection in Cavan : 
 
 "In the county Cavan there were no murders. Bishop Bedel 
 of Kilmore remained in his palace unharmed, his flocks untouched, 
 surrounded by crowds of English that had fled thither as to a Y>ost of 
 safety, and lay in his barns and stables, and even on the hay in the 
 churchyard. Thither fled the Bishop of Elphin and a train of Ros- 
 common exiles, and there he enjoyed such a heaven upon earth for 
 three weeks, that he would willingly have endured another Irish 
 stripping to enjoy again >such holy converse. For the Irish never 
 hindered these two Bishops and their poor flocks from using their 
 religious exercises, though their 02vn was made a crime; and seven 
 priests, reprieved hy the King, were hanged at this time, at the angry 
 demand of the House of Commons, simply for saying Mass. In 
 November, an Irish priest arrived at Bishop Bedel's, to conduct them 
 to Dublin. The Bishop of Elphin and the rest departed, leaving 
 Bedel and his family behind, who, with holy courage, resolved to 
 stay. Bedel died there in February, 164:3, and the Irish paid liim 
 honor by firing over his grave. His family continued there unmo- 
 lested till 15th June, 1642, when they joined a party of 1,340 English, 
 that by treaty with the Irish were escorted safely to Sir Henry Tich- 
 borne's garrison at Drogheda. Of the Bishop of Elphin's company 
 not one miscarried, nor was a thread of the garments that Bedel gave 
 the stript English touched by the rebels on their way, which the 
 
308 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 Bishop attributed to Bedel's parting blessing,* not to the fidelity and 
 care of their gnide, or the humanity of the people." f 
 
 The very first act of the assembled Confederates at Kilkenny, in 
 May, 1642, was to draw up a solemn declaration of their rights, and 
 of the rules to be followed by all under their authority. 
 
 "We declare" — they say — "that war openly Catholic to be lawful 
 and just; in which war if some of the Catholics be found to proceed 
 out of some particular and unjust title — covetousness, cruelty, re- 
 venge or hatred, or any such unlawful private intentions, — we 
 declare them therein grievously to sin, and therefore worthy to be 
 punished and refrained by ecclesiastical censures (if advised thereof) 
 they do not amend. 
 
 "We straightly command all our inferiors, as well churchmen as 
 laymen, to make no distinction at all between the old and ancient 
 Irish, and no ... . comparison or differences between provinces, 
 cities, towns, or families. . . . 
 
 "The ordinaries of every place, the preachers, confessors, parish- 
 priests, and other churchmen shall endeavor to see perfect peace and 
 charity between provinces, counties, cities, and families, as the obli- 
 gation of this Union require th. 
 
 "We ordain and decree that all and every such as from the 
 beginning of this present war have invaded the possessions of goods 
 as well movable as immovable .... of any Irish Protestant being not 
 adversary of this cause, and do detain any such goods shall be excom- 
 municated, as by this present decree we do excommunicate them. . . 
 And we declare involved in this censure all and every of them who 
 directly or indirectly hinder or forbid to pay their due rents. . . . 
 
 "We will and declare all tliose that murder, dismember, or griev- 
 ously strike; — all thieves, unlawful spoilers, robbers of any goods, 
 extorters, together with all such as favor, receive, or any ways assist 
 
 * " Letter of John Bishop of Elpliin to Ormonde," dated 4th May, 1682 {Carte 
 Papers, vol. 39; Endorsed by Ormonde), 
 t " Cromwellian Conquest," pp. 62, 63. 
 
Owen O'Neill's Principles. 309 
 
 them, to be excommunicated, and so to remain until they completely 
 amend and satisfy. ..." 
 
 As to the military code imposed upon the army itself, nothing 
 could be more admirable, better adapted to enforce discipline, and to 
 prevent effectually all acts of violence or outrage on the peaceful 
 populations. 
 
 The cruelties imputed to Sir Phelim O'Neill and his command at 
 the opening of the war, have never been satisfactorily proven; and 
 until peremptory proof is given of them, we are bound to believe in 
 the sincerity of his proclamations and other public utterances. It ill 
 becomes men who palliate or excuse or even approve the horrible 
 cruelties of the Parliamentary Generals and soldiery to do violence to 
 ambiguous or uncertain allegations in order to convict of savage 
 cruelty a man who must have prevented bloodshed and outrage 
 wherever he could. 
 
 As to Phelim's great kinsman, Owen O'Neill, all his recorded 
 words and acts prove the nobleness, gentleness, and purity of pur- 
 pose, which were the ground-work of his character. "My coming to 
 this kingdom," he writes to Ormonde, "was not to disturb it, but to 
 help to give it such peace as would be for the honor and satisfaction 
 of his Majesty and the nation; and no man living can say that I have 
 done anything contrary to this resolution since my coming. ... I 
 shall take such course wherein no wrong shall be done or violence 
 offered by those that receive my command in any of their quarters, 
 and if any be done, I shall do what lies in me to see it redressed, as 
 far as my power may extend." 
 
 In a letter to Lord Muskerry is a solemn statement of the great 
 soldier's principles. "I do protest, swear, and vow before Almighty 
 God, that I never harbored the least thought of ambition in anything 
 yet, but that which I assuredly thought and imagined to redound to 
 the freedom, preservation, and liberty of my King, country, religion, 
 and nation; and that during the remainder of my days no private 
 interest of my own, neither love, hatred, inducement, nor suggestion 
 of any will persuade me to the contrary." 
 
310 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 Next to this illustrious soldier, consistent with himself to the last, 
 was the head of the Irish hierarchy, the Archbishop of Armagh, 
 Hugh O'Reilly. He was, all through this war and the terrible years 
 which followed, the soul and guide of the national party. "For- 
 bearing all notice of the cruelties and bitter oppression which more 
 immediately instigated the insurrection of 1641 (we quote the words 
 of C. P. Meehan), we have only to state, that Archbishop O'Reilly, 
 like the other members of the Irish hierarchy, did his utmost to 
 restrain the violence of the people, who would have wreaked ven- 
 geance on their persecutors, had they been left to their own wild 
 instincts, at that momentous crisis. With Sir Plielim O'Xeill and 
 Magennis, Lord Iveagli, he employed his great influence, urging 
 them to keep the armed multitudes in clieck, and to prevent, so far 
 as in them lay, the massacre and pillage of Protestants. Such sal- 
 utary restraint, enforced by the exhortation of the primate, produced 
 the most happy results; for the northern chieftains, and the rude 
 array they commanded at the first outbreak, respected him too much 
 to violate the lessons of forbearance and charity which he per- 
 
 severingly inculcated Borlase, Temple, and others have 
 
 utterly ignored his interference on behalf of the Protestant colonists, 
 who were then wholly at the mercy of the insurgents; but we have 
 only to repeat that the exaggerations of those writers would wear 
 some show of truth, if O'Reilly had not interposed his high authority 
 to curb the fierce impulses of men grown desperate by reason of the 
 flagrant injustice with which they had been treated by the canting 
 knaves and bigots who then misgoverned Ireland."* 
 
 Hugh O'Reilly conceived — as the same author informs us — the 
 idea of giving to the national movement, once it had received the 
 support of the Catholics of the Pale, the regular organization it 
 assumed at Kilkenny, in May, 1642. "Devoting all his energies to 
 this grand object, O'Reilly convened a provincial s}mod at Kells early 
 in March, 1642, when the bishops declared that the war undertaken 
 
 * " Irish Hierarchy in the Seventeenth Century," pp. 163-4. 
 
Division and Strife in the Episcopal body. 311 
 
 by the Irish people, for their king, religion, and country, was just 
 and lawful. In the May following, he caused a national synod, com- 
 posed of prelates and lay lords, to meet at Kilkenny, where, after 
 having ratified their former declaration, they framed an oath of asso- 
 ciation, to be taken by all their adherents, binding them to maintain 
 the fundamental laws of Ireland, the free exercise of religion, and 
 true allegiance to Charles I. Both synods were attended by the 
 entire of the Irish hierarchy, either in person or by proxy, with the 
 exception of Thomas Dease, bishop of Meath. ..." 
 
 Happy had it been for the cause in which their all and the all of 
 Ireland were involved, had the Bishop of Meath, and all men of posi- 
 tion and influence like him, heartily supported from the beginning 
 the insurgent commanders. Unity, unanimity, determination, and 
 concentration of their strength in one direction at a time, would have 
 made Phelim O'Xeill and his confederates masters of every city and 
 stronghold in Ireland, long before Owen O'Neill had left Flanders. 
 "When there was division and strife in the episcopal body as well as 
 among the inferior clergy, how should there not be dissension among 
 the nobility, gentry, and the people themselves ? Everything in face 
 of a powerful enemy, who never knew what it was to renounce a 
 cherished purpose, or to loosen their hold on power or property 
 once in their possession, — depended on union of minds, and unity of 
 action. The single material weight of overwhelming numbers should 
 have driven every Englishman out of Ireland from October 23, 1641, 
 to January 1, 1642. 
 
 And then, when the inevitable struggle came with Cromwell, 
 backed by the whole might and fanaticism of England, — the contest 
 would not have been so unequal. Cruel, unscrupulous, unsparing as 
 were both this General and his soldiers, — there never could have 
 been a massacre of Drogheda, had there been a united Ireland, a 
 whole nation in arms defending their altars, their homes, their coun- 
 try, and their liberties. 
 
 The Irish Catholics were sincerely and conscientiously devoted to 
 the Stuart Kings. Much as they had suffered from the greed, the 
 
312 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 hypocrisy, the treacliery of both Charles and his father, the Irish 
 Catholic heart remained faithful to the King in his misfortune, and 
 the Irish Catholic conscience never wavered in its allegiance to the 
 ungrateful princes, with whom self was paramount to every other 
 consideration. 
 
 One of the chief causes of division, defeat, disaster, and final 
 destruction to the Confederates and the Catholic cause, was the pres- 
 ence in Ireland of Ormonde, — General-in-Chief of the royal forces at 
 first, afterwards Lord-Lieutenant; a man who hated the Irish and the 
 Catholic religion, whose whole aim was to break up the Confederacy, 
 though in ruining it he also ruined the last hopes of his royal master. 
 And scarcely less baneful to the national cause was the presence in 
 the Confederate Councils and army of the Anglo-Irish Catholics, the 
 Lords and Gentry of the Pale, to whom Dease, Bishop of Meath, 
 belonged, and whose whole force always leaned towards Ormonde and 
 compromise with the English. An impossible compromise and con- 
 ciliation, as we know too well, and as they must have known, from 
 the actions and proclamations of the Lords Justices, of the entire 
 Parliamentary Party in England as well as in Ireland. 
 
 There have never been worse enemies of Ireland than men born 
 on her own soil, whose affections and interests were in England. 
 
PART FOURTH. 
 
 CROMWELL. 
 
 No age wa.s spared, no .sex, uay — no degree; 
 
 Not infants in the porch of life were free. 
 
 The sick, the old, who could but hope a day 
 
 Longer by Nature's bounty, not let stay: 
 
 Virgins and widows, matrons, pregnant wives. 
 
 All died. 'Twas crime enough that they had lives, 
 
 — Ben Jonson. 
 
 XN the preceding chapters we have seen the methods recommended 
 by Edmund Spenser to the Earl of Essex, for " settlmg" Ulster and 
 Connaught as Lord Grey de Wilton and Sir George Carew had set- 
 tled Munster. These commanders, aided by such ruthless sub- 
 ordinates as Spenser himself, Walter Raleigh, and Walter's half- 
 brother, Humphrey Gilbert, had so heartily plied sword, halter, and 
 fire-brand, all through the fair lands of the south, that "from Dun- 
 quin in Kerry to Cashel in Tipperary, there was not heard the low- 
 ing of a cow or the voice of a herdsman." One might think that the 
 "gentle" poet who penned the "Faery Queene" felt his heart touched 
 with pity and remorse as he described the wide-spread desolation he 
 had himself helped to make, the fearful massacres that had covered 
 the land with nnburied corpses, and the irremediable misery which 
 was the lot of the few remaining sufferers. "In one year and a half" 
 — he says — "they were brought to such wretchedness as any stony 
 heart would have rued the sight. Out of every corner of the woods 
 and glynns they came forth on their hands — for their legs could not 
 
 (313) 
 
314 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 bear them; — they looked hke anatomies of deatli, and spoke like 
 ghosts crying out of the grave; they flocked to a plot of water-cresses 
 as to a feast, .... and soon after scraped the very carcasses out of 
 the graves." 
 
 One sliould think that were criminals punished in the life to 
 come, as Dante's immortal verse paints them, that Spenser and his 
 fellow "desolators" must be seen everlastingly amid a frightful 
 wilderness covered with unburied dead, and hunger-mad wretches 
 sating their appetite on their remains; — watching there everlastingly, 
 maddened by a hunger fiercer a hundred-fold, seeking to share in the 
 horrid feast, and driven back from the carrion by yonder crowd; 
 seeking to appease the thirst which fires their brain in yonder pool 
 of blood, and repelled from it by the ever-reflected images of their 
 victims. 
 
 Edmund Spenser's "stony heart" rued not on earth the deso- 
 lation, the massacres, and the woe unfathomable of which he and his 
 fellows were the authors. He only draws this terrible picture to 
 show both Irish Lord-Lieutenants and an English Queen how Ireland 
 could be conquered and the Irish race effectually "extirpated." 
 
 Well, his fellow-soldier and Patron, Mountjoy, profited well by 
 this teaching, as Ulster bore witness in the last years of "Good Queen 
 Bess." But it was reserved for Cromwell to apply, in its perfection, 
 the scheme of conquest and anglification sketched by Spenser. 
 
 That condition of the public mind in England, which permitted 
 and authorized the barbarities of CromAvell and his army, and which 
 impelled the nation to aid him in his work of extermination and carry 
 out in detail his plan for the "Settlement of Ireland," is a phenome- 
 non in the history of religious aberrations and moral monstrosities. 
 
 Impartial History will trace back to the Solemn League and 
 Covenant the fierce spirit of hatred against Popery and the Idola- 
 try attributed to the Papists the principal source of that fanati- 
 cism which, in the Three Kingdoms, predisposed the readers of the 
 Bible to view the Irish Catholics with the murderous intolerance of 
 the Hebrew toward the Canaanite, and Ireland itself as another 
 
Lo7'd Forbes emulates Stronghow. 315 
 
 Canaan from which the idolaters should be extirpated, root and 
 branch, to make place for those professing the tenets of the goodly 
 Puritan creed. 
 
 But the private interests of Englishmen and Scotchmen were as 
 ardently enlisted in this crusade — for such it really became — as was 
 their religious zeal and their national animosity. We have seen the 
 Propositions made to the British Parliament as early as February 
 1642, and by them accepted, for raising an army to conquer Ireland, 
 and divide 2,500,000 acres of its best lands among the men who 
 "adventured" to advance the money. The King was simply per- 
 mitted to sign the Act giving effect to this contract; its execution 
 was entrusted to a Joint Committee composed, one half, of members 
 of the Commons, and one half, of Subscribers to the Fund. Between 
 them they named the general and officers of the proposed army of 
 conquest. It was to consist of 5,000 foot and 500 horse. Sir John 
 Whitelock, the Speaker of the House, declared that this expedition 
 was to put an end to the interminable conflict of races in Ireland 
 foretold by Giraldus Cambrensis, thus giving the lie to the ancient 
 prophesy, "that Ireland would only be conquered just before the Day 
 of Judgment." A pamphlet published at the time in London, — for 
 pamphlets in that age did the exciting and misleading work done in 
 ours by the daily journals, — set forth all these reasons, and urged 
 upon the public attention the necessity and advantages of this plan of 
 conquest.* 
 
 The contest between King and Parliament detained in England 
 the 5,000 foot and 500 horse, under the command of Lord AVharton, 
 raised and equipped for this purpose. A partial expedition, however, 
 raised by the Adventurers, sanctioned by Parliament, and com- 
 manded by Lord Forbes, landed in Munster, in July, 1G42. They 
 were empowered to do all the mischief they could, and to hold and 
 possess whatever they got. Lord Forbes gave a foretaste of Crom- 
 
 * " Fidelity, Valour, and Obedience of the English declared, and a desire that 
 the present forces now ready to bicker here in England, may be turned against the 
 barbarous Irish rebels. By Walter Meredith, Gent." Small 4to. London, 1642. 
 
316 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 well's temper, and a specimen of what Lord Wharton and his army 
 were prepared to execute. 
 
 In Galway the Lords Justices had appointed Sir Francis Wil- 
 loughby. Governor. He was just the man to welcome Lord Forbes 
 and allow him to give vent to his savage mood. So the Governor 
 from his fort, and Lord Forbes from his ships, contrived and com- 
 bined to force, by sheer and gratuitous cruelty, the whole province 
 into open insurrection. The Earl of Clanrickarde, who was doing 
 his utmost to maintain peace, thus describes to Ormonde the doings 
 of the "noble pair of brothers in arms." 
 
 "Scarce any day passes without great complaints of both the cap- 
 tains of the fort and ship sallying out with their soldiers and 
 trumpet, and troop of horse, burning and breaking open houses, 
 taking away goods, preying of the cattle, with ruin and spoil, rather 
 than supply to themselves; not only upon those that are protected, 
 but upon them that are most forward to relieve and assist them; . . . 
 shooting his ordinance into the town or threatening to do it; keeping 
 disorderly sentries at every gate; abusing those that offer to go out; 
 offering (threatening) to take them prisoners to the fort, and to exer- 
 cise martial law -upon them; killing and robbing poor people that 
 come to market, burning their fisher-boats, and not suffering them 
 to go out." * 
 
 "Whilst I was at Tirellan," he writes again, "in treaty with his 
 lordship (Lord Forbes), and that my Lord President (Ranelagh) was 
 then with him in the fort, I could see the country on fire, my ten- 
 ants' goods and houses burnt, and four or five poor innocent creatures, 
 women and children, inhumanly killed by some of his forces. And 
 his Lordship, at his landing, having taken possession of Our Lady's 
 Church on the west of Galway, their ancient burial place, tliey did 
 not only deface tlie church hut digged up the graves and burnt the 
 coffins and bones of the dead^ \ 
 
 Forbes had done the same in Munster. "Forbes landing his men 
 
 * Carte, " Life of Ormonde," iii. 98. t Ibid., p. 109. 
 
Holu the Celts are to be Evangelized. 317 
 
 took the Castle of Glin, tlie ancient seat of I'horaas Fitzgerald, com- 
 monly known by the name of the Knight of the Valley, a gentleman 
 who had always assisted the English, and never had appeared in the 
 rebellion. Other officers often plundered all promiscuously; but this 
 commander seems to have picked out such as continued in their duty, 
 to be the objects of his fury and avarice. It was indeed no impolitic 
 course, if his view was to make the rebellion universal; since a dis- 
 tinction of persons was certainly necessary to show them, that an 
 utter extirpatlo7i (which was the table-talk of the Puritan Party) was 
 not really intended." * 
 
 Of course, it was the acknowledged purpose of all these men to 
 make the rebellion universal, in order to have, before the civilized 
 world, some pretext for the universal massacre of the Irish Catholics 
 of both races. The now historic orders given in Dublin by the Lord? 
 Justices and communicated to all military commanders, "to kill, 
 burn, and destroy," — "to consume, demolish, and destroy all th? 
 places where the rebels were relieved or harbored," — "to kill, slay, 
 and destroy all the rebels and their relievers; " and to crown all thi? 
 bloody martial code came, on Feb. 23, 1641-42, this horrible proc-- 
 lamation from the Lords Justices and Council. 
 
 "Ordek to the Earl of Ormonde. 
 ''^ By the Lords Justices and Council, 
 
 Wm. Parsons, 
 
 Jo. BORLACE. 
 
 "The rebels having assembled themselves in arms in hostile man- 
 ner, .... intending to starve this City and this State, .... deprive 
 his Majesty of his crown and sovereignty here, and root out, murder 
 and destroy all the British and Protestants in the Kingdom, 
 
 "It is resolved. That it is fit that his Lordship do endeavor with 
 his Majesty's forces to wound, kill, slay, and destroy by all the ways 
 and means he may, all the said rebels and their adherents and re- 
 
 * Carte, Ibid., p. 109. 
 
318 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 lievers; and burn, spoil, waste, consume, destroy, and demolish all 
 the places, towns, and houses where the said rebels are or have been 
 relieved and harbored, and all the hay and corn there; and kill and 
 destroy all the men there inhabiting able to bear arms. 
 
 "Given at his Majesty's Castle of Dublin, 23d Feb., 1641-2. 
 E. Dillon", F. Willoughby, 
 
 Tho. Eotheeam, J. Temple, 
 
 Ad. LoFTUs, Robert Meredith."* 
 
 After perusing the decrees of the Synods of Kells and Kilkenny, 
 the proclamations of Phelim O'Neill, the military code of discipline 
 imposed on the Confederate armies, and the Christian utterances of 
 Owen O'Xeill, — one passes into another world, and finds himself 
 among a different order of beings in this conclave held in Dublin 
 Castle, — as if it were a conclave of fiends incarnate decreeing the 
 indiscriminate slaughter of mankind, and the destruction of all that 
 is fairest and most beautiful on God's earth. 
 
 We know now what spirit animates the Sir Francis Willoughby, 
 some of whose fiendish performances we have been witnessing in Gal- 
 way. We know where Sir John Temple imbibed that spirit of mon- 
 strous falsehood and calumny which afterwards impelled him to write 
 in England about tho 300,000 Protestants massacred in the first 
 months of the rebellion. 
 
 This was done by Englishmen in Ireland. 
 
 But will not the purer atmosphere of England, where the religion 
 
 of the Covenanters sheds its superior light on the Senate-chamber and 
 
 the domestic hearth, forbid our thinking that any such sentiments or 
 
 enactments as the above could find there their origin or their 
 
 sanction ? 
 
 Listen : 
 
 " Oct. 2i, 1644. 
 
 "An Ordinance of the Lords and Commons assembled in Parlia- 
 ment, commanding that no officer or soldier by sea or land, shall give 
 
 * Carte, Foid., p. 61. 
 
^ These bloody Irish,'' forsooth ! 319 
 
 arrf ^nsfk^.' X- >>j Irishman, or to any Papist born in Ireland, which 
 shall be taken \n arms against the Parliament of England. 
 
 "The LordiS and Commons assembled in the Parliament of England 
 do declare, that no quarter shall be given to any Irishman, or to any 
 Papist born in Ireland, which shall be taken in liostihty against the 
 Parliament, either upon the sea, or within this Kingdom, or domin- 
 ion of Wales; and therefore do order and ordain that the Lord Gen- 
 eral, Lord Admiral, and all other officers and commanders, both by 
 sea and land, shall except all Irishmen, and all Papists born in Ire- 
 land, out of all capitulations and agreements, and compositions here- 
 after to be made with the enemy; and shall, upon the taking of every 
 such Irishman or Papist born in Ireland as aforesaid, forthwith ]jut 
 every such jjerson to death. 
 
 " And it is f nrther ordered and ordaineJ., that the Lord General, 
 the Lord Admiral, and the committees of the several counties, do 
 give speedy notice hereof to all subordinate officers and commanders 
 by sea and land respectively; who are hereby required to use their 
 utmost care and circumspection, that this Ordinance be duly exe- 
 cuted; and lastly, the Lords and Commons do declare, that every 
 officer and commander by sea or land, that shall be remiss or negli- 
 gent in observing the tenor of this Ordinance, shall be reputed a 
 favorer of the bloody rebellion of Ireland, and shall be liable to such 
 condign punishment as the justice of both Houses of Parliament shall 
 inflict upon him."* 
 
 "The bloody rebellion of Ireland," indeed ! Let the impartial 
 reader judge, after what has here been said, on which side rests the 
 stain and guilt of bloodshed without motive or measure, — on the 
 Irish "rebels" in arms for their King, their religion, their country, 
 — or on the Parliamentary "rebels" in arms against the King, and 
 against the dearest and most sacred rights of their own fellow- 
 citizens. 
 
 "We have seen with what kindness the Protestant Bishops of Kil- 
 
 * Rushworth's Historical Collection, vol. v., p. 783. London Ed., 1692. 
 
320 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 more and Elphin were treated by tlie O'Keillys in Cavan, and liowtlie 
 Bishop of Elphin witli about 1,400 persons Avere safely conducted and 
 escorted to Dublin and other cities of the Pale, "nor was a thread of 
 the garments that Bedel gave the stript English touched by the 
 rebels on their way." This was a signal proof of the efficacy of 
 Phelim O'Neill's instructions to the subordinate commanders; and a 
 still more touching evidence of the Christian counsels given by Hugh 
 O'Reilly, Archbishop of Armagh, to his own kinsmen in arms. 
 
 Wherever the family of the noble Archbishop commanded, not 
 only Protestant bishops, ministers, and people were safe, but they 
 were protected in the exercise of their own religious worship. When 
 Bishop Bedel died the O'Eeilly's attended his funeral with a guard 
 of honor, and had a salute fired over his grave. As the war for Ire- 
 land progressed, and when Owen O'lsTeill was appointed General of 
 the Confederate forces in the North, his great kinsman, who loved 
 him dearly, encouraged him to make the strife a blameless one, un- 
 stained by the inhumanity which was the law with his opponents. 
 
 With this ' gentleness toward the English settlers in Ulster, com- 
 pare these two facts related by men bitterly hostile to the Confederate 
 cause and religion. 
 
 While the Lords Justices Parsons and Borlase were negotiating 
 with the English Parliament for the re-conquest and final "settlement " 
 of Ireland, they were successfully driving the English Catholics of the 
 Pale into open insurrection, and exasperating by wholesale burnings 
 and massacres the entire Irish population. 
 
 Sir Charles Coote, their Avilling instrument in all their bloody 
 raids around Dublin, was also appointed governor of Dublin and 
 provost-marshal. 
 
 Here is what Carte sa3^s of him, while fulfilling this double office: 
 
 "It was certainly a miserable spectacle to see every day numbers 
 of persons executed by martial law, at the discretion or rather caprice 
 of Sir Charles Coote, a hot-headed and bloody man, and as such 
 accounted by the English and Protestants. Yet this was the man 
 whom the Lords Justices picked out to entrust with a commission of 
 
Murder of Fathers Higgins and White. 321 
 
 Martial Law, to put to death rebels or traitors, i. e., all such as he 
 should deem to be so; which he performed with delight and a wanton 
 kind of cruelty. And yet all this while the Justices sat frequently in 
 Council, and the Judges in their usual seasons sat in their resj^ective 
 courts, spectators of, and countenancing, so extravagant a tribunal as 
 Sir C. Coote's, and so illegal an execution of justice." * 
 
 Now for a specimen of this justice, in the first of the two cases 
 alluded to: 
 
 "The cruelties of the martial law under Sir Charles Coote have 
 been already mentioned," says Warner. "But about this time, when 
 it was thought politic to discourage the submissions (of the insur- 
 gents), which were growing frequent, Father Higgins, a very quiet, 
 pious, and inoffensive man, who had put himself under the protec- 
 tion of Lord Ormonde, and whom his lordship had brought with him 
 to Dublin, was one morning seized; and without any trial or delay, 
 or giving his lordship any notice of the intention, by Sir C. Coote's 
 order hanged. Father Higgins officiated as a priest at Naas and m 
 that neighborhood ; had distinguished himself greatly by saving the 
 English in those parts from spoil and slaughter; and had relieved 
 several whom he found had been stripped and plundered; so far was 
 he from engaging in the rebellion, or giving any encouragement to 
 it. . . . Their hanging a man of character at all, deserving in many 
 respects, and exceptionable in none ])ut liis religion, inclines one to 
 think that they intended this war to be understood to be a war of 
 religion." f 
 
 Here is the second example: 
 
 Borlase informs us that "the soldiers were grown so implacable to 
 the Irish, as they could scarce endure any ordinary Papist, much less 
 suffer a rebel to be admitted amongst them." X 
 
 "The case of a priest of the name of White, chaplain of the Count- 
 ess of Westmeath, strongly illustrates this insatiable ra,ge for blood 
 
 * Carte, " Life of Ormonde," vol. i., 279. 
 
 t Rev. Fernando Warner, " Hist, of the Rebellion," p. 182. 
 
 X " Hist, of the Execrable Irish Rebellion," p. 70. 
 
 21 
 
322 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 and slaughter. The Marquis of Ormonde, with all his power, as 
 commander-in-chief of the army, was unable to save the life of this 
 unfortunate clergyman, against whom no crime was alleged but his 
 clerical character. He had surrendered himself to the Marquis, who 
 had given him a protection. But having ventured from the Count- 
 ess's house, he was seized, and though Ormonde strove to save him, 
 even only to take him to Dublin for trial, it was in vain. A mutiny 
 took place, and the Marquis was obliged to abandon him, to sate the 
 rage of an infuriated soldiery, by whom he was immolated on the 
 altar of fanaticism and national rancor." * 
 
 "The Irish writers," says the author last quoted, "accuse Sir 
 Charles Coote of issuing orders to the butchering parties he sent out 
 in every direction ' not to spare the least cliild tlioucjli but a span 
 long.' f This charge is corroborated by the following statement of 
 the Eev. Dr. Nalson: 
 
 '' ' I have heard a relation of my own, who was captain in that 
 service, relate, that no manner of compassion or discrimination was 
 showed either to age or sex; but that the little children were pro- 
 miscuously sufferers with the guilty; and if any Avho had some grains 
 of compassion reprehended the soldiers for this unchristian inhuman- 
 ity, they would scoffingly reply, WJty f Nits will he lice. And so 
 would dispatch them.'" X 
 
 We have seen above the sanguinary orders of the Lords Justices, 
 commanding indiscriminate slaughter and ruthless devastation. 
 Leland assures us that "in the execution of these orders, the Lords 
 Justices declare that the soldiers slew all persons promiscuously, not 
 sparing the women, and sometimes not the children." § 
 
 It is most painful to have to dwell on these horrors; still the par- 
 tial mention of them is necessary both to establish the unquestioned 
 truth of the barbarities committed in the name of England, of re- 
 
 * Vindicke Hibernicce, p. 413. 
 
 f " Ireland's Case Bi-iefly Stated," p. 43. 
 
 i Nalson, " Collection of the Great Affairs of State," ii., Intro., p. vii. 
 
 § " Hist, of Ireland," iii., p. 198. 
 
General Massacre of Irish Papists in Scotch Prisons. 323 
 
 ligion, and civilization, and the glorious fact that they were all on 
 one side. 
 
 While Charles I. and Ormonde, his lieutenant in Ireland, were 
 most anxious to conclude a peace Avitli the Confederates, the Parlia- 
 mentary Party in both countries were equally busy in frustrating all 
 hopes of a peace. We have seen the Ordinance of the English Par- 
 liament forbidding to give any quarter to any Irishman or any Pa|)ist 
 born in Ireland, either on sea or on land. 
 
 It was faithfully carried out both in the spirit and in the letter. 
 Thus, in May, 1644, Captain Swanley captured at sea a detachment 
 of one hundred and fifty men sent over to England by Ormonde for 
 the King's service. Seventy of these happening to be Irishmen, or 
 Papists born in Ireland, were tied back to back and thrown over- 
 board. For this heroic achievement of the Puritan chivalry Swanley 
 was thanked by Parliament and ordered to be presented with a chain 
 of gold worth £200. The London Times did not then exist to give 
 voice to English public opinion upon such brave feats as this. But, 
 says Mr. Prendergast, "The London papers made merry upon it, say- 
 ing, ' Captain Swanley made those who would not take the Covenant, 
 take the water with their heads downwards; .... he made trial if an 
 Irish Cavalier could swim without hands.'" * A Colonel Mytton did 
 the same with another detachment of Ormonde's soldiers. 
 
 "The Parliament of Scotland, in 1644, had passed a similar or- 
 dinance against quarter, by agreement with the Parliament of Eng- 
 land. Accordingly after the defeat of Montrose at Philiphaugh, in 
 1G49, the Scottish Parliament 'ordained' that all Irish soldiers and 
 their followers in the several prisons of Selkirk, Jedburgh, Glasgow, 
 Dunbarton, and Perth should be executed without any assize or pro- 
 cess, 'conform to the treaty betwixt both kingdoms passed in Act.' 
 In one day, eighty women and children, some being infants at the 
 mother's breast, were cast over a high bridge, and in this way de- 
 stroyed, only for being the wives and children of Irish soldiers. 
 
 * See Mercurius Anlicus for May, 1644. 4to. Loudon. 
 
324 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 But tliis was no murder, for it was ' conform ' to law. On the other 
 hand, it was murder for the Irish troops attacking a castle to have 
 killed any of the garrison, if they did not happen to be in the pay of 
 the State."* 
 
 Are we reading the History of the French Eevolution? of the 
 " massacres of September ? " or of les noyades de NaJites ? Did the 
 ferocious Carriere take for his models Swanley and Mytton ? Did 
 the Paris ^eptemhriseurs tear a leaf from the records of these super- 
 civilized Scotch ? 
 
 Dui'ing the war, and after the war, it was accounted murder to 
 have been in any way accessory to the death of any one man of the 
 Parliamentary Forces, whether on the battle-field or in any other 
 mode of warfare. 
 
 "The Act of Oblivion, passed by the English Parliament in 16G0, 
 covered all the acts of the Protestants of Ireland, but none ever 
 passed for the Irish, though expressly promised. So that acts of war 
 are to this day counted against the Irish as murders, while massacres 
 by the English or Scotch are suppressed. Thus Newry surrendered 
 to Marshal Conway and General Munro, the commanders of the joint 
 English and Scottish armies, on 4th May, 1G42, on quarter for life. 
 Yet forty of the townsmen were put to death next day on the bridge, 
 and amongst them 'two of the Pope's Pedlars' (so they called two 
 seminary priests); and the Scotch soldiers, finding a crowd of Irish 
 women and children hiding under the bridge, took some eighteen of 
 the women and stript them naked, and tiirew them into the river 
 and drowned them, shooting them in the water; and more had 
 suffered so, but that Sir James Turner, in command under General 
 Monro, galloped up and stopped his men. They were only copying, 
 he says, the cruel example set them by the English under Conway's 
 command. If it was intended to terrify the Irish, he adds, it failed; 
 for in revenge they put some ministers, prisoners in their hands, to 
 death." \ 
 
 * " Cromwellian Settlement," pp. 67, 68. 
 
 + Sir J. Turner, " Memoirs," reprint at Edinburgh, 1829. 
 
Sir Henry Tichhorne in Drogheda. 325 
 
 Miinro, who had not met Owen O'jSTeill at Benburb, seems to have 
 faithfully copied the example set him by the English commanders. 
 He made up the strongest army that had been seen in Ireland during 
 the war; . . . advanced with it into Cavan. from whence he sent 
 parties into Westmeath and Longford, which burnt the country, and 
 put to the sword all the country people that they met." * 
 
 One more instance will conclude this preliminary narrative. Sir 
 Henry Tichborne was governor of Drogheda for the Parliament (or 
 rather for the King nominally). He was a brave and skilful officer; 
 but his soul, cast in the fiery fanaticism of the party, was as pitiless 
 as that of Cromwell himself. During the fatal hesitations and delays 
 which marked the movements of the Confederates in the first stage 
 of the insurrection, he employed or amused himself in desolating the 
 country around Drogheda, and kept his wife constantly edified by a 
 minute account of his doings. "Finding that they (the rebels) did 
 not put themselves in arms," he writes, "and would no more now 
 than formerly forsake their strength, to draw into equality of ground, 
 notwithstanding their advantage of numbers, I concluded they were 
 in another sort to be dealt with; and from thenceforth, for the most 
 part, I fell every other morning into their quarters, and continued 
 these visitations for several weeks together, tvitli tlie slaughter of 
 every man of them, especially the new plantation in the county of 
 Monaghan, and at the taking of Harry O'Neale's house, in the Fews; 
 insomuch that by this course and the like acted by the garrison at 
 Drogheda, there was neither man nor beast to be found in sixteen 
 miles, between the towns of Drogheda and Dundalk, . . . nearer 
 than Carrick Mac-Cross, a strong pile, twelve miles distant." f 
 
 Thus for twelve miles on one side of Drogheda and sixteen miles 
 on the other, — a circle of twenty-eight miles in diameter, — the 
 slaughter and destruction were so complete, that neither man nor 
 beast was left! And this apostle of English civilization, with his 
 
 * Carte, " Life of Orraond," ii., p. 2. 
 
 t " Lettre of Sir H. Tit-hbonrne on tLe Siege of Fredagh," in Appendix to 
 Temple's Hist., p. 186. Dublin, 1724. 
 
326 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 hands reeking with the blood of men, women, and children massacred 
 in their homes, day after day, would sit down to write to his wife in 
 England a detailed account of these fiendish performances, as of 
 some glorious exploits the recital of which might fire his sons' souls to 
 
 a noble emulation 
 
 Tichborue's account of his taking of Dundalk, in the same letter 
 to his wife, throws further light on the murderous spirit dis- 
 played by the English officers and soldiery. After driving out 
 the insurgents under Plielim O'Neill, he drew up liis troops 
 in the market-place, "caused the quarter-masters to divide the 
 town into quarters, proportionable to the companies of horse and 
 foot; and what booty was in any quarter (lie says), that I left to the 
 officers and soldiers that were quartered in it, by a proportionable 
 dividend amongst them, whereby the confusion and contention about 
 pillaging was taken away, and I had the soldiers in readiness to 
 answer the rebels' motion and attempts, who rumored great words, 
 and still swarmed very thick in those parts. The number of the slain 
 Hooked not (fter, hut there was little mercy shown in those times."* 
 ■ Another writer supplies us with a detail which finishes off the 
 picture of desolation and horror within this circle. "By the 
 death of so many men about us" — says Bernard the Protestant 
 Dean of Ardagli — "having their houses and all their provision 
 either burnt or drawn hither, the dogs only surviving, are 
 found very usually (like that judgment of Jezebel for the murder of 
 Naboth) feeding upon their masters; which taste of man's flesh, 
 made it very dangerous for the passengers in the roads who have been 
 often set upon by those mastiffs, till we were as careful to kill them 
 also. " f 
 
 On reading the comments of these Eeverend Ministers of a 
 Gospel of Peace and Brotherly Love, one would be inclined to believe 
 that all the suffering, the oppression, the victims of whole centuries 
 
 * " Lettre of Sir H. Tichbourne," &c., in App. to Temple's Hist., p. 186. 
 + Nicholas Bernard, " Whole Proceedings of Siege of Drogheda " (Dublin, 1736), 
 p. 105. 
 
Appear, then, Cromwell! 327 
 
 of wrong, were on the side of Sir Henry Tichborne and Sir Charles 
 Coote, — so grim is the satisfaction with wliich this Dean of Ardagh 
 contemplated that wasted country covered with smoking ruins, un- 
 buried corpses, and the dogs preying first on the dead bodies of their 
 masters, and then attacking, in their rabid hunger, the living who 
 ventured through that hell upon earth. " We were as careful to kill 
 them also"! They had "for several weeks together" made daily 
 battues, hunting down and slaughtering every human creature found, 
 and now their care must be to hunt down and kill the dogs who had 
 fed and grown mad on the flesh of the slain. And then to quote the 
 judgment of Jezebel ! 
 
 The spirit which stirred up men, — two Christian nations, the 
 English and Scottish,— to wage a war of Utter Extermination" 
 against a neighboring people, and that under the motive of advancing 
 the cause of pure religion, — has become incarnate in Oliver Crom- 
 well. The public opinion which had been growing, growing through- 
 out England, and inflaming all men's minds and hearts against the 
 "Irish Enemy," the "Papist Irish," — was fitly and elegantly expressed 
 in the celebrated pamphlet of "The Simple Cobler of Agga warn, in 
 America." This was published in 1647. It is headed "A Word of 
 Ireland : Not of the Nation universally, nor of any man in it, that 
 hath so much as one haire of Christianity or Humanity growing on 
 his head or in his beard, — but only of the truculent Cut-throats 
 (i. e., the Irish Papists), and such as sliall take up arms in their 
 defence." 
 
 The following passage contains the purpose of the writer: 
 "I beg upon my hands and knees that the Expedition against 
 them may be undertaken while the hearts and hands of our soldiers 
 are hot. . . . Happy is he that shall reward them as they have 
 served us: and mirsed he lie that shall do that loorh of the Lord 
 negligently ! Cursed be he that holdeth back his sword from 
 blood ! " * 
 
 * London, Printed by J. D. & R. I. for Stephen Bowtell, at the sign of the 
 Bible, in Pope's-Head Alley, 1617. 
 
328 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 This work, like some of tlie Eecords of 1793 we have seen in 
 French Municipalities, seems to have been written in blood, in the 
 warm life-blood of some of the hated Papists butchered with such 
 impunity in 1647 as well as the preceding years. There was then in 
 England, as in France in 1793, a fearful epidemic of moral intoxica- 
 tion. The morbid fear and hatred of Prelacy and Popery, mingled 
 Vv'ith the national detestation of the Irish, had inspired a thirst for 
 blood. In the masses, fanaticized and maddened by the incessant 
 declamations of the Eoundhead preachers, there was the firm convic- 
 tion that it was the worJc of God to exterminate every man, woman, 
 and child born on Irish soil of Catholic parents. 
 
 What was a fanatical belief in the ignorant masses, was used as a 
 mighty force, ready at hand, by the clever and hypocritical leaders, 
 to further their own darling scheme — tlie Replantation of Ireland, 
 
 "They preach, they fast, they pray, they have nothing more fre- 
 quent than the sentences of Sacred Scripture, the name of God and 
 of Christ in their mouths; you shall scarce speak to Cromwell about 
 anything, but he will lay his hand on his breast, elevate his eyes, and 
 call God to record; he will weep, howl, and repent, even Avhile he 
 doth smite you under the left rib," 
 
 So w^as he painted in London in 1C49 by some of his own follow- 
 ers,* As he was leaving the English shore, "There was much seek- 
 ing of God by prayer for a blessing upon them, and the country 
 people prayed heartily for a fair wind for them," Cromwell's Chap- 
 lain, Hugh Peters, was in command of the twenty-three ships that 
 formed the rear division of the fleet. He was in thorough sympathy 
 with his master; and, minister of the Gospel as he was, never once 
 held back that master's sword from the slaughter of the unarmed and 
 defenceless, as well as of the enemy who surrendered. 
 
 The heart of the nation went with Cromwell to the Irish shore. 
 
 Immediately after his arrival in Dublin he issued a proclamation 
 against "profane swearing, cursing, and drunkenness." The next 
 
 * " The Hunting of the Foxes . . . directed to all the Free Commons in Eng- 
 land, by five small beadles, late of the Annie." London, 1619. 
 
Cromwell shotvs his Hand. 329 
 
 day, the 24tli of August, he issued another proclamation strictly for- 
 bidding his officers and soldiers from exercising cruelty toward the 
 country-folk, as well as robbing, pillage, &c. All the farmers are 
 invited to bring their provisions to the army, where they shall have 
 the benefit of a free market, and be paid in ready money. 
 
 It was a good piece of strategy; for it secured him ample supplies 
 before entering on his first campaign. He showed himself a true 
 Koundhead, however, during his brief stay in Dublin, permitting 
 his chaplain and officers to appear in the Dublin pulpits in their 
 "buff coats"; and outraged the feelings of the Churchmen by mak- 
 ing of St. Patrick's Cathedral a stable for his troopers' horses. 
 
 The Drogheda Tragedy. 
 
 He began his march to Drogheda on Sept. 1st. The garrison was 
 composed of 2,541 men, infantry and cavalry, nearly all of whom 
 were Irish. Tliey were but poorly supplied with ammunition and 
 provisions, and were in no way to withstand successfully Cromwell's 
 15,000 chosen men, admirably equipped and well provided with 
 everything. On Tuesday, Sept. 10th, Drogheda was taken by storm. 
 The tragedy is briefly told by Carte : 
 
 "The assault Avas given, and his (Cromwell's) men twice repulsed; 
 but in the third attack. Colonel Wall being unhappily killed at the 
 head of his regiment, his men were so dismayed thereby, as to listen 
 to the enemy offering them quarter; admitting them upon these 
 terras, and thereby betraying themselves and their fellow-soldiers to 
 the slaughter. All the officers and soldiers of Cromwell's army 
 promised quarter to such as would lay down their arms, and per- 
 formed it as long as any place held out, which encouraged others to 
 yield. But when they had once all in their power, and feared no 
 hurt that could be done them, Cromwell, being told by Colonel 
 Jones that he had now all the flower of the Irish army in his hands, 
 gave orders that no quarter sliould be given; so that his soldiers were 
 forced, many of them against their will, to kill their prisoners. The 
 
330 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 brave governor, Sir Arthur Aston, Sir Edmund Verney, the Colonels 
 .... were killed in cold blood. " * 
 
 Some four officers escaped by a sort of miracle. "Except these 
 and some few others who during the assault escaped at the other side 
 of the town, and others, who, mingling with the rebels as their own 
 men, disguised themselves so as not to be discovered, — there was not 
 an officer, soldier, or religious person belonging to that garrison left 
 alive." t 
 
 An English officer in Cromwell's victorious army, Thomas a Wood, 
 brother to Anthony, historian of Oxford, has left a description of the 
 massacre, so far as he was an eye-witness and actor. 
 
 "He returned," — says Anthony, — "from Ireland to Oxford for a 
 time to take up the arrears of his studentship at Christ Church. It 
 was the winter after the siege. At which time, being often with his 
 mother and brethren, he would tell them of the terrible assaulting 
 and storming of Drogheda, wherein he himself had been engaged. 
 He told them that three thousand at least, beside some women and 
 children, were, after the assailants had taken part (of the town), and 
 afterwards all the town, put to the sword, on the lltli and 12th of 
 September, 1649. At which time Sir Arthur Aston, the governor, 
 had his brains beat out, and his body hacked to pieces. He told 
 them that when the soldiers were to make their way up to the lofts 
 and galleries in the church, and up to the tower where the enemy had 
 fled, each of the assailants would take up a child, and use it as a 
 buckler of defence when they ascended the steps, to keep themselves 
 from being shot or brained. After they had killed all in the church, 
 they went into the vaults underneath, where all the flower and 
 choicest of the women and ladies had hid themselves. One of these, 
 a most handsome virgin, arrayed in costly and gorgeous apparel, 
 kneeled down to Thomas a Wood, with tears and prayers, to save her 
 life; and being struck with a profound pity, he took her under his 
 arm, and went with her out of the church, intending to put her over 
 
 * Carte, " Life of Ormonde," ii. 84. 
 
 t P. W. Denis Murphy, " Cromwell in Ireland," p. 103. 
 
Cromimll speaks. 331 
 
 tlie works to shift for herself. But a soldier, perceiving his inten- 
 tions, ran his sword through her body. Whereupon a Wood, seeing 
 her gasping, took away her money and Jewels, and flung her down 
 over the works." 
 
 This scene was enacted in the church of St. Peter's. 
 
 "It is remarkable," says Cromwell, "that these people, at the 
 first, set up the Mass in some places of the town that had been mon- 
 asteries, and afterwards grew so insolent, that the last Lord's Day 
 before the storm the Protestants were thrust out of the great church 
 called St. Peter's, and they had public Mass there, and in this very 
 place near 1,000 of them were put to the sword, fleeing thither for 
 safety." 
 
 "Sir, — It has pleased God to bless our endeavors at Drogheda. . . . 
 I believe we put to the sword the whole number of defendants. I 
 do not think thirty of the whole number escaped v/ith their lives: 
 those that did are in safe custody, /or the Barbadoes. . . . This hath 
 been a marvellous great mercy. ... I do not believe, neither do I 
 hear, that any officer escaped with his life, save only one lieutenant. 
 The enemy were filled upon this with much terror: and truly I 
 believe this bitterness will save much effusion of blood, through the 
 goodness of God. 
 
 " I wish that all honest hearts may give the glory of this to God 
 alone, to whom indeed the praise of this mercy belongs, for instru- 
 ments they were very inconsiderable the work throughout."* 
 
 Thus spoke the Master; now for the Chaplain, Peters : 
 
 "The truth is, Drogheda is taken, 3,552 of the enemy slain, and 
 sixty-four of ours. Colonel Castle and Colonel Symonds of note. 
 Aston, the governor, killed — none spared. We have also Trim and 
 Dundalk, and are marching to Kilkenny. I came now from giving 
 thanks in the great church (Christ Church, Dublin)." 
 
 The false-hearted Ormonde to his King, Charles II. : 
 
 "It is not to be imagined the terror that these successes and the 
 power of the rebels (i.e., the Parliamentarians under Cromwell) have 
 * Whitelock, " Memorials of English Affairs," p. 428. 
 
332 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 struck into the people. They are so stupefied, that it is with great 
 difficulty I can persuade them to act anything like men towards their 
 own."* 
 
 "The people " of whom Ormonde writes are, not the Irish under 
 Owen Roe O'Neill, but the English of the Pale, whom this prince of 
 intriguers had succeeded in detaching from Hugh O'Reilly, Arch- 
 bishop of Armagh, and the Nuncio, Rinuccini. When union had 
 been strength and salvation, Ormonde had effected division. And 
 this is the man who neglected to send timely succors to Drogheda, 
 while he had under his command 3,000 unemployed troops. 
 
 Ormonde, seeing how little he could rely upon the Gentlemen of 
 the Pale and their followers, had addressed himself to Owen O'Neill, 
 and this great man, mindful only of his country's need and of the 
 absolute urgency of uniting against the most terrible foe Ireland had 
 yet beheld, hastened to take steps for joining his forces to Ormonde's. 
 But while these negotiations were still in progress, poison, which had 
 so often rid English generals of their most formidable Irish ad- 
 versaries, was once more employed, and successfully, against tlie Ulster 
 Chieftain. 
 
 He felt the first effects of the poison in the middle of August. 
 He battled with it a long time, but in vain. Then he followed liis 
 army on its march southwards, borne in a litter. Finding his end 
 near, he desired to be taken to Cloughouter, the residence of Mael- 
 mora O'Reilly, his brother-in-law, where Archbishop Hugh consoled 
 him in his last moments. 
 
 "Many of his clansmen did not believe that he could die at a time 
 when he was so much needed, ' some deeming that God in His clem- 
 ency would not deal so strait with this poor nation as to bereave them 
 of this their only champion; but rather, the world being unworthy of 
 so good a master-piece, lulled him to sleep and snatched him away to 
 some secret corner of the world, as another Elias, to keep him there 
 for future better purposes. ' " f 
 
 * Carte, " Collection of Papers," vol. ii., p. 398. 
 
 + " Aphorismical Discovery of Faction," vol. ii., p. 63. 
 
The City betrayed hy James Stafford. 333 
 
 Cromwell now had no enemy in Ireland he need fear either on the 
 battle-field, or behind the walls of a fortress. 
 
 The Tragedy of Wexford. 
 
 The Parliamentary Lord Lieutenant was too experienced and too 
 good a soldier to neglect the opportunity which the terrible fate of 
 the Drogheda Garrison had created for him. Dundalk and Trim had 
 surrendered without striking a blow. The death of Owen O'Neill 
 left no adversary in the North worthy of a single week's campaign. 
 He marched southward, therefore; and on the 29th September, the 
 Parliamentary fleet appeared off the harbor of Wexford, Cromwell 
 with his army encamping before its walls on October 1st. 
 
 The Wexford people, unprepared as they were to resist this 
 double attack by sea and land, declined the help sent them by 
 Ormonde. Had he not surrendered Dublin to the Parliament? Had 
 he not been the bane of the Irish cause throughout ? So these stout- 
 hearted burgesses of Wexford chose to die bravely, trusting to God 
 and their own resolute spirit. Cromwell had traitors within the 
 walls, who kept him fully advised of the desperate plight to which 
 the citizens were reduced. To color his determination to deal with 
 Wexford as he had dealt with Drogheda he amused the Commander, 
 Synnott, with false hopes of a fair capitulation, meanwhile pressing 
 the attack on every side. Ormonde found means of throwing several 
 detachments into the place. To the propositions of the Commander, 
 Cromwell, on October 11th, offered his ultimatum: To the soldiers, 
 quarter and liberty; to the officers, quarter, but not liberty; to the 
 citizens, freedom from pillage, with one hour to deliberate. 
 
 They refused. 
 
 "While I was preparing the answer to the propositions," says 
 Cromwell, "studying to preserve the town from plunder, that it 
 might be of more use to you and your army, the Captain, who Avas 
 one of the Commissioners, being fairly treated, yielded up the Castle 
 unto us." 
 
 The traitor was Captain James Stafford. With this infamous 
 
334 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 wretcli and some others within the town who resembled him, Crom- 
 well had so cleverly carried on his correspondence, that he viewed 
 with grim satisfaction the detachments of foot and horse sent to the 
 succor of the besieged. They were all prey that fell into his net, and 
 destined to certain destruction. 
 
 No sooner Avas Cromwell master of the Castle, which dominated 
 the walls of the place, than the gates were thrown open and the 
 whole of the besieging army poured in. The townsfolk in con- 
 sternation abandoned the fortifications and fled into the interior, 
 while their enemies scaled the walls. In vain such as had not lost 
 their head among the former placed chains across the street to stop 
 the advance of cavalry. These were obstacles soon overcome, and 
 only irritated the fell spirit of the assailants. The citizens abandon- 
 ing their houses crowded together in the market-place, whither their 
 defenders were soon driven after them. 
 
 Let Cromwell himself tell the rest. 
 
 "When they were come into the market-place, making a stiff 
 resistance, our forces broke them, and then put all to the sword that 
 came in their way. Two boatfuls of the enemy, attempting to 
 escape, being overprest with numbers, sank, whereby w^ere drowned 
 near three hundred of them. I believe, in all, not less than two 
 thousand; and I believe not twenty of yours from first to last of the 
 siege. And indeed it hath, not without cause, been deeply set upon 
 our hearts, that we intending better to this place than so great a 
 ruin, hoping the town might be of more use to you and your army, 
 — yet God would not have it so; but by an unexpected providence, in 
 his righteous justice, brought a just judgment upon them to become 
 a prey to the soldier." 
 
 He then quotes, as a justification for his butchery of the defence- 
 less multitude, two instances of cruelty practised by the Wexford 
 Catholics upon Protestants. His "as some say," only indicates all too 
 plainly that he was glad to seize upon any of the dreadful stories set 
 afloat by such men as Sir John Temple and Borlase, for the express 
 purpose of inflaming the popular passions against the Irish Catholics. 
 
The Slauglder described by Cromwell and Others. 335 
 
 The cruelties could not have been committed in the first months of 
 the insurrection; for it did not reach Munster till the middle or the 
 end of December; and no such cruelty is charged upon the Wexford 
 people at that time by any known author. After the Synods of 
 Kells and Kilkenny, and the strict injunctions of both the civil and 
 ecclesiastical authorities, the commission of such cruelties is highly 
 improbable. 
 
 Who will believe Cromwell, calumniating his hecatombs of in- 
 nocent victims, while his hands are still dripping with their blood? 
 
 "The town is now in your power (he continues, addressing the 
 Parliament), that of the former inhabitants / believe scarce one in 
 twenty can challenge any property in their houses. Most of them are 
 run away, and many of them killed in this service. And it were to 
 be wished that an honest people would come and plant here. . . . 
 
 "Thus it hath pleased God to give into your hands this mercy."* 
 
 From Dr. Nicholas French, Bishop of Ferns, the faithful shep- 
 herd of this stricken flock, we have the following authentic ac- 
 count: 
 
 "On that fatal day, Oct. 11th, 1649, I lost every thing I had. 
 Wexford, my native town, then abounding in merchandise, ships, 
 and wealth, was taken at the sword's point by that plague of 
 England, Cromwell, and sacked by an infuriated soldiery. Before 
 God's altar fell sacred victims, holy priests of the Lord. Of those 
 who were seized outside the church, some were scourged, some 
 thrown into chains and imprisoned, while others were hanged or put 
 to death by cruel tortures. The blood of the noblest of our citizens 
 was shed so that it inundated the streets. There was hardly a house 
 
 that was not defiled with carnage and filled with wailing 
 
 Never since that day have I seen my native city, my flock, the land 
 of my birth, or my kindred. I am become the most unhappy of 
 men. After the destruction of the city I lived for five months in the 
 woods, every moment sought after that I might be put to death 
 
 * Domestic State Papers (1649-50), p. 366. 
 
336 Th& Cause of Ireland. 
 
 On one occasion I did not taste food for five entire days. I slept 
 under tlie open sky, without shelter or covering."* 
 
 In another letter. Dr. French writes: "... The rumor of the 
 direful massacre reached me whilst I was ill in a neighboring town, 
 sufferiiig from a burning fever. I cried, and mourned, and wept 
 bitter tears; and turning to Heaven, cried out in the words of 
 Jeremias, while all who were present shared in my grief. . . . From 
 that time, ... I sought refuge in the wilderness. ... In the woods 
 and groves I passed more than five months, that thus I might admin- 
 ister some consolation to the few survivors of my flock. . . . But 
 neither woods nor caverns could afford me a lasting refuge. For the 
 heretical Governor of Wexford, George Cooke, well known for his 
 barbarity, with troops of cavalry and foot soldiers, pursued me to 
 death everywhere, seai'ching mountain tops and deepest recesses. He 
 burned the huts and houses near the wood in which I had offered the 
 Holv Sacrifice. . . . But God protected me in the midst of all these 
 perils, and delivered me from this blood-thirsty man." 
 
 AVhile the garrison and the unarmed citizens were falling beneath 
 the swords of the fanatical soldiery, some three hundred women 
 flocked in terror around the great Cross in the Public Square. This 
 only secured and hastened their destruction. The Eoundheads took 
 the kneeling throng for a crowd of idolaters, worshipping an image 
 of stone, and slaughtered them without mercy. 
 
 He found them there, — the young, the old, the maiden and the wife; 
 
 Their guardians brave in death were cold, who dared for them the strife. 
 
 They prayed for mercy — God on high! before Thy Cross they prayed, 
 
 And ruthless Cromwell bade them die to glut the Saxon blade. 
 
 Three hundred fell — the stifled prayer was quenched in women's blood; 
 
 Nor youth nor age could move to spare from slaughter's crimson flood. 
 
 But nations keep a stern account of deeds that tyrants do! 
 
 And guiltless blood to Heaven will mount, and Heaven avenge it too! + 
 
 Lingard, who relates this terrible slaughter, also informs us that 
 after the battle of Xaseby, one hundred women, some of them ladies 
 of rank, were slain without pity, simply because they were Irish 
 
 * " Cromwell in Ireland," pp. 162, 163. + One of the Poet Barry's gems. 
 
The Bible and the Sword in Ireland. 337 
 
 Catholics. But such was the spirit inculcated by the Covenanters, 
 and fostered by the innumerable publications typified in the appeal to 
 bloodshed of the "Simple Cobbler of Aggawam." 
 
 We pass over the other successes of Cromwell and his lieutenants 
 in Ireland: the revolt of the Munster Garrisons; the heroic defence 
 of Waterford, and the still more heroic defence of Clonmell, where 
 the name of Hugh O'Neill shone for the last time with such tran- 
 scendent lustre; the treason of the townsmen of Kilkenny, and the 
 bravery of its garrison; and all the unavailing devotion of its Celtic 
 people, weakened by their fatal alliance with Ormonde and his 
 Royalists. 
 
 Then loomed up the bands of heroic defenders of a country given 
 over to destruction, flocking to the sea-shore and seeking to pass to 
 the Continent to serve some Catholic King; and those other bands of 
 strong men and women, of young maidens, of boys and girls, hunted 
 down, kidnapped, carried on board ship, and sold into servitude in 
 Barbadoes, the West Indies, the New England settlements, Virginia, 
 and the Carolinas. 
 
 Meanwhile slaughter and desolation reigned throughout the land. 
 
 "It was confidently averred that Sir John Clotworthy, who well 
 knew the designs of the faction that governed in the House of Com- 
 mons of England, had declared there in a speech, ' that the conversion 
 of the Papists in Ireland was only to be effected^ by the Bible in one 
 hand and the sioord in tlie other; and j\Ir. Pym gave out that he 
 would not leave a priest in Ireland. To the like effect Sir William 
 Parsons, out of a strange weakness or a detestable policy, positively 
 asserted before many Avitnesses at a public entertainment in Dublin, 
 that within a twelvemonth wo Catholic should be seen in Ireland."* 
 
 How this Scheme 2vas Carried Out. 
 Hear the Protestant author of the "Cromwellian Settlement of 
 Ireland": 
 
 "It may seem strange to hear counted as military weapons issued 
 
 * Carte, " Life of Ormonde," vol, i., 235. 
 23 
 
338 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 from the store at Waterford, among swords, pikes, powder, shot, ban- 
 daleers and match, ' eighteen dozen of scythes with handles and rings, 
 forty reape hooks, and whetstones and rubstones proportional '; but 
 with these the soldiers cut down the growing crop, in order to starve 
 the Irish into submission. 
 
 "Not less strange is it to hear of the Bible being served out of 
 store, with their other ammunition, to the army. Yet we find Bibles 
 issued on 3d August, 1652, by the Commissary of Stores to the sev- 
 eral companies of foot and troops of horse within the precinct of 
 Dublin, according to muster, one Bible to every file; and on the 17th 
 of the same month, one hundred Bibles for the use of the forces 
 within the precinct of Galway, for the propagation of the Gospel; and 
 the several Commissaries of Musters Avere to see the Bibles regularly 
 mustered and accounted for by the officer commanding each troop 
 and company. Thus realizing literally Sir John Clotworthy's dec- 
 laration, made a few years before, that religion must be propagated in 
 Ireland with the Bible in one hand and the sword in the other. 
 For 
 
 Here, in the saddle of one steed 
 
 The Saracen and Christian rid ; 
 
 Was tree of every spiritual order 
 
 To preach and fight, and pray and murder. 
 
 And truly they had no bloodier instrument than the Bible in all their 
 arsenal of war." * 
 
 One little extract from a letter of the too-famous Eichard Boyle, 
 Earl of Cork, written August 25tli, 1642, will enable us to form a 
 conception of the extent to which the Exterminators, from the first 
 months of the Insurrection, carried out their well laid scheme in 
 divers parts of the Kingdom. Ki chard Boyle, the life-long associate 
 of such men as the Lords Justices Parsons and Borlase, and the very 
 head in Ireland of the Puritans or Covenanters, brought up his sons, 
 the Lords Broghill and Kynalmeaky, in the strictest principles of 
 Puritanism. We have seen, in the preceding chapter, with what zeal 
 both father and sons pursued the Catholic nobility and gentry of 
 
 * " Cromwellian Settlement," pp. 77, 78. 
 
IncMquin's Sanguinary Achievements. 339 
 
 Munster, and liow cleverly tliey managed to have juries of their own 
 packing find true bills of attainder against some 1,400 or 1,500 pro- 
 prietors at a time. Of course these men powerfully aided The Lord 
 President St. Leger in driving the Catholics of the South into open 
 insurrection. 
 
 Well, ten months after the insurrection began, Lord Cork thus 
 wrote: "I do affirm, and will make good this undeniable truth, that 
 my two sons, Kynalmeaky and Broghill, with those forces that I have 
 raised and satisfied, and they command, have been the destruction of 
 above three thousand rebels, since the beginning of the insurrec- 
 tion." * 
 
 The Earl of Barrymore, whose name we mentioned in connection 
 with the exploits of this family of Boyles, is also brought in by the 
 same correspondence for a share in the work of slaughter worthy of 
 his share in the work of confiscation: this Earl was poor and the 
 Boyles were helping liim to acquire estates and wealth by the same 
 means they had acquired and were increasing theirs. "The Earl of 
 Barrymore hath nothing but what he fighteth with the rebels for, 
 and getteth by his sword; he having lately ha.nged forty-three notable 
 rebels for a breakfast. " f 
 
 Borlase, in his history of the "Execrable Irish Rebellion," relates 
 how Sir William Cole, with one regiment of 500 men, and one troop 
 of horse, slew 2,147 swordsmen in various skirmishes and battles, and 
 to have "starved and famished of the vulgar sort" no less than "7,000 
 persons," whose property they had previously plundered. 
 
 Inchiquin, — the representative of the O'Briens, but a bitter hater 
 of all Catholics, — wasted with fire and sword the whole of Munster, 
 "burning, plundering, and destroying the country, even to the gates 
 of Limerick." In storming the Rock of Cashel, he massacred 
 "twenty ecclesiastics," says Wright. The troops had entered the 
 city without resistance, and feasted on the abundant fare they found. 
 The next day, the 14th Sept., 1647, they prepared to storm the 
 
 * " State Letters of the Earl of Orrery," vol. i., p. 15. + Ibid. 
 
340 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 Eock. They offered the Garrison liberty to march out with the 
 honors of war; but the city was to be left to their discretion. This 
 proposition could not be entertained. The Rock was assaulted and 
 carried, and the defenders forced to take refuge in the Cathedral. 
 No mercy was shown to soldier or civilian; to priests, women, or 
 children. The sacred edifice was filled with corpses up to the altar 
 steps and the altar itself. At the battle of Knocknenoss, where the 
 brave Colkitto perished, "The left commanded by Mac Allisdrum 
 (Colkitto), consisting of brave northern Irish, stood their ground; 
 but were at last forced to yield to the conquerors, their commander 
 giving up his sword to Colonel Purden. But Lord Inchiquin having, 
 before the battle, ordered that no quarter should be given to the 
 enemy, the brave Mac Allisdrum and most of his men were put to 
 the sword in cold blood. . . . There were 4,000 Irish killed on the 
 spot." * 
 
 Whitelock says of his exploits in Leinster: "Inchiquin commits 
 great destruction, as far as he dares venture, about Dublin and 
 Tredah, by burning and driving away of their cattle, hangs all he 
 can meet with going to the Lord Lieutenant." f 
 
 Of Sir Charles Coote's massacres and desolations, we need say 
 nothing more. He is reported as saying with his latest breath : 
 "Blood ! Blood ! More blood ! " 
 
 We end by Ireton, Cromwell's successor in Ireland. 
 
 He was, according to Heath,;); "absolutely the best prayer-maker 
 and preacher in the army, though Oliver came little behind him." 
 
 "Soon after Ireton had the command of the army, he was 
 informed that a certain Barony had broken the articles in considera- 
 tion of which they (i.e., its inhabitants) had been protected. He 
 marched therefore against this Barony, and gave immediate ordei'S to 
 his soldiers to kill man, woman, and child; but before these orders 
 were executed. Lord Broghill expostulated with him upon the cruelty 
 
 * Smith, "Ancient and Present State of the County of Cork," ii., 162. 
 t " Memorials," &c. 
 X Heath, Flagellum. 
 
Massacre in the Cathedral of Cashel. 341 
 
 of such proceedings He (Broghill) was humbly of opinion, that 
 
 it would be more just, reasonable, and honorable, to order the 
 soldiers to kill none but who were found in arms or made any oppo- 
 sition. AVith these words Ireton was at last, though hardly, per- 
 suaded to revoke his bloody commands."* 
 
 The Cathedral of Cashel, which was the scene of the awful dese- 
 cration by Inchiquin, on Sept. 14, 1647, was now doomed to witness 
 a still more fearful massacre at the hands of Ireton. "Having 
 brought together an army, he marched into the county of Tipperary, 
 and hearing that many priests and gentry about Cashel had retired 
 with their goods into the Church, he stormed it, and being entered, 
 put three thousand of them to the sword, taking the priests even 
 from under the altar." f 
 
 Ireton did his work heartily, thoroughly. The Bibles were 
 served out diligently to each company of foot and troop of horse; and 
 the Sword, in the language of the "Simple Cobbler of Aggawam" was 
 made, all over the land, starh drunk with Irish blood. It had real- 
 ized the fervent wish of the pious Cobbler, and made of Irish corpses 
 of men, women, and children "heaps upon heaps, and their country 
 a dwelling place for Dragons, an astonishment to the Nations." 
 
 The Desolation. 
 "On the 1st January, 1651-2, the Parliament (so the Commission- 
 ers report) had in Ireland an army of 30,000 men. But they had 
 350 garrisons and military posts to maintain, and 100 more to plant; 
 while the Irish had an equal number of men, all of them, except 
 those in their towns and garrisons in Connaught, in woods, bogs, and 
 other fastnesses of the greatest advantage to them, and from which 
 there was no dislodging them. ... To place garrisons near their 
 fastnesses, to lay waste the adjacent country, allowing none to inhabit 
 there on pain of death, was the course taken to subdue the Irish. 
 
 * Orrery, " State Letters," i. 32, 33. 
 
 t " Memoirs of Edward Ludlow," i, 106. 
 
342 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 The consequence was that the countby was keduced to a howl- 
 ing WILDERNESS. 
 
 "In liis circuitous march from Limerick, in November, 1650, — a 
 distance, lie says, of one hundred and fifty Irish miles, — Ireton passed 
 through a district of thirty miles together, with hardly a house or 
 any living creature to be seen, only ruins and desolation in a plain 
 and pleasant land. 
 
 "Three fourths of the stock of cattle were destroyed. In 1653, 
 cattle had to be imported from Wales into Dublin; it required license 
 to kill a lamb. Mrs. Alice Bulkeley, widow, on 17th March, 1652, 
 ' in consideration of her ould age and weakness of body,' was licensed 
 to kill and dress, notwithstanding the Declaration of the Commis- 
 sioners for the Affairs of Ireland, so much lamb as should be neces- 
 sary for her own use and eating, not exceeding three lambs for that 
 whole year. Tillage had ceased; the English themselves were near 
 starving. . . . 
 
 "It became important, therefore, to come to terms with the Irish. 
 The Commissioners for Ireland reported that the natives were of 
 opinion that the Parliament intended them no mercy." * 
 
 And they were to have no mercy. 
 
 Sir William Petty — the Surveyor-General — calmly tells us that 
 since October, 1641, up to May, 1652, more than 500,000 natives of 
 Ireland had perished. 
 
 Exile and Bondage. 
 On May 12, 1652, the Irish army in Leinster surrendered. The 
 con<litions on which they laid down their arms were successively 
 adopted by the other Irish forces in Connaught and Ulster, so that in 
 September of that year, the war for liberty was over. The Kilkenny 
 articles stipulated that all who were not guilty of the first blood 
 should be received into protection; and that all who should be un- 
 willing to accept the future dispositions of Parliament in their regard, 
 
 * " The Cromwellian Settlement," p. 79. 
 
Women and Clnldreji sold into Slavery. 343 
 
 would be permitted to treat with the Government for means to mi- 
 grate to foreign countries. 
 
 Both the Government and the Adventurers and Planters were de- 
 sirous of getting rid of every single Irishman, of those who had borne 
 arms, particularly. The noblemen, and officers high in command in 
 the late Confederate army, were allowed to establish recruiting cen- 
 tres all over the island, for tlie purpose of enlisting men for Con- 
 tinental armies. Between 1651 and 1054, 34,000 men left Ireland for 
 ever to serve the Kings of France, Poland, Spain, and the Emperor 
 of Germany. 
 
 The Parliamentary Eecords contain a Letter from Athlone, dated 
 April 12, 1652, and informing the Government of the surrender of 
 one of the few fragments of the Irish army left in the West. "The 
 garrison of Roscommon Castle," it says, "yielded upon that which we 
 adjudged moderate terms amongst us, which is, for the Government 
 to transport a regiment for Spain, ivlwre we could wish the ivhole 
 nation." * 
 
 This was, undoubtedly, the wish of all Protestants in the Three 
 Kingdoms that not an Irish Papist should be left in Ireland. 
 AVhither outside of Ireland the Irish should go, their enemies cared 
 not; they only yearned to be rid of the whole brood. 
 
 I'his clearing out of the Celts was, in the judgment of their 
 adversaries, an indispensable condition for tlie settlement and 
 replantation of the country. 
 
 But what was to be done with the vast multitudes of women and 
 children, left behind by the dreadful wars, the wholesale massacres, 
 the famine, and the plague, which had so wofully thinned the popu- 
 lation during the last decade? And, besides these "widows, deserted 
 wives, and destitute families, there were," says Mr. Prendergast, 
 "plenty of other persons too, who, as their ancient properties had 
 been confiscated, had no visible means of livelihood." 
 
 In the West Indies there was great need of laborers. "Just as 
 
 * " Several Proceedings in Parliament," p. 21i6. 
 
344 T'/ie Cause of Ireland. 
 
 the Kin^ of Spain sent over liis agents to treat with the Government 
 for the Irish swordsmen, the merchants of Bristol had agents with it 
 treating for men, women, and girls, to be sent to the sugar plan- 
 tations. . . . The Commissioners for Ireland gave them orders upon 
 the o-overnors of garrisons, to deliver to them prisoners of war; upon 
 the keepers of gaols, for offenders in custody; upon masters of work- 
 houses, for the destitute in their care; . . . and gave directions to all 
 in authority to seize those who had no visible means of livelihood, 
 and deliver them to these agents of the Bristol sugar-merchants, in 
 execution of which latter direction Ireland must have exhibited scenes 
 in every part like the slave-hunts in Africa. How many girls of gen- 
 tle birth must have been caught and hurried to the private prisons of 
 the men-catchers, none can tell. 
 
 "We are told of one case, Daniel Connery, a gentleman of Clare, 
 was sentenced, in Morison's presence, to banishment, in 1G57, by 
 Colonel Henry Ingoldsby, for harboring a priest. ' This gentleman 
 had a wife and twelve children. His wife fell sick and died in pov- 
 erty. Three of his daughters, beautiful girls, were transported to 
 the West Indies, to an island called the Barbadoes; and there, if still 
 alive (he says), they are miserable slaves.'* But at last the evil 
 became too shocking and notorious, particularly when these dealers 
 in Irish flesh began to seize the daughters and children of the Eng- 
 lish themselves, and to force them on board their slave-ships; then, 
 indeed, the orders, at the end of four years, were revoked." f 
 
 All this happened under the Commonwealth,— when so much was 
 said in Parliament, in the Pulpit, and published in the Press, about 
 civil and religious libertj', and the rights of man; when the English 
 nation professed to be striving at the establishment of pure Gospel 
 Truth and Morality! De Bonald uttered, at the beginning of the 
 present century, while England was applauding and seconding the 
 efforts of Wilberforce to emancipate the Negro Slaves in the West 
 
 * Morison's " Threnodia Hiberno-Catholica" (Innsbruck, 1659), p. 287. 
 t " Cromwellian Settlement," pp. 89, 90. 
 
Tliousands sent in bondage to Barbadoes and Jamaica. 345 
 
 Indies, and while Parliament steadily rejected every proposal to 
 emancipate the Catholics of Ireland: lis aiment Us negres-poiir nepas 
 aimer leurs frcres. Englishmen, even as the century is drawing to 
 its close, might ask their conscience the question. If they are not 
 more touched by the wrongs of the African Zulus or of the Hindoo- 
 stanee races, than by the sufferings, at their door, of the Irish agri- 
 cultural population, still condemned to be the slaves that Cromwell 
 made them? 
 
 Up to March 4, 1655, they had shipped G,400 Irish, — men and 
 women, boys and girls. 
 
 In that same year Admiral Penn conquered Jamaica. Cromwell 
 sent out as colonists 1,500 men of the English army in Ireland; and 
 instructed the Commander of the army there to secure 1,000 young 
 girls to be sent there also. Henry Cromwell, the Commander, sug- 
 gested adding to the number from 1,500 to 2,000 boys of from twelve 
 to fourteen years of age. "We could well spare them," writes Henry 
 to Oliver, "and they might be of use to you; and who knows but it 
 might be a means to make them English men — I mean Christians?"* 
 
 What is more terrible than the irony of History, which uncon- 
 sciously places on record such utterances as these ? Under what a 
 form was the divine beauty of Christianity offered to the youth of 
 wretched Ireland by men whom the unanimous voice of succeeding 
 generations has branded as Hypocrites? The traditions of Catholic 
 Ireland, living uudimmed in the retentive memory of her people, 
 recall a far different type of Englishmen, that of the Dunstans and 
 the Alfreds and the Bedes, together with the other Christian men 
 and women of their day, who resorted in such numbers to hospitable 
 Erin: the two nations then had but one heart and one soul, because 
 knit together by the charities of one divine faith. 
 
 And so they depopulated Erin. The blood of Columba and 
 Columbanus, and of all the host of learned and saintly men who had 
 passed from the monastic homes of Ireland to Lindisfarne and the 
 
 * Thurloe's " State Papers," vol. iv., p. 40. 
 
346 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 schools of England, north and south, and found everywhere the wel- 
 come of most dear brethren, — were accounted by the men of the New 
 Grospel on a par with the savages hunted down and captured along 
 the Niger and the Congo, and sent to slave away their lives in the 
 sugar-plantations of the New World! 
 
 Such was the fruit Anglo-Norman civilization had borne in the 
 Sister Islands from 11G2 to 1653. 
 
 Documentary Evidence. 
 
 "Messrs. Sellick and Leader, Mr. Robert Yeomans, Mr. Joseph 
 Lawrence, and others, all of Bristol, were active agents. As one 
 instance out of many: — Captain John Vernon was employed by the 
 Commissioners for Ireland into England, and contracted in their 
 behalf with Mr. David Sellick and Mr. Leader under his hand, bear- 
 ing date the 14th Sept., 1653, to supply them with 250 women of the 
 Irish nation above twelve years, and under the age of forty-five; also 
 300 men above twelve years of age and under fifty, to be found in the 
 country within twenty miles of Cork, Youghal, and Kinsale, Water- 
 ford, and AVexford, to transport them into New England. Messrs. 
 Sellick and Leader appointed their shipping to repair to Kinsale; but 
 Roger Boyle, Lord Broghill (afterwards Earl of Orrery), whose name, 
 like that of Sir Charles Coote, seems ever the prelude of woe to the 
 Irish, suggested that the required number of men and women might 
 be had from among the wanderers and persons who had no means of 
 getting their livelihood, in the county of Cork alone. Accordingly, 
 on the 23d October, 1653, he was empowered to search for them and 
 arrest them and to deliver them to Messrs. Sellick and Leader, who 
 were to be at all the charge of conductmg them to the water-side, 
 and maintaining them from the time they received them; and no 
 person, being once apprehended, was to be released but by special 
 order in writing under the hand of Lord Broghill. 
 
 "Again, in January, 1654, the Governors of Carlow, Kilkenny, 
 Clonmel, Wexford, Ross, and Waterford, had orders to arrest and 
 deliver to Captain Thomas Morgan, Dudley North, and John John- 
 
How Ireland was to be Settled. 347 
 
 son, English merchants, — all wanderers, men and women, and such 
 other Irish within their precincts, as should not prove they had such 
 settled course of industry, as yielded them a means of their own to 
 maintain them; all such children as were in hospitals and work- 
 houses; all prisoners — men and women — to be transported to the 
 "West Indies. The governors were to guard the prisoners to the ports 
 of shipping; but the* prisoners were to be provided for and main- 
 tained by the said contractors; — and none to be discharged except by 
 order under the hand and seal of the governor ordering the arrest/'* 
 
 It was agreed that the Adventurers who had advanced money and 
 raised an army for the conquest of Ireland in 1643, and the officers 
 and soldiers who liad taken part in the war of subjugation, should 
 have an equal right in the partition of lands. On Sept. 26, 1653, a 
 proclamation of the Lord Deputy Fleetwood, and the Commissioners 
 of Parliament, ainiounced that the rebellion was subdued, and the 
 war ended. To the army a moiety of nine principal counties was dis- 
 tributed, and the other moiety was given to the Adventurers. "A 
 portion of lands in Wicklow was all that was reserved for those who 
 had struggled on against the rebellion before the arrival of Cromwell, 
 and had been neglected since. Connaught was reserved entirely, 
 under certain qualifications, to the Irish, who were to be transported 
 thither from the other parts of the country, and they were to confine 
 themselves within the Shannon, so as not to interfere in any way with 
 the new English settlers. They were to be kept in awe by a circle of 
 strong English garrisons. The counties of Dublin, Kildare, Carlow, 
 and Cork, with all the lands of bishops, deans, and chapters, were 
 reserved by Parliament to be afterward disposed of at their pleasure. 
 Courts were established at Dublin and Athlono, to hear and adjudge 
 claims which might interfere with the rights of the new proprietors, 
 that by settling these, the latter might be relieved from the fear of 
 future litigation. 
 
 " These courts had also to determme the qualifications of the Irish 
 
 * " Cromwellian Plantation," pp. 90, 91. 
 
o48 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 who were to be transplanted into Connamglit, and the allotments of 
 land to be given to them." * 
 
 The Transplantation. 
 
 On the 11th October, 1652, was published in Kilkenny the fol- 
 lowing Sovereign Decree: 
 
 "The Parliament of the Commonwealth of England having by one 
 act lately passed (entitled an Act for the Settling of Ireland) declared 
 that it is not their intention to extirpate this whole nation, but that 
 mercy and pardon for life and estate be extended to all husbandmen, 
 plowmen, laborers, artificers, and others of the inferior sort, in such 
 manner as in and by the said Act is set forth; for the better execution 
 of the said Act, and that timely notice may be given to all persons 
 therein concerned, it is ordered that the Governor and Commissioners 
 of Revenue, or any two or more of them, within every precinct in 
 this nation, do cause the said Act of Parliament with this present dec- 
 laration to be published and proclaimed in their respective precincts 
 by beat of drum and sound of trumpet, on some market da}^, within 
 ten days after the same shall come unto them." 
 
 It w^as the disinheriting and proscribing of a whole nation. All 
 the Catholic nobility and most of the gentry, together with such of 
 the Protestant aristocracy and higher clergy, who had been faithful 
 to the King, were outlawed and banished. The inferior classes were 
 despoiled of all right and title in the land of their forefathers. That 
 the classes above enumerated were excepted from the decree of 
 EXTIKPATION intended to apply, as far as practicable, to "the whole, 
 nation," — was an act of dire necessity : Ireland must otherwise 
 have remained uncultivated, and, besides, their uttermost efforts "to 
 extirpate the whole nation" had failed, thanks to the indomitable 
 spirit of "the Gael." 
 
 "There is an anecdote told by an English monk of the order of 
 the Friars Minors, who must have dwelt, disguised probably (a not 
 
 * Wright, " Hist, of Ireland," vol. ii., p. 113. 
 
The Nation Disinherited and ProscHbed. 349 
 
 uncommon incident), as a soldier or servant, in tlie household of 
 Colonel Ingoldsby, Governor of Limerick, that explains the reason 
 why the common people were to be allowed to stay, and the gentry 
 to transplant. He heard the question asked of a great Protestant 
 statesman, , . . who gave three reasons for it: — First, he said, they 
 are useful to the English as earth-tillers and herdsmen; secondly, 
 deprived of their priests and gentry, and living among the English, 
 it is hoped they will become Protestants; and, thirdly, the gentry 
 without their aid must work for themselves and their families, and 
 so in time turn iaito common peasants, or die, if they don't." * 
 
 It was, therefore, a wholesale national confiscation. And the 
 faint sbadowings of mercy which seemed to attach to the exceptional 
 clauses, were as unsubstantial as shadows, and disappeared as quickl}'- 
 in the working of the Act. Hatred, invincible hatred, toward the 
 English settlers, was assigned, on the part of the proscribed Irish, as 
 the reason for transplanting them to Connaught and confining them 
 there, until they could be gradually extinguished, or merged in the 
 surrounding mass of the Protestant English and Scotch. Kone were 
 excepted but such as could prove a Constant Good Affection toward 
 the Parliament and Commonwealth since the beginning of the Civil 
 War. Loyalty to the King, affection toward his dynasty, sacrifices 
 undergone in his service, even against the Kilkenny Confederates, was 
 of no avail to save noble, gentleman, or soldier, from the decree of 
 expatriation and exju-opriation. Besides, whosoever, among the 
 farming classes and the tradesmen, had borne arms against the Par- 
 liament, — no matter what compulsion or necessity they might plead 
 for so doing, — were to go to Connaught. To the middle space in 
 that Province assigned to the Transplanters, they were ordered to go 
 under pain of death before May 1st, 1654. The only exceptions 
 were: Irish women married to Protestants before Dec. 2, 1C50, and 
 consenting to become Protestants; boys under fourteen, and girls 
 under twelve, in the service of Protestants and to be brought up as 
 
 * Threnodia Hibcrno-Catholica. 
 
350 TJie Cause of Ireland. 
 
 such; and those who conld prove their "constant good affection" to 
 the ParHanient in preference to the King. 
 
 And what was the condition of Connanght in the year of Trans- 
 plantation, 1653-54 ? 
 
 AVe have the authority of Warner for the following statement, 
 which may enable us to form a correct judgment on this point. 
 "The same part," he says, "which Lord Incliiquin was playing in 
 Munster, by burning, plundering, and destroying the country, even 
 to the gates of Limerick, was acted by Sir Charles Coote in Con- 
 naught, Avith a design, as it was supposed, to relieve Bonratty; but 
 he contented himself with wasting and burning the estates of Lord 
 Clanrickarde."* 
 
 One would justly conclude that the object of the Parliament and 
 its Counselors in Ireland, was to give the order for transplanting at 
 the very time (Oct. 15, 1653) when all kinds of difficulties combined 
 to render its execution morally and physically impossible; and thus 
 to find in the. non-compliance of the unhappy people, a pretext for 
 falling on them and exterminating them. 
 
 They were engaged in the labor of gathering the harvest or pre- 
 paring for putting in the winter-crop, when the order came upon 
 them like a thunder-clap in a summer sky. They should be com- 
 pelled to travel in the inclement season, to follow the few roads to the 
 fords over the Shannon; and these roads had been rendered almost 
 impassable by the frequent movements of the hostile armies for more 
 than ten successive years. 
 
 But the near interests of the English Settlers themselves were 
 involved in this sudden departure. The lands abandoned by the 
 emigrants could not be tilled for the coming Spring, — and already 
 every article of food in Ireland was sold at famine prices. 
 
 The Parliament Commissioners, in the sanctimonious slang then 
 de rigueur in all official documents, ordained a day of fasting, "invit- 
 ing the commanders and officers of the army to join them in lifting 
 
 * Warner, p. 371. 
 
The Exodus into Connaught. 351 
 
 « 
 up praj'ers witli strong crying and tears to Him to whom nothing is 
 
 too liard, that His servants, wliom Ho had called forth in this day to 
 
 act in these great transactions, might be made faithful and carried on 
 
 by His own outstretched arm against all opposition and difficulty, to 
 
 do what was pleasing in His sight." 
 
 Had the politico-religious teaching so sedulously inculcated on two 
 generations of Protestant men in Great Britain and Ireland, so warped 
 their understanding, so perverted all natural feeling, — that this great 
 and solemn violation of the most sacred rights of an entire nation, 
 could be looked upon as "God's work," and His aid thus publicly 
 implored toward performing it, without any regard to the claims of 
 humanity, of pity for the suffering? 
 
 At any rate, the work was pushed forward with relentless rigor. 
 The few cases of great hardship mitigated by the Commissioners, 
 were confined to the nobility and gentry, — to those who strove to urge 
 in their own favor their hostility to the Insurrection, their traditional 
 hatred of the mere Irish. As to these " mere Irish" themselves, — 
 the overwhelming mass of the victims of this gigantic and unparal- 
 leled Wrong, they complained not; for it was vain for them to com- 
 plain. They gave up home and everything for the sake of Him in 
 whom alone was their trust. 
 
 Those petitioning for delay, or relief, or alleviation in some form 
 of their cruel fate, bore the names of ' Fitzgerald, Butler, Plunket, 
 Barnwall, Cheever, Dillon, Cusack,' — the descendants of the men, 
 who, in 1535, when Hem-y VIII. had put down Lord Thomas Fitz- 
 gerald, and cut off by the axe of the executioner every branch of the 
 Fitzgerald tree in his power, were found petitioning the English 
 tyrant to extirpate or transplant these "mere Irish." The children 
 were bearing the sins of their parents even in the third and fourth 
 generation. 
 
 The Order of October 15, enjoined on all fathers and heads of 
 families to appear in Loughrea, before January 30, 1654, there to 
 obtain from the Commissioners of Parliament the lands in Connaught 
 to which they were entitled. Each head of a household gave in a 
 
352 The Cause qf Ireland. 
 
 full schedule, descriptive of the number of persons belonging to him 
 or dependent on him, with their personal churacteristics, &c. Xo 
 European police office in modern times contained on its lists, or on 
 the passports delivered by it, a more graphic or minute detail of the 
 physiognomy, stature, of each person applying there for permission to 
 travel. All these are still in existence, were examined by the Author 
 of the "Cromwellian Settlement," — and can still instruct the student 
 of Irish history. . . . These details were necessary to the armies of 
 officials and the long line of military garrisons enclosing Comiaught 
 along the Shannon and along the sea-coast. Any man or Avoman so 
 described, appearing thereafter outside that wall of fire, could be shot 
 down like a wild beast. And they were shot down. 
 
 It is, — shall we call it? — a curious, or rather a deeply-moving, 
 study, to contemplate these pen-and-ink sketches of persons, this 
 photographic gallery of such a large number of our people, the 
 fellow-suflferers of the heroic Celts of 1654. The world was not wor- 
 thy of them. The world looked on and permitted the perpetration 
 of the foulest crime on record. The Christian world formed by the 
 Church and which, before the Reformation, had been one great fam- 
 ily, was now miserably broken up and divided. Tlie Common Father 
 of Christendom could no longer interfere, in the name of Christ, and 
 with the spiritual weapons of his high office, to prevent one nation 
 from exterminating or enslaving another. Unhappily, it Avas for 
 their fidelity to him, — the Vicar of Christ, so long acknowledged as 
 such by England herself, — that the Irish people were now undergo- 
 ing far worse than Egyptian bondage and oppression. 
 
 Now, — be it well remembered, — this Act of the English Par- 
 liament confiscating, by the sole right of the strongest, the in- 
 heritance of a nation, is the sole source of the title by which Irish 
 landlords hold their possessions, — the sole source and sanction of the 
 relation which obtains between them and the tillers and tenants of 
 the soil. It is a title wholly and essentially null in its origin and 
 nature; and no length of possession can purge away the defect which 
 vitiates it in its very origin. 
 
A Fearful Spectacle. 353 
 
 We remark this here, to remind the reader, that this claim shall 
 be fully discussed further on. 
 
 And what of the wretched emigrants in their new homes in Con- 
 naught? Let us listen to the recital of Mi\ Prendergast, — who bor- 
 rows every detail from the original documents in the Government 
 records. 
 
 "They found tlie country a waste. In the summer of this year 
 the famine was so sore that the natives had eaten up all the horses 
 they could get, and were feeding upon one another, the living eating 
 the dead. The county of Clare was totally ruined, and deserted of 
 inhabitants. Out of nine baronies, comprising 1,300 ploughlands, 
 not above forty ploughlands at the most, lying in the barony of Bun- 
 ratty, were inhabited in the month of Jime, 1653, except some few 
 persons living for safety in garrisons. Scarce a place to shelter in. 
 The castles either sleighted by gunpowder, as dangerous to be left in 
 the hands of the Irish; or occupied by the English soldiery, or by the 
 ancient proprietors, who looked upon the transplanters as enemies 
 liable to supplant them, and, therefore, encouraged their followers to 
 give them rough reception. Besides this, the Loughrea Com- 
 missioners gave some of the earliest transplanters assignments in the 
 barony of Barren, in the county of Clare, one of the barrenest, where 
 it was commonly said there was not wood enough to hang a man, 
 water enough to drown him, or earth enough to bury him. They 
 were therefore scared, like the first beasts too suddenly driven at a 
 slaughter yard, communicating their terrors to the herd behind. 
 The English officers, too, wore not assisting to put them in possession 
 of their assignments. Ferrymen and toll-keepers were exacting tolls, 
 contrary to the orders of the Government." 
 
 "The Herd," however, covering as it did three entire provinces, 
 could not be made to move. Like wild animals crowding into a 
 defile, where the leaders become so tightly wedged together, that 
 they can neither move forward nor retreat, so great is the pressure 
 from behind, so was it with the panic-stricken population of the 
 Transplantable in both cities and country places. The heads and 
 23 
 
354 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 fathers of families who liad gone before to build cabins and prepare 
 for the coming of their households, became in very deed panic- 
 stricken at the appalling prospect before them. And from them 
 the panic spread to the expectant and despairing multitudes 
 behind. 
 
 In vain, discouraged themselves at the physical impossibility of 
 forcing a whole people to move on to their own destruction, or of 
 executing punishment oil the delaying and recalcitrant, — the Com- 
 missioners obtained that certain limitations should be put to the 
 qualities that marked out a man or woman as "transplantable." 
 They limited them, at length, to "Proprietors of lands and tlieir fam- 
 ilies, and to Persons that had contrived Eebellion, or abetted it, or 
 had actually borne arms." And then, there were the sick, the aged, 
 the blind, the impotent. To those granted delays, — and only delaj's, 
 not exemption from transplantation, — were next added persons who 
 had aided the English armies, who had discovered rebels, who had 
 sheltered English and Protestants from being murdered, and those 
 giving good proof of their renouncing ' the Popish Superstition and the 
 Bishop of Home,' or should show a sincere desire of being instructed 
 " in the true and saving knowledge of Christ, and Ilis Gospels, and 
 Truths." 
 
 It was offering a most tempting bribe to what sincere believers 
 must deem apostasy. 
 
 But behind this "panic-stricken Herd" were the regiments of 
 English soldiers, to whom arrears of pay were due, and who, in their 
 land-liiDiger, were impatient to enter into possession of the property 
 of the transplanted; and behind the soldiers in arms, di'iving the 
 herd at the point of the lance, and their veteran comrades clamoring 
 loudly for a settlement, were the Adventurers in England, and the 
 Avhole English nation joining in the clamor either because they were 
 impelled by that same "land-hunger," or because they were animated 
 by a fierce spirit of race-hatred toward the Irish and of hostility to 
 their religion. 
 
 We quote from Mr. Prendergast's teeming pages: 
 
Impatietit Voices urging "the Work" forward. 355 
 
 "Dublin, May 31, 1654. 
 
 " We are somewhat in a confused posture yet with our transplan- 
 tation: many are gone, but many others play 'loth to depart.' And 
 many are dispensed with: as, particularly, one whole town, Cashel, 
 towards which we had no great obligation upon us. But the Lord, 
 who is a jealous God, and more knowing of, as well as jealous against, 
 their iniquity than we are, by a fire on the IStli instant hath burnt 
 down the whole town in little more than a quarter of an hour, except 
 some few houses that the English lived in. . . . 
 
 " The pei'sons that got their dispensations from the transplanta- 
 tion, died the day before the fire, of the plague, and none else long 
 before nor since dead of the disease there." 
 
 Wonderful, and edifying — very. But, a superficial reader might 
 be induced to guess that there were some earthly agencies busy in the 
 burning of the houses as well as the death of the unfortunate "dis- 
 pensed." 
 
 " Dublin, July 12, 1654. 
 
 "The transplanting work moves on but slowly. . . . The flood- 
 gates being shut from transporting (to Spain), and one vent being 
 stopped from sending away the soldiery, part of them Irish, they 
 begin to break out into Torying,* and the waters begin to rise again 
 upon us." 
 
 " Dublin, August 24, 1654. 
 
 "The work of transplanting is at a stand. The Tories flie out 
 
 * Father Denis Murphy S. J., in " Cromwell in Ireland," gives this explanation 
 of the word Tory, as applied here. "During the rebellion of 1641 the name of 
 Tories was given to such persons as at first preferred to remain neutral, but who 
 ultimately — perhaps urged by their loss of property and consequent distress — took 
 up arms with a view of reprisal or revenge on those by whom they had been reduced 
 to absolute ruin. English and Irish, Protestant and Catholic, Republican and Roy- 
 alist, were alike their common enemies; and, being joined by men of desperate 
 fortunes, they united themselves into bodies and became formidable gangs of free- 
 booters, who harassed the regular troops of all parties without distinction. ... It 
 was applied by the opponents of Charles I. to his party, under the idea that they 
 favored the Irish rebels. By an easy transition, it became the distinctive appella- 
 tion of the party who wished for the widest extension of the royal prerogative. 
 Some derive it from Tar, a Bigh, ' Come, O King,' a cry used by the Irish adherents 
 of Charles I. Titus Gates used to call any one who opposed him a Tory." 
 
356 The Cause of IreJnnd. 
 
 and increase. It is the nature of this people to be rebellious: and 
 they have been so much the more disposed to it, having been highly 
 exasperated by the transplanting work. This makes many turn 
 Tories who give no quarter, none being given to them." 
 
 " Dubinin, December 21, 1654. 
 "The transplantation is now far advanced, the men being gone. 
 . . . Their wives and children and dependants have been and are 
 packing away after them apace, and all are to be gone by the 1st of 
 March next." 
 
 On Feb. 27, 1655, appeared a proclamation of the Lord Deputy 
 and Council, allowing the wives and families of Transplanters to 
 obtain licenses to remain until May 1st, provided their husbands were 
 in Connaught by March 1. But a certificate was to be sent back 
 from the Commissioners at Loughrea attesting that the husbands 
 were gone to prepare for their families. Otherwise, they and their 
 families were to be "out of protection," that is, treated as enemies in 
 a state of war. 
 
 Here is one cry of joy from the " land-hungry " : 
 
 " Atht, March 4, 1654-5. 
 "... The time prescribed for the transplantation of the Irish 
 proprietors, and those that have been in arms and abettors of the 
 rebellion, being near at hand, the officers are resolved to fill the gaols 
 and to seize them: by which this bloody people will know that they (the 
 officers) are not degenerated from English principles; though I pre- 
 sume we shall be very tender of hanging any but leading men. Yet 
 we shall make no scruple of sending them to the West Indies where 
 they will serve for planters, and help to plant the plantation. ..." 
 
 Urged on by the tyrannical public opinion in both countries, the 
 Government at once took the most effective measures. They seized 
 and sold the crops of the laggard Transplanters, applying the money 
 to relieve the distressed in Connaught. They ordered the arrest and 
 
No Dispensation for Proprietors. 357 
 
 imprisonment of all who had not departed on the day assigned. 
 Troopers and soldiers in every part of the Kingdom issued from their 
 garrisons and seized high and low, dragging them from their beds in 
 the dead of night, and driving them in great herds before them to 
 the nearest gaols. But there were not gaols enough, nor room enough 
 in the gaols. They were now "out of protection," that is, outlawed 
 and subject to military executions. Courts martial were organized, 
 "some were put to death; others sold as slaves into America, others 
 detained in prison till they were not able to put bread into their 
 mouths; others, as partakers of the greatest favor that could be 
 expected, only released on condition of transplanting into Con- 
 naught."* 
 
 So, imder whatever thin veil of moderation or false semblance of 
 justice the Government tried to conceal their real intent, the Avork of 
 extermination went on, — in Connaught and outside of Connaught. 
 
 What was to be done with the imprisoiied masses, for whom the 
 limited slave-markets in America offered no outlet, and with the far 
 greater mass of destitute and homeless, now driven from their lands 
 and dwellings by the new proprietors ? 
 
 It is fearful to write of these things, fearful to think of them. 
 Yet we must conclude our narrative. 
 
 To the anxious enquiries of officials in the various Precincts, the 
 Government laid down as a rule, that in granting the favor of a fur- 
 ther delay, or in exempting from the penalties of outlawry incurred 
 by unauthorized delay to transplant, a distinction should be made in 
 the two classes of Proprietors and Swordmen. Under the former 
 class (of course, they were to be transplanted by all means, for their 
 lands or houses were wanted), were to be ranked all mortgageors and 
 mortgagees, and their eldest sons; the brothers, sons, or next heirs of 
 such, and all who could have any possible claim to inherit from them; 
 lessees for seven years and their children; widows entitled to their 
 jointure; the wives and children of swordmen gone to Spain; and " 
 the orphans of transplantable persons. . . . 
 
 * See Carte Papers, vol. vii., p. 6, in the Bodleian Library. 
 
358 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 In one word every category of persons who had any actual or pro- 
 spective right to the soil of Ireland, to house, home, or tenement on 
 that soil, was, — by this legislation, — outlawed, disfranchised, and 
 placed outside the pale of humanity. 
 
 From out the overcrowded prisons, — crowded often with the high 
 born and the once opulent, it was decreed that "They might also set 
 at liberty and dispense for six months, those who, though not able to 
 prove constant good affection, could be held Good Affection men, not 
 however above forty in number from each district prison." 
 
 So, — for the Irish, the Irish Catholic nation, who could claim no 
 Good Affection, and who gloried in not claiming it, — there was no 
 license, no delay, no relief from misery save in death, or in the heroic 
 resolve to suffer the worst, and brave every danger, while remaining 
 true to Erin and to God. ... I shall not pity them; but bless them 
 and worship their memory. 
 
 But here comes in the New Gospel. 
 
 "And all such Swordmen and Proprietors as by two Justices of 
 the Peace were certified to have really renounced popery, and for 
 six months past had constantly resorted to Protestant worship, were, 
 on giving security to transplant by the 12th of April following, to be 
 set at libert3^ Protestantism now appeared so amiable that con- 
 versions spread." 
 
 So speaks from his honest heart and indignant spirit this brave 
 Protestant. 
 
 The Lord Deputy and Council did not give implicit belief to the 
 professions of the new converts. Proper persons of the sterling Puri- 
 tan stamp were sent to the localities where the neophytes abounded. 
 When insincerity Avas apparent, — as in the perverts of Cape Clear 
 Island and Connemara in 1647-48, — "the Irish so offending were to 
 be made an example of by requiring them to transplant forthwith 
 into Connaught." 
 
 Death preferred to Transplantation. 
 
 " Dublin, July 27, 1655. 
 
 *'The business of transplanting is not yet finished. The Irish 
 
A Voice in England denounces Transplantation. 359 
 
 cliuse death rather than remove from their wonted habitations. But 
 the State is resolved to see it done." 
 
 In the month of March precedhig, however, the impatient ad- 
 venturers and the wrathful anti-Popery public of London were re- 
 joiced to learn that "Daniel Fitzpatrick and another in Ireland/' had 
 been "condemned (to death) by the Commissioners in Kilkenny for 
 refusing to transport themselves into Connaught, which makes the 
 rest to hasten." 
 
 In the same month, the Court Martial sitting in St. Patrick's 
 Cathedral, Dublin, to pronounce on all such cases, sentenced Mr. 
 Edward Hetherington of Kilnemanagh to death for the same crime. 
 He was executed April 3, being hanged with placards on his breast 
 and back "for not transplanting." 
 
 Of the others who perished by sentence of these Courts Martial, 
 sitting in every province, we are not informed in detail, and we need 
 not inquire further. 
 
 Among the twenty-nine representatives of Ireland, who sat in the 
 English Parliament in 1G54, was the son of a planter of James L, 
 who, born in Ireland, had learned to love the Irish people. He rep- 
 resented the district of Kinsale; and mixing from his cradle with that 
 bright, intelligent, irrepressible southern folk, he conceived them to 
 be, as a people, morally and intellectually superior to their Anglo- 
 Saxon revilers. His soul revolted, while sitting in that fanatical par- 
 liament, both against the calumnies uttered in public against the Irish 
 character, and the unjustifiable, suicidal wrong done to the nation by 
 the scheme to which Parliament had committed itself. 
 
 He, Vincent Clookin, wrote and published a book, which ex- 
 ploded, like one of our modern Dynamite Cartridges, among the 
 Roundheads of Westminster and Whitehall.* 
 
 * "The Great Case of Transplantation in Ireland Discussed; or certain Con- 
 siderations, wherein the many jjrcat Inconveniences in transplantinp^ the Natives of 
 Ireland . . , into the Province uf Connaught are shown," &c. 4to. London: for J. 
 C, 1655. 
 
360 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 The new planters — the disbanded soldiers in particular — could not 
 do without the Irish, who, both women and men, were more expert 
 in all kinds of husbandry, and native manufactures: in every one hun- 
 di'ed men were to be found at least five or six masons or carpenters, 
 and these more skilful and ready at all sorts of contrivance than any 
 others. The revenue would be ruined by the transplantation; for 
 this came from the abundant crops of corn raised by the Irish and 
 exported to England. 
 
 The transplanting multiplied Tories; and Tories made the new 
 plantations outside of Connaught impossible. And then comes this 
 picture of a ruined nation, — the most saddening ever drawn by the 
 hand of man: 
 
 "The chiefest and eminentest of the nobility, and many of the 
 gentry, had taken conditions from tlie King of Spain, and had trans- 
 ported 40,000 of the most active spirited men, most acquainted with 
 the dangers and discipline of Avar. The priests were all banished. 
 The remaining part of the whole nation was scarce one-sixth part of 
 what they were at the beginning of the war, so great a devastation 
 had God and man brought upon that land. And that handful of 
 natives left were poor laborers, simple creatures, whose sole design 
 was to live and maintain their families, the manner of which was so 
 low, that their design was rather to be pitied than by anybody feared 
 or hindered. ..." 
 
 Then came the difficulty of enforcing transplantation. "The Irish 
 would say they could but find want and ruin at the worst if they stay; 
 and why should they travel so far for that which will come home to 
 them ? Against transplantation the Irish have ('tis strange) as great 
 a resentment as against loss of estate, yea, even death itself. But, 
 supposing they should have a dram of rebellious blood in them, or be 
 sullen and not go? Can it be imagined that a whole nation will drive 
 like geese at the wagging of a hat upon a stick ? . . . Wlien then 
 will this wild war be finished; Ireland planted; inhabitants disbur- 
 thened; soldiers settled? The unsettling of a nation is easy work; 
 the settling is not. The opportunity for it is not always: it is now. . . 
 
Exterminate the Cannanites. 361 
 
 It had been better if Ireland had been thrown into the sea before 
 the first engagement on it, if it is never to be settled." 
 
 Those now armed with joower, both in England and in Ireland, 
 were firmly resolved to " settle " the subjugated country iu their own 
 way, and once for all. If, on one side, you had the stream of the 
 transplanted impelled toward Connaught by all the means of "sua- 
 sion" Cromwell and his lieutenants could command; on the other 
 side, you had the hosts of hungry and wrathful soldiers and adven- 
 turers, who were waiting for their promised lands. They besieged 
 night and day the Commissioners, the more ancient soldiers thrusting 
 the priority of their claims upon the representatives of Power. Eank 
 behind rank these impatient, expectant multitudes stood wrangling 
 among themselves, bringing to bear upon the Commissioners the 
 mighty j)ressure of their numbers and their fanaticism. 
 
 Hear this clamor ascending from the officers and soldiers nearest 
 to Dublin Castle : * they pray for the immediate and perfect enforce- 
 ment of the Order of the Council of State in England, confirmed by 
 Parliament Sept. 37, 1653, requiring the removal into Connaught of 
 all the Irish nation, except boys of fourteen and girls of twelve. 
 
 "We humbly conceive that the proclamation for transplanting 
 only the proprietors and such as have bin in arms will neither answer 
 the end of safety nor what else is aimed at thereby. For the first 
 purpose of the transplantation is to prevent those of natural principles 
 [i.e., of natural affections] becoming one with those Irish, as well in 
 affinity as in idolatry, as many thousands did, who came over in 
 Queen Elizabeth's time, many of which have had a deep hand in all 
 the late murthers and massacres. And shall we join in affinity " — 
 they ask — "with the people of these abominations? Would not the 
 Lord be angry with us till he consumes us, having said, ' The land 
 Avhich ye go to possess is an unclean land, because of the filthiness of 
 
 * "The humble petition of the Officers within the Precincts of Dublin, Cather- 
 lough (Carlow), Wexford, and Kilkenny, in the behalf of themselves, their soul- 
 diers, and other faithful English Protestants, to the Lord Deputy and Council of 
 Ireland." 
 
363 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 the people that dwell therein. Ye shall not therefore give your sons 
 to their daughters, nor take their daughters to your sons/ as it is in 
 Ezra ix. 11, 12, 14. ^ Nay, ye shall surely root them out before you, 
 lest they cause you to forsake the Lord your God,' Deut. vii. 2, 3, 
 4, 16, 18. . . ."* 
 
 "Accordingly," says Mr. Prendergast, "the State pressed on the 
 great work. 'They were resolved to see it done.' Again and again 
 they filled the gaols, threatening to execute the criminals. 
 
 "Wholesale executions, however, for this crime, seem to have 
 been thought inexpedient; but the Government had no scruple, we 
 see, in sending them to the West Indies." 
 
 The Irish Catholics in Ireland Avere only noxious weeds: they 
 MUST BE ROOTED OUT. And into ships they cast them, to be thrown 
 on the rocks of Barbadoes, or handed over as bond-slaves to the 
 planters of Jamaica and of the English colonies on the adjoining 
 continent. 
 
 We have seen that Parliament, in ordering the Irish from the 
 other provinces to "transplant" into Connaught, had reserved for 
 "English use" the cities and towns, with a circuit of some miles 
 round each: besides this, the entire province was to be surrounded 
 by a belt of several miles in width reserved to the veteran soldiers, 
 who would thus form a living wall between the Exiles, their former 
 homes, and the outside world beyond the seas. But, by degrees, the 
 area within this circle was narrowed for the transplanted, the entire 
 county of Mayo being set apart to pay the arrears of a privileged 
 portion of the army, and other fertile and favored districts here and 
 there taken up for the same purposes. It was a skilfully devised 
 scheme of completing by gradual suffocation the process of "rooting 
 out" not perfected by enlistment for foreign service or transportation 
 to the West Indies. The native inhabitants of Connaught were con- 
 sidered as having no right to the lands which had belonged from time 
 immemorial to their ancestors, and were separated, of set design, and 
 
 * " Mercnrius Politicus, comprising the Summe of all Intelligence," &c. A 
 weekly publication, P. 5236. 
 
The Spoiling of the Canaanites. 3G3 
 
 scattered whithersoever tliose who fulfilled tlie orders of the Commis- 
 sioners thought fit to drive them. 
 
 It was exasperating enough to have to give up their own liome- 
 steads to their own brethren of Down or Antrim, or Wicklow or Cork; 
 but to lose everything in order to accommodate the descendants of 
 tlie "Old English," of the men who had ever been the bitterest foes 
 of Irish nationality, was unendurable. 
 
 So, there were bitter heart-burnings between the new-comers and 
 tlie Connaught men themselves. This, however, was only the lightest 
 hardship both had to bear. 
 
 The more favored transplanters who had settled down at first in 
 some of the more fertile districts, and had there begun to build and 
 to plant and to provide against all future need, were soon ordered to 
 remove to another place, when Government, yielding to the violent 
 pressure of the "land-hungry," took from the Canaanite idolaters 
 the portions allotted to them, and drove them out further into the 
 barren wilderness. 
 
 Woe to the transplanter who had saved money or other valuables 
 from the wreck of his fortune. The long chain of officials through 
 whose hands he had to pass, from the Commissioners at Loughrea 
 and their subalterns, to the toll-gatherers at the fords of the Shan- 
 non, to the surveyors who marked out his assigned lands, and the 
 officers who installed him in his new homestead, — all liad to be 
 bribed. If he had no money, no valuables, a part of the lands 
 assigned to him must be given over to the surveyor or to the officials 
 who watched over the peace of the district, and on whose breath, not 
 unfrequently, hung the life or death of the poor hunted, heart-broken 
 wayfarers. 
 
 "The Cootes, the Kings, the Binghams, the Coles, the St. 
 Georges, the Ormsbys, the Gores, the Lloyds having thus defranded 
 transplanters of part of their lots, bought up the remnant at two 
 shillings and sixpence, and three shillings per acre, and at the 
 utmost, five shillings. j\Iajor Byrne, having a decree from Athlone 
 for 2,000 acres, gave Sir James Cuffe, one of the officers of transplan- 
 
364 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 tation at Longlirea, two liundred for obtaining his assistance in pro- 
 curing the remainder. ... Or tlie officer purchase the Athlone 
 decree for a song, and then got his brother officers to set him out 
 larger scopes than the transplanter was entitled to." * 
 
 How did these multitudes of men, women, and children house 
 themselves and find sufficient food amid all the difficulties of their 
 new abode ? 
 
 One noble lady, — the wife of Sir Luke Fitzgerald, from Tieroghan 
 Castle, Meath, wrote on June 13, 1655, "that all the gentry were 
 transplanted, and fain to live under the air, or in such barracks as 
 her correspondent had at Ballinakill in the siege time." f 
 
 Dr. French, Bishop of Ferns, whose letters about Wexford have 
 already been quoted, says: "Many opulent persons of good quality; 
 yea, and many of them peers and lords of the realm, were lodged in 
 smoky cabins, and, as might well be said, buried there, and starved 
 to death with their wives and children." 
 
 The Government vainly ordered the Loughrea Commissioners to 
 give the first transplanters good lands and good accommodation, for 
 the purpose of encouraging others to follow, and thus to expedite the 
 work. The very first who came, however, were, in direct violation of 
 the order, assigned the Baronies of Burren and Incliiquin in the 
 county Clare, famed for their sterility. 
 
 Then, as the work went on, and the despairing transplanters, to 
 avoid hanging or transportation and slavery, hurried toward their 
 Siberia, intolerable hardships and delays awaited them. 
 
 So great was the land-hunger, so loud and furious the clamor of 
 the multitudes possessed with it, and so firmly set was the purpose 
 J of the various Committees in Ireland charged with the transplanting, 
 — that the Irish Papists should be rooted out, — that no favor was 
 shown even to the inhabitants of the Munster towns, who had been 
 most faithful to England, and had suffered most for their fidelity. 
 A Court sate at Mallow to pass on the "qualifications" of these suf- 
 
 * " Cromwellian Conquest," p. 151; where he quotes the original documents in 
 the Record Tower, Dublin Castle, t Ibid. 
 
The Irish desj^air of Ireland. 365 
 
 ferers; one of the Judges was the notorious Eegicide Cooke, who, of 
 course, was resolved to transplant or transport every individual Papist 
 brought before him. 
 
 "Upon mature consideration," writes this worthy, and his com- 
 peers on the bench of injustice, to the Government, "upon mature 
 consideration (so far as the Lord hath enabled us) we have proceeded 
 to judgment in the causes depending before us, and have not ad- 
 judged constant good affection to any one of the claimants; but the 
 law will be clear for most of them to have two parts in Connaught. 
 . . . We spared no pains to distinguish the merits of each case; and 
 as we were selecting ten or twenty that might best pretend to be 
 legally restored to their own estates, the next claimants had instantly 
 as much to say for themselves; and when we had named and weighed 
 about eighty-six cases, . . . presently the claimants' counsel named 
 others to us, which we in our reason could not deny but that they did 
 equally merit with the rest, so, &c. . . . They make great as- 
 severations that they dare not go into Connaught for fear of their 
 lives, and that they had rather be sent to the Barbadoes. . . ." 
 
 The Court sitting at Mallow (by exception) and permanently at 
 Athlone, and over which John Cooke presided, was thus deciding the 
 fate of Ireland and of the Irish race. 
 
 Can the reader form to himself a picture, or any adequate con- 
 ception of the misery and sufferings of an entire people thus, literally, 
 disinherited, despoiled, and driven by their armed enemies into exile, 
 poverty, exposure to the inclemency of the seasons, and often into 
 starvation; and, all the while, the inhuman wretches who had robbed, 
 ruined, and driven them out of house, home, and native land, quoting 
 the Bible in justification of their barbarity, blaspheming God's name 
 and insulting His goodness, by pretending to be doing His work, a 
 righteous and godly work, by exterminating, starving to death, or 
 enslaving a Christian people ? 
 
 "With such spectacles daily and hourly before their eyes, it is no 
 wonder that the transplanted who could find means to fly, or were 
 not tied by large families of children, sold their assignments for A 
 
366 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 mere trifle to the officers of government, and fled in horror and aver- 
 sion from the scene, and embarked for Spain. Some went mad; as 
 Christopher Eustace, of the countv of Kildare, restored to his estate, 
 at the King's restoration, as ' Mad Eustace ' (for though he recovered 
 his estate, he never recovered his wits); others killed themselves like 
 Molly Hore, wife of Philip Hore of Kilsallaghan Castle, seven miles 
 north of Dublin, who, on getting the summons to transplant to Con- 
 naught, went down to her stable and hanged herself. Others lived 
 on and founded families in their Final Settlement which subsist to 
 this day, like some of the Talbots and the Cheevers." 
 
 So much for the Irish Catholics of noble or of gentle blood. 
 Among these few, if an}", bearing Celtic patronymics had, apparently, 
 been left among the exiled multitudes. They had been lavish of 
 their lives on the battle-field; and the sword of the Parliamentarian 
 drank their blood greedily when the fury of battle had spared them 
 and fortune betrayed them into the hands of the foe. So many of 
 them were serying abroad, drowning their sorrows in the intoxication 
 of glorious warfare, or forgetting them awhile in the splendor of for- 
 eign courts. Others, at home, wandered outlawed among bogs, and 
 woods, and mountain fastnesses. Little chance had they even to 
 obtain the dubious favor of transplantation, or of hiding their dis- 
 tinction b}' mixing with the common herd. At this distance in time 
 from these fearful days, we, tlie descendants of that persecuted race, 
 have no idea of the admirable system organized by our oppressors, for 
 distinguishing, as they passed the military garrisons, the court of 
 Athlone, the Commissioners' Office in Roscrea, the fords across the 
 Shannon, and the innumerable posts along every road to their re- 
 spective "assignments," — every man, woman, and child from each 
 other and their neighbors. 
 
 Thank God, some of the Records of these transactions still exist, 
 to be published in full, when the Irish people are the masters of their 
 own destinies and the possessors of their own native land. 
 
 But what was the fate, what were the sufferings, of that "common 
 herd," that mass of Celts, whose lives were accounted as of far less 
 
What became of the real Celts ? 36T 
 
 value than that of the animals the}' drove before them toward the 
 pastures of Connaught? What befell them and their brother-Celts 
 of Connaught, when thus "packed" and enclosed in that narrow 
 penn between the Shannon and the sea ? 
 
 They suffered, they kept the faith, they put their trust in the 
 God of their fathers, — the God mighty and powerful to save; they 
 hoped against hope; and rose superior to every trial of their endur- 
 ance, their courage, and their constancy. They still live,- — this peo- 
 ple of confessors and martyrs, this nation still striving after the 
 fulness of its nationhood with all the energy of a spirit, which no 
 suffering has quelled or appalled, and which gathers strength as it 
 moves on towards the goal, like the St. Lawrence around Montreal, 
 when the rapids are past, and all is peaceful and smooth, moving 
 majestically and resistlessly onward to the Ocean. 
 
 I repeat the words of Vincent Gookin, addressed to the English 
 Parliament of 1655: "When Avill this wild war of English unreason 
 and injustice toward the Irish people be finished? When will Ireland 
 be planted with those acts of simple equit}', those institutions in con- 
 formity with enlightened freedom and Christian civilization, which 
 will bring forth lasting fruits of order and peace, instead of being 
 sown all over with these seeds of inveterate wrong, which, with every 
 spring-tide, appear above the earth threatening a harvest of crime, 
 disaster, and national calamity? 'The unsettling of a nation is easy 
 work; the settling is not. The opportunity for it is not always. It 
 
 IS STOW.'" 
 
 Here in our free America, where men are not afraid to weigh the 
 cause of nations in the scales of impartial justice, I appeal even to the 
 descendants of the Puritans, not only in Xew England, but all over 
 the Union. Have you, have the English race in Great Britain, ever 
 reflected seriously on the enormous, the unjustifiable, the incredible 
 wrong committed by the entire English people on those of the Sister 
 Island ? 
 
 By what singular providence did it happen that the appeals made 
 by the Commonwealth to Protestants of every foreign nation, even to 
 
368 The Cause, of Ireland. 
 
 the Hussites of Bohemia, to colonize the other three Provinces of 
 Ireland, conld find no response there? And, more singular still, 
 why were not the Puritans of IS'ew England, so earnestly, so patheti- 
 cally appealed to, induced to return and share with the English 
 adventurers and soldiers, the empty homesteads of Ulster, Leinster, 
 and Munster, — the fair and fertile ploughlands of the Green Isle, 
 and the comfortable habitations in the almost tenantless cities ? 
 
 The effort of Government and People aimed at establishing there 
 a Protestant nation. The Papist transplanters in Connaught would, 
 they reasonably hoped, be so hemmed in, so thinned by suffering, so 
 divided by intermingling with the "superior race," and coming nearer 
 to the light of a "purer religion," soon become English in speech, 
 manners, and creed. 
 
 As the "Settlement" of Ireland w^ent on, besides the purely Eng- 
 lish Colony contemplated between tlie Barrow and the Boyne, and 
 the purely Irish imprisoned in Connaught, there was planned a mixed 
 one in the intermediate counties; but this was to be a regular prose- 
 lytizing school. "In this mixed plantation no transplantable persons 
 were to be taken as tenants or servants, and only such Irish as should 
 be in each case specially authorized by the State. The landlords Avere 
 to be bound to make them speak English within a limited time; and 
 their children were to be taught no Irish: they were to observe the 
 manners of the English in their habits and deportment wherein the 
 English exceeded them. Their children were to be brought up under 
 English Protestant school-masters; they were to attend the public 
 preaching of Protestant ministers; they were to abandon their Irish 
 names of Teig, and Dermot, and the like, and to call themselves by 
 the significance of such names in English; and for the future were to 
 name their children with English names, especially omitting the (0') 
 and (Mc); and, lastly, should build their houses with chimneys as 
 English in like capacity do, and demean themselves in their lodging 
 and other deportments accordingly."* 
 
 * " The Cromwellian Settlement," pp. 247, 248 ; where the author quotes 
 Colonel Lawrence's " The great Interest of England in the Well Planting of Ire- 
 land with English People," 1656. 
 
New EiKjland Puritans invited to Ireland. 369 
 
 They purposed doing thoroughly "the work" of "converting" the 
 Irish remnant to Enghsh ways in rehgion as in all else, since all 
 methods of extermination had only had a partial success. Looking 
 back to the year of calamity 1652, when God and men seemed to 
 have forsaken the Catholic Irish, we cannot help a feeling of sadness 
 as we try to conceive how dark and despairing was the prospect before 
 them, and a feeling of unspeakable gratitude that He for whom they 
 suffered did not fail them in their trust. 
 
 With what exultation those who admired Cromwell and were in 
 sympathy with his methods of propagating the Gospel, looked on the 
 desperate plight to which Popery in Ireland had been reduced! 
 
 "The expectation of this day," said one of these, in dedicating a 
 book on Ireland to the Lord Protector, and the Lord Deputy Fleet- 
 wood, "is the hope of Israel. I look somewhat upon the hopeful 
 appearance of replanting Ireland shortly, not only by Adventurers, 
 but haply by the calling in of exiled Bohemians and other Protestants 
 also, but liaply by the invitation of some well-affected out of the Low 
 Countries."* The Act of Sept. 1653, gave to all foreign Protestants 
 the rights of citizenship in Ireland. In 1651 the Commissioners for 
 Ireland urged the famous New England Puritan Preacher, Harrison, 
 to come back to Ireland, and sow the good seed in its soil. Then 
 going back to America, he might encourage his brethren there to 
 return to their native country and settle in Ireland. Harrison did 
 not or could not respond to the invitation. In 1655, however, pro- 
 posals were made and accepted for colonizing Sligo and its neighbor- 
 hood. In 1656 several families from New England came to Limerick 
 and were located on State lands at Garristown, near Dublin. 
 
 The providence of God had reserved another and a far more glori- 
 ous mission to the New England Colonies. 
 
 Meanwhile the imperious need of human aid in their labors, — per- 
 haps of human companionship in the waste which surrounded them, 
 — made the planters of the North and the South of Ireland overlook 
 
 * " Ireland's Natural History," by Gerard Boate. 4to. London, 1652. 
 24 
 
370 TTie Cause of Ireland. 
 
 all legal enactments, and invite the Creaghts and otlier Irish wander- 
 ers to help them till the ground. The officers and soldiers who had 
 been a long time in Ireland, now that the conflict was ended, and 
 that their land-hunger was appeased by possession, felt their preju- 
 dices and a little of their fanaticism falling away from them. Not 
 only did they tolerate, first, and then court the neighborhood and 
 companionship of the banned Irish, but intermarried with them. 
 And things went so far, that in 1651 Ireton forbade such marriages 
 under the severest penalties to the soldier. In 1652 the marriage of 
 an officer or a soldier with an Irishwoman was made punishable by 
 loss of rank, arrears, and title to any land or inheritance in Ireland. 
 All these pi'ohibitions produced only a very partial and temporary 
 effect. There has ever been, so far as history can go back to describe 
 the manners and morals of the Irish people, a purity, a simplicity, and 
 withal a heartiness and hospitality about them in social intercourse, 
 — which cannot fail to impress and captivate even the most hostile. 
 
 So, by degrees, the Irish, in spite of all legal penalties, became 
 mixed up with the English settlers, — the Creaghts as farm-servants 
 and herdsmen, the cultivators as tenants-at-wdll, and the former pro- 
 prietors, in their fond attachment to the patrimonial estate, often 
 consenting to accept the privilege of living there in the same capacity 
 of tenants, and of cultivating a few of the acres of their former broad 
 domain. 
 
 All this happened in direct violation of the will of both the Eng- 
 lish and the Irish Governments. This was done more openly in Mun- 
 ster. The rigorous Acts regulating transplantation were again and 
 again enforced, as we shall see presently. But still the Irish 
 prevailed. 
 
 How did it fare with the purely English Colony, situated within 
 the territory bounded by tlie Boyne and the Barrow ? After a time, 
 the Government feeling sure that no Irish did or could inhabit the 
 country north of Dublin, between the Liffey and the Boyne, limited 
 their scheme to the Five Counties, — that part of Dublin County 
 south of the Liffey, together with Wicklow, Wexford, Kildare, and 
 
The Irish Papists ordered out of the Pale. 371 
 
 Carlow. On July 17, 1654, it was ordered that all this territory 
 should be "wholly transplanted of Irish Papists," by May 1, 1655, on 
 pain of all such persons found therein after that date being taken as 
 spies, and dealt with according to martial law. 
 
 It was thus intended to use no half-measures in ridding this 
 favored territory of the hated race and religion. The English pro- 
 prietors, old and new, protested. They were given a hearing before 
 the Privy Council in Dublin on February 19, 1655. The land could 
 not be tilled without the Irish. A committee was appointed to 
 examine and determine which parts in the Counties should be totally 
 cleared of Irish; in which parts Irish, who were neither proprietors 
 nor swordsmen, might be tolerated. But the general order w^as 
 not withdrawn. Delay after delay occurred. It was hoped that 
 tenants and farm-laborers would come from England. None came, 
 however. At length a special commission was appointed to regulate 
 the matter and to lay down stringent conditions regarding such Irish 
 as were thus to be retained. 
 
 The proprietor bound himself to make, within six months, 
 Protestants of all transplantable persons kept in his service, and the 
 Government was to be satisfied that the change of religion was no 
 feigned one. The converts were to hear the Lord's Word in the 
 meeting-house every Lord's Day, if such meeting-house were within 
 four miles; every other Lord's Day, if within six miles; if further, 
 once a month. Their children were to learn the catechism in the 
 English tongue, without book, and as taught by the mhiister. But 
 the Government, — says Mr. Prendergast, — seems to have forgotten 
 the naming the children with English names; and. the chimneys, 
 and the English deportment in houses, lodging, and manners, 
 wherein the English exceeded them. But probably there was about 
 as much use in the one as the other. The landlords w^anted their 
 labor, and not English piety, or Anglo-Saxon elegance. For though 
 the letter of one of the officers remains, requesting the prayers of 
 their friends, that now they had come to possess houses they had not 
 built, and vineyards they had not planted, they might not forget the 
 
372 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 Lord and His goodness to them in the day of their distress; one that 
 knew them well a few years later said, he had hunted with them, 
 diced with them, drunk with them, and fought with them, but had 
 never prayed with them; and another, that an Irish Protestant was 
 a man who ate meat on a Friday, and hated a Papist. 
 
 During the remaining years of the Commonwealth, if the Govern- 
 ment perforce connived at the retention of Irish Papists on some 
 points of the Desert the Sword, the Bible, and Transplantation had 
 created, — it was only on conditions like those just mentioned, of 
 forcing the exempted persons to apostatize. Apparently, their suc- 
 cess in this respect was very limited. 
 
 But, before quitting this portion of our subject, let us glance at 
 this Desert over which Cromwell and his lieutenants ruled in Ireland. 
 
 1. The Story of Connaiight. 
 
 We have not dared to draw a truthful picture of Connaught 
 during the two or three first years after the Act of Transplantation 
 was enforced. We believe, — and in this we are borne out by the 
 concurrent testimony of the eye-witnesses and contemporaries of 
 the events we have just been narrating, — that nothing but the 
 divinest consolations of Eeligion in the very extremity of ill, noth- 
 ing but the most heroic charity of the Irish bishops and priests 
 clinging with invincible constancy to their persecuted flocks, — could 
 have prevented Connaught, under the circumstances here described, 
 from becoming a hell upon earth, and the' grave as well of the Irish 
 nationality. 
 
 AYho knows but some one of the sons of Ireland now living, 
 catching the inspiration which has produced such works as the 
 " Cromwelhan Settlement," will undertake the history of the Prov- 
 ince during the dark days of the Commonwealth and down to the 
 landing of the French at Killala. What a narrative — surpassing in 
 tragic interest and equalling in sublime moral instruction the Exodus 
 of Moses — would be the story, not only of what the despoiled Irish 
 endured on their way to Connaught, but the untold and unspeakable 
 
What prophetic Vision may have gladdened St. Patrick dying. 373 
 
 trials endured there ! Travelers now-a-days seek pleasant recreation 
 and healthful exercise in visiting the grand and romantic scenery of 
 the western sea-coast from the mouth of the Shannon to the Bay 
 of Donegal. Artists roam over its broad estuaries and beautiful 
 lakes, its weird and picturesque mountain- scenery, to gather there 
 both inspiration and the materials for their pencil. Tlie lakes and 
 mountains, the cities and hamlets of Palestine in the age of Mattha- 
 thias the Macchabee and his heroic sons, never beheld such religious 
 heroism, such touching self-sacrifice to God, to country, to the dear 
 love of kindred and race, — as hallowed and illumined every portion 
 of that Province, so deserving of the eternal veneration of Irish- 
 men. 
 
 St. Patrick, his most authorized biographers say, spent the entire 
 Lenten Season in solitude, fasting, and prayer, on the lofty summit 
 of the mountain that bears his name, and which dominates the glo- 
 rious expanse of Clew Bay, with its clusters of islands. Evil spirits 
 in]iumerable, some times appearing as flocks of dusky birds, disturbed 
 the saint in his devotions. What were the prophetic visions which 
 God vouchsafed to His great servant in these solitary meditations, and 
 while the Evil One thus intruded upon his solitude? Were the tears 
 he shed there, and the fervent prayers poured forth night and day by 
 this spiritual parent of the Irish race, caused by seeing, not so much 
 the combined efforts of the spirits of darkness to prevent the conver- 
 sion of the nation -from idolatry, — but by having revealed to him the 
 frightful slaughter and persecutions of this faithful people at the 
 period we have been describing? 
 
 The great Hebrew Prophet and Liberator poured forth a magnifi- 
 cent hymn of thanksgiving as he beheld his people united and victo- 
 rious beneath him, within sight of the Promised Land, and then 
 ascended the mountain top to yield his spirit to the Creator. I ask 
 myself if the victories of Israel over Edom, and Moab, and Canaan, 
 were more glorious to the Hebrew race, than is to the Irish people 
 their having outlived the tremendous ordeals we have enumerated, 
 and preserved their faith in God and their undying hopes of freedom 
 
374 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 and nationality through the centuries spent in the furnace and the 
 flame. 
 
 To bishops like Nicholas French, hunted like a wild beast through 
 wood and bog and mountain wild, and living for months and years 
 without secure cover or shelter, — what a spectacle was that of these 
 multitudes pouring into Connaught, and seeking with weary feet and 
 sinking hearts some corner of earth to rest and die upon, as they 
 looked up to Him who is the Judge of the whole earth ? And to the 
 heroic priests, who, under a hundred disguises, attended the trans- 
 planted emigrants on the road, braving the ever-watchful eyes and 
 pitiless steel of their military guards, to minister more than a cup of 
 cold water to wayfarers through the sandy desert, — sweet words of 
 fatherly, brotherly consolation to the fainting spirit, the sacramental 
 graces of religion to hearts athirst for supernatural strength amid 
 trials surpassing the utmost endurance of nature, — what a sight were 
 these provinces through which their road lay westward ! 
 
 3. The Wilderness outside of Connaught. 
 "Ireland, in the language of Scripture, now lay void as a wilder- 
 ness. Five-sixths of her people had perished. Women and children 
 were daily found perishing in ditches, starved. The bodies of many 
 wandering orphans,* whose fathers had embarked for Spain, and 
 whose mothers had died of famine, were preyed upon by wolves. 
 In the years 1G52 and 1653, the plague and famine had swept 
 away whole counties, that a man might travel twenty or thirty 
 miles, and not see a living creature. Man, beast, and bird 
 were all dead, or had quit these desolate places. The troopers 
 
 * Mr, Prendergastliere adds this note taken from the oric^inal document in Dub- 
 lin Castle: " Upon serious consideration (say the Lords of the Privy Council) had 
 of the great miiltitudes of poore swarming in all parts of this nacion, occasioned by 
 the devastation of the country, and by the habits of licentiousness and idleness 
 ■which the generality of the people have acquired in the time of this rebellion; inso- 
 much that some are found frequently feeding on carrion and weeds — some starved in 
 the highways, and many times poor children who lost their parents, or have been 
 deserted by them, are found exposed to, and some of them fed upon by, ravening 
 wolves and other beasts and birds of prey." Printed Declaration of Council, 12th 
 May, 1653. 
 
A Voice crying, '"'' Out with the Priests!" 375 
 
 would tell stories of the place Avliere they saw a smoke, — it was 
 so rare to see either smoke by day, or fire or candle by night. 
 If two or tliree cabins wore met with, there were found there 
 none but aged men, with women and children; and they, in the 
 words of the prophet, 'become as a bottle in the smoke; their 
 skins black like an oven, because of the terrible famine.' They were 
 seen to pluck carrion out of a ditch, black and rotten; and were said 
 to have even taken corpses out of the grave to eat. . . . Such was 
 the depopulation of Ireland, that great part of it, it was believed, 
 must lie waste many years — much for many ages." * 
 
 "Okder por banishing all Priests. 
 
 " Whereas, it is now manifest from many years' experience that 
 Jesuits, Seminary Priests, and Persons in Popish Orders in Ireland, 
 estrange the affections of the people from due obedience to the Eng- 
 lish Commonwealth, and under pretence of Religion excite them to 
 rebellion, which gave rise to the barbarous murders of IGI^l and the 
 destructive war ivhich followed. And whereas many persons who ob- 
 tained leave to transport themselves beyond the seas do nevertheless 
 delay their departure. Now, that such persons may have no further 
 opportunity of leading people astray, from which no ordinary 
 admonition can witlihold them, though they thus expose their lives 
 to danger, and threaten to ruin this miserable nation, they are all to 
 withdraw in twenty days; but outstaying this time, or returning after 
 they have once Avithdrawn, they will be subjected to the penalties of 
 the 27th Elizabeth. Given at Dublin, Gth January, 1652-3. 
 
 '"''Signed, Charles Fleetwood, Edmund Ludlow, 
 Miles Corbet, John Johnes." 
 
 * The utter waste and desolation of the country is truthfully described by the 
 English writers who traveled through it at the time; and some of whom, like 
 Colonel Lawrence, had been active in causing all this ruin. As to the horrors 
 imputed here to the famished Irish, and one appalling instance of which, taken 
 from Lawrence's work, is described in the text, — they are related for a very different 
 purpose. The country is described as waste and desolate to tell the English that 
 they may come to inhabit it without fearing an enemy; the hoiTible feasts of the 
 famine-stricken are designed to make the Irish hateful. 
 
376 The Cause of Ir&land. 
 
 So it was THE Priest who had incited to rebellion and massacre; 
 who had caused the terrible war lasting eleven years; who had de- 
 populated, wasted, and ruined the land. 
 
 The men who governed at Dublin in Cromwell's place, lift their 
 voices in solemn proclamation, amid that howling wilderness where 
 the wolf feeds on the corpses of the famished widows and orphans of 
 the slain, and the outlawed and luuited Papists are driven by the 
 rabid pangs of starvation to feed on herbs, on carrion, on . . . (But, 
 no!); and they dare to say before the High God and the civilized 
 world, that Cromwell is not to blame for all this destruction and des- 
 olation; that they, who have poured out human blood like the waters 
 of the Liffey, are not to blame; that the Lords Justices Parsons and 
 Borlase, who sate in that Council Chamber before them, did not plot 
 and plan there rebellion, and massacre, and civil war, and the utter 
 extermination of the Irish people; and command, through their 
 Cootes, and St. Legers, and Broghills, and Inchiquins, and Tich- 
 bornes, the destri,iction and desolation "by fire and sword" without 
 sparing man, woman, or child, of the country around thera from sea 
 to sea. 
 
 It is the Priest who has slain, and ruined, and desolated! 
 
 So, as they must now hunt the Wolf lest he prey upon the living, 
 and, having nothing to feed on in the uninhabited country places, he 
 may enter city and town and attack man, woman, and child of the 
 English; so must they hunt the Priest, drive him from the land, 
 exterminate the whole brood of Jesuits, Seminary Priests, and all 
 clothed with "Popish Orders." 
 
 "Mr. Justice John Cooke (afterwards brought himself to the 
 scaffold as a regicide) at a general sessions held before him at Clon- 
 mel, cried aloud from the bench that all Irishmen living on 23d 
 October, 16-il, or l)orn since in Ireland to that same day, were all 
 traitors by an order made at Derby Hoiise." * Under this measure 
 
 * " Memorials of the War of 1641. Written in the year 1657, by James Kearney 
 of Fethard," p. 4. " Carte Papers," vol. 64, p. 432. 
 
The Sogarch Aroouf 377 
 
 more than one tlioiisand priests were sent into exile, and amongst 
 them all the surviving bishops but one, the Bishoj) of Kilmore, who, 
 weighed down by age and infirmities, as he was unable to perform 
 his functions, so too he was unable to fly." 
 
 Imprisonment, tortures, banishment to the Continent of Europe, 
 could not and did not prevent the faithful Irish Priests and Bishops 
 from returning to their flocks as soon as a favorable opportunity pre- 
 sented itself. Of course, this was certain death to them when dis- 
 covered again on Irish soil. So, instead of transporting them, or 
 allowing them to "transport themselves" to Spain and Portugal, to 
 France or the Low Countries, — the Irish Government sent them as 
 slaves to Barbadoes; — not unwilling slaves, however. These apostolic 
 men knew how many thousands of their brethren were laboring in 
 bondage there, deprived of all spiritual succor, the multitudes of 
 young men and women, especially, exposed to all the seductions of 
 proselytism, and to the unnamable dangers inseparable from West 
 Indian slavery. 
 
 The Priests returned from the Continent in such numbers in the 
 last months of 1G55, "that a general arrest by the justices of the 
 peace was ordered, under which, in April, 1656, the prisons in every 
 part of Ireland seem to have been filled to overflowing. On 3d of 
 May the governors of the respective precincts were ordered to send 
 them with sufficient guards to Carrickfergus, to be there put on 
 board such ship as should sail with the first opportunity to the 
 Barbadoes." 
 
 But, in all likelihood, it was soon found that in the Barbadoes or 
 elsewhere in the West Indies, these slave-missionaries found a most 
 fruitful field of labor. So, they must be put where they should have 
 no opportunity for exercising their priestly zeal; and in February, 
 1657, it was decreed that the priests in the Dublin prisons should be 
 sent to the Arran Islands, at the entrance to Galway Bay, and to the 
 Isle of Innisboffin, off the coast of Connemara. There were strange 
 stone structures dating from prehistoric times, which the early Chi-is- 
 tian hermits and monks had occupied and added to in the days when 
 
378 Tlie Cause of Ireland. 
 
 Ireland's learning and Ireland's holiness shone like twin-beacons 
 illumining the whole of Western Europe. Thither now were sent 
 these glorious confessors of the Faith, to sing together perpetual 
 praise for being allowed to suffer for His Name, and to lift per- 
 petually in Ireland's behalf the hands that had borne chains in her 
 cause, and ministered to the sorest needs of her children. 
 
 Far more glorious to the Irish Church is the age of the Martyr 
 Oliver Plunket than the age of Columbanus. 
 
 And what was left of the Irish People was not unworthy of such 
 noble teachers, guides, and models. Other leading classes there were 
 none. Soldiers and nobles were in other lands. Every means which 
 human ingenuity could devise, or which unscrupulous power could 
 use, had been employed to leave the impoverished and demoralized 
 remnants of the people without their natural leaders; — and with sin- 
 gular success. But the Irish people resembled those of no other 
 European nation. They never had been helots, or serfs. In the 
 ancient Celtic society of which they had kept the spirit alive, even 
 when its forms fell away from them one after the other, the clans- 
 men were, at bottom, brothers and equals. The Hungarians and the 
 Basques most resembled the Irish in this. Wlien, therefore, their 
 own ancient nobility were annihilated, as a first step toward breaking 
 up the clan-organization, and when the Anglo-Irish nobles and 
 gentry, who had been such powerful agents and instruments in so 
 breaking up our Celtic forms, had, in their turn, fallen under the 
 Cromwellian mace of steel, — our Irish Creaghts and Kerne, our 
 ploughmen, and our shepherds, as well as what remained of our 
 swordmen, did not forsake themselves. Their blood was as good as 
 that of O'Neill or O'Donnell, of O'Reilly or Maguire or Magennis, of 
 O'Brien or O'Connor or Mac Carty: these were only the chosen rep- 
 resentatives and leaders of the Tribes into which the great Celtic 
 Family of Ireland was divided. The Tribesmen still remained, 
 although the leaders had disappeared. 
 
 English they would not, could not be. Protestants they would 
 not be: the Reform preached by Luther and Calvin they needed not. 
 
The Celts of 1655. 379 
 
 In spite of all the evils and social disorder of the Danish invasions, 
 and of the Anglo-Norman occupation, the Celtic Irish had found in 
 the intellectual culture and moral conduct of their clergy, both secu- 
 lar and regular, nothing to lessen their reverence for their sacred 
 character, or their confidence in them as their religious guides. The 
 peculiar doctrines of the Reformers found no sympathetic echo in 
 their minds or their hearts. The Eeformation, as embodied in the 
 ecclesiastical and political innovations of Henry and Elizabeth pro- 
 voked the ridicule, scorn, and contempt of a keen-witted and 
 liberty-loving race. 
 
 Now that the Reformed Religion was again presented to them in 
 the mutilated version of the Bible dealt out to the red-handed troop- 
 ers and pike-men of Ireton, Ludlow, and Fleetwood, — their whole 
 soul revolted at the idea that a religion so symbolized, expounded by 
 the very men who ordered the massacres of Drogheda and Wexford 
 and Casliel, could in any wise resemble the loved teachings of Patrick 
 and Columkille and Columbanus. 
 
 So, in every man of those whom the sword had spared in Con- 
 naught, or in the multitudes compelled to seek refuge in Connaught 
 from the other provinces, — you had a great-souled man, who believed 
 with his whole heart in God and in Ireland, and who was resolved, 
 come what might of suffering, to hold fast till death to this twofold 
 Faith. 
 
 Who will not admire and honor such men ? 
 
 Let a Protestant pen complete this portraiture of the Irishmen 
 of 1655. 
 
 "Each of these men bearing his great heart above despair, watched 
 for vengeance on the enemies of his race, and waited for the resur- 
 rection of his country. They scorned the preaching of their priests 
 and gentry of English blood. They knew them to be as truly Eng- 
 lish at heart as the children of the old Romans, though born in Brit- 
 ain, were still Romans. When the only hope of safety for both nat- 
 uralized English and native Irish was a union to support Charles II., 
 the Irish refused it. They Avould not be parties to placing their 
 
380 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 country, as the gentry desired, under the rule of a people that for 
 ages had injured them and scorned them. Father Christopher Plun- 
 ket, a friar of English race, was employed as an ambassador to the 
 Irish party in 1G50. He reported that they would rather pull God 
 out of His throne, or throw themselves headlong into the sea, than 
 become loyal to the Crown of England. They knew that the King 
 of England would be the puppet of Parliament. And they had ever 
 known the Parliament as a body of conspirators against the religion, 
 property, liberties, good fame, and very existence of the Irish people. 
 
 " The Irish, thus defeated by the overpowering force of England, 
 or rather by the coldness for the contest of their half-hearted leaders, 
 most of them of the old English blood, who feared the victory for the 
 nation more than conquest by the enemy, now dispersed themselves 
 in woods and mountains and bogs, and thence fell down like wolves 
 on the usurpers of their homes and country. These were the 
 Tories."* 
 
 We quote Father Plunket's words, while seriously questioning 
 their truthfulness and accuracy. It is not likely that men who 
 had, like their fathers before them for many a generation, risked 
 and lost everything, rather than betray their allegiance to God, 
 would, under any supposition, express themselves as ready to "pull 
 God from His throne." The truth with regard to the ansAver made 
 by these much-tried men to the ambassador of a party, who had 
 ever been the curse of Ireland, and whose half-hearted cooperation 
 or covert treachery had just defeated the national effort toward 
 independence, — must have been that the placing of the national 
 religion, and the political rights inseparable from it, in tlie power 
 of that same Anglo-Irish party and their Stuart King, was tanta- 
 mount to detbroning God in their hearts, and homes, and country. 
 
 Be that as it may, no one who reads the original letter of Father 
 Plunket but will say, that he Avas one who meant no good to the 
 "mere Irish" Catholics. And they understood him and rejected 
 his advances with a scorn and indignation Avhich we heartily share. 
 * " Cromwellian Couquest," pp. 330-32. 
 
The Tories in the Wilderness. 381 
 
 So, tliese were the brave men, to whom Ormonde first and liis 
 party, and then tlie Parliamentarians, gave the name of Tories. 
 We have jnst heard their voice, amid the desolation of Ireland, and 
 the silence of general despair, uttering their cry of defiance to the 
 all-powerful conquerors. 
 
 Their raids upon the English settlers, while the transplantation 
 was going on, served as an additional pretext for exercising against 
 all the Catholics "under Protection," outside of Connaught, the most 
 tyrannical exactions. 
 
 The Catholics were held responsible for all the wild deeds of these 
 outlaws. For the property destroyed or carried away, or for the lives 
 lost in the foray, all the Irish Catholics were assessed in the locality. 
 Later, and when these fines had exhausted the slender resources of 
 these poor Papists, the adjoining baronies, those especially through 
 which the Tories " had passed " on their raid, were held accountable. 
 It was convenient to the oppressor to presume that the outlaws were 
 the kindred of these Papists, and that these connived at, if they did 
 not abet, their misdeeds. 
 
 Fining, like bloodletting, has a limit; and that limit was reached 
 at the beginning of 1653. It was ordered that as no more money 
 could be levied for these Tory depredations, for no more money was 
 left, the "protected Papists" of the locality where the offence was 
 committed should transplant to Connaught. Thus the whole town 
 of Timolin was transplanted. 
 
 "The Irish had been driven," the Government proclamation said, 
 "from garrisons, castles, and places of strength, to bogs and woods. 
 There they lurked, watching for opportunities to commit murders 
 and outrages, which, through the blessing of the Lord, might be 
 prevented, if the Irish inhabitants of this nation did not privately 
 succor them." 
 
 Another good reason for fresh and energetic measures of extermi- 
 nation against these unteachable, incorrigible Irish. 
 
 "For a remedy" — Mr, Prendergast adds — "four persons of the 
 neighborhood and of the Irish nation and Popish religion, were to be 
 
383 The Cause of Irelajid. 
 
 taken, and after twenty-eight days transported to the English planta- 
 tions in America, if the criminals were not previously amenable; and 
 all the Irish inhabitants of the Popish religion in the barony were to 
 be transplanted, except snch as conld prove their 'constant good 
 affection^ to the t3Tants of their country. But no laws bind, no 
 punishments can restrain outraged nature. The hatred of the Irish 
 to their tyrants increased with their increasing severity." * 
 
 Two men, lately soldiers and in the pay of the State, having been 
 murdered at Lackagh in Kildare, while working in the houses of 
 some of the transplanted, "all the Irish of Lackagh of the Popish 
 religion (except four who were hanged for the benefit of the rest), to 
 the number of thirty-seven — being three priests, twenty-one women, 
 and thirteen men, were, on the 27th Nov. 1655, delivered to Captain 
 Coleman, of the ' Wexford ' frigate, for transportation to the Barba- 
 does. . . . There was (among them) the whole family of Mr. Henry 
 Fitzgerald of Lackagh Castle. ... He and his wife . . . (both of the 
 House of Kildare) were fourscore years and upwards. . . . The 
 Tories too had frequently despoiled them. Yet they, with their son 
 Maurice, their daughters Margery and Bridget, Mary, the widow of 
 their oldest son, Henry, with their man servant and maid servant, 
 had to lie in prison till the ship could be got ready to carry them 
 with the rest of this miserable cargo. They were assigned to the 
 correspondents of Mr. Norton, a Bristol merchant and sn gar-planter, 
 who was to be at the charge of transplanting them to the Indian 
 Bridges, now called Barbadoes. 
 
 "But these severities only exasperated the Tories, who were 
 quickened to action by the sight of their ancient gentry begging at 
 the usurpers' doors. What must they not have felt to see Lord 
 Eoche and his daughters reduced to beggar}^, and forced to walk on 
 foot to Connaught, to end their days there in some cabin, while their 
 ancient inheritance was divided between the cornet of some English 
 regiment of horse and his troop ? . . . 
 
 * Dated cat Dublin, 19th April, 1655. " Perfect Proceedings of State," &c., p. 
 4676. Quoted by Mr. Prendergast, pp. 337, 338. 
 
The Tories not to he Intimidated. 383 
 
 "But how must the feelings of national hatred have been height- 
 ened by seeing everywhere crowds of such unfortunates, their 
 brothers,, cousins, kinsmen, and by beholding the whole country 
 given up a prey to hungry, insolent soldiers and Adventurers from 
 England, mocking their wrongs and triumphing in their own irresist- 
 ible power ? . . . 
 
 "They resolved no longer to wait for the aid of the French or 
 Spaniards. 'Are we alone' — they said one to another — 'of all the 
 nations of the world, not thought fit to live in our own country ? 
 Are we alone, like the profanest outlaws, to be driven from our native 
 soil ? Shall we linger here, to show foreign nations the distinguish- 
 ing mark the English have set upon us ? ' " * 
 
 No threats, no penalties, no hardships endured by themselves, no 
 misfortunes happening to their fellows, could intimidate these des- 
 perate men. In vain did the Government have recourse to the usual 
 weapon of bribery to get Tory to betray or murder liis brother Tories. 
 They were too faithful to eacli other, too set in their invincible hatred 
 of the oppressor, to listen to the promise of gold, of pardon, of pro- 
 motion, of wealth for the performance of treachery. They were 
 hunted down like wolves, — hunted by single men, and by organized 
 bands, as Blennerhassett hunted the Irish of Fermanagh in 1610-11. 
 The inspection of the Public Accounts Eecord in Dublin showed the 
 author of the "Cromwellian Conquest" the sums paid on the heads of 
 murdered Tories, and the numbers slain among these indomitable 
 haters of everything English. 
 
 And yet the race of them survived, — because the Wrong which 
 begat revolt and desperate resolutions waxed stronger and was per- 
 petuated: they continued to be the terror of the Plunderers and 
 Adventurers who possessed the broad lands of the disinherited and 
 outlawed Celt. 
 
 So, from out the universal desolation, discouragement, and 
 despair, ever sounded for more than a century the midnight shout of 
 
 * " Cromwellian Conquest," p. 341. 
 
384 Tlie Canse of Ireland. 
 
 the avenging Tory^ and the clasli of his steel was a protest against 
 the boast that Ireland was subjugated and subdued, that no arm was 
 raised in her defence, and no voice dared to speak of her restoration 
 to independence. 
 
■IJ=»5<isi. 
 
 
 ISAAC BUTT. M.P. 
 
 TnOM A PHOTOGRAPH B'V O'SHEA LIMERICK. 
 
PART FIFTH. 
 
 THE LAST PERIOD OF WRONG (1660—1885). 
 
 I. 
 
 The Last Stewarts. 
 
 TTTHAT was the origin of that eight by which the Irish land- 
 ^ " lords thus substituted to the native proprietors, have held 
 since 1G50 down to the present time ? Surely this is a question that 
 deserves to be looked into by all who would understand the present 
 struggle in Ireland between the mass of the people and the landed 
 aristocracy. The idea that an enormous, an unparalleled injustice 
 was committed by the Parliament under Cromwell, and perpetuated 
 by subsequent legislatures and Governments, has been slowly dawning 
 on the minds of English Statesmen and Publicists, as well as upon 
 the more enlightened and liberal-minded among the English people. 
 
 It is, therefore, the time to submit to them, and, indeed, to the 
 opinion of the whole civilized world, certain facts which will direct 
 every judicial mind, every unprejudiced -person, to examine further, 
 to weigh the legislative acts by which the property of a whole nation 
 was transferred from the legitimate owners to strangers. 
 
 "It cannot be imagined," says Carte, "in how easy a method and 
 
 with what peaceable formality, this whole great Kingdom was taken 
 
 from the just lords and proprietors, and divided and given amongst 
 
 those who had no other right to it but that they had power to keep 
 
 25 (385) 
 
386 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 it; no men having so great shares as they who had been insti'nments 
 to murder the King, and were not hke AvilUiigly to part with it to his 
 successor. Where any great sums of money for arms, ammunition, 
 or any great merchandise, had been so long due that they were looked 
 upon as desperate, the creditors subscribed all those sums due as lent 
 upon adventure, and had their satisfaction assigned to them as 
 Adventurers. Ireland was the great capital, out of which all debts 
 were paid, all services rewarded, and all acts of bounty performed."* 
 
 This writer, hostile as he is, like his model statesman, Ormonde, 
 to the Irish Catholics, states the case very mildly, as against the Eng- 
 lish. We have another witness in one of the chief actors in this 
 great Drama of Spoliation and Massacre, Lord Broghill. Here is a 
 passage from his Memoirs: 
 
 "After the subduing of Ireland, there was no small consultation, 
 how to divide every one's portion. At last, at a council of war of all 
 the commanders. Lord Broghill proposed, that the whole kingdom 
 might be surveyed, and the numbers of acres taken, Avith the quality 
 of them; and then all the soldiers to br'ng in their demands of 
 arrears, and so to give to every man, by lot, as many acres of ground, 
 as might answer the value of their arrears. 
 
 "This was agreed on; and all Ireland being surveyed, and the 
 value of acres given in, the highest was valued only at four shillings 
 the acre, and some only at a penny. Accordingly they took the 
 names of all that were in arrear, who drew lots in what part of the 
 kingdom their portion should bo; and in this manner the whole 
 kingdom was divided among the conquerors and adventurers of 
 money. " f 
 
 But some form of legality must be given to the resolution of this 
 "Council of War " sitting on the corpse of a nation, and concluding to 
 draw lots in dividing her inheritance. The English Parliament 
 (whose acts, be it borne in mind, had never been admitted in Ireland 
 save only as sanctioned by the Parliament of Ireland and the King) 
 
 * " Life of Ormonde," vol. ii., Append. 33. t " Orrery's Memoirs," i. 39. 
 
John Cooke's Sessions. 387 
 
 imriTediately took steps to have this determination of its Commanders 
 in Ireland carried out and clothed with such legal formalities as 
 would prevent future litigation. As a preliminary, Cromwell ap- 
 pointed his son-in-law Fleetwood to be Lord Deputy in Ireland, and 
 four of the Protector's most trusty followers were assigned to Fleet- 
 wood as Parliamentary Commissioners to govern Ireland with supreme 
 power (Aug. 165'2). In the same month (Aug. 12, 1652), Parliament 
 passed the first Act of Settlement. The Commissioners, without 
 losing a moment, in pursuance of their instructions to use the powers 
 this Act conferred, began by establishing a High Court of Justice to 
 try all Irish Catholics who had murdered any Protestant or English- 
 man out of battle since Oct. 23, 16-41. All found guilty were to for- 
 feit life and estate. Of course, there was no inquiry to be held about 
 Irish Catholics murdered by Englishmen all through these eleven 
 years. The Court first sat in Kilkenny, where, unfortunately, had 
 been preserved intact all the official records of the late Confederacy, 
 — the Lists of Association among them. These were peremptory and 
 decisive evidence against every Associate and all others found impli- 
 cated in the transactions of the Supreme Council and its voluminous 
 correspondence. After holding its first sessions in that city, it sat 
 successively at Cork, Waterford, Dublin, and other places. 
 
 The sword, the halter, famine, the plague, and voluntary exile, 
 had so thinned the ranks of the generation who had taken up arms 
 under Phelim and Owen O'Neill, — that the few left were like the 
 rare ears of corn on the harvest field, which escape the sickle of the 
 reapers, and which the gleaners have not yet gathered. The High 
 Court, in spite of the hearty earnestness with which its members 
 went to work, could only find in all Ireland some two hundred 
 persons to convict and to hang. 
 
 We have already become acquainted Avith John Cooke, one of 
 these exemplary Justices, and the very soul of all these proceedings. 
 He had brougjit Charles I. to the block. He condemned to death 
 hundreds of better and truer men in Ireland. These sessions were 
 called by the people 'Cromwell's Slaughter-Houses. ' In them "no 
 
388 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 articles were pleadable . . . ; and against a charge of things said to 
 have been done twelve years before, little or no defence could be 
 made; and the cry that was made of blood, aggravated with expres- 
 sions of so much horror, and the no less daunting aspect of the 
 Court, quite confounded the amazed prisoners, so that they came like 
 sheep to the slaughter."* 
 
 We have the utterance of the same Mr. Justice Cooke from the 
 bench, and quoted in the last chapter, declaring that the Government 
 held as a rebel and a traitor every man born in Ireland since October 
 23, 1641. 
 
 The way was now prepared for the "Great Work," the "Work of 
 God" in Ireland, the transplantation to Connaught of all those 
 native-born rebels and traitors. 
 
 The Act of August 12, 1652, had pronounced the forfeiture of 
 two-thirds of their estates against all who had boi'ne arms against the 
 Parliament of the Commonwealth; while those who had resided in 
 Ireland from October 1, 1649, to March 1, 1650, and had not fought 
 under Cromwell, or otherwise manifested their "constant good affec- 
 tion," were to forfeit one-third. 
 
 This was how they dealt with the Irish Proprietors. As to those 
 who owned property of any kind to the value of ten pounds sterling, 
 they were offered a full and free pardon. But we already know what 
 such pardon was intended to be. 
 
 The chief enemy whom the Conquerors and the Adventurers with 
 their Parliament had now to dispose of were the Proprietors. 
 What they aimed at and coveted above all things was the property 
 of the latter. 
 
 High Courts of Justice, Acts of Parliament, the Gallows, trans- 
 plantation to Connaught, banishment to the Continent, slavery in the 
 West Indies or the New England Colonies, were only means toward 
 that darling and long-cherished end. 
 
 The two-thirds or the one-third still left to the Irish proprietor 
 
 * " History of ludependency." 
 
The Irish guilty of holding Property. 389 
 
 were not to be restored to him from his former estates. The same 
 authority wliich confiscated a part, assumed the right to give an 
 equivalent for it in Connauglit, even though tliat equivalent should 
 be cruelly and unlawfully taken from another despoiled proprietor. 
 This method of compensation was devised and regulated by the Sec- 
 ond Act of Parliament, of October, 1G53. The Proclamation issued 
 at Kilkenny on the 11th of the same month, was only the first step 
 toward its execution. 
 
 Martial law was at once established throughout the Kingdom, in 
 order to enable the army, who were the party most interested in this 
 settlement, to deal promptly and summarily with every species of 
 opposition. 
 
 The Curse of Cromwell was on Ireland, 
 
 In the courts established at Athlone and Loughrea, the trans- 
 planted proprietors had to sign conveyances to the officers authorized 
 to deliver to them assignments in Connaught, releasing the new pro- 
 prietors of their estates from all claims against them. There was no 
 alternative between Connaught and refusal, but the death of the 
 outlaw. The ancient proprietors being thus "driven out" or hanged, 
 the new landlords of Ireland entered into possession. 
 
 Thus was Lord Broghill's plan carried out. No wonder that they 
 have erected to his father, Richard Boyle, and to himself so splendid 
 a monument in St. Patrick's Protestant Cathedral in Dublin. This 
 sacred edifice also was sacrilegiously taken from its lawful proprietors. 
 There is not in Ireland a more fitting place for a public memorial to 
 this father and this son, — two of the most fortunate of the bold, bad, 
 and bloody men who fattened upon the spoils of our unfortunate 
 country. 
 
 The Wrong Sanctio)ied by Cltarles 11. 
 
 Charles II. was a fugitive from his native kingdom, when about 
 
 25,000 exiled Irish swordmen and nobles sent to the palace of St. 
 
 Germain near Paris, to offer him their services in recovering his 
 
 crown. He gratefully accepted what was generously offered. They 
 
390 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 followed this Stuart King to the Low Countries in fulfilment of their 
 promise; and remained there awaiting his orders, when unforeseen 
 events favored his return to England in 1G60. 
 
 On November 30, in that same year, he published his celebrated 
 Declaration for the Settlement of Ireland. Before we pronounce an 
 opinion upon this royal measure, let us see what precautions the Par- 
 liament of England, and the men who ruled Ireland in their name, 
 had taken to secure the Plunderers in the possession of their Plunder, 
 and to cut off from all Irish Papists every avenue to justice, every 
 earthly hope of seeing undone, even in the smallest measure, the 
 mighty Wrong under which they were suffering. 
 
 Lord Broghill and Sir Charles Coote the Younger had been 
 chiefly instrumental in putting down in Ireland all opposition to the 
 restoration of the Stuarts. They had, therefore, the chief influence 
 in the government councils there; and the men who were placed at 
 the head of affairs were deeply interested in not permitting one little 
 stone to be removed from the solid edifice of Iniquity which they had 
 cemented with the blood of hundreds of thousands. 
 
 Of course, when it was reported in Ireland that the King was in 
 the Low Countries at the head of an Irish army of from '25,000 to 
 30,000 men, there was joy and exultation. So, they would soon see 
 a great army of their own fighting again for Ireland on Irish soil. 
 This joy, and the rumors and acts of imprudence it gave rise to, were 
 not slow in traveling to England, where everything concerning Ire- 
 land and the Irish were always sure to be exaggerated and perverted. 
 
 But when the King had actually returned, the repressed feelings 
 of the despoiled and downtrodden burst forth in more open manifes- 
 tation. The King would surely recall to Ireland the brave army so 
 devoted to his interests. And would the}^ the oppressed, not get 
 back their own again ? 
 
 But Lord Broghill and Sir Charles Coote had taken such energetic 
 measures both in the South and in the North, that the poor dis- 
 armed and isolated remnants of the Irish Catholic populations could 
 not stir hand or foot without being instantly beaten down. 
 
strategy of the Antl-Catliollc Consjjirators. 391 
 
 Meanwliile they were careful to prepare public opinion in England 
 among the Eoyalists as well as among the alarmed Eepublicans, in 
 such a manner, that tlie Irish Papists sliould be represented as 
 threatening a new rebellion, aiid the King be morally forced to set his 
 face against them. 
 
 "I hope I need say nothing of Ireland," were the King's first 
 timid and uncertain words in his first speech in Parliament, July 27, 
 1660; "and that they alone shall not be without the benefit of my 
 mercy. They have shew'd much affection to me abroad, and you will 
 have a care of my honour." 
 
 Poor King! he seems to feel how little he can do for his best 
 friends, when his enemies are still all but all-poAverful. Let us learn 
 from Dr. Leland by what strategy these enemies as well as his false 
 friends defeated the weakly good intentions of the pleasure-loving 
 King. 
 
 "In England, every rumor unfavorable to the Irish was received 
 with peculiar avidit3\ Agents were sent from Ireland, who reported 
 their conduct and designs with every offensive aggravation, so that, 
 before the landing of the King, the Act of Indemnity was so pre- 
 pared as to exclude all those who had any hand in plotting or con- 
 triving, aiding or abetting the rebellion of Ireland, by which the 
 whole Romish party were in effect excluded. And when, by another 
 clause, it was provided, that the Act should not extend to restore to 
 any persons the estates disposed of by authority of any Parliament or 
 Convention, it was with some difficulty that an exception was inserted 
 of 'the Marquess of Ormonde and other the Protestants of Ireland.' 
 Some other provisos were attempted, which must have utterly ruined 
 all the old English families of this country, but they were suspended, 
 and afterwards defeated by the Marquess." * 
 
 We must impose upon the reader's indulgence, by asking him to 
 consider this other account from one even less impartial and just to 
 the Catholics of Ireland than Carte : 
 
 * " Hist, of Ireland," iv., 111. 
 
392 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 "The Irish" (it is Wright we quote), "as they had done on so 
 many occasions before, injured their cause by their own violence. 
 Always sanguine in temper, they never doubted for a moment that 
 the King would restore them to all they had lost; and impatient of 
 delay, . . . they waited no process of law, but, even before the King 
 had been proclaimed, many of them (?) repossessed themselves of 
 their patrimonial lands by force, and drove out the new settlers. So 
 early as the month of May, 16G0, these turbulent proceedings had be- 
 come so general, that the convention was obliged to issue, on the 20tli 
 of that month, a proclamation against them." 
 
 We find nothing in authentic history to justify the issuing of such 
 a proclamation. It was the interest of Broghill, Coote, and their 
 fellow conspirators to invent such accounts of risings and violent pro- 
 ceedings on the part of the Irish. They had to prepare public 
 opinion in England as well as the royal mind itself for the uncon- 
 ditional acceptance of their scheme of indemnity and settlement. 
 But Wright himself explains the matter. 
 
 "These outrages," he says, "were eagerly seized upon by the Eng- 
 lish, who represented them as, and perhaps thought them, the pre- 
 ludes to a new rebellion; and the Irish Catholics were looked upon 
 with suspicion and treated with rigor. Agents, sent from the Protes- 
 tant part}^, carried to England aggravated reports of their conduct and 
 designs, .so that before the King landed, the Act of Indemnity was so 
 prepared as to exclude all who had had any hand, not only in plotting 
 and contriving, but in aiding or abetting, the Irish rebellion which 
 had commenced in 1641, and lasted under various forms during more 
 than ten years. This amounted, in effect, to the exclusion of the 
 whole Eomish party from grace; and the feeling which dictated it 
 was so strong, that it was with some difficulty those who framed the 
 act would admit an exception in favor of the Marquis of Ormonde 
 and other Protestants of Ireland. ... On the other hand, the severe 
 ordinances against the Irish Catholics made under the rule of the 
 Protector and Parliament, were executed with rigor. They were not 
 allowed to pass from one province to another; many of them, on sus- 
 
Damning Facts. 393 
 
 picion of disaffection, were thrown into prison, their letters were 
 intercepted; and they were forbidden to hold meetings together. On 
 the King's arrival in London, he was immediately assailed with 
 apprehensions of a rebellion in Ireland; and, upon representations 
 from Parliament, he was induced to publish a Proclamation for 
 apprehending and prosecuting of all Irish rebels, and commanding 
 that Adventurers, soldiers, and others should not be disturbed in the 
 possession of manors, houses, or lands forfeited by the Irish, until 
 evicted by process of law, or till further order should be taken 
 therein. It was evident that at present the Protestant Party had 
 gained possession of the royal ear. . . . The Convention and their 
 agents who attended at the English Court, anxious to secure, against 
 all risks, the interests of the Soldiers and Adventurers, pressed for 
 the immediate appointment of an Irish Parliament, which they knew 
 must be composed entirely of their own friends." * 
 
 That, as Leland says, "the whole Eomish party was in effect 
 excluded " from all the benefits of this Act, will not surprise the 
 reader, after what has been said. 
 
 "Various schemes," says Wright, "were successively proposed for 
 satisfying these conflicting appeals, but all were found equally beset 
 with difficulties, until at last the King adopted one drawn up by the 
 Earl of Orrery (Lord Broghill), Sir John Clotworthy and Sir Arthur 
 ]\Iervyn; these men 'were in heart advocates of the claims of the 
 adventurers and soldiers; and, according to their plan, the latter 
 were to be confirmed in their possessions, while the ' innocent ' or 
 'meritorious' Irish were to be reprised out of other lands that had 
 been forfeited, and which, according to an estimate they had made, 
 would be sufficient for the purpose." f 
 
 It is, therefore, an historical fact, that the men who had con- 
 spired to provoke the rebellion of 1641, who had driven every Cath- 
 olic in Ireland, both of Celtic and of English race, into the ranks of 
 the insurgents; who had devised and planned the confiscation of the 
 
 * " Hist, of Ireland," vol. ii., pp. 119, 120. t Ibidem, p. 121. 
 
394 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 lands of the nation, were the very men who drew up this scheme of 
 final settlement. It was drawn up before the King landed in Eng- 
 land. In fact, it was like leaving in the hands of Cortes and his 
 Captains the final adjudication of the lands of the entire Mexican 
 Empire. It was, as if the King of Spain and the Council of the 
 Indies, handed over to the Buccaneer Pizarro and his fellows absolute 
 power to decree that the Incas and their people were idolaters, rebels 
 against his Catholic Majesty, and that all their country was right- 
 fully forfeited to the Spanish Crown, and justly divided among 
 the conquerors. 
 
 It is, also, an unquestionable historical fact that the Irish Par- 
 liament assembled within a twelvemonth to give a legal sanction to 
 this Act of Settlement and Indemnity, was made up almost ex- 
 clusively of the men who had shared in the plunder. We have just 
 seen that it was a part of the new Conspiracy. 
 
 This is a most important consideration; and we call the reader's 
 attention to it. ' 
 
 "At length, on the 8th of May, 16G1, the Irish Parliament met, 
 after an interval of nearly twenty years. As the Soldiers and Ad- 
 venturers still retained j)ossession of all their lands, as well as of their 
 influence in the corporate towns, nearly the whole House of Com- 
 mons was devoted to their interests, and their anxiety to preserve 
 what they held had converted by far the greater portion of their 
 party into sticklers for the royal authority and for the Episcopal Gov- 
 ernment in the Cliurch. Only one Catholic had been elected." And, 
 as Lord Orrery informs the Duke of Ormonde, "there sate this day in 
 the House of Lords but one Papist Peer." 
 
 "Both Houses" — Wright continues — "began with a declaration 
 requiring all persons to conform to the church government and lit- 
 urgy, established bylaw. . . . The hostility of the Parliament to the 
 Catholics was shown on every occasion, as well as its favor to the 
 Adventurers and Soldiers — the new possessors of estates whose titles 
 were to be confirmed by law. The Commons, in order to prevent the 
 reversal of outlawries and the ejectment of Adventurers or Soldiers 
 
The Bill of Settlement. 395 
 
 before they were secured by a statute, petitioned the Lords Justices 
 that the term should be adjourned and the Courts of Law for a cer- 
 tain period sliut up. ... A Bill had been transmitted from Ireland 
 to England for imposing an oath of qualification on the House of 
 Commons, by which it was intended to exclude all Roman Catholics; 
 but it had been disapproved as unseasonable. The House now 
 attempted to effect the purpose of this intended Act by a resolution, 
 by which they excluded from their seats all who had not taken the 
 oaths of supremacy and allegiance; but the Lords Justices declared 
 this to be an invasion of the Prerogative. . . . The Protestant Party 
 became angry, and accused the Government of an unjust and danger- 
 ous partiality for Papists; and they indulged their animosity against 
 the latter by raising and spreading abroad rumors of new plots and 
 conspiracies to overthrow the Government, to renew the old war of 
 massacre and extermination, and by such means to re-establish the 
 supremacy of the Church of Rome. 
 
 "The most important measure brought forward in this Parliament 
 was, of course, the Bill of Settlement, which was to embody in a law 
 the King's Declaration with such alterations as might be considered 
 requisite. ... It has been observed that the 'new interest ' was pre- 
 dominant in the House of Commons; and there it was the almost 
 unanimous wish that tlie Law should be a mere repetition and con- 
 firmation of the King's Declaration." 
 
 Over this Bill there was a long and obstinate contest in both 
 Houses of the Irish Parliament. But the Commons had it pretty 
 much their own vv^ay; and then the Bill was sent to England for the 
 King's approval. To England, therefore, went deputations from all 
 the great parties interested in having it either modified or preserved 
 in the form given to it in Dublin. The Adventurers and Soldiers, or 
 the New Interest, as they were now called, were "strong at court 
 by the sympathies of their Protestant brethren there and through- 
 out the Kingdom, and they fortified themselves by raising a con- 
 siderable sum of money to be distributed among those who could 
 support their interests. . . . The King was disgusted with the diffi- 
 
396 Tlie Cause of Ireland. 
 
 culties thrown in the way of a speedy settlement, and his indolent 
 disposition revolted at the prospect of an endless series of fruitless 
 discussions. He declared his intention of establishing and supporting 
 an English interest in Ireland. . . . The King became disgusted with 
 demands which shocked his own notions of the Prerogative, and in- 
 terfered with his quiet, and he lent a ready ear to the adversaries 
 of the Catholics. These adversaries lost no opportunity of throwing 
 odium upon the Catholic party. The country was deluged agahi 
 with narratives of the Irish massacres and rumors of conspiracies 
 to renew them, Charles, who had issued his Declaration in the 
 belief that there were lands enough to satisfy all parties, was now 
 sensible of his mistake, and was tormented with the difficulties that 
 beset the Irish question. Anxious to be relieved from it as quickly 
 as possible, and aware that some party must suffer, he resolved to 
 sacrifice the Irish."* 
 
 The Bill was approved by the King and sent back to Ireland, 
 where it was oiice more passed through both Houses. Not till the 
 Duke of Ormonde came to Dublin, in July, 1G62, as Lord Lieuten- 
 ant, was the Eoyal Assent given to this iniquitous law, which would 
 alone suffice to stamp with infamy the name of Charles II. It was 
 received, Wright tells us, with no little exultation by the Protestant 
 Party. But one can only obtain some notion of the unjust and mis- 
 leading partiality of such an historian as he is, only by looking into 
 the Bill itself, and by seeing with one's ov/n eyes, the clauses by 
 which it rendered it impossible to any Irish Catholic to obtain rep- 
 aration or compensation from the wrongs inflicted on his creed and 
 nation. 
 
 The burthen was thrown on the Catholics to prove their own 
 "innocency," as a preamble toward claiming the restoration of their 
 estates. 
 
 "No man," says Carte, "was to be restored as an innocent Papist, 
 who at or before the cessation on September 15, 1643, was of the 
 
 Hist, of Ireland," vol. ii., pp. 126, 127. 
 
JVo liope of Justice for the Papists. 397 
 
 rebels' party, or enjoyed his estate, real or personal, in the rebels' 
 quarters (except the inhabitants of Cork and Youghal that were 
 driven into these quarters by force), or who had entered into the 
 Eoman Catholic Confederacy before the peace of 164G. "Whoever 
 at any time adhered to the Xiincio or Clergy's Party, or Papal Power, 
 in opposition to the King's authority, or, having been excommuni- 
 cated for adhering to his Majesty's authority, had afterwards owned 
 his offence in so doing, and been thereupon relaxed from excommuni- 
 cation; whoever derived the title to his estate from any that died 
 guilty of the aforesaid crimes, or pleaded the articles of the peace for 
 his estate, or, living in the English quarters, held a correspondence 
 with the rebels, &c., &c. Whoever came under any of these de- 
 nominations was not to be deemed an ' innocent ' Papist. One of 
 these qualifications was certainly very rigorous, and the rigor of 
 the law in many cases can hardly be distinguished from injustice. 
 Abundance of Koman Catholics w^ell affected to the King, and very 
 averse to the rebellion of their countrymen, lived quietly in their own 
 houses, within the quarters of the rebels, who out of reverence to 
 their virtues, or favor to their religion, allowed them to do so, though 
 they never took arms or engaged in any hostile act in opposition to 
 his Majesty. Such of them as had offered to take shelter in Dublin, 
 were by the Lords Justices banished thence on pain of death by pub- 
 lic proclamation, and ordered to retire thence to their own houses in 
 the country, wdaere they could not help falling iiito the power of the 
 rebels; and, if these suffered them to live in quiet, an equitable man, 
 who considers the circumstances of these times, and the condition of 
 all countries that are in a state of war, will hardly see any such 
 iniquity in the receiving of that mercy, or in the unavoidable neces- 
 sity they were under of living in their own houses, as should bring 
 these persons a forfeiture of their estates." * 
 
 Elsewhere Carte adds a remark which is very pertinent to our 
 present purpose: "The qualifications of innocency" — he says — "re- 
 
 * " Life of Ormonde," ii., p. 220. 
 
398 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 quired by these instructions (particularly that whereby living in the 
 Irish quarters was to be deemed a proof of guilt), had been com- 
 plained of as too severe; but, as notwithstanding that severity, several 
 of the Irish had proved their innocency, their adversaries, whose 
 interest it was to involve them all without exception in the common 
 guilt, were desirous to add to the rigor of these qualifications, and to 
 make the proof of nocency so easy and general, that none of that 
 nation might be able to escape censure, or save his estate."* 
 
 Blind indeed must be the man Avho reads the history of Ireland 
 from the year 1634-1CG2, who does not see that all the resources of 
 intellectual skill and malicious intent in her governors were bent in 
 bringing about such a rebellion as might involve every man born on 
 the soil of Ireland, — every Irish Catholic, especially. The fell pur- 
 pose of AVentworth was taken up, developed, and carried out with 
 infernal ability by Richard Bo3de and Adam Loftns, by William Par- 
 sons and John Borlase. Cromwell, Iretou, and Fleetwood, were only 
 the iron hand at the service of this Purpose incarnate in the successive 
 Lords Justices, — till Broghill and Coote and Sir Maurice Eustace 
 stand before us as such in the year of Grace 1C60. 
 
 A Court of Claims was established for the benefit of all who 
 wished to prove their innocency, immediately after the Bill had 
 received the Eoyal Assent in July, 1C62. But this Court was only to 
 hold its session for six months, while the number of Claimants, in a 
 Memorial presented to the Government and praying for an extension 
 of time, is stated to be 8,000 ! Sir Heneage Finch, the Attorney 
 General, admits that there were 5,000 claimants; and Leland sa3'S 
 there were more than 3,000. "We may safely say there were some 
 0,000 persons most anxious to be heard by the judges. And yet the 
 Government and the Judges so managed that the Court only began 
 its sessions in August. 
 
 "It was declared in the New Bill that the Protestants were, in the 
 first place and especially, to be settled, and that any ambiguity was to 
 
 * " Life of Ormonde," ii., p. 263. 
 
The High Court of Claims a Farce. 399 
 
 be interpreted in the sense most favorable to their interests. It was 
 also provided, that no Papist, who by the qualification of the former 
 Act, had not been adjudged innocent, should at any future time be 
 reputed innocent, or entitled to claim any lands or settlements. 
 Thus every remaining hope of those numerous claimants whose causes 
 had not been heard, was entirely cut off. They complained of per- 
 jury and subornation in the causes that had been tried before the 
 Commissioners of Claims; though such wicked practices were proba- 
 bly not confined to one party. But their great and striking grievance 
 was, that more than three thousand persons were condemned, with- 
 out the justice granted to the vilest criminals, that of a fair and equal 
 trial. Of this number, though many, and probably the greater part, 
 would have been declared nocent, yet several cases were undoubtedly 
 pitiable; and now, twenty only were to be restored by especial 
 favor."* 
 
 Poor King ! The wretched slave of vice, instead of being the 
 devoted and self-sacrificing servant of all his peoples, and of making 
 himself an immortal name by binding up the wounds of the Mon- 
 archy, — allowed the party who had brought his father to the block to 
 consummate in Ireland, and toward that father's most faithful sub- 
 jects, the most gigantic iniquity of all time. 
 
 Of course that Court of Claims was only a sham. 
 
 The Government Avere not ashamed to be consistent in their 
 infamy. Out of 4,000 Catholic claimants, only COO were heard. 
 The other 3,400 were never allowed another opportunity for hearing 
 or redress. 
 
 Furthermore, — while the poor Irish Catholics were endeavoring 
 to open the eyes of the King in London to this enormous aggravation 
 of iniquity inflicted on them, the Lords Justices issued a proclamation 
 ordering all those who had been transplanted into Connaught, "to 
 return back again to the same places to which they had been re- 
 spectively transplanted, and not to depart from thence without special 
 
 * Leland, " Hist, of Ireland," iv, 14:6. 
 
400 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 licence," under pain of being forthwitli imprisoned and placed at tlie 
 discretion of the Lords Justices. Barbadoes and Jamaica still needed 
 wliite slaves. And such slavery was just retribution for Irish Papists 
 who dared to leave their confinement in Clare and Connauglit, and 
 travel to Dublin to assert their claims to property, liberty, and the 
 right to live. 
 
 The Duke of Ormonde, whose favor at Court the Irish Catholics, 
 unfortunately for themselves, did not or would not care to secure, 
 while their fate was discussed in London, proposed to the King to 
 have a Board appointed to hear their grievances, composed of the 
 Lord Lieutenant and six members of the Privy Council, assisted by 
 other loyal Irish gentlemen. 
 
 The English Council would not hear of it. 
 
 To have a correct idea of the magnitude of the injustice per- 
 petrated by these proceedings, it ought to be borne in mind that by 
 the Act of Explanation issued three years after the Act of Settlement, 
 "explaining some doubts arising upon" the latter, it was expressly 
 provided that no Papist who had not been adjudged innocent under 
 the former act, should at any future time be reputed innocent or 
 entitled to claim any lands or settlements. 
 
 Tlie Magna Cliarta of tlie Protestants of Ireland. 
 
 Thus, the Act of Settlement which passed both Houses of the 
 Irish Parliament in 1662, and the Act of Explanation passed to sup- 
 plement it, in 1665 (and called 'the Black Act' by the Irish), are 
 considered to be the "Magna Charta of the Protestants of Ire- 
 land." 
 
 This novel Charter of Eights beggared all that were left of the 
 ancient Irish Proprietors, and reduced to the most abject slavery the 
 remnants of the laboring Irish population. 
 
 "A measure of such sweeping and appalling oppression," says Dr. 
 Lingard, "is perhaps without a parallel in the history of civilized 
 nations. Its injustice could not be denied. And the only apology 
 offered in its behalf, was the stern necessity of quieting the fears and 
 
Tlie Land Plunder. 401 
 
 jealousies of the Cromwellian settlers^ and of establishing on a per- 
 manent basis the Protestant ascendancy in Ireland." 
 
 How the Plunder was Divided. 
 Before turning to another part of our subject;, it may be instruc- 
 tive to glance at a few figures which will speak more than many 
 pages of argument to the eye of the intelligent reader. We take 
 them from Count Murphy's book on Ireland : 
 
 Granted to the English. 
 
 Statute Acres 
 
 Adventurers 787,326 
 
 Soldiers 2,385,915 
 
 " Forty-nine " Officers 450,380 
 
 The Duke of York 169,431 
 
 Duke of Ormonde and Colonel Butler . . 257,516 
 
 Bishops' Augmentation 31,596 
 
 4,560,037 
 
 Granted or Disposed of to the Irish. 
 
 Decrees of Innocence 1,176,520 
 
 Provisors 491,001 
 
 King's Letters of Restitution .... 46,398 
 
 ISTominees in possession 68,360 
 
 Transplantation 541,530 
 
 2,323,809 
 Unappropriated " . . . 824,392 
 
 Total forfeited under Commonwealth . . 7,708,238 
 
 "The 'forty-nine' officers were those who claimed arrears for 
 service under the King before 1649. The Duke of York received a 
 grant of all the lands held by the regicides who had been attainted. 
 Provisors were persons in whose favor provisos had been made in the 
 Acts. Nominees were the Catholics named by the King to be 
 restored to their mansion-houses, and 2,000 acres contiguous. Those 
 restored by the King's letters were called Letterees. ' Transplanta- 
 26 
 
403 Tlte Cause, of Ireland. 
 
 tiou ' refers to the Catholics whom Cromwell forced from their own 
 hinds to settle in Connaught. 
 
 " At this time, the profitable lands of Ireland were estimated at 
 about 12,500,000 statute acres (being two-thirds of the whole, which 
 were estimated at 19,000,000). About 7,000,000 more remained. 
 These were deemed unprofitable; but, even so, large tracts of these 
 lands were taken by the Soldiers and Adventnrers, in addition to the 
 lots of profitable land they severally received in the distribution. The 
 whole property of the country nov/ stood as follows :— 
 
 Statute Acres 
 "Granted to English Protestants, of profitable lands, 
 
 forfeited under the Commonwealth 4,560,037 
 
 Previously possessed by English Colonists of the 
 
 Protestant Eaith and the Church, profitable land 3, 900, 000 * 
 Granted or disposed of to the Irish, profitable land . 2,323,809 
 Previously possessed by "Good Affection" men, 
 
 Irish 600,000 
 
 Eemaining still unappropriated, being part of 
 
 towns, or possessed by English or Irish without 
 
 titles, or doubtful, of profitable land . . , . 824,391 
 
 12,208,237 "t 
 
 It will hardly be believed, that while both the Irish Parliament 
 and the Court of Claims were discussing the titles of so many thou- 
 sands of persons, — the very highest in the land, that "the whole 
 House of Commons with the Speaker at their head, were profligate 
 enough to wait on the Lord Lieutenant, the Duke of Ormonde, pray- 
 ing that all the examinations and depositions talcen at any time re- 
 
 * Account published by the Cromwellian proprietors. 
 
 + Count Murphy here adds this interesting: note: " I have very carefully drawn 
 up this statement, chiefly from the Grace manuscript, quoted by Dr. Ling:ard, and 
 the Report of the Commissioners to the English House of Commons, on Dec. 15, 
 1699. I find it, to a great extent, confirmed by the estimate of Sir William Petty 
 (' Political Anatomy of Ireland,' p. 302 1. He says: ' Of the whole 7,500,000 planta- 
 tion acres of good land, the English and Protestants and Church have this Christ- 
 raas (1672^ 5,U0,000,' equal to 8, .352, 500 statute acres, 'and the Irish have near 
 half as much.'" — J. N. Murphy, "Ireland Industrial, Political, and Social," 
 pp. 314, 315. 
 
Instances of Perjury in the Court of Claims. 403 
 
 speciing the rebellion, all the records of the courts, and all hooJcs, rolls, 
 and writings remaining in any office, should be received as proofs of 
 the ' nocencj ' (guilt) of the parties implicated, and be a bar to their 
 claims. This would include all the fabulous tales, of which I have 
 given so many specimens. 
 
 "With what abhorrence must every honest mind regard that 
 piratical body, who were so lost to all sense of decency and common 
 honesty as to pray that those examinations and depositions on which 
 above 1,000 indictments were found in two days; — that of Dean Max- 
 well, who swore to the ghosts screaming for revenge, and to the 
 murder of thousands on hearsay; — that of Captain Stratford, who 
 swore to the murder of hundreds, not one of which he pretended to 
 have seen; — and so many others equally destitute of credibility; that 
 these, I say, should be received as evidence to bar honest men of 
 their estates ? 
 
 " I have made very few, scarcely any quotations from Roman Cath- 
 olic writers — and none but Avhat were corroborated by Protestant 
 authority. I now present one from a work of great merit, ' Ireland's 
 Case briefly Stated,^ which is a fair sample of the atrocious injustice 
 perpetrated on the Irish; — but, however vile, it cannot surprise us 
 after the various details of the iniquitous S3"stem pursued on this oc- 
 casion, — and the rules laid down for establishing the nocency of tlie 
 claimants. 
 
 " ' Mr. Francis Betagh of Moynalty, whose ancestors for seven or 
 eight hundred years together, were in possession of a considerable es- 
 tate in the county Meath, was but nine years of age in October, 1641. 
 Yet he was sworn in the Court of Claims to have been then in actual 
 rebellion, at the head of a foot company, plundering and stripping 
 the Protestants; and that by two of the meanest scoundrels of the 
 whole kingdom hired for the purpose, whereof one was then and 
 and tliere proved not to have been three years old at the time of that 
 insurrection, and the other no way qualified to be believed, when the 
 gentry of the whole county declared and testified the contrary. 
 Nevertheless, upon the bare oaths of these fellows, the gentleman was 
 
404 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 adjudged * nocent ' by the court; and althougli the perjui7 was after- 
 wards more fully detected, insomuch that Sir Eichard Ruinsford, 
 Chief Commissioner or Judge of that Court, when the Marchioness of 
 Antrim expostulated the matter with him, plainly acknowledged of it 
 to herself, to the now Earl of Limerick, and to other persons of 
 quality; yet no redress could be had for the gentleman, nor any rem- 
 edy to be expected, while the enchantment of the Act of Settlement 
 was in force.' " 
 
 We have seen Usher and the most influential of his associates 
 favoring, under Stratford's administration, the introduction of Pres- 
 byterian doctrines and forms, and thus preparing the way for the 
 spread of the Covenanters' tenets and practice both in Church and in 
 State. 
 
 So powerful were the followers of the Covenant in the three King- 
 doms, that Charles II., in the Convention of Breda, swore to observe 
 the Covenant, as an indispensable condition toward returning to Eng- 
 land and regaining his crown. In Ireland the men who were most 
 influential and energetic in having the King accepted and proclaimed, 
 were men who had been brought up and had always lived as Puritans, 
 Broghill, and Coote, and Sir John Clotworthy. And yet Puritanism, 
 when the first Irish Parliament assembled, and the first breezes of 
 royal favor began to blow over the land, seemed to recede and retire 
 to the wilderness, like mists near the foot-hills of the Apennines, roll- 
 ing up from the plains with the first beams of morning, and rushing 
 up through every gorge and ravine toward the distant mountains. 
 
 The Protestant Episcopal Church stood forth suddenly in all her 
 glory and prepotency, as if no Covenant oath had ever pledged the 
 faithful to extirpate Prelacy, Popery, and Idolatry. 
 
 "The Irish Laud," as Cromwell had called Bramhall, came back 
 to Ireland with Ormonde, as Archbishop of Armagh. Twelve 
 vacant bishopricks were filled, and the twelve new prelates, — as if 
 they were the successors of the Twelve Apostles about to begin anew 
 the conversion of Ireland, — were solemnly consecrated in St. Pal ■ 
 rick's Cathedral, where, a few years before, Cromwell had stabled 
 
Whai was left to the Church of St. Patrick. 405 
 
 the horses of his conquer uig troopers. It was a striking and 
 memorable pageant^ that rehabilitation of the Church by Law Es- 
 tablished. 
 
 King Charles, not satisfied with restoring to it the 300,000 acres 
 of broad rich lands granted by the English Henry and Elizabeth, 
 added some 31,000 more. It was a large endowment, and a goodly 
 staff of shepherds for so small a flock as that Church could then 
 muster in Ireland. The entire population, after the awful massacres, 
 the plague, the famine, and the expulsions, of poor exhausted Ire- 
 land, was then 1,100,000. Of these 800,000 were, confessedly. Cath- 
 olics; 100,000 were Presbyterians; 100,000 more were claimed by 
 Independents, Anabaptists, and Quakers; the remaining 100,000 
 constituted the charge of Archbishop Bramhall and his fellow-labor- 
 ers. Theirs were the Churches, the Glebe Houses, most of the 
 Monasteries, and all the lands with which our Celtic forefathers, 
 in the days of tribal government, had endowed the clergy and the 
 religious institutions belonging to each tribe or Sept. Kings, great 
 Irish chiefs, and the Anglo-Norman nobles, at a later period, had 
 added to these gifts, and adorned the land with many a noble monas- 
 tic and ecclesiastical structure. All that now belonged to the " Irish 
 Laud " and his compeers. 
 
 And what had the church of the 800,000, — the original and 
 rightful owner of all this property ? 
 
 Not one acre or foot of land in all Ireland from the centre to the 
 circumference; not one fragment of ruined wall of church or mon- 
 astery or monastic school belonged to her banned bishops, priests, 
 and monks. Not even the space of earth in her ancient and teeming 
 cemeteries, sufficient to receive in death the body of any one of her 
 hunted pastors or of their persecuted flock, could be called their own 
 by priests or by people. The priest had not even the liberty to pro- 
 nounce the last blessing over the dying or to sprinkle with holy water 
 the grave of the dead. 
 
 The Church of the 800,000 had not even the right to live in 
 Ireland. 
 
406 The Cause of Ireland. ■ 
 
 And did the restored Church by Law Established use her recov- 
 ered wealth and authority with a generous forbearance ? 
 
 Why should I stop to answer, when I must hasten to conclude 
 this mighty argument? 
 
 Of the political blunders committed by the few Catholics whom, 
 iu after years, Charles II. and his brother, James 11. , entrusted with 
 oflS.ce in any department of the administration, in the army and navy, 
 we need say nothing. These few favored ones were taken from 
 among the English families who had most suffered for the Stuarts. 
 Tlie Celtic Irish were not responsible for their misdeeds or mistakes. 
 The men who liad been dejiuted, in the first days of the Eestoration, 
 to plead the cause of the Irish proprietors in Westminster and AVhite- 
 liall, were men of English stock, men, too, who had made themselves 
 hateful to the Irish Insurgents in the day of their bitterest struggle, 
 — Sir Nicholas Plunket, the brother of the Friar of that name, men- 
 tioned in a preceding chapter, and Richard Talbot. These men 
 cared but little to have their names or their interests in any way 
 identified with those of the Celtic 800,000. Peter Talbot, brother 
 of Richard, was appointed Catholic Archbishop of Dublin ; and 
 showed a zeal and a precipitancy that did the cause of religion 
 more harm than good. His brother was as intemperate and un- 
 timely in urging the reconsideration of the Acts of Settlement and 
 Explanation when the only result could be an increase of violence 
 toward the mass of Irish Catholics. The abrogation of these acts, in 
 Richard Talbot's mind, would only benefit the Anglo-Irish lords and 
 gentry; just as the untimely display made by Archbishop Talbot 
 under the Lord-Lieutenancy of Berkeley, only teiuled to restore the 
 mere splendors of Catholic worship in Dubli)!, while in the provinces 
 the Bishops and Priests were content to be free to minister to the 
 faithful in obscurity and peace. As before the Reformation, so after 
 it, the advocacy of the religious and temporal interests of the Celtic 
 masses were seldom successful or safe, if entrusted to the hands of 
 persons not of their own race. 
 
 All the ill-concerted attempts to obtain from England any meas- 
 
The Anglo-Irish Catholics under James 11. 407 
 
 ure of redress or relief only culminated in some new and violent 
 storm of English public opinion, in calling forth a host of knaves and 
 fanatics who spread abroad rumors of plots and conspiracies. These 
 produced the passage of the Test-Oath Bill, and Titus Gates. 
 
 Then as now, the men and parties who lived on the spoils of the 
 persecuted Catholics, or preserved their places and influence by pro- 
 moting the hatred of class against class and race against race, — hesi- 
 tated at the committing of no crime to excite popular frenzy, to ren- 
 der the employment of coercion necessary, or kindle into life the 
 smouldering embers of religious persecution. 
 
 The Titus Gates plot brought back to Ireland a man whose 
 treacherous policy had done more mischief to the cause of Irish 
 nationality than the sword of Cromwell, — the Duke of Grmonde, who 
 had been the bane of the Confederation of Kilkenny. 
 
 Gn his arrival in Ireland edicts were published which were worthy 
 of the rule of the Eoundheads. The Catholics were disarmed. All 
 ministers of the Catholic Church were given two months to leave the 
 Kingdom, after which a price should be set on their heads. Again 
 the Catholic institutions Avhich had begun to rise above the ground, 
 were seized or destroyed by the government. Catholics were ordered 
 to quit all garrisoned and market-towns; and markets were to be held 
 outside the walls, so that Papists might have no chance or pretext for 
 entering them. 
 
 Of the existence of the Plot revealed and contrived by Gates the 
 Duke of Grmonde is well known to have disbelieved the existence. 
 But his fear of public opinion induced him to go with the populace 
 in their wild course of revenge and repression. 
 
 Peter Talbot, who was mortally ill in the house of his ])rotlier 
 near Dublin, was treated as a conspirator, and by order of the Lord 
 Lieutenant brought a prisoner to Dublin Castle where he died, a con- 
 fessor of the Faith, and an illustrious victim to Irish officialism. 
 Oliver Plunket, Archl^ishop of Armagh, whose gentle virtues and un- 
 conspiring temper Grmonde was familiar with, and of whose inno- 
 cence Grmonde never entertained the slightest doubt, was also seized, 
 
408 The Cause of Inland. 
 
 and sent a prisoner to London, where an infamous judge, on the 
 testimony of men the vilest and most perjured, condemned the Prelate 
 to he hanged, drawn and quartered at Tyburn, a sentence which was 
 executed July 1, 1681. 
 
 Bitterly did Irish Catholics pay for the supposed sympathy of 
 Charles 11,, and for the known Catholicity of his brotlier, the Duke 
 of York. 
 
 It was but natural, when James II. ascended the throne, that he 
 should desire to lighten the burthen laid on the professors of his own 
 faith. It was equally so, that in Ireland the persecuted and disfran- 
 chised Catholics should look for redress to a Catholic King. Unhap- 
 pily, historians in treating of this calamitous reign make the Catholic 
 body and their religion responsible for the political blunders and 
 moral shortcomings of the Sovereign, as well as for the rashness, the 
 unwisdom, and the utter impolicy of the acts of his subordinates. 
 
 The 800,000 Irish Catholics, the Celtic majority of them in par- 
 ticular, never acknowledged Sir Eichard Talbot as their agent, their 
 representative, their spokesman, either at home or abroad, either in 
 religious, political, or personal matters. And when Sir Eichard 
 Talbot, become Earl of Tyrconnel, was appointed successively Com- 
 mander-in-Chief of the royal forces in Ireland, and Lord-Lieutenant, 
 his real or imputed ofdcial faults should not be assumed to be those 
 of the downtrodden people whose wrongs he so strongly resented. 
 
 That James did not want to unsettle what had been done by the 
 Acts of Settlement and Explanation, we know from his instructions 
 given to Lord Clarendon when appointed Viceroy in Ireland. This 
 ceuntry the King held to have been conquered by Cromwell at least, 
 if by no other before him. The English Ascendancy and the Act of 
 Settlement were to be considered as accomplished facts, not to be 
 interfered with. But among the Catholic majority of Irishmen, there 
 were meritorious servants of his royal father and brother, who had 
 been wrongfully dispossessed of their property: these were to be 
 righted. The Catholic religion must be freely exercised. The vari- 
 ous departments of the public service must be open to Catholics as 
 
Talbot Ci)i)i promises Ihi Llsh Catholics. 409 
 
 well as to Protestants, lieligioii must not be a disqualificatiou 
 toward the enjoyment of civil and political equality. 
 
 Clarendon raised to the judicial bench three Catholic lawyers; 
 others were appointed members of the Privy Council; others again 
 were called to fill the offices of sheriff and magistrate; and a relief 
 fund of £2,190 a year was created for the twelve Catholic bishops. 
 
 Tyrconuel, Commander of the Forces, acted with his character- 
 istic impetuosity, displacing Protestant officers, and giving their 
 commands to Catholics. All this, though but a small measure of 
 justice toward the immense majority of a nation, was ill-judged, 
 and precipitate. 
 
 When Tyrconuel succeeded Clarendon as Viceroy (1687-89), he 
 openly advocated the repeal of the Acts of Settlement and Explana- 
 tion. The Protestant Settlers took alarm and fled to the Low Coun- 
 tries, where they, together with the discontents from England, urged 
 upon the King's nephew, William of Orange, to take the lead of the 
 revolt or revolution which was already ripe in both England and Ire- 
 laud. He was not slow in accepting. 
 
 The rest is well known. 
 
 The Final Struggle between the " Old" and the ''New" 
 English Interests. 
 
 Prominent as religion is in the revolution of 1G89, there can be no 
 doubt in the mind of any one who has read beneath the surface of 
 tlnngs, that the question of religion, in Ireland at any rate, was but 
 secondary. The impelling force in that country was the desire on the 
 part of the threatened iVdventurers and Soldiers to retain their lands. 
 The advancement of Catholics to a share of public office, and the 
 modification of the charters in corporate towns admitting Catholics to 
 burgess rights and municipal honors, might have, at a later period, 
 and among another generation, been regarded with some degree of 
 equanimity. As Tyrconuel, however, agitated the question of restor- 
 ing the land to its original owners, the religious question became at 
 once a vital social and political one. 
 
410 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 The struggle, nevertheless, between the Old and the New English 
 Interests, was made manifest in tlie first Irish Parliament convened 
 by James himself, when he landed in Ireland. 
 
 In the Honse of Lords sat six new peers created by James, one 
 only of Avhom, Justin Mac Carthy, Viscount Mountcashel, bore a Cel- 
 tic name. His brother, however. Lord Clancarthy, was a peer of the 
 old creation. In the House of Commons, of two hundred and thirty- 
 two members returned, one hundred and sixty-five were of Anglo- 
 Irish stock, and sixty-seven of Celtic extraction. The Parliament 
 was, to all intents and purposes, Anglo-Irish. In it the Old English 
 Interest, representing the mass of proprietors dispossessed by the 
 Cromwellian Settlement, endeavored to repeal the legislation which 
 had robbed them of their own property. The King, the lawful King 
 of England and Ireland, Avas present in Dublin. The laws passed 
 regarding religion were strikingly moderate and liberal as compared 
 with the legislation of the Protestant Ascendancy. The Act passed 
 repealing the land-settlement of 16C2-1665, was, everything con- 
 sidered, not more objectionable than the Acts it proposed to reverse. 
 
 The misfortune of men in their position is to act as if they could 
 count on the certainty of no future change. They hasten to build on 
 the quicksands which the retreating tide has left bare; and seem 
 never to suspect that the rising tide may or will certainly overflow 
 their structure, and displace every stone in its foundations with the 
 sands that bear them. 
 
 Here we have English against English, the defeated Old Interest 
 has resolved to be even with the New. The English Parliament of 
 1652-53 had accounted as rebels not only the Irish Confederates but 
 all who in Ireland had borne arms for the King. This view had 
 been confirmed by the Irish Parliament of 1662-65. It was a bad 
 precedent; and now in 1689 the Anglo-Irish majority copy this prec- 
 edent, and pass an act of Attainder against all who support the cause 
 of William of Orange. A list of two thousand four hundred and 
 forty-five names was made out, comprising two archbishops and seven 
 bishops, sixty-four temporal peers, eighty-three clergymen, and two 
 
Enthusiastic Ansiuer to tlie Call to Arms. 411 
 
 thousand two liundred and eighty-nine other persons of both sexes 
 down to tradesmen. The}^ did not bear in mind that there would 
 be or could be a turning of the tide. 
 
 The contest in Ireland was a fierce one, complicated once more 
 by unappeasable passions, — those of property, religion, and race. 
 William's army counted recruits from every part of Europe, men 
 who had to complain of Catholic governments, and who came to 
 help the Protestant English and Scotch to avenge the cause of the 
 Pure Gospel, the blood of Protestants shed in 1641, and in tlie fresh 
 massacres attributed to the Irish; men who would perhaps accept as 
 their reward a share of the lands to be forfeited by the defeated Cath- 
 olics.* In the north of Ireland the dreadful scenes of the late war 
 were renewed. Derry was relieved by Kirke; and, at Newtown-But- 
 ler, the royal forces under Berwick were defeated by the Ennis- 
 killeners, who gave no quarter and pitilessly slaughtered 2,000 men. 
 Then came Schomberg with his recruits. And James, who had not 
 in his composition a particle of the heroic, fled from Ireland to 
 France, leaving the Irish Catholics to their fate. 
 
 The Celts, who having, this time, a King of their own and come 
 to fight at their head, hailed with incredible enthusiasm this un- 
 hoped-for opportunity for restoring their idealized and worshiped 
 nationality, flocked to the royal standard in large numbers. In the 
 best of times, and when the Island was all their own, our Celtic fore- 
 fathers accustomed themselves to a life in the open air, which with 
 their simple and wholesome diet, secured to them that strength of 
 body, that prodigious agility and endurance, described by Einuccini 
 and his Secretary. The generation of Celts who had grown up since 
 their day, had been bred to hardship such as none other had ever en- 
 dured in that land. The young men were left nothing to admire but 
 the memory of Erin's patriotic dead, the feats of the Tories who still 
 defied all Governments in their wild life of independence, — the war- 
 
 * " Foreign mercenaries — Danes, Swedes, Dutch, Swiss, Fins, Brandenburgers, 
 French Hug^uenots — the Protestant Churches of Northern Europe come to meet the 
 Eoman Catholics in an Irish Armageddon." — Walpole, "Kingdom of Ireland." 
 
413 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 like renown of their brethren and kinsmen in France, Austria, and 
 Spain. 
 
 Unarmed and half-clad, the descendants of Swordmen and Wood- 
 kerne hastened to answer the call to arms. And from abroad came 
 the veteran oflficers and soldiers of Owen O'Neill and the Confeder- 
 ates. Oh! the happiness to fight together on Irish soil for all that 
 Irish nationality most cherishes, the freedom of religion, and the 
 freeing of the country from the domination of the Saxon. "Before 
 long fifty regiments were enrolled. Men seemed to start out of the 
 ground; but food, clothing, and munitions of war were not so speedily 
 forthcoming. The French oflficers who had come over with the 
 King, were astonished at the destitution that everywhere prevailed. 
 There was no bread to be had; the soldiers were living on horse flesh; 
 their pay Avas a penny a day. Half armed with pikes and muskets 
 unfit for use, sometimes bareheaded and barefooted, equipped in 
 ragged regimentals, they were ill-prepared to meet in the field the 
 well-fed, well-armed troops of different nationalities, brilliant in their 
 new uniform, which were mustering in the North for service under 
 William of Orange. It was the forlorn hope marching out once 
 more. Victory was impossible under such circumstances, even to 
 those ' very great scorners of death,^ who defended the Bridge of 
 Athlone, and who, when cannon balls were served to them at Anghrim, 
 where musket bullets were required, tore the buttons from their coats 
 and fired them with the ramrods of their guns in the faces of their 
 assailants." * 
 
 Beaten at the Boyne, and deserted by the King, who, a coward 
 himself, accused the Irish of cowardice, the untrained Irish bands did 
 not forget what was due to themselves. They had fought for James, 
 to be sure; but they had chiefly fought for Ireland. Had they been 
 commanded by a prince of the genius and firmness of character of 
 William, the issue might have been a very different one. We re- 
 member the words of Sarsfield to his English adversaries: "Change 
 kings, and we will fight you again." 
 
 * Mrs. Atkinson, " Life of Mary Aikenhead," Introd., 23-24. 
 
Triumph of the New Interest. 413 
 
 They fought magnificently behind the walls of Limerick under 
 that same Patrick Sarsfield, "even the women flinging stones and 
 broken bottles in the hottest of the fight." William, baffled then, 
 had his revenge before long. Be it recorded to his honor that he 
 wished to spare the nation any more bloodshed, offered the Catholics 
 the free exercise of their religion, half the churches in the Kingdom, 
 and one-half of their ancient possessions. It was a promise which no 
 English King could make good. William's power lay in being the 
 armed chief of the New English Interest. The men who supported 
 him and fought for him, would have deserted liim, fought against 
 him, and driven him from the three Kingdoms, the moment he began 
 to compromise with the Catholics or to touch the domination of the 
 Protestant Ascendancy, or to threaten the unsettlement of the Acts 
 of 1G62-65. 
 
 The Irish knew that, and made no answer; and besides they were 
 again deceived by the hopes of French aid. The French aid came 
 with St. Euth, and proved more of a curse than a blessing. The 
 fatal battle of Anghrim followed, and was lost by the Irish. No 
 quarter was given them in the flight from the battle-field. Seven 
 thousand stripped corpses whitened the plain for miles in every 
 direction. 
 
 Then fell Limerick, and William had his revenge upon the de- 
 fenders. Not an unsoldierly or unkingly revenge, however: he 
 granted fair terms to the besieged, and that these terms were not 
 kept, was not his crime, but that of the New English Interest. 
 
 Limerick capitulated, and the Treaty which bears that name was 
 signed, on October 3, 1691. It consisted of two sets of articles, the 
 military and the civil. The former permitted all officers and sol- 
 diers, as well as "rapparees or volunteers," in the Irish quarters to 
 embark with their families, household goods, plate and jewels for any 
 place beyond the seas, the English government providing free trans- 
 portation. 
 
 The civil articles, signed by Sarsfield and the Lords Justices, 
 stipulated such liberty for the Catholic religion as the Irish laws per- 
 
414 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 mitted and as Catholics enjoyed nnder Charles II.; the King and 
 Queen promising to procure from the Irish Parliament further secur- 
 ity for the exercise of that religion. The inhabitants of Limerick and 
 of other garrisoned towns still held by the Irish, all officers then in 
 arms under a royal commission, and all the "protected" in the vari- 
 ous counties held by King James' troops were to be maintained in the 
 possession of all their rightful property, movable and immovable, 
 held by them in the reign of Charles II. The people were to be free 
 to follow their trades and avocations. And a general pardon was to 
 be extended to all who should take the oath of allegiance to the new 
 sovereigns. 
 
 "Although the King," says Count Murphy, *' appears to have been 
 well disposed at first to keep faith in the matter, he did not attempt 
 to control the action of the Parliament of England therein; and, 
 accordingly, the treaty was shamefully violated in these partic- 
 ulars." 
 
 And yet William confirmed the Treaty by Letters Patent ! 
 
 "Scarcely had the Articles of Limerick been signed," says the 
 historian "Wright, "when they became the subject of contention and 
 discontent. The Protestant Party lamented the opportunity lost of 
 entirely crushing the Irish Papists; and many were disappointed 
 that a part of the spoils to be furnished by confiscation was given 
 up." 
 
 Before the month had elapsed in which the Treaty was signed, 
 the English Parliament abrogated the law about oaths of allegiance in 
 Ireland, imposing a new Test Oath which excluded Catholics from 
 either House of the Legislature. 
 
 This was rigorously enforced in Ireland in 1692. 
 
 At the same time all superior officers in the army were required 
 to dismiss from their respective commands all Papists. Then, in 
 Ireland, followed proclamations disarming the Catholics and offering 
 rewards to all who should discover arms in their homes. There was 
 no need of such rigors. 
 
 Famine was again abroad in Ireland. " There have died in that 
 
Iloio tlie Treaty of Limcriclc u'as Ratified. 415 
 
 kingdom/' sa3's Stoiy, "since first the Irish began to play their mad 
 pranks, of one sort or another, at least 100,000, 3'oung and old, 
 besides treble the number that are rained and undone." 
 
 The defeated Ii'ish had enough to do to resign themselves to the 
 further humiliation and loss of hope entailed by the issue of the 
 war, not to plot new risings or conspiracies. The greater religious 
 freedom promised them by the Treaty of Limerick, proved to be only 
 a mirage in the desert. All over the island they were helplessly in 
 the hands of their enemies. The burthen of oppression, instead of 
 being lightened, was intolerably aggravated. 
 
 In 1695, the Irish Parliament, exclusively composed of representa- 
 tives of the New Interest, undertook to ratify the Treaty in their own 
 way, so modifying, mutilating and perverting the stipulations favora- 
 ble to the Catholics, — that the Bill embodying the articles was a 
 mockery of that confirmed by the King's letters-patent. 
 
 The Lord Deputy Capel in opening the Parliament "reminded 
 them of the great obligations under which they lay towards their 
 Protestant Monarch; how he had come in person to assist them, had 
 fought their battles, and, Avith the risk of his own life, restored them 
 to their religion and estates. He told them that the King now 
 called them together in Parliament in order that by reasonable and 
 necessary Jaws they might prevent the like dangers in time to come, 
 and secure themselves and their posterity on the surest foundations. 
 . . . Lord Capel's promise of extraordinary security," Wright con- 
 tinues, "to be derived from some oi the bills recommended to them, 
 was, no doubt, an allusion to the new Penal Statutes against the 
 Catholics, of which several very harsh ones were passed within a short 
 space of time. Some of these were: an Act to restrain foreign edu- 
 cation; an Act for the better securing the Covernment by disarming 
 Papists; an Act for banishing all Papists exercising any ecclesiastical 
 jurisdiction, and all Eegulars of the Popish Clergy out of the 
 Kingdom; an Act to prevent Protestants intermarrying with Papists; 
 and an Act to prevent Papists being Solicitors. Some of these Acts 
 were contrary to the letter, as well as to the spirit, of the Treaty 
 
416 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 of Limerick, which, nevertheless, was confirmed by this same Par- 
 liament. " * 
 
 In the Parliament of 1697, further acts were passed which were 
 in open violation of the Treaty, such as several bills for protecting 
 and strengthening the Protestant Interest, and securing the forfeited 
 estates, and repressing the Papists. It also passed the famous Eap- 
 paree Act, under cover of which such atrocious persecution was after- 
 ward exercised on the rural Catholic population. 
 
 Again in September, 1G98, the legislative measures enacted as 
 precautions against Popery, were still more formal violations of the 
 treaty obligations, while they paved the way to the Penal Laws to 
 prevent the Spread of Popery. "Their first act was to confirm the 
 estates and possessions held and enjoyed under the Acts of Settlement 
 and Explanation. They next proceeded to prepare a bill for en- 
 couragement of plantations and improvements. Others were de- 
 signed to prevent the estates of Protestants from coming to Papists, 
 and to encourage persons to turn Protestants." 
 
 It was all to strengthen and increase the New Interest, which, of 
 course, was the Protestant Ascendancy allied with the Cromwellian 
 Proprietors. 
 
 But let us see how the relative conditions of both Catholic and 
 Protestant landholders then stood. 
 
 "We have seen," says Count Murphy, "that, by the Acts of Set- 
 tlement and Explanation, 2,323,809 statute acres of profitable lands 
 were granted or disposed of to the Irish, they having 600,000 pre- 
 viously in their possession. Of these lands, 1,060,792 plantation 
 acres, equal to 1,723,787 statute acres, were escheated under Wil- 
 liam. . . . This forfeiture reduced the property of the Catholic Irish 
 to 1,240,022 acres of profitable land. William restored to persons 
 whom he pardoned by special favor, 125,000; and the Court of 
 Claims restored to Catholic proprietors 388,500, making the total . 
 possessed by the Irish Catholics only 1,753,522 statute acres. So 
 much for the promise to confirm the Irish in their possessions! 
 * " Hist, of Ireland," vol. ii., pp. 273, 274. 
 
What, became of the Men of Ireland. 417 
 
 " The number of Irish outlawed bj^ William ' on account of the late 
 rebellion,' since Feb. 13, 1G88, were 3,931, whereas there were only 
 fifty-seven persons outlawed by him in England. Tlnnr outlawry, 
 notwithstanding the royal promise in the Treaty of Limerick, re- 
 mained unreversed, and they lost their estates for ever! 
 
 "This was the last of the confiscations, the final settlement if we 
 may so call it, of the property of Ireland. Of the 12,500,000 stat- 
 nte acres of profitable land in the island, little more than 1,750,000 
 now remained in the hands of Irish Catholics; considerably over 
 10,000,000 belonged to the English and Protestants."* 
 
 King William was very liberal in bestowing enormous grants of 
 the lands escheated to the Crown to the men who had aided him in 
 his Irish wars and to other favorites. Lord Eomney got 49 517 
 acres; Keppel, Earl of Albemarle, 108,633 acres; William Bentink 
 hen- to the Buke of Portland, 135,820 acres; Guikle, Earl of Ath- 
 lone, 26,480 acres; Eouvigny, Earl of Galway, 36,148 acres; and 
 95,649 acres to a lady favorite, the Countess of Orkney. 
 
 Eight years after the war was concluded the English Parliament 
 offended with the King, ordered an inquiry into this division of the 
 spoils, reconfiscated the whole of the forfeited Irish lands, made it 
 over to thirteen trustees and had it sold at anction for the benefit of 
 the State. t "So wholesale and complete had been the transfer of the 
 land," says Walpole, "from the Roman Catholic proprietors to the 
 Protestants, that at the beginning of the 18th century, when the era 
 of summary confiscation by forfeiture may be said to close, the for- 
 mer were the owners of less than one-seventh of the whole area of 
 Ireland." I 
 
 ^ It was a pitiful spectacle which Ireland beheld after the fall of 
 Limerick. The massacres which had taken place at Newtown-Butler 
 and Athlone, told Irishmen all too plainly what their bravest, even on 
 the battle-field, in honorable warfare under the banner of their law- 
 
 * " Ireland Industrial," Ac, pp. 317, 318. 
 
 t English Statutes, 11 and 12 Will. III.,' c. 5. 
 
 i " Kingdom of Ireland," p. 329. 
 
418 Tlie Cause of Ireland. 
 
 ful King, might expect from enemies, to whom no law, no principle 
 seemed sacred in dealing with Catholics, with Irish Catholics espe- 
 cially. If no quarter was to be expected for the soldier in defeat, 
 what pity would be shown to the disarmed, the defenceless ? 
 
 The struggle ended, 3,000 Irish soldiers were induced, most 
 unhappily for themselves, as it afterwards proved, to enlist in the 
 service of King William. 20,000 with their officers set sail for 
 France, some on board the French fleet, which had arrived too late 
 to save Limerick; some, with Sarsfield, sailed from Cork; the Eng- 
 lish Government sent over the rest to the Continent. Woful was the 
 parting of husbands and parents from wives and famihes, and the 
 departure of all from the land which the very extremity of ill-fortune 
 only rendered more dear to these brave, true hearts. Then was 
 formed in France that "Irish Brigade" of 5,000 men who made 
 their name immortal on so many battle-fields. Why wonder that the 
 very name of France is almost as dear to Irishmen as that of then- 
 native land, when it is remembered that 450,000 died fighting far 
 the Kingdom of St. Louis between 1691 and 1745 ? 
 
 So fared it with some only of the men of Ireland under the 
 murderous regime inaugurated in 1G91 by the New English Interest 
 
 in Ireland. 
 
 And the men who remained at home? There were and could 
 be but comparatively few of the young and able-bodied left after 
 all these disasters, all that awful destruction of human life, which 
 we have only glanced at, but which authentic history details. 
 
II. 
 
 The Protestant Ascendancy and the Land 
 Question (1698-1798). 
 
 1. Tlie Penal Lmos. 
 
 npHERE would be very little benefit to tlie reader from a recital 
 of all the legislative enactments devised, from 1692 to 1727, 
 to complete the absolute outlawry of Irish Catholics on their own 
 native soil, — or, to state the case more exactly and comprehensively, 
 to outlmv the Irish Nation in Ireland. So far as such a thing could 
 be done, the legislators did it effectively, and they were zealously 
 assisted, in the execution of their laws, by the entire English Colony 
 in Ireland, churclmien and laymen. 
 
 It has been said of this Penal Code: " It was a machine of wise 
 and elaborate contrivance; and as well fitted for the oppression, 
 impoverishment, and degradation of a people, and the debasement 
 in them of human nature itself, as ever proceeded from the per- 
 verted ingenuity of man." * This was said by Edmund Biu-ke. 
 Elsewhere he said of that Code: "To render men patient under a 
 deprivation of all the rights of human nature, everything which 
 could give them a knowledge or feeling of those rights was rationally 
 forbidden. To render humanity fit to be insulted, it was fit that it 
 should be degraded." f 
 
 This process of degradation was most thorough. As we are chiefly 
 
 * " Works of Edmund Burke," vol. iii., p. 495. t IIMem, p. 438. 
 
 (419) 
 
420 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 concerned, in this part of our case, witli tlie relations which the Penal 
 Laws established between the masses of the Irish People and the 
 Land, we omit going into the analysis of that portion of the Code 
 which deprived the Irishman of his religious and political freedom. 
 In 1704, an Act was passed providing, that any person who perverted 
 a Protestant should be guilty of prcemvnii'e, that is, would incur the 
 penalties of treason; and any one who sent an infant (a person under 
 age), without licence, to be educated beyond the seas, would be dis- 
 abled from suing in law or equity, from being guardian, executor, or 
 administrator, from taking a legacy or deed of gift, from bearing 
 office; and moreover, such person would forfeit for life all goods and 
 lands. 
 
 This, of course, aimed at watching the conscientious Catholic at 
 every turn, profiting by his performance of what he considered to be 
 his most sacred duties, to take from him not only whatever was left 
 him of his civil rights, but every shred of his landed property. 
 
 If the son of a Catholic father chose to conform to the Established 
 Church, any court might appoint a Protestant guardian to such a 
 child, and make an order for his maintenance and education from his 
 father's estate. No Papist could be even his own son's guardian 
 under a penalty of £500. 
 
 When a Catholic's eldest son thus turned Protestant, and the 
 father held his land in fee, the son, ipso facto, became the tenant in 
 tail of the paternal estate, and the father was only a tenant for 
 life.* 
 
 In 1775, when the American war compelled the Government to 
 relax somewhat of their intolerable rigor toward the Irish Catholics, 
 the latter addressed a remonstrance to George III. on the baneful 
 effects of this last statute. "By the laws now in force in this King- 
 dom," they say, "a son, however undntiful or profligate, shall not 
 merely by the merit of conforming to the established religion deprive 
 the Roman Catholic father of that free and full possession of his 
 
 * 2 Anne, c. 6. " Irish Statutes," vol. iv., p. 14. 
 
Banished from Cities and Towns. 421 
 
 estate, that power to mortgage, or otherwise dispose of it, as the 
 exigencies of his affairs may require; but shall himself have full 
 liberty immediately to mortgage or otherwise alienate the reversion of 
 that estate from his family for ever; — a regulation by which a father, 
 contrary to the order of nature, is put under the power of his son, 
 and through which an early dissoluteness is not only suffered but 
 encouraged, by giving a pernicious privilege, the frequent use of 
 which has broken the hearts of many deserving parents, and entailed 
 poverty and despair on some of the most ancient and opulent famiUes 
 in this Kingdom."* 
 
 "Every Papist was to be disabled from purchasing land, or hold- 
 ing any mortgage on land; and even from taking a lease of more than 
 thirty-one years; nor could he hold such a lease, unless a rent was 
 paid by him of full two-thirds the annual value. 
 
 "No Papist after February 1, 1703, unless he should conform 
 within six months, should be capable of taking any estate by descent, 
 devise, gift, remainder, or trust. But such estate should during his 
 life, or till his apostasy, pass at once to the next Protestant heir. 
 Advowsons belonging to Papists vested in the Crown until the owners 
 should conform. 
 
 "It was also provided that no Papist should vote at an election 
 without taking the oaths. 
 
 "No person should hold office, civil or military, without taking 
 the oaths and subscribing to the declaration against transubstantia^ 
 tion, and receiving the sacrament on Sunday in tlie Church. 
 
 "No Papist was in future to take up his residence in Galway or 
 Limerick, and those now inhabiting were to give security for their 
 good behavior. . . . 
 
 " This searching statute was still evaded by the ingenuity of the 
 legal profession, by the devotion of friends, and the straining of the 
 conscience by a pretended conforming. Accordingly the Statute-book 
 was again amended; and a further appeal made to the self-interest of 
 
 * Quoted by Count Murphy in his " Ireland," p. 322, 
 
422 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 the family circle and the outside public, to ruin the Roman Catholic 
 owners of land." * 
 
 Such was the celebrated Act of 2 Anne, c. 6. 
 
 Six years later, in 1709, a second Act was passed to make this 
 process of confiscation more effective still. 
 
 "All securities by mortgage, judgment, or otherwise, to cover a 
 lease or conveyance to a Catholic, contrary to the above enactment, 
 were declared void, as to such Catholic or any purchaser in trust for 
 him, and the lands and such securities might be sued for by any 
 Protestant, in law or equity, who, on proof, should obtain verdict, 
 and be put in possession of the lands and securities. 
 
 " So that if a Catholic purchased an estate for a term of more than 
 thirty-one years, or subject to a rent, to be by him paid, of less than 
 two-thirds of the improved annual value at the time of sale, any dis- 
 coverer (that is, common informer), being a Protestant, might claim 
 the said estate and all collateral securities connected therewith, and 
 should, on proof, be put in possession tliereof, by a decree of the 
 judges of any of her Majesty's courts of law!" f 
 
 "It was made laAvful for any common informer to prefer a bill in 
 Chancery to compel any person to discover any secret trusts which 
 had been created in favor of Papists. Any issues of fact were to be 
 tried by a jury of known Protestants, and upon a decree in his favor 
 he was at once entitled to the lands affected by the trust. 
 
 "No Papist was thenceforth to be callable of taking an annuity 
 chargeable on land." % 
 
 " A Protestant woman with any estate or interest in lands, or £500 
 personal estate or more, marrying a Catholic, he was declared in- 
 capable of holding such estate or interest, which should thereupon go 
 to the next of kin who was a Protestant; and the said Protestant next 
 of kin might sue for and recover the same, as if legally entitled to the 
 same, as heir to such woman so marrying, who, to that purpose, 
 should be deemed dead in law. 
 
 * " The Kingdom of Ireland," pp. 339, 340. 
 + " Ireland Industrial," &c., p. 323. 
 X " The Kingdom of Ireland," p. 341. 
 
DAiSlIEL O' CONN ELL. 
 
 PROM TUB PORTRAIT BT J HAVBR.TY: E Hi 
 
Artliur CLeai'ij — the Outlmo. 423 
 
 "Sucli woman and her husband were declared incapable of being 
 heir, executor, administrator, or guardian to any Protestant. So 
 Avhere a Protestant woman married a Catholic, she was deprived of 
 the right of guardianship to her own son, being a Protestant, and 
 tliat son was offered a strong inducement at any time to sue his 
 parents for tlie estate, to dispossess them, and enter on tlie enjoyment 
 of it himself ! 
 
 " Any Protestant marrying a Popish wife was deemed a Papist or 
 popish recreant, and was declared for ever afterwards disabled and 
 incapable of being heir, executor, administrator or guardian to any 
 person or persons whatever, and also disabled to sit in Parliament, or 
 bear office or employment. 
 
 "The penal laws were commonly called Laws of Discovery; for, as 
 we have just seen, they were based on a principle which encouraged 
 the wife or child to discover against the husband or parent, the lay- 
 man against his clergyman, the friend against his friend, the servant 
 against his master; the reward of the discoverer being that he 
 received a large portion of the fine inflicted or the whole of the prop- 
 erty confiscated. What system could have been devised more debas- 
 ing and more demoralizing, at the same time that it was most ably 
 planned to meet the odious ends intended ! . . . 
 
 "A melancholy illustration of the working of the penal laws is 
 afforded by the fate of Arthur O'Leary, 'the outlaw,' whose tomb 
 may be seen in the venerable abl^ey of Kilcrea, in the county of Cork, 
 about twelve miles west of the city. The inscription is as follows : 
 
 Lo! Artliur Learij, generous, handsome, hrave. 
 Slain in his bloom, fills this ^intimely grave. 
 
 Died May 4th, 1773, aged 26 years. 
 
 Mr. O'Leary was a gentleman of considerable personal property, but 
 being a Catholic, he could hold no real estate. He had been an offi- 
 cer in the Hungarian army, and was married to a daughter of 
 Daniel O'Connell of Derrynane Abbey, grandfather of the Liberator. 
 
424 - The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 We. are told by the local historian that on his becoming resident in 
 Ireland his influence over the peasantry of his old patrimonial dis- 
 trict excited the jealousy of Mr. M — , one of its landed proprietors — 
 a jealousy increased in consequence of one of his horses having won a 
 race against a horse of Mr. M — 's. This led to a quarrel. Mr. M — 
 availed himself of the oppressive laws then existing against the Cath- 
 olics, and attempted a legalized robbery, by publicly claiming from 
 O'Leary, after the race, the horse which had won it — tendering to 
 him the price, five guineas, awarded for a Papist's horse. O'Leary 
 refused compliance, saying 'he would surrender him only with his 
 life.' A scuffle ensued, and O'Leary was glad to escape by flight. 
 Meanwhile, by an extraordinary process, he was proclaimed by two 
 magistrates an outlaw, on the spot; and on his return home in the 
 evening, he was shot dead at Carriganimy, by soldiers who were 
 placed in ambuscade to intercept him. The penal laws followed him 
 in death. Interments within monastic grounds were then prohibited, 
 and O'Leary was buried in a field outside the abbey, where the body 
 lay for several years. " * 
 
 Mr. "Walpole sums up the spirit and effects of this abominable 
 legislation in the following words : 
 
 "At the commencement of Queen Anne's reign, it was found that, 
 like every other severe and unjust law, the penal Acts were largely 
 evaded; and the 'Protestant Ascendancy' believed that the mischief 
 which they sought to counteract, could be overcome by fiercer 
 statutes. Accordingly, in grossest breach of the Limerick treaty, 
 the savage Acts of the second and eighth years of Anne were passed, 
 which were so carefully drawn as to leave no possible loophole for 
 escape, if they could have been drastically administered. The ©bject 
 of these statutes, besides the strengthening of those already in force, 
 was to insure the withdrawal from the hands of the Eoman Catholics 
 the fragments of the land to which they still clung; and to make it 
 impossible in future that they should ever acquire a title to a single 
 
 * "Ireland Industrial," Ac, pp. 324-326. 
 
Degrading the Nation by enforced Poverty. 425 
 
 acre. To secure this end, these statutes made inevitable the gradual 
 cutting up and dispersioii of the estates of Roman Catholics; deprived 
 thorn of the power of settling their land, or disposing of it by will; 
 even broke up in some cases settlements already made; and provided, 
 a ready machinery by which unscrupulous children and unfaithful 
 wives, by the simple process of apostatizing, and even the lowest com- 
 mon informer, could tear to pieces, or transfer to themselves, both 
 the income and the property of every unfortunate landowner who ad- 
 hered to the religion of their fathers." 
 
 We pause here to consider these moral enormities which dis- 
 graced a Christian nation in a century boasting of its philosophic 
 spirit, and its conquests over intolerance. 
 
 It is a fact, then, that one principal aim of these dreadful laws 
 was, not only to get out of "the hands of the Eoman Catholics 
 (of Ireland, that is, the Irish Nation) the fragments of the land to 
 which they still clung"; but "to make it impossible in the future 
 tliat tliey should ever acquire a title to a single acre!'''' 
 
 So, it was not enough that the old tribal formation of the Irish 
 should have been destroyed utterly and for ever, — that the tribal 
 chiefs of every rank had been exterminated or driven from Ireland 
 almost to a man, ':liat the tribesmen, that is, the Irish People, had 
 been dispossessed, when they could not be exterminated in their 
 native districts, — that they had been driven to a distant part of the 
 Island, or forced to hide and live in the woods and morasses, — and 
 then left with no more legal or human right to occupy one foot of their 
 native soil than the wolf that skulked in their mountain 7vilds. They 
 had no rights in Ireland that any man, woman, or child was bound 
 to respect. 
 
 More than that; it was attempted by this ferocious legislation, to 
 take away from the few Celtic and Anglo-Irish proprietors left, not 
 only every foot of soil they still owned, but every possibility of ever 
 again holding in fee simple a single acre. 
 
 It was sought to degrade the Nation, first, by extreme poverty, by 
 the absolute dependence and misery of slaves. Poverty is neither a 
 
436 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 sin nor a shame to those on whom it falls without fault of their own, 
 directly or indirectly. But where a famil}^ where a whole class, 
 where an entire people are condemned perforce, by systematic and 
 irresistible oppression, to extreme, helpless, hopeless ])overtij, — it means 
 for them degradatiok. 
 
 This was the fate to which the Land System imposed by Cromwell 
 and the Commonwealth, confirmed by the restored Stuarts, by Wil- 
 liam, by Anne, and her successors, the Georges, — condemned the 
 Irish Nation. 
 
 The legislatioii which we have been describing, and which was 
 devised to secure the perfect and permanent working out of that sys- 
 tem, may have been repealed wholly or in part within the last cen- 
 tury. The Sj'stera had then done its work. 
 
 And this System exists in Ireland to this day. It is against it 
 that the Irish People are now struggling with the energy of a man 
 who has been fighting long with a wild beast, and holds it half-stran- 
 gled, fearing the while that his own strength may give out ere tbe 
 victory be complete. 
 
 But do we try to form anything like a correct notion of the stun-t- 
 ing of every faculty, the debasement of every noble sentiment, tlie 
 quenching of all higher aspirations, and the degradation of the whole 
 life of a man, the whole existence of a family and a population, inev- 
 itably consequent upon extreme poverty ? 
 
 Why our North American Indians, so long as they possess, in the 
 immense tracts of our Western Territories, the active exercise of the 
 chase, the rude but manly and invigorating sports handed down by 
 one generation to another, and the abundant and wholesome food 
 which the hunting-grounds supply, — are splendid specimens of 
 physical strength and beauty. Hereditary freedom, besides, gives 
 to the savage cliaracter more than one feature of greatness. But let 
 that same race be subjected, for a generation or two, to the dreadful 
 trials of hunger, and the enforced dwelling, for nine months in the 
 year, in huts scarcely fit for the brute, — will they, in the third and 
 fourth generation, preserve the lofty stature, the manly strength, the 
 
The Irish Peasantry reduced to the Savage State. 427 
 
 intellectual vigor of the Sioux or the Comauche, of the Ilui'on or 
 the Iroquois ? 
 
 What has the oppressive and pitiless Land System bequeathed to 
 Ireland by Cromwell and William III., and consolidated and fortified 
 round about by the Penal Laws— like the brick mass of the Pyramid 
 of Cheops clothed outside from top to base with imperishable granite, 
 — what has it left to the Irish Catholic tenantry — tenants-at-will 
 all of them — to live upon ? At the moment I write this are not 
 thousands upon thousands of them liable to be cast forth on the 
 roadside to die of starvation, unpitied and unhelped by their 
 landlords? 
 
 Unquestionably the effect of this legislation, if not the purpose of 
 the legislators themselves, was to reduce the Irish peasantry to the 
 condition of savages. Even to this day, the great bulk of these 
 tenants-at-will and farm-laborera are forced to live in hovels not one 
 degree above the wigwam of the savage, or the burrow of the 
 Esquimaux. Have we ever reflected on the many elevating influences 
 of a civilized home, — of a warm, comfortable, cleanly, orderly tlwell- 
 ing, — on the habits, the manners, the whole life of its inmates? Have 
 we ever paused to calculate, on leaving these wretched tenements in 
 which Irish farm-laborers are permitted to live, or in which, in the 
 suburbs and outskirts of city and town throughout the land, the great 
 masses of our laboring poor are born and live and die, — of how much 
 that is refining, and purifying, and strengthening, and elevating the 
 men and women of Ireland have been deprived for centuries — for 
 centuries! And you, landlords of Ireland, you upholders of this 
 Protestant Ascendancy, will turn round and taunt this people 
 with being savages ! Have you not done your best to make them 
 so ? 
 
 You will stop me in my argument to say: But, Jong before the 
 Penal Days, long before the Cromwellian Settlement, in the time of 
 James I. and of Elizabeth, do not English travelers in Ireland 
 describe tlie Irish Kerns and Creaghts, — the bulk of the rural popu- 
 lation, as living in huts no whit better than the hut of the Savage ? 
 
428 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 Is it not in such huts that the Jesuit Campion found them early in 
 the reign of Elizabeth ? And has he described them as a civilized 
 people ? 
 
 I answer : In the first years of Elizabeth, and through the reign 
 of her sister, Mary, and during the long reign of their father, had 
 the English rulers of Ireland, and the Anglo-Irish nobles and gentry 
 of the Pale, done nothing to disturb the populations, in the districts 
 described by Father Campion ? Had the lands of the people on the 
 borders of the English colonies not been like the low-lying tracts on 
 the sea-shore, alternately covered by the inundating waters, and left 
 dry by the retiring tide? What husbandman could sow or reap on 
 such a soil, or build a permanent and secure home on what was as 
 unstable as the quicksands in the path of a torrent, or the confluents 
 of two great rivers ? 
 
 Without mentioning the raids, the burnings, the harryings of 
 Lord Deputies and the March Lords under the two last Henrys, 
 think of what Philip and Mary did in Offaly and Leix, in Fercal and 
 Ely. "The natives were either shot down in the field, or executed 
 by martial law, and the remnants driven into the neighboring bogs 
 and mountains, where for a few years longer they prej'ed upon the 
 settlers, and in their turn were hunted as brigands and put to death 
 as outlaws." Under Henry VIII., we know what ravages were com- 
 mitted all through the centre and the south of Ireland by Lord 
 Leonard Gray; and what were the effects the desolating wars pro- 
 voked between the Butlers and the Geraldines. In what part of the 
 fairest and most fertile districts of Ireland was the land allowed to 
 rest from the scourge of these armed hordes passing and repassing 
 continually, and making it impossible for the people to count on a 
 single season of uninterrupted tranquillity? "The Plagues of Egypt," 
 says Sir John Davies, "though they were grievous, were but of short 
 continuance; but the plagues of Ireland lasted four hundred years 
 together. This extortion of coin and livery (practiced by the English 
 commanders) produced two notorious effects: first, it made the land 
 waste; next, it made the people idle: for when the husbandman had 
 
Ignorance, — another agency for degrading Ireland. 429 
 
 labored all the year, the soldier in one night consumed the fruits of 
 all his labor." 
 
 But, after all, were these people savages whom Father Campion 
 found with their herds and flocks, living as best they might among 
 the woods, morasses, and mountain wildernesses, to which their op- 
 pressors had driven them ? Campion describes the life they led with 
 no friendly joen. But he cannot withhold the eloquent fact that their 
 youth were nobly ambitious of learning, and that they were no unapt 
 scholars. Was it their fault that the Eeformation suppressed the 
 monasteries and schools spared by medieval wars, and from the land 
 the revered masters of letters and science ? And will the apologists 
 of the Penal Laws and Protestant Ascendancy dare to taunt the Irish 
 people with their ignorance as Avell-as their poverty? 
 
 For absolute ignorance was counted on as certainly as extreme 
 indigence to break down the spirit of a proud, independent, and 
 intellectual race, and to reduce them to the abject and passive con- 
 dition of the animal tamed by hunger, made submissive to the hand 
 that throws it a bone by the terrible instincts awakened by starvation. 
 It is possible to narrow for man as well as for the brute every thought 
 and every activity down to the mere circle of the food for the day. 
 
 Do not talk to us of the civilization imported into Ireland by 
 Elizabeth when it is averred that her wars swept out of existence one- 
 half the population of the island, that is A million of human beings. 
 Has the civilizing reign of Queen Victoria been productive of more 
 civilizing, humanizing results? 
 
 But the word ignorance has been uttered in connection with the 
 Penal Laws as the second and surer means of degi*ading all classes of 
 Irish Catholics, of making the mass of the nation content with the 
 poverty and dependence in which they were placed by the operation 
 of these laws. 
 
 It is necessary that we should examine carefully this count also in 
 our indictment. 
 
 By the Statute of 7th WiUiam IIL c. 4 (1695), Papists were for- 
 bidden to teach school either publicly or in private houses, except to 
 
430 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 one's own children, under a penalty of £20 fine and three months' 
 imprisonment; and this statute was only repealed in 1782. As we 
 have seen a few pages above, to send their children to be educated 
 abroad was to incur the loss of civil rights, of office, goods, and lands 
 for life. 
 
 "A Papist schoolmaster was to be liable to the same penalties as a 
 Papist ' Eegular '; and no person was to be qualified to be a school- 
 master unless he should take the oaths at the assizes or sessions. . . . 
 This ferocious statute goes on to enact the most endeavors to stamp 
 out their religion; it endeavors at any rate to secure the helplessness 
 of ignorance for the Eoman Catholics, if their conversion could not 
 be achieved."* 
 
 In good families, in such at least who had managed to save from 
 the general wreck some small portion of their fortune, it was possible, 
 if it were not easy, for parents to teach their children. But what 
 facilities, what possibilities were left to the poor to procure for their 
 dear ones the boon of education ? 
 
 Not only were parents who sent their sons to be educated abroad 
 thus punished by all manner of disability, but so were all persons 
 who made any remittance of money or goods for the maintenance of 
 any Irish child educated in a foreign country. "But here," says Mrs. 
 Atkinson, "tjie old love of learning stimulated the Irish, and made 
 them fertile in resource. Gentlemen's sons were sent to seaports pro- 
 vided with indentures of apprenticeship to friendly merchants, who 
 took care of them, watched for a safe opportunity, and despatched 
 them, ostensibly on commercial business, to a foreign port, whence 
 they made their way to the college in which they were to receive 
 their education. Or, they got down to the remote parts of the coast, 
 and were taken off by the smugglers, who anchored under the shadow 
 of the sea-washed headlands to exchange at their leisure a cargo of 
 clarets and brandies for the wool which the Irish were prohibited 
 from exporting to England, and forbidden to manufacture into sale- 
 
 * " Kingdom of Ireland," p. 342. 
 
The Iledge-Scliools. 431 
 
 able goods at home. Aspirants to tlie Priesthood embarked with the 
 ' wild geese,' — the recruits for the Irish Brigade — in a like hazardous 
 fashion: or got away in fishing boats frequenting these coasts; and 
 were satisfied if landed anywhere on the Continent, being fully pre- 
 pared to trudge across mountain and plain with their faces turned 
 toward Santiago or Salamanca, Lisbon or Louvain. The return home 
 svas effected through the same friendly agency. Priests, friars, and 
 the alumni of the secular colleges were smuggled into their native 
 island Avith the rest of the contraband freight. 
 
 "Scholars of humbler rank, and others who could not reach the 
 Continent, repaired to the hedge-schools for instruction. It was the 
 pursuit of knowledge under difficulties. Master and scholars assem- 
 bled in the safest spot they could find: on the sheltered side of a 
 hedge, in a dry ditch, or on the edge of a wood, and worked away at 
 the ' Three E's,' the classics and their native tongue, prepared in 
 dangerous times to hide their books and disperse over the country at 
 a moment's notice. . . . This open-air school system was not felt as 
 too great a hardship by people who were denied the shelter of a roof 
 when they gathered round the altar of their God; and, besides, out- 
 of-door studies had been the rule in the good old times: their great 
 saints and great scholars, and the foreign youths who flocked to the 
 classes of the famous teachers had made their studies under the vault 
 of heaven, only amid more peaceful siirroun dings. Cardinal New- 
 man, speaking in his ' Historical Sketches' of the ancient Irish, says: 
 It is imjjossible not to admire and venerate a race wMcli dis^jlayed 
 such an unextinguishahle love of science and letters. Their descend- 
 ants in the eighteenth century manifested the same noble ardor, and 
 are entitled to the same esteem. And, what is worthy of remark, the 
 peasantry imbibed the same taste as their social superiors, and became 
 athirst for a kind of knowledge which it was almost impossible they 
 could ever turn to practical account. The Munster people excelled 
 all others in taste for learning, and Kerry was believed to have the 
 best of schools. Thither resorted students from other parts to share 
 the advantages enjoyed by the young mountaineers. The •' ditches 
 
432 Vic Cause of Ireland. 
 
 full of scholars ' wliioli Arthur Young tells us he often saw in his 
 travels through Ireland, had many lads among them, who, when 
 they got enough Latin, meant to sail away and read their theology on 
 the Continent. Munster, in fact, was a sort of preparatory school for 
 Salamanca. In those days Latin was freely spoken, especially in 
 Kerry. Boys were often met with on the lonely hill-sides conning 
 their Homer, and runners and stable-boys in the service of the Prot- 
 estant gentry could quote for you a verse of Horace, or season their 
 remarks with a line from Virgil. Dr. Smith, in his ' History of 
 Kerry,' observes that classical reading ' extends itself even to a fault 
 among the lower orders in Ireland, many of whom have a greater 
 knowledge in that way than some of the better sort in other 
 places.'"* 
 
 Hear what the latest historian of these disastrous times, Mr. 
 Walpole, says upon this very subject. He is describing Ireland in 
 1760; he notes the fatal working of the Ignorantist Laws: 
 
 "Half a century's experience of the Penal Laws had left its mark 
 on the Koman Catholic population. The poorer classes were more 
 attached to the persecuted religion than ever, and at the same time 
 sunh in hopeless ignorance. All education emanating from Roman 
 Catholic sources was forbidden by law; none was provided from any 
 other source; and but for the persevering energy of the registered 
 priests, who, despite the penal code, in the wilder country, ventured 
 to open schools, and in the less remote districts taught the ragged 
 children the elements of education in the fields and by the roadside, 
 every spark of religion and knowledge would have died out from end 
 to end of the island. The patient persistence of the Eoman clergy 
 was very remarkable. The intention of the penal laws was that, no 
 fresh clergy being permitted to enter Ireland and the ordaining pow- 
 ers being banished, the then existing registered clergy should gradually 
 die out, and so the race of priests become extinct." f 
 
 So, half a century of enforced ignorance, added to the terrible 
 
 * '• Mary Aikenhead, her Life, her Work, and her Friends," pp. 51-53 . 
 t " Kingdom of Ireland," pp. 370, 371. 
 
Wiat they gave Ireland instead of the Old Religion. 433 
 
 poverty of their condition, had done its work among our noble Celtic 
 people. In spite of the heroic devotion of their hunted priests, who 
 taught the "ragged children" what they could, and when and where 
 they could, the people seemed sunk, or fatally doomed to be "sunk 
 in hopeless ignorance." 
 
 And yet the descendants of that doubly oppressed, doubly fam- 
 ished race, — famished in soul as well as in body, — are at the present 
 moment crowding the schools of every grade, and displaying, with 
 the inherited hunger for knowledge, an aptitude for mastering it 
 Avhich is the wonder of Englishmen themselves. 
 
 If English statesmen, — if the English people, Catholics as well 
 as Protestants, — had only learned to appreciate all these priceless 
 qualities and noble aptitudes ! If they could have divested them- 
 selves in time of the stupid prejudices of race, and birth, and edu- 
 cation, and seen in the Celtic nature its wealth of intellectuality, 
 its noble aspirations, its deep and generous affections, what could 
 they not have helped to make of Irishmen and of Ireland? And 
 now all the accumulated wrongs of ages are beginning to threaten 
 retribution. . . . Brute force has begotten the desire of isassionate 
 revenge. . . . 
 
 We quote the testimony of a non-Catholic writer. 
 
 "Not by all the penal laws against Roman Catholic priests could 
 it be hoped by the most fanatical disciple of brute force, that the old 
 faith could be ever supplanted by the new, so long as the condition of 
 the English Church in Ireland continued to be nothing else but a 
 scandal. While there were no less than three thousand registered 
 Roman Catholic priests, there were for all the parishes in the island 
 but six hundred resident Protestant incumbents, and of these six 
 hundred the large majority were wretchedly poor, their incomes 
 being but about £100 per annum, notwithstanding the fact that they 
 were all pluralists, some holding as many as twelve or thirteen bene- 
 fices. Numbers of parishes had no church at all, or only a battered 
 ruin, in which no service was ever performed. Few had schools, and 
 the few Protestant families who were to be found in the south and 
 28 
 
434 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 west, were left to shift for themselves, and in course of time fell 
 away. 
 
 "The bishops, on the other hand, had absorbed all the church 
 revenues, and were wealthy. The land belonging to the Irish sees 
 was estimated at 623,598 Irish acres, or 998,000 English acres, about 
 one-nineteenth of the entire soil of the island. All of them of the 
 extreme Laudian type, they had through good and evil times preached 
 the doctrine of passive obedience; and though from their experiences 
 under James they had had reason to modify these ideas, they still 
 continued Jacobites at heart, and were ever the rallying point of dis- 
 affection to the house of Hanover. Their political influence was very 
 considerable. As members of the Upper House, which the absentee 
 system had largely depleted of its lay element, they were an important 
 and impracticable faction, which the Government were constantly 
 compelled to humor. Ecclesiastical influences had always been re- 
 markably felt in the Dublin Privy Council, the primate for the time 
 being filling the office of a lord-justice in the absence of the lord- 
 deputy or lord-lieutenant. 
 
 "In proportion to the smallness of the influence of the Church 
 upon the mass of the people was the jealousy shown by the bench of 
 bishops towards the Presbyterians. 1'he bitterness and injustice with 
 which the latter had been attacked in the reign of Charles II. was 
 redoubled in the reign of Anne. A clause had been slipped into the 
 penal statute of the Second of Anne by the English Privy Council, as 
 a sop to the bishops to secure their adherence to the bill, imposing 
 the test on ^^on-conformists as well as on Roman Catholics. The 
 taking of the saci'ament according to the rites of the Episcopal 
 Church was made a condition precedent to their holding any office 
 civil or military above the rank of a constable, and by this means 
 every Dissenter was sTibjected to the same disabilities as a Roman 
 Catholic. Armed with a new Test Act, the bishops hastened to 
 extirpate schism. Non-conformists were cleared out of Derry and 
 Belfast, and dismissed from_ the commission Gt the peace in Ulster. 
 They were prohibited from opening a school. Their marriages were 
 
Industrial "Traps''' for Catlwllc Children. 435 
 
 attacked and declared void; and men were prosecuted in the Con- 
 sistory Courts as fornicators for living with their own wives. Even 
 the Kegium Donum, an annual subvention granted to the Presbyterian 
 clergy by King William as an acknowledgment of their loyalty and 
 determination in 1688, was suspended. 
 
 "All the elforts of the Government to repeal the Test Clause, or 
 even to pass a Toleration Act to secure to them the use of their 
 chapels, were rejected through the violence of the bishops in the 
 Upper House, and it was not till after the exposure of the Jacobite 
 rascality on the death of the Queen, and the fall of Bolingbroke and 
 the Tory party, and after the Irish bench had been leavened by the 
 appointment of pliant men from England, that a meagre Toleration 
 Act took its place upon the statute book. Even this did not stem 
 the stream of emigration to New England, and a steady drain went 
 on of the best blood of the north to join their Puritan kinsmen in a 
 land where liberty of conscience was respected, l^or was the con- 
 dition of the parish clergy improved. The only sign of activity 
 was an effort made by the Protestant laity in 1733, under the 
 auspices of Archbishop Boulter, to found industrial schools under a 
 royal charter in different parts of the country, where the cliildren of 
 the poorest Roman Catholics were taught, fed, and clothed, and 
 apprenticed to a trade." * 
 
 These schools were, of course, only proselytizing traps baited for 
 unwary or desperately needy Catholics. ISTothing was done to im- 
 prove the condition either of the Protestant masses or tlieir parochial 
 clergy. Now, with the wealth and intolerance and supineness of the 
 Protestant Episcopal body contrast that of the poor persecuted Catho- 
 lic clergy and their Bishops. 
 
 "The secular priests returned from their foreign colleges to the 
 scene of their apostolic labors, and lived, when the times were suf- 
 ficiently peaceful to allow of their doing so, dispersed in the obscure 
 quarters of cities and towns, and in the farm-houses throughout the 
 f- ^, 
 
 * " The Kingdom of Ireland," pp. 358-360. 
 
436 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 country; while tlie friars, after going througli tlieir novitiate in the 
 Dominican houses at Lisbon, Toledo, or Rome, or in the Franciscan 
 convents of Italy, Germany, and Flanders, made their way to the 
 ruins of the monasteries of their orders, took up their abode, two or 
 three together, in a thatched corner of choir or aisle; or, failing this, 
 built cabins for themselves within sight at least of the roofless church 
 and the silent belfry, and waited until better times enabled them to 
 take a farm and live on it without apprehension, while perhaps doing 
 parish duty in their district. 
 
 "The bishops were fortunate when they possessed a modest 
 thatched dwelling in a retired part of their diocese or an obscure 
 quarter of the episcopal city. Dr. O'Grallagher, while bishop of 
 Raphoe, was obliged to seek refuge in one of the small islands 
 of Lough Erne, where, dressed in peasant costume, '\\q secured 
 amongst the humble but trusty clansmen of the Gallagher sept, a 
 secure asylum.' In this retreat 'he re-wrote and prepared for the 
 press the fragmentary sermons which he had from time to time 
 preached in Irish to the flock entrusted to his pastoral charge.' 
 A¥hen translated, in 1737, to Kildare, he lived in a village in the 
 bog of Allen, and ordained on a hill some young priests whom he 
 sent to finish their studies to France, Spain, or Italy. Members 
 of the lordly house of Butler who filled the archiepiscopal see of 
 Cashel in the last century were poorly housed in the Galtee moun- 
 tains, in the vicinity of their paternal estates. Dr. James Butler, 
 who died in his eighty-third year, in 1774, was in his old age ' per- 
 mitted to dwell quietly in a humble thatched cabin, which occupied 
 the site of the present archiepiscopal residence in Thurles.' Hith- 
 erto, almost uninterruptedly, the Archbishops of Cashel had no fixed 
 place of residence; their pastorals and letters are all dated from ou7' 
 place of refuge. Dr. O'Callaghan of Ferns, though he re'sided in his 
 diocese, had to assume the name of Walker, in order to conceal him- 
 self, and to save his life; while his successor, Dr. Sweetman, did not 
 escape so well, but was taken up and confined in the Castle of Dublin 
 on a malicious charge of high treason during the administration of 
 
How the Popes helped us in our need. 437 
 
 the Duke of Portland in 1752. The Primate, Dr. O'Reilly, who died 
 in 1758, resided in a farm-house near Drogheda, thereby enjoying a 
 better position than his predecessor, Dr. McMahon, who occupied 
 a still humbler tenement, and went by the name of Mr. Ennis. 
 Bishop de Burgo, author of the ' Hibernia Dominicana,' dwelt in a 
 lowly cottage near the ruins of St. John's Abbey in Kilkenny. In 
 1757 there met by stealth in the castle of Trimbleston seven of the 
 Catholic bishops to confer on matters of importance; and tradition 
 says that these prelates were clad in frieze like farmers, in order to 
 conceal their ecclesiastical dignity. 
 
 "All through these troubled times the bishops and clergy of Ire- 
 land received constant and liberal remittances from the Sovereign 
 Pontiffs. ' In truth,' observes Dr. Renehan, 'some provisions of the 
 kind must have been made by the Holy See for the ministers of re- 
 ligion in this country, or else, humanly speaking, they would have 
 died out within a few years — the very object at which the Govern- 
 ment aimed in all their legislation. These pensions were forwarded 
 regularly from Rome until Pope Pius VII. was driven into exile; and 
 the bounty of the Holy Father was distributed so discreetly, that few 
 except the Irish bishops themselves seem to have been aware that 
 such subsidies were received." * 
 
 Ireland has not forgotten the generous and helpful liberality of 
 such Pontiffs as Gregory XIII. and his successors. Now that the 
 cloud of persecution has settled over Italy and Rome itself, and that 
 the Holy See is left dependent for its support on the alms of the 
 faithful, Ireland and the children of Ireland dispersed all over the 
 globe, will not be apt to forget the fatherly love extended to their 
 country and their church in the dark days of their own need. One 
 prayer only would Irishmen address to the Vicar of Christ, that he 
 should never allow England to stand between the Holy See and that 
 people in all Christendom that has most suffered for their inviolable 
 fidelity to the Chair of Peter. 
 
 ** The Kingdom of Ireland/' pp. 62, 63. 
 
4S8 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 We cannot, at tliis point of our argument, thrust out of sight the 
 Church Establisliment by which England wished to supplant the old 
 religion of the Irish Celts and the early Anglo-Xorman Colonists. 
 To do so, would be to ignore the fact that the oppression exercised on 
 the great mass of the Irish nation by the Protestant Episcopal Church 
 since the year 1534 and down to 1869, — was one of the most crying 
 injustices of the English domination. 
 
 What did the Church imposed by Henry VIII. and Elizabeth, 
 propped up by the tyranny of the Stuarts, and implanted in the land 
 like a vast system of fortified camps by William III. and the Britisli 
 Parliament, — what did it do for the Irish People ? What pains did 
 it take to evangelize them ? What agencies were employed by it to 
 heal the wounds of the subject race? to establish the reign of peace 
 or brotherly love between them and the English Colony ? 
 
 One finds it impossible, in studying the records of this dark period 
 in Ireland, to separate the existence of the devoted Irish priests, both 
 secular and regular, from that of their people, from that of the peas- 
 antry, more especially. Just as through successive centuries of trial 
 and struggle, one generation of Celts bequeathed to the next the task 
 of holding fast to the idea of nationality, to the fatherland, and to 
 the ancestral faith, in spite of all enemies and difficulties, so did each 
 generation of Irish priests knowingly and lovingly take up the Cross 
 and through it animate their flocks to emulate the heroism of those 
 who had gone before them. 
 
 It was a spectacle never before beheld by the civilized world. It 
 is the noblest struggle in all history. 
 
 But w^e must let others beside Catholics portray the heroism of 
 these men, our fathers in the faith as well as in the flesh. 
 
 "The succession of priests, who for the most part received their 
 orders from the Continent, was steadily kept up, though, according 
 to the strict interpretation of the law, after the clergy originally 
 registered had died out, every priest in Ireland was liable to be 
 hanged, drawn, and quartered. Besides living under the ban of 
 outlawry the Roman Catholic clergy were wretchedly poor. They 
 
A Calnmnu Refuted. 439 
 
 ! Avere supported by tlie voluntary contributions of their poverty- 
 stricken parishioners. Each person gave Avhat he could, some a 
 few shillings, more but a few pence, and those who could not spare 
 money gave in kind. Small collections were made in the chapels on 
 Sundays: the sum total of which at the end of the year was consid- 
 ered handsome if it amounted to a pound. The whole income of a 
 parish priest did not come to more than thirty or forty pounds, and 
 part of this would go to pay a curate. Still the devoted band worked 
 steadily on, a startling contrast to the clergy of the Establishment, 
 doing their utmost to improve the condition and to raise the moral 
 tone of those around them, and only rewarded by the loyal affection 
 of the flocks which tliey served so well. 
 
 "On the whole the earth-tillers deteriorated less than the gentry. 
 The latter were more directly affected by the influence of the penal 
 code. Their self-interest was appealed to; their truth and honesty 
 were undermined; and the door was closed to every ennobling im- 
 pulse. There was no way out of obscurity for ambition, no scope for 
 energy and enterprise, except at the price of the surrender of what 
 they had been taught was necessary to their salvation. Sham con- 
 versions were therefore common. By the year 1738 as many as a 
 thousand Roman Catholic families of rank had nominally joined the 
 Established Church; and no scruple was felt hi taking the oaths, 
 when perjury could be atoned for, as it constantly was, by a small 
 penance, which purchased absolution from the priest." 
 
 AYe have inserted these last words, conveying, unconsciously no 
 doubt on the part of the writer, a calumny against Catholic morality 
 often repeated and as often triumphantly refuted. As to the num- 
 ber of "persons of rank" who thus apostatized — for it was apostasy — 
 we say nothing at present. But of all sins which a human being can 
 be guilty of, apostasy is the most heinous, since it is a denial of what 
 one knows to be the true Eeligion or the true God. Such a sin is 
 held in supreme abhorrence by the Church and her children, and 
 visited with the greatest penalties she can inflict. In no supposable 
 case, could tlie apostate adding perjury to his guilt, "atone by a 
 
440 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 small penance," or thereby "purchase absolution from the priest." 
 This is all downright calumny. Perjury itself, apart from the 
 enormous crime of apostasy with which it is here conjoined, is a 
 deadly sin of fearful magnitude; and, so far as we know, neither God 
 nor man wielding His delegated authority, does or can absolve from 
 such guilt without the interior sorrow which detests and abhors the 
 offence, without the firm will to atone for it and repair it, and the 
 equally firm resolve never to admit such guilt again. There is no 
 effective pardon, no valid absolution, no remission of sin in the sight 
 of the soul's Creator, unless the soul turns away from the offense with 
 supreme abhorrence thereof, and turns toward tlie offended Majesty 
 of the Most High and Most Holy with humiliation and sorrow of 
 spirit proportionate to the guilt. 
 
 This is Catholic doctrine, as well as the teaching of sound reason 
 illumbied by the light of faitli. 
 
 That many of the Catholic or Anglo-Irish gentry should cast their 
 lot with the Protestants, or seek some way of reconciling their con- 
 sciences with their interest, is likely enough. Protestant human 
 nature, as well as Catholic, doubtless furnishes instances of such 
 compromises. But these are not sucli as the Church can wink at 
 or any priest make light of. Mr. Walpole only gives way here to a 
 prejudice all too common among his non-Catholic countrymen. 
 
 With this explanation, we return to what the historian says about 
 the Irish gentry and peasantry in those calamitous days. 
 
 "Numbers of the gentry, thrown back on a vegetable existence in 
 the country, lapsed into low and unworthy habits, and spent their 
 lives in drinking and wagering, with no idea above a horse-race or 
 the wiping out of an imaginary insult with a rapier or pistols. Others 
 finding themselves the victims of the law, took refuge in acts of open 
 laAvlessness, and revenged themselves upon the English strangers by 
 acts of shocking violence. . . . 
 
 "The great curse of absenteeism, which had from the earliest 
 times undermined the prosperity of Ireland, grew to its most 
 monstrous proportions. It was calculated that as much as one-third 
 
Terrible Distress of the Peasantry. 441 
 
 of the whole rental of Ireland was annually drained away to England 
 for the support of absentee landlords. A proposal was made to tax the 
 income of those who lived abroad, but their influence was strong 
 enough in England to secure the rejection of the bill. The great land- 
 owners lived away in Bath and London, with no other thought for their 
 Irish properties than the extraction of so much rent. Whole terri- 
 tories were leased out in large tracts to 'middlemen,' who let the 
 land again at exorbitant rents to others, who sublet again; and this 
 process was repeated till the estate was sometimes underlet six deep. 
 Or the property was managed by stewards and agents, whose orders 
 were to remit the revenues and to spend not a penny in improve- 
 ments of any description. The country houses fell out of repair; the 
 woods were recklessly cut to increase the revenue; whatever fencing 
 or reclamation was done was done by the tenant, and done with as 
 little show as possible, lest the keen eye of the agent should note it, 
 and raise the rent accordingly. The tenant received no encourage- 
 ment to make the most of the land. His position was too insecure. 
 Swift's opinion as to what was wanted in 1729 was 'good firm penal 
 clauses for improvements, with a tolerably easy rent, and a reason- 
 able period of time.' " 
 
 This, however, is unsatisfactory and incomplete with respect to 
 the landowners and we shall return to it in its proper place. Now, 
 as to the peasantry: 
 
 "It was in 1761 that public attention first became directed toward 
 the state of the peasantry. The condition of the earth-tillers had 
 been rapidly growing worse and worse. In the old days before the 
 plantations they had been little better than serfs, so autocratic had 
 the clan-chiefs and the Anglo-Norman lords become; but the tie of 
 family and old association was strong, and one faith was common to 
 both; so that the earth-tiller followed his master to danger and death 
 with infrangible fidelity. Even in the case of the earlier planters 
 common interests had established a friendly feeling between the new 
 landowner and the old tenant. But the later confiscations, especially 
 those after the war of 1691, created a gulf between the old tenant 
 
442 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 and the still newer landowner whicli was never bridged over. There 
 was no bond of sympathy between them. Of different faith and 
 different habits, the newest race of landlords were essentially land 
 speculators, who bonght the land as an investment, determined to 
 make every possible shilling out of their purchase. They cared not 
 to live in a barbarous island among strangers; all they wanted was 
 their rents; and the tenantry and peasantry never saw their faces 
 from year's end to year's end. The landlords who were extending 
 grass-lands wholesale, managed to get pasture land exempted from 
 the payment of tithe, so that this hated tribute to an alien church 
 fell wholly on the growers of grain and roots. The wretched tenants- 
 at-will were transferred to the tender mercies of the 'middlemen,' 
 who raised their rents to swell their own profits, and allowed them as 
 a set-off the run of the open waste. The grazing fever set in, the 
 land fell out of cultivation, so that according to Swift, ' even ale and 
 potatoes were imported from England as well as corn.' The rate of 
 wages fell to nothing; tlie small fanners and laborers jvere cleared out 
 of the country, and huddled into the towns. The agents then en- 
 closed large tracts of what had hitherto been common bog and moor, 
 and the wretched peasants who now counted among their number 
 the descendant of many an old proprietor, who had squatted on what 
 was once his own domain, and who carefuhy devised by his will to his 
 sons and grandsons the ancestral acres of which he was no longer the 
 possessor, were driven from the bit of rough pasture on which they 
 had been accustomed to turn out a pig or a cow. 
 
 " Eackrented by the remorseless middlemen, squeezed out by the 
 narrowing cultivable lands and hunted from the comm.on, they at 
 length took the law into their own hands, and thought in their igno- 
 rance, that justice could be achieved by means of a secret society. 
 In the dark nights of the winter of 1761 and the spring of 1762, 
 mysterious parties of men with white shirts over their clothes sped 
 over the counties of Cork, Limerick, Waterford, and Tipperary, pull- 
 ing down the fences, levelling the banks, and digging up acres and 
 acres of the pasture. As the terror grew which they inspired, they 
 
Secret Societies spring tip where there is no redress for Wrong. 443 
 
 were not content with a war against grass lands and enclosures, 
 but proposed to remedy all the wrongs from which the tenants 
 suffered. . . . 
 
 "While the peasantry of the south were despairingly appealing to 
 the law of force, the peasantry of the north and the working classes 
 in the manufacturing towns had resorted to the same expedient. 
 The public highways in Ireland were reparable by the householders. 
 Every man was bound to give six days' labor in the year, and who- 
 ever had a horse was bound to give six days' labor of the horse as well. 
 There had long been complaint that the poor only had been com- 
 pelled to work, and that the rich were exempted from giving pay- 
 ment in place of manual labor. Not only was the work enforced 
 upon the highways, but also upon private roads, while the grand 
 juries exacted the cess from the farmers only. In 1763 a general 
 refusal to work was followed by a rising and a demand for a redress 
 of all grievances against waywardens, tithe-proctors, and landlords. 
 Green boughs of oak were worn in the hats of the rioters, who went 
 by the name of ' Oakboys.' " * 
 
 And now what is this Island which misrule has brought to such a 
 pass? 
 
 Let us pause and examine its resources; and then see what the 
 New Interest and the English Government have made of it ? 
 
 * " The Kingdom of Ireland." 
 
m. 
 
 What they have done with the Land, its Geographical 
 Advantages, Mineral Wealth, and Industries. 
 
 1. Ireland as Nature made it and as Man has ill-used it. 
 
 npHE magnificent position given to Ireland by bountiful nature, 
 has been adverted to, rather than dwelt on, in the first part of 
 this book. We return to it at present. It is most important that 
 Irishmen should themselves perfectly understand what a part their 
 native island will be called upon to play in the near future, when the 
 necessities of inter-continental trade will make Ireland the great 
 point of arrival and departure for the merchant fleets of Europe and 
 America. Indeed, the whole commerce of the Pacific, — when the 
 great ship-canals of Panama, Nicaragua, and Tehuantepec are 
 opened, — will have its terminus at Queenstown or Gal way, or at both. 
 
 In the pre-Christian period, there was a walled highway extend- 
 ing from Galway to Eblana, the Dublin or Kingstown of to-day (let 
 us consider Dublin and Kingstown as one for commercial purposes). 
 Are they not talking just now of opening a great ship-canal across 
 the island between these two ports, and following mostly, it may be, 
 the line of road frequented more than 2,000 years ago by the 
 Phenician and Gaelic traders? 
 
 But we only point here to the glorious possibilities of the future — 
 
 possibilities which it will depend on Irish genius to transform into 
 
 realities. We have to consider what advantages God has bestowed on 
 
 Erin, both for home-industry and external trade; — to show how 
 
 (444) 
 
The Soil Ravaged. 445 
 
 mucli nature lias done for Ireland, and how much man has done to 
 thwart and mar God's evident designs. 
 
 We quote reluctantly again from Edmund Spenser; but Ave quote 
 for a purpose. "Sure/' he says, "it is a most beautiful and sweet 
 country as any is under heaven, being stored throughout with many 
 goodly rivers, replenished with all sorts of fish most abundantly; 
 sprinkled with many very sweet islands and goodly lakes like little 
 inland seas, that will carry even ships upon their waters; adorned 
 with goodly woods even fit for building of houses and ships, so com- 
 modiously, as that if some princes in the world had them, they would 
 soon hope to be lords of all the seas, and ere long of all the world; 
 also full of very good ports and havens opening upon England, as 
 inviting us to come to them, to see what excellent commodities tliat 
 country can afford; besides the soil itself most fertile, fit to yield all 
 kinds of fruit that shall be committed thereunto. And lastly the 
 heavens most mild and temperate, though somewhat more moist in 
 tlie parts toward the west. " * 
 
 Since Spenser wrote the blind rage of English greed or English 
 Vandalism has destroyed the forests he loved and praised so much, 
 and of which he had such wealth around Kilcolman and down the 
 Blackwater to Youghal and Ardmore. We have seen what a profi- 
 table traffic Walter Raleigh made of the timber in his time, and what 
 good use the Earl of Cork and the East India merchants knew how 
 to make of the stately Avoods growing down to the very beach all 
 through Munster. The surface and the soil of Ireland, during the 
 last three hundred years, have suffered incalculable damage from the 
 ravages and neglect of man. 
 
 The soil is still capable, with the intelligent and loving hus- 
 bandry of its sons, of bearing the richest harvest, the most remunera- 
 tive crops, as well as the abundant herds and flocks of other days. 
 For the natural fertility of the island is, if carefully liusbanded, 
 inexhaustible. 
 
 * "View of Ir.eland," p. 28. 
 
446 The Cause of Irelmid. 
 
 Arthur Young, and Count Murpliy, both quoted at length in the 
 early chapters of this work, demonstrate beyond the possibility of 
 doubt the truth of this assertion. The former affirms, after a thor- 
 ough survey and study of the entire island, that "natural fertility, 
 acre for acre, over the two Kingdoms, is certainly in favor of Ireland. 
 Of this," he continues, "I believe there can scarcely be a doubt 
 entertained, when it is considered that some of the more beautiful, 
 and even best cultivated countries in England, owe almost everything 
 to the capital, art, and industry of the inhabitants." He had said a 
 little before: "To judge of Ireland by the conversation one sometimes 
 hears in England, it would be supposed that one-half of it was cov- 
 ered with bogs, and the other with mountains filled with Irish, ready 
 to fly at the sight of a civilized being. There are people who will 
 smile when they hear, that in proportion to the size of the two coun- 
 tries, Ireland is more cultivated than England, having much less 
 waste land of all sorts."' * 
 
 Elsewhere,^ he remarks: "You must examine into the Irish soil 
 before you can believe, that a country which has so beggarly an 
 appearance, can be so rich and fertile." f 
 
 It would seem incredible to one who hears so much about the 
 chronic distress of the agricultural population of Ireland, and the 
 periodical appeals for help in favor of her starving millions, that she 
 lias, in proportion to her extent, more cultivated lands than France. 
 Mr. Young distributes the soil of the latter country into 131,000,000 
 of acres, of which 84,000,000 are under cultivation, and 47,000,000 
 occupied by woods and wastes, — the latter making more than one- 
 third of the entire surface of the country. In Ireland, on the con- 
 trary, the uncultivated portions make up much less than one-third. 
 Besides, whereas in France and even in England, Scotland, and 
 Wales, the greater part of the waste land is unreclaimable, the un- 
 cultivated lands of Ireland are easily reclaimable. 
 
 And yet, — more than a century after Mr. Young, in spite of the 
 
 * " Toixv in Ireland," ii., part ii., p. 3. t Ibidem, p. 147. 
 
Even the Irish Mountains not barren. 447 
 
 natural advantages pointed out by this enlightened English traveler, 
 in spite, indeed, of the protestation of English statesmen and Irish 
 patriots, the proportion of cultivated lands in Ireland is yearly on the 
 decrease ! But we must not anticipate. 
 
 Even the Irish mountains are not stricken with barrenness. 
 Newenham, who published his "View of Ireland " in 1809, says of 
 them: "In most of the mountainous districts of Ireland, 5,000 acres 
 will be found to yield more and better food for cattle than 100,000 in 
 many parts of Scotland and Wales. The Irish mountains are entirely 
 different from those of the countries just mentioned. Herbage of 
 some sort or other grows on the very summits of some of the loftiest 
 in Ireland; but in Scotland, and for the most part in Wales, cattle 
 stray from their pasture as they ascend the mountain's brow. The 
 peculiar tendency of the Irish soil to grass is such, that the moun- 
 tainous land yields good sustenance to prodigious droves of young 
 cattle. . . . The mountains of Ireland are the principal nurseries for 
 those immense herds of bullocks and cows which are fattened or fed 
 on the luxuriant lowlands; and almost the only nurseries for those 
 which are annually exported to England, and of which the number 
 in four years, ending 5th .Januar}', 1804, amounted to 106,578, worth 
 according to the prices current in that year, £1,044,404."* 
 
 Unhappily, as the nineteenth century continued its course, the 
 cattle industry, instead of progressing, fell away; and at the present 
 moment, on account of the cattle and meat ti*ade with the United 
 States, New Zealand, and Australia, it is very seriously threatened. 
 
 But we ai'e now talking of the soil and its luxuriant vegetation. 
 "If as much rain fell upon the clays of England (a soil very rarely 
 met with in Ireland, and never without much stone) as falls upon the 
 rocks of her sister-island, those lands could not be cultivated. But 
 the rocks here are clothed with verdure. Those of limestone, with 
 only a thin covering of mould, have the softest and most beautiful 
 turf imaginable." So writes Arthur Young. This natural fertility 
 
 * "View of tlie Natural, Political, and Commercial Circumstances of Ireland," 
 4to. London, 1S09;— pp. 66, 67. 
 
448 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 is supplemented, and can be perpetually renewed or increased, by 
 the extraordinary abundance of the very best natural manures, ready 
 to hand, all over the island. This great abundance is entirely inde- 
 pendent of the presence of cattle. According to Mr. Young, on the 
 coast of Mayo, where sea and other manures are within reach of all, 
 "the common people let their dung-hills accumulate till they become 
 such a nuisance that they remove their cabins to get rid of them." 
 Limestone, except in Wexford, Wicklow, Tyrone, and Antrim, 
 abounds everywhere; so does limestone gravel, the best of all mineral 
 manures. White, grey, and blue marls are also plentiful all over the 
 surface of the island. The sea-coast provides a near and ready sup- 
 ply of coral-sand, or shelly sand which is little inferior to it. Then 
 there are the sea-weeds, and the sea ooze. 
 
 The climate of Ireland contributes not a little to the fertility of 
 the soil, though its excessive humidity has more than one serious 
 drawback. In the twelfth century Giraldus Cambrensis thought it 
 the mildest of all known climates {Terra terrarum temjwatissima). 
 
 The Climate. 
 
 "A very great proportion," says Newenham, "of the fat cattle 
 sent to Waterford, Limerick, and Coi'k, are never housed. The 
 cattle slaughtered in the market of Cork, in the months of February 
 and March, with the exception of those fattened at the distilleries, 
 are, eight out of ten, fattened wholly on grass. The dairy cows in 
 the province of Munster are never, through downright necessity, 
 housed. In a part of the county of Kerry the people often leave 
 their potatoes in the beds without additional covering during the 
 winter; and they have been known to obtain two crops of corn from 
 the same land within the year." * 
 
 Elsewhere he says: "Its general mildness, indeed, is such, that, 
 
 except in the northern counties, the rich pastures or those which 
 
 have been fairly treated, exhibit in the midst of winter the most 
 
 beautiful verdure imaginable, affording sustenance to cattle through- 
 
 » " View of Ireland," p, 41. 
 
Disadvantages. 449 
 
 out the year.'*' The ancient Celts, therefore, profited well by both 
 soil and climate. 
 
 The disadvantages of the moist climate of Ireland are, that it 
 makes the season for ripening grain of every kind, wheat in par- 
 ticular, a thing of great uncertainty. Hence, while American grain 
 is so abundant and so cheap, Irish farmers are unwilling to risk rais- 
 ing cereal crops. The summer of 1884, as well as its fine weather 
 lasting through August and September, is an exception to the gen- 
 eral prevalence of wet years; 1860, 'Gl, and '62 were, as Irish farmers 
 have not forgotten, years fatal to all grain crops. 
 
 It is, on the whole, a singularly mild climate, especially in the 
 southern counties. Its effect both on vegetable and animal life is 
 most favorable. Its green vesture lasts the whole year, through mid- 
 winter as through the Dog-Days. Along the sunny shores of the 
 county of Cork the fuchsia and myrtle grow and thrive in the open. 
 AVhen, in the latitude of New York, Philadelphia, and Washington, 
 the snows of winter wrap the earth in a thick shroud, the fields and 
 mountains of Ireland still afford green pastures to flocks and herds; 
 while the grass in our fields is burned to the root by our tropical 
 summer sun, and the foliage on our trees is shriveled up or shed on 
 the parched earth, woods and wolds in Ireland are covered with a 
 vegetation as fresh and luxuriant as that of our early June. 
 
 This climate with all its moisture is as favorable to animal as it is 
 to vegetable life. Hard as has been the lot of the Irish peasantry, of 
 the great mass of the laboring classes, generation after generation, 
 when systematically deprived, under Elizabeth, and James, and 
 Cromwell, of the necessaries of life in the midst of their devastated 
 fields, or when afterwards reduced to depend for subsistence on a sin- 
 gle vegetable, — they have shown themselves, physically, a hardy, 
 robust, and active race. During the stay of the Papal Legate, Ri- 
 nuccini, both he, and the Italians in his suite, were in admiration of 
 the bodily strength and powers of endurance displayed by the native 
 Irish. The Irishman, in his own native land, is not subject to the 
 extreme heat which weakens and wastes the frame during the months 
 29 
 
450 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 when the thermometer ranges in the Nineties, nor to the excessive 
 cold which dwarfs and stunts' the frame, especially where extreme 
 poverty forbids the nse of a comfortable habitation, comfortable 
 clothing, or nutritious food. 
 
 Had the popular classes in Ireland the means of living like our 
 country-folk in the United States, — wholesome and abundant diet, 
 warm clothing, and homes befitting, not savages, but civilized human 
 beings, would make of them, in their mild, moist climate, the hand- 
 somest and most robust race in Europe, or in the world. 
 
 Mineral Wealth. 
 
 Coming to the mineral wealth of Ireland, and quoting, not from 
 the scientific works of living writers, but from those of men who sur- 
 veyed Ireland a century ago, and laid the results of their studies 
 before the eyes of Parliament and the Government, we shall thereby 
 make it clear that the mineral resources of the countrv, like all its 
 other natural advantages, have been wilfully and shamefully neg- 
 lected, while all Europe and America were progressing rapidly. 
 
 "There is," says Newenham, "not a county in Ireland which does 
 not contain some valuable mineral or fossil; several of them, it is now 
 ascertained, abound Avith ti'easures of this sort; and these, for the 
 greater part, are most happily situated for the exportation of their 
 products, either in a rude or manufactured state." * 
 
 It is a very common prejudice that Ireland contains little, if any, 
 of really available mineral riches. Her coal mines, we admit, are of 
 trifling account as compared with those of the neighboring island. 
 But nature has been so bountiful as to compensate amply for the 
 absence of coal. Taking the counties in alphabetical order, we find 
 from the works of Dr. Smith, and of Mr. Donald Stewart minerals 
 distributed as follows all over the island: 
 
 In Armagh, lead, ochres of different colors, and vari- 
 ous beautiful marbles. 
 
 " View of IreLand," p. 45. 
 
Distribution per Counties. 451 
 
 In Antrim, coal and gypsum in abundance, beautiful 
 crystals, pebbles, and different sorts of ochres. 
 
 In Carlow, granite, talc, marbles, crystals, and ochres. 
 
 In Cavan, fine lead ore, iron, coal, ochres, clay, fuller's 
 earth, sulphur, copper, silver, and jasper. 
 
 In Clare, lead, iron, copper, coal, and beautiful spars 
 like those of Derbyshire. 
 
 In Cork, lead, iron, copper, coal, fine slate, extremely 
 beautiful marbles of a great variety of colors, petrifactions, 
 brown and yellow ochres, excellent potter's clay, and 
 amethysts of great beauty. 
 
 In Donegal, rich lead ore, immense quantities of dif- 
 ferent sorts of clays, coal, siliceous sand, manganese, iron, 
 beautiful granite, chalcedony, marble very like statuary 
 marble, and granites. 
 
 In Down, iron, fuller's earth, soap-stone, rich lead, 
 marbles of different sorts, crystals, granite, copper, and 
 very fine slate. 
 
 In Dublin, copper, lead, ochres of different colors, pot- 
 ter's clay, beautiful pebbles, crystals, and porphyry. 
 
 In Fermanagh, rich iron ore and coal. 
 
 In Galway, rich lead, crystals, pearls, and marbles of 
 superior beauty. 
 
 In Kerry, abundance of rich copper, lead, beautifully 
 variegated marbles, cobalt, crystals, pearls, and amethysts. 
 
 In Kildare, marbles of different colors, and bearing a 
 higher polish than Italian marble. 
 
 In Kilkenny, iron, coal, ochres, pipe and potter's clay, 
 marbles of remarkable beauty, granite, and jasper. 
 
 In King's County, a silver mine near Edenderry. 
 
 In Limerick, iron, copper, lead, coal, and fine slate. 
 
 In Londonderry, iron, copper, lead, abundance of 
 
452 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 crystals, beautiful pebbles and petrifactions near Lough 
 Neagh, granite, and marbles. 
 
 In Leitrim, inexhaustible stores of iron and coal, cop- 
 per, blue, green, yellow, pale red, and crimson-colored 
 clays, fuller's earth, and granites. 
 
 In Longford, a great variety of marbles, ochres, lead, 
 fine slate, extremely rich iron ore, and jasper. 
 
 In Louth, ochres and fuller's earth. 
 
 In Mayo, abundance of iron ore, ochres, granite, coal, 
 slate of a superior quality, beautiful black marble without 
 a speck, and manganese. 
 
 In Meath, ochres, rich and abundant copper ore. 
 
 In Monaghan, iron, lead, manganese, coal, marble, full- 
 er's earth, and antimony. 
 
 In Queen's County, iron, coal, copper, marble, ochres, 
 fuller's earth, and potter's clay. 
 
 In Roscommon, ochres, coal, iron, and marble contain- 
 ing petrified skeletons of various animals, and susceptible 
 of a very high polish. 
 
 In Sligo, iron, copper, lead, coal, fine clays, talc, silver, 
 and in abundance near the coast a stone bearing a high 
 polish, which is called serpent-stone, from its presenting 
 figures resembling the skeletons of this reptile. 
 
 In Tipperary, rich and numerous copper and lead 
 mines, coal, silver, plenty of fine slate, clays, and the most 
 beautiful marbles. 
 
 In Tyrone, iron and plenty of good potter's clay. 
 
 In Waterford, copper in abundance, iron, ochres, hand- 
 some pebbles, and — near the harbor— a most beautiful 
 green and black marble. 
 
 In Westmeath, copper, lead, coal, and handsome yel- 
 low and dove-colored marbles. 
 
Mismanagement and Jobbery. 453 
 
 In Wexford, lead, copper, iron, marbles, ochres, and a 
 blue earth. 
 
 In Wicklow, crystals, sulphur, manganese, copper in 
 abundance, granite, lead, tin, and several other metallic 
 substances, including gold. 
 
 To this summary we must add the opinions of two English miners 
 on the famous Arigna iron-mines: Mr. Lawson, in evidence before 
 the Irish House of Commons, stated, that the iron-stone at Arigna 
 lay in beds of from three to twelve fathoms deep; and that it could 
 be raised for two shillings and sixpence the ton . . . . ; that the coal 
 in the neighborhood was better than any in England; and that it 
 extended six miles in length, and five in breadth. He also stated 
 that fire-brick clay and free-stone of the best qualities were in the 
 neighborhood, and that a bed of jjotter's clay extended there two 
 miles in length and one in breadth. Mr. Clarke, on the same occa- 
 sion, declared that the iron ore was inexhaustible. And our distin- 
 guished countryman, Mr. Kirwan, . . . affirmed that the Arigna 
 iron was better than any iron made from any species of single ore 
 in England. 
 
 So Newenham. Since then several attempts have been made to 
 Avork these mines to advantage; but, in the last instance, at least, the 
 direction of the works or the works themselves fell into the hands of 
 "jobbers," who made the name of the mine notorious. The latest 
 report is that of Mr. Twigg, who reports to the Directors of the 
 Arigna Company: "A greater variety of ironstones I have never met 
 with, from which, by a proper admixture and proper management, I 
 have no hesitation in saying that pig-iron of the best marks, and fit 
 for foundry work of any kind, may be obtained. . . . We can get 
 any quantity at the shortest notice. There is enough to last two 
 furnaces for two hundred and fifty years." 
 
 Such is the land and such its treasures. We have given this 
 notice of the Arigna mine only to show how little the Government, 
 
454 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 the local landlords, and Irish capitalists in general care for the de- 
 velopment of these great resources. 
 
 At any rate, it is evident, that Ireland contains within her own 
 bosom inexhaustible treasures which have never yet been turned to 
 proper account. 
 
 Water Communication, 
 
 But, in connection with the fertility of the soil, what it produces 
 and what it is capable of yielding to skilful husbandry, and with the 
 undeveloped mineral wealth and all the possibilities of industry and 
 commerce, — there are the wonderful facilities for communication by 
 water, as well as the immense water-power ready for manufacturing 
 purposes. Ireland in this respect yields to no country on the face of 
 the globe. 
 
 The coast-line all round the island is indented with harbors. 
 "Taking one district with another," says Newenham, "there is a har- 
 bor or safe anchoring place to about every 150 square miles, or every 
 96,000 acres. . •. . There are not," he says elsewhere, "twenty har- 
 bors in England and Wales which can be classed with forty of the 
 best in Ireland; nor, with perhaps the single exception of Milford, 
 which is about seven miles long and one broad, with from four to 
 thirteen fathoms on a bottom of mud, is there one in the former 
 which can, in almost any respect, be compared with the best ten in 
 the latter. And if the safe anchoring places be added to the harbors 
 of each country, Ireland will rank above England not only in ca- 
 paciousness, safety, and proportionate number of harbors, but like- 
 wise in the general number of places for the accommodation of ship- 
 ping, there being 136 harbors and anchoring places belonging to the 
 former; and, as far as appears by the charts which the writer has 
 examined, only 112 to the latter." * 
 
 Indeed the magnificent estuaries of the south and west coasts seem 
 fitted by Providence to receive the fleets of both hemispheres in the 
 new era which is dawning upon Ireland and the world. 
 
 " View of Ireland," pp. 8-43. 
 
Irish Canals. 455 
 
 Not less wonderful is tlie network of rivers and lakes by which 
 interior intercourse is facilitated. The same author saw and pro- 
 claimed this at tlie beginning of the century. 
 
 "So numerous are the rivers of Ireland, in proportion to its size, 
 and so abundant the supply of water, that we may safely say, almost 
 every parish might enjoy the benefits of internal navigation, at an 
 expense, which, one place with another, many a company of British 
 undertakers would disregard, and that very few parts of Ireland, com- 
 paratively speaking, would be found ineligible for the establishment 
 of manufactures through a deficiency of water, or the want of water- 
 carriage. Of 248 mills for grinding corn erected in Ireland between 
 the years 1758 and 1790, every one, as far as the writer can learn, is 
 turned by water. Windmills are in no country less common, or less 
 necessary, than in this.''* 
 
 During the brief period of self-government enjoyed by the coun- 
 try in the last century, it was proposed to construct a system of ca- 
 nals connecting the great watercourses with each other and with the 
 principal ports. An accurate survey was :nade. "Thirty-two rivers 
 were found by actual survey to be fit and capable of being rendered 
 navigable, whereof the united lengths, in addition to that of the 
 Shannon, and those of the projected canals, exceed 1,000 miles. Had 
 the proposed works, tlierefore, been carried into effect, 10,000 square 
 miles, or 6,400,000 acres, would, at furthest, have been within five 
 miles of navigable river or canal. And if to this be added the sinu- 
 ous line of the Irish coast, comprising 1,737 miles, it will be seen that 
 18,685 square miles, or 11,958,400 acres, which constitute almost 
 two-thirds of the area of Ireland, would have lain within five miles of 
 sea, river, or canal; and three millions of money, faitlifully and skil- 
 fully expended, would probably be more than sufficient for the 
 purpose. 
 
 "The maritime counties comprise two-thirds of the land of 
 Ireland. Each of them has from two to twelve of the rivers in pro- 
 
 * " View of Ireland," p. 25. 
 
456 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 portion to the extent of the sea-coast; nor, with the exception of 
 Wicklow, is there one of them which has not the advantage of one 
 or more rivers, either actually navigable to a very considerable dis- 
 tance from the sea, or capable of being rendered so at a moderate 
 expense."* 
 
 In this system of internal navigation, for all the purposes of trade, 
 pleasure, and neighborly intercourse, the numerous large and beauti- 
 ful lakes of Ireland must be counted as a most important element. 
 A glance at the map of Ireland will show liow the entire network of 
 lakes may be connected with the Shannon, the main artery of com- 
 mercial life and activity for the whole island. 
 
 The Fisheries. 
 
 We have said nothing of the Fisheries of Ireland, which ought to 
 be, but which are not, a mine of wealth for the hardy populations of 
 the maritime counties, a school in which the nation might train an 
 army of brave seamen. . . . All, all have been neglected. All, in 
 the past, has been a blind and savage and stupid sinning against the 
 manifest designs of Him who made both the sea and the land for 
 man's activity. 
 
 How happens it that, on a soil so fertile, with such a climate, in 
 such a magnificent geographical position on the great highway of 
 commerce between the Old AVorld and the New, and all through this 
 enlightened, industrial, and freedom-loving nineteenth century, — 
 Irishmen — the entire nation — have been stricken with poverty, vis- 
 ited every decade with famine, with insufficient crops to live upon, no 
 industry, no manufactures, no trade, no commerce ? 
 
 It is a fearful question, — a mystery unfathomable at first sight, 
 but easily explained in the light of history. 
 
 "The infatuation of England," says Mr. Walpole, "in respect to 
 the economic laws by which Ireland was to be hindered from grow- 
 ing wealthy, was the more extraordinary inasmuch as the mischief 
 
 * " View of Ireland," p. 18. 
 
Gradual destruction of Irish Trade by England. 457 
 
 was inflicted not so much upon the beaten-down native population, 
 as upon the thriving English citizens in the towns and seaports, who 
 were intended to be the mainstay of the English ascendancy. The 
 English commercial world had always been absurdly jealous of the 
 least prospect of Irish prosperity. Strafford had done his best to 
 ruin the rising woollen manufacture in order to protect English 
 clothiers. Cromwell had indeed conferred the same commercial 
 privileges on Ireland as were enjoyed by England; but in 1663 the 
 English landed interest became alarmed lest the rents of their 
 grazing land should fall by reason of the imported Irish cattle 
 diminishing the growth of English beasts. For Ireland was always a 
 great pasture country, and cattle her chief source of wealth. A 
 hasty bill was passed by the unreasoning Royalist Houses, absolutely 
 prohibiting the importation of Irish cattle, sheep, swine, salt meat, 
 or bacon ; and declaring such importation to be a ' common nuis- 
 ance '; and so violent was their ignorant ill temper, that a contribu- 
 tion of Irish cattle generously offered by the Irish gentry for the 
 relief of the citizens of London who had been ruined by the great 
 fire was ungraciously denounced as an attempt to undersell the 
 English growers. 
 
 "In the year 1663 Ireland was carefully omitted from the 'Act 
 for the encouragement of trade,' which amended the Navigation Act 
 of 1660, the coiisequence of which was that all the carrying trade in 
 Irish-built ships with any part of his Majesty's domains was for- 
 bidden, under the penalty of foi-feiture of ship and cargo. And in 
 1696 all direct import trade with the British Colonies was absolutely 
 prohibited, and all colonial produce was first obliged to pass through, 
 and pay duty in, England. 
 
 "Xow that on the return of peace to the distracted island, trade 
 had rapidly revived, and the Irish, unable, by reason of the English 
 laws, to make profit out of the growing of cattle, had turned their 
 pastures into sheep-walks, it was found that the woollen manufactures 
 were showing signs of increased vitality, and the English traders fell 
 into a selfish panic, lest Irish competition should reduce their gains, 
 
458 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 and clamored for legislative protection. The ruin of the Irish 
 woollen trade, almost wholly, be it remembered, in the hands of the 
 English colony, was decreed, and remorselessly effected. The servile 
 Irish legislature was compelled to pass an act (10 William III., c. 5) 
 ' in grateful acknowledgment of his majesty's royal care, favor, and 
 protection,' putting a prohibitive export duty on all broadcloths, ker- 
 seys, serges, and flannels; while the English Parliament passed an 
 Act prohibiting the export of either Irish wool or woollen goods to 
 any port in the world except to Milford, Chester, Liverpool, and cer- 
 tain ports in the British Channel, under a penalty of £500, and the 
 forfeiture of both ship and cargo; and forbad its shipment from any 
 Irish port except Cork, Drogheda, Dublin, Kinsale, Waterford, and 
 Youghal. 
 
 "English and Irish wool was the best in the world. England was 
 by English law the only market for Irish wool, and she could take it 
 at her own price, otherwise Ireland had no purchaser. The English 
 manufacturer, therefore, had a monopoly of the best wool at a low 
 price. But what put mone}^ into the pockets of the English traders 
 was the ruin of the Irish manufacturer and the Irish grower; and 
 the hands who had been employed in the manufacture of woollen 
 stuffs were thrown out of employment, and streamed away to America 
 and the Continent never to return." * 
 
 "The object of that species of policy which the British Govern- 
 ment had exercised toward Ireland (said Mr. Pitt in his speech on 
 the commercial propositions in the year 1785) had been to debar her 
 from the enjoyment and use of her own resources, and to make her 
 completely subservient to the interest and opulence of Britain." 
 
 Mr. Newenham is more emphatic still in his condemnation of such 
 an unqualifiable policy. "In reviewing," he says, "the different acts 
 of the parliaments of Britain and Ireland, which affected the trade of 
 the latter, it will be found that the trade of a distinct kingdom, the 
 trade of an essential part of the British Empire, was unsuitably, un- 
 
 * " The Kingdom of Ireland," pp. 352-354. 
 
English Monopoly an Incuhus on Ireland. 459 
 
 justly, unwisely, and oppressively limited like that of a colony; that 
 the prosperity of Ireland was always sacrificed to that of Britain; 
 that, with the exception of the linen, every valuable manufacture es- 
 tablished in Ireland, or of the establishment or even introduction 
 whereof there was any prospect, and which was likely to become in 
 any degree a competitor, either in the home or foreign market, with 
 a similar one undertaken in Britain, however insignificant, was in- 
 dustriously depressed; that the Irish were invariably obliged to give 
 the preference to the produce of British industry; that, with the 
 foregoing exception, no manufacture of Ireland was fairly received by 
 Britain; that downright necessity alone occasioned the admission of 
 even the rude produce of the former into the latter; that the acts of 
 the Irish parliament which affected to aim at internal improvements, 
 calculated to enlarge the trade of the country, or which purported to 
 be for the advancement of any lucrative species of enterprise, were, 
 for the most part, merely illusive."* 
 
 "The monopolizing spirit of England has sate like an incubus over 
 the sister island, blasted all its blessings, and entailed on it un- 
 utterable woes. Whenever the interests of the whole Irish nation 
 came into collision even with those of a single city, town, or cor- 
 poration in England, they were offered uj) a sacrifice on the altars of 
 avarice and cupidity without remorse and without control. In every 
 case, of course, when the great national interests on both sides in- 
 terfered, those of the Irish were unfeelingly devoted to destruction. 
 
 "Throughout the whole connection there has scarcely been one 
 measure adopted on the part of England towards Ireland, that wears 
 the semblance of a magnanimous policy, except when forced from her 
 fears during the American Ee volution." f 
 
 Should any one deem these judgments pronounced on the utterly 
 selfish policy of England either too severe, or not sufficiently justified 
 by historical evidence, we should advise him to consult the pub- 
 lications of the State Paper Office. In a preceding chapter we 
 
 * " View of Ireland," p. 97. + Vindicke Hibemicoe, p. 496. 
 
460 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 blamed the Earl of Strafford for sacrificing to England the woollen 
 industry of Ireland, — which was beginning to revive and prosper after 
 the "confiscations" and "plantations" of James, and the desolating 
 wars of Elizabeth. Here are his own words: 
 
 "Wisdom advises to keej? this kingdom as much subordinate and 
 dependent upon England as is possible, and holding them from the 
 manufacture of wool (which, unless otherwise directed, I shall by all 
 means discourage), and then in forcing them to take their clothing 
 from thence (England), and to take their salt from the King (being 
 that which preserves and gives value to all their native staple com- 
 modities), how can they depart from us without nakedness and 
 beggary ? " 
 
 Elsewhere he insists upon the same purpose: "It would trench 
 not only upon the clothings of England, being our staple commodity, 
 so as if they should manufacture their own wools, which grew to very 
 great quantities, we should not only lose the profit we make now by 
 indraping their wools, but his Majesty lose extremely by his customs; 
 and in conclusion it might be feared they would beat us out of the 
 trade itself, by underselUng us, which they were well able to do." * 
 
 This policy of selfishness continued to govern the councils of Eng- 
 land under every succeeding regime and dynasty. 
 
 We have seen above how, under William III., the woollen in- 
 dustries of Ireland were ruthlessly sacrificed to secure an English 
 monopoly in that business. It is amusing to read, at this distance of 
 time, the reasons on which the English House of Lords based the de- 
 mand to kill Irish manufactures. On June 9, 1698, they stated in 
 an address to the King: "that the growing manufacture of cloth in 
 Ireland, both by the cheapness of all sorts of necessaries of life, and 
 goodness of materials for making all manner of cloth, doth invite his 
 subjects of England with their families and servants to leave their 
 habitations to settle there, to the increase of the woollen manufacture 
 in Ireland, which makes his loyal subjects in this kingdom very ap- 
 
 * "State Letters" of the Earl of Strafford, vol. i., p. 193; vol. ii., p. 19. 
 
Irish Manufacturers and tlie British Parliament. 461 
 
 prehensive that the further growth of it may greatly prejudice the 
 said manufacture here; and praying that his Majesty would be fur- 
 ther pleased, in the most public and effectual manner that may be, to 
 declare to all his subjects of Ireland, that the growth and increase of 
 the tuoollen mamfacture there hath long, and will ever, be looked iqjon 
 with great jealousy hy all his subjects of this kingdom" 
 
 The Irish manufacturers, dismayed but not entirely discouraged 
 by such legislation, applied themselves to improve their own methods 
 of production, and turned out cloths in every Avay superior to any 
 thing that came from English or French looms. Again there was a 
 storm of jealousy and indignation in England; and an Act was passed 
 forbidding under severe penalties the exportation to Ireland of 
 fuller's earth and scouring clay ! Probably, Irish manufacturers 
 had not then discovered the great abundance of fuller's earth with 
 which their own conntry was blessed, and had, therefore, to depend 
 on England for their supply of that article. How wretchedly narrow 
 is such a national spirit ! 
 
 Finding themselves thus hopelessly debarred from all prospect of 
 success in the woollen industries, the Irish began to manufacture 
 silk, and were rewarded by putting on the market an excellent article. 
 But England grew once more alarmed. And in 1T29, that then 
 miserable excrescence on the body politic, the Irish Parliament, the 
 servile tool of the landlord interest in both countries, passed an Act 
 exempting English silks from all import duties into Ireland ! 
 
 At the time of passing this act, "there were," says Newenham, 
 "according to the evidence given before the Irish parliament in 1784, 
 800 silk looms at work in Ireland, Thirty-six years afterwards there 
 were but 50; and thus 3,000 persons were driven to beggary or emi- 
 gration," 
 
 We have also seen above that by an Act passed in 1695 the Irish 
 were interdicted from trading directly with any part of the British 
 colonies. In 1730 anotlier act was passed permitting the Irish to 
 import directly from the English Plantations in America, all goods 
 produced there, "except sugars, tobacco, indigo, cotton, wool. 
 
462 TTie Cause of Ireland. 
 
 molasses, ginger, pitch, tar, turpentine, masts, yards and bowsprits, 
 speckled wood, Jamaica wood, fustick, or other dyeing woods, rice, 
 beaver skins or other furs, or copper ore." 
 
 It will be seen that rum was the only West Indian production 
 not "excepted." This exception, however, was cunningly devised to 
 kill in Ireland the manufacture of spirits of all kinds, the only 
 industry then left to the Irish. 
 
 Simultaneovisly with the distilling of spirits, Ireland carried on 
 the manufacture of beer, ale, and porter, and revived that of glass, 
 which, as our readers may recollect, had been recommended by the 
 most intelligent among Elizabeth's Adventurers. Again there was 
 an outcry in England among the men interested in these industries, 
 and an Act was sent over to the Irish Parliament in 1738, decreeing 
 "that all hops landed in Great Britain or Ireland, except British 
 hops in the latter, should be burned, and the ship forfeited." A 
 duty of "threepence per pound, over and above all other duties, 
 customs, and subsidies," was imposed on hops thus landing in Ire- 
 land from Great Britain. Of course this killed the Irish breweries. 
 
 In 1750, they killed, by a similar process, the manufacture of 
 glass. The importation of glass into Ireland from any place but 
 Britain, and the exportation of glass from Ireland to any place what- 
 soever, were prohibited on pain of forfeiture of ship and cargo, and a 
 penalty of.ten shillings for every pound weight of glass put on board, 
 or on shore, on the master, and on every person aiding and assisting 
 therein. 
 
 This manufacture was especially flourishing in Cork, where very 
 superior and beautiful cut-glass was produced. Indeed this industry 
 promised to compensate in some measure for the extinction of the 
 woollen trade. But nothing was permitted to thrive in the ill-fated 
 island. 
 
 We have barely alluded to the odious part played by the Irish 
 Parliament in all these discreditable transactions. It must be con- 
 stantly borne in mind that the landlord legislators of Ireland were 
 ever basely subservient to those of their class in the British Legislature. 
 
Disastrous Effects on Farmiiig and Population. 463 
 
 But we have not depicted the deplorable effects of all this re- 
 strictive and prohibitive legislation on the agricultural interests and 
 population of Ireland. 
 
 We are here at the very source of that incredible wretchedness, 
 discontent, agrarian violence at home, forced emigration to foreign 
 lands, and inextinguishable hatred of England cherished by the 
 emigrants, which make up so much of Irish modern history, and so 
 much as well of England's present difficulties and danger. 
 
 The woollen monopoly in England overreached itself. The de- 
 mand was far below the supply; and the only market was the home- 
 market. So, in 1733 (7 George II.), an Act was passed to "en- 
 courage the home consumption of wool,*' and it obliged every corpse 
 to be buried in a woollen shroud, under a penalty of £5, to be re- 
 covered from the executors. 
 
 The "growth" of wool being the only resource left to Ireland, and 
 England being the only lawful market for the article, — two things 
 happened: tlie whole country was turned into a sheep-walk, and the 
 entire coast-line became the resort of smugglers, who carried the 
 beautiful Irish wool to the Continent in return for French wines and 
 Flemish wares. A large trade in salt meat had grown up also. 
 
 Then happened what has been happening in Ireland during the 
 last three decades; the farmers,— the tenants-at-will, were evicted on 
 a large scale, and were replaced by graziers. Where twenty or thirty 
 farmers had cultivated an estate, with their large force of farm- 
 laborers, one or two herdsmen or shepherds sufficed to do the pro- 
 prietor's work. So the tillers of the soil were driven to beggary, star- 
 vation, or to emigration — when they could afford to emigrate. 
 
 Leases were only given on condition that the land should be kept 
 in pasture, and thus the area of cultivable soil yearly diminished; and 
 in inverse proportion grew distress, beggary, the despair of the peo- 
 ple, and crime. In 1716 the Irish legislature demanded to pass a 
 law compelling the putting into cultivation five per cent, of the fal- 
 low lands thus leased out, and offering a small bounty on the export 
 of corn. 
 
464 The Cause of Ireland, 
 
 Would it be believed that this proposed enactment created such 
 alarm in England, that the measure was nipped in the bud! The 
 Irish would surely undersell the English corn-growers; and Ireland 
 had, of late, become their most profitable market. 
 
 Then came (1725) a potato-blight with its fearful accompaniments 
 of starvation and fever, thousands of the poor people dying of hunger 
 in Ulster. 
 
 In 1731 the Legislators of England, — that is the great landlord 
 interest in both countries, — were shamed into cancelling the clauses 
 in their leases forbidding the breaking up and cultivation of the soil, 
 — of only a very small portion, however. 
 
 It was a small homoeopathic dose to remedy a gigantic and ever- 
 growing evil, — the absence of remunerative labor in a whole 
 nation. It has been so in Ireland for centuries. It is so still. 
 
 The mass of the people were deprived of all right to the soil of 
 their native country; the landlords allowed them to have no interest 
 in it, to accumulate no capital out of it, to put none of their capital 
 into it. There was no work for Irishmen to do in Ireland. There 
 was no industry allowed to them by which the laborer could sup- 
 plement the absence of agricultural toil. England would not allow — 
 and Irish landlords and legislators would not allow — a race richly en- 
 dowed with intelligence, with a rare aptitude and a natural loving for 
 handicraft and skilled labor, to apply a single talent to its proper 
 object at home. 
 
 Is not this the history of Irish misery? of Irish unrest and dis- 
 content? of the revolt of the reason and the sentiments against what 
 is unnatural, absurd, utterly at variance with political wisdom, en- 
 lightened self-interest, and all the dictates of Eeligion and humanity? 
 Is not this the root of chronic rebellion ? 
 
 We are comparing what Ireland and Irishmen are by the bounti- 
 ful provision of nature; — what they might and ought to be through 
 the agencies of a wise and liberal policy; — with what blind political 
 passion, the fanaticism of race and religion, and the unreasoning 
 greed of a hostile or indifferent landlord class have made them. 
 
Opinions of English '"'' Minority^'' and '''"Majority.'*'* 465 
 
 The horrible abuses, and the inconceivable mistakes of this clironic 
 misrule of centuries, must have an end. The Landlord Class of 
 Great Britain and Ireland, assembled in Parliament, have it in their 
 power to atone and to repair. A minority of them, and a very in- 
 fluential one, — say: Let the Celt disappear from Ireland! We have 
 wronged him too deeply to expect forgiveness. He is a standing 
 menace to our peace, and our homes. Let Ireland become once 
 more a pasture, with English and Scotch graziers and cai'e-takers. 
 Since we cannot starve out the Celt, or dare not exterminate him, let 
 the ocean be put between him and us. By and by, Ireland will be- 
 come as British as Scotland is. 
 
 Viui the majority, — a majority yearly increasing, — say: In'o ! hu- 
 manity, justice, fair play, demand that we should obtain good profit- 
 able work for the laborer, secure homes on the bountiful earth for all 
 who till it and help to develop its treasures; — let this, be the law for 
 Ireland as well as for England ! We have been all wrong in our 
 treatment of the sister-island; we have done her people and the verv 
 earth they inhabit an injury it will take centuries to repair. But the 
 reparation must be made. And precisely because it must take so 
 long a time to complete it, let us begin it at once, and without an 
 hour's delay ! 
 
 2. Tlie Battle for Irish Trade and Industry in the Irish 
 Parliament. 
 
 We have spoken of the Irish Parliament. Let it not be forgotten 
 what a wretched sham was covered by that name from the time of 
 Orange William down to the days when Henry Grattan's patriotic 
 genius redeemed it, for a brief space only, from servility and corrup- 
 tion. We know that the miserable band of mitred bigots and Orange 
 Lords who sat in the Upper House, and the unprincipled Commoners 
 who represented the English Colony only in the Lower, — had no 
 sympathy with the majority of the nation. 
 
 "The bulk of the House was composed of the nominees of tlue 
 great Protestant landowners. Their influence in the counties, where 
 30 
 
466 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 the number of freebold voters was but limited, was overwhelming; 
 while the boroughs, nearly all of which were erected on land owned 
 by some great freeholder, and in which the franchise was usually 
 limited to some half a score of aldermen and the mayor or ' sovereign,' 
 who composed the corj)oration and were the freeholder's creatures, 
 were to all intents and purposes the private property of the ' Patron.' 
 . . . The great object of the powerful and wealthy families of the 
 Protestant Ascendancy was to get command of as many seats as pos- 
 sible. The control of votes meant political influence and power, and 
 grew into a most effectual engine for the extraction of lucrative posts 
 from Government."* 
 
 Here is the way prepared and the agencies created for the fright- 
 ful corruption which Ireland witnessed in the last century, — and the 
 crowning act of which was tlie sale to England of the Irish Con- 
 stitution. 
 
 "The lord-lieutenant spent iialf his time in England, the Gov- 
 ernment was in the hands of the Lords Justices, — who usually were 
 the primate, the lord-chancellor, and the speaker of the House of 
 Commons. . . . The spirit of corruption which had eaten the heart 
 out of English political morality, was fast destroying all ideas of 
 honor and honesty amongst the public men of Ireland. . . . The 
 mouths of the exposers of English iniquity were stopped with 
 colonelcies of regiments, peerages, and office; and tha country was 
 further plundered to provide the hush money. 
 
 "During the last years of George II. . . . the Government was in 
 the hands of one of the lords justices, the arch-corrupter Primate 
 Hone, through whose hands the stream of patronage flowed. Henry 
 Boyle, the speaker, was also a lord justice, but had none of the 
 patronage, and was determined to secure it by ruining the Primate." 
 
 All this while the Irish Papists were groaning under the load of 
 disabilities imposed by the Penal Laws, and their Priests and Bishops 
 outlawed and hunted into bogs, morasses, or the wildest mountain 
 
 * " The Kingdom of Ireland, " pp. 362, 363. 
 
Pity Landlords were not hilled instead of Whiteboys. 467 
 
 tracts. It was the period which gave birth to the "Whiteboys, the 
 Hearts of Steel, and the Oakboys; a period fertile in sufferings 
 which it sickens the soul to have to record. For the two former 
 secret associations — the offspring of extreme misery and despair — no 
 redress was found but in extermination or emigration: they were 
 Catholics. The Oakboys were Protestants; they had serious griev- 
 ances enough to complain of, — but they were neither disfranchised, 
 nor down-trodden, nor starving; — and they were granted a hearing, 
 and obtained redress. 
 
 "If the military force, ^^ said Lord Chesterfield, then Viceroy, 
 "had killed half as many landlords as it had Wliiteboys, it would 
 have contributed more effectually to restore quiet. For the poor 
 people in Ireland are worse used than negroes by their masters, and 
 deputies of deputies of deputies." 
 
 So, in 1768, the disturbing agencies in Ireland were, not so much 
 the poor slaves driven to desperation by brutality, hard-hearted- 
 ness, and hunger, as "their masters, and deputies of deputies of 
 deputies." 
 
 Have the troubles of 1880-85 to be traced to any other causes? 
 
 But let us follow on the track of that Orange Corruption, that 
 Protestant Ascendancy in Parliament, which is consummating all the 
 wickedness of its progenitors, as well as the ruin of unhappy Ireland. 
 
 1767. — "The wire-pullers of the Privy Council, the Boyle and 
 Ponsonby oligarchy, who monopolized the office of lord justice, were 
 in the habit of bargaining with each new lord-lieutenant as to the 
 terms upon which they would ' undertake ' to ' carry on the King's 
 business.' For, as all the loaves and fishes, places, pensions, and 
 preferments, passed through their hands, they could command an 
 enormous majority." 
 
 And now came with the breaking out of the American "War of 
 Independence, the first dawn of hope for Ireland. It was, indeed, 
 the darkest hour before dawn. 
 
 " England had done her best to ruin her Protestant Colony in Ire- 
 land. She had starved its manufactures, destroyed its trade, made a 
 
HENRY G RATTAN. 
 
 AJTEB. THE PICTUR^E BV J . RS^ISAV. 
 
Henry Grattan — tlie Champion of Irish Free Trade. 469 
 
 portunity of public opinion was becoming too strong to be resisted. 
 The excitement of the people grew day by day more formidable. 'J'he 
 cry out of doors was emphasized in Parliament by the purified patriot 
 party, now led, since Flood's defection, by the unsullied Heniy 
 Grattan. 
 
 "The war was carried into England; and Lord Nugent and Ed- 
 mund Burke, in the English House of Commons, moved that a com- 
 mittee of the whole House should consider the trade of Ireland. Five 
 resolutions in favor of allowing certain relaxations were carried; but 
 when a bill was brought in to give them effect, so great was the 
 clamor of Liverpool, Glasgow, Manchester, and Bristol, that nothing 
 remained of it but the permission to export to Africa and the West 
 Indies all home products except wool, woollen and cotton goods, hats, 
 glass, hops, gunpowder, and coals! . . . 
 
 " Lord North, alarmed, . . . cast his eyes on the Roman Catholics 
 in hopes of finding a counterpoise to the mutinous Protestants. . . . 
 In 1764 leave to bring in a bill to enable Eoman Catholics to advance 
 money on a mortgage of freeholds had been summarily rejected; and 
 in 1771 the magnifice7it concession was made to them of permission to 
 hold long leases of fifty acres of hog for reclamation iwovided it was 
 not within a mile of any city or town. And now, in 1778, a more 
 substantial act of justice was carried through: Roman Catholics, on 
 taking the oath of allegiance, were to be allowed to hold a lease of 
 999 years. The lands which were still in their possession were made 
 descendible, divisible, and alienable, like those of other subjects: and 
 Protestant heirs were deprived of the privilege given them by the 
 statute of Anne to plunder and defy their recusant fathers. ..." 
 
 So much for a beginning of relief from the oppression of tlie 
 Penal Laws. But, it was, seemingly, much harder to obtain a repeal 
 of the trade-laws. An attempt made to repeal a clause of the Navi- 
 gation Act forbidding the importation of sugar into Ireland, without 
 its passing through England, was resisted by the English manufac- 
 turers, and defeated. John Bull's anti-Irish feelings was appealed to 
 successfully. Then the Irish formed a league against the con- 
 
470 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 sumption of Englisli goods, which attacked John Bull on his weak 
 point — his pocket. 
 
 On October 12, 1779, Grattan successfully moved an amendment 
 to the address, demanding "Free Trade," and Lord North had to 
 yield. In April, 1780, the same Grattan moved that "the King with 
 the consent of the Lords and Commons of Ireland, are the only 
 power competent to enact laws to bind Ireland," and that "Great 
 Britain and Ireland are inseparably united under one sovereign." 
 
 It was the first solemn demand for Home Eule. The demand 
 was not then pressed. The Castle Party was too strong in the Irish 
 Parliament. But the necessities of the country created the National 
 Army. The Catholics, in all this, could only look on. They were 
 still rigorously excluded from Parliament and all jDublic life; they 
 were Unemancipated. 
 
 Grattan, in 1782, again moved as an amendment to the address, a 
 declaration of rights and grievances. Before the end of the year the 
 English Parliament broke the shackles imposed under George I. 
 on the Irish legislature; and this body itself hastened to repeal 
 Poynings' Act. This was the first step on the road toward self- 
 government. 
 
 In 1785, the National Party in Ireland once more demand the 
 restoration of Grattan's Parliament. 
 
 The \^olunteer Movement and the Parliamentary Eeform Move- 
 ment enlisted the active co-operation, as well as the deep sympathy, 
 of the Catholic body, and led to the formation of the United Irish- 
 men. The spirit of Nationality was abroad. 
 
 Then, in 1783, a renewed effort was made to remove the restric- 
 tions on Irish Trade and Manufactures. Pitt entered into the pro- 
 ject. But the clamor and opposition were such in manufacturing 
 England, that the measures introduced by Pitt into Parliament, un- 
 satisfactory as they were, became, before they passed the House, but 
 illusory. When the Bill came before the Irish Parliament it was 
 only passed by a slender Government majority. 
 
 This struggle on Irish Trade and Manufactures gave birth in 
 
Famine and Agrarian Outrage. 471 
 
 England to the opinion that the Irish Parliament should be sup- 
 pressed, lest Ireland should cease to be the mere slave of England. 
 And the opinion became an accomplished fact on Jan. 1, 1800. 
 
 But there was a fearful interval to be passed over before this last 
 date. 
 
 "In the south the Whiteboys had again (1784) appeared in Mun- 
 ster under the name of ' Rightboys '; an invisible Captain Right 
 being tlie nominal head-centre like Ever Joyce and Captain Dwyer. 
 The disorders were repetitions of what had gone before, and arose 
 from the same causes. Government, instead of revnoving the miscJiief 
 which culminated in the agrarian outrages of 1761, stamped out the 
 flames of lawlessness by coercion, and left the disease to grow and 
 spread in silence until a fresh outbreak was inevitable. 
 
 "The condition of the tenantry in Munster was very miserable. 
 The rent of potato ground had risen to £6 an acre, which was paid 
 in labor at the rate of sixpence a day. There was hardly an estate 
 which was not let at a rack-rent, or even above its value. Even Fitz- 
 gibbon admitted in the House of Commons that, ' It was impossible 
 for human wretchedness to exceed that of tlie miserable tenantry of 
 that province,' — that 'they were ground to powder by relentless land- 
 lords,' — that ' they had not food and raiment for themselves, but the 
 landlord grasped the whole,' and that 'they lived in a more abject 
 state of poverty than human nature could be supposed able to bear.' 
 
 "Over and above the exactions of the landlords, the Church de- 
 manded tithe. The pasture land was exempted. Only the cultivable 
 land bore the burthen. The wretched cottiers acre of potato ground 
 had, in addition to the rent, hearth-money, smoke-money, and dues 
 to the Roman Catholic priest, to pay from twelve shillings to twenty 
 shillings to the rector for tithe. The beneficed clergy, with dwindling 
 flocks, lived away absentee fashion, and drew their tithe-tribute as the 
 absentee landlord drew his rack-rent; and, like him, to save the diffi- 
 culty and risk of gathering it, farmed their tithes to a middleman, or 
 collected it through the agency of a needy and unscrupulous tithe- 
 proctor, who . . . made his profits by extracting the last penny from 
 
^72 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 tlie unfortunate peasant. When the peasant could not pay, he took 
 his bond, and charged him interest; and when the bond fell due he 
 took his debtor's labor for nothing, and reduced him to little better 
 than a slave. 
 
 "It was not surprising that the down-trodden wretches sought to 
 help themselves by acts of violence. . . . Fitzgibbon's remedy was a 
 terrijfic Coercion Bill; Grattan's a motion for a committee to inquire 
 into the system of collecting tithes, with a plan for commuting the 
 tithes for an annual charge calculated upon an average of years. 
 The former passed into law% . . 'Laws of Coercion,' said Grattan, 
 ' perhaps necessary, certainly severe, you have already put forth. But 
 your great engine of power you have hitherto kept back — the engine 
 which, armed with ph3'sical and moral blessing, comes forth and over- 
 lays mankind by services — the engine of redress.'"* 
 
 3. Eedress. 
 
 Injury has been done to the land, as well as injustice to the 
 people. This no one will contest. In the work of reparation deemed 
 imperative and urgent by the foremost among statesmen, as well as 
 by the civilized world, — let the first care be to heal the wounds of 
 tlie land itself, to repair the wrong done to it by cruel neglect and 
 ill-treatment, to restore and increase its vitality. Thereby you will 
 be providing a noble and remunerative field for the laborer. This 
 is Ireland's first and greatest need, — remunerative labor for all her 
 hungry and idle toilers, — avenues to all kinds of industry for the 
 activity of the educated talent of the present generation. 
 
 Heal the inveterate wounds inflicted on the soil of Ireland by the 
 blind greed, the spendthrift recklessness, and the ruinous neglect of 
 so many generations of landlords. 
 
 We Americans know from the wide-spread destruction caused by 
 the inundations of 1884 along the course of the Ohio and the Mis- 
 sissippi, how needful are the precautions taken by the States border- 
 
 * " The Kingdom of Ireland," pp. 400-424 i>assim. 
 
Necessity of Drauiaye in. Ireland. 473 
 
 ing these rivers to prevent the swollen waters from overflowing their 
 banks periodically. The irreparable damage done within one twelve- 
 month accuses the supineness and shortsightedness both of the people 
 themselves and of their magistrates. 
 
 This affords us a starting point for estimating one of the greatest 
 injuries done to the land in Ireland by the stupid carelessness of the 
 landed proprietors, and by the stinginess and bungling of the Gov- 
 ernment. As to the Irish 'people, — tlie tillers of the soil, — they are 
 in no wise accountable for the state of things I am going to describe : 
 they are only the sufferers with the land itself. 
 
 The nature of the soil in Ireland, and the excessive humidity of 
 the climate, render necessary, among other artificial precautions, an 
 extensive and most careful system of Drainage, arterial and local. 
 In Belgium and Holland, where the greater part of the garden-like 
 soil consisted, at first, of barren sands redeemed from the German 
 Ocean, — the marvelous system of dykes and drains is an object of 
 intense solicitude to the Government, and it is equally so to both the 
 landed proprietors and their tenants. The latter, secured, as they 
 are, in the tenure of their farms and in the enjoyment of every im- 
 provement they make in the soil itself and on it, do not spare their 
 labor or their money to prevent their property from being injured by 
 inundations. This is equally the case with the landlords, who by law 
 or by custom are bound to see that everything on the land is in per- 
 fect order. 
 
 In Ireland even the landlords wdio can will not drain the lands 
 they let out; few indeed, comparatively, are those who ever attempt 
 to make any improvements at all on their property. Yet, in the 
 southern and western counties of Ireland, especially, the utmost care 
 and labor are required to counteract the effects of the excessive rain- 
 fall. If the Irish tenant felt secure in his holding, if his landlord 
 showed, practically, that he was equally interested with his farmer in 
 improving the land and enabling it to yield to the utmost, the tenant 
 would not hesitate to take on himself, by degrees, — even though the 
 landlord did not help him, the labor and expense of draining his farm. 
 
474 Thfi Cause of Ireland. 
 
 But, — you will ask, — why does he not do so now, since the land- 
 law of 1881 gives him the required security in his holding? — The 
 peremptory answer is, — that the benefits of this law have been ren- 
 dered almost nugatory by the action of the Land Commissioners' 
 Courts to whom the adjustment of all difficulties between landlords 
 and tenants was intrusted. There is, at this moment, very little 
 more security for the agricultural class in Ireland than existed before 
 1880. 
 
 We repeat, therefore, the words of the most considerate and con- 
 scientious writer, who has, of late years, treated of all these vexed 
 Irish questions. "There can be no doubt," says Count Murphy, 
 " that if tlie Irish farmer enjoyed a secure tenure, defeasible only by 
 non-payment of rent — if, in fact, he felt he was laboring for himself 
 — he not only would thoroughly till his land, but he would avail of 
 Government aid for drainage purposes, borrowing, under the Land 
 Improvement Acts, money, to be repaid, principal and interest, in 
 twenty-two annual instalments of 6| per cent.; or, better still, if a 
 desirable modification of the Act were carried out, in thirty-five an- 
 nual instalments of 5 per cent. 
 
 "This double improvement — thorough culture and local drainage, 
 in conjunction with complete arterial drainage — would rapidly carry 
 off the superfluous water, which now lies so long, in wet seasons, on 
 low, flat lands, and would greatly diminish the evaporative surface; 
 thus considerably ameliorating the climate, and vastly improving the 
 agriculture of the country. 
 
 . . . "In several districts of the country, undrained and badly 
 farmed, with the land saturated and a low temperature, in wet sum- 
 mers, it is impossible for the plant, chilled in a cold soil, to attain its 
 normal growth; and hence these districts are but too generally char- 
 acterized by inferior cereals and root crops, and sour, innutritions 
 pasture. . . . The difference between drained and undrained lands 
 has been, not inaptly, compared to the contrast presented by the 
 state of a man enjoying full reaction after a healthy cold ^ bath, and 
 the condition of a traveler obliged to sit for hours in wet clothes, 
 
Benefit it would be to the People. 475 
 
 tliorouglily chilled. In the one case there has been a brief, in- 
 vigorating immersion, followed by a glow; in the other case, a pro- 
 tracted, thorough drenching, abstracting animal heat, and lowering 
 the vital powers. 
 
 . . . "As things are, it is painful to witness, in many parts of Ire- 
 land, how much suffering and poverty are entailed on individuals and 
 whole districts, what valuable resources for the production of food for 
 the community lie all but useless, and what serious loss and injur}^ 
 material and moral, accrue to the British Empire, for the want of 
 that judicious application of labor and capital, which would change 
 cold, ungrateful soils into rich tracts, blooming with fertility, and 
 convert a poor, half-idle, and discontented population into comfort- 
 able and contented productive laborers. The Irish complain, and 
 certainly with reason, that whilst millions of the public money are 
 expended on other parts of the United Kingdom, those great works 
 which only Government can deal with, such as the deepening of river 
 beds, and the arterial drainage of large districts, are nearly altogether 
 neglected in Ireland, where there is so much work of the kind to be 
 done."* 
 
 It is sad to think, that while England is expending on an ex- 
 pedition into the interior of Egypt so much money and so much of 
 her best blood, — the thirty millions sterling this "wild goose chase" 
 is likely to cost her, would have more than sufficed to settle the 
 Land Question for ever in Ireland. It would have enabled the Board 
 of Works to carry out on every point of the island that system of 
 arterial drainage, which, begun by incompetent and unskilful en- 
 gineers, has only helped to extend instead of narrowing the area 
 annually flooded by the Shannon and its affluents. It would have 
 established all round the Irish coast a prosperous fishing population, 
 with piers, harbors of refuge, and excellent deep-sea fishing craft, 
 such as the generous liberality of Lady Burdett-Coutts has given to 
 Baltimore and the Cape Clear Islands. What a mine of wealth is 
 there! And how surely the imperial treasury would receive back 
 * " Ireland Industrial, Political, and Social," pp. 89, 90. 
 
476 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 every shilling thus expended, and receive as well the blessings and 
 gratitude of the warm Irish heart! 
 
 Instead, — what has Government done to drain the inundated dis- 
 tricts in Ireland, and help to make of the island, what it ought to be 
 and is by nature, — fertile, productive, a land of plenty throughout its 
 length and breadth ? 
 
 The area drained by the Shannon and its tributaries— the Suck, the 
 Inny, and the Fergus — comprises 6,060 square miles, nearly one-fifth 
 of the surface of the island. A first survey was ordei'ed by Government 
 ill 1831, and made in 1833. It advised the construction of a weir 
 across the Shannon at Killaloe, where Lough Derg empties itself into 
 that river. The weir was to be of such height as to insure a uni- 
 form depth of water in the Lake itself, and an overflow of six feet 
 over the sill of the lock at Killaloe. The plans and drawings left no 
 room for misconception or doubt. Yet the engineers who con- 
 structed the weir took on themselves to alter its height, so as to give 
 it six feet nine, inches in height, and seven feet in some parts, — 
 thereby preventing the water from ever sinking below seven feet on 
 the sill, and throwing six inches of water out over thousands of acres 
 of land, which would be above water if the engineer had adhered to 
 the plan and to his instructions. 
 
 Moreover, as the report of Mr. Ehodes, who made the survey and 
 prepared the original plans, indicates, " the widening and deepening 
 of the channel at Killaloe has not been completed either to the 
 breadth or depth delineated on the Parliamentary maps ; a breadth 
 of one hundred feet on the Tipperary side remains there still not cut 
 away, and a depth of six feet remains in the bottom towards the 
 same side not yet excavated." 
 
 "Next," continues Count Murphy, "with a view of maintaining 
 the height of water deemed necessary for steam navigation on the 
 Shannon, between Carrick-on-Shannon and Killaloe, one hundred 
 and ten miles in dry summer weather, six great stone weir- walls were 
 erected, and in none of these was there any sluice or flood-gate to let 
 off surplus water." 
 
Government Drainage a disastrous Failure. 477 
 
 The consequence of this gross neglect or stupidity in the con- 
 structors, is that "almost every year small floods occur which cover 
 the low portions of the lands, and saturate the remainder, rendering 
 them unfit for pasture, and making it very difficult to get a hay crop 
 dried." 
 
 Great autumnal floods inundate 16,399 acres of arable pasture and 
 meadow land. Great winter floods every year cover 30,825 acres of 
 arable, meadow, and pasture land, damaging annually 23,945 acres 
 of land in a distance of one hundred and fifty miles. About 40,000 
 are damaged by winter floods on the river Suck. 
 
 To remedy all this it is estimated that an expenditure of £143,920 
 would suffice. The improvements in drainage made along twenty- 
 three of the streams tributary to the Shannon, throw the additional 
 flow of water thereby caused to fall into the Shannon Valley, while no 
 improvements have been made in the outlets of the Shannon itself to 
 meet this great influx of water fi'om 1,690,000 acres of land. 
 
 "Here, after a lapse of five-and-thirty years," says Count Murphy, 
 writing in 1869, "the plan then determined on is yet incomplete, the 
 inundation and saturation of the land, for one hundred and fifty miles 
 along the banks of the river, continue; nay, are worse than hefore 
 the great stone weir-walls Avere erected, and before the increased 
 waters of twenty-three tributaries . . . were turned into the channel 
 of the Shannon ! A comparatively small amount was the estimate of 
 what was required to set matters so far right; and while millions 
 of the public money have been expended on Holyhead, Portland, 
 and other parts of England, — all, no doubt, most important and 
 most useful public works, — nothing has been done in this which 
 must be characterized as a great imperial and not a mere local 
 undertaking. . . . 
 
 "Within a few weeks the 'Times' Commissioner has alluded to 
 similar evils, arising from a like cause, on the banks of the Barrow. 
 As he proceeds he will meet many districts to which the same re- 
 marks apply. Let us hope that, the land question once settled, this, 
 the next most important subject — the thorough arterial drainage of 
 
478 The Cmise of Ireland. 
 
 Ireland — will engage the attention of Government and the Legis- 
 lature." * 
 
 This is what the English Parliament has done with the land of 
 Ireland. Now let ns read the last chapter of English misrule in the 
 last century. 
 
 * " Ireland Industrial, Political, and Social," pp. 96, 97. 
 
IV. 
 
 The End of the Penal Laws and the Triumph of Coercion 
 AND Corruption (1794-1800). 
 
 A MEMORABLE event, in so far especially as Ireland is con- 
 cerned, was the coalition formed in the summer of 1794, by the 
 moderate Whigs with William Pitt. Foremost among the coalition- 
 ists were Lord Fitzwilliam and Edmund Burke, — both Irishmen, and 
 both bent on obtaining from the British Parliament a full measure 
 of justice for their native country, and in particular for the dis- 
 franchised Catliolics. They were both for the total emancipation of 
 the latter; for granting them liberty to sit in parliament; liberty to 
 become members of the corporations; and liberty to bear arms. 
 
 They had to count on the desperate resistance of the Pi'otestant 
 Ascendancy in Ireland, and on the opposition of the great landlord 
 interest and the Established Church in England. These, when 
 emancipation was proposed, would be sure to combine and to act 
 with perfect unity of purpose. 
 
 Pitt acted with duplicity. Even then he had conceived the idea 
 of suppressing Irish nationality altogether. And the question is 
 whether he did not encourage Burke and Fitzwilliam to lead "a for- 
 lorn hope," knowing they could not carry the stronghold defended by 
 British interest and Protestant bigotry. 
 
 Lord Fitzwilliam was sent to Ireland as Lord Lieutenant, and al- 
 lowed to believe that he had carte Uanclie to carry out the necessary 
 reforms. He landed at Dublin, January 4, 1795, amid the acclama- 
 tions of a delighted people, who had been made aware of his purpose 
 
 (479) 
 
EDMUND BURKE. 
 
 AFTER. Tirs: PICTURE] B^ c5- R.ai<cM£rsr 
 
The Birth of Orangeism. 481 
 
 (Fitzgibbon) was stoned, one missile wounding him in the head. 
 Torrents of Irisli, of innocent blood were destined to atone for that 
 one wound. 
 
 Grattan's emancipation bill was lost. Protestant Ascendancy was 
 victorious all along the line. 
 
 The United Irishmen of Wolfe Tone had been suppressed. But 
 the sudden defeat of the nation's hopes, turned men away from legal 
 and constitutional patlis, into the dai'k ways of secret societies. That 
 of the United Irishmen speedily covered the land with a network of 
 branches, all organized on a military plan. In Ulster the terrible 
 struggle between the Protestant "Peep-o'-day Boys "and the Catholic 
 "Defenders" assumed the proportions of a civil war. The former 
 took it on themselves to disarm their Catholic neighbors, and to 
 search their houses by night for arms of every description. The 
 latter, irritated and driven to madness by the wanton outrages and 
 unauthorized action of their adversaries, organized themselves into 
 a self-protecting association. 
 
 Then sprang up Orangeism, into which entered the great body 
 of the northern gentlemen, and whose baneful existence down to this 
 very day has been marked with bloodshed and the fiercest intolerance. 
 "This organization grew rapidly. It acted promptly and with 
 terrible effect. It declared war against the Defenders, "a^^^ operily 
 professed as its object the complete expulsion of all Roman Catholics 
 from Ulster. The Eoman Catholics were attacked indiscrimijiately. 
 Masters were compelled to dismiss Eoman Catholic servants, land- 
 lords to dismiss Eoman Catholic tenants. Decent farmers, quiet 
 peasants, hard-working weavers, quite unconnected with the Defend- 
 ers, received notices ^to go to Hell; Connaught would not receive 
 them.' Their houses were burnt, their furniture broken up, and 
 they and their families driven from their holdings. 
 
 "Lord Gosford, the Governor of Armagh County, in addressing 
 
 the magistrates at quarter sessions in December, 1795, publicly 
 
 declared that 'neither age, nor sex, nor even acknowledged in- 
 
 nocence as to any guilt in the late disturbances is sufficient to excite 
 
 31 
 
482 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 mercy, much less to afford protection. The only crime which the 
 objects of this ruthless persecution are charged with, is simply a pro- 
 fession of the Roman Catholic religion. A lawless banditti have 
 constituted themselves judges of this new species of delinquency, and 
 the sentence they have pronounced is nothing less than a confiscation 
 of all property and an immediate banishment. ..." Xo protection 
 could be obtained from the magistrates, whose sympathies were all 
 with the Orangemen, and of whom many were themselves members 
 of Orange Lodges. 
 
 "General Henry Luttrell, Lord Carhampton, had been sent into 
 the West to suppress the Defenders. . . . Tlie gaols Avere full of per- 
 sons awaiting their trial. Carhampton preceded the judges of assize 
 with his troops, and, without any form of trial or under any warrant, 
 drew out the prisoners and sent them on board a tender, which sailed 
 along the coast to receive them, and shipped them on board the 
 British fleet for compulsor}'^ iiaval service. The local magistrates 
 followed his example, arresting and transporting without a pretence 
 of legality. Ujmards of a thousand persons were the victims of this 
 aristocratic press-gang." * 
 
 It was simply extermination on a limited scale. And these acts 
 were covered by a bill of indemnity, passed in January, 1796 ! 
 
 Of course all this was planned and executed under directions 
 from the Castle. The Castle also, as was natural, obtained from its 
 docile Parliament a Coekcion Act. Let us see how this Govern- 
 ment, which, but yesterday, was all professions of kindness and long- 
 deferred justice toward the poor oppressed Irish people, meant to 
 coerce them, while allowing the Orangemen to terrorize over the 
 Dorth and depopulate it. 
 
 "All persons convicted of administeriiig unlawful oaths for sedi- 
 tious purposes should suffer death as felons; all persons taking such 
 oatlis should be transported; all persons should be compelled to reg- 
 ister the arms in their possession under penalties of fine and impris- 
 
 * "Ireland Industrial, Political, and Social." 
 
A "Bloody Code." 483 
 
 onment; magistrates might break into and enter houses to search for 
 arms, might apprehend strangers and examine them on oath, and 
 commit them to the house of correction till they could find sureties 
 for their good behavior. It gave power to the Viceroy to proclaim 
 counties which the magistrates reported to liim were in a state of dis- 
 turbance. In a proclaimed county the inhabitants were commanded 
 to keep within doors between sunset and sunrise, itnder pain of being 
 brought before the justices, who were therer,pon empowered, unless 
 they were satisfied with the reasons given for such person being 
 abroad, at once to send him to serve on board the British navy. . . . 
 Persons who could not prove that they either had means of their own, 
 or 'industriously followed some lawful trade or employment,' were 
 liable to the same penalties. 
 
 "This 'bloody code,' as Curran called it, passed into law with 
 little opposition. Even Grattan's effort to obtain the insertion of a 
 special reference to the insurgent Orangemen and a clause to enable 
 the ruined peasants and weavers of Armagh to obtain compensation 
 from the county, was summarily rejected. Lord Edward Fitzgerald 
 was the only person who had courage to vote against the Government. 
 
 "The United Irishmen now rapidly increased in number. The 
 ignorant Defenders . . . were swept into their ranks. The persecuted 
 Eoman Catholics of Armagh, Down, and Louth, hopeless of protec- 
 tion from the law, turned to this daring association for redress. The 
 disappointed Roman Catholics of the middle classes in Dublin were 
 infected with the same spirit. Even some of the advanced and 
 ardent reformers in Parliament itself, having lost all hope of con- 
 stitutional reform, took the desperate and fatal resolution of ap- 
 pealing to force and the enemies of England. . . ."* 
 
 The fury of the elements alone preserved Ireland from Hoche's 
 fleet and formidable army. Providence also, to whom Ireland had 
 looked up with undoubting faith all through the long, long night of 
 her humiliation and sorrow, did not want the seeds of the French 
 
 * " Kingdom of Ireland," ch. xv. 
 
484 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 impiety to be sown broadcast over a soil watered by the tears and 
 hallowed by the blood of so many generations of His believers. 
 
 But the nation was to be held responsible and to be punished still 
 more atrociously for the French attempt at invasion. The Habeas 
 Corjjus was suspended by act of Parliament; and early in 1797 Gen- 
 eral Lake was sent into Tyrone with an army all too ready to exter- 
 minate a people of brothers. The gaols were filled with thousands of 
 the suspected. "Spies and informers were the only witnesses, and 
 of these the Government had a whole army in its pay. . . . Worst of 
 all., no discipline was maintained amongst the soldiery, who were 
 allowed to commit all kinds of excesses, and to abuse and maltreat 
 the people. The yeomanry, which had been called out, was com- 
 posed almost eyitirely of Orangemen, and these, with militia regiments 
 sent over from England, were encouraged to play havoc with the 
 miserable inhabitants of the proclaimed counties. A Welsh mounted 
 veomanry corps called the Ancient Britons, under the command of 
 Sir Watkins Williams Wynne, were especially notorious for their 
 brutal violence. Houses were plundered and burned, women out- 
 raged, and children brutally ill-treated and murdered. Men were 
 seized and sent on board tenders untried. They were flogged, 
 'picketed,' and half-hung, to extort confessions as to the existence 
 of concealed arms. They were hunted down and sabred. Villages 
 and whole districts were devastated, and the inhabitants turned out 
 of their homes into the ditch." * 
 
 Men and women — few indeed — are still living, on whose eyes in 
 childhood fell the flames of these lurid flres, and whose families were 
 involved in these unmerited calamities. Are these dreadful traditions 
 never to cease among our race ? 
 
 So, — the armies of Cromwell found worthy imitators in those 
 of Lake. . . . 
 
 Grattan and his noble supporters, though sick at heart, would not 
 give up the hope of saving the country from the threatened extermi- 
 
 * " Kingdom of Ireland," ch. xvii. 
 
What the United Irishmen wanted. 485 
 
 nation, and obtaining for the Irish Catholics some show of substantial 
 justice. "They had taken the bold step of discovering from some 
 of the leaders of the United Irishmen what measure of reform would 
 content them; and the latter, sobered by the failure of the expedition 
 to Bantry, declared that the following concessions would satisfy them: 
 namely, — a full representation of the people of Ireland, without any 
 religious distinction, based upon a property qualification, which the 
 Parliament should determine; equal electoral districts, containing 
 each 6,000 houses and returning two members; and provisions that 
 Eoman Catholics should be equally eligible with Protestants for seats 
 in the House of Commons and all offices of State. This, they dis- 
 tinctly averred, would put an end to the agitation; and Ponsonby 
 accordingly prepared a bill and moved a series of resolutions on 
 reform embodying these very reasonable heads. But the House of 
 Commons was now the mere tool of the Government. . . On the divis- 
 ion but 30 went into the Opposition lobby; 170 voted with the Castle." 
 
 On reading over "these very reasonable heads," and comparing 
 them with the measures either brought in by the Gladstone Govern- 
 ment and those insisted on by the National Party, — how is it possible 
 not to be struck with the judicial blindness which prevents men in 
 power from granting in time what must at length be conceded, but 
 only when the concession comes too late? 
 
 "A full representation of the people of Ireland; equal electoral 
 districts": this was only to come at tlie close of 1884. If granted in 
 1797, togetlier with the other necessary measures since wrung, one by 
 one, from English statesmen, — how many crimes, how much misery, 
 would have been spared to Ireland ? 
 
 Coercion will never overaAve the Celtic nature. Injustice maddens 
 it. Kindness, at any time, will disarm it. Lake's ferocious soldiery, 
 backed by Wynne's Welsh savages, and the sanguinary hypocrites of 
 the Orange Lodges, could not quell the spirit of the Celt. He was 
 unarmed, or armed only with the clumsiest weapons; but he would 
 not allow his dear ones to be murdered and outraged before his eyes, 
 without casting himself against the steel of the oppressor. 
 
486 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 "The numbers of the United Irishmen received an enormous 
 increase. The persecution drove the hikewarm into their ranks, and 
 converted them into earnest sympathizers. At the same time the 
 half-stifled disaffection assumed a more dangerous character. The 
 cruelties of the troops produced acts of retaliation. Isolated murders 
 became frequent. Magistrates were fired at, and sometimes killed. 
 Plots were laid by desperate fanatics for assassinating the obnoxious 
 members of the executive, especially Lord Carhampton, the com- 
 mander-in-chief, who was the object of the most bitter detestation. 
 The agents of the society were working hard to disseminate their 
 political doctrines and to enlist members. Fresh communications 
 were opened with France. Hoche Avas still enthusiastic, and Tone 
 still hopeful." 
 
 We must not enter into the details of the horrible Tragedy which 
 filled, in Ireland, what remained of the year 1797, and the whole of 
 1798. The awful corruption by which William Pitt and Dublin 
 Castle bought up the Irish Parliament and consummated the long- 
 cherished project of the Legislative Union of both countries, is, in 
 reality, only the last act in this Drama. 
 
 It is time, however, that the civilized world should lift up its 
 voice and cry Shame ! on that same Dublin Castle, that spionym 
 with every species of political crime,— oppression, fraud, rapacity, 
 and corruption,— with every form of moral infamy that can provoke 
 the loathing of earth and Heaven. 
 
 "They had (in 1797) spies everywhere, even amongst the most 
 trusted leaders. . . . They held in their pay, not the farmers and 
 shopkeepers who composed the rank and file (of the United Irish- 
 men), but the broken-down gentlemen, the briefless barristers, the 
 spendthrift militia officers, who joined the association for the purpose 
 of betraying it. One of the informers, McGucken, was the solicitor 
 to the Society at Belfast. He received (from the Castle) a pension of 
 £150 a year and the sum of £1,450 in cash. Leonard McNally, the 
 barrister who appeared for them in Crown prosecutions, received a 
 pension of £300 a year. Nicholas Magnan of Saintfield was a member 
 
Major Sirr's Gang. 48'^ 
 
 of the county and provincial committees, and regularly betrayed their 
 plans through a third party. John Hughes, a bookseller of Belfast, 
 was repeatedly arrested and imprisoned along with other members of 
 the society, in order to disarm suspicion, and to learn their secrets iu 
 the character of a fellow-victim. But the arch-traitors of all were 
 Thomas Reynolds of Kilkea Castle in the county of Kildare, who was 
 Tone's wife's brother-in-law; and Captain Armstrong of Ballycumber, 
 an officer in the Kings County militia; who, on becoming members, 
 deliberately wormed their way into the families of the chief conspira- 
 tors, received their hospitality, and eat their salt, in order that they 
 might betray them. Reynolds received the sum of £5,000 and a pen- 
 sion of £1,000 a year, as the reward of his share in the dirty work, 
 and Armstrong a pension of £500. 
 
 "But besides these men, and others who had information to give, 
 there was a motley crowd of informers. Major Sirr's Gang, as Mr. 
 Secretary Cooke calls them, who lived upon the Government. It was 
 their daily bread to keep the Castle well plied with stories of conspir- 
 acy and insurrection. They exaggerated, they distorted, they invented 
 words and actions often of innocent men — sometimes to earn their 
 reward, sometimes to gratify some personal spite. These were the 
 men into whose hands the Government committed the lives, liberties, 
 and reputations of Irishmen; of whom Lord Moira said, in the Irish 
 House of Lords, 'That he sliuddered to think that such wretches 
 should find employment or protection under any Government.'"* 
 
 People, in perusing these details, will be carried forward to the 
 events occurring at the present day, and ask themselves if Dublin 
 Castle, like History, is not constantly repeating itself, so much do its 
 men and methods in the last quarter of the nineteenth century re- 
 semble those whose infamy stands out so conspicuously among the 
 rascally generation ruled by them toward the end of the eighteenth. 
 
 Sir Ralph Abercromby, an honest and manly soldier, had been 
 sent by the English Government to replace Luttrell, whose high- 
 
 * " Kingdom of Ireland," pp. i73, 474. 
 
488 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 handed cruelty was denounced by both Houses of Parhament in 
 England. We need only read his own letters to see to what a condi- 
 tion of despair or frenzy the British troops had reduced the country 
 populations. The local magistrates had everywhere been encouraged 
 by tlie Castle officials to require the presence of the military on the 
 first signs or suspicions of disaffection in their neighborhood. "They 
 had been billeted upon private houses and permitted to live in com- 
 plete license upon the people, and expressly ordered to act in their own 
 discretion without waiting for the direction of the civil authorities. . . . 
 'Within less than two months/ writes Abercromby, 'a private man 
 has thrown a chair at the colonel of his regiment, when sent for to 
 be reprimanded. Houses have been burnt, men murdered, others 
 half-hanged. A young lady has been carried off by a detachment 
 of dragoons. . . . These are but a few of the enormities which have 
 disgraced us of late: were the whole to be collected, what a picture 
 would it present ! . . . Within these twelve months every crime, every 
 cruelty, that could he committed hy Cossacks or Cahnucks, has been 
 committed here. . . . The way in which the troops have been em- 
 ployed would ruin the best in Europe.'" 
 
 There were 35,000 yeomanry under arms. To be sure, they were 
 mainly composed of Orangemen, or such as favored the principles and 
 practices of the Lodges. General Abercromby wished to keep his 
 troops distinct from these; and not to have the reputation of the 
 army tarnished by the lawlessness and ferocity of these partisans. It 
 was too late. The mischief had been done. And the general orders 
 prescribing strict military discipline, and the violation of the civil law, 
 save in presence and under the direction of the civil magistrate, were 
 distasteful to the soldiers, and no less so to the Castle officials. 
 
 "The Ascendancy party, the stern fanatic Clare, the grasping 
 Beresford, the affrighted Foster, the supple sycophant Cooke, the 
 mercenary Archbishop Agar, the ribald heartless Toler, were furious 
 at the issue of the order. They liad clamored for Martial Law, and 
 were enjoying the free exercise of its privileges; they ivere recklessly 
 driving the disaffected into open revolt, in order that they might have 
 
How a People are maddened into Rebellion. 489 
 
 the excuse for crusldng them effectually. John Beresford had said, 
 in the House of Commons, that ' he wished they were in rebellion 
 to meet them face to face/ Lord Camden afterwards admitted, in 
 the English House of Lords, that 'the measures of the Government 
 caused the rebellion to break out sooner than it otherwise would.'" 
 
 They made the situation intolerable to Abercromby. He resigned, 
 and the command was given to the sanguinary Lake. "Lord Cam- 
 den's Government had it all their own way. The old system of 
 free quarters was continued; Leinster was dragooned like Ulster; 
 the houses of the peasantry were burning in all directions. In Car- 
 low, in Kildare, in Wicklow, their owners were chased away and shot 
 down by the soldiers; and men were flogged and ' picketed ' at the 
 whim of any magistrate or officer, in order to compel them to disclose 
 concealed arms. No man was safe; sliopkeeper and artisan equally 
 had their hacks cut to the hone; farmer and lahorer were equally tor- 
 tured on the pointed stake. The United Irishmen were believed to 
 have cut their hair short for distinction's sake; and Avhen the sol- 
 diers found a 'croppy,' as they called him, they smeared his head 
 with pitch and crowned him with a cap of strong brown paper, which 
 could not be removed without lacerating the scalp. To wear Green, 
 the national color, even if the wearer was a lady, was a certain means 
 of insuring insult and outrage. . . . The innocent were tortured 
 with the guilty. . . . One of the nationalist newspapers published 
 the following: 'Receipt to make a Rebel. Take a loyal subject, un- 
 influenced by title, place, or pension; burn his house over his head; 
 let the soldiery exercise every species of insult and barbarity towards 
 his helpless family, and march away with the plunder of every part 
 of his I'jroperty they choose to save from the flames.'"* 
 
 Of course, the rising, insurrection, rebellion, — or by whatever 
 other name you choose to designate this agonized writhing of a 
 nation's frame when placed on the red-hot gridiron, over the blazing 
 fire, — occurred just as the Castle officials (shall we also add William 
 
 * " Kingdom of Ireland," ch. xviii. 
 
490 Tlie Cause of Ireland. 
 
 Pitt ?) wanted it ? Tliey liad been sowing Dragon's teeth most in- 
 dustriously and skilfully: was it a wonder that from the laboring soil 
 sprang up armed — no! not armed, but maddened men. who cared 
 not what form of death they had to brave or to inflict, so that they 
 had revenge on their oppressors ? 
 
 Let us weigh all these things well. Is it not time that Ireland's 
 sufferings, Ireland's incredible wrongs should be weighed in the 
 scales of calm, impartial Justice ? 
 
 Of the struggle itself of 1798, it were worse than idle to give a 
 history. There was and could be, under the circumstances, no con- 
 certed action. The Government was minutely informed of all the 
 leaders' plans; and they sprang the mine they had been preparing 
 exactly when it suited their purpose to do so. 
 
 "The risings in the south and in the north," says Mr. AYalpolc, 
 "were very different in character. The misguided people who had 
 proceeded to camp out at Ballinahinch, were principally respectable 
 small farmers,, and artisans and clerks from the neighboring towns. 
 They were all dressed in their Sunday clothes, and appear to have 
 conducted themselves very respectably. In Meath, Kiidare, and 
 Carlow the outbreak at once assumed a religious shape. The bands 
 of insuro-ents were largely composed of the lawless Defenders, who 
 had already been scouring the country for months; and these were 
 joined by the disaffected Roman Catholics in the town and surround- 
 ing country. The Orange Yeomanry Corps liad been at free quarters 
 in all the villages for weeks; and Orangeman and Protestant . . . we?'e 
 convertible terms. Accordingly, during the six or seven days during 
 which these districts were at the mercy of the rebels, the harmless 
 Protestant inhabitants who dwelt therein were set upon, and num- 
 bers of them were murdered. It is, however, noticeable that neither 
 in this part of the country nor in Wexford, where the rising was 
 really of a formidable character, were the insurgents guilty of the 
 crime of rape in addition to the crime of homicide. . . . 
 
 "Wexford was the last county which was converted by the United 
 Irishmen. Its population was one of the most industrious and con- 
 
How Wexford was "dragooned" into Rebellion. 491 
 
 tented in Ireland. The reports coming from the neighboring coun- 
 ties of the cruelties of the Orange Yeomanry, and the sight of batches 
 of men condemned untried to transportation, passing daily through 
 the country to Duncannon Fort, created a spirit of disaffection. . . . 
 
 "At length the dragooning came home to the people themselves. 
 Wexford was ]iroclaimed. The Xorth Cork militia were quartered in 
 the principal towns, and the whole country was delivered over to the 
 Yeomanry. Eoss, Gorey, Carnew, Enniscorthy, became the head- 
 quarters of Lynch-lavv. The magistrates ordered the seizure, im- 
 prisonment, and flogging of persons suspected of possessing arms. 
 Houses were burnt, 'croppies' were pitch-capped, and peasants were 
 shot on the roads, or at work in the fields. So great was the terror 
 of the country folk, and so general the belief that the Orangemen 
 were bent on their extermination, that they forsook their homes in 
 the night, and slept in the ditches." 
 
 And all this in a county where not a single act of disturbance had 
 occurred, and in which not a single branch of the Society of United 
 Irishmen had been established! Shall we be surprised to see presently 
 the Priests rise with their persecuted flocks and turn boldly on the 
 wolves bent on exterminating them ? 
 
 But one or two instances will enlighten the reader about those 
 methods used to drive the people into rebellion, to madden them 
 rather, and fill them with a blind and reckless fury. 
 
 "Anthony Perry — who was afterwards one of the chief among the 
 rebel leaders, and hanged at Edenderry in the Kings County, — was a 
 Protestant gentleman of property, and having listened to the United 
 Irish, had been thrown into prison at Gorey on suspicion. He soems 
 to have repented his misconduct, and to have given the Government 
 valuable information, but was treated in prison with the utmost bru- 
 tality. Among other acts of severity, a sergeant of the North Cork 
 militia — nicknamed, from his inventive cruelty, 'Tom-the-Devil,' — 
 cut away all his hair quite close to the head, and having rubbed 
 gunpowder well into the stubble, burned out all the roots of it with 
 a candle. Upon being let out of gaol on the eve of the rising, he 
 
493 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 found the Yeomanry had sacked his house; and burning with indig- 
 nation, he immediately joined the rebels. 
 
 "Joseph Holt's was a similar case. He was a respectable farmer in 
 South Wicklow. ... He took no interest in politics and had no con- 
 nection with the United Irishmen. He had, however, given offence 
 to a neighbor by pressing him for a debt; and this person out of spite 
 gave information to a company of the Fermanagh militia. . . . Holt, 
 on coming back from his day's work, found his house a smoking ruin, 
 his eifects pillaged, and his wife and family turned into the ditch. 
 He himself fled for his life into the Wicklow mountains, and in the 
 outbreak which shortly followed, became the desperate leader of a 
 band of insurgents." 
 
 The Father John Murphy, who commanded the principal body 
 of insurgents at Vinegar Hill, had seen his parishioners subjected to 
 the unnamable atrocities committed by the Yeomanry; he had seen 
 his own house with his church burned by these fiends incarnate, and 
 had cast his lot .with his people, driven out of house and home, and 
 threatened with extermination. It probably never was his intention 
 to fire a shot or lift a violent hand against living being. But insur- 
 rections are like swollen streams in spring-tide and carry along 
 both the man who swims with the current and the man who re- 
 sists it. 
 
 The presence of the Priests in this rising to which the poor people 
 were driven by systematic provocation and the cruelties above de- 
 scribed, would have been a restraint upon the maddened masses in 
 their lieadlong rage. They were, happily or unhappily, too few to 
 control the rude, wild elements set in motion by Fitzgibbon and his 
 associates. 
 
 And how the Government Avith its army, yeomanry, and militia, — 
 and with the mock-justice of its courts-martial and its State Trials, 
 — did stamp out the fire it had so industriously kindled all over the 
 land ! 
 
 "The brutality of the militia and yeomanry had been bad enough 
 before the outbreak: now that the rising was crushed, their ferocity 
 
Cornwallis Speaks. 493 
 
 knew no bounds. . . . When tlie rebels fled from Vinegar Hill, their 
 hospital at Enniscorthy was burnt, and the wounded shot as they lay 
 there in their beds. The same scene was repeated at Wexford. The 
 soldiers, especially a regiment of imported Hessians, scoured the coun- 
 try, shooting all whom they came across, outraging women, destroying 
 the Koman Catholic chapels, and completing the general desolation 
 by plundering and burning the remaining homesteads. Loyalist and 
 rebel suffered alike indiscriminately, without even the benefit of a 
 court-martial. There was no stay to inquire whether the victim were 
 friend or foe. . . . The local magistrates who had fled before the 
 storm, returned to resume the old coercive system, and to wreak their 
 vengeance upon the inhabitants." 
 
 The atrocities committed by General Lake and his myrmidons 
 had served the purpose of the Castle officials and fulfilled to the 
 highest the wishes of the Orange faction. As public feeling began 
 to cool down in England, and the doings of the army and the volun- 
 teers began to be read calmly, all these indiscriminate massacres of 
 defenceless prisoners and unoffending peasants provoked a reaction 
 in public opinion. Lake was superseded by Lord Cornwallis of 
 American fame. He was, like Abercromby, a brave and upright 
 soldier, who abhorred cruelty as he detested duplicity. "On his 
 arrival at the Castle he was shocked at the saiiguinary spirit with 
 which he found the Ascendancy imbued. 'The principal persons 
 of this country,' he writes, '^and the members of both Houses of 
 Parliament are, in general, averse to all acts of clemency, . . . and 
 would pursue measures that could only terminate in the extermi- 
 nation of the greater number of the inhabitants, and in the utter 
 destruction of the country. The words Papists and Priests are for 
 ever in their mouths, and by their unaccountable policy would drive 
 four-fifths of the community into irreconcilable rebellion.'" 
 
 Yes — to 'drive four-fifths of the community into rebellion,' and 
 then to 'pursue measures that could only end in the extermination 
 of the greater number of the inhabitants ' — such is, as the nineteenth 
 century is about to dawn on the world, the policy in favor at Dublin 
 
494 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 Castle, witli the Protestant Ascendancy, with the Irish Landlords 
 who sit in both Houses of Parliament in College Green. 
 
 "In speaking of the reckless refusal of quarter by the troops, 
 Lord Cornwallis says, ' I am sure that a very small portion of them 
 (the rebels) only could be killed in battle, and I am much afraid that 
 any man with a brown coat who is found within several miles of the 
 field of action is butchered without discrimination.' And on July 24th 
 he writes to General Eoss: 'The whole country is in such a state that 
 I feel frightened and ashamed whenever I consider that I am looked 
 upon as being the head of it. Except in the instances of the six State 
 trials that are going on here, there is no law either in town or country 
 but martial law; and you know enough of that to see all the horrors 
 of it, even in the best administration of it. Judge, then, how it must 
 be conducted by Irishmen heated with passion and revenge. But all 
 this is trifling compared to the numberless murders committed by our 
 people without any process of examination whatever. The yeomanry 
 are in the style of the loyalists in America, only much more numerous 
 and powerful, and a thousand times more ferocious. These men have 
 saved the countrv, but they now take the lead in rapine and murder. 
 The Irish militia with few ofRcers, and those generally of the worst 
 kind, follow closely on tlie heels of the yeomanry in murder and every 
 kind of atrocity. . . . The feeble outrages, burnings, and murders, 
 which are still committed by the rebels, serve to keep up the sangui- 
 nary disposition on our side. . . . The conversation of the principal 
 persons of the country all tends to encourage the system of blood ; and 
 the conversation even at my table, where you will suppose I do all I 
 can to prevent it, always turns on hanging, shooting, buiniing, «&c.; 
 and if a priest has been put to death the greatest joy is expressed by 
 the whole company. So much for Ireland, and my wretched situa- 
 tion.'" 
 
 Here we rest our case, leaving the verdict to the indignation of 
 mankind. 
 
THE CONCLUSION. 
 
 rr^O England, to her Parliament, and her People, I now address 
 myself in presence of the civilized woi'ld. 
 
 Your conscience, your honor, your interests alike demand that 
 you should take in hand promptly and unhesitatingly the reparation 
 of the enormous and manifold injustice which both the Parliament 
 and the People of England in the past committed toward the sister 
 island. 
 
 Conscience, honor, and interest are concerned in making of 
 Ireland 
 
 A Field of Profitable and Contented Labor for Irislimen. 
 
 For seven hundred years Englishmen have, in one way or another, 
 impoverished and ruined Ireland. ^Phey have destroyed the stately 
 forests which once covered the island. They have ravaged it repeat- 
 edly with fire and sword in its length and breadth. They have again 
 and again depopulated it by exterminating man and beast. They 
 have impoverished the soil by allowing its plough-lands to remaiii for 
 long periods uncultivated and uncared for. They have neglected, in 
 violation of all the laws of intelligent husbandry, to restore fertility 
 to the exhausted soil, to reclaim the waste lands, to maintain or in- 
 crease the productiveness of the most fertile districts. Century after 
 century, the landlords to whom the arbitrary decrees of the British 
 Parliament gave the inheritance of the Celt and Anglo-Irish Catholic, 
 have treated Ireland as the South-Sea islander does the fruit trees 
 near his door, — cut them down to get at their fruit. 
 
 (495) 
 
49 C The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 The Irish landlords have rack-rented their poor tenants-at-will, 
 year after year, without caring or inquiring whether the harvest was 
 bountiful or scarce, or whether there was a harvest at all; whether 
 the natural fertility of their lands was increased or destroyed by the 
 methods of culture employed; whether the farmer fared well or ill, or 
 whether he and his farm-laborers with their families were housed like 
 the savage, or left to starve in the winter. 
 
 And so the land deteriorated with each successive year; and so the 
 tillers of the soil, generation after generation, suffered from extreme 
 poverty, physical and mental degeneracy. But of all that the land- 
 lords recked not, provided their rents were paid up to the last 
 farthing. 
 
 It behoves you now, at length, to make the land fruitful for the 
 laborers; to give them an interest in it; to make them, on the soil 
 on which they were born and grew up, something better than the 
 weeds which are torn up by the roots in autumn and cast over the 
 stile on the roadside. 
 
 Encourage them to look upon it as in some way their own, to cul- 
 tivate it with love; to bestow their labor and their gains in making it 
 fruitful, in beautifying it, in creating on it civilized and happy 
 homes. 
 
 God knows they have sowed in tears long enough on the land of 
 their birth, to be rewarded by reaping in joy ! 
 
 Little or nothing has been done, up to this Year of Grace 1885, to 
 make this dear old land of Ireland really fruitful,— to make it a 
 profitable field of labor for the millions who call it their native land, 
 —to make them contented to spend their lives in cultivating it and 
 developing its manifold resources. 
 
 NoTiiiN-G, in very truth, had been done until the Land-Law of 
 1870 came to inspire the Irish farmers with a beginning of hope. It 
 effected but little good, however, besides exciting hopes in the hearts 
 of the despairing masses. 
 
 What good has the Land-Law of 1881 achieved ? It is sad to have 
 to answer: Little or nothing. 
 
Reconstruct the Land Courts. 497 
 
 In itself, as well as in the designs of its author, a magnificent boon 
 far surpassing in importance anytliing ever bestowed on Ireland by 
 an English Parliament, — it would have been hailed with rapture and 
 gratitude by the Irish people, had it not been heralded by the most 
 odious Coercion Act known in the dark annals of Irish misery. Be- 
 fore-insulting the nation with this atrocious Crimes' Act, the impul- 
 sive Prime Minister did not stop to ask the Irish Bishops and the 
 political leaders of Ireland, whether or not the horrible crimes com- 
 mitted in Dublin or elsewhere were the legitimate offspring of the 
 teaching of the former or of the principles of the latter. Both pre- 
 lates, priests, and politicians would have answered, that these deeds 
 of blood were only the natural consequences of a hatred and a despair 
 begotten by an oppression to which there had been, so far, no 
 let-up. 
 
 The men to whom was committed the practical carrying out of 
 that. act, were almost to a man taken from the landlord class and 
 imbued with all the passions and prejudices of that class. Besides, 
 in an evil hour, the enemies of the Irish tenantry managed to tack 
 on to the land act valuation clauses, which they knew — a]Kl they 
 boasted of it — would enable the land commissioners and their courts 
 to neutralize all the beneficent purposes of the legislator. 
 
 The Irish people to v.-liom tliis Land Act was given together with 
 the Crimes' Act, — just as you kick a famished dog while throwing 
 him a bone, — had too keen a sense of self-respect to tliank Mr. 
 Gladstone then. Four years have elapsed, and they have discovered 
 to their intense disappointment that, thanks to the Land Courts, the 
 Act of 1881, which was destined to create a peasant-proprietary class 
 in Ireland, was like the fair fruits which grow on the shores of the 
 Dead Sea, nothing but ashes and bitterness in the mouth. 
 
 In February, 1885, there are formidable symptoms of a land- 
 agitation more dangerous than that of 1879-80. 
 
 It is for 3"ou, Ministers and Legislators of England, to see to it 
 that the people of Ireland shall find certain and secure means of a 
 livelihood in their native country. 
 32 
 
498 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 The Land-Law of 1881 is excellent. Its administration is de- 
 testable. Place in the land-courts men who are in sympathy with 
 the people; men of incorruptible integrity, to whose conscience no 
 landlord need fear to leave the decision of his just claims; men who 
 know the people and the land, and who will judge rightly, because 
 incapable of doing otherwise. 
 
 Let your legislation declare, that where the toil and industry 
 of the tenant has created the very soil he tills and made the land 
 fruitful, — he must be, at least in part, its owner; that where the 
 season is such as not to allow the harvest to ripen, or when the 
 crop is destroyed by blight, — the landlord shall not demand from 
 his tenant the equivalent of the lost harvest or. crop. 
 
 Compel by your legislation both landlord and tenant to take a 
 like and a joint interest in increasing the productiveness of the soil, to 
 build substantial and comfortable habitations upon it for all who till 
 it. A wise and a fatherly Government will labor to establish in Ire- 
 land what exists in every civilized country known to us, a friendly 
 feeling and a community of interest between landlord and tenant; 
 between the farmer and his laborers. 
 
 Legislators of England, remember that you it was, who created 
 an almost impassable gulf of hatred in Ireland between the pro- 
 prietors and the tillers of the soil, between Protestant and Catholic. 
 Do you ever reflect that you are under an obligation to bridge over 
 that gulf, to unite in kindly feeling, brotherly love, and hearty co- 
 operation for the common weal the classes your own laws liave so 
 long divided and set against each other ? Vain are all your Coercion 
 and Crimes' Acts, your armies of Police and Detectives, your partisan 
 judges and your packed juries, to stop agrarian crime and suppress 
 Secret Societies. 
 
 Once for all, regulate the relations between landlord and tenant; 
 help to establish between them the ties of gratitude and respect in 
 the latter resulting from generous liberality in the former. So long 
 as we hear of the cruel scenes of eviction which are taking place on 
 the Arran Islands, on Clare and Achill Islands, as well as on the 
 
Develop the Fisheries. 499 
 
 mainland, will not landlord cruelty beget despair in the evicted, and 
 drive them into the ranks of Secret Organizations? 
 
 Coerce the landlords, and protect the tenants ! This is the only 
 potent means of stopping disorders in Ireland. 
 
 It is time, moreover, that landed proprietors should understand 
 that the altered circumstances of international traffic, by bringing to 
 their doors the agricultural produce of the remotest countries, make 
 it difficult for European farmers to hold their own in the inevitable 
 competition. Eent only represents the productiveness of landed 
 property. When the market value of produce is lowered, rent should 
 go down with it. 
 
 It is monstrous to exact from the Irish tenant-farmer the high 
 rent for which he bargained when he made his fifteen years' pur- 
 chase. Agricultural values have all changed since then, why hold 
 the tenant to the terms of a contract which these fluctuations have 
 rendered it impossible for him to keep. 
 
 You profess to be desirous of promoting the interests of the 
 farmer class, because on their prosperity, in a country where agri- 
 culture is the only industry left for tlie laboring masses, depend both 
 the general prosperity and the peace of the community. Show by 
 your deeds that you will not have these interests sacrificed. 
 
 Protect the tenant-farmers, then, as well as the farm-laborers. 
 
 Once more I say — protect also your fishermen; and be both prompt 
 and liberal in developing the Fisheries of Ireland. To us Americans, 
 to travelers from the Continent, it is a strange, an inconceivable folly, 
 that the teeming seas which bathe Ireland on every side, should be to 
 Irishmen, as were the gold fields of California or the diamond fields 
 of South Africa, before the coming of white men, — mines of exhaust- 
 less wealth, but by the Savage Tribes unappreciated, by you, the 
 Kulers of Ireland, neglected. 
 
 This neglect was both foolish and criminal. It is so at this 
 moment. 
 
 Are English Statesmen, so keen to protect British interests in 
 Afghanistan, and China, and Egypt, and Zululand, blind to the 
 
500 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 necessity of making the beautiful island, lying at their very doors, 
 and forming, as they say, an essential part of the Empire, a mine 
 of wealth to its own inhabitants, and a credit to its rulers? Is the 
 development of the Irish Fisheries, not a British interest ? 
 
 Are not the Ministers of England touched by no sense of shame 
 or remorse, when they see what splendid results the munificence of 
 Baroness Burdett-Coutts has produced in the fisheries of Baltimore 
 and the Cape-Clear Islands? Can they not learn from the prosperity 
 and independence which one noble-hearted woman has diffused 
 among a population apparently doomed to hopeless poverty, and by 
 the magnificent demonstrations of that people's gratitude, — that the 
 wealth of love in the Irish heart is deeper and more exhaustless than 
 the ocean beyond their shores, and that they only wait for the help- 
 ing hand of a liberal Government, to be up and outstripping their 
 neighbors in the race of intelligence and industry ? 
 
 Can England afford for ever to neglect or despise these priceless 
 and now most needful treasures of Irish love and devotion ? Can she 
 afford to allow all the untold resources of Irish intelligence, ability, 
 and heroic courage, to be like the seas on her coast only sources of 
 danger in storm and wrath. 
 
 I hear of Government grants for piers and harbors of refuge 
 dealt out with a niggardly hand here and there. AVhat would not a 
 single million generously spent, not only in such constructions at the 
 most important points on the coast, but in loans granted to the 
 fishermen to enable them to purchase and equip suitable craft 
 for deep-sea fishing, — do to rouse the energies of a down-trodden 
 population ? 
 
 In the Cromwellian Plantation of Connaught, your English 
 Parliament decreed to surround that Province all along its sea-board 
 with a military colony several miles in depth. The irrepressible 
 Celt, like the tide, overflowed all the unnatural obstacles you op- 
 posed to their expansion. 
 
 Believe me — it were a wise political economy to create all around 
 the coasts of Ireland miles deep of happy fishermen's and cottiers' 
 
Resuscitate Industry and Trade. 501 
 
 homes. Do you not need more and more every day a population of 
 sucli sea-faring men as all London and all England admired in the 
 Irish Fishermen at the late Exhibition. 
 
 Develop your Fisheries, then ! 
 
 And make haste to resuscitate Irish Industries and Trade. If 
 Ireland be — as Englishmen say — an essential part of the Imperial 
 PoAver made up of the Three Kingdoms, — then have as tender a care 
 for the industries of Cork and Dublin and Belfast and Limerick, as 
 you have of those of London and Bristol and Manchester and Leeds. 
 Sliow as much concern for the harbors of the Sister Isle as you have 
 for those of Liverpool and Cardiff and Glasgow. 
 
 I adjure yon, in your own dearest intei*est, — delay not longer to 
 jirovide for all Irishmen profitable labor. Ireland counted more than 
 five millions within her borders ten years ago: how happens it that 
 she has less than five millions in 1885? 
 
 Has the land devoured its inhabitants? No! They starved in 
 it, or fled from it because there was in it neither labor nor food 
 for man. 
 
 To what purpose do you establish your system of National Schools, 
 your Boards of Intermediate Education, your Royal University with 
 its central schools throughout the island? What do you intend to 
 do with your Scientific College here in Dublin, and your University 
 degrees for Civil Engineering? Where are these swarms of bright, 
 intelligent, thoroughly educated boys and youths to find a field of 
 labor for their acquired knowledge here in Ireland? 
 
 I can understand and admire in Paris the great Central School 
 of Arts and Trades [Arts et Metiers), and the thoroughly practical 
 education given to the pupils of the Polytechnic School, when they 
 leave it and choose each his own profession. France neglects no 
 field of skilled labor. And, after all, her toilers are better paid 
 than those of England, better even than ours in America. 
 
 Where are their fields for skilled labor in Ireland? And how 
 long is this going to be as it is ? How long will you continue to force 
 3'our hundreds of thousands of Irishmen to fly from the dear land 
 
502 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 of their fathers, — and to increase that awful host of England's 
 irreconcilable foes, which is ever growing, growing, growing be- 
 yond the Atlantic, like a storm-cloud black and big with the fate 
 of England? 
 
 These words are not addressed to you in hatred; but in exhorta- 
 tion made intense by the forecast of mighty perils to which English- 
 men are wilfully blind, and by the memory of the terrible record of 
 wrong, from which I have taken a few pages for this book. 
 
 But you must cease to govern Ireland as you have doiie hitherto. 
 
 The despotism and corruption and infamy of your Dublin Castle 
 Rule, are a disgrace to the civilization of the nineteenth century, a 
 reproach to British statesmanship and political wisdom. 
 
 Cease to misgovern a proud, a highly sensitive, and highly moral 
 people by men not of their own blood, and out of sympathy with the 
 national character, feelings, and aspirations. 
 
 Give Ireland back her Nationhood, her own Constitution, her 
 Parliament as it existed Avhen Grattan's genius, patriotism, and elo- 
 quence shone in it like the radiance of the evening star after sunset 
 in the Avestern sky. Nothing but the restoration of her Nationhood 
 to Ireland can ever satisfy the mighty yearning of the Irish heart at 
 home, or appease the ardent desires of the millions of the Irish race 
 abroad. 
 
 "The desire of national freedom" — it has been truly and elo- 
 quently said — "and the hope of it never left the national heart. . . . 
 It is always there — a vehement, deep-seated, wide-spread, apparently 
 indestructible national instinct, underlying every agitation, outliving 
 every concession, flashing in the eye, flushing in the cheek of most 
 Irishmen and Avomen, rich and poor, educated and ignorant. Cath- 
 olic iind Protestant, of Celtic descent and of Saxon descent. Popular 
 speakers know well, and they have known it any time these eiglity- 
 five years, that if they want really to move any great popular audience 
 in Ireland, they can only do so by striking this chord." * 
 
 * John George MacCarty, "A Plea for the Home Government of Ireland," p. 28. 
 
Restore Self- Government. 503 
 
 This restoration of Home Rule or Self-Government would only 
 be an act of justice, a tardy reparation of one of the greatest wrongs 
 ever inflicted by one people on another. On January 22, 1799, in the 
 Irish House of Commons, — a purely Protestant House, be it remem- 
 bered, — in the first discussion as to the "desirability of a union," it 
 was moved and carried by a majority of five and after a debate of 
 twenty-two hours' duration, "that the undoubted birthright of the 
 people of Ireland, a resident and independent legislature, sliould he 
 maintained. ''"' 
 
 Give the people of Ireland, without any distinction of creed, a 
 chance to vote this very year, on the acceptance of this proposition, 
 and nineteen-twentieths of her population will be for the affirmative. 
 
 The Union was consummated by a commercial transaction. Be- 
 sides the offices, preferments, and peerages bestowed on the members 
 of both Houses in return for their votes, £1,260,000 were paid in 
 bribes, — and the amount added to the Irish national debt ! One 
 liundred members of the lower house, however, were faithful to their 
 country; no bribe, no offer, no threat availed to make them consent 
 to barter away the birthright of their peojile. 
 
 It is time to restore what was so iniquitously obtained. 
 
 It was an iniquitous transaction under every one of its aspects; — 
 the compact was tainted with a radical vice, which rendered it totally 
 and for ever invalid. The Irish peers and representatives had no 
 powers from the nation by which they could sell to the English 
 Ministry the Constitution of their country, or pronounce a decree 
 annihilating the assembly in which they had the honor to sit. 
 
 It is a restoration founded on reason. In our day the tendency 
 is toward self-government by the people and for the people in all 
 civilized countries. England herself is the first to encourage this 
 tendency, not only among peoples of different race in all parts of the 
 world, but in her own colonies and dependencies. She has treated 
 French Canada with a wise liberality, respecting for one hundred and 
 thirty years the compact formed with the colony on its cession by 
 France. Eeligion, language, laws, and customs, — all liave been sa- 
 
504 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 credly left untouched by the hand of British domination. And now 
 the Province of Quebec is among tlie brightest gems in the imperial 
 diadem. 
 
 How different has been England's treatment of Ireland ! The 
 very same reign which witnessed the bestowing on French and Cath- 
 olic Canada the boon of self-government, beheld the suppression of 
 the Irish Parliament and Constitution. Since the nineteenth century 
 began, England for once only thought it necessary to rule Lower 
 Canada by a Coercion Bill. It was only a temporary suspension of 
 the common law, and was succeeded by a larger and more desirable 
 measure of self-government. 
 
 How is it, on the other hand, in Ireland ? 
 
 "Interwoven with abortive land schemes and land measures was 
 incessant uninterrupted coercive legislation. From 1796 to 1802 an 
 Insurrection Act was in force, and from 1797 to 1802 the Habeas 
 Corpus Act was suspended. Insurrection Acts were in force from 
 1807 to 1810, from 1814 to 1818, from 1822 to 1825. Habeas Corpus 
 was again suspended 1822 to 1823. In 1829, in the debate on Cath- 
 olic Emancipation, Sir Eobert Peel was able to say that ' for scarcely 
 a year during the period that has elapsed since the Union, has Ireland 
 been governed by the ordinary course of law.' From the date of that 
 utterance to the present day the country has not been governed by 
 the ordinary law for scarcely a single year. Arms Acts, suspensions 
 of Habeas Corpus, changes of venue, Peace Preservation Acts, and 
 coercive measures of all kinds, succeed, accompany, and overlap each 
 other with melancholy persistence. Koughly speaking, Ireland from 
 the Union to 1885 was never governed by the ordinary lauh The 
 Union, according to its advocates, was to be the bond of lasting peace 
 and affection between the two countries; it was followed by eighty-five 
 years of coercive legislation. It was grimly fitting that the Union 
 so unlawfully accomplished, could only be sustained by the complete 
 abandonment of all ordinary processes of law thereafter." * 
 
 * J. H. McCarthy. 
 
Home Rule must be Granted. 505 
 
 As these lines are penned the British Parhament has assembled, 
 under the double cloud of disaster in the Soudan, and ' Dynamite 
 outrages' at home, Irish discontent continuing unabated, and the just 
 demands of the nation remaining unsatisfied. The Ministry have it 
 in contemplation to renew the Coercion Act in force these last four 
 years. . . . How long is this to last? 
 
 Let common sense as well as common justice prevail over the 
 perverse counsels of the "Conservative Minority" in Ireland, and 
 the prejudices of public ophiion in England. 
 
 Common sense, in matters pertaining to politics and to govern- 
 ment, demands that "the rights and advantages of one mass of 
 population, their prosperity, industry, Avell-being, property, national 
 benefits of soil, situation, and cHmato, tlieir manners, language, re- 
 ligion, nationality in spirit or prejudice," should not be "set aside 
 and sacrificed to those of another mass," Avhen both have to live 
 together side by side, bound to each other by one political tie. "The 
 principle of Federalism (or Home Rule, or self-government under a 
 distinct national constitution as in 1782) seems a more natural and 
 just principle of general government, theoretically considered, than 
 this forced ceiitralization. . . . The peculiar internal welfare of each 
 part according to its own peculiar internal circumstances, physical 
 and moral, ... is in its own keeping, in its own internal legislative 
 and administrative powers. . . . Nature forbids by the unalterable 
 differences of soil, climate, situation, and natural advantages, or by 
 the equally unalterable moral differences between people and people, 
 that one government can equally serve all, be equally suited to pro- 
 mote the good of all."* 
 
 Certain it is that all attempts to govern Ireland from London, 
 or to have an English Parliament make laws for a people whom the 
 Legislators do not know, utterly misunderstand, and persist in misun- 
 derstanding, have proved disastrous failures, — disastrous to unhappy 
 Ireland, disastrous to England, and most disastrous at this momen- 
 
 * Laing, " Notes of a Traveller," pp. 25-27. 
 
506 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 tons crisis in imperial affairs, when a union of affection between the 
 two countries would enable the British Empire to triumph over every 
 enemy and to laugh at all difficulties. 
 
 Why not give to Ireland, what is only the birthright of all Irish- 
 men, SELF-GOVERNMENT, what slie grants to the smallest and most 
 remote of her colonies? Why does she refuse to Ireland what she 
 grants to the Isle of Man, and to the Channel Islands, Jersey and 
 Guernsey? Is it because the Irish are Celts? But so are the Manx, 
 and so are the inhabitants of the Channel Islands? Or is it because, 
 if an Irish Parliament were to sit once more in College Green, the 
 majority of the Lower House would be Catholics, — whereas in the 
 little islands mentioned they are Protestants ? Will England consent 
 to declare before tlie civilized world that Ireland can never be self- 
 governed because the majority of her children are Catholics? and 
 that jealousy or fear of a hostile religion, the religion of the majority 
 of Christendom, prevents the accomplishment of a wise, political, and 
 imperative act of justice and reparation? 
 
 It must be done. 
 
 Before the ill-omened Union of both countries was effected, 
 Grattan warned the English Prime Minister that in taking away from 
 Ireland her own parliament, he Avas "pulling down one of the pillars 
 of the British Empire." That Empire has grown so unwieldy that it 
 needs to be propped up solidly. It cannot afford, at the very moment 
 when Kussia is entering Afghanistan, and knocking at the gates of 
 India, when England's military prestige has been lost at both 
 extremities of the African Continent, Avhen Italy is profiting by Eng- 
 land's weakness and isolation to effect a landing on the Abyssinian 
 coast, and when both Germany and France are warily watching the 
 blunders of British policy and strategy in Egypt, — to have Ireland 
 like a paralyzed limb to be dragged forward helplessly, instead of 
 having it in a sound, healthy condition to help the body politic 
 in prompt, energetic, united effort. 
 
 It is for Englishmen supremely impolitic and supremely unwise to 
 put forward as a reason for not restoring to Ireland her legislative 
 
SIR CHARLES GALVIN DUFFY. 
 
Englishmen plead for Home Rule. 507 
 
 independence, tlie pretence that Irishmen are unpractical, and in- 
 capable of governing themselves. 
 
 It is supremely impolitic; because England's need of Irish brains, 
 of Irish dash, of Irish bone and sinew, is supreme at this moment, 
 if ever. You need an Irish Dufferin in India, as you needed him 
 badly in St. Petersburg, and Constantinople, and Canada, just as you 
 needed an Irish Gough a few years ago; you needed an Irish Gordon 
 in the Soudan, and he would have saved your honor and increased 
 your prestige, if your bungling had not sacrificed him. Now your 
 Irish Wolseley, who has saved that prestige in both hemispheres, runs 
 the risk of falling, like his companion in arms, the Irish Herbert 
 Stewart, a victim to the same administrative stupidity which persists 
 in controlling the war in the Egyptian deserts from Westminster or 
 JJowning Street. All tlie world knows that you are as ignorant in re- 
 gard to^Ireland, her people, her wants, and her resources, as yon are 
 about the Mahdi, and his brave Arab tribes, and the vast country 
 which is their home, and where you have no business. 
 
 Sir George Grey, no bad judge of men, says that the Irish people 
 "possess the faculties of legislation and administration in an equal 
 degree with any other nation on earth." 
 
 "Irislimen," says the London 'Spectator,' "have shown an ap- 
 titude for government of the hard, personal, practical kind. . , , 
 AVliether D'Arcy McGee, or General Sheridan, or Mr, Duffy, the 
 Irishman abroad is a stern, clear man , , , , inventive, resourceful, 
 far-seeing, and brave. , . . An Irish civil service composed of such 
 men, picked for the work, trained for it, and encouraged to be inde- 
 pendent, would govern the country as it has never been governed yet, 
 with a force, a directness, and honesty which in a few years would 
 suppress all opposition, and make the law what it has become under 
 more difficult circumstances in India, the final arbiter. This, we 
 may rely on it, is the only kind of government which suits the 
 national genius, and the only one which in Ireland will ever reconcile 
 freedom with order." 
 
 Cease to revile the Irish People. 
 
508 Tlie Cause of Ireland. 
 
 Eemember how miicli you have done to debase and degrade tlie 
 Catholic majority. Even now, if you only listen attentively to the 
 angry complaints, and bigoted expostulations of those who represent 
 the old Protestant Ascendancy, you will discover that every Parlia- 
 mentary or Administrative measure tendhig to treat the four millions 
 of Irish Catholics with justice or equity, — is denounced as a wrong 
 done to the minority. 
 
 The English Parliament is only beginning to vniderstand that 
 these four millions of Catholics, whose ancestors were so long kept in 
 enforced ignorance and the most abject poverty, send to your public 
 examinations of every grade, a host of children of both sexes, able to 
 compete in intelligence with the youth of any country in Christendom. 
 
 The official yearly Results are there to attest this magnificent 
 aptitude for the highest knowledge, and for success in every public 
 career. 
 
 The Irish are your equals in the gifts of mind. 
 
 As it is your vital interest so to treat Ireland that she may be able 
 and willing to put her whole strength into her joint action with you 
 on any point of the globe, or in any emergency, so must 3^ou labor to 
 create a united Ireland, an Ireland in which all the vital forces of the 
 entire people can be used for all high and holy purposes. 
 
 Cease, then, to encourage in Ireland the divisions and antago- 
 nisms which have been her bane in the past and which form at present 
 the great obstacle to her happiness and greatness. You have dealt 
 one mortal blow at the tyrannical Protestant Ascendancy of old by 
 the disestablishment of 1869. Do not encourage the Orange faction 
 to take this Ascendancy, every now and then, from its grave, place it 
 on its old war-horse, like the dead body of the Cid Carapeador, and 
 trot it out to frighten men, who are acquainted with the fraud. 
 
 The Orange faction know that their day has gone by for ever. 
 Their Catholic fellow-countrymen are ready to cast aside every of- 
 fensive weapon, and to extend to them the right hand of brotherly 
 affection. 
 
 It is not from the Catholic body, no matter how large their num- 
 
Cease rejecting Catholics from Office. 509 
 
 bers may be, or how overwlielming the majority they would com- 
 mand to-morrow in their own Parliament, that their Protestant 
 fellow-conntrymen should expect intolerance, opi)ression, or foul 
 pla3^ All the national antecedents, as recorded in history, forbid the 
 entertaining of such apprehension. 
 
 Protestants have been, in every struggle for national liberties, the 
 boldest and most eloquent champions of Ireland. They are so still. 
 And they know how little their co-religionists have to fear from a 
 Catholic reaction. 
 
 Irish Catholics have suffered wrong, instead of inflicting it. 
 They will be the first to forgive, and to forgive generously. The 
 Protestants have, confessedly, been the wrong-doers. Are they going 
 to prove the truth of the old pagan saying, that it is the man who 
 has injured his brother, who can never lay aside his hate ? 
 
 Beneath all the old hard crust of religious and political bigotry, 
 beneath all the prejudices of birth and education, — there still beats 
 a warm, generous Irish heart in the Orangeman's bosom. It is there 
 that lies the hope of a cordial union in the future. 
 
 The Government still appeals to this antiquated bigotry and these 
 stupid prejudices, — the Castle Government, that is. 
 
 Respect for the law and confidence in the impartiality and integ- 
 rity of those who administer it, as local magistrates and justices of the 
 peace, — are, you must acknowledge, essential to the peace and well- 
 ordering of a community. How do you expect Ireland to be such a 
 community, or the passions which separate Catholic from Protestant 
 to be appeased and die out, if you give over the local magistracy 
 and the ordinary administration of the law, to men from whom 
 Catholics can expect neither impartial it}^, nor integrity, nor any- 
 thing like justice? 
 
 Of the thirty-two lord-lieutenants in the counties of Ireland, only 
 four are Catholics. The four millions of Irish Catholics are repre- 
 sented in the ordinary magistracy by 869 of their co-religionists; 
 whereas the one million of Irish Protestants have 3,359 persons of 
 their own faith in the Commission of the Peace. 
 
510 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 This glaring disparity becomes still more hateful to a people so 
 sensitive to injustice as the Irish, Avhen one examines the qualifica- 
 tions which served as a recommendation to the Viceroy or the Lord 
 Chancellor in the persons of the comparatively few Catholic magis- 
 trates. It seems downright oppression when one comes to look into 
 the various counties, and to see how destitute the Catholic populations 
 are left of all protection against injustice and foul play. 
 
 The same unjust inequality reigns in every single public depart- 
 ment. The majority of the nation are absolutely excluded from some, 
 as from the Post Office, and cannot be said to be at all represented in 
 others far more important, such as that of public education. 
 
 In the reign of Elizabeth a Protestant University — Trinity College 
 ■ — was founded in Dublin and munificently endowed, then and at sub- 
 sequent periods, out of the confiscated property of the ancient church. 
 To this day it enjo^'s a princely revenue. Other educational estab-* 
 lishments all over the land were likewise endowed with bountiful 
 revenues by the .English sovereigns, a few of them bv private persons: 
 all from out revenues derived from Irish sources, and many of them 
 for avowed proselytizing purposes. 
 
 Every effort made, until now, to obtain even a University Charter 
 for some great existing Catholic school, or the establishment of a 
 National Catholic University has signally failed. It is thought suffi- 
 cient to permit Catholic schools to send up students for examination 
 before the Intermediate Board, or the boards of the Koyal University. 
 English liberality and toleration have not yet been able to muster 
 courage enough to found and endow in much-plundered and much- 
 wronged Ireland, a great University acceptable to the religion of the 
 majority of Irishmen ! 
 
 And yet you have done it in Quebec, — at least you have granted 
 an imperial charter to Laval University, founded by the Seminary of 
 Quebec, and maintained out of the resources bequeathed to the latter 
 by Bishop de Laval-Montmorency. 
 
 Just as these pages are written the Government allows Convent 
 and Monastery Schools, with their accomplished and admirable teach- 
 
Be Pi-omptly and Generoudy Just. 511 
 
 ers, to receive some kind of due recognition and remuneration from 
 the public treasury. 
 
 All these concessions come grudgingly, tardily, and by dribblets. 
 "Why can you not have the courage of being promptl}-^ and generously 
 just? 
 
 I'he nations of the civilized world among whom exiled Irishmen 
 and their descendants have lived for centuries, bear willing testi- 
 mony, not only to their varied and splendid talents displayed in 
 every department of the public service, but. to their many virtues 
 manifested in every walk of social life. They have noted their 
 proverbial generosity of character, their keen resentment of wrong 
 and that surpassing love of Justice praised long ago by Sir John 
 Davies and Lord Chief Justice Cole. 
 
 I repeat it: Be generously just to Ireland. It will pay you well 
 to be so, though even at the eleventh hour. 
 
 And be just before you are generous. Be just to the four millions 
 that are left to you, — the remnants and representatives of the un- 
 counted millions, destroyed at home by famine and the sword, or 
 forced by your blind and unnatural policy to carry their talents, their 
 virtues, and their resentment to every quarter of the globe. There 
 are, at this moment, hundreds of thousands of Irishmen, within the 
 borders of their native country, whom the proprietary system and 
 the land-legislation imposed upon them by your Protestant Ascend- 
 ancy, leave on the very verge of starvation. They are but too willing 
 to work, if they can only find profitable work to do. 
 
 For your own sake, spend in ameliorating their condition, and in 
 opening up the sources of industry which lie idle and locked up all 
 around them, — some of those millions you are pouring like snow- 
 flakes on the waters of the Nile, or like rain on the sands of the 
 Nubian Desert. Your greed and your folly are making enemies of 
 the whole Mohammedan world. Make friends, before it is too late, 
 of the Irish at your own doors. 
 
 Make haste to be both just and generous. 
 
 There may be yet time to conciliate the Irish at home. But 
 
512 The Cause of Ireland. 
 
 when one reads sucli speeches as tliat just delivered in the Imperial 
 Parliament by the Scotch Chief Secretary for Ireland^ one despairs 
 almost of ever seeing an English Ministry begin to learn the ABC 
 of Irish politics. In presence of such inconceivable stolidity, what 
 can Irishmen think, bnt that there is no hope for the pacification 
 and prosperity of their country save in self-government ? What can 
 they do but look to themselves, and count on themselves alone? 
 
 No ! — And when I say make haste to he just to Ireland, — it is to 
 warn you, that Irishmen in Ireland shall not be left to depend on 
 themselves alone. You can indeed afford to laugh at the " Dynamite 
 Conspirators" in Paris or in London. Those in ISTew York have done 
 you no harm. Had 3^our own gold subsidized every man of them, 
 they could not have served your cause better, or helped more effica- 
 ciously to dishearten the true friends of Ireland abroad and her most 
 devoted servants at home. 
 
 But the true friends of Ireland in the United States alone are 
 four millions at least of Irish-born citizens or of citizens of Irish 
 descent. I do not think that of that number ten thousand sympa- 
 thize with or approve of any other methods of obtaining redress for 
 Ireland, than those used by the Irish Parliamentary Party and its 
 trusted leaders. And I shall go further and tell you, that with the 
 Parliamentary Party while adliering to these methods in the cause 
 of Ireland, every true man in tlie United States, even though not of 
 Irish blood, is most heartily in sympathy. 
 
 There is an explosive force more potent than any devised by modern 
 science, — that of public opinion indignant at the criminal unwilling- 
 ness to right the gigantic wrongs of ages, — wrongs such as no people 
 ever groaned under, — wrongs which still remain unredressed and prac- 
 tically unheeded, in spite of the oft-expressed blame of Christendom. 
 
 Eemember how often it has been said: ''England's extremity 
 is Ireland's opportunity." Must it be also the opportunity of that 
 Greater Ireland peopled with men and women and children in whose 
 bosoms rankles the remembrance of all these unparalleled wrongs? 
 
APPENDIX A, 
 
 There is no question but the tribal system (that of Septs), as could be easily 
 foreseen, began to deteriorate in spite of all the influence of Keligion. The 
 great chiefs began to assume all the airs and rights of kings, and, although 
 there was a continual reaction against their usurped power, this seems to have 
 gone on increasing. The rivalry between chief and chief was shared by their 
 respective Septs ; and in their forays into each other's districts, it fared ill with 
 churches, monasteries, and religious persons, as it did with the laity and their prop- 
 erty. These wars were more destructive still, when they were waged by one of 
 the provincial kings or overlords against another. The clergy were looked upon as 
 hostile tribesmen and treated as such. All this violence and disorder required to 
 be checked by the strong hand of Papal Kome. 
 
 Abundant proofs moreover of all that is said in the preceding pages about early 
 Irish culture, are to be found in the writings of modern English scholars. In our 
 day there exists, happily, a passion for consulting the ancient historical monuments 
 collected in public libraries and museums both in Great Britain and in Ireland. 
 These establish, beyond the possibility of contradiction, much more than we have 
 advanced here in favor of the Irish apostolate of learning and sanctity. 
 
 The reader only has to open the works of the Most Kev. Dr. JMoran, to find a 
 whole treasury of erudition on this point. Two centuries after the invasion of Ire- 
 land by the Danes, we have evidence from English sources that the destruction 
 wrought by these barbarians, and their pitiless persecution of priests and monks, 
 did not succeed in blotting out from Ireland the fair fruits of former civilization or 
 the last of the great schools, which had made her the Nurse of Scholars and Saints. 
 
 In 1070, the fauious Sulgen (or Sulgerius) was Bishop of Menevia. This great 
 monastery and monastic school founded by St. David, himself the son of an Irish 
 mother, owed its growth and its fame for learning to Irish monks. One of these, 
 known'as "Johannes Erigena" (John the Irishman), there taught geometry and 
 astronomy with such distinction, at the close of the ninth century, that Alfred the 
 Great induced him to take up his abode in the royal palace, and become the preceptor 
 of the young Saxon nobles. Sulgen, who came two hundred years later, was not 
 satisfied with such knowledge as Menevia, or Glastonbury, or Lindisfarne afforded 
 in his day; he quitted his see, resolved to seek in Ireland for such masters as could 
 satiate his thirst of knowledge. After having been driven by a storm on the coast 
 of Scotland, and suffering there a long detention, he was fortunate enough to reach 
 his destination. But, like all superior minds eager to have, on every subject, the 
 last words of Science, he was not satisfied with a brief sojourn in the Schools of 
 33 (513) 
 
514 Ajjpe^idix. 
 
 Ireland. Ten whole years spent in perfecting his knowledge on all subjects, 
 sacred and profane, did not seem too long to the ardent student. Having thus 
 gathered the ripest fruits Irish scholarship bore in those days, Sulgen returned to 
 Menevia, bent on raising high the standard of learning in his own cherished Alma 
 Mater. 
 
 A more illustrious example of this influence of Irish scholarship, is found in the per- 
 son of the great St. Dunstan. " It was among the Irish monks of Glastonbury," says 
 Dr. Moran, " that his genius was developed and his mind perfected in all the learning 
 of that age. His ancient biographer writes, that ' numbers of illustrious Irishmen, 
 eminently skilled in sacred and profane learning, came into England, and chose 
 Glastonbury for their place of abode' (Osbeim, in Vit. S. Bunstani). His latest 
 historian is not less explicit; for he tells us that ' Dunstan was fortunate in finding 
 the monastery of Glastonbury a seat of learning. ... It was at this time occupied 
 by scholars from Ireland who were deeply read in profane as well as in sacred 
 literature. They sought to maintain themselves by opening a school to which the 
 young nobility who resided in the neighborhood repaired for education' (Hook, 
 " Archbishops of Canterbury," vol. i. p. 382 and foil.). The details which have 
 been handed down regarding his studies at Glastonbury give us some idea of the 
 literary course pursued in the Irish monasteries at this period. He was first of all 
 instructed in the Scriptures and the sacred writings of the Fathers of the Church, 
 The ancient poets and historians then engaged his attention ; but he showed a 
 special taste for arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music. His manual skill 
 was equal to his intellectual power. Bells which he himself had made for 
 Abingdon were still preserved there in the thirteenth century. At Glastonbury 
 they showed crosses, censors, and ecclesiastical vestments, the work of his hands. 
 Above all he loved the Scriptorium, and spent much of his time in writing and 
 illuminating books. His skill in all branches of human science was so great, that 
 the only plea his enemies could advance against him was, that 'he had been 
 trained to necromancy by his Irish teachers in the island of Avalon ' " (Dr. Moran, 
 "Fruits of Irish Piety among the Britons," in Transactions of the Ossory Archae- 
 ological Society, Part II. ISTS). 
 
 We have just returned from Spain, where we studied in Seville itself, and 
 among the rich treasures of the Archiepiscopal Library, the story of the " School 
 of Seville " under SS. Leander and Isidore, from 579 to 632. Any one who takes 
 up tlie interesting works recently written on this subject by German, French, and 
 Spanish authors, cannot fail to be struck by the urdverHalitii of knowledge incul- 
 cated, at the same period, in the Spanish as well as in the Irish and Anglo-Saxon 
 schools. Of course, it is admitted by English writers themselves, that the matters 
 and methods in both of the latter were identical, being taught by Irish masters. 
 
 Just as the piety, learning, and civilization cultivated by Leander and Isidore, 
 leavened by degrees even the dominant and conquering Gothic race, and made 
 them soon one in faith and nationality with the native Spaniards, even so the 
 apostles of Irish education, who survived the massacres and destruction wrought by 
 the Danes, tamed and civilized the fierce Northern Barbarians, and ended by 
 making Christians of them. The destructive lava itself became soon clothed with 
 the lovely vegetation of the soil. 
 

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