Osbert J. R. Howarth, Grenville A. J. Cole, William H. Porter, Edmund C. Quiggin and Richard Bagwell

“ The national system of education introduced in 1833 was the real recantation of intolerant opinions, but the economic state of Ireland was fearful. The famine, emigration and the new poor law nearly got rid of starvation, but the people never became frankly loyal, feeling that they owed more to their own importunity and to their own misfortunes than to the wisdom of their rulers. The literary efforts of young Ireland eventuated in another rebellion (1848) ; a revolutionary wave could not roll over Europe without touching the unlucky island. ”

“ Marriage among the secular clergy went on in Ireland until the 15th century. Like the Gaulish druids described by Caesar, the poet (fili) and the druid possessed a huge stock of unwritten native lore, probably enshrined in verse which was learnt by rote by their pupils. The exalted position occupied by the learned class in ancient Ireland perhaps affords the key to the wonderful outbursts of scholarly activity in Irish monasteries from the 6th to the 9th centuries. That some of the filid embraced Christianity from the outset is evident from the story of Dubthach. ”

“ The church endeavoured to make the wife of a first marriage the only true wife; but concubinage was known as an Irish institution until long after the Anglo-Norman invasion, and it is recognized in the Laws. If a concubine had sons her position did not differ materially in some respects from that of a chief wife. As the tie of the sept was blood, all the acknowledged children of a man, whether legitimate or illegitimate, belonged equally to his sept. Even adulterine bastardy was no bar to a man becoming chief of his tribe, as in the case of Hugh O’Neill, earl of Tyrone. (See O’Neill.) ”

“ Agriculture.—Ireland possesses as a whole a soil which is naturally fertile and easily cultivated. Strong heavy clay soils, sandy and gravelly soils, are almost entirely absent; and the mixture of soil arising from the various stratifications and from the detritus carried down to the plains has created many districts of remarkable richness. The “Golden Vein” in Munster, which stretches from Cashel in Tipperary to near Limerick, probably forms the most fertile part of the country. ”

“ The general election of 1910 placed the Liberal and Unionist parties in a position of almost exact equality in the House of Commons, and it was at once evident that the Nationalists under Mr Redmond’s leadership would hold the balance of power and control the fortunes of Mr Asquith’s government. A small body of “independent Nationalists,” led by Mr William O’Brien and Mr T. M. Healy, voiced the general dislike in Ireland of the Budget of 1909, the rejection of which by the House of Lords had precipitated the dissolution of parliament. ”

“ Henry IV. had a bad title, and his necessities were conducive to the growth of the English constitution, but fatal to the Anglo-Irish. His son Thomas, duke of Clarence, was viceroy in 1401, but did very little. “Your son,” wrote the Irish council to Henry, “is so destitute of money that Henry IV.
(1399–1413) . he has not a penny in the world, nor can borrow a single penny, because all his jewels and his plate that he can spare, and those which he must of necessity keep, are pledged to lie in pawn.” ”

“ Already Irish Catholics of good family had learned to offer their swords to foreign princes. In Spain, France and the Empire they often rose to the distinction which they were denied at home. About 9000 persons were sent to the West Indies, practically into slavery. Thus, and by the long war, the population was reduced to some 850,000, of whom 150,000 were English and Scots. Then came the transplantation beyond the Shannon. The Irish Catholic gentry were removed bodily with their servants and such tenants as consented to follow them, and with what remained of their cattle. ”

“ Their greatest achievement in literature dates back to the dawn of history, and we find no more trace of development in the world of letters than in the political sphere. The Irishman, in his own language at any rate, seems incapable of a sustained literary effort, a consequence of which is that he invents the most intricate measures. Sense is thus too frequently sacrificed to sound. ”

“ The peculiar characteristic of the Milesian conquest is the establishment of a central monarchy at Tara. No trace of such a state of affairs is to be found in the Ulster epic. In the Táin Bó Cúalnge we find Ireland divided into fifths, each ruled over by its own king. These divisions were: Ulster with Emain Macha as capital, Connaught with Cruachu as residence, north Munster from Slieve Bloom to north Kerry, south Munster from south Kerry to Waterford, and Leinster consisting of the two kingdoms of Tara and Ailinn. ”

“ The marked tendency which has been visible for so many years in Ireland for pasturage to increase at the expense of tillage makes the improvement of live-stock a matter of vital importance to all concerned in agriculture. Elaborate schemes applicable to horse-breeding, cattle-breeding and swine-breeding, have been drawn up by the department on the advice of experts, but the working of the schemes is for the most part left to the various county council committees. ”

“ This great struggle finally disposed of the possibility of Scandinavian supremacy in Ireland, but in spite of this it can only be regarded as a national misfortune. The power of the kingdom of Dublin had been already broken by the defeat of Amlaib Cuarán at Tara in 980, and the main result of the battle of Clontarf was to weaken the central power and to throw the whole island into a state of anarchy. Although beaten on the field of battle the Norsemen still retained possession of their fortified cities, and gradually they assumed the position of native tribes. ”

“ When Sir Stephen Rice (1637–1715) , chief baron of the Irish exchequer, went to London in 1688 to urge the Catholic claims on James II., the hostile populace escorted him in mock state with potatoes stuck on poles. Had manufactures been given fair play in Ireland, population might have preserved some relation to capital. As it was, land became almost the only property, and the necessity of producing wool for smuggling kept the country in grass. The poor squatted where they could, receiving starvation wages, and paying exorbitant rents for their cabins, partly with their own labour. ”

“ When we come to treat of religious rites and worship, our sources leave us completely in the dark. We hear in several documents of a great idol covered with gold and silver named Cromm Cruach, or Cenn Cruaich, which was surrounded by twelve lesser idols covered with brass or bronze, and stood on Mag Slecht (the plain of prostrations) near Ballymagauran, Co. Cavan. In one text the Cromm Cruach is styled the chief idol of Ireland. According to the story St Patrick overthrew the idol, and one of the lives of the saint states that the mark of his crosier might still be seen on the stone. ”

“ In Ireland the poor-rate used to be divided between landlord and tenant, except on holdings valued at £4 and under, in which the landlord paid the whole. Councils elected by small farmers were evidently unfit to impose taxes so assessed. The poor-rate and the county cess, which latter was mostly paid by the tenants, were consolidated, and an agricultural grant of £730,000 was voted by parliament in order to relieve both parties. The consolidated rate was now paid by the occupier, who would profit by economy and lose by extravagance. ”

“ The towns gained nothing by the agricultural grant, but union rating was established for the first time. The net result of the county council elections in the spring of 1899 was to displace, except in some northern counties, nearly all the men who had hitherto done the local business. Nationalist pledges were exacted, and long service as a grand juror was an almost certain bar to election. The Irish gentry, long excluded, as landlords and Unionists, from political life, now felt to a great extent that they had no field for activity in local affairs. ”

“ The bishops governed ecclesiastical districts co-ordinate with the civil divisions. In Ireland there were no cities and no municipal institutions; the nation consisted of groups of tribes connected by kinship, and loosely held together by a feudal system which we shall examine later. Although St Patrick endeavoured to organize the Irish church on regular diocesan lines, after his death an approximation to the lay system was under the circumstances almost inevitable. When a chief became a Christian and bestowed lands on the church, he at the same time transferred all his rights as a chief ”

“ The English of the Pale were forced into rebellion, but could never get on with the native Irish, who hated them only less than the new colonists. Ormonde throughout maintained the position of a loyal subject, and, as the king’s representative, played a great but hopeless part. The Celts cared nothing for the king except as a weapon against the Protestants; the old Anglo-Irish Catholics cared much, but the nearer Charles approached them the more completely he alienated the Protestants. In 1645 Rinuccini reached Ireland as papal legate. ”

“ Tyrone, Donegal, Armagh, Cavan, Fermanagh and Derry were parcelled out among English and Scottish colonists, portions being reserved to the natives. The site of Derry was granted to the citizens of London, who fortified and armed it, and Londonderry became the chief bulwark of the colonists in two great wars. Whatever may have been its morality, in a political point of view the plantation of Ulster was successful. The northern province, which so severely taxed the energies of Elizabeth, has since been the most prosperous and loyal part of Ireland. ”

“ The obscure contest between the Norwegians and Danes for supremacy in Dublin appears to have made the former feel the need of a powerful leader. At any rate, in 851–852 the king of Lochlann (Norway) sent his son Amlaib (Olaf the White) to assume sovereignty over the Norsemen in Ireland and to receive tribute and vassals. From this time it is possible to speak of a Scandinavian kingdom of Dublin, a kingdom which lasted almost without interruption until the Norman Conquest. ”

“ The executive of the League is empowered to select test cases, in order that tenants in surrounding districts may realize, by the results of cases decided, the hollowness of the act” (Barry O’Brien, Life of C. S. Parnell, i. 306) . His organ United Ireland declared that the new courts must be cowed into giving satisfactory decisions. The League, however, could not prevent the farmers from using the fair-rent clauses. It was more successful in preventing free sale, maintaining the doctrine that, rent or no rent, no evictions were to be allowed. ”

“ Government, &c.—The executive government of Ireland is vested in a lord-lieutenant, assisted by a privy council and by a chief secretary, who is always a member of the House of Commons and generally of the cabinet. There are a large number of administrative departments and boards, some, like the Board of Trade, discharging the same duties as the similar department in England; others, like the Congested Districts Board, dealing with matters of purely Irish concern. ”

“ Individuals are seldom as bad as corporations, and the very men who made the laws against priests practically shielded them. The penal laws put a premium on hypocrisy, and many conformed only to preserve their property or to enable them to take office. Proselytizing schools, though supported by public grants, entirely failed.
The restraints placed by English commercial jealousy on Irish trade destroyed manufacturing industry in the south and west (see the section Economics above) . ”

“ Turning northward to the east of Waterford round Carnsore Point, the lagoon-like harbour of Wexford is passed, and then a sweeping, almost unbroken, line continues to Dublin Bay. But this coast, though differing completely from the western, is not lacking in beauty, for, like the Mournes in county Down, the mountains of Wicklow rise close to the sea, and sometimes directly from it.
Every mountain group in Ireland forms an individual mass, isolated by complex systems of valleys in all directions. They seldom exceed 3000 ft. ”