“ It began by relating how the existing state of lawlessness was due to the malign influence exercised by the Irish over the English, and, like Magna Carta, its first positive provision declared that the church should be free. As a prime remedy for the prevailing evils all marriages between the two races were forbidden. Englishmen must not speak the Irish tongue, nor receive Irish minstrels into their dwellings, nor even ride in the Irish fashion; while to give or sell horses or armour to the Irish was made a treasonable offence. ”

“ In their efforts to cope with the prevailing disorder Lionel and his advisers summoned a parliament to meet at Kilkenny early in 1366 and here the statute of Kilkenny was passed into law. This statute was written in Norman-French, and nineteen of its clauses are merely repetitions of some ordinances which had been drawn up at Kilkenny fifteen years earlier. ”