Darrell Figgis

“ As we have said, roses are not produced from waste heaps. The Irish State was actually in the process of solving its gravest fault when the invasion of a militarist system made that solution impossible. When Brian died in 1014 without establishing his dynasty—when his son died in battle with him without being able to claim the reversion of his father's work—Ireland was thrown into a dynastic war. Had Ireland remained without invasion the Nation must have solved that difficulty by eventually winning some system in which the executive stability would have been secured. ”

“ The arts did not exist at the whim of a lordly patron, but were maintained at the people's charges. Each stateship conceived it an honour that Poetry, Music and History should be accorded the highest rank in its economy. Their professors were furnished land for their maintenance, and sat as equals at the king's table. ”

“ Unhappily the country was invaded by a militarist system, which, being a militarist system, lived on no. economic labour of its own but preyed on the economic labour of the country and played off one part of the dynastic dispute against another in order to secure the fruits of its robbery. ”

“ The straightforward dependence on the people's choice would have compelled some protection for their choice when made, especially as the defeated candidates would still have preserved intact their chances for a subsequent election; and the monarchy would have been drawn into closer relation with the stateships. ”

“ The two operating together would undoubtedly have compelled, without any of the complications of a righ-damhna, the perfectly free election of the executive head and leader of a stateship. Therefore, had the monarchy become hereditary there would have been two contradictory principles in the State; there would always be a tendency to bring one into line with the other ”

“ The king, in fact, was generally required to foster his children with some freeman's family. Yet to be a king a man had to be pure of birth, perfect of body, without physical blemish, and if considerable training in the laws and arts ”