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diff --git a/21210.txt b/21210.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9063857 --- /dev/null +++ b/21210.txt @@ -0,0 +1,13499 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and +Poetry, by Thomas Davis + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry + +Author: Thomas Davis + +Commentator: T. W. Rolleston + +Release Date: April 24, 2007 [EBook #21210] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THOMAS DAVIS, SELECTIONS *** + + + + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +[Illustration: Thomas Davis] + + + +THOMAS DAVIS + +Selections from his Prose and Poetry + + +WITH AN INTRODUCTION +BY T. W. ROLLESTON, M.A. + + + +NEW YORK: +FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY +PUBLISHERS + + + + +Library of Irish Literature + + +_General Editors_: ALFRED PERCEVAL GRAVES, M.A. + +WILLIAM MAGENNIS, M.A. DOUGLAS HYDE, LL.D. + (Dublin). + + +1. Thomas Davis. Selections from his Prose and Poetry. + Edited by T. W. ROLLESTON, M.A. (Dublin). + +2. Wild Sports of the West. W. H. MAXWELL. + Edited by THE EARL OF DUNRAVEN. + +3. Legends of Saints and Sinners from the Irish. + Edited by DOUGLAS HYDE, LL.D. (Dublin). + +4. Humours of Irish Life. + Edited by CHARLES L. GRAVES, M.A. (Oxon). + +5. Irish Orators and Oratory. + Edited by T. M. KETTLE, National University of Ireland. + +6. The Book of Irish Poetry. + Edited by ALFRED PERCEVAL GRAVES, M.A. (Dublin). + +Other Volumes in Preparation. Each Crown 8vo. Cloth, +with Frontispiece net $1.00 + + + + +INTRODUCTION. + + +In the present edition of Thomas Davis it is designed to offer a +selection of his writings more fully representative than has hitherto +appeared in one volume. The book opens with the best of his historical +studies--his masterly vindication of the much-maligned Irish Parliament +of James II.[1] Next follows a selection of his literary, historical +and political articles from _The Nation_ and other sources, and, +finally, we present a selection from his poems, containing, it is +hoped, everything of high and permanent value which he wrote in that +medium. The "Address to the Historical Society" and the essay on +"Udalism and Feudalism," which were reprinted in the edition of Davis's +Prose Writings published by Walter Scott in 1890, are here omitted--the +former because it seemed possible to fill with more valuable and mature +work the space it would have taken, and the latter because the cause +which it was written to support has in our day been practically won; +Udalism will inevitably be the universal type of land-tenure in +Ireland, and the real problem which we have before us is not how to win +but how to make use of the institution, a matter with which Davis, in +this essay, does not concern himself. + +The life of Thomas Davis has been written by his friend and colleague, +Sir Charles Gavan Duffy, and an excellent abridgment of it appears as a +volume in the "New Irish Library." In the latter easily available form +it may be hoped that there are few Irishmen who have not made +themselves acquainted with it. It is not, therefore, necessary to deal +with it here in much detail. Davis was born in Mallow on October 14th, +1814. His father, who came of a family originally Welsh, but long +settled in Buckinghamshire, had been a surgeon in the Royal Artillery. +His mother, Mary Atkins, came of a Cromwellian family settled in the +County Cork. It does not seem an altogether hopeful kind of ancestry +for an Irish Nationalist, and his family were, as a matter of fact, +altogether of the other way of thinking. But the fact that his +great-grandmother, on the maternal side, was a daughter of The +O'Sullivan Beare may have had a counteracting influence, if not through +the physical channel of heredity, at least through the poet's +imagination. As a child, Davis was delicate in health, sensitive, +dreamy, awkward, and passed for a dunce. It was not until he had +entered Trinity College that the passion for study possessed him. This +passion had manifestly been kindled, in the first instance, by the +flame of patriotism, but how and when he first came to break loose from +the traditional politics of his family we have no means of knowing, +unless a gleam of light is thrown on the matter by a saying of his from +a speech at Conciliation Hall:--"I was brought up in a mixed seminary,[2] +where I learned to know, and knowing to love, my countrymen." + +At the University he sought no academic distinctions, but read +omnivorously. History, philosophy, economics, and ethics were the +subjects into which he flung himself with ardour, and which, in after +days, he was continually seeking to turn to the uses of his country. By +the time he had left College and was called to the Bar (1837) he had +disciplined himself by thought and study, and was a very different +being from the dreamy and backward youth described for us by the candid +friends of his schooldays. A dreamer, indeed, he always was, but he had +learned from Bishop Butler, whom he reverenced profoundly and spoke of +as "the Copernicus of ethics," that there is no practice more fatal to +moral strength than dreaming divorced from action. Some concrete act, +some definite thing to be done, was now always in his mind, but always, +it may be added, as the realisation of some principle arrived at by +serious and accurate thinking. He had acquired clear convictions, his +powers of application were enormous, he had a boundless fertility of +invention, and was manifestly marked out as a leader of men. It is +interesting to go through the pages of Davis's Essays and to note how +many of his practical suggestions for work to be done in Ireland have +been taken up with success, especially in the direction of music and +poetry, of the Gaelic language, and of the study of Irish archaeology +and the protection of its remains. But a new Davis would mark with +keener interest the many tasks which yet remain to be taken in hand. + +His connection with the Bar was little more than nominal; from the +beginning, the serious work of his life seemed destined to be +journalism. After some experiments in various directions, he, with +Gavan Duffy and John Blake Dillon, during a walk in the Phoenix Park in +the spring of 1842, decided to establish a new weekly journal, to be +entitled, on Davis's suggestion, _The Nation_. Its purpose, which it +was afterwards to fulfil so nobly, was admirably expressed in its +motto, taken from a saying of Stephen Woulfe: "To create and foster +public opinion in Ireland, and to make it racy of the soil." Davis's +was the suggestion of making national poems and ballads a prominent +feature of the journal--the feature by which it became best known and +did, perhaps, its most impressive, if not its most valuable, work. His +"Lament for Owen Roe," which appeared in the sixth number, worked in +Ireland like an electric shock, and woke a sleeping faculty to life and +action. Henceforth Davis's public life was bound up with the _Nation_. +Into this channel he threw all his powers. What kind of influence he +exerted from that post of vantage the pages of this book will tell. + +Davis was naturally a member of O'Connell's Repeal Association, but +took no prominent part in its proceedings, except on one momentous +occasion on which we must dwell for a while. The debate was on the +subject of Peel's Bill for the establishment of a large scheme of +non-sectarian education in Ireland. Of this measure Sir Charles Duffy +writes:-- + + "A majority of the Catholic Bishops approved of the general design, + objecting to certain details. All the barristers and country + gentlemen in the Association, and the middle class generally, + supported it. To Davis it was like the unhoped-for realization of a + dream. To educate the young men of the middle class and of both + races, and to educate them together, that prejudice and bigotry + might be killed in the bud, was one of the projects nearest his + heart. It would strengthen the soul of Ireland with knowledge, he + said, and knit the creeds in liberal and trusting friendship."[3] + +But O'Connell, though he had previously favoured the principle of mixed +education, now saw a chance of flinging down a challenge to the "Young +Irelanders" from a vantage-ground of immense tactical value. He threw +his whole weight against the proposal, taunted and interrupted its +supporters, and seemed determined at any cost to wreck the measure on +which such high hopes had been set. The emotion which Davis felt, and +which caused him to burst into tears in the midst of the debate, seemed +to some of his friends at the time over-strained. But he was not the +first strong man from whom public calamities have drawn tears; and +assuredly if ever there were cause for tears, Davis had reason to shed +them then. More, perhaps, than any man present, he realised the fateful +nature of the decision which was being made. He knew that one of the +governing facts about Irish public life is the existence in the country +of two races who remain life-long strangers to each other. Catholic and +Protestant present to each other a familiar front, but behind the +surface of each is a dark background which in later life, when +associations, and often prejudices, have been formed, the other can +rarely penetrate and rarely wishes to do so. It was Davis's belief that +if the young people of Ireland were to be permanently segregated from +childhood to manhood in different schools, different universities, +where early friendships, the most intimate and familiar of any, could +never be made, and ideas never interchanged except through public +controversy, the barrier between the two Irish races would be +infinitely difficult to break down, and no scheme of Irish government +could be conceived which would not seem like a triumph to one of them +and bondage to the other. The views of the Young Irelanders did not +prevail, and Ireland as a nation has paid the penalty for two +generations, and will probably pay it for many a day to come. It may, +of course, be argued that religious interests are paramount, and that +these are incompatible with a scheme of mixed education. This is not +the place to debate such a question, nor can anyone quarrel with a +decision arrived at on such grounds. But let it be arrived at with a +clear understanding of the certain consequences, and let it be admitted +that when Davis saw the wreck of the scheme for united education he +felt truly that a long and perhaps, for many generations, irretrievable +step was being taken away from the road to nationhood. + +But after this despondent reflection, let us cheer ourselves by setting +the proud and moving words with which Duffy concludes his account of +the transactions in the _Life of Davis_:-- + + "I have not tacked to any transaction in this narrative the moral + which it suggests; the thoughtful reader prefers to draw his own + conclusions. But for once I ask those to whom this book is + dedicated to note the conduct of Catholic young men in a mortal + contest. The hereditary leader of the people, sure to be backed by + the whole force of the unreflecting masses, and supported on this + occasion by the bulk of the national clergy--a man of genius, an + historic man wielding an authority made august by a life's + services, a solemn moral authority with which it is ridiculous to + compare the purely political influence of anyone who has succeeded + him as a tribune of the people--was against Thomas Davis, and able, + no one doubted, to overwhelm him and his sympathisers in political + ruin. A public career might be closed for all of us; our journal + might be extinguished; we were already denounced as intriguers and + infidels; it was quite certain that, by-and-by, we would be + described as hirelings of the Castle. But Davis was right; and of + all his associates, not one man flinched from his side--not one + man. A crisis bringing character to a sharper test has never arisen + in our history, nor can ever arise; and the conduct of these men, + it seems to me, is some guarantee how their successors would act in + any similar emergency." + +The year 1845 was loaded with disaster for Ireland. It saw the defeat +of the Education scheme; it saw the advancing shadow of the awful +calamity in which the Repeal movement, the Young Irelanders, and +everything of hope and promise that lived and moved in Ireland were to +perish--and it saw the death of Thomas Davis. + +He had had an attack of scarlet fever, from which he seemed to be +recovering, but a relapse took place--owing, perhaps, to incautious +exposure before his strength had returned--and, in the early dawn of +September 15th, he passed away in his mother's house. The years of his +life were thirty-one; his public life had lasted but for three. His +funeral was marked by an extraordinary outburst of grief and affection, +which was shared by men of all creeds, all classes, all political camps +in Ireland. + +No mourning, indeed, could be too deep for the withdrawal at such a +moment of such a leader from the task to which he had consecrated his +life. That task was far more than the winning of political independence +for his country. Davis united in himself, in a degree which has never +been known before or since, the spirit of two great originators in +Irish history--the spirit of Swift and the spirit of Berkeley--of +Swift, the champion of his country against foreign oppression; of +Berkeley, who bade her turn her thoughts inward, who summoned her to +cultivate the faculties and use the liberties she already possessed for +the development of her resources and the strengthening of her national +character. Davis's best and most original work was educative rather +than aggressive. He often wrote, as Duffy says, "in a tone of strict +and haughty discipline designed to make the people fit to use and fit +to enjoy liberty." No one recognised more fully than he the +regenerative value of political forms, but his ideal was never that of +a millennium to be won by Act of Parliament--he was ever on the watch +for some opportunity to remind his countrymen of the indispensable need +of self-discipline and self-reliance, of toil, of veracity, of justice +and fairness towards opponents. No one ever said sharper and sterner +things to the Irish people--witness his articles on "Scolding Mobs," on +"Moral Force," and on the attack upon one of the jurors who had +convicted O'Connell at the State Trial.[4] But Davis could utter hard +things without wounding, for, when all is said, the dominant temper of +the man was love. That, and that alone, was at the very centre of his +being, and by that influence everything that came from him was +irradiated and warmed. He had, as an Irish patriot, unwavering faith, +unquenchable hope; he had also, and above all, the charity which gave +to every other faculty and attainment the supreme, the most enduring +grace. + +T. W. ROLLESTON. + + --------------------------------------------------------------- + [1] This work, with the inclusion of the full text of the more + important of the Acts of the Parliament of James II., and with an + Introduction by Sir Charles Gavan Duffy, was reprinted from the + _Dublin Monthly Magazine_ of 1843 by Mr. Fisher Unwin in 1891 + as the first volume of the 'New Irish Library.' It is now out of + print. + + [2] Mr. Mongan's School on Lower Mount Street. + + [3] "Life of Davis," p. 286. + + [4] "Life of Davis," pp. 218, 219. + + + + +I. The Irish Parliament of James II. + + + + +PREFACE. + + +This enquiry is designed to rescue eminent men and worthy acts from +calumnies which were founded on the ignorance and falsehoods of the Old +Whigs, who never felt secure until they had destroyed the character as +well as the liberty of Ireland. + +Irish oppression never could rely on mere physical force for any length +of time. Our enormous military resources, and the large proportion of +"fighting men," or men who love fighting, among our people, prohibit +it. It was ever necessary to divide us by circulating extravagant +stories of our crimes and our disasters, in order to poison the wells +of brotherly love and patriotism in our hearts, that so many of us +might range ourselves under the banner of our oppressor. + +Calumny lives chiefly on the past and future; it corrupts history and +croaks dark prophecies. Never, from TYRCONNELL'S rally down to +O'CONNELL'S revival of the Emancipation struggle--never, from the +summons of the Dungannon Convention to the Corporation Debate on +Repeal, has a single bold course been proposed for Ireland, that folly, +disorder, and disgrace has not been foreboded. Never has any great deed +been done here that the alien Government did not, as soon as the facts +became historical, endeavour to blacken the honour of the statesmen, +the wisdom of the legislators, or the valour of the soldiers who +achieved it. + +One of the favourite texts of these apostles of misrule was the Irish +Government in King JAMES'S time. "There's a specimen," they said, "of +what an Irish Government would be--unruly, rash, rapacious, and +bloody." But the King, Lords, and Commons of 1689, when looked at +honestly, present a sight to make us proud and hopeful for Ireland. +Attached as they were to their King, their first act was for Ireland. +They declared that the English Parliament had not, and never had, any +right to legislate for Ireland, and that none, save the King and +Parliament of Ireland, could make laws to bind Ireland. + +In 1698, just nine years after, while the acts of this great Senate +were fresh, Molyneux published his _case of Ireland_, that case which +Swift argued, and Lucas urged, and Flood and Grattan, at the head of +70,000 Volunteers, carried, and England ratified against her will. +Thus, then, the idea of 1782 is to be found full grown in 1689. The +pedigree of our freedom is a century older than we thought, and Ireland +has another Parliament to be proud of. + +That Parliament, too, established religious equality. It anticipated +more than 1782. The voluntary system had no supporters then, and that +patriot Senate did the next best thing: they left the tithes of the +Protestant People to the Protestant Minister, and of the Catholic +People to the Catholic Priest. Pensions not exceeding L200 a year were +given to the Catholic Bishops. And no Protestant Prelates were deprived +of stipend or honour--they held their incomes, and they sat in the +Parliament. They enforced perfect liberty of conscience; nor is there +an Act of theirs which could inform one ignorant of Irish faction to +what creed the majority belonged. Thus for its moderation and charity +this Parliament is an honour and an example to the country. + +While on the one hand they restored the estates plundered by the +Cromwellians thirty-six years before, and gave compensation to all +innocent persons--while they strained every nerve to exclude the +English from our trade, and to secure it to the Irish--while they +introduced the Statute of Frauds, and many other sound laws, and thus +showed their zeal for the peaceful and permanent welfare of the People, +they were not unfit to grapple with the great military crisis. They +voted large supplies; they endeavoured to make a war-navy; the leading +members allowed nothing but their Parliamentary duties to interfere +with their recruiting, arming, and training of troops. They were no +timorous pedants, who shook and made homilies when sabres flashed and +cannon roared. Our greatest soldiers, M'Carthy and Tyrconnell, and, +indeed, most of the Colonels of the Irish regiments, sat in Lords or +Commons;--not that the Crown brought in stipendiary soldiers, but that +the Senate were fearless patriots, who were ready to fight as well as +to plan for Ireland. Theirs was no qualified preference for freedom if +it were lightly won--they did not prefer 'Bondage with ease to +strenuous liberty.' + +Let us then add 1689 to our memory; and when a Pantheon or Valhalla is +piled up to commemorate the names and guard the effigies of the great +and good, the bright and burning genius, the haughty and faithful +hearts, and the victorious hands of Ireland, let not the men of that +time--that time of glory and misfortune--that time of which Limerick's +two sieges typify the clear and dark sides--defiance and defeat of the +Saxon in one, trust in the Saxon and ruin on the other--let not the +legislators or soldiers of that great epoch be forgotten. + +Thomas Davis. +July, 1843. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +A RETROSPECT. + + +How far the Parliament which sat in Dublin in 1689 was right or wrong +has been much disputed. As the history of it becomes more accurately +and generally known, the grounds of this dispute will be cleared. + +Nor is it of trifling interest to determine whether a Parliament, which +not only exercised great influence at the time, but furnished the +enactors of the Penal Laws with excuses, and the achievers of the +Revolution of 1782 with principles and a precedent, was the good or +evil thing it has been called. + +The writers commonly quoted against it are, Archbishop King, Harris, +Leland; those in its favour, Leslie, Curry, Plowden, and Jones.[5] Of +all these writers, King and Lesley are alone original authorities. +Harris copies King, and Leland copies Harris, and Plowden, Curry, and +Jones rely chiefly on Lesley. Neither Harris, Leland, nor Curry adds +anything to our knowledge of the time. King (notwithstanding, as we +shall show hereafter, his disregard of truth) is valuable as a +contemporary of high rank; Lesley, also a contemporary, and of +unblemished character, is still more valuable. Plowden is a fair and +sagacious commentator; Jones, a subtle and suggestive critic on those +times. + +If, in addition, the reader will consult such authorities as the +Letters of Lord Lieutenant Tyrconnell;[6] the Memoirs[7] of James the +Second by himself; _Histoire de la Revolution par Mazure_;[8] and +the pamphlets quoted in this publication, and the notes to it, he will +be in a fair way towards mastering this difficult question. + +After all, that Parliament must be judged by its own conduct. If its +acts were unjust, bigoted, and rash, no excuse can save it from +condemnation. If, on the other hand, it acted with firmness and loyalty +towards its king--if it did much to secure the rights, the prosperity, +and the honour of the nation--if, in a country where property had been +turned upside down a few years before, it strove to do justice to the +many, with the least possible injury to the few--if, in a country torn +with religious quarrels, it endeavoured to secure liberty of conscience +without alienating the ultra zealous--and, finally, if in a country in +imminent danger from a powerful invader and numerous traitors, it was +more intent on raising resources and checking treason than would become +a parliament sitting in peace and safety, let us, while confessing its +fallibility, attend to its difficulties, and do honour to its vigour +and intelligence. + +Before we mention the composition of the Parliament, it will be right +to run over some of the chief dates and facts which brought about the +state of things that led to its being summoned. Most Irishmen +(ourselves among the number) are only beginners at Irish history, and +cannot too often repeat the elements: still the beginning has been +made. It is no pedantry which leads one to the English invasion for the +tap-root of the transactions of the seventeenth century. + +Four hundred years of rapacious war and wild resistance had made each +believe all things ill of the other; and when England changed her creed +in the sixteenth century it became certain that Ireland would adhere to +hers at all risks. Accordingly, the reigns of the latter, and +especially of the last of the Tudors, witnessed unceasing war, in which +an appetite for conquest was inflamed by bigotry on the English side, +while the native, who had been left unaided to defend his home, was now +stimulated by foreign counsels, as well as by his own feelings, to +guard his altar and his conscience too. + +James the First found Ireland half conquered by the sword; he completed +the work by treachery, and the fee of five-sixths of Ulster rewarded +the "energy" of the British. The proceedings of Strafford added large +districts in the other provinces to the English possessions. Still, in +all these cases, as in the Munster settlement under Elizabeth, the bulk +of the population remained on the soil. To leave the land was to die. +They clung to it amid sufferings too shocking to dwell on;[9] they +clung to it under such a serfhood as made the rapacity of their +conquerors interested in retaining them on the soil. They clung to it +from necessity and from love. They multiplied on it with the rapidity +of the reckless. Yet they retained hope, the hope of restitution and +vengeance. The mad ferocity of Parsons and Borlace hastened the +outbreak of 1641. That insurrection gave back to the native his +property and his freedom, but compelled him to fight for it--first, +against the loyalists; next, against the traitors; and lastly, against +the republicans. After a struggle of ten years, distinguished by the +ability of the Council of Kilkenny, and the bravery of Owen Roe and his +followers, the Irish sunk under the abilities and hosts of Cromwell. +Those who felt his sway might well have envied the men who conquered +and died in the breach of Clonmel, or fell vanquished or betrayed at +Letterkenny and Drogheda. During the insurrection of 1641, the royal +government, at once timid and tyrannical, united with the sordid +capitalists of London to plunder the Irish of their lands and liberty, +if not to exterminate them.[10] In order to effect this, a system of +unparalleled lying was set afoot against the natives of this kingdom. +The violence which naturally attended the sudden resumption of property +by an ignorant, excited, and deeply wronged people, was magnified into +a national propensity to throat-cutting. Exaggerations the most +barefaced were received throughout England. Deaths, which the +English-minded Protestant, the Rev. Mr. Warner, has ascertained to have +been under 12,000--reckoning deaths from hardships along with those by +the sword--were rated in England at 150,000, and by John Milton at +616,000.[11] No wonder the English nation looked upon us as bloody +savages; and no wonder they looked approvingly at the massacres and +confiscations of the Lord Protector. But the Irish deemed they were +free from crime in resuming by force of arms the land which arms had +taken from them; they regarded the bloodshed of '41 as a deplorable +result of English oppression; they fought with the hearts of resolved +patriots till 1651. + +The restoration of the Stuarts was hailed as the restoration of their +rights. They were woefully disappointed. A compromise was made between +the legitimists and the republicans; the former were to resume their +rank, the latter to retain their plunder, Ireland was disregarded. The +mockery of the Court of Claims restored less than one-third of the +Irish lands. While in 1641 the Roman Catholics possessed two-thirds of +Ireland, in 1680 they had but one-fifth[12]. Besides, the new +possessors were of an opposite creed, and fortified themselves by Penal +Laws. Under such circumstances the aim of most men would be much the +same, namely, to take the first opportunity of regaining their +property, their national independence, and religious freedom. With +reference to their legislation on the two latter points, doubts may be +entertained how much should be complained of; and even those who +condemn that on the first, should remember that "the re-adjustment of +all private rights, after so entire a destruction of their landmarks, +could only be effected by the coarse process of general rules[13]." + +Let us now run over a few dates, till we come to the event which gave +the Irish this opportunity. On the 6th of February, 1685, Charles the +Second died in the secret profession of the Roman Catholic faith, and +his brother, James Stuart, Duke of York, succeeded him. + +James the Second came to his throne with much of what usually wins +popular favour. He united in his person the blood of the Tudor, +Plantagenet, and Saxon kings of England, while his Scottish descent +came through every king of Scotland, and found its spring in the Irish +Dalriad chief, who, embarking from Ulster, overran Albany. In addition, +James had morals better than those of his rank and time, as much +intellect as most kings, and the reputation acquired from his naval +administration, graced as it was by sea-fights in which no ship was +earlier in action than James's, and by at least one great victory--that +over Opdam--fought near Yarmouth, on the 3rd June, 1665. + +Yet the difference of his creed from that of his English subjects blew +these popular recollections to shivers. He tried to enforce, first, +toleration; and, secondly, perfect religious equality, and intended, +as many thought, the destruction of that equality, by substituting a +Roman Catholic for a Protestant supremacy; and the means he used for +this purpose were such as the English Parliament had pronounced +unconstitutional. He impeached the corporate charters by _quo +warranto_, brought to trial before judges whom he influenced, as all +his predecessors had done. He invaded the customs of the universities, +as having a legal right to do so. He suspended the penal laws, and +punished those who disobeyed his liberal but unpopular proclamations. +Some noble zealots, the Russells and Sidneys, crossed his path in vain; +but a few bold caballers, the Danbys, the Shaftesburys, and Churchills, +by urging him to despotic acts, and the people to resistance, brought +on a crisis; when, availing themselves of it, they called in a foreign +army and drove out James, and swore he had abdicated; expelled the +Prince of Wales, and falsely called him bastard; made terms with +William, that he should have the crown and privy purse, and they the +actual government; and ended by calling their selfish and hypocritical +work, "a popular and glorious revolution." + +It is needless to follow up James's quarrel with the university of +Oxford, and his unsuccessful prosecution of the seven Bishops on the +29th of June, 1688, who, emboldened by the prospect of a revolution, +refused to read his proclamation of indulgence. From the day of their +acquittal, James was lost. Letters were circulated throughout +England[14] and Ireland, declaring the young Prince of Wales (who was +born 10th June) spurious, and containing many other falsehoods, so as +to shake men's souls with rumours, and arouse popular prejudices. The +army was tampered with; the nobles and clergy were in treaty with +Holland. James not only refused to retract his policy till it was too +late; but refused, too, the offer of Louis to send him French troops. + +Similar means had been used by and against him in Ireland. Tyrconnell, +who had replaced Clarendon as Lord Lieutenant in 1686, got in the +charters of the corporations, reconstructed the army, and used every +means of giving the Roman Catholics that share in the government of +this country to which their numbers entitled them. And, on the other +hand, the Protestant nobles joined the English conspiracy, and adopted +the English plan of false plots and forged letters. + +At length, on 4th November, 1688, Prince William landed at Torbay with +15,000 veterans. James attempted to bear up, but his nearest and +dearest, his relatives and his favourites, deserted him in the hour of +his need. It seems not excessive to say that there never was a +revolution in which so much ingratitude, selfishness, and meanness were +displayed. There is not one great genius or untainted character eminent +in it. Yet it succeeded. On the 18th of December, William entered +London; on the 23rd, James sailed for France; and in the February +following the English convention declared he had _abdicated_. + +These dates are, as Plowden remarks, important; for though James's +flight, on the 23rd of December, was the legal pretence for +insurrection in the summer of 1689, yet negotiations had been going on +with Holland through 1687 and 1688,[15] and the Northern Irish formed +themselves into military corps, and attacked the soldiers of the crown +before Enniskillen, on the _first week_ in December; and on the 7th +December the gates of Derry were shut in the face of the king's +troops,[16] facts which should be remembered in judging the loyalty of +the two parties. + + --------------------------------------------------------------- + [5] King's "State of the Protestants." Harris's "Life of King + William," folio, Dublin, 1749, book 8. Leland's "History of + Ireland," vol. 3, book 6, chaps. 5 and 6. Lesley's "Answer to + King's State of the Protestants," London, 1692. Curry's "Review of + the Civil Wars of Ireland." Plowden's "Historical Review of + Ireland; also History of Ireland," vol. i., c. 9. Jones's "Reply to + an anonymous writer from Belfast, signed Portia," Dublin, 1792. + + [6] Thorpe's MSS. + + [7] London, 2 vols. 4to, edited by Rev. J. Clarke. + + [8] Paris, 1825, 3 vols. 8vo. + + [9] Spenser's "View"; Fynes Moryson's "Itinerary"; Captain Lee's + "Memoir"; Harris's "Letters"; and Carte's "Ormonde." + + [10] See the proofs of this collected in Carey's "Vindiciae + Hibernicae." + + [11] Milton's "Eikonoclastes"; Warner's "History of the Rebellion"; + Carey's "Vindiciae"; and Pamphlets, Libraries of Trinity College and + the Dublin Society. + + [12] Sir W. Petty's "Political Anatomy of Ireland"; Lawrence's + "Interest of Ireland"; "Curry's Review"; "Carte's Life and Letters + of Ormonde," &c. + + [13] Hallam's "Constitutional History," v. 3, p. 588, 3rd edition. + + [14] Speke's "Memoirs." + + [15] See the Declaration of Union, dated 21st March, 1688, in the + Appendix to Walker's "Account of the Siege of Derry." + + [16] These acts were done in good faith by the people, instigated + by the devices of the nobles. A letter, now admitted to have been + forged, was dispersed by Lord Mount Alexander, announcing the + design of the Roman Catholics to murder the Protestants. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +ORIGIN AND CHARACTER OF THE PARLIAMENT.--THE HOUSE OF LORDS. + + +James landed at Kinsale, 12th March, 1689, about a month after the +election of William and Mary by the English convention. He entered +Dublin in state on the 24th March, accompanied by D'Avaux, as +Ambassador from France, and a splendid court. His first act was to +issue five proclamations--the first, requiring the return and aid of +his Irish absentee subjects; the second, urging upon the local +authorities the suppression of robberies and violence which had +increased in this unsettled state of affairs; the third, encouraging +the bringing provisions for his army; the fourth, creating a currency +of such metal as he had, conceiving it preferable to a paper currency +(a gold or silver currency was out of his power, for of the two +millions promised him by France, he only got L150,000); the fifth +proclamation summoned a parliament for the 7th May, 1689. + +James also issued a proclamation promising liberty of conscience, +justice and protection[17] to all; and, after receiving many +congratulatory addresses, set out for Derry to press the blockade. On +the 29th April he returned to Dublin. On the 7th May Ireland possessed +a complete and independent government. Leaving the castle, over which +floated the national flag, James proceeded in full procession to the +King's Inns, where the Parliament sat, and the Commons having assembled +at the bar of the Peers, James entered, "with Robe and Crown," and +addressed the Commons in a speech full of manliness and dignity. At the +close of the speech, the Chancellor of Ireland, Lord Gosworth, directed +the Commons to retire and make choice of a Speaker. In half an hour the +Commons returned and presented Sir Richard Nagle as their Speaker, a +man of great endowments and high character. The Speaker was accepted, +and the Houses adjourned. + +The peers who sat in this parliament amounted to fifty-four. Among +these fifty-four were six dignitaries of the Protestant Church, one +duke, ten earls, sixteen viscounts, and twenty-one barons. It contained +the oldest families of the country--O'Brien and DeCourcy, MacCarty and +Bermingham, De Burgo and Maguire, Butler and Fitzpatrick. The bishops +of Meath, Cork, Ossory, Limerick, and Waterford, and the Protestant +names of Aungier, Le Poer, and Forbes sat with the representatives of +the great Roman Catholic houses of Plunket, Barnewell, Dillon, and +Nugent. Nor were some fresher honours wanting; Talbot and Mountcashel +were the darlings of the people, the trust of the soldiery, the themes +of bards. + +King's impeachment of this parliament is amusing enough. His first +charge is, that if the House were full, the majority would have been +Protestant. Now, if the majority preferred acting as insurgents under +the Prince of Orange, to attending to their duties in the Irish house +of peers, it was their own fault. Certain it is, the most violent might +safely have attended, for the earls of Granard and Longford and the +bishop of Meath not only attended, but carried on a bold and systematic +opposition. And so far was the House from resenting this, that they +committed the sheriff of Dublin to prison for billeting an officer at +the bishop of Meath's. Yet the bishop had not merely resisted their +favourite repeal of the Settlement, but, in doing so, had stigmatized +their fathers and some of themselves as murderous rebels. + +King's next charge is, that the attainders of many peers were reversed +to admit them. Now this is unsupported evidence against fact, and +simply a falsehood. Then he complains of the new creations. They were +just _five_ in number; and of these five, two were great legal +dignitaries--the Lord Chancellor and Lord Chief Justice of Ireland; the +third was Colonel MacCarty, of the princely family of Desmond, and a +distinguished soldier with a great following; the others, Brown, Lord +Kenmare; and Bourke, Lord Bofin (son of Lord Clanricarde), men of high +position in their counties. + +Fitton, Lord Gosworth, occupied the woolsack. That he was a man of +capacity, if not of character, may be fairly presumed from his party +having put him in so important an office in such trying times.[18] He +certainly had neither faction nor following to bring with him. Nor was +he treated by his party below what his rank entitled him to. The +appointments in his court were not interfered with: his decrees were +not impeached, and in the council he sat above even Herbert, the Lord +Chancellor of England. Yet, King describes this man as "detected of +forgery," one who was brought from gaol to the woolsack--one who had +not appeared in any court--a stranger to the kingdom, the laws, and the +practice and rules of court;--one who made constant needless references +to the Masters to disguise his ignorance, and who was brought into +power, first, because he was "a convert papist, that is, a renegade to +his country and his religion;" and, secondly, because he would enable +the Irish to recover their estates by countenancing "forgeries and +perjuries," which last, continues the veracious archbishop, he nearly +effected, without putting them to the trouble of repealing the Acts of +Settlement. King staggers from the assertion that Fitton denied justice +to Protestants, into saying it was got from him with difficulty. + +Thomas Nugent, Baron Riverstown, second son of the Earl of Westmeath, +was chosen chairman of committees. King, who is the only authority at +present accessible to us, states that Nugent had been "out" in 1641, +but considering that he did not die till 1715, he must have been a mere +boy in '41, if born at all; and, at any rate, as his family, including +his grandfather, Lord Delvin (first Earl of Westmeath), and his father, +carried arms against the Irish up to 1648, and suffered severely, it is +most improbable that he was, as a child, in the opposite ranks. + +The Irish had never ceased to agitate against the Acts of Settlement +and Explanation. Thus Sir Nicholas Plunket had done legal battle +against the first, till an express resolution excluded him by name from +appearing at the bar of the council. Then Colonel Talbot (Tyrconnell) +led the opposition effort for their repeal or mild administration. In +1686, Sir Richard Nagle went to England, as agent of the Irish, to seek +their repeal. But the greatest effort was made in 1688. Nugent and Rice +were sent expressly to London to press the repeal. Rice is said to have +shown great tact and eloquence, but Nugent to have been rash and +confused. Certain it is, they were unsuccessful with the council, and +were brutally insulted by the London mob, set on by the very decent +chiefs of the Williamite party. + +Of the eighteen prelates, ten were Englishmen, one Welsh, and only +seven Irish. Several had been chaplains to the different lords +lieutenant. Eleven out of the eighteen were in England during the +session. Of these, some were habitual absentees, such as Thomas +Hackett, bishop of Down, deprived in 1691 by Williamite commissioners +for an absence of twenty years. Others had got leave of absence during +'87 and '88. Some, like Archbishop John Vesey of Tuam, and Bishop +Richard Tennison of Killala, fled in good earnest, and accepted +lecturerships and cures in London. + +There was one man among them who deserves more notice, Anthony Dopping, +lord bishop of Meath. He was born in Dublin, 28th March, 1643, and died +24th April, 1697. He was educated in St. Patrick's schools, and won his +fellowship in T.C.D. in 1662, being only 19 years old. He led the +opposition in the parliament of '89 with great vigour and pertinacity. +He resisted all the principal measures, and procured great changes in +some of them, as appears by "The Journal." He had a fearless character +and ready tongue. He continued a leader of the Ultras after the battle +of the Boyne, and quarrelled with the government. King William, finding +how slowly the Irish war proceeded, had prepared and sent to Ireland a +proclamation conceding the demands of the Roman Catholics, granting +them perfect religious liberty, right of admission to all offices, and +an establishment for their clergy.[19] While this was with the printers +in Dublin, news came of the danger of Limerick. The proclamation was +suppressed by the Lords Justices, who hastened to the camp, "to hold +the Irish to as hard terms as possible. This they did effectually." +Still these "hard terms" were too lenient for the Ultras, who roared +against the treaty of Limerick, and demanded its abrogation. On the +Sunday after the Lords Justices had returned, full of joy at having +tricked the Irish into so much harder terms than William had directed +them to offer, they attended Christ Church, and the bishop of Meath +preached a sermon, whose whole object was to urge the breaking of the +treaty of Limerick, contending (says Harris, in his Irish Writers in +Ware, p. 215) that "peace ought not to be kept with a people so +perfidious." The Justices, and the Williamite or moderate party, were +enraged at this. The bishop of Kildare was directed to preach in Christ +Church on the following Sunday in favour of the treaty; and he obtained +the place in the privy council from which the bishop of Meath was +expelled; but ultimately the party of the latter triumphed, and enacted +the penal laws. + +The list of the Lords Temporal has been made out with great care, from +all the authorities accessible. + +Ireland had then but two dukes, Tyrconnell and Ormond. Ormond possessed +the enormous spoils acquired by his grandfather from the Irish, and was +therefore largely interested in the success of the English party. He, +of course, did not attend. His huge territory and its regal privileges +were taken from him by a special act. + +Considering the position he occupied, the materials on the life of +Tyrconnell are most unsatisfactory. Richard Talbot was a cadet of the +Irish branch of the Shrewsbury family, and numbered in his ancestors +the first names in English history. His father was Sir William Talbot, +a distinguished Irish lawyer, and his brother, Peter Talbot, was R.C. +Archbishop of Dublin, and was murdered there by tedious imprisonment on +a false charge in 1680. He was a lad of sixteen when Cromwell sacked +Drogheda in September 1649, and he doubtless brought from its bloody +ashes no feeling in favour of the Saxon. He was all his life engaged in +the service of the Irish and of James. He was attached to the Duke of +York's suite from the Restoration, and was taken prisoner by the Dutch, +on board the Catharine, in the naval action at Solebay, 29th May, +1672.[20] After the Acts of Settlement and Explanation were passed, he +acted as agent for the Irish Roman Catholics, urging their claims with +all the influence his rank, abilities, and fortune[21] could command. +His zeal got him into frequent dangers; he was sent to the Tower in +1661 and 1671 for having challenged the Duke of Ormond, and the English +Commons presented an address in 1671, praying his dismissal from all +public employments. He was selected by James, both from personal trust +and popularity, to communicate with the Irish; and though Clarendon was +first sent as Lord Lieutenant in '85, Tyrconnell had the independent +management of the army,[22] and replaced Clarendon in 1686. + +Sarsfield, who was at the head of "the French party," and most of the +great Irish officers, thought him undecided, hardly bold enough, and +with a selfish leaning towards England. Of his selfishness we have now +a better proof than they had, a proof that _might_ have abated his +master's eulogy, given further on. We say _might_, for _possibly_ +Tyrconnell was in communication with James as to the French offers. + + "It is now ascertained that, doubtful of the king's success in the + struggle for restoring popery in England, he had made secret + overtures to some of the French agents, for casting off all + connection with that kingdom in case of James's death, and, with + the aid of Louis, placing the crown of Ireland on his own head. M. + Mazure has brought this remarkable fact to light. Bonrepos, a + French emissary in England, was authorised by his court to proceed + in a negociation with Tyrconnell for the separation of the two + islands, in case that a Protestant should succeed to the crown of + England. He had accordingly a private interview with a confidential + agent of the Lord Lieutenant at Chester in the month of October, + 1687. Tyrconnell undertook that in less than a year everything + should be prepared."[23] + +Tyrconnell was made Baron Talbotstown, Viscount Baltinglass, and Earl +of Tyrconnell in 1686, and Duke and Marquis, 30th March, 1689. + +From his coming to Ireland, he worked hard for his master and his +countrymen. He gradually substituted Jacobite soldiers for the +Oliverians, who till then filled the ranks. He increased the army +largely, and lent the king 3,000 men in '88. Mischief was done to +James's cause by this employment of Irish troops in England. He was +active in calling in the corporation charters, and was exposed to much +calumny on account of it. The means, doubtless, were indefensible (for +the change should have been effected by act of Parliament, as it has at +length been in our times), but the end was to put the corporations into +the hands of the Irish people. And even in those new corporations, +one-third of the burgesses were of English descent and Protestant +faith; but this moderation is attempted to be shaved away by the +Williamites, who insist that most of these Protestants were Quakers, +whom they describe as a savage rabble, originally founded by the +Jesuits[24]--with what injustice we need hardly say. James describes +him "as a man of good abilities and clear courage, and one who for many +years had a true attachment to his majesty's person and interest."[25] + +Lord Clanrickarde represented the Mac William _Uachdar_, one of the two +great branches of the De Burgos, who usurped the chieftaincy on the +death of the Earl of Ulster in the year 1333. His father was the great +Lord Clanrickarde, who held Connaught in peace and loyalty, from 1641 +to 1650; when the troops for which he had negotiated with the Duke of +Lorraine not arriving, he too yielded to the storm. + +Mac Donnel Lord Antrim, also the representative of a great house (the +Lord of the Isles), was equally dependant on his predecessor for +notoriety. His elder brother, the Marquis and Earl of Antrim, played a +notorious and powerful part on the Irish side, in the war, from 1642 up +to 1650. This Earl Alexander also commanded an Irish regiment during +the same war. He was within the treaty of Limerick, and saved his rank +and fortune. + +Lords Longford and Granard were Williamites in fact. This does not +follow from their having acted so vigorously in the opposition in 1689, +but from their having joined William openly the year after. Lord +Granard had been offered the command of the Williamites of Ulster in +1688, and on his refusal, Lord Mount Alexander was appointed. + +Among the earls, one naturally looks for the two famous names of Taaffe +and Lucan. But Taaffe was then on an embassy to the emperor, and +Patrick Sarsfield was not made Earl of Lucan till after. Indeed his +patent is not entered in the rolls, from which 'tis probable he was not +titled till after the battle of the Boyne. + +Viscount Iveagh held Drogheda at the battle of the Boyne, and was +induced to surrender it by William's ruffianly and unmilitary threat of +"no quarter." + +Lord Clare was father to the famous Lord Clare, whose regiment was the +glory of the Irish Brigade, and who was killed at Ramillies in 1706. He +was descended from Connor O'Brian, third earl of Thomond. + +Lord Mountcashel, by his rapidity and skill, completely broke the +Munster insurgents, and made that province, till then considered the +stronghold of the English, James's best help. To him was intrusted the +Bill repealing the Settlement in the Commons, where he sat as member +for the county of Cork till that Bill passed the Commons, when he was +called to the Upper House as Lord Mountcashel. + +Lord Kinsale represented the famous John De Courcy, Earl of Ulster, and +had the blood of Charlemagne in his veins. He served as +Lieutenant-Colonel to Lord Lucan. His attainder under William was +reversed, and he appeared at court, where he enforced the privilege +peculiar to his family of remaining covered in the king's presence. + + --------------------------------------------------------------- + [17] See as to this, Melfort's letter to Pottinger, the sovereign + of Belfast; "History of Belfast," pp. 72-3; Lesley _proves_, on + Williamite authority, that the Protestants were worse treated by + William's army than by James's. See Dr. Gorges in Lesley's + Appendix. + + [18] He was appointed in 1686 (see Appendix B). T. W. R. + + [19] In July, 1691, William had offered these terms: 1st. The free + public exercise of the Roman Catholic Religion. 2nd. Half the + churches in the kingdom. 3rd. Half the employments, civil and + military, if they pleased. 4th. Half their properties, as held + prior to Cromwell's conquest. The terms were at once refused. The + suppressed proclamation doubtless offered at least as much. + (Harris's "William," and Plowden, b. 2.) + + [20] Rawdon Papers, p. 253. + + [21] Anthony Hamilton, in his "Memoirs of Grammont," exaggerates + this to L40,000 a year, and attributes Miss Jennings' affection to + its attractions. But besides that, by his statement, Tyrconnell had + been a rival of Grammont with Miss Hamilton, there is enough in + Grammont to account for it otherwise. Hamilton, an Irishman, and a + Jacobite, seems to have sympathised with Tyrconnell. He describes + him as "one of the largest and most powerful looking men in + England," "with a brilliant and handsome appearance, and something + of nobility, not to say haughtiness in his manners." He mentions + circumstances, showing him bold, free, amorous, and, strange for a + courtier, punctual in payment of debts. Yet this man, so full of + refinement, and so trained, is described by King as addressing the + Irish Privy Council thus:--"I have put the sword into your hands, + and God damn you all if ever you part with it." + + [22] Clarendon's "State Letters," vol. i. and the Diary. + + [23] Hallam's "Constitutional History," v. iii., p. 530. + + [24] State Tracts, Will. III.'s reign, H. R.'s App. to Cox. + + [25] "Memoirs of James II.," by the Rev. ---- Clarke, Chaplain to + George IV. These memoirs seem to have been copies of memoirs + written under James II.'s inspection, and deposited in the Scotch + College in Paris. The originals perished at the French Revolution, + and their copies came to Rome, from whence they were procured for + the English government in 1805. See Mr. Clarke's preface, and + Guizot's preface to his translation of them in the "Memoires de la + Revolution." + + + +CHAPTER III. + +THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. + + +The number of members in the Commons, as the complement was made up +under the monstrous charters of James I., Charles I., and Charles II., +far outdoing in their unconstitutional nature any of the stretchings of +prerogative in the reign of James II., amounted to 300. The number +actually returned was 224. Of the deficiencies, no less than 28 were +caused by the places being the seats of the war. + +The character of this assembly must be chiefly judged by its acts, and +we shall presently resume the consideration of them; but there are some +things in the composition of the Commons whereby their character has +been judged. + +They have been denounced by King: but before we examine his statements, +let us inquire who he was, lest we underrate or overrate his testimony; +lest we unjustly require proof, in addition to the witness of a +thoroughly pure and wise man; or, what is more dangerous, lest we +remain content with the unconfirmed statements of a bigot or knave. + +William King was the son of James King, a miller, who, in order to +avoid taking the Solemn League and Covenant, removed from the North of +Scotland, and settled in Antrim, where William was born, 1st of May, +1650. (See Harris's "Ware," Bishops of Derry.) He was educated at +Dungannon, was a sizar, "_native_," and schoolmaster in T.C.D., and was +ordained in 1673. Parker, archbishop of Tuam, gave him a heap of +livings, and on being translated to Dublin, procured the Chancellorship +of St. Patrick's for King in 1679. This he held during the Revolution. +He was imprisoned in 1689 on suspicion, but after some months was +released, through the influence of Herbert and Tyrconnell, and +notwithstanding C. J. Nugent's opposition. Immediately on his release +he wrote his "State of the Protestants of Ireland," printed in London, +_cum privilegio_, at the chief Williamite printer's. It was written and +published while the war in Ireland was at its height, and when it was +sought at any price to check the Jacobite feeling then beginning to +revive in England, by running down the conduct of the Irish, James's +most formidable supporters. Moreover, King had been imprisoned (justly +or unjustly) by James's council, and he obtained the bishopric of Derry +from William, on the 25th of January, 1690 (old style), namely, within +thirty-eight weeks before the publication of his book, which was +printed, _cum privilegio_, 15th of October, 1691. Whether the bishopric +was the wages of the book, or the book revenge for the imprisonment, we +shall not say; but surely King must have had marvellous virtue to write +impartially, in excited and reckless times, for so demoralized a party +as the English Whigs, when he wrote of transactions yet incomplete, of +which there was a perilous stake not only for him but for his friends, +and when, of the parties at issue, one gave him a gaol and the other a +mitre. + +There is scarcely a section in his book that does not abound with the +most superlative charges, put in the coarsest language. All the +calumnies as to 1641, which are now confessed to be false, are gospel +truths in his book. He never gives an exact authority for any of his +graver charges, and his appendix is a valuable reply to his text. + +When, in addition to these external probabilites and intrinsic +evidences of falsehood, we add that, immediately on its publication, +Lesley wrote an answer to it, denying its main statements as mere lies, +and that his book was never replied to, we will not be in a hurry to +adopt any statement of King's. + +But in order to see the force of this last objection to King's +credibility, something must be known of Lesley. + +Charles Lesley, son of the bishop of Clogher, is chiefly known for his +very able controversial writings against Deists, Catholics, and +Dissenters. He was a law-student till 1680, when he took orders; and in +1687 became chancellor of Connor. When, in 1688, James appointed a +Roman Catholic sheriff for Monaghan, Mr. Lesley, being then sick with +gout, had himself carried to the courthouse, and induced the +magistrates to commit the sheriff. In fact, it appears from Harris +("Life of William," p. 216, and "Writers of Ireland," pp. 282-6), that +Lesley was notorious for his conversions of Roman Catholics, and his +stern hostility to Tyrconnell's government. Lesley refused to take the +oath of supremacy after the Revolution, and thereby lost all chance of +promotion in the Church. He was looked on as the head of the nonjurors, +and died in March, 1721-2, at Glaslough, universally respected. + +Such being Mr. Lesley's character, so able, so upright, so zealously +Protestant, he, in 1692, wrote an answer to King's "State," in which he +accuses King of the basest personal hypocrisy and charges him with +having in his book written gross, abominable, and notorious falsehoods, +and this he _proves_ in several instances, and in many more renders it +highly probable. King died 8th May, 1729, leaving Lesley's book +altogether unreplied to. + +Here then was that man--bishop of Derry for eleven years and archbishop +of Dublin for twenty-seven years--remaining silent under a charge of +deliberate and interested falsehood, and that charge made by no +unworthy man, but by one of his own country, neighbourhood, and +creed--by one of acknowledged virtue, high position, and vast +abilities. + +Nor is this all; Lesley's book was not only unanswered; it was watched +and attempted to be stopped, and when published, was instantly ordered +to be suppressed, as were all other publications in favour of the Irish +or of King James. + +The reader is now in a position to judge of the credibility of any +assertion of King's, when unsupported by other authority. + +King's gravest charges are in the following passage:-- + + "These members of the House of Commons are elected either by + freeholders of counties, or the freemen of the corporations; and I + have already showed how king James wrested these out of the hands + of Protestants, and put them into Popish hands in the new + constitution of corporations, by which the freemen and freeholders + of cities or boroughs, to whom the election of burgesses originally + belongs, are excluded, and the election put into the hands of a + small number of men named by the king, and removable at his + pleasure. The Protestant freeholders, if they had been in the + kingdom, were much more than the papist freeholders, but now being + gone, though many counties could not make a jury, as appeared at + the intended trial of Mr. Price and other Protestants at Wicklow, + who could not be tried for want of freeholders--yet, notwithstanding + the paucity of these, they made a shift to return knights of the + shire. The common way of election was thus:--The Earl of + Tyrconnell, together with the writ for election, commonly sent a + letter, recommending the persons he designed should be chosen; the + sheriff or mayor being his creature, on receipt of this, called so + many of the freeholders of a county or burgesses of a corporation + together, as he thought fit, and without making any noise, made the + return. It was easier to do this in boroughs--because, by their new + charters, the electors were not above twelve or thirteen, and in + the greatest cities but twenty-four; and commonly, not half of + these in the place. The method of the Sheriff's proceeding was the + same; the number of Popish freeholders being very small, sometimes + not a dozen in a county, it was easier to give notice to them to + appear, so that the Protestants either did not know of the election + or durst not appear at it." + +First let us see about the boroughs. King, in his section on the +corporations, states in terms that "they" (the Protestants) "thought it +reasonable to keep these (corporate towns) in their own hands, as being +the foundation of the legislative power, and therefore secluded +papists," etc. The purport, therefore, of King's objection to the new +constitution under King James's charters was the admission of Roman +Catholics. Religious equality was sinful in his eyes. + +The means used by James to change the corporations, namely bringing +_quo warrantos_ in the Exchequer against them, and employing all the +niceties of a confused law to quash them, we have before condemned. In +doing so, he had the precedents of the reigns called most constitutional +by English historians, and those not old, but during his brother's +reign; nor can anyone who has looked into Brady's treatise on Boroughs +doubt that there was plenty of "law" in favour of James's conduct.[26] +But still public policy and public opinion in England were against +these _quo warrantos_, and in Ireland they were only approved of by +those who were to be benefited by them. + +But the means being thus improper, the use made by James of this power +can hardly be complained of. The Roman Catholics were then about +900,000, the Protestants, over 300,000. James, it is confessed, allowed +one-third of the corporations to be Protestant, though they were +little, if at all, more than one-fourth of the population. This will +appear no great injustice in our times, although some of these +Protestants may, as it has been alleged, have been "Quakers." + +It must also be remembered that those proceedings were begun not by +James but by Charles; that the corporations were, with some show of +law, conceived to have been forfeited during the Irish war, or the +Cromwellian rule; and that being offered renewals on terms, they +refused; whereupon the _quo warrantos_ were brought and decided before +the regular tribunals during the earlier and middle part of James's +reign. On the 24th September, 1687, James issued his Royal Letter (to +be found in Harris's Appendix, pp. 4 to 6), commanding the renewal of +the charters. By these renewals, the first members of the corporations +were to be named by the lord lieutenant, but they were afterwards to +be elected by the corporations themselves. There certainly are +_non-obstante_ and non-resistance clauses ordered to be inserted, in +the prerogative spirit of that day, which were justly complained of. + +With reference to the number of burgesses, King's statement that the +number of electors was usually twelve or thirteen, and in the greatest +cities but twenty-four, is untrue. Most of the Irish boroughs were +certainly reduced to these numbers under the liberal Hanoverian +government, but not so under James. The members' names are given in +full in Harris's Appendix, and from those it appears that no +corporation had so few as twelve electors. Only five, viz.--Dungannon, +Ennis, St. Johnstown (in Longford), Belturbet, and Athboy, were as low +as thirteen; twenty-three, viz.--Tuam, Kildare, Cavan, Galway, Callan, +Newborough, Carlingford, Gowran, Carysfort, Boyle, Roscommon, Athy, +Strabane, Middletown, Newry, Philipstown, Banagher, Castlebar, Fethard, +Blessington, Charleville, Thomastown, and Baltimore, varied from +fourteen to twenty-four; most of the rest varied from thirty to forty. +Dublin had seventy-three; Cork, sixty-one; Clonmel, forty-six; Cashel, +forty-two; Drogheda, fifty-seven; Kilkenny, sixty-one; Limerick, +sixty-five; Waterford, forty-nine; Youghal, forty-six; Wexford, +fifty-three, and Derry, sixty-four. This is a striking proof of the +little reliance to be placed on King's positive statements. + +Harris, a hostile authority, gives the names and generally the +additions of the members of each corporation, and the majority are +merchants, respectable traders, engineers, or gentlemen. Moreover, in +such towns as our local knowledge extends to, the names are those of +the best families, not being zealous Williamites. As to the counties, +King relies upon a pamphlet published in London in 1689, setting out +great grievances in the title page, and disproving them in the body of +the tract. + +If many Protestant freeholders had fled to England, who was to +blame?--Most assuredly, my Lord Mount Alexander and the rest of the +right noble and honourable suborners, devisers, and propagators of +forged letters and infamous reports, whereby they frightened the +Protestants, in order to take advantage of their terror for their own +selfish ends. The exposure of these devices by the publication of +"Speke's Memoirs," by the confessed forgery of the Dromore letter, +etc., have thrown the chief blame of the Protestant desertion off the +shoulders of those Protestants, off the shoulders, too, of the Irish +government, and have brought it crushingly upon the aristocratic cabal, +who alone profited by the revolution, as they alone caused it. + +In the absence of other testimony, we must take, with similar allowances, +the story of Tyrconnell "_commonly_" sending an unconstitutional letter +to influence the election. But how very good these Jacobite sheriffs +and mayors were to let King into the secret, in 1691, when their +destiny was uncertain! That such gossip was current is likely, but for +a historian to assert on such authority is scandalous. + +King asserts that the unrepresented boroughs were "_about twenty-nine_." +Now, there were but _eighteen_ boroughs unrestored; but King helps out +the falsehood by inserting places--Thurles, Tipperary, Arklow, and +Birr--which _never_ had members before or since, by _creating_ a +_second_ town of Kells, by transferring St. Johnstown in Longford which +returned members, to St. Johnstown in Donegal, which was a seat of war, +and by other tricks equally discreditable to his honesty and +intelligence. + +The towns unrestored _could_ not have sent members to James's +parliament, and it was apparently doubted whether they ought to have +done so to William's in '92. + +Against the Commons actually elected the charge is that only six +Protestants were elected. In the very section containing the charge it +is much qualified by other statements. "Thus," he says, "one Gerard +Dillon, Sergeant-at-Law, a most furious Papist, was Recorder of Dublin, +and he stood to be chosen one of the burgesses for the city, but could +not prevail, because he had purchased a considerable estate under the +Act of Settlement, and they feared lest this might engage him to defend +it;" and therefore they chose Sir Michael Creagh and Terence Dermot, +their Senior Aldermen, showing pretty clearly that the good citizens of +Dublin set little value on the "furious Popery" of Prime Sergeant +Dillon, in comparison with their property plundered by the Act of +Settlement. + +The election for Trinity College is worthy of notice. We have it set +out in flaming paragraphs how horribly the College was used, worse than +any other borough, "Popish Fellows" being intruded. "In the house they +placed a Popish garrison, turned the chapel into a magazine, and many +of the chambers into prisons for Protestants." (King, p. 220, Ed. +1744.) Yet, _miraculous_ to say, in the heart of this "Popish +garrison," the "turned-out Vice-Provost, Fellows, and Scholars" met, +and elected two most bold, notable, and Protestant Williamites. + +If this election could take place in Dublin, under the very nose of the +Government, and in a corporation in which the king had unquestioned +control, one will hesitate about the compulsion or exclusion in other +places. + +Besides Sir John Meade and Mr. Joseph Coghlan, the members for the +College, there "were four more Protestants returned, of whose behaviour +I can give no account," says King. Pity he does not give the names. + +If we were to allow a similar error in King's account of the creed of +the elected, that we have proved in his lists of the borough electors, +it would raise the number of Protestants in the house to about +fourteen. + +Allowing then for the Protestants in arms against the Government--out +of the country, or within the seat of war--the disproportion between +their representatives and the Roman Catholics will lessen greatly. + +One thing more is worth noticing in the Commons, and that is a sort of +sept representation. Thus we see O'Neills in Antrim, Tyrone, and +Armagh; Magennises in Down; O'Reillys in Cavan; Martins, Blakes, +Kirwans, Dalys, Bourkes for Connaught; MacCarthys, O'Briens, O'Donovans +for Cork and Clare; Farrells for Longford; Graces, Purcells, Butlers, +Welshs, Fitzgeralds for Tipperary, Kilkenny, Kildare, etc.; O'Tooles, +Byrnes, and Eustaces for Wicklow; MacMahons for Monaghan; Nugents, +Bellews, Talbots, etc., for North Leinster. + +Sir Richard Nagle, the Speaker, was the descendant of an old Norman +family (said to be the same as the Nangles) settled in Cork. His +paternal castle, Carrignancurra, is on the edge of a steep rock, over +the meadows of the Blackwater, half-a-dozen miles below Mallow. It is +now the property of the Foot family, and here may still be seen the +mouldering ruin where that subtle lawyer first learned to plan. +Peacefully now look the long oak-clad cliffs on the happy river. + +Nagle had obtained a splendid reputation at the Irish Bar. "He had been +educated among the Jesuits, and designed for a clergyman," says King, +"but afterwards betook himself to the study of the law, in which he +arrived to a good perfection." Harris, likewise, calls him "an artful +lawyer of great parts." Tyrconnell valued him rightly, and brought him +to England with him in the autumn of 1686. His reputation seems to have +been great, for it seems the lords interested in the Settlement Act, +"on being informed of Nagle's arrival, were so transported with rage +that they would have had him immediately sent out of London." + +He was knighted, and made attorney-general in 1687; and on James's +arrival, March, 1688-9, he was made secretary of state. He is said, we +know not how truly, to have drafted the Commons' bill for the repeal of +the Settlement. + +Let us mention some of the members.--Nagle's colleague in Cork was +Colonel MacCarty, afterwards Lord Mountcashel. Miles de Courcy, +afterwards Lord Kinsale, MacCarty Reagh, who finally settled in France. +His descendant, Count MacCarty Reagh, was notable for having one of the +finest libraries in Europe, which was sold after the Revolution. + +The Rt. Hon. Simon Lutteral raised a dragoon regiment for James, and +afterwards commanded the Queen's regiment of infantry in the Brigade. +He was father to Colonel Henry Lutteral, accused of having betrayed the +passage of the Shannon at Limerick; and though Harris throws doubt on +this particular act of treason, his correspondence and rewards from +William seem sufficient proof and confirmation of his guilt. + +Lally of Tullendaly, member for Tuam, was the representative of the +O'Lallys, an old Irish sept. His brother, John Gerard Lally, settled in +France, and married a sister to Dillon, "_colonel proprietaire_" in the +Brigade, and was Colonel commanding in this illustrious regiment. Sir +Gerard was father to the famous Count Thomas Lally Tollendal, who, +after having served from the age of twelve to sixty-four in every +quarter of the globe, from Barcelona to Dettingen, and from Fontenoy to +Pondicherry, was beheaded on the 9th of May, 1766. The Marquis De Lally +Tollendal, a distinguished lawyer and statesman of the Bourbonist +party, and writer of the life of Strafford, and many other works, was a +grand-nephew to James Lally, the member for Tuam in '89. + +Colonel Roger Mac Elligot, who commanded Lord Clancarty's regiment (the +12th infantry) in the Brigade, was member for Ardfert. + +Limerick.--Sir John Fitzgerald was "_col. propr._" of the regiment of +Limerick (8th infantry) in the Brigade. + +Oliver O'Gara, member for Tulske, was Lieutenant-Colonel of the guards +under Colonel Dorrington. + +Hugh Mac Mahon, Gordon O'Nials Lieutenant-Colonel, was member for +Monaghan. + +The Right Hon. Nicholas Purcell, member for Tipperary, was a Privy +Councillor early in James's reign. His family were Barons of Loughmoe, +and of great consideration in those parts. + +The first bill introduced into the Lords was on the 8th of May--that +for the recognition of the king--and the same day committees of +grievance were appointed. + + --------------------------------------------------------------- + [26] Hallam ("Constitutional History," chaps. 13 and 14) contains + enough to show the uncertainty of the law. Throughout these, as in + all parts of his work, he is a jealous Williamite and a bigoted + Whig. His treatment of Curry has been justly censured by Mr. Wyse, + in his valuable "History of the Catholic Association," vol. i., + pp. 36-7. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +THE SESSION. + + +It is needless for us to track the parliament through the debates of +the session, which lasted till the 20th July. The few acts (thirty-five), +passed in two months, received full and earnest discussion; committees +and counsel were heard on many of them (the Acts for repealing the +Settlement in particular), and this parliament refused even to adjourn +during any holiday. + +We trust our readers will deal like searchers for truth, not like +polemics, with these documents, and with the history of these times. +But, above all, let them not approach the subject unless it be in a +spirit enlightened by philosophy and warmed by charity. Thus studied, +this time, which has been the armoury of faction, may become the temple +of reconciliation. The descendant of the Williamite ought to sympathise +with the urgent patriotism and loyalty of the parliament, rather than +dwell on its errors, or on the sufferings which civil war inflicted on +his forefathers. The heir of the Jacobite may well be proud of such +countrymen as the Inniskilliners and the 'Prentice Boys of Derry. Both +must deplore that the falsehoods, corruption, and forgeries of English +aristocrats, the imprudence of an English king, and the fickleness of +the English people placed the noble cavalry which slew Schomberg, and +all but beat William's immense masses at the Boyne, in opposition to +the stout men of Butler's-bridge and Cavan. What had not the defenders +of Derry and Limerick, the heroes of Athlone, Inniskillen, and Aughrim +done, had they cordially joined against the alien? Let the Roman +Catholics, crushed by the Penal Code, let the Protestants, impoverished +and insulted by England, till, musket in hand and with banners +displayed, they forced their rights from her in '82--let both look +narrowly at the causes of those intestine feuds, which have prostrated +both in turn before the stranger, and see whether much may not be said +for both sides, and whether half of what each calls crime in the other +is not his own distrust or his neighbour's ignorance. Knowledge, +Charity, and Patriotism are the only powers which can loose this +Prometheus-land. Let us seek them daily in our own hearts and +conversation. + +The Acts and other official documents of James's Parliament were +ordered by William's Parliament to be burned, and became extremely +scarce. In 1740 they were printed in Dublin by Ebenezer Rider, and from +that collection we propose to reprint the most important of them, as +the best and most solid answer to misrepresentation. + +The Parliament which passed those Acts was the first and the last which +ever sat in Ireland since the English invasion, possessed of national +authority, and complete in all its parts. The king, by law and in +fact--the king who, by his Scottish descent, his creed, and his +misfortunes, was dear (mistakenly or not) to the majority of the then +people of Ireland--presided in person over that Parliament. The peerage +consisted of the best blood, Milesian and Norman, of great wealth and +of various creeds. The Commons represented the Irish septs, the Danish +towns, and the Anglo-Irish counties and boroughs. No Parliament of +equal rank, from King to Commons, sat here since; none sat here before +or since so national in composition and conduct. + +Standing between two dynasties--endangering the one, and almost +rescuing the other--acting for a nation entirely unchained then for the +first time in 500 years--this Parliament and its Acts _ought_ to +possess the very greatest interest for the historian and the patriot. + +This was the speech with which his Majesty opened the Session:-- + + _My Lords and Gentlemen_, + + The Exemplary Loyalty which this Nation hath expressed to me, at a + time when _others_ of my _Subjects undutifully misbehaved + themselves to me, or so basely deserted me_: And your seconding my + Deputy, as you did, in His Firm and Resolute asserting my Right, in + preserving this Kingdom for me, and putting it in a Posture of + Defence; made me resolve to come to you, and to venture my life + with you, in the defence of your Liberties and my Own Right. And to + my great Satisfaction I have not only found you ready to serve me, + but that your Courage has equalled your Zeal. + + I have always been for Liberty of Conscience, and against invading + any Man's Property; having still in my Mind that Saying in Holy + Writ, _Do as you would be done to, for that is the Law and the + Prophets_. + + _It was this Liberty of Conscience I gave, which my Enemies both + Abroad and at Home dreaded; especially when they saw that I was + resolved to have it Established by Law in all my Dominions, and + made them set themselves up against me_, though for different + Reasons. Seeing that if I had once settled it, _My people_ (_in + the Opinion of the One_) would have been too happy; and I (_in the + Opinion of the Other_) too great. + + _This Argument was made use of_, to persuade their own People + to joyn with them, and to many of my Subjects to use me as they + have done. But nothing shall ever persuade me to change my Mind as + to that; and wheresoever I am the Master, I design (God willing) to + Establish it by Law; and have no other Test or Distinction but that + of Loyalty. + + I expect your Concurrence in so Christian a Work, and in making + Laws against Prophaneness and all Sorts of Debauchery. + + I shall also most readily consent to the making such Good and + Wholesome Laws as may be for the general Good of the Nation, the + Improvement of Trade, and the relieving of such as have been + injured by the late _Acts of Settlement_, as far forth as may + be consistent with Reason, Justice, and the Publick Good of my + People. + + And as I shall do my Part to make you Happy and Rich, I make no + Doubt of your Assistance; by enabling me to oppose the unjust + Designs of my Enemies, and to make this Nation flourish. + + And to encourage you the more to it, you know with what Ardour and + Generosity and Kindness the Most Christian King gave a secure + retreat to the Queen, my Son, and Myself, when we were forced out + of _England_, and came to seek for Protection and Safety in his + Dominions; how he embraced my Interest, and gave me such Supplies + of all Sorts as enabled me to come to you; which, without his + obliging Assistance, I could not have done: _This he did_ at a Time + when he had so many and so considerable Enemies to deal with: _and + you see still continues to do_. + + I shall conclude as I have begun, and assure you I am as sensible + as you can desire of the signal Loyalty you have expressed to me; + and shall make it my chief study (as it always has been) to make + you and all my Subjects happy. + +These were the Acts of that memorable parliament. + + +CHAPTER I. + +An Act of Recognition. + + +CHAPTER II. + +An Act for Annulling and making Void all Patents of Officers for Life, +or during good Behaviour. + + +CHAPTER III. + +An Act declaring, That the Parliament of England cannot bind Ireland +[and] against Writs of Error and Appeals, to be brought for Removing +Judgments, Decrees, and Sentences given in Ireland, into England. + + +CHAPTER IV. + +An Act for Repealing the Acts of Settlement, and Explanation, +Resolution of Doubts and all Grants, Patents and Certificates, pursuant +to them or any of them. [This Act will be dealt with separately in the +next chapter.] + + +CHAPTER V. + +An Act for punishing of persons who bring in counterfeit Coin of +foreign Realms being current in this Realm, or counterfeit the same +within this Realm, or wash, clip, file, or lighten the same. + + +CHAPTER VI. + +An Act for taking off all Incapacities on the Natives of this Kingdom. + + +CHAPTER VII. + +An Act for taking away the Benefits of the Clergy in certain Cases of +Felony in this Kingdom for two Years. + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +An Act to continue two Acts made to prevent Delays in Execution; and to +prevent Arrests of Judgments and Superseding Executions. + + +CHAPTER IX. + +An Act for Repealing a Statute, Entituled, An Act for Provision of +Ministers in Cities and Corporate Towns, and making the Church of St. +Andrews in the Suburbs of [the city of] Dublin Presentative for ever. + + +CHAPTER X. + +An Act of Supply for his Majesty for the Support of his Army. + +[The Act of Supply begins by giving good reasons for the making of it; +namely, that the army cost far more than the king's revenue, and that +that army was rendered necessary from the invasion of Ireland by the +English rebels. It next grants the king L20,000 a month, to be raised +by a land-tax, and this sum it distributes on the different counties +and counties of towns, according to their abilities. The rebellious +counties of Fermanagh and Derry are taxed just as lightly as if they +were loyal. The names of the commissioners are, beyond doubt, those of +the first men in their respective counties. The rank of the country was +as palpably on James's side as was the populace. + +The clauses regarding the tenants are remarkably clear and liberal: +"For as much," it says, "as it would be hard that the tenants should +bear _any_ proportion of the said sum, considering that it is very +difficult for the tenant to pay his rent in these distracted times," it +goes on to provide that the tax shall, in the first instance, be paid +by the occupier, but that, where land is let at its value, he shall be +ALLOWED THE WHOLE OF THE TAX OUT OF HIS RENT, notwithstanding any +contract to the contrary; and that where the land was let at _half_ its +value _or less_, then, and then only, should the tenant pay a share +(half) of the tax. Thus not only rack-rented farms, but all let at any +rent, no matter how little, over half the value, were free of this tax. +Where, in distracted or quiet times, since, has a parliament of +landlords in England or Ireland acted with equal liberality? + +The L20,000 a month hereby granted was altogether insufficient for the +war; and James, urged by the military exigency, which did not tolerate +the delay of calling a parliament when Schomberg threatened the +capital, issued a commission on the 10th April, 1690, to raise L20,000 +a month additional; yet so far was even this from meeting his wants, +that we find by one of Tyrconnell's letters to the queen (quoted in +Thorpe's catalogue for 1836), that in the spring of 1689, James's +expenses were L100,000 a month. Those who have censured this additional +levy and the brass coinage were jealous of what was done towards +fighting the battle of Ireland, or forgot that levies by the crown and +alterations of the coin had been practised by every government in +Europe.] + + +CHAPTER XI. + +An Act for Repealing the Act for keeping and celebrating the 23rd of +_October_ as an Anniversary Thanksgiving in this Kingdom. + + +CHAPTER XII. + +An Act for Liberty of Conscience, and Repealing such Acts or Clauses in +any Act of Parliament which are inconsistent with the same. + +An Act concerning Tythes and other Ecclesiastical Duties. + +_Acts XIII. and XV. provide for the payment of tithes by Protestants +to the Protestant Church and by Catholics to the Catholic Church._ + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +An Act regulating Tythes, and other Ecclesiastical Duties in the +Province of _Ulster_. + + +CHAPTER XVI. + +An Act for Repealing the Act for real Union and Division of Parishes, +and concerning Churches, Free-Schools and Exchanges. + + +CHAPTER XVII. + +An Act for Relief and Release of poor distressed Prisoners for Debts. + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + +An Act for the Repealing an Act, Entituled, An Act for Confirmation of +Letters Patent Granted to his Grace James Duke of Ormond. + +[The list of estates granted to Ormond, under the settlement at the +restoration, occupies a page and a half of Cox's Magazine. To reduce +him to his hereditary principalities (for they were no less) which he +held in 1641, was no great grievance, and that was the object of this +Act.] + + +CHAPTER XIX. + +An Act for Encouragement of Strangers and others to inhabit and plant +in the Kingdom of _Ireland_. + + +CHAPTER XX. + +An Act for Prevention of Frauds and Perjuries. + + +CHAPTER XXI. + +An Act for Prohibiting the Importation of English, Scotch, or Welch +Coals into this Kingdom. + + +CHAPTER XXII. + +An Act for ratifying and confirming Deeds and Settlements and last +Wills and Testaments of Persons out of Possession. + + +CHAPTER XXIII. + +An Act for the speedy Recovering of Servants' Wages. + + +CHAPTER XXIV. + +An Act for Forfeiting and Vesting in His Majesty the Goods of +Absentees. + + +CHAPTER XXV. + +An Act concerning Martial Law. + + +CHAPTER XXVI. + +An Act for Punishment of Waste committed on Lands restorable to old +Proprietors. + + +CHAPTER XXVII. + +An Act to enable his Majesty to regulate the Duties of Foreign +Commodities. + + +CHAPTER XXVIII. + +An Act for the better settling Intestates' Estates. + + +CHAPTER XXIX. + +An Act for the Advance and Improvement of Trade, and for Encouragement +and increase of Shipping, and Navigation. + + +CHAPTER XXX. + +An Act for the Attainder of Divers Rebels, and for the Preserving the +Interest of Loyal Subjects.--(Dealt with in our sixth chapter.) + + +CHAPTER XXXI. + +An Act for granting and confirming unto the Duke of _Tyrconnel_, Lands +and Tenements to the Value of L15,000 _per annum_. + + +CHAPTER XXXII. + +An Act for securing the Water-Course for the Castle and City of +_Dublin_. + + +CHAPTER XXXIII. + +An Act for relieving Dame _Anna Yolanda Sarracourt_, alias _Duval_, and +her Daughter. + + +CHAPTER XXXIV. + +An Act for securing Iron-works and Land thereunto belonging, on Sir +_Henry Waddington_, Knight, at a certain Rate. + + +CHAPTER XXXV. + +An Act for Reversal of the Attainder of _William Ryan_ of _Bally Ryan_ +in the County of _Tipperary_, Esq.; and for restoring him to his Blood, +corrupted by the said Attainder. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +REPEAL OF THE ACT OF SETTLEMENT. + + +It appears from the Journal of the proceedings of the parliament, and +from many other authorities, that no act of the Irish Parliament of +1689 received such full consideration as the following. Two bills were +brought in for the purpose of repealing the acts of settlement--that +into the House of Lords, on May 13, by Chief Justice Nugent; that into +the House of Commons by Lord Riverstown and Colonel MacCarthy. +Committees sat to inquire into the effects of the bills; many memorials +were read and considered; counsel were heard, both generally on the +bills and on their effects on individuals; the debates were long, and +it was not till after several conferences between the two houses that +the act passed. The act was deliberately and maturely considered. + +The titles and some of the effects of the acts of settlement are given +in the preamble to the following statute. The effect of those acts of +settlement had been, in a great degree, to confirm the unprincipled +distribution of Irish property, made by Cromwell's government, amongst +those who had served it best, or, what meant nearly the same thing, who +had most injured the Irish. The acts of settlement gave legality to a +revolution which transferred the lands of the natives to military +colonists. The repeal of those acts, within 24 years after they passed, +and within about 37 years after that revolution took place, cannot +excite much surprise. The _one-third_ of their holdings (which the +Cromwellian soldiers were obliged by the acts of the settlement to give +up) could not have made a fund to reprize those who had been ousted +from the entire. However, the giving up of that one-third was not +strictly enforced, and the stock resulting was wasted by commissioners, +and distributed as the applicants had interest at court, not as they +had title to the lands. Thus, Lord Ormond got some HUNDRED THOUSAND +acres; albeit he had done more substantial injury to the Irish, and to +the royalist cause in which they foolishly embarked, than any of the +parliamentarians, from Coote to Ireton. Under such circumstances, we +are not exaggerating the effect of the acts of settlement, passed after +the Restoration, in saying, that they confirmed by law the Cromwellian +robbery. The testimony of all the credible writers of the time goes to +the same effect. Indeed, the repeal of the acts of settlement would +have been against the interests of the natives, if they had received +justice from those acts. This, in itself, is sufficient to prove how +much hardship they had caused. The repeal of those acts by the Irish, +as soon as they were in power, seems natural, considering how great and +how recent was the injury they inflicted. Still, as we said, 24 years +had passed since those acts had become law. Many persons had got +possession of properties under that law, and many of those properties +had, doubtless, been sold, leased, subdivided, improved, and +incumbered, upon the faith of that law. It might be urged that persons +interested by such means in these properties had become so with full +knowledge that they had been acquired by violence and injustice, and +that the original owners and their families were in existence, ready +and resolved to take their first opportunity of regaining their rights. +Such reasoning fixes all who had advanced money, made purchases, or +become in any wise interested under the acts of settlement, with such +injustice and imprudence as to diminish their claim for compensation +upon the repeal of those acts. But it only diminished, it did not +destroy that claim. All those persons reposed some confidence in the +security of the then existing government; and many of them found a +justification for the Cromwellian conquest, in the conduct of the +Irish, as the well-sustained falsehoods of the English describe it. + +For these reasons, Chief Justice Keating prepared a long memorial, +which Forbes, Lord Granard, presented to the king, during the +discussions on the bills, in May, 1689, setting forth the claims of +those who came in under the acts of settlement, as incumbrancers, +purchasers, tenants, by marriage, etc. This memorial is dishonestly +represented by the Whig writers, as directed against the repeal +altogether; but any one who reads it (which he can do in the appendix +to Harris's life of William) will find that it is an argument in favour +of the classes described in the last sentence. From the long and +careful clauses in the following act, for the reprisal and compensation +of those classes, we must infer that Keating's memorial produced its +intended effect. However, these clauses require to be carefully +examined, to see whether they carry out this principle of compensation +fairly and impartially. The character of this parliament for moderation +depends greatly on their doings in this respect. + +We now come to a second class, the Irish who, having been given the +alternative of "Hell or Connaught" (as a certain bishop was of Heaven +or Dungarvan), preferred the latter, and were located on the lands of +the Connaught people. This class would generally come in for their old +holdings in the other provinces, and required no compensation; but the +distribution, under this act, of the incumbrances, etc., between them +and the owners of their former and present lands, seems lawyer-like and +reasonable. + +The next great class are the "adventurers," those who got lands during +the Commonwealth, and whose holdings were confirmed by the settlement. +Their claim was boldly and ably urged by Anthony Dopping, bishop of +Meath. His speech on the Repeal Bill is given in King's appendix, and +is worth reading. He bases their claim upon the supposition of the +Irish having been bloody rebels, rightly punished by the giving of +their lands to their loyal conquerors. His speech gives the genuine +opinion of the English at the time. The preamble to the following act, +and that to the Commons' bill, give the Irish view of the war. These +documents deny that the bulk of the Irish were engaged in the +conspiracy of 1641; and the denial is true, although it is also true +that more than a "few indigent persons" engaged in it, as is plain from +Lord Maguire's narrative; and although it might have more become this +Irish parliament to proclaim the absolute justice of the rising of +1641, on account of the sufferings of all ranks of Irish, in property +and in political and religious rights; while they might have lamented +that English atrocities had led to a cruel retaliation, though one +infinitely less than it has been represented. However, the parliament, +probably from delicacy to the king, based the rights of the Irish upon +the peace of 1684, and the Restoration as restoring them to their +loyalty, and to the properties possessed in 1641. + +Most fair inquirers will allow the justice of this restoration of the +Irish; but will lament that the act before us contains no provision for +the families of those adventurers, who, however guilty when they came +into the country, had been in it for from thirty to forty years, and +had time and some citizenship in their favour. There had been sound +policy in that too, but it was not done; and though the open hostility +of most of those adventurers to the government--though the wants and +urgency of the old proprietors, added to a lively recollection of the +horrors which thronged about their advent, may be urged in favour of +leaving them to work out their own livelihood by hard industry, or to +return to England, we cannot be quite reconciled to the wisdom of the +course. Yet, let any one who finds himself eager to condemn the Irish +Parliament on this account read over the facts that led to it, namely: +the conquest of Leinster before the Reformation; the settlements of +Munster and Ulster, under Elizabeth and James; the governments of +Strafford, and Parsons, and Borlace; Cromwell's and Ireton's conquest; +the effects of the acts of settlement, and the false-plot reign of +Charles II.; let them, we say, read these, and be at least moderate in +censuring the Parliament of 1689. + + +_The Preamble to the Act of Repeal of the Acts of Settlement and +Explanation, etc., as it passed the House of Commons._[27] + +Whereas the Ambition and Avarice of the Lords Justices ruling over this +your Kingdom, in 1641, did engage them to gather a malignant Party and +Cabal of the then Privy Council contrary to their sworn Faith and +natural Allegiance, in a secret Intelligence and traitorous +Combination, with the Puritan Sectaries in the Realm of _Great +Britain_, against their lawful and undoubted Sovereign, his Peace, +Crown, and Dignity, the Malice of which made it soon manifest in the +Nature and Tendency of their Proceedings; their untimely Prorogations +of a loyal unanimous Parliament, and thereby making void, and +disappointing the Effects of many seasonable Votes, Bills, and +Addresses which, passed into Laws, had certainly secured the Peace and +Tranquility of this Kingdom, by binding to his Majesty the Hearts of +his _Irish_ Subjects, as well by the Tyes of Affection and Gratitude, +as Duty and Allegiance there. The said Lords Justices traitorously +disbanding his Majesty's well assured Catholick Forces, when his Person +and Monarchy were exposed to the said Rebel Sectaries, then marching in +hostile Arms to dispoil him of his Power, Dominion, and Life; their +immediate calling into the Place and Stead of those his Majesty's +faithful disbanded Forces, a formidable Body of disciplined Troops +allied and confederated in Cause, Nation and Principles with those +Rebel Sectaries; their unwarrantable Entertainment of those Troops in +this Kingdom, to the draining of his Majesty's Treasury, and Terror of +his Catholick Subjects, then openly menaced by them the aforesaid Lords +Justices with a Massacre and total Extirpation, their bloody +Prosecution of that Menace, in the Slaughter of many innocent Persons, +thereby affrighting and compelling others in despair of Protection, +from their Government, to unite and take Arms for their necessary +Defence, and Preservation of their Lives; their unpardonable +Prevarication from his Majesty's Orders to them, in retrenching the +Time by him graciously given to his Subjects so compelled into Arms of +returning to their Duty; and stinting the General Pardon to such only +as had no Freehold Estates to make Forfeitures of; their pernicious +Arts in way-laying, exchanging and wickedly depriving all Intercourse +by Letters, Expresses, and other Communications and Privity betwixt +your said Royal Father and his much abused People; their insolent and +barbarous Application of Racks and other Engines of Torture to Sir +_John Read_, his then Majesty's sworn menial Servant, and that upon +their own conscience Suspicions of his being intrusted with the too +just Complaints of the persecuted Catholick aforesaid; their diabolical +Malice and Craft, in essaying by Promises and Threats, to draw from +him, the said _Read_, in his Torments, a false and impious Accusation +of his Master and Sovereign as being the Author and Promoter of the +then Commotion, so manifestly procured, and by themselves industriously +spread. + +And whereas a late eminent Minister of State, for parallel Causes and +Ends, pursuing the Steps of the aforesaid Lords Justices, hath by his +Interest and Power, cherished and supported a Fanatical Republican +Party, which heretofore opposed, put to flight, and chased out of this +your Kingdom of _Ireland_, the Royal Authority lodged in his Person, +and to transfer the calamitous Consequences of his fatal Conduct from +himself, upon your trusty _Roman_ Catholick Subjects, to the Breach of +publick Faith solemnly given and proclaimed in the Name of our late +Sovereign, interposed betwixt them and his late Majesty's general +Indulgence and Pardon, and wrought their Exclusion from that Indemnity +in their Estates, which by the said publick Faith is specially provided +for, and since hath been extended to the most bloody and execrable +Traitors, few only excepted by Name in all your Realms and Dominions. +And further, to exclude from all Relief, and even Access of Admittance +to Justice, to your said _Irish_ Catholick People, and to secure to +himself and his Posterity, his vast Share of their Spoils; he the said +eminent Minister did against your sacred Brother's Royal Promise and +Sanction aforesaid, advise and persuade his late Majesty to give, and +accordingly obtained his Royal Assent to two several Acts. The one +intituled, _An Act for the better Execution of his Majesty's gracious +Declaration for the Settlement of this Kingdom of_ Ireland, _and +Satisfaction of the several Interests of Adventurers, Soldiers, and +other his Majesty's Subjects there_. Which Act was so passed at a +Parliament held in this Kingdom, in the 14th and 15th Years of his +Reign. And the other, An Act intituled, _An Act of Explanation_, etc. + +Which Act was passed in a Session of the Parliament held in this +Kingdom, in the 17th and 18th Years of his Reign, most of the Members +thereof being such, as forcibly possessed themselves of the Estates of +your Catholic subjects in this Kingdom, and were convened together for +the sole special Purpose of creating and granting to themselves and +their Heirs, the Estates and Inheritances of this your Kingdom of +_Ireland_, upon a scandalous, false Hypothesis, imputing the traitorous +Design of some desperate, indigent Persons to seize your Majesty's +Castle of _Dublin_, on the 23rd of _October_, 1641, to an universal +Conspiracy of your Catholick Subjects, and applying the Estates and +Persons thereby presumed to have forfeited, to the Use and Benefit of +that Regicide Army, which brought that Kingdom from its due Subjection +and Obedience to his Majesty, under the Peak and Tyranny of a bloody +Usurper. An Act unnatural, or rather viperously destroying his late +Majesty's gracious Declaration, from whence it had Birth, and its +Clauses, Restorations and Uses, inverting the very fundamental Laws, as +well of your Majesty's, as all other Christian Governments. An Act +limiting and confining the Administration of Justice to a certain Term +or Period of Time, and confirming the Patrimony of Innocents unheard, +to the most exquisite Traytors, that now stand convict on Record; the +Assigns and Trustees, even of the then deceased _Oliver Cromwell_ +himself, for whose Arrears, as General of the Regicide Army, special +Provision is made at the Suit of his Pensioners. Now in regard the Acts +above mentioned do in a florid and specious Preamble, contrary to the +known Truth in Fact, comprehend all your Majesty's _Roman_ Catholick +Subjects of _Ireland_, in the Guilt of those few indigent Persons +aforesaid, and on that Supposition alone, by the Clause immediately +subsequent to that Preamble, vest all their Estates in his late +Majesty, as a Royal Trustee, to the principal Use of those who deposed +and murthered your Royal Father, and their lawful Sovereign. And +furthermore, to the Ends that the Articles and Conditions granted in +the Year 1648, by Authority from your Majesty's Royal Brother, then +lodged in the Marquess of _Ormond_, may be duly fulfilled and made good +to your Majesty's present _Irish_ Catholick Subjects, in all their +Parts and Intentions, and that the several Properties and Estates in +this Kingdom may be settled in their antient Foundations, as they were +on the 21st of _October_, 1641. And that all Persons may acquiesce and +rejoyce under an impartial Distribution of Justice, and sit peaceably +down under his own Vine or Patrimony, to the abolishing all Distinction +of Parties, Countries and Religions, and settling a perpetual Union and +Concord of Duty, Affection, and Loyalty to your Majesty's Person and +Government in the Hearts of your Subjects, Be it enacted, etc. + +[Here follows the Act of Repeal.] + + --------------------------------------------------------------- + [27] This Preamble is James II.'s own writing, as appears by "The + Journal." + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +THE ACT OF ATTAINDER. + + +CHAPTER XXX. + +_An Act for the attainder of various rebels, and for preserving the +interests of loyal subjects._ + +The authenticity of this Act as printed by Archbishop King has been +questioned, especially by William Todd Jones in 1793. But we believe +its authenticity cannot be successfully contested. Lesley, in his +"Reply" to King, makes no attempt to disprove its existence, but, on +the contrary, alludes to it and applauds James for having opposed it. +King, however, asserts that the Act was kept a secret; and that the +persons attainted, or their friends, could not obtain a copy of it. For +this Jones answers:-- + + "But the fact (as stated by King) is impossible: conceive the + absurdity; an act of parliament is _smuggled_, where? through two + houses of lords and commons; of whom were they composed? of + catholics crowded with protestants; though Leland, upon the + authority of King, says there were but fourteen _real_ protestants. + Well, what did these two houses do? They voted and passed a + _secret_ act of attainder of 2,500 protestants, which was to lie-by + privately in petto, to be brought forward _at a proper time_; + unknown, unheard of, by all the protestant part of the kingdom, + till _peace_ was restored: and that, according to King, was to be + deemed _the proper time_ for a renewal of _war_ and _devastation_, + by its publication and execution, and the secret was to be closely + kept from nearly 3,000 persons by the whole house of commons; by + fifty-six peers, including primate Boyle, Barry lord Barrymore, + Angier lord Longford, Forbes, the incomparable lord Granard (of + whom more in my next continuation), Parsons lord Ross, Dopping bp. + of Meath, Otway bp. of Ossory, Wetenhal bishop of Cork, Digby + bishop of Limerick, Bermingham lord Athenry, St. Lawrence lord + Howth, Mallon lord Glenmallon, Hamilton lord Strabane, all + protestants and many of them presbyterians, or rather puritans. It + was kept close from 3,000 persons by all the privy council; by all + the clerks of parliament who engross and tack together bills, it + was to be kept an entire secret from all the protestants without + doors, by all the protestants within the gates of parliament; and + this probable, wise politic expectation was entertained _by those + Catholic peers and representatives_, who through the cloud of war, + passion, and uncertainty, could exercise the more than human + moderation in solemnly prescribing the narrow bounds of + thirty-eight years to all enquirers after titles under the revived + court of claims: by those peers and representatives, whose + patriotism, political knowledge, and comprehensive minds instructed + them TO DECLARE THE INDEPENDENCE OF THE REALM, THE FREEDOM OF IRISH + TRADE, AND THE INESTIMABLE VALUE OF A MARINE.--Good God, that any + man, woman I mean, after such ACKNOWLEDGED, UNCONTROVERTED + DOCUMENTS of the wisdom and reach of mind of that parliament, could + be induced to credit and to advance the forgeries of a vicar of + Bray under a persecuting protestant administration, FOR THE WICKED + PURPOSE OF CALUMNIATING THEIR MEMORY, AND DEFEATING THE EFFORTS OF + THEIR POSTERITY FOR FREEDOM.... + + "A secret conspiracy BY WAY OF STATUTE against the lives of near + three thousand people, appears in itself impracticable and + fabulous; but that it should have been agitated IN OPEN PARLIAMENT, + and in the hearing of the protestant members, and yet expected to + have been kept a secret from the protestants, _by these protestant + members_, is childish and ridiculous.--In that parliament sat the + venerable lord Granard, a protestant, and _a constant adherent and + companion_ of King James in Ireland--'This excellent nobleman had + married a lady of presbyterian principles; was protector of the + northern puritans; had humanely secreted their teachers from those + severities which in England proved both odious and impolitic; and + had gained them an annual pension of L500 from government.'--(Leland, + vol. 3, p. 490). 'It was this lord Granard to whom the assembled + protestants of Ulster, by colonel Hamilton of Tullymore, who was + sent to Dublin for the sole purpose, unanimously offered the + command of their armed association, from their confidence in his + protestant principles; but he told Mr. Hamilton THAT HE HAD LIVED + LOYAL ALL HIS LIFE, AND WOULD NOT DEPART FROM IT IN HIS OLD AGE; + AND HE WAS RESOLVED THAT NO MAN SHOULD WRITE REBEL UPON HIS + GRAVESTONE.'--(Lesley's "Reply," pp. 79, 80.) ... Is it then likely + that this man would be privy to a general protestant proscription, + and not reveal it?--and it is probable that such a SECRET + CONSPIRACY BY WAY OF STATUTE could pass the houses of commons, and + lords, the privy council, and finally the king, and that it never + should come to the knowledge of a peer of parliament, a favourite + of the court, a resident in Dublin, and every day attendant in his + place in the upper house?" + +The intrinsic improbability is well proved here, and would suffice to +show King's falsehood as to the secrecy of the act; but if further +proof were needed, the authorities which prove the authenticity of the +act utterly disprove the secrecy alleged by King. The act is well +described, in the London Gazette of July 1 to 4, 1689, and the names +are given in print, in a pamphlet licensed in London, the 2nd day of +the year 1690 (March 26th, old style). + +Jones's statement as to the destruction of all papers relating to that +parliament having been ordered, under a penalty of L500 and incapacity +from office, is certain, and we give the clause in our note;[28] but +this clause was not enacted till 1695, and, therefore, could not have +affected the acts of 1689, when King wrote in 1690. + +Moreover, we cannot find any trace of Richard Darling (who professedly +made the "_copia vera_" for King) as clerk in the office of the Master +of the Rolls, or in any office, in 1690. A Richard Darling was +appointed secretary to the commissioners for the inspection of +forfeitures, by patent dated 1st of June, 5 William III. (1693) + +There certainly are grounds for supposing that some great jugglery, +either as to the clauses or names in the act, was perpetrated by this +well-paid and unscrupulous Williamite. The temptation to fabricate as +much of the act (clauses or names) as possible was immense. The want of +scruple to commit any fraud is plain upon King's whole book. The +likelihood of discovery alone would deter him. Probably every family +who had a near relative in the "list" would be secured to William's +interest, and no part of King's work could have helped more than this +act to make that book what Burnet called it, "the best fitted to +_settle_ the minds" of the people of England, of any of the books +published on the Revolution. + +The preamble states truly the rebellion of the northerns to dethrone +their legitimate king, and bring in the Prince of Orange; and that the +insurgents, though offered full pardon in repeated proclamations, still +continued in rebellion. It enacts that certain persons therein named, +who had "notoriously joyned in the said rebellion and _invasion_," or +been slain in rebellion, should be attainted of high treason, and +suffer its penalties, _unless before the 10th of August following_ +(_i.e._, at least seven weeks from the passing of the act) they came +and stood their trial for treason, according to law, when, if otherwise +acquitted, the Act should not harm them. The number of persons in this +clause vary in the different lists from 1,270 to 1,296. + +It cannot be questioned that the persons here _conditionally_ attainted +were in arms to dethrone the hereditary sovereign, supported, as he +was, by a regularly elected parliament, by a large army, by foreign +alliances, and by the good-will of five-sixths of the people of +Ireland. King he was _de jure_ and _de facto_, and they sought to +dethrone him, and to put a foreign prince on the throne. If ever there +were rebels, they were. + +As to their creed, there is no allusion to it. Roman Catholic and +Protestant persons occur through the lists with common penalties +denounced against both; but neither creed is named in it. + +We do not say whether those attainted were right or wrong in their +rebellion: but the certainty that they were rebels according to the +law, constitution, and custom of this and most other nations, justified +the Irish parliament in treating them as such; and should make all who +sympathise with _these_ rebels pause ere they condemn every other party +on whom law or defeat have fixed that name. Yet even this attaint is +but _conditional_; the parties had over seven weeks to surrender and +take their trial, and the king could, at any time, for over four months +after, grant them a pardon both as to persons and property--a pardon +which, whether we consider his necessities and policy, his habitual +leniency, or the repeated attempts to win back his rebellious subjects +by the offer of free pardon, we believe he would have refused to few. +This, too, is certain, that it _has never been even alleged that one +single person suffered death under this much talked of Act_. Of the +constitutional character of the Act, more presently. + +The second article attaints persons who had absented themselves "since +or shortly before" the 5th November, 1688, unless they return before +the 1st of September, that is, in about ten weeks. Staying in England +certainly looked like adhesion to the invader, yet the mere difficulty +of coming over during the war should surely have been considered. + +The third attaint is of persons absent before (some time probably +before) 5th November, 1688, unless they return before the 1st October, +that is, within about fourteen weeks. + +Moreover, a certain number of the persons named in this conditional +attaint are excepted from it specially, by a following clause, unless +the king should go to England (their usual residence) before 1st +October, 1689, and that after his arrival they should neglect to +signify their loyalty to the satisfaction of his Majesty. + +Yet Harris and "The List" licensed 26th March, 1690, have the audacity +to _add_ these English residents and make another list of attainted +persons, _instead of deducting_ them from the list under clause 3. + +With similar want of faith, both these writers make out a fifth list of +attaints of the persons explicitly not attainted, but whose _rents_ are +forfeited by sec. 8, so long as they continue absentees. Thus, two out +of the five lists, by adding which Harris makes up his 2,461 attaints, +are not lists of attainders at all, and one of them should be rather +deducted from one of the three lists of real attaints. Harris has under +this exception for English residents 547 names (though printed 647 in +totting), and were we to deduct these and the fifth list of 85 persons, +his number of attaints would fall to 1,829; though he himself confesses +that there must be some small drawback for persons attainted twice +under different descriptions; and though his own totting, without +removing either the fourth or fifth list, is only 2,461, yet in his +text he says, "about 2,600" were attainted. + +Yet Harris and "The List" pamphlet, which give the names in schedules, +were more likely to misplace the lists than King, and he certainly did +so in reference to the fourth list. + + Names. + King's first list, like the rest, contains 1,280 + His second 455 + And his third 197 + ------ + 1,932 + And deducting the names in list 4 59 + ------ + King's list falls to 1,873 + +Yet even in this many are attainted twice over. + +Harris's second list and "The List's" third list, each of 79 names, +should be under title 4, namely, English residents, containing 59 in +King. Harris's third list of 454 names should be second, namely, +Absentees since 5th November, containing in King 455, and in "The List" +480 names. Harris's fourth list of 547, and "The List's" fourth list of +528 names, should go to No. 3 in King, containing only 197 names, viz., +of persons absent before 5th November. Without making these +corrections, we would have the conditional attaints, under clauses 1, +2, and 3, amount in "The List" to 1,311, in Harris to 1,282, and in +King to 1,873. But if we make these corrections, King's will remain at +1,873, Harris's rise to 2,218, and "The List" to 2,209. + +It would, we think, puzzle La Place to calculate the probability of any +particular name being authentic amid this wilderness of inaccuracies. + +The fifth class of 85 persons are, as we said, _not attainted at all_. +The 8th section declares them to be absent from nonage, infirmity, +etc., and denounces no penalty against their persons, but "it being +much to the weakening and impoverishing of this Realm, that any of the +Rents or Profits of the Lands, Tenements, of Hereditaments thereof +should be sent into or spent in any other place beyond the seas, but +that the same should be kept and employed within the Realm for the +better support and defence thereof," it vests the properties of these +absentees in the King, until such time as these absentees return and +apply by petition to the Chancery or Exchequer for their restoration. +Harder penalties for absenteeism were enacted repeatedly before, and +considering the necessities of Ireland in that awful struggle, this +provision seems just, mild, and proper. + +By the fourth section, all the goods and properties of _all_ the +first four classes of absentees were also vested in the King till their +return, acquittal, pardon or discharge. By the 5th and 6th sections, +remainders and reversions to innocent persons after any estate for +lives forfeited by the Act, are saved and preserved, provided (by the +7th section) claims to them are made within 60 days after the first +sitting of the Court of Claims under the Act. But remainders in +settlements, of which the uses could be changed, or where the lands +were "plantation" lands, etc., were not saved. Whether such a Court of +Claims ever sat is at least doubtful. + +By the 9th and 11th sections, the rights and incumbrances of +non-forfeiting persons over the forfeited estates are saved, provided +(by section 12) their claims are made, as in case of remainder-men, +etc. + +The 10th section makes void Lord Strafford's abominable "offices," or +confiscations of Connaught, Clare, Limerick, and Tipperary, and +confirms the titles of the right owners, as if these offices had not +been found. + +The 13th section repeals a private act for conferring vast estates on +Lord Albemarle out of the forfeitures on the Restoration. + +The remaining clauses, except the last, have nothing to do with the +Attainders. They are subsidiary to the Act repealing the Acts of +Settlement and Explanation. They reprize ancient proprietors, who had +bought or taken leases of their own estates from the owners under the +Settlement Acts. + +The 17th section provides for the completion of the Down or Strafford +Survey, and for the reduction of excessive quit rents. In this section +the phrase occurs, "their Majesties," but this is probably a mistake in +printing, though a crotchety reasoner might find in it a doubt of the +authenticity of the Act. + +The 21st and last section provides that any of the persons attainted +"who shall return to their duty and loyalty" may be pardoned by royal +warrant, provided that such pardon be issued "before the first day of +November next, otherwise the pardon to be of no effect." + + --------------------------------------------------------------- + [28] The clause for the destruction of the Records of the + parliament of 1689, is in an act annulling the attainders and all + acts of 1689. + + "Be it enacted by the King's most excellent Majesty, by and with + the advice and consent of the lords spiritual and temporal and + commons in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority + of the same, That all and every the acts, or pretended acts, and + the rolls whereon the said acts or pretended acts, and every of + them, are recorded or engrossed, and all proceedings of what nature + or kind soever had, made, done, or passed by the said persons + lately so assembled at Dublin, pretending to be or calling + themselves by the name of a Parliament, and also all writs issued + in order to the calling of the said pretended Parliament, and + returned into any office in this kingdom, and there remaining, and + all the journals of the said pretended Parliament, and other books + or writings in any wise relating thereunto, or to the holding + thereof, shall, by the officers or persons in whose custody the + same are, be brought before the lord deputy, or other chief + governour or governours of this kingdom for the time being, at such + time as the lord deputy, or other chief governour or governours for + the time being shall appoint, at the council chamber in Dublin, and + there shall be publicly and openly cancelled and utterly destroyed: + and in case any officer or person in whose hands or custody the + said acts and rolls or proceedings, or any of them, do or shall + remain, shall wilfully neglect or refuse to produce the same, to + the intent that the same may be cancelled and destroyed, according + to the true intent of this act, every such person and officer shall + be, and is hereby adjudged and declared to be from thenceforth + incapable of any office or employment whatsoever, and shall forfeit + and pay the sum of five hundred pounds, one-half thereof to his + Majesty, and the other half to such person or persons that shall + sue for the same by any action of debt, bill, plaint, or + information, in any court of record whatsoever."--7 _Will. III. + Ir. c. 1._ + + "_It is possible_ an outline of some such bill might have been + prepared by one of those hot-headed people of whom James had too + many in his councils either for his safety or for his reputation, + and they were chiefly ENGLISH; and that such draft of a bill having + been laid before _parliament_, that wise, patriotic and sagacious + _body_ did ameliorate and reduce it into 'the statute for the + revival of the court of claims'; a law so unparalleled from its + moderation in its review of forfeitures, by going back to + _Cromwell's debentures exclusively_; a period of only thirty-eight + years anterior to the date of their then sitting. + + "Such a _draft of a bill_, like our own protestant bill for the + castration of Romish priests, _which did pass_ here but was + cushioned in England,[1] or like the _threat of a bill for + levelling popish chapels_, which I myself heard made when I sat in + the house of commons, such a draft of a bill, I say, might have + been found among the baggage of the Duke of Tyrconnel, of Sir + Richard Nagle, or of the unfortunate sovereign himself, for Burnet + acquaints us, That all Tyrconnel's papers were taken in the camp; + and those of James were found in Dublin." (Burnet's "Own Times," + Vol. 2nd, p. 30). + + [1] This is not quite correct. The penalty in the Bill, as it + passed the Irish House of Commons, was branding on the cheek. + In sending the Bill on to England the Irish Privy Council + substituted castration. The English Government restored the + original penalty. The Bill ultimately fell through, but not, it + would seem, on this point. See Lecky, "History of England," + Vol. I., ch. ii.--T. W. R. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +CONCLUSION. + + +Let us now run our eyes ever the deeds of the Feis or parliament of +1689. It came into power at the end of a half century of which the +beginning was a civil and religious, social and proprietal persecution, +combining all the atrocities to which Ireland had been alternatively +subject for four centuries and a half. Of this, the next stage was a +partial insurrection, rendered universal by a bloody and rapacious +government. The next stage was a war, in which civil and religious +quarrels were so fiendishly combined that it could not end while there +was any one to fight with; in which the royalist dignitaries were the +cruelest foes of the royalist armies and people, and in which the +services done by cool and patriot soldiers were rendered useless by +factious theologians. The next stage was conquest, slaughter, exile, +confiscation, and the repose of solitude or of slavery. The next was a +Restoration which gave back its worst prerogatives to the crown, but +gave the restorers and royalists only a skirt of their properties. Then +came a struggle for proprietal justice and religious toleration, met by +an infamous conspiracy of the deceptious aristocracy and the fanatic +people of England, to blast the characters of the Irish, and decimate +the men; and lastly, a king, who strained his prerogative to do them +justice, is driven from England by a Dutchman, supported by blue +guards, black guards, and flaming lies, and is forced to throw himself +on the generosity and prudence of Ireland. + +A faction existed who raised a civil war in every province; and in +every province, save one, it was suppressed; but in that one it +continued, and the sails of an invading fleet already flap in the +Channel breeze when this parliament is summoned. + +How difficult was their position! How could they act as freemen, +without appearing ungenerous to a refugee and benefactor king? How +guard their nationality, without quarrelling with him or alienating +England from him? How could they do that proprietal justice and grant +that religious liberty for which the country had been struggling? How +check civil war--how sustain a war by the resources of a distracted +country? Yet all this the Irish parliament did, and more too; for they +established the principal parts of a code needful for the _permanent_ +liberty and prosperity of Ireland. + +Take up the list of acts passed in their session of seventy-two days +and run over them. They begin by recognising their lawful king who had +thrown himself among them. They pledge themselves to him against his +powerful foe. Knowing full well the struggle that was before them, and +that lukewarm and malcontent agents might ruin them, they tossed aside +those official claims, which in times of peace and safety should be +sacred. + +But their next act deserves more notice. It must not be forgotten that +Molyneux's "Case of Ireland," which the parliaments of England and +Ireland first burnt, and ended by declaring and enacting as sound law, +was published in 1699, just ten years after this parliament of James's. +Doubtless the antique rights of the native Irish, the comparative +independence of the Pale, the arguments of Darcy, the memory of the +council of Kilkenny, might suggest to Molyneux those principles of +independence, which one of his cast of mind would hardly reach by +general reasoning. But why go so far back, and to so much less apt +precedents? Here, in the parliament of 1689, was a law made declaring +Ireland to be and to have always been a "distinct kingdom" from +England; "always governed by his majesty and his predecessors according +to the ancient customs, laws, and statutes thereof, and that the +parliament of Ireland, and that _alone_, could make laws to bind this +kingdom;" and expressly enacting and declaring that no law save such as +the Irish parliament might make should bind Ireland. And this act +prohibited all English jurisdiction in Ireland, and all appeals to the +English peers or to any other court out of Ireland. Is not this the +whole argument of Molyneux, the hope of Swift and Lucas, the attempt of +Flood, the achievement of Grattan and the Volunteers? Is not this an +epitome of the Protestant patriot attempts, from the Revolution to the +Dungannon Convention? Is not this the soul of '82? Surely, if it be, as +it is, just to track the stream of liberation back to Molyneux, we +should not stop there; but when we find that a parliament which sat +only ten years before his book was published, which must have been a +daily subject of conversation--as it certainly was of written +polemics--during those ten years; when we find this upper fountain so +obviously streaming into the thought of Molyneux, should we not +associate the parliament of 1689 with that of 1782, and place Nagle and +Rice and its other ruling spirits along with Flood and Grattan in our +gratitude? + +Moreover, the lords and commons expressly repealed Poyning's law, and +passed a bill creating Irish Inns of Court, and abolishing the rules +for keeping terms in London. But the king rejected these. We are to +this day without this benefit which the senate of '89 tried to give us; +and the future advocates and judges of Ireland are hauled off to a +foreign and dissolute capital to go through an idle and expensive +ceremony, term after term, as an essential to being allowed to practise +in the courts of this their native kingdom. + +The Act (c. 4.) for restoring the ancient gentry to their possessions, +we have already canvassed. It were monstrous to suppose the parliament +ought to have respected the thirty-eight years' usurpation of savage +invaders, and to have overlooked the rights of the national chieftains, +the plundered proprietors who lived, and whose families lived, to claim +their rights. The care with which purchasers and incumbrancers were to +be reprized we have already noticed; yet we cannot but repeat our +regret that the bill of the Lords (which left the adventurers of +Cromwell a moiety of their usurpations) did not pass. + +Naturally related to this are the Acts, c. 24, for vesting attainted +absentees' goods in the King, and c. 30, attainting a number of +insurgents. We have already shown from King, that the Whigs had taken +good care of the two things forfeited--their chattels, which they had +sent to them, without opposition, during the month of March, and their +persons, which they put under the guard of the gallant insurgents of +Derry and Fermanagh, or in the keeping of William and the charity of +England. How poorly they were treated then in England may be guessed at +by the choice men of the impoverished defenders of Derry having been +left without money, aye, or even clothing or food in the streets of +London. + +We heartily censure this Attainder Act. It was _the_ mistake of the +Irish Parliament. It bound up the hearts and interests of those who +were named in it, and of their children, in William's success. It could +not be enforced: they were absent. It could not be terrible till +victory sanctioned it, and then it would be needless and cruel to +execute. Yet, let us judge the men rightly. James had been hunted out +of England by lies, treachery, bigotry, cabal, and a Dutch invader, for +having attempted to grant religious liberty, by his prerogative. Those +attainted were, nine out of ten, in arms against him and their country. +They had been repeatedly offered free pardon. Just before the Act was +brought in, a free pardon, excepting only ten persons, was offered, yet +few of the insurgents came in; and James, instead of forbidding +quarter, or hanging his prisoners, or any other of the acts of rigour +usual in hereditary governments down to our own time, consented to an +Act requiring the chief persons of the insurrection to come, in periods +specified, and amply long enough, to stand their trials. Certain it is, +as we said before, that though many of these were or became prisoners, +none were executed. The Act was a dead letter; and considering the +principles of the time, surely the Act was not wonderful. + +In order, then, to judge them better, let us see what the other +side--the immaculate Whigs, who assailed the Irish--did when they were +in power. Of anything previous to the Revolution--of the treachery and +blood, by law and without law, under the Plantagenets, Tudors, Stuarts, +and the Commonwealth--'tis needless to speak. But let us see what their +neighbours, the Williamites, did. + +The Irish Attainder Act was not brought in till the end of June. Now, +this is of great value, for the dates of the last papers on Ireland, +laid before the English Commons, having been 10th June, 1689, they, on +the 20th June, "_Resolved_, that leave be given to bring in a Bill to +attaint of high treason certain persons who are now in Ireland, or any +other parts beyond the seas, adhearing to their Majesties' enemies, and +shall not return into England by a certain day."[29] + +The very next entry is--"A Bill for the attainting certain persons of +high treason, was read the first time." "_Resolved,_ that the Bill be +read a second time." + +Here was a bill to attaint persons beyond seas in another kingdom where +William had never been acknowledged--where James was welcomed by nine +men out of ten--from whence, so far from being able to procure evidence +or allow defence, they could but by accident get intelligence and +reports once in some months. It is not here pretended that the +attainted were habitual residents in England. The bill passed the +second reading, and was committeed, June 22nd, with an instruction to +the committee, "That they insert into the bill such other of the +persons as were this day _named in the house_, as they shall find +cause." + +Again, on the 24th--"_Ordered_, that it be an instruction to the +committee, to whom the bill for attainting certain persons is referred, +that they prepare and bring in a clause for the _immediate_ seizing the +estates of such persons who are _or_ shall be proved to be in arms with +the late King James in Ireland, or in his service in France." On the +29th is another instruction to "prepare and bring in a clause that the +estates of the persons who are now in rebellion (!) in Ireland be +applied to the relief of the Irish Protestants fled into this realm; +and also to declare all the proceedings of the pretended parliament and +courts of justice, now held in Ireland, to be null and void;" the +committee "to sit _de die in diem_, till the bill be finished." + +Up to this time they could not have known that any attainder act had +been brought in in Ireland. On the 9th July, Sergeant Trenchard +reported, "That the committee had _proof_" (we shall presently see of +what kind) "of _several other_ persons being in Ireland in arms with +King James, and therefore had agreed their names should be inserted in +the bill." "Ordered, that the bill, so amended, be engrossed." On the +11th July the bill passed, inserting _August_, 1689, instead of August +next, and inserting some Christian names. + +The bill reached the Lords. + +Upon the 24th July a message was sent to the Lords urging the despatch +of the bill. On the 2nd August, at a conference, the Lords required to +know _on what evidence_ the names were introduced as being in Ireland, +"for, upon their best inquiry, they say they cannot learn some of them +have been there--they instanced the Lord Hunsden." On the 3rd of +August, Mr. Sergeant Trenchard acquaints the house that the names of +those who gave evidence at the bar of the house touching the persons +who are named in the bill of attainder, being in Ireland, were Bazill +Purefoy and William Dalton; and those at the committee, to whom the +bill was referred, were William Watts and Math. Gun; four persons, two +and two giving the whole evidence for the attainder of those who stood +by King James in Ireland! This report was handed to the Lords on the +5th August. + +On the 20th August the Lords returned the bill, with some amendments, +leaving out Lord Hunsden and four or five more, and inserting a few +others; and upon this day the parliament was prorogued. + +Again, on the 30th October, a bill was ordered to attaint all such +persons as were in rebellion against their Majesties. On the 26th +November, certain members were ordered to prepare a bill attainting all +who had been in arms against William and Mary, since _14th February_, +1688-9, or any time since, and all who _have been_, or shall be, +_aiding, assisting, or abetting_ them. On the 10th December the bill +was reported and read a first time, and the committee ordered to bring +in a bill for sale of the estates forfeited thereby. + +On the 4th April, 1690, another bill was ordered, and was read 22nd +April. + +Again, on 22nd October, another attainder and confiscation bill was +brought and passed the Commons on the 23rd December. + +Wearied at length by unsuccessful bills, which the better or more +interested feeling of the Lords, or the policy of the King, perpetually +defeated, they abandoned any further attainder bills, and merely +advertized for money on the forfeited lands in Ireland. + +The attainders in _court_ might satisfy them. The commissioners of +forfeitures, under 10 William III., c. 9, reported to the Commons on +the 15th of December, 1699, that the persons outlawed for treason in +Ireland since the 13th of February, 1688-9, on account of the late +rebellion, were 3,921 in number. It was abominable for James's +parliament to attaint conditionally the rebels against the old king, +but reasonable for the Whigs to attaint about double the number +absolutely, for never having recognized the new king! These 3,921 had +properties, says the report, to the amount of 1,060,792 _plantation_ +acres, worth L211,623 a year, and worth in money, L2,685,130, "besides +the several denominations in the said several counties to which no +number of acres can be added, by reason of the imperfection of the +surveys not here valued." Of these 3,921, there were 491 restored under +the first commission on the articles of Galway and Limerick; and 792 +under the second commission, having joint properties of 233,106 acres, +worth L55,763 a year, or L724,923 purchase, leaving 2,638 persons +having 827,686 acres, worth L155,859 a year, or L1,960,206. Yet the +fees were monstrous, says the commissioners, in these Courts of Claims, +L5 being the register's fees for even _entering_ a claim. William +restored property to the amount of 74,733 acres, worth L20,066 per +annum, or L260,863 in all, which would leave as absolutely forfeited +property 752,953 acres, worth L135,793 a year, and L1,699,343 in all; +and even were we to deduct in proportion, which we ought not, as those +pardoned were chiefly the very wealthy few, there would remain over +2,400 persons attained by office, after deducting all who carved out +their acquittal with shot and sword, and all whom the tenderness or +wisdom of the king pardoned. + +The commissioners state that L300,000 worth of chattels were seized, +not included in the above estimate; nor were 297 houses in Dublin, 26 +in Cork, 226 elsewhere, mills, chief rents, L60,000 worth of woods, +etc., in it. + +Most of these properties had been given away freely by William. Amongst +his grants they specify all King James's estates, over 95,000 acres, +worth L25,995 a year, to Mrs. Elizabeth Villiers, Countess of Orkney. +She was William's favourite mistress. James, to his honour be it +spoken, had thrown these estates into the general fund for reprisal of +the injured Irish. + +Here, then, is certainly not a justification of the Parliament of 1689, +in passing the Attainder Act, but evidence from the journals of the +English Parliament and the reports of their commissioners, that they +tried to do worse than the Irish Parliament (under far greater excuses) +are accused of having done, and that the actual amount of punishment +_inflicted_ by the Williamite courts in Ireland far exceeded what the +Irish Parliament of 1689 had _conditionally threatened_. + +The next Acts as a class are c. 9, repealing ministers' money act; c. +12, granting perfect liberty of conscience to men of all creeds; c. 13, +directing Roman Catholics to pay their tithes to their own priests; c. +14, on Ulster poundage; c. 15, appointing those tithes to the _parish_ +priests, and recognising as a Roman Catholic prelate no one but him +whom the king under privy signet and sign manual should signify and +recognize as such. All these acts went to create religious equality, +certainly not the voluntary system; neither party approved of it then; +but to make the Protestant support his own minister, and the Roman +Catholic his own, without violation of conscience, or a shadow of +supremacy. The low salaries (L100 to L200 a year) of the Roman Catholic +prelates, and their exclusion from Parliament, were in the same +moderate spirit. + +Again, this Parliament introduced the Statute of Frauds (which, having +been set aside, was not adopted until the 7th William III.); Acts for +relief of poor debtors, for the speedy recovery of wages, and for +ratifying wills and deeds by persons out of possession. + +Chapter 21, forbidding the importation of foreign coals, was designed +to render this country independent of English trade. At that time the +bogs were larger and the people fewer. Their opinion that this +importation which "hindered the industry of several poor people and +labourers who might have employed themselves" in supplying the cities, +etc., with turf, reminds us of Mr. Laing's most able notice in his +"Norway" of the immense employment to men, women, and children, by the +cutting of firewood; and what a powerful means this is of doing that +which is as important as the production of wealth, the diffusion of it +without any great inequality through all classes. Part of c. 29, +encouraging trade, laying heavy import duties on English goods, and +giving privileges to Irish ships over foreign, especially over English, +was the result of sound, practical patriotism. It was necessary to +guard our trade, manufactures, and shipping against the rivalry of a +near, rich, and aspiring neighbour, that would crush them in their +cradles. It was wise to raise the energies of infant adventure by +favour, and not trust it in a reckless competition. The example, too, +of all countries which had reared up commerce by their own favour and +their neighbours' surrender of trade, would have justified them. + +Besides the schools for the Navy under c. 29, c. 16 deals also with +schools. We have not the latter Act; but, considering James's known +zeal for education, his foundation of the Kilkenny college, and the +spirit of the provision in c. 29, we may guess the liberality of the +other. One of the most distinguished of our living historians has told +us that he remembered having seen evidence that this Act established a +school for general (national) education in every parish in Ireland. + +C. 10, the Act of Supply; c. 25, Martial Law, and this Act, c. 29, were +a code of defence. The supply was proportioned to their abilities: +every exertion was made, and all efforts were needed. Plowden puts the +effect of this c. 29 not ill:-- + + "Although James were averse from passing the acts I have already + mentioned, he probably encouraged another which passed _for the + advance and improvement of trade and for encouragement and increase + of shipping and navigation_, which purported to throw open to + Ireland a free and immediate trade with all our plantations and + colonies; to promote ship-building, by remitting to the owners of + Irish-built vessels large proportions of the duties of custom and + excise, encourage seamen by exempting them for ten years from + taxes, and allowing them the freedom of any city or seaport they + should chuse to reside in, and improve the Irish navy by + establishing free schools for teaching and instructing in the + mathematics and the art of navigation, in Dublin, Belfast, + Waterford, Cork, Limerick, and Galway. If James looked up to any + probability of maintaining his ground in Ireland he must have been + sensible of the necessity of an Irish navy. No man was better + qualified to judge of the utility of such institutions than this + prince. He was an able seaman, fond of his profession; and to his + industry and talent does the British navy owe many of its best + signals and regulations. The firmness, resolution and enterprise + which had distinguished him, whilst Duke of York, as a sea officer, + abandoned him when king, both in the cabinet and the field." + +Thus, then, this Parliament exercised less severity than any of its +time; it established liberty of conscience and equality of creeds; it +proscribed no man for his religion--the word Protestant does not occur +in any Act--(though, while it sat, the Westminster Convention was not +only thundering out insults against "popery," but exciting William to +persecute it, and laying the foundation of the penal code); it +introduced many laws of great practical value in the business of +society; it removed the disabilities of the natives, the scars of old +fetters; it was generous to the king, yet carried its own opinions out +against his where they differed; it, finally--and what should win the +remembrance and veneration of Irishmen through all time--it boldly +announced our national independence, in words which Molyneux shouted on +to Swift, and Swift to Lucas, and Lucas to Flood, and Flood and Grattan +redoubling the cry; Dungannon church rang, and Ireland was again a +nation. Yet something it said escaped the hearing or surpassed the +vigour of the last century; it said, "Irish commerce fostered," and it +was faintly heard, but it said, "an Irish navy to shield our coasts," +and it said, "an Irish army to scathe the invaders," and Grattan +neglected both, and our coast had no guardian, and our desecrated +fields knew no avenger. + +We have printed the king's speech at the opening of this eventful +parliament, the titles of _all_ its Acts, and all the statutes +summarized in full detail which we could in any way procure--sufficient, +we think, with the scattered notices of the chief members, to make the +working of this Parliament plain. We are conscious of many defects in +our information and way of treating the subject; but we commenced by +avowing that we were not professors but students of Irish history; +trying to come at some clear understanding on a most important part of +it, communicating our difficulties and offering our solutions, as they +occurred to us, in hopes that some of our countrymen would take up the +same study, and do as much or more than we have done, and possibly that +one of those accomplished historians, of which Ireland now has a few, +would take the helm from us, and guide the ship himself. + +We have no reason to suppose that we succeeded in either object; yet we +cling to the belief that, owing to us, some few persons will for the +future be found who will not allow the calumnies against our noble old +Parliament of 1689 to pass uncontradicted. It might have been better, +but this is well. + + --------------------------------------------------------------- + [29] The dates about the time of this revolution are most + important. On the 10th October, 1688, William issued an address, + dated at the Hague, and another from the same place, dated 24th + October, intended to counterwork James's retractations. He landed + at Torbay, November 5th, arrived in London December 17th. Some Whig + Lords signed an association, dated December 19th, pledging + themselves to stand by the prince, and avenge him if he should + perish. December 23rd, William issued the letter calling the + members of Charles II.'s parliament, the mayor, aldermen, and 50 + councillors of London. December 26th they met, called on the prince + to assume the government and issue letters for a convention, and + they signed the association of the Whig Lords. They presented their + address 27th December, it was received December 28th, and then this + little club broke up. December 29th William issued letters for a + convention, which met 22nd January, 1688-9, finally agreed on their + declaration against James and his family, and for William and Mary, + 12th February; and these, king and queen, were proclaimed 13th + February, 1688-9. February 19th, a Bill was brought in to call the + convention a parliament; it passed, and received royal assent 23rd + February. By this the lords and gentlemen who met 22nd January were + named the two houses of parliament, and the acts of this + convention-parliament were to date from 13th February. This hybrid + sat till 20th August, and having passed the Attainder Act was + adjourned to 20th September, and then 19th October, 1689. This + second session lasted till 27th January, 1689-90, when it was + stopped by a prorogation to the 2nd April; but before that day it + was dissolved, and a parliament summoned by writ, which met 20th + March, 1689, and as a first law, passed an act ratifying the + proceedings of the convention. + + + + +II. Literary and Historical Essays. + + + + +MEANS AND AIDS TO SELF-EDUCATION. + + + "What good were it for me to manufacture perfect iron while my own + breast is full of dross? What would it stead me to put properties + of land in order, while I am at variance with myself? To speak it + in a word: the cultivation of my individual self, here as I am, has + from my youth upwards been constantly though dimly my wish and my + purpose." + + "Men are so inclined to content themselves with what is commonest; + the spirit and the senses so easily grow dead to the impressions of + the beautiful and perfect; that every one should study to nourish + in his mind the faculty of feeling these things by every method in + his power. For no man can bear to be entirely deprived of such + enjoyments; it is only because they are not used to taste of what + is excellent, that the generality of people take delight in silly + and insipid things, provided they be new. For this reason, he would + add, 'one ought at least every day to hear a little song, read a + good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a + few reasonable words.'"--_Goethe._ + +We have been often asked by certain of the Temperance Societies to give +them some advice on Self-Education. Lately we promised one of these +bodies to write some hints as to how the members of it could use their +association for their mental improvement. + +We said, and say again, that the Temperance Societies can be made use +of by the people for their instruction as well as pleasure. Assemblies +of any kind are not the _best_ places either for study or invention. +Home or solitude are better--home is the great teacher. In domestic +business we learn mechanical skill, the nature of those material bodies +with which we have most to deal in life--we learn labour by example and +by kindly precepts--we learn (in a prudent home) decorum, cleanliness, +order--in a virtuous home we learn more than these: we learn reverence +for the old, affection without passion, truth, piety, and justice. +These are the greatest things man can know. Having these he is well; +without them attainments of wealth or talent are of little worth. Home +is the great teacher; and its teaching passes down in honest homes from +generation to generation, and neither the generation that gives, nor +the generation that takes it, lays down plans for bringing it to pass. + +Again, to come to designed learning. We learn arts and professions by +apprenticeships, that is, much after the fashion we learned walking, or +stitching, or fire-making, or love-making at home--by example, precept, +and practice combined. Apprentices at anything, from ditching, +basket-work, or watch-making, to merchant-trading, legislation, or +surgery, submit either to a nominal or an actual apprenticeship. They +see other men do these things, they desire to do the same, and they +learn to do so by watching _how_, and _when_, and asking, or guessing +_why_ each part of the business is done; and as fast as they know, or +are supposed to know, any one part, whether it be sloping the ditch, or +totting the accounts, or dressing the limb, they begin to do that, and, +being directed when they fail, they learn at last to do it well, and +are thereby prepared to attempt some other or harder part of the +business. + +Thus it is by experience--or trying to do, and often doing a +thing--combined with teaching or seeing, and being told how and why +other people more experienced do that thing, that most of the practical +business of life is learned. + +In some trades, formal apprenticeship and planned teaching exist as +little as in ordinary home-teaching. Few men are of set purpose taught +to dig; and just as few are taught to legislate. + +Where formal teaching is usual, as in what are called learned +professions, and in delicate trades, fewer men know anything of these +businesses. Those who learn them at all do so exactly and fully, but +commonly practise them in a formal and technical way, and invent and +improve them little. In those occupations which most men take up +casually--as book-writing, digging, singing, and legislation, and the +like--there is much less exact knowledge, less form, more originality +and progress, and more of the public know something about them in an +unprofessional way. + +The Caste system of India, Egypt, and Ancient Ireland carried out the +formal apprenticeship plan to its full extent. The United States of +America have very little of it. Modern Europe is between the two, as +she has in most things abolished caste or hereditary professions (kings +and nobles excepted), but has, in many things, retained exact +apprenticeships. + +Marriage, and the bringing up of children, the employment of +dependants, travel, and daily sights and society, are our chief +teachers of morals, sentiment, taste, prudence and manners. Mechanical +and literary skill of all sorts, and most accomplishments, are usually +picked up in this same way. + +We have said all this lest our less-instructed readers should fall into +a mistake common to all beginners in study, that books, and schooling, +and lectures, are the chief teachers in life; whereas most of the +things we learn here are learned from the experience of home, and of +the practical parts of our trades and amusements. + +We pray our humbler friends to think long and often on this. + +But let them not suppose we undervalue or wish them to neglect other +kinds of teaching; on the contrary, they should mark how much the +influences of home, and business, and society, are affected by the +quantity and sort of their scholarship. + +Home life is obviously enough affected by education. Where the parents +read and write, the children learn to do so too, early in life and with +little trouble; where they know something of their religious creed they +give its rites a higher meaning than mere forms; where they know the +history of the country well, every field, every old tower or arch is a +subject of amusement, of fine old stories, and fine young hopes; where +they know the nature of other people and countries, their own country +and people become texts to be commented on, and likewise supply a +living comment on those peculiarities of which they have read. + +Again, where the members of a family can read aloud, or play, or sing, +they have a well of pleasant thoughts and good feelings which can +hardly be dried or frozen up; and so of other things. + +And in the trades and professions of life, to study in books the +objects, customs, and rules of that trade or profession to which you +are going saves time, enables you to improve your practice of it, and +makes you less dependent on the teaching of other practitioners, who +are often interested in delaying you. + +In these, and a thousand ways besides, study and science produce the +best effects upon the practical parts of life. + +Besides, the _first_ business of life is the improvement of one's +own heart and mind. The study of the thoughts and deeds of great men, +the laws of human, and animal, and vegetable, and lifeless nature, the +principles of fine and mechanical arts, and of morals, society, and +religion--all directly give us nobler and greater desires, more wide +and generous judgments, and more refined pleasures. + +Learning in this latter sense may be got either at home or at school, +by solitary study, or in associations. Home _learning_ depends, of +course, on the knowledge, good sense, and leisure of the parents. The +German Jean Paul, the American Emerson, and others of an inferior sort, +have written deep and fruitful truths on bringing up and teaching at +home. Yet, considering its importance, it has not been sufficiently +studied. Upon schools much has been written. Almost all the private +schools in this country are bad. They merely cram the memories of +pupils with facts or words, without developing their judgment, taste, +or invention, or teaching them the _application_ of any knowledge. +Besides, the things taught are commonly those least worth learning. +This is especially true of the middle and richer classes. Instead of +being taught the nature, products, and history, first of their own, and +then of other countries, they are buried in classical frivolities, +languages which they never master, and manners and races which they +cannot appreciate. Instead of being disciplined to think exactly, to +speak and write accurately, they are crammed with rules and taught to +repeat forms by rote. + +The National Schools are a vast improvement on anything hitherto in +this country, but still they have great faults. From the miserably +small grant the teachers are badly paid, and, therefore, hastily and +meagrely educated. + +The maps, drawing, and musical instruments, museums and scientific +apparatus, which should be in every school, are mostly wanting +altogether. The books, also, are defective. + +The information has the worst fault of the French system: it is too +exclusively on physical science and natural history. Fancy a _National_ +School which teaches the children no more of the state and history of +Ireland than of Belgium or Japan! We have spoken to pupils, nay, to +masters of the _National_ Schools, who were ignorant of the physical +character of every part of Ireland except their native villages--who +knew not how the people lived, or died, or sported, or fought--who had +never heard of Tara, Clontarf, Limerick, or Dungannon--to whom the +O'Neills and Sarsfields, the Swifts and Sternes, the Grattans and +Barrys, our generals, statesmen, authors, orators, and artists, were +alike and utterly unknown! Even the hedge schools kept up something of +the romance, history, and music of the country. + +Until the _National_ Schools fall under national control, the people +must take _diligent care to procure books on the history, men, +language, music, and manners of Ireland for their children_. These +schools are very good so far as they go, and the children should be +sent to them; but they are not _national_, they do not use the Irish +language, nor teach anything peculiarly Irish. + +As to solitary study, lists of books, pictures, and maps can alone be +given; and to do this usefully would exceed our space at present. + +As it is, we find that we have no more room and have not said a word on +what we proposed to write--namely, Self-Education through the +Temperance Societies. + +We do not regret having wandered from our professed subject, as, if +treated exclusively, it might lead men into errors which no +afterthought could cure. + +What we chiefly desire is to set the people on making out plans for +their own and their children's education. Thinking cannot be done by +deputy--they must think for themselves. + + + + +THE HISTORY OF IRELAND. + + +Something has been done to rescue Ireland from the reproach that she +was a wailing and ignorant slave. + +Brag as we like, the reproach was not undeserved, nor is it quite +removed. + +She is still a serf-nation, but she is struggling wisely and patiently, +and is ready to struggle, with all the energy her advisers think +politic, for liberty. She has ceased to wail--she is beginning to make +up a record of English crime and Irish suffering, in order to explain +the past, justify the present, and caution the future. She begins to +study the past--not to acquire a beggar's eloquence in petition, but a +hero's wrath in strife. She no longer tears and parades her wounds to +win her smiter's mercy; and now she should look upon her breast and +say:--"That wound makes me distrust, and this makes me guard, and they +all will make me steadier to resist, or, if all else fails, fiercer to +avenge." + +Thus will Ireland do naturally and honourably. + +Our spirit has increased--our liberty is not far off. + +But to make our spirit lasting and wise as it is bold--to make our +liberty an inheritance for our children, and a charter for our +prosperity--we must study as well as strive, and learn as well as feel. + +If we attempt to govern ourselves without statesmanship--to be a nation +without a knowledge of the country's history, and of the propensities +to good and ill of the people--or to fight without generalship, we will +fail in policy, society, and war. These--all these things--we, people +of Ireland, must know if we would be a free, strong nation. A mockery +of Irish independence is not what we want. The bauble of a powerless +parliament does not lure us. We are not children. The office of +supplying England with recruits, artizans, and corn, under the benign +interpositions of an Irish Grand Jury, _shall_ not be our destiny. By +our deep conviction--by the power of mind over the people, we say, No! + +We are true to our colour, "the green," and true to our watchword, +"Ireland for the Irish." We want to win Ireland and keep it. If we win +it, we will not lose it nor give it away to a bribing, a bullying, or a +flattering minister. But, to be able to keep it, and use it, and govern +it, the men of Ireland must know what it is, what it was, and what it +can be made. They must study her history, perfectly know her present +state, physical and moral--and train themselves up by science, poetry, +music, industry, skill, and by all the studies and accomplishments of +peace and war. + +If Ireland were in national health, her history would be familiar by +books, pictures, statuary, and music to every cabin and shop in the +land--her resources as an agricultural, manufacturing, and trading +people would be equally known--and every young man would be trained, +and every grown man able to defend her coast, her plains, her towns, +and her hills--not with his right arm merely, but by his disciplined +habits and military accomplishments. These are the pillars of +independence. + +Academies of art, institutes of science, colleges of literature, +schools and camps of war, are a nation's means for teaching itself +strength, and winning safety and honour; and when we are a nation, +please God, we shall have them all. Till then we must work for +ourselves. So far as we can study music in societies, art in schools, +literature in institutes, science in our colleges, or soldiership in +theory, we are bound as good citizens to learn. Where these are denied +by power, or unattainable by clubbing the resources of neighbours, we +must try and study for ourselves. We must visit museums and +antiquities, and study, and buy, and assist books of history to know +what the country and people were, how they fell, how they suffered, and +how they arose again. We must read books of statistics--and let us +pause to regret that there is no work on the statistics of Ireland +except the scarce lithograph of Moreau, the papers in the second Report +of the Railway Commission, and the chapters in _M'Culloch's Statistics +of the British Empire_--the Repeal Association ought to have a handbook +first, and then an elaborate and vast account of Ireland's statistics +brought out. + +To resume, we must read such statistics as we have, and try and get +better; and we must get the best maps of the country--the Ordnance and +County Index Maps, price 2_s._ 6_d._ each, and the Railway Map, price +L1--into our Mechanics' Institutes, Temperance Reading-rooms, and +schools. We must, in making our journeys of business and pleasure, +observe and ask for the nature and amount of the agriculture, commerce, +and manufactures of the place we are in, and its shape, population, +scenery, antiquities, arts, music, dress, and capabilities for +improvement. A large portion of our people travel a great deal within +Ireland, and often return with no knowledge, save of the inns they +slept in and the traders they dealt with. + +We must give our children in schools the best knowledge of science, +art, and literary elements possible. And at home they should see and +hear as much of national pictures, music, poetry, and military science +as possible. + +And finally, we must keep our own souls, and try, by teaching and +example, to lift up the souls of all our family and neighbours to that +pitch of industry, courage, information, and wisdom necessary to enable +an enslaved, dark, and starving people to become free, and rich, and +rational. + +Well, as to this National History--L'Abbe MacGeoghegan published a +history of Ireland, in French, in 3 volumes, quarto, dedicated to the +Irish Brigade. Writing in France he was free from the English +censorship; writing for "The Brigade," he avoided the impudence of +Huguenot historians. The sneers of the Deist Voltaire, and the lies of +the Catholic Cambrensis, receive a sharp chastisement in his preface, +and a full answer in his text. He was a man of the most varied +acquirements and an elegant writer. More full references and the +correction of a few errors of detail would render his book more +satisfactory to the professor of history, but for the student it is the +best in the world. He is graphic, easy, and Irish. He is not a bigot, +but apparently a genuine Catholic. His information as to the numbers of +troops, and other facts of our Irish battles, is superior to any other +general historian's; and they who know it well need not blush, as most +Irishmen must now, at their ignorance of Irish history. + +But the Association for liberating Ireland has offered a prize for a +new history of the country, and given ample time for preparation. + +Let no man postpone the preparation who hopes the prize. An original +and highly-finished work is what is demanded, and for the composition +of such a work the time affords no leisure. + +Few persons, we suppose, hitherto quite ignorant of Irish history, will +compete; but we would not discourage even these. There is neither in +theory nor fact any limit to the possible achievements of genius and +energy. Some of the greatest works in existence were written rapidly, +and many an old book-worm fails where a young book-thrasher succeeds. + +Let us now consider some of the qualities which should belong to this +history. + +_It should, in the first place, be written from the original +authorities._ We have some notion of giving a set of papers on these +authorities, but there are reasons against such a course, and we +counsel no man to rely on us--every one on himself; besides, such a +historian should rather make himself able to teach us than need to +learn from us. + +However, no one can now be at a loss to know what these authorities +are. A list of the choicest of them is printed on the back of the +Volunteer's card for this year, and was also printed in the +_Nation_.[30] These authorities are not enough for a historian. The +materials, since the Revolution especially, exist mainly in pamphlets, +and even for the time previous only the leading authorities are in the +list. The list is not faulty in this, as it was meant for learners, not +teachers; but anyone using these authorities will readily learn from +them what the others are, and can so track out for himself. + +There are, however, three tracts specially on the subject of Irish +writers. First is Bishop Nicholson's "Irish Historical Library." It +gives accounts of numerous writers, but is wretchedly meagre. In +Harris's "Hibernica" is a short tract on the same subject; and in +Harris's edition of Ware's works an ample treatise on _Irish Writers_. +This treatise is most valuable, but must be read with caution, as Ware +was slightly, and Harris enormously, prejudiced against the native +Irish and against the later Catholic writers. The criticisms of Harris, +indeed, on all books relative to the Religious Wars are partial and +deceptious; but we repeat that the work is of great value. + +The only more recent work on the subject is a volume written by Edward +O'Reilly, for the Iberno-Celtic Society, on the Native Irish Poets: an +interesting work, and containing morsels invaluable to a picturesque +historian. + +By the way, we may hope that the studies for this prize history will be +fruitful for historical ballads. + +Too many of the original works can only be bought at an expense beyond +the means of most of those likely to compete. For instance, Harris's +"Ware," "Fynes Moryson," and "The State Papers of Henry the Eighth," +are very dear. The works of the Archaeological Society can only be got +by a member. The price of O'Connor's "Rerum Hibernicarum Scriptores +Veteres" is eighteen guineas; and yet, in it alone the annals of +Tigernach, Boyle, Innisfallen, and the early part of the "Four Masters" +are to be found. The great majority of the books, however, are +tolerably cheap; some of the dearer books might be got by combination +among several persons, and afterwards given to the Repeal +Reading-rooms. + +However, persons resident in, or able to visit Dublin, Cork, or +Belfast, can study all, even the scarcest of these works, without any +real difficulty. + +As to the qualities of such a history, they have been concisely enough +intimated by the Committee. + +It is to be A HISTORY. One of the most absurd pieces of cant going is +that against history, because it is full of wars, and kings, and +usurpers, and mobs. History describes, and is meant to describe, +_forces_, not proprieties--the mights, the acted realities of men, bad +and good--their historical importance depending on their mightiness, +not their holiness. Let us by all means have, then, a "graphic" +narrative of what was, not a set of moral disquisitions on what ought +to have been. + +Yet the man who would keep chronicling the dry events would miss +writing a history. He must fathom the social condition of the +peasantry, the townsmen, the middle-classes, the nobles, and the clergy +(Christian or Pagan), in each period--how they fed, dressed, armed, and +housed themselves. He must exhibit the nature of the government, the +manners, the administration of law, the state of useful and fine arts, +of commerce, of foreign relations. He must let us see the decay and +rise of great principles and conditions--till we look on a tottering +sovereignty, a rising creed, an incipient war, as distinctly as, by +turning to the highway, we can see the old man, the vigorous youth, or +the infant child. He must paint--the council robed in its hall--the +priest in his temple--the conspirator--the outlaw--the judge--the +general--the martyr. The arms must clash and shine with genuine, not +romantic, likeness; and the brigades or clans join battle, or divide in +flight, before the reader's thought. Above all, a historian should be +able to seize on character, not vaguely eulogising nor cursing; but +feeling and expressing the pressure of a great mind on his time, and on +after-times. + +Such things may be done partly in disquisitions, as in Michelet's +"France"; but they must now be done in narrative; and nowhere, not even +in Livy, is there a finer specimen of how all these things may be done +by narrative than in Augustine Thierry's "Norman Conquest" and +"Merovingian Scenes." The only danger to be avoided in dealing with so +long a period in Thierry's way is the continuing to attach importance +to a once great influence, when it has sunk to be an exceptive power. +He who thinks it possible to dash off a profoundly coloured and shaded +narrative like this of Thierry's will find himself bitterly wrong. Even +a great philosophical view may much more easily be extemporised than +this lasting and finished image of past times. + +The greatest vice in such a work would be bigotry--bigotry of race or +creed. We know a descendant of a great Milesian family who supports the +Union, because he thinks the descendants of the Anglo-Irish--his +ancestors' foes--would mainly rule Ireland, were she independent. The +opposite rage against the older races is still more usual. A religious +bigot is altogether unfit, incurably unfit, for such a task; and the +writer of such an Irish history must feel a love for all sects, a +philosophical eye to the merits and demerits of all, and a solemn and +haughty impartiality in speaking of all. + +Need we say that a history, wherein glowing oratory appeared in place +of historical painting, bold assertion instead of justified +portraiture, flattery to the living instead of justice to the dead, +clever plunder of other compilers instead of original research, or a +cramped and scholastic instead of an idiomatic, "clear and graphic" +style, would deserve rejection, and would, we cannot doubt, obtain it. + +To give such a history to Ireland as is now sought will be a proud and +illustrious deed. Such a work would have no passing influence, though +its first political effect would be enormous; it would be read by every +class and side; for there is no readable book on the subject; it would +people our streets, and glens, and castles, and abbeys, and coasts with +a hundred generations besides our own; it would clear up the grounds of +our quarrels, and prepare reconciliation; it would _unconsciously_ +make us recognise the causes of our weakness; it would give us great +examples of men and of events, and materially influence our destiny. + +Shall we get such a history? Think, reader! has God given you the soul +and perseverance to create this marvel? + + --------------------------------------------------------------- + [30] The following is the list of books given as the present + sources of history:-- + + SOME OF THE ORIGINAL SOURCES OF IRISH HISTORY. + + ANCIENT IRISH TIMES. + + Annals of Tigernach, abbot of Clonmacnoise, from A.D. 200 to his + death, 1188, partly compiled from writers of the eighth, seventh, + and sixth centuries. + + Lives of St. Patrick, St. Columbanus, etc. + + Annals of the Four Masters, from the earliest times to 1616. + + Other Annals, such as those of Innisfallen, Ulster, Boyle, etc. + Publications of the Irish Archaeological Society, Danish and + Icelandic Annals. + + ENGLISH INVASION AND THE PALE. + + Gerald de Barri, surnamed Cambrensis, "Topography" and "Conquest of + Ireland." Four Masters, Tracts in Harris's Hibernica. Campion's, + Hanmer's, Marlborough's, Camden's, Holingshed's, Stanihurst's, and + Ware's Histories. Hardiman's Statutes of Kilkenny. + + Henry VIII. and Elizabeth.--Harris's Ware. O'Sullivan's Catholic + History. Four Masters. Spencer's View. Sir G. Carew's Pacata + Hibernia. State Papers, Temp. H. VIII. Fynes Moryson's Itinerary. + + James I.--Harris's Hibernica. Sir John Davies' Tracts. + + Charles I.--Strafford's Letters. Carte's Life of Ormond. Lodge's + Desiderata. Clarendon's Rebellion. Tichborne's Drogheda. State + Trials. Rinuccini's Letters. Pamphlets. Castlehaven's Memoirs. + Clanrickarde's Memoirs. Peter Walsh. Sir J. Temple. + + Charles II.--Lord Orrery's Letters. Essex's Letters. + + James II. and William III.--King's State of Protestants, and + Lesley's Answer. The Green Book. Statutes of James's Parliament, in + Dublin Magazine, 1843. Clarendon's Letters. Rawdon Papers. Tracts. + Molyneux's Case of Ireland. + + George I. and II.--Swift's Life. Lucas's Tracts. Howard's Cases + under Popery Laws. O'Leary's Tracts. Boulter's Letters. + O'Connor's and Parnell's Irish Catholics. Foreman on "The Brigade." + + George III.--Grattan's and Curran's Speeches and Lives--Memoirs of + Charlemont. Wilson's Volunteers. Barrington's Rise and Fall. Wolfe + Tone's Memoirs. Moore's Fitzgerald. Wyse's Catholic Association. + Madden's United Irishmen. Hay, Teeling, etc., on '98. Tracts. + MacNevin's State Trials. O'Connell's and Sheil's Speeches. + Plowden's History. + + Compilations.--Moore. M'Geoghegan. Curry's Civil Wars. Carey's + Vindiciae. O'Connell's Ireland. Leland. + + Current Authorities.--The Acts of Parliament. Lords' and Commons' + Journals and Debates. Lynch's Legal Institutions. + + Antiquities, Dress, Arms.--Royal Irish Academy's Transactions and + Museum. Walker's Irish Bards. British Costume, in Library of + Entertaining Knowledge. + + + + +ANCIENT IRELAND. + + +There was once civilisation in Ireland. We never were very eminent, to +be sure, for manufactures in metal, our houses were simple, our very +palaces rude, our furniture scanty, our saffron shirts not often +changed, and our foreign trade small. Yet was Ireland civilised. +Strange thing! says someone whose ideas of civilisation are identical +with carpets and cut-glass, fine masonry, and the steam engine; yet +'tis true. For there was a time when learning was endowed by the rich +and honoured by the poor, and taught all over our country. Not only did +thousands of natives frequent our schools and colleges, but men of +every rank came here from the Continent to study under the professors +and system of Ireland, and we need not go beyond the testimonies of +English antiquaries, from Bede to Camden, that these schools were +regarded as the first in Europe. Ireland was equally remarkable for +piety. In the Pagan times it was regarded as a sanctuary of the Magian +or Druid creed. From the fifth century it became equally illustrious in +Christendom. Without going into the disputed question of whether the +Irish church was or was not independent of Rome, it is certain that +Italy did not send out more apostles from the fifth to the ninth +centuries than Ireland, and we find their names and achievements +remembered through the Continent. + +Of two names which Hallam thinks worth rescuing from the darkness of +the dark ages, one is the Irish metaphysician, John Erigena. In a +recent communication to the "Association" we had Bavarians +acknowledging the Irish St. Killian as the apostle of their country. + +Yet what, beyond a catalogue of names and a few marked events, do even +the educated Irish know of the heroic pagans or the holy Christians of +Old Ireland? These men have left libraries of biography, religion, +philosophy, natural history, topography, history, and romance. They +_cannot all be worthless_; yet, except the few volumes given us by +the Archaeological Society, which of their works have any of us read? + +It is also certain that we possessed written laws with extensive and +minute comments and reported decisions. These Brehon laws have been +foully misrepresented by Sir John Davies. Their tenures were the +gavelkind once prevalent over most of the world. The land belonged to +the clan, and on the death of a clansman his share was re-apportioned +according to the number and wants of his family. The system of erics or +fines for offences has existed amongst every people from the Hebrews +downwards, nor can anyone, knowing the multitude of crimes now +punishable by fines or damages, think the people of this empire +justified in calling the ancient Irish barbarous because they extended +the system. There is in these laws, so far as they are known, +minuteness and equity; and what is a better test of their goodness we +learn from Sir John Davies himself, and from the still abler Baron +Finglass, that the people reverenced, obeyed, and clung to these laws, +though to decide by or obey them was a high crime by England's code. +Moreover, the Norman and Saxon settlers hastened to adopt these Irish +laws, and used them more resolutely, if possible, than the Irish +themselves. + +Orderliness and hospitality were peculiarly cultivated. Public +caravansarais were built for travellers in every district, and we have +what would almost be legal evidence of the grant of vast tracts of land +for the supply of provisions for these houses of hospitality. The +private hospitality of the chiefs was equally marked; nor was it quite +rude. Ceremony was united with great freedom of intercourse, age, and +learning, and rank, and virtue were respected, and these men, whose +cookery was probably as coarse as that of Homer's heroes, had around +their board harpers and bards who sang poetry as gallant and fiery, +though not so grand, as the Homeric ballad-singers, and flung off a +music which Greece never rivalled. + +Shall a people, pious, hospitable, and brave, faithful observers of +family ties, cultivators of learning, music, and poetry, be called less +than civilised because mechanical arts were rude and "comfort" despised +by them? + +Scattered through the country in MS. are hundreds of books wherein the +laws and achievements, the genealogies and possessions, the creeds and +manners and poetry of these our predecessors in Ireland are set down. +Their music lives in the traditional airs of every valley. + +Yet _mechanical civilisation_, more cruel than time, is trying to +exterminate them, and, therefore, it becomes us all who do not wish to +lose the heritage of centuries, nor to feel ourselves living among +nameless ruins, when we might have an ancestral home--it becomes all +who love learning, poetry, or music, or are curious of human progress, +to aid in or originate a series of efforts to save all that remains of +the past. + +It becomes them to lose no opportunity of instilling into the minds of +their neighbours, whether they be corporators or peasants, that it is a +brutal, mean, and sacrilegious thing to turn a castle, a church, a +tomb, or a mound into a quarry or a gravel pit, or to break the least +morsel of sculpture, or to take any old coin or ornament they may find +to a jeweller, so long as there is an Irish Academy in Dublin to pay +for it or accept it. + +Before the year is out we hope to see A SOCIETY FOR THE PRESERVATION OF +IRISH MUSIC established in Dublin, under the joint patronage of the +leading men of all politics, with branches in the provincial towns for +the collection and diffusion of Irish airs.[31] + +An effort--a great and decided one--must be made to have the Irish +Academy so endowed out of the revenues of Ireland that it may be A +NATIONAL SCHOOL OF IRISH HISTORY AND LITERATURE AND A MUSEUM OF IRISH +ANTIQUITIES on the largest scale. In fact, the Academy should be a +secular Irish College, with professors of our old language, literature, +history, antiquities, and topography; with suitable schools, +lecture-rooms, and museums. + + --------------------------------------------------------------- + [31] Like many of the suggestions of Thomas Davis this has borne + fruit. In our own day the Irish Folk Song Society (20 Hanover + Square, London, W.) as well as the Feis Ceoil and the Gaelic League + have done invaluable work in the direction indicated.--[Ed.] + + + + +HISTORICAL MONUMENTS OF IRELAND. + + +We were a little struck the other day in taking up a new book by +Merimee to see after his name the title of "Inspector-General of the +Historical Monuments of France." So then France, with the feeding, +clothing, protecting, and humouring of thirty-six million people to +attend to, has leisure to employ a Board and Inspector, and money to +pay them for looking after the Historical Monuments of France, lest the +Bayeux tapestry, which chronicles the conquest of England, or the +Amphitheatre of Nimes, which marks the sojourn of the Romans, suffer +any detriment. + +And has Ireland no monuments of her history to guard; has she no tables +of stone, no pictures, no temples, no weapons? Are there no Brehon's +chairs on her hills to tell more clearly than Vallancey or Davies how +justice was administered here? Do not you meet the Druid's altar and +the Gueber's tower in every barony almost, and the Ogham stones in many +a sequestered spot, and shall we spend time and money to see, to guard, +or to decipher Indian topes, and Tuscan graves, and Egyptian +hieroglyphics, and shall every nation in Europe shelter and study the +remains of what it once was, even as one guards the tomb of a parent, +and shall Ireland let all go to ruin? + +We have seen pigs housed in the piled friezes of a broken church, cows +stabled in the palaces of the Desmonds, and corn threshed on the floor +of abbeys, and the sheep and the tearing wind tenant the corridors of +Aileach. + +Daily are more and more of our crosses broken, of our tombs effaced, of +our abbeys shattered, of our castles torn down, of our cairns +sacrilegiously pierced, of our urns broken up, and of our coins melted +down. All classes, creeds and politics are to blame in this. The +peasant lugs down a pillar for his sty, the farmer for his gate, the +priest for his chapel, the minister for his glebe. A mill-stream runs +through Lord Moore's Castle,[32] and the Commissioners of Galway have +shaken and threatened to remove the Warden's house--that fine stone +chronicle of Galway heroism. + +How our children will despise us all for this! Why shall we seek for +histories, why make museums, why study the manners of the dead, when we +foully neglect or barbarously spoil their homes, their castles, their +temples, their colleges, their courts, their graves? He who tramples on +the past does not create for the future. The same ignorant and vagabond +spirit which made him a destructive prohibits him from creating for +posterity. + +Does not a man, by examining a few castles and arms, know more of the +peaceful and warrior life of the dead nobles and gentry of our island +than from a library of books; and yet a man is stamped as unlettered +and rude if he does not know and value such knowledge. Ware's +_Antiquities_, and Archdall, speak not half so clearly the taste, the +habits, the everyday customs of the monks, as Adare Monastery,[33] for +the fine preservation of which we owe so much to Lord Dunraven. + +The state of civilisation among our Scotic or Milesian, or Norman, or +Danish sires, is better seen from the Museum of the Irish Academy, and +from a few raths, keeps, and old coast towns, than from all the prints +and historical novels we have. An old castle in Kilkenny, a house in +Galway give us a peep at the arts, the intercourse, the creed, the +indoor and some of the outdoor ways of the gentry of the one, and of +the merchants of the other, clearer than Scott could, were he to write, +or Cattermole were he to paint, for forty years. + +We cannot expect Government to do anything so honourable and liberal as +to imitate the example of France, and pay men to describe and save +these remains of dead ages. But we do ask it of the clergy, Protestant, +Catholic, and Dissenting, if they would secure the character of men of +education and taste--we call upon the gentry, if they have any pride of +blood, and on the people, if they reverence Old Ireland, to spare and +guard every remnant of antiquity. We ask them to find other quarries +than churches, abbeys, castles and cairns--to bring rusted arms to a +collector and coins to a museum, and not to iron or goldsmiths, and to +take care that others do the like. We talk much of Old Ireland, and +plunder and ruin all that remains of it--we neglect its language, +fiddle with its ruins, and spoil its monuments.[34] + + --------------------------------------------------------------- + [32] Mellifont, founded in 1142 by O'Carroll, King of + Oriel.--C.P.M. + + [33] See _Irish Franciscan Monasteries_, by C.P.M., C.C. + + [34] Again we note that, though late in the day, Davis's appeal has + been answered, and most of the important ancient monuments of the + country placed under official protection. The real need now is for + scientific exploration of the ancient sites.--[Ed.] + + + + +IRISH ANTIQUITIES. + + +There is on the north (the left) bank of the Boyne, between Drogheda +and Slane, a pile compared to which, in age, the Oldbridge obelisk is a +thing of yesterday, and compared to which, in lasting interest, the +Cathedrals of Dublin would be trivial. It is the Temple of Grange. +History is too young to have noted its origin--Archaeology knows not its +time. It is a legacy from a forgotten ancestor, to prove that he, too, +had art and religion. It may have marked the tomb of a hero who freed, +or an invader who subdued--a Brian or a Strongbow. But whether or not a +hero's or a saint's bones consecrated it at first, this is plain--it is +a temple of nigh two thousand years, perfect as when the last Pagan +sacrificed within it.[35] + +It is a thing to be proud of, as a proof of Ireland's antiquity, to be +guarded as an illustration of her early creed and arts. It is one of a +thousand muniments of our old nationality which a national government +would keep safe. + +What, then, will be the reader's surprise and anger to hear that some +people having legal power or corrupt influence in Meath are getting, or +have got, _a presentment for a road to run right through the Temple +of Grange_! + +We do not know their names, nor, if the design be at once given up, as +in deference to public opinion it must finally be, shall we take the +trouble to find them out. But if they persist in this brutal outrage +against so precious a landmark of Irish history and civilisation, then +we frankly say if the law will not reach them public opinion shall, and +they shall bitterly repent the desecration. These men who design, and +those who consent to the act, may be Liberals or Tories, Protestants or +Catholics, but beyond a doubt they are tasteless blockheads--poor +devils without reverence or education--men, who, as Wordsworth says-- + + "Would peep and botanise + Upon their mothers' graves." + +All over Europe the governments, the aristocracies, and the people have +been combining to discover, gain, and guard every monument of what +their dead countrymen had done or been. France has a permanent +commission charged to watch over her antiquities. She annually spends +more in publishing books, maps, and models, in filling her museums and +shielding her monuments from the iron clutch of time, than all the +roads in Leinster cost. It is only on time she needs to keep watch. A +French peasant would blush to meet his neighbour had he levelled a +Gaulish tomb, crammed the fair moulding of an abbey into his wall, or +sold to a crucible the coins which tell that a Julius, a Charlemagne, +or a Philip Augustus swayed his native land. And so it is everywhere. +Republican Switzerland, despotic Austria, Prussia and Norway, Bavaria +and Greece are all equally precious of everything that exhibits the +architecture, sculpture, rites, dress, or manners of their +ancestors--nay, each little commune would guard with arms these local +proofs that they were not men of yesterday. And why should not Ireland +be as precious of its ruins, its manuscripts, its antique vases, coins, +and ornaments, as these French and German men--nay, as the English, for +they, too, do not grudge princely grants to their museums and +restoration funds. + +This island has been for centuries either in part or altogether a +province. Now and then above the mist we see the whirl of Sarsfield's +sword, the red battle-hand of O'Neill, and the points of O'Connor's +spears; but 'tis a view through eight hundred years to recognise the +Sunburst on a field of liberating victory. Reckoning back from +Clontarf, our history grows ennobled (like that of a decayed house), +and we see Lismore and Armagh centres of European learning; we see our +missionaries seizing and taming the conquerors of Europe, and, farther +still, rises the wizard pomp of Eman and Tara--the palace of the Irish +Pentarchy. And are we the people to whom the English (whose fathers +were painted savages when Tyre and Sidon traded with this land) can +address reproaches for our rudeness and irreverence? So it seems. The +_Athenaeum_ says:-- + + "It is much to be regretted that the society lately established in + England, having for its object the preservation of British + antiquities, did not extend its design over those of the sister + island, which are daily becoming fewer and fewer in number. That + the gold ornaments which are so frequently found in various parts + of Ireland should be melted down for the sake of the very pure gold + of which they are composed, is scarcely surprising; but that carved + stones and even immense druidical remains should be destroyed is, + indeed, greatly to be lamented. At one of the late meetings of the + Royal Irish Academy a communication was made of the intention of + the proprietor of the estate at New Grange to destroy that most + gigantic relic of druidical times, which has justly been termed the + Irish pyramid, merely because its vast size 'cumbereth the ground.' + At Mellifont a modern cornmill of large size has been built out of + the stones of the beautiful monastic buildings, some of which still + adorn that charming spot. At Monasterboice, the churchyard of which + contains one of the finest of the round towers, are the ruins of + two of the little ancient stone Irish churches, and three most + elaborately carved stone crosses, eighteen or twenty feet high. The + churchyard itself is overrun with weeds, the sanctity of the place + being its only safeguard. At Clonmacnoise, where, some forty years + ago, several hundred inscriptions in the ancient Irish character + were to be seen upon the gravestones, scarcely a dozen (and they + the least interesting) are now to be found--the large flat stones + on which they were carved forming excellent slabs for doorways, the + copings of walls, etc.! It was the discovery of some of these + carved stones in such a situation which had the effect of directing + the attention of Mr. Petrie (then an artist in search of the + picturesque, but now one of the most enlightened and conscientious + of the Irish antiquaries) to the study of antiquities; and it is + upon the careful series of drawings made by him that future + antiquarians must rely for very much of ancient architectural + detail now destroyed. As to Glendalough, it is so much a holiday + place for the Dubliners that it is no wonder everything portable + has disappeared. Two or three of the seven churches are levelled to + the ground--all the characteristic carvings described by Ledwich, + and which were '_quite unique in Ireland_,' are gone. Some were + removed and used as keystones for the arches of Derrybawn bridge. + Part of the churchyard has been cleared of its gravestones, and + forms a famous place, where the villagers play at ball against the + old walls of the church. The little church, called 'St. Kevin's + Kitchen,' is given up to the sheep, and the font lies in one + corner, and is used for the vilest purposes. The abbey church is + choked up with trees and brambles, and being a little out of the + way a very few of the carved stones still remain there, two of the + most interesting of which I found used as coping-stones to the wall + which surrounds it. The connection between the ancient churches of + Ireland and the North of England renders the preservation of the + Irish antiquities especially interesting to the English + antiquarian; and it is with the hope of drawing attention to the + destruction of those ancient Irish monuments that I have written + these few lines. The Irish themselves are, unfortunately, so + engrossed with political and religious controversies, that it can + scarcely be hoped that single-handed they will be roused to the + rescue even of these evidences of their former national greatness. + Besides, a great obstacle exists against any interference with the + religious antiquities of the country, from the strong feelings + entertained by the people on the subject, although _practically_, + as we have seen, of so little weight. Let us hope that the public + attention directed to these objects will have a beneficial result + and ensure a greater share of 'justice to Ireland'; for will it be + believed that the only establishment in Ireland for the propagation + and diffusion of scientific and antiquarian knowledge--the Royal + Irish Academy--receives annually the munificent sum of L300 from + the Government! And yet, notwithstanding this pittance, the members + of that society have made a step in the right direction by the + purchase of the late Dean of St. Patrick's Irish Archaeological + Collection, of which a fine series of drawings is now being made at + the expense of the Academy, and of which they would, doubtless, + allow copies to be made, so as to obtain a return of a portion of + the expense to which they are now subjected. Small, moreover, as + the collection is, it forms a striking contrast with our own + _National_ Museum, which, rich in foreign antiquities, is almost + without a single object of native archaeological interest, if we + except the series of English and Anglo-Saxon coins and MSS." + +The Catholic clergy were long and naturally the guardians of our +antiquities, and many of their archaeological works testify their +prodigious learning. Of late, too, the honourable and wise reverence +brought back to England has reached the Irish Protestant clergy, and +they no longer make antiquity a reproach, or make the maxims of the +iconoclast part of their creed. + +Is it extravagant to speculate on the possibility of the Episcopalian, +Catholic, and Presbyterian clergy joining in an Antiquarian Society to +preserve our ecclesiastical remains--our churches, our abbeys, our +crosses, and our fathers' tombs, from fellows like the Meath +road-makers? It would be a politic and a noble emulation of the sects, +restoring the temples wherein their sires worshipped for their children +to pray in. There's hardly a barony wherein we could not find an old +parish or abbey church, capable of being restored to its former beauty +and convenience at a less expense than some beastly barn is run up, as +if to prove and confirm the fact that we have little art, learning, or +imagination. + +Nor do we see why some of these hundreds of half-spoiled buildings +might not be used for civil purposes--as almshouses, schools, +lecture-rooms, town-halls. It would always add another grace to an +institution to have its home venerable with age and restored to beauty. +We have seen men of all creeds join the Archaeological Society to +preserve and revive our ancient literature. Why may we not see, even +without waiting for the aid of an Irish Parliament, an Antiquarian +Society, equally embracing the chief civilians and divines, and +charging itself with the duties performed in France by the Commission +of Antiquities and Monuments? + +The Irish antiquarians of the last century did much good. They called +attention to the history and manners of our predecessors which we had +forgotten. They gave a pedigree to nationhood, and created a faith that +Ireland could and should be great again by magnifying what she had +been. They excited the noblest passions--veneration, love of glory, +beauty, and virtue. They awoke men's fancy by their gorgeous pictures +of the past, and imagination strove to surpass them by its creations. +They believed what they wrote, and thus their wildest stories sank into +men's minds. To the exertions of Walker, O'Halloran, Vallancey, and a +few other Irish academicians in the last century, we owe almost all the +Irish knowledge possessed by our upper classes till very lately. It was +small, but it was enough to give a dreamy renown to ancient Ireland; +and if it did nothing else, it smoothed the reception of Bunting's +music, and identified Moore's poetry with his native country. + +While, therefore, we at once concede that Vallancey was a bad scholar, +O'Halloran a credulous historian, and Walker a shallow antiquarian, we +claim for them gratitude and attachment, and protest, once for all, +against the indiscriminate abuse of them now going in our educated +circles. + +But no one should lie down under the belief that these were the deep +and exact men their contemporaries thought them. They were not patient +nor laborious. They were very graceful, very fanciful, and often very +wrong in their statements and their guesses. How often they avoided +painful research by gay guessing we are only now learning. O'Halloran +and Keatinge have told us bardic romances with the same tone as true +chronicles. Vallancey twisted language, towers, and traditions into his +wicker-work theory of Pagan Ireland; and Walker built great facts and +great blunders, granite blocks and rotten wood, into his antiquarian +edifices. One of the commonest errors, attributing immense antiquity, +oriental origin, and everything noble in Ireland to the Milesians, +originated with these men; or, rather, was transferred from the +adulatory songs of clan-bards to grave stories. Now, it is quite +certain that several races flourished here before the Milesians, and +that everything oriental, and much that was famous in Ireland, belonged +to some of these elder races, and not to the Scoti or Milesians. + +Premising this much of warning and defence as to the men who first made +anything of ancient Ireland known to the mixed nation of modern +Ireland, we turn with pure pleasure to their successors, the +antiquarians and historians of our own time. + +We liked for awhile bounding from tussuck to tussuck, or resting on a +green esker in the domain of the old academicians of Grattan's time; +but 'tis pleasanter, after all, to tread the firm ground of our own +archaeologists. + + --------------------------------------------------------------- + [35] The reader who wishes to know what modern archaeology has to + say of this great tumulus may be referred to Mr. George Coffey's + "Newgrange," published by Hodges, Figgis & Co., 1912. It dates from + about 1,000 years earlier than Davis supposed. + + + + +THE ROUND TOWERS OF IRELAND.[36] + + +Accustomed from boyhood to regard these towers as revelations of a +gorgeous but otherwise undefined antiquity--dazzled by oriental +analogies--finding a refuge in their primeval greatness from the +meanness or the misfortunes of our middle ages, we clung to the belief +of their Pagan origin. + +In fancy we had seen the white-robed Druid tend the holy fire in their +lower chambers--had measured with the Tyrian-taught astronomer the +length of their shadows--and had almost knelt to the elemental worship +with nobles whose robes had the dye of the Levant, and sailors whose +cheeks were brown with an Egyptian sun, and soldiers whose bronze arms +clashed as the trumpets from the tower-top said that the sun had risen. +What wonder that we had resented the attempt to cure us of so sweet a +frenzy? + +We plead guilty to having opened Mr. Petrie's work strongly bigoted +against his conclusion. + +On the other hand, we could not forget the authority of the book. Its +author we knew was familiar beyond almost any other with the +country--had not left one glen unsearched, not one island untrod; had +brought with him the information of a life of antiquarian study, a +graceful and exact pencil, and feelings equally national and lofty. We +knew also that he had the aid of the best Celtic scholars alive in the +progress of his work. The long time taken in its preparation ensured +maturity; and the honest men who had criticised it, and the adventurers +who had stolen from it enough to make false reputations, equally +testified to its merits. + +Yet, we repeat, we jealously watched for flaws in Mr. Petrie's +reasoning; exulted as he set down the extracts from his opponents, in +the hope that he would fail in answering them, and at last surrendered +with a sullen despair. + +Looking now more calmly at the discussion, we are grateful to Mr. +Petrie for having driven away an idle fancy. In its stead he has given +us new and unlooked-for trophies, and more solid information on Irish +antiquities than any of his predecessors. We may be well content to +hand over the Round Towers to Christians of the sixth or the tenth +century, when we find that these Christians were really eminent in +knowledge as well as piety, had arched churches by the side of these +_campanilia_, gave an alphabet to the Saxons, and hospitality and +learning to the students of all western Europe--and the more readily, +as we got in exchange _proofs_ of a Pagan race having a Pelasgic +architecture, and the arms and ornaments of a powerful and cultivated +people. + +The volume before us contains two parts of Mr. Petrie's essay. The +first part is an examination of the false theories of the origin of +these towers. The second is an account not only of what he thinks their +real origin, but of every kind of early ecclesiastical structure in +Ireland. The third part will contain a historical and descriptive +account of every ecclesiastical building in Ireland of a date prior to +the Anglo-Norman invasion of which remains now exist. The work is +crowded with illustrations drawn with wonderful accuracy, and engraved +in a style which proves that Mr. O'Hanlon, the engraver, has become so +proficient as hardly to have a superior in wood-cutting. + +We shall for the present limit ourselves to the first part of the work +on the + +"ERRONEOUS THEORIES WITH RESPECT TO THE ORIGIN AND USES OF THE ROUND +TOWERS." + +The first refutation is of the + + +"THEORY OF THE DANISH ORIGIN OF THE TOWERS." + +John Lynch, in his _Cambrensis Eversus_, says that the Danes are +reported (_dicuntur_) to have first erected the Round Towers as +_watch_-towers, but that the Christian Irish changed them into _clock_ +or bell-towers. Peter Walsh[37] repeated and exaggerated the statement; +and Ledwich, the West British antiquary of last century, combined it +with lies enough to settle his character, though not that of the +towers. The only person, at once explicit and honest, who supported +this Danish theory was Dr. Molyneux. His arguments are that all stone +buildings, and, indeed, all evidences of mechanical civilisation, in +Ireland were Danish; that some traditions attributed the Round Towers +to them; that they had fit models in the monuments of their own +country; and that the word by which he says the native Irish call them, +viz., "Clogachd," comes from the Teutonic root, clugga, a bell. These +arguments are easily answered. + +The Danes, so far from introducing stone architecture, found it +flourishing in Ireland, and burned and ruined our finest buildings, and +destroyed mechanical and every kind of civilisation wherever their +ravages extended--doing thus in Ireland precisely as they did in France +and England, as all annals (their own included) testify. Tradition does +not describe the towers as Danish watch-towers, but as Christian +belfries. The upright stones and the little barrows, not twelve feet +high, of Denmark, could neither give models nor skill to the Danes. +They had much ampler possession of England and Scotland, and permanent +possession of Normandy, but never a Round Tower did they erect there; +and, finally, the native Irish name for a Round Tower is _cloic-theach_, +from _teach_, a house, and _cloc_, the Irish word used for a bell in +Irish works before "the Germans or Saxons had churches or bells," and +before the Danes had ever sent a war-ship into our seas. + +We pass readily from this ridiculous hypothesis with the remark that +the gossip which attributes to the Danes our lofty monumental pyramids +and cairns, our Druid altars, our dry stone caisils or keeps, and our +raths or fortified enclosures for the homes or cattle of our chiefs, is +equally and utterly unfounded; and is partly to be accounted for from +the name of power and terror which these barbarians left behind, and +partly from ignorant persons confounding them with the most illustrous +and civilised of the Irish races--the Danaans. + + --------------------------------------------------------------- + [36] _The Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy_, vol. xx. + Dublin: Hodges & Smith, Grafton Street. + + [37] A turbulent and learned Franciscan friar who figured in the + Confederation of Kilkenny.--C.P.M. + + +THEORY OF THE EASTERN ORIGIN OF THE ROUND TOWERS. + +Among the middle and upper classes in Ireland the Round Towers are +regarded as one of the results of an intimate connection between +Ireland and the East, and are spoken of as either--1, Fire Temples; 2, +Stations from whence Druid festivals were announced; 3, Sun-dials +(gnomons) and astronomical observatories; 4, Buddhist or Phallic +temples, or two or more of these uses are attributed to them at the +same time. + +Mr. Petrie states that the theory of the Phoenician or Indo-Scythic +origin of these towers was stated for the first time so recently as +1772 by General Vallancey, in his "Essay on the Antiquity of the Irish +Language," and was re-asserted by him in many different and contradictory +forms in his _Collectanea de Rebus Hibernicis_, published at intervals +in the following years. + +It may be well to premise who + +GENERAL CHARLES VALLANCEY + +was. His family were from Berry, in France; their name Le Brun, called +De Valencia, from their estate of that name. General Vallancey was born +in Flanders, but was educated at Eton College. When a captain in the +12th Royal Infantry he was attached to the engineer department in +Ireland, published a book on Field Engineering in 1756, and commenced a +survey of Ireland. During this he picked up something of the Irish +language, and is said to have studied it under Morris O'Gorman, clerk +of Mary's Lane Chapel. He died in his house, Lower Mount Street, 18th +August, 1812, aged 82 years. + +His _Collectanea_, and his discourses in the Royal Irish Academy, of +which he was an original member, spread far and wide his oriental +theories. He was an amiable and plausible man, but of little learning, +little industry, great boldness, and no scruples; and while he +certainly stimulated men's feelings towards Irish antiquities, he has +left us a reproducing swarm of falsehood, of which Mr. Petrie has +happily begun the destruction. Perhaps nothing gave Vallancey's follies +more popularity than the opposition of the Rev. Edward Ledwich, whose +_Antiquities of Ireland_ is a mass of falsehoods, disparaging to the +people and the country. + + +FIRE TEMPLES. + +Vallancey's first analogy is plausible. The Irish Druids honoured the +elements and kept up sacred fires, and at a particular day in the year +all the fires in the kingdom were put out, and had to be re-lighted +from the Arch-Druid's fire. A similar creed and custom existed among +the Parsees or Guebres of Persia, and he takes the resemblance to prove +connection and identity of creed and civilisation. From this he +immediately concludes the Round Towers to be Fire Temples. Now there is +no evidence that the Irish Pagans had sacred fires, except in open +spaces (on the hilltops), and, therefore, none of course that they had +them in towers round or square; but Vallancey falls back on the +_alleged existence of Round Towers in the East similar to ours, and +on etymology_. + +Here is a specimen of his etymologies. The Hebrew word _gadul_ +signifies _great_, and thence a tower; the Irish name for a round +tower, _cloghad_, is from this _gadul_ or _gad_, and _clogh_, a +_stone_: and the Druids called every place of worship _cloghad_. To +which it is answered--_gadul_ is not _gad_--_clogh_, a _stone_, is not +_cloch_, a _bell_. The Irish word for a Round Tower is _cloich-theach_, +or bell-house, and there is no proof that the Druids called _any_ place +of worship _cloghad_. + +Vallancey's guesses are numerous, and nearly all childish, and we shall +quote some finishing specimens, with Mr. Petrie's answers:-- + + "This is another characteristic example of Vallancey's mode of + quoting authorities: he first makes O'Brien say that _Cuilceach_ + becomes corruptly _Claiceach_, and then that the word _seems_ to be + corrupted _Clogtheach_. But O'Brien does not say that _Cuilceach_ + is corruptly _Claiceach_, nor has he the word _Culkak_ or + _Claiceach_ in his book; neither does he say that _Cuilceach seems_ + to be a corruption of _Clog-theach_, but states positively that it + is so. The following are the passages which Vallancey has so + misquoted and garbled-- + + "'CUILCEACH, a steeple, cuilceach Cluan-umba, Cloyne steeple--this + word _is_ a corruption of Clog-theach. + + "'CLOIG-THEACH, a steeple, a belfry; _corrupte_ Cuilg-theach.' + + "Our author next tells us that another name for the Round Towers is + _Sibheit_, _Sithbeit_, and _Sithbein_, and for this he refers us to + O'Brien's and Shaw's Lexicons; but this quotation is equally false + with those I have already exposed, for the words _Sibheit_ and + _Sithbeit_ are not to be found in either of the works referred to. + The word _Sithbhe_ is indeed given in both Lexicons, but explained + a city, not a round tower. The word _Sithbhein_ is also given in + both, but explained a fort, a turret, and the real meaning of the + word as still understood in many parts of Ireland is a fairy-hill, + or hill of the fairies, and is applied to a green round hill + crowned by a small sepulchral mound. + + "He next tells us that _Caiceach_, the last name he finds for the + Round Towers, is supposed by the Glossarists to be compounded of + _cai_, a house, and _teach_, a house, an explanation which, he + playfully adds, is tautology with a witness. But where did he find + authority for the word _Caiceach_? I answer, nowhere; and the + tautology he speaks of was either a creation or a blunder of his + own. It is evident to me that the Glossarist to whom he refers is + no other than his favourite Cormac; but the latter makes no such + blunder, as will appear from the passage which our author obviously + refers to-- + + "'_Cai i. teach unde dicitur ceard cha i. teach cearda; creas cha + i. teach cumang._' + + "'_Cai, i.e._, a house; _unde dicitur ceard-cha, i.e._, the house + of the artificer; _creas-cha, i.e._, a narrow house.'" + +The reader has probably now had enough of Vallancey's etymology, but it +is right to add that Mr. Petrie goes through every hint of such proof +given by the General, and disposes of them with greater facility. + +The next person disposed of is Mr. Beauford, who derives the name of +our Round Towers from _Tlacht--earth_; asserts that the foundations of +temples for Vestal fire exist in Rath-na-Emhain, and other places (poor +devil!)--that the Persian Magi overran the world in the time of the +great Constantine, introducing Round Towers in place of the Vestal +mounds into Ireland, combining their fire-worship with our +Druidism--and that the present towers were built in imitation of the +Magian Towers. This is all, as Mr. Petrie says, pure fallacy, without a +particle of authority; but we should think "_twelfth_" is a misprint +for "_seventh_" in the early part of Beauford's passage, and, +therefore, that the last clause of Mr. Petrie's censure is undeserved. + +This Beauford is not to be confounded with Miss Beaufort. She, too, +paganises the towers by aggravating some misstatements of Mason's +_Parochial Survey_; but her errors are not worth notice, except the +assertion that the Psalters of Tara and Cashel allege that the towers +were for keeping the sacred fire. These Psalters are believed to have +perished, and any mention of sacred fires in the glossary of Cormac +M'Cullenan, the supposed compiler of the Psalter of Cashel, is adverse +to their being in towers. He says:-- + + "_Belltane, i.e., bil tene, i.e., tene bil, i.e._, the goodly fire, + _i.e._, two goodly fires, which the Druids were used to make, with + great incantations on them, and they used to bring the cattle + between them against the diseases of each year." + +Another MS. says:-- + + "_Beltaine, i.e., Bel-dine; Bel_ was the name of an idol; it was on + it (_i.e._, the festival) that a couple of the young of every + cattle were exhibited as in the possession of _Bel; unde Beldine_. + Or, _Beltine, i.e., Bil-tine, i.e._, the goodly fire, _i.e._, two + goodly fires, which the Druids were used to make with great + incantations, and they were used to drive the cattle between them + against the diseases of each year." + +Mr. Petrie continues:-- + + "It may be remarked that remnants of this ancient custom, in + perhaps a modified form, still exist in the May-fires lighted in + the streets and suburbs of Dublin, and also in the fires lighted on + St. John's Eve in all other parts of Ireland. The _Tinne Eigin_ of + the Highlands, of which Dr. Martin gives the following account, is + probably a remnant of it also, but there is no instance of such + fires being lighted in towers or houses of any description:-- + + "'The inhabitants here (Isle of Skye) did also make use of a fire + called _Tin Egin_ (_i.e._), a forced Fire, or Fire of necessity, + which they used as an Antidote against the _Plague_ or _Murrain_ in + cattle; and it was performed thus: All the fires in the Parish were + extinguish'd, and eighty-one marry'd men, being thought the + necessary number for effecting this Design, took two great Planks + of Wood, and nine of 'em were employed by turns, who by their + repeated Efforts rubb'd one of the Planks against the other until + the Heat thereof produced Fire; and from this forc'd Fire each + Family is supplied with new Fire, which is no sooner kindled than a + pot full of water is quickly set on it, and afterwards sprinkled + upon the people infected with the Plague, or upon cattle that have + the Murrain. And this, they all say, they find successful by + experience.'--_Description of the Western Islands of Scotland_ + (second edition), p. 113. + + "As authority for Miss Beaufort's second assertion, relative to the + Tower of Thlachtga, etc., we are referred to the _Psalter of Tara_, + by Comerford (p. 41), cited in the _Parochial Survey_ (vol. iii., + p. 320); and certainly in the latter work we do find a passage in + nearly the same words which Miss Beaufort uses. But if the lady had + herself referred to Comerford's little work, she would have + discovered that the author of the article in the _Parochial Survey_ + had in reality no authority for his assertions, and had attempted a + gross imposition on the credulity of his readers." + +Mr. D'Alton relies much on a passage in _Cambrensis_, wherein he says +that the fishermen on Lough Neagh (a lake certainly formed by an +inundation in the first century, A.D. 62) point to such towers under +the lake; but this only shows they were considered old in Cambrensis's +time (King John's), for Cambrensis calls them _turres ecclesiasticas_ +(a Christian appellation); and the fishermen of every lake have such +idle traditions from the tall objects they are familiar with; and the +steeples of Antrim, etc., were handy to the Loch n-Eathac men. + +One of the authorities quoted by all the Paganists is from the _Ulster +Annals_ at the year 448. It is--"Kl. Jenair. Anno Domini cccc.xlº.viiiº. +ingenti terrae motu per loca varia imminente, plurimi urbis auguste muri +recenti adhuc reaedificatione constructi, cum l.vii. turribus +conruerunt." This was made to mean that part of the wall of Armagh, +with fifty-seven Round Towers, fell in an earthquake in 448, whereas +the passage turns out to be a quotation from "Marcellinus"[38] of the +fall of part of the defences of Constantinople--"Urbis Augustae!" + +References to towers in Irish annals are quoted by Mr. D'Alton; but +they turn out to be written about the Cyclopean Forts, or low stone +raths, such as we find at Aileach, etc. + + --------------------------------------------------------------- + [38] Author of the _Life of Thucydides_.--C.P.M. + + +CELESTIAL INDEXES. + +Dr. Charles O'Connor, of Stowe, is the chief supporter of the +astronomical theory. One of his arguments is founded on the mistaken +reading of the word "_turaghun_" (which he derives from _tur_, a tower, +and _aghan_, or _adhan_, the kindling of flame), instead of +"_truaghan_," an ascetic. The only other authority of his which we have +not noticed is the passage in the _Ulster Annals_, at the year 995, in +which it is said that certain Fidhnemead were burned by lightning at +Armagh. He translates the word celestial indexes, and paraphrases it +Round Towers, and all because _fiadh_ means witness, and _neimhedh_, +heavenly or sacred, the real meaning being holy wood, or wood of the +sanctuary, from _fidh_, a wood, and _neimhedh_, holy, as is proved by a +pile of _exact_ authorities. + +Dr. Lanigan, in his ecclesiastical history, and Moore, in his general +history, repeat the arguments which we have mentioned. They also bring +objections against the alleged Christian origin, which we hold over; +but it is plain that nothing prevailed more with them than the alleged +resemblance of these towers to certain oriental buildings. Assuredly if +there were a close likeness between the Irish Round Towers and oriental +fire temples of proved antiquity, it would be an argument for identity +of use; and though direct testimony from our annals would come in and +show that the present towers were built as Christian belfries from the +sixth to the tenth centuries, the resemblance would at least indicate +that the belfries had been built after the model of Pagan fire towers +previously existing here. But "rotundos of above thirty feet in +diameter" in Persia, Turkish minarets of the tenth or fourteenth +centuries, and undated turrets in India, which Lord Valentia thought +like our Round Towers, give no _such_ resemblance. We shall look +anxiously for exact measurements and datas of oriental buildings +resembling Round Towers, and weigh the evidence which may be offered to +show that there were any Pagan models for the latter in Ireland or in +Asia. + +Mr. Windele, of Cork, besides using all the previously-mentioned +arguments for the Paganism of these towers, finds another in the +supposed resemblance to THE NURRAGGIS OF SARDINIA, which are tombs or +temples formed in that island, and attributed to the Phoenicians. But, +alas, for the theory, they have turned out to be "as broad as they're +long." A square building, 57 feet in each side, with bee-hive towers at +each angle, and a centre bee-hive tower reaching to 45 or 65 feet high, +with stone stairs, is sadly unlike a Round Tower! + +The most recent theory is that the Round Towers are + + +HERO-MONUMENTS. + +Mr. Windele and the South Munster Antiquarian Society started this, Sir +William Betham sanctioned it, and several rash gentlemen dug under +towers to prove it. At Cashel, Kinsale, etc., they satisfied themselves +that there were no sepulchres or bones ever under the towers, but in +some other places they took the rubbish bones casually thrown into the +towers, and in two cases the chance underlying of ancient +burying-grounds, as proofs of this notion. But Mr. Petrie settles for +this idea by showing that there is no such use of the Round Towers +mentioned in our annals, and also by the following most interesting +account of the cemeteries and monuments of all the races of Pagan +Irish:-- + + HISTORY OF THE CEMETERIES. + + "A great king of great judgments assumed the sovereignty of Erin, + _i.e._, Cormac, son of Art, son of Conn of the Hundred Battles. + Erin was prosperous in his time, because just judgments were + distributed throughout it by him; so that no one durst attempt to + wound a man in Erin during the short jubilee of seven years; for + Cormac had the faith of the one true God, according to the law; for + he said that he would not adore stones, or trees, but that he would + adore Him who had made them, and who had power over all the + elements, _i.e._, the one powerful God who created the elements; in + Him he would believe. And he was the third person who had believed + in Erin before the arrival of St. Patrick. Conchobor MacNessa, to + whom Altus had told concerning the crucifixion of Christ, _was the + first_; Morann, the son of Cairbre Cinncait (who was surnamed Mac + Main), was the second person; and Cormac was the third; and it is + probable that others followed on their track in this belief. + + "Where Cormac held his court was at Tara, in imitation of the kings + who preceded him, until his eye was destroyed by Engus + Gaibhuaiphnech, the son of Eochaidh Finn Futhairt: but afterwards + he resided at Acaill (the hill on which Serin Colaim Cille is at + this day), and at Cenannas (Kells), and at the house of Cletech; + for it was not lawful that a king with a _personal_ blemish + should reside at Tara. In the second year after the injuring of his + eye he came by his death at the house of Cletech, the bone of a + salmon having stuck in his throat. And he (Cormac) told his people + not to bury him at Brugh (because it was a cemetery of Idolaters), + for he did not worship the same God as any of those interred at + Brugh; but to bury him at Ros-na-righ, with his face to the east. + He afterwards died, and his servants of trust held a council, and + came to the resolution of burying him at Brugh, the place where the + kings of Tara, his predecessors, were buried. The body of the king + was afterwards thrice raised to be carried to Brugh, but the Boyne + swelled up thrice, so that they could not come; so that they + observed that it was 'violating the judgment of a prince' to break + through this testament of the king, and they afterwards dug his + grave at Ros-na-righ, as he himself had ordered. + + "These were the chief cemeteries of Erin before the Faith (_i.e._, + before the introduction of Christianity), viz., Cruachu, Brugh, + Tailltin, Luachair, Ailbe, Oenach Ailbe, Oenach Culi, Oenach + Colmain, Temhair Erann. + + "Oenach Cruachan, in the first place, it was there the race of + Heremon (_i.e._, the kings of Tara) were used to bury until the + time of Cremhthann, the son of Lughaidh Riabh-n-derg (who was the + first king of them that was interred at Brugh), viz., Cobhlhach + Coelbregh, and Labhraidh Loingsech, and Eocho Fedhlech with his + three sons (_i.e._, the three Fidhemhna--_i.e._, Bres, Nar, and + Lothoe), and Eocho Airemh, Lughaidh Riabh-n-derg, the six daughters + of Eocho Fedhlech (_i.e._, Medhbh, and Clothru, Muresc, and + Drebrin, Mugain, and Ele), and Adill Mac Mada with his seven + brothers (_i.e._, Cet, Anlon, Doche, _et ceteri_), and all the + kings _down_ to Cremhthann (these were all buried at Cruachan). Why + was it not at Brugh that the kings (of the race of Cobhthach down + to Crimthann) were interred? Not difficult; because the two + provinces which the race of Heremon possessed were the province of + Gailian (_i.e._, the province of Leinster), and the province of + Olnecmacht (_i.e._, the province of Connaught). In the first place, + the province of Gailian was occupied by the race of Labhraidh + Loingsech, and the province of Connaught was the peculiar + inheritance of the race of Cobhtach Coelbregh; wherefore it + (_i.e._, the province of Connaught) was given to Medhbh before + every other province. (The reason that the government of this land + was given to Medhbh is because there was none of the race of + Eochaidh fit to receive it but herself, for Lughaidh was not fit + for action at the time.) And whenever, therefore, the monarchy of + Erin was enjoyed by any of the descendants of Cobhthach Coelbregh, + the province of Connaught was his _ruidles_ (_i.e._, his native + principality). And for this reason they were interred at Oenach na + Cruachna. But they were interred at Brugh from the time of + Crimthann (Niadh-nar) to the time of Loeghaire, the son of Niall, + except three persons, namely, Art, the son of Conn, and Cormac, the + son of Art, and Niall of the Nine Hostages. + + "We have already mentioned the cause for which Cormac was not + interred there. The reason why Art was not interred there is + because he 'believed,' the day before the battle of Muccramma was + fought, and he predicted the Faith (_i.e._, that Christianity would + prevail in Erin), and he said that his own grave would be at Dumha + Dergluachra, where Treoit [Trevet] is at this day, as he mentioned + in a poem which he composed--viz., _Cain do denna den_ (_i.e._, a + poem which Art composed, the beginning of which is _Cain do denna + den_, etc.). When his (Art's) body was afterwards carried eastwards + to Dumha Dergluachra, if all the men of Erin were drawing it + thence, they could not, so that he was interred in that place + because there was a Catholic church to be afterwards at the place + where he was interred (_i.e._, Treoit _hodie_). because the truth + and the Faith had been revealed to him through his regal + righteousness. + + "Where Niall was interred was at Ochain, whence the hill was called + Ochain, _i.e._, _Och Caine_, _i.e._, from the sighing and + lamentation which the men of Erin made in lamenting Niall. + + "Conaire More was interred at Magh Feci in Bregia (_i.e._, at Fert + Conaire); however, some say that it was Conaire Carpraige was + interred there, and not Conaire Mor, and that Conaire Mor was the + third king who was interred at Tara--viz., Conaire, Loeghaire, and + * * * + + "At Tailltin the kings of Ulster were used to bury--viz., Ollamh + Fodhla, with his descendants down to Conchobhar, who wished that he + should be carried to a place between Slea and the sea, with his + face to the east, on account of the Faith which he had embraced. + + "The nobles of the Tuatha De Danann were used to bury at Brugh + (_i.e._, the Dagda with his three sons; also Lughaidh and Oe, and + Ollam, and Ogma, and Etan, the Poetess, and Corpre, the son of + Etan), and Cremhthann followed them because his wife Nar was of the + Tuatha Dea, and it was she solicited him that he should adopt Brugh + as a burial-place for himself and his descendants, and this was the + cause that they did not bury at Cruachan. + + "The Lagenians (_i.e._, Cathair with his race and the kings who + were before them) were buried at Oenach Ailbhe. The Clann Dedad + (_i.e._, the race of Conaire and Erna) at Temhair Erann; the men of + Munster (_i.e._, the Dergthene) at Oenach Culi, and Oenach Colmain; + and the Connacians at Cruachan." + + +ANCHORITE TOWERS. + +Because Simon Stylites lived in a domicile, sized "scarce two cubits," +_on_ a pillar sixty feet high, and because other anchorites lived on +pillars and in cells, Dean Richardson suggested that the Irish Round +Towers were for hermits; and was supported by Walter Harris, Dr. +Milner, Dr. King, etc. The _cloch angcoire_, or hermit's stone, quoted +in aid of this fancy, turns out to be a narrow cell; and so much for +the hermits! + +The confusion of + + +TOURS AND TOWERS + +is a stupid pun or a vulgar pronunciation in English; but in Irish gave +rise to the antiquarian theory of Dr. Smith, who, in his _History of +Cork_, concludes that the Round Towers were penitential prisons, +because the Irish word for a penitential round or journey is _turas_! + + +THE PHALLIC THEORY + +never had any support but poor Henry O'Brien's enthusiastic ignorance +and the caricaturing pen of his illustrator. + +We have now done with the theories of these towers, which Mr. Petrie +has shown, past doubt, to be either positively false or quite unproved. +His own opinion is that they were used--1, as belfries; 2, as keeps, or +houses of shelter for the clergy and their treasures; and 3, as +watch-towers and beacons; and into his evidence for this opinion we +shall go at a future day, thanking him at present for having displaced +a heap of incongruous, though agreeable, fancies, and given us the +learned, the most exact, and the most important work ever published on +the antiquities of the Ancient Irish Nation. + + + + +THE IRISH BRIGADE. + + +When valour becomes a reproach, when patriotism is thought a prejudice, +and when a soldier's sword is a sign of shame, the Irish Brigade will +be forgotten or despised. + +The Irish are a military people--strong, nimble, and hardy, fond of +adventure, irascible, brotherly, and generous--they have all the +qualities that tempt men to war and make them good soldiers. Dazzled by +their great fame on the Continent, and hearing of their insular wars +chiefly through the interested lies of England, Voltaire expressed his +wonder that a nation which had behaved so gallantly abroad had "always +fought badly at home." It would have been most wonderful. + +It may be conceded that the Irish performed more illustrious actions on +the Continent. They fought with the advantages of French discipline and +equipment; they fought as soldiers, with the rights of war, not +"rebels, with halters round their necks"; they fought by the side of +great rivals and amid the gaze of Europe. + +In the most of their domestic wars they appeared as divided clans or +abrupt insurgents; they were exposed to the treachery of a more +instructed, of an unscrupulous and a compact enemy; they had neither +discipline, nor generalship, nor arms; their victories were those of a +mob; their defeats were followed by extermination. + +We speak of their ordinary contests with England from the time of +Roderick O'Connor to that of '98. Occasionally they had more +opportunities, and their great qualities for war appeared. In Hugh (or, +rather Aodh) O'Neill they found a leader who only wanted material +resources to have made them an independent nation. Cautious, as became +the heir of so long a strife, he spent years in acquiring military +knowledge and nursing up his clan into the kernel for a nation; crafty +as Bacon and Cecil, and every other man of his time, he learned war in +Elizabeth's armies, and got help from her store-houses. When the +discontent of the Pale, religious tyranny, and the intrigues and +hostility of Spain and Rome against England gave him an opening, he put +his ordered clan into action, stormed the neighbouring garrisons, +struck terror into his hereditary foes, and gave hope to all patriots; +but finding that his ranks were too few for battle, he negotiated +successfully for peace, but unavailingly for freedom; his grievances +and designs remained, and he retired to repeat the same policy, till, +after repeated guerillas and truces, he was strong enough to proclaim +alliance with Spain and war with England, and to defeat and slay every +deputy that assailed him, till at last he marched from the triumph of +Beal-an-ath Buidhe[39] (where Marshal Bagenal and his army perished) to +hold an almost royal court at Munster, and to reduce the Pale to the +limits it had formed in the Wars of the Roses; and even when the +neglect of Spain, the genius of Mountjoy, the resources and intrigues +of England, and the exhaustion and divisions of Ireland had rendered +success hopeless, the Irish under O'Ruarc, O'Sullivan, and O'Doherty +vindicated their military character. + +From that period they, whose foreign services, since Dathi's time, had +been limited to supplying feudatories to the English kings, began to +fight under the flags of England's enemies in every corner of Europe. +The artifices of the Stuarts regained them, and in the reign of Charles +the First they were extensively enlisted for the English allies and for +the crown; but it was under the guidance of another O'Neill, and for +Ireland,[40] they again exhibited the qualities which had sustained +Tyrone. The battle of Benburb affords as great a proof of Irish +soldiership as Fontenoy. + +But it was when, with a formal government and in a regular war, they +encountered the Dutch invader, they showed the full prowess of the +Irish; and at the Boyne, Limerick, Athlone, and Aughrim, in victory or +defeat, and always against _immensely superior numbers and armaments_, +proved that they fought well at home. + +Since the day when Sarsfield sailed the Irish have never had an +opportunity of refuting the calumny of England which Voltaire accepted. +In '98 they met enormous forces resting on all the magazines of +England; they had no officers; their leaders, however brave, neither +knew how to organise, provision, station, or manoeuvre troops--their +arms were casual--their ignorance profound--their intemperance +unrestrainable. If they put English supremacy in peril (and had Arklow +or Ballinahinch been attacked with skill, that supremacy was gone), +they did so by mere valour. + +It is, therefore, on the Continent that one must chiefly look for Irish +trophies. It is a pious and noble search; but he who pursues it had +need to guard against the error we have noticed in Voltaire, of +disparaging Irish soldiership at home. + +The materials for the history of the Irish Brigade are fast +accumulating. We have before us the _Military History of the Irish +Nation_, by the late Matthew O'Conor. He was a barrister, but studied +military subjects (as became a gentleman and a citizen), peculiarly +interested himself in the achievements of his countrymen, and prepared +materials for a history of them. He died, leaving his work unfinished, +yet, happily sufficiently advanced to offer a continuous narrative of +Irish internal wars, from Hugh O'Neill to Sarsfield, and of their +foreign services up to the Peace of Utrecht, in 1711. The style of the +work is earnest and glowing, full of patriotism and liberality; but Mr. +O'Conor was no blind partisan, and he neither hides the occasional +excesses of the Irish, nor disparages their opponents. His descriptions +of battles are very superior to what one ordinarily meets in the works +of civilians, and any one reading them with a military atlas will be +gratified and instructed. + +The value of the work is vastly augmented by the appendix, which is a +memoir of the Brigade, written in French, in 1749, and including the +War Office orders, and all the changes in organisation, numbers, and +pay of the Brigade to that date. This memoir is authenticated thus:-- + + "His Excellency, the Duke of Feltre, Minister of War, was so kind + as to communicate to me the original memoir above cited, of which + this is a perfect copy, which I attest. + + "DE MONTMORENCY MORRES (Herve), + "Adjutant-Commandant, Colonel. + + "Paris, 1st September, 1813." + +To give any account of the details of Mr. O'Conor's book we should +abridge it, and an abridgment of a military history is a catalogue of +names. It contains accounts of Hugh O'Neill's campaigns and of the wars +of William and James in Ireland. It describes (certainly a new chapter +in our knowledge) the services of the Irish in the Low Countries and +France during the religious wars in Henri Quatre's time, and the +hitherto equally unknown actions abroad during Charles the Second's +exile and reign. + +The wars of Mountcashel's (the old) Brigade in 1690-91, under St. Ruth +in Savoy, occupy many interesting pages, and the first campaigns of the +New Brigade, with the death of Sarsfield and Mountcashel, are carefully +narrated. The largest part of the work is occupied with the wars of the +Spanish succession, and contains minute narratives of the battles and +sieges of Cremona, Spire, Luzzaca, Blenheim, Cassano, Ramilies, +Almanza, Alcira, Malplaquet, and Denain, with the actions of the Irish +in them. + +Here are great materials for our future History of Ireland. + + --------------------------------------------------------------- + [39] See Mitchel's _Life of Hugh O'Neill_, and Meehan's _Flight of + the Earls_. Dublin: Duffy & Sons. + + [40] Owen Roe, who defeated Monro, 1646. + + + + +THE SPEECHES OF GRATTAN.[41] + + +Of the long line of Protestant patriots Grattan is the first in genius, +and first in services. He had a more fervid and more Irish nature than +Swift or Flood, and he accomplished what Swift hardly dreamed, and +Flood failed in--an Irish constitution. He had immeasurably more +imagination than Tone; and though he was far behind the great Founder +of the United Irishmen in organising power, he surpassed him in +inspiration. The statues of all shall be in our forums, and examples of +all in our hearts, but that of Grattan shall be pre-eminent. The +stubborn and advancing energy of Swift and Flood may teach us to bear +up against wrong; the principles of Tone may end in liberation; but the +splendid nationality of Grattan shall glorify us in every condition. + +The speeches of Grattan were collected and his memoirs written by his +son. The latter is an accessible and an invaluable account of his life; +but the speeches were out of print, not purchasable under five or six +guineas, and then were unmanageably numerous for any but a professed +politician. Mr. Madden's volume gives for a trifle all Grattan's most +valuable speeches, with a memoir sufficient to explain the man and the +orator. + +On the speeches of Grattan here published we have little to say. They +are the finest specimens of imaginative eloquence in the English, or in +any, language. There is not much pathos, and no humour in them, and in +these respects Grattan is far less of an Irishman, and of an orator +too, than Curran; but a philosophy, penetrating constitutions for their +warnings, and human nature for its guides--a statesman's (as +distinguished from an antiquarian's) use of history--a passionate scorn +and invective for the base, tyrannical, and unjust--a fiery and copious +zeal for liberty and for Ireland, and a diction and cadence almost +lyrical, made Grattan the sudden achiever of a Revolution, and will +make him for ever one of the very elements of Ireland. + +No other orator is so uniformly animated. No other orator has +brightened the depths of political philosophy with such vivid and +lasting light. No writer in the language except Shakespeare has so +sublime and suggestive a diction. His force and vehemence are +amazing--far beyond Chatham, far beyond Fox, far beyond any orator we +can recall. + +To the student of oratory Grattan's speeches are dangerously +suggestive, overpowering spirits that will not leave when bid. Yet, +with all this terrible potency, who would not bask in his genius, even +at the hazard of having his light for ever in your eyes. The brave +student will rather exult in his effulgence--not to rob, not to mimic +it--but to catch its inspiration, and then go on his way resolved to +create a glory of his own which, however small, being genuine, shall +not pale within its sphere. + +To give a _just_ idea of Grattan's rush and splendour to anyone not +familiar with his speeches is impossible; but _some_ glimmer may be +got by one reading the extracts we shall add here. We shall take them +at random, as we open the pages in the book, and leave the reader, +untaught in our great orator, to judge, if chance is certain of finding +such gems, what would not judicious care discover! Let him use that +care again and again. + + "Sir, we may hope to dazzle with illumination, and we may sicken + with addresses, but the public imagination will never rest, nor + will her heart be well at ease; never! so long as the parliament of + England exercises or claims a legislation over this country: so + long as this shall be the case, that very free trade, otherwise a + perpetual attachment, will be the cause of new discontent; it will + create a pride to feel the indignity of bondage; it will furnish a + strength to bite your chain, and the liberty withheld will poison + the good communicated. + + "The British minister mistakes the Irish character; had he intended + to make Ireland a slave he should have kept her a beggar; there is + no middle policy; win her heart by the restoration of her right, or + cut off the nation's right hand; greatly emancipate, or + fundamentally destroy. We may talk plausibly to England, but so + long as she exercises a power to bind this country, so long are the + nations in a state of war; the claims of the one go against the + liberty of the other, and the sentiments of the latter go to oppose + those claims to the last drop of her blood. The English opposition, + therefore, are right; mere trade will not satisfy Ireland--they + judge of us by other great nations, by the nation whose political + life has been a struggle for liberty; they judge of us with a true + knowledge and just deference for our character: that a country + enlightened as Ireland, chartered as Ireland, armed as Ireland and + injured as Ireland, will be satisfied with nothing less than + liberty. + + "Impracticable! impracticable! impracticable! a zealous divine will + say; any alteration is beyond the power and wisdom of parliament; + above the faculties of man to make adequate provision for 900 + clergymen who despise riches. Were it to raise a new tax for their + provision, or for that of a body less holy, how easy the task! how + various the means! but when the proposal is to diminish a tax + already established, an impossibility glares us in the face, of a + measure so contrary to our practices both in church and state." + +We were wrong in saying there was no humour in Grattan. Here is a +passage humorous enough, but it is scornful, rhetorical humour:-- + + "It does not affect the doctrine of our religion; it does not alter + the church establishment; it does not affect the constitution of + episcopacy. The modus does not even alter the mode of their + provision, it only limits the quantum, and limits it on principles + much less severe than that charity which they preach, or that + abstinence which they inculcate. Is this innovation?--as if the + Protestant religion was to be propagated in Ireland, like the + influence of a minister, by bribery; or like the influence of a + county candidate, by money; or like the cause of a potwalloping + canvasser, by the weight of the purse; as if Christ could not + prevail over the earth unless Mammon took him by the hand. Am I to + understand that if you give the parson 12s. in the acre for + potatoes and 10s. for wheat, the Protestant religion is safe on its + rock? But if you reduce him to 6s. the acre for potatoes and wheat, + then Jupiter shakes the heavens with his thunder, Neptune rakes up + the deep with his trident, and Pluto leaps from his throne! See the + curate--he rises at six to morning prayers; he leaves company at + six for evening prayer; he baptises, he marries, he churches, he + buries, he follows with pious offices his fellow creature from the + cradle to the grave; for what immense income! what riches to reward + these inestimable services? (Do not depend on the penury of the + laity, let his own order value his deserts.) L50 a year! L50! for + praying, for christening, for marrying, for churching, for burying, + for following with Christian offices his fellow-creature from + cradle to grave; so frugal a thing is devotion, so cheap religion, + so easy the terms on which man may worship his Maker, and so small + the income, in the opinion of ecclesiastics, sufficient for the + duties of a clergyman, as far as he is connected at all with the + Christian religion. + + * * * * * + + "By this trade of parliament the King is absolute; his will is + signified by both houses of parliament, who are now as much an + instrument in his hand as a bayonet in the hands of a regiment. + Like a regiment we have our adjutant, who sends to the infirmary + for the old and to the brothel for the young, and men thus carted, + as it were, into this house, to vote for the minister, are called + the representatives of the people! Suppose General Washington to + ring his bell, and order his servants out of livery to take their + seats in Congress--you can apply this instance. + + "It is not life but the condition of living--the slave is not so + likely to complain of the want of property as the proprietor of the + want of privilege. The human mind is progressive--the child does + not look back to the parent that gave him being, nor the proprietor + to the people that gave him the power of acquisition, but both look + forward--the one to provide for the comforts of life, and the other + to obtain all the privileges of property." + +But we have fallen on one of his most marvellous passages, and we give +it entire:-- + + "I will put this question to my country; I will suppose her at the + bar, and I will ask her, Will you fight for a Union as you would + for a constitution? Will you fight for that Lords and that Commons + who, in the last century, took away your trade, and, in the + present, your constitution, as for that King, Lords, and Commons + who have restored both? Well, the minister has destroyed this + constitution; to destroy is easy. The edifices of the mind, like + the fabrics of marble, require an age to build, but ask only + minutes to precipitate; and as the fall of both is an effort of no + time, so neither is it a business of any strength--a pick-axe and a + common labourer will do the one--a little lawyer, a little pimp, a + wicked minister the other. + + "The Constitution, which, with more or less violence, has been the + inheritance of this country for six hundred years--that _modus + tenendi parliamentum_, which lasted and outlasted of Plantagenet + the wars, of Tudor the violence, and of Stuart the systematic + falsehood--the condition of our connection--yes, the constitution + he destroys is one of the pillars of the British Empire. He may + walk round it and round it, and the more he contemplates the more + must he admire it--such a one as had cost England of money millions + and of blood a deluge, cheaply and nobly expended--whose + restoration had cost Ireland her noblest efforts, and was the + habitation of her loyalty--we are accustomed to behold the kings of + these countries in the keeping of parliament--I say of her loyalty + as well as of her liberty, where she had hung up the sword of the + Volunteer--her temple of fame as well as of freedom--where she had + seated herself, as she vainly thought, in modest security and in a + long repose. + + "I have done with the pile which the minister batters, I come to + the Babel which he builds; and as he throws down without a + principle, so does he construct without a foundation. This fabric + he calls a Union, and to this, his fabric, there are two striking + objections--first it is no Union; it is not an identification of + people, for it excludes the Catholics; secondly, it is a + consolidation of the Irish legislatures--that is to say, a merger + of the Irish parliament, and incurs every objection to a Union, + without obtaining the only object which a Union professes; it is an + extinction of the constitution, and an exclusion of the people. + Well! he has overlooked the people as he has overlooked the sea. I + say he excludes the Catholics, and he destroys their best chance of + admission--the relative consequence. Thus he reasons, that + hereafter, in course of time (he does not say when), if they behave + themselves (he does not say how), they may see their subjects + submitted to a course of discussion (he does not say with what + result or determination); and as the ground for this inane period, + in which he promises nothing, and in which, if he did promise much, + at so remote a period he could perform nothing, unless he, like the + evil he has accomplished, be immortal. For this inane sentence, in + which he can scarcely be said to deceive the Catholic, or suffer + the Catholic to deceive himself, he exhibits no other ground than + the physical inanity of the Catholic body accomplished by a Union, + which, as it destroys the relative importance of Ireland, so it + destroys the relative proportion of the Catholic inhabitants, and + thus they become admissible, because they cease to be anything. + Hence, according to him, their brilliant expectation: 'You were,' + say his advocates, and so imports his argument, 'before the Union + as three to one, you will be by the Union as one to four.' Thus he + founds their hopes of political power on the extinction of physical + consequence, and makes the inanity of their body and the nonentity + of their country the pillars of their future ambition." + +We now return to the memoir by Mr. Madden. It is not the details of a +life meagre for want of space, and confused for want of principles, as +most little biographies are; it is an estimate--a profound one--of +Grattan's original nature, of the influences which acted on him from +youth to manhood, of his purposes, his principles, and his influence on +Ireland. + +Henry Grattan was twenty-nine years of age when he entered on politics, +and in seven years he was the triumphant leader of a people free and +victorious after hereditary bondage. He entered parliament educated in +the meta-physical and political philosophy of the time, injured by its +cold and epigrammatic verse and its artificial tastes--familiar with +every form of aristocratic life from Kilkenny to London--familiar, too, +with Chatham's oratory and principles, and with Flood's views and +example. He came when there were great forces rushing through the +land--eloquence, love of liberty, thirst for commerce, hatred of +English oppression, impatience, glory, and, above all, a military +array. He combined these elements and used them to achieve the +Revolution of '82. Be he for ever honoured! + +Mr. Madden defends him against Flood on the question of Simple Repeal. +Here is his reasoning:-- + + "It is an easy thing now to dispose of the idle question of simple + repeal. In truth, there was nothing whatever deserving of attention + in the point raised by Mr. Flood. The security for the continuance + of Irish freedom did not depend upon an English act of parliament. + It was by Irish _will_ and not at English pleasure that the new + constitution was to be supported. The transaction between the + countries was of a high political nature, and it was to be judged by + political reason, and by statesmanlike computation, and not by the + petty technicalities of the court of law. The revolution of 1782, as + carried by Ireland, and assented to by England (in repealing the 6th + George the First), was a political compact--proposed by one country, + and acknowledged by the other in the face of Europe; it was not (as + Mr. Flood and his partisans construed the transaction) of the nature + of municipal right, to be enforced or annulled by mere judicial + exposition." + +This is unanswerable, but Grattan should have gone further. The +Revolution was effected mainly by the Volunteers, whom he had inspired; +arms could alone have preserved the constitution. Flood was wrong in +setting value on one form--Grattan in relying on any; but both before +and after '82 Flood seems to have had glimpses that the question was +one of might, as well as of right, and that national laws could not +last under such an alien army. + +Taken as military representatives, the Convention at the Rotunda was +even more valuable than as a civic display. Mr. Madden censures Grattan +for having been an elaborate neutral during these Reform dissensions; +but that the result of _such_ neutrality ruined the Convention +proves a comparative want of power in Flood, who could have governed +that Convention in spite of the rascally English and the feeble Irish +Whigs. Oh, had Tone been in that council! + +In describing Grattan's early and enthusiastic and ceaseless advocacy +of Catholic liberty, Mr. Madden has a just subject for unmixed eulogy. +Let no one imagine that the interest of these Emancipation speeches has +died with the achievement of what they pleaded for; they will ever +remain divinest protests against the vice and impolicy of religious +ascendency, of sectarian bitterness, and of bigot separation. + +For this admirable beginning of the design of giving Ireland its most +glorious achievement--the speeches of its orators--to contemplate, the +country should be grateful; but if there can be anything better for it +to hear than can be had in Grattan's speeches, it is such language as +this from his eloquent editor:-- + + "Reader! if you be an Irish Protestant, and entertain harsh + prejudices against your Catholic countrymen, study the works and + life of Grattan--learn from him--for none can teach you better how + to purify your nature from bigotry. Learn from him to look upon all + your countrymen with a loving heart--to be tolerant of infirmities + caused by their unhappy history--and, like Grattan, earnestly + sympathise with all that is brave and generous in their character. + + "Reader! if you be an Irish Catholic, and that you confound the + Protestant religion with tyranny, learn from Grattan that it is + possible to be a Protestant and have a heart for Ireland and its + people. Think that the brightest age of Ireland was when Grattan--a + steady Protestant--raised it to proud eminence; think also that in + the hour of his triumph he did not forget the state of your + oppressed fathers, but laboured through his virtuous life that both + you and your children should enjoy unshackled liberty of + conscience. + + "But reader! whether you be Protestant or Catholic, or whatever be + your party, you will do well as an Irishman to ponder upon the + spirit and principles which governed the public and private life of + Grattan. Learn from him how to regard your countrymen of all + denominations. Observe, as he did, how very much that is excellent + belongs to both the great parties into which Ireland is divided. If + (as some do) you entertain dispiriting views of Ireland, recollect + that any country containing such elements as those which roused the + genius of Grattan never need despair. _Sursum corda_. Be not + disheartened. + + "Go--go--my countrymen--and, within your social sphere, carry into + practice those moral principles which Grattan so eloquently taught, + and which he so remarkably enforced by his well-spent life. He will + teach you to avoid hating men on account of their religious + professions or hereditary descent. From him you will learn + principles which, if carried out, would generate a new state of + society in Ireland." + + --------------------------------------------------------------- + [41] "The Select Speeches of the Right Hon. Henry Grattan. To which + is added his Letter on the Union, with a Commentary on his Career + and Character." By Daniel Owen Madden, Esq., of the Inner Temple. + Dublin: James Duffy, 1845. 8vo, pp. 534. + + + + +MEMORIALS OF WEXFORD. + + +'Twixt Croghan-Kinshela and Hook Head, 'twixt Carnsore and Mount +Leinster, there is as good a mass of men as ever sustained a state by +honest franchises, by peace, virtue, and intelligent industry; and as +stout a mass as ever tramped through a stubborn battle. There is a +county where we might seek more of stormy romance, and there is a +county where prospers a shrewder economy, but no county in Ireland is +fitter for freedom than Wexford. + +They are a peculiar people--these Wexford men. Their blood is for the +most part English and Welsh, though mixed with the Danish and Gaelic, +yet they are Irish in thought and feeling. They are a Catholic people, +yet on excellent terms with their Protestant landlords. Outrages are +unknown, for though the rents are high enough, they are not unbearable +by a people so industrious and skilled in farming. + +Go to the fair and you will meet honest dealing, and a look that heeds +no lordling's frown--for the Wexford men have neither the base bend nor +the baser craft of slaves. Go to the hustings, and you will see open +and honest voting; no man shrinking or crying for concealment, or +extorting a bribe under the name of "his expenses." Go to their farms +and you will see a snug homestead, kept clean, prettily sheltered (much +what you'd see in Down); more green crops than even in Ulster; the +National School and the Repeal Reading-room well filled, and every +religious duty regarded. + +Wexford is not all it might be, or all that, with more education and +the life-hope of nationality, it will be--there is something to blame +and something to lament, here a vice sustained, and there a misfortune +lazily borne; yet, take it for all in all, it is the most prosperous, +it is the pattern county of the South; and when we see it coming +forward in a mass to renew its demand for native government, it is an +omen that the spirit of the people outlives quarrels and jealousies, +and that it has a rude vitality which will wear out its oppressors. + +Nor are we indifferent to the memories of Wexford. It owes much of its +peace and prosperity to the war it sustained. It rose in '98 with +little organisation against intolerable wrong; and though it was +finally beaten by superior forces, it taught its aristocracy and the +government a lesson not easily forgotten--a lesson that popular anger +could strike hard as well as sigh deeply; and that it was better to +conciliate than provoke those who even for an hour had felt their +strength. The red rain made Wexford's harvest grow. Theirs was no +treacherous assassination--theirs no stupid riot--theirs no pale +mutiny. They rose in mass and swept the country by sheer force. + +Nor in their sinking fortunes is there anything to blush at. +Scullabogue was not burned by the fighting men. + +Yet nowhere did the copper sun of that July burn upon a more +heart-piercing sight than a rebel camp. Scattered on a hill-top, or +screened in a gap, were the grey-coated thousands, their memories mad +at burned cabins, and military whips, and hanged friends; their hopes +dimmed by partial defeat; their eyes lurid with care; their brows full +of gloomy resignation. Some have short guns which the stern of a boat +might bear, but which press through the shoulder of a marching man; and +others have light fowling-pieces, with dandy locks--troublesome and +dangerous toys. Most have pikes, stout weapons, too; and though some +swell to hand-spikes, and others thin to knives, yet, for all that, +fatal are they to dragoon or musketeer if they can meet him in a rush; +but how shall they do so? The gunsmen have only a little powder in +scraps of paper or bags, and their balls are few and rarely fit. They +have no potatoes ripe, and they have no bread--their food is the worn +cattle they have crowded there, and which the first skirmish may rend +from them. There are women and children seeking shelter, seeking those +they love; and there are leaders busier, feebler, less knowing, less +resolved than the women and the children. + +Great hearts! how faithful ye are! How ye bristled up when the foe came +on, how ye set your teeth to die as his shells and round-shot fell +steadily; and with how firm a cheer ye dashed at him, if he gave you +any chance at all of a grapple! From the wild burst with which ye +triumphed at Oulart Hill, down to the faint gasp wherewith the last of +your last column died in the corn-fields of Meath, there is nothing to +shame your valour, your faith, or your patriotism. You wanted arms, and +you wanted leaders. Had you had them, you would have guarded a green +flag in Dublin Castle a week after you beat Walpole. Isolated, +unorganised, unofficered, half-armed, girt by a swarm of foes, you +ceased to fight, but you neither betrayed nor repented. Your sons need +not fear to speak of Ninety-eight. + +You, people of Wexford, almost all Repealers, are the sons of the men +of '98; prosperous and many, will you only shout for Repeal, and line +roads and tie boughs for a holiday? Or will you press your +organisation, work at your education, and increase your political +power, so that your leaders may know and act on the knowledge that, +come what may, there is trust in Wexford? + + + + +THE HISTORY OF TO-DAY. + + +From 1793 to 1829--for thirty-six years--the Irish Catholics struggled +for Emancipation. _That_ Emancipation was but admission to the +Bench, the Inner Bar, and Parliament. It was won by self-denial, +genius, vast and sustained labours, and, lastly, by the sacrifice of +the forty-shilling freeholders--the poor veterans of the war--and by +submission to insulting oaths; yet it was cheaply bought. Not so +cheaply, perchance, as if won by the sword; for on it were expended +more treasures, more griefs, more intellect, more passion, more of all +which makes life welcome, than had been needed for war; still it was +cheaply bought, and Ireland has glorified herself, and will through +ages triumph in the victory of '29. + +Yet what was Emancipation compared to Repeal? + +The one put a silken badge on a few members of one profession; the +other would give to all professions and all trades the rank and riches +which resident proprietors, domestic legislation, and flourishing +commerce infallibly create. + +Emancipation made it possible for Catholics to sit on the judgment +seat; but it left a foreign administration, which has excluded them, +save in two or three cases, where over-topping eminence made the +acceptance of a Judgeship no promotion; and it left the local +Judges--those with whom the people have to deal--as partial, ignorant, +bigoted as ever; while Repeal would give us an Irish code and +Irish-hearted Judges in every Court, from the Chancery to the Petty +Sessions. + +Emancipation dignified a dozen Catholics with a senatorial name in a +foreign and hostile Legislature. Repeal would give us a Senate, a +Militia, an Administration, all our own. + +The Penal Code, as it existed since 1793, insulted the faith of the +Catholics, restrained their liberties, and violated the public Treaty +of Limerick. The Union has destroyed our manufactures, prohibits our +flag, prevents our commerce, drains our rental, crushes our genius, +makes our taxation a tribute, our representation a shadow, our name a +by-word. It were nobler to strive for Repeal than to get Emancipation. + +Four years ago the form of Repeal agitation began--two years ago, its +reality. Have we not cause to be proud of the labours of these two +years? If life be counted, not by the rising of suns, or the idle +turning of machinery, but by the growth of the will, and the progress +of thoughts and passions in the soul, we Irishmen have spent an age +since we raised our first cry for liberty. Consider what we were then, +and what we have done since. We had a People unorganised--disgusted +with a Whig alliance--beaten in a dishonourable struggle to sustain a +faction--ignorant of each other's will--without books, without song, +without leaders (save one), without purposes, without strength, without +hope. The Corn Exchange was the faint copy of the Catholic Association, +with a few enthusiasts, a few loungers, and a few correspondents. +Opposite to us was the great Conservative party, with a majority +exceeding our whole representation, united, flushed, led by the +craftiest of living statesmen, and the ablest of living generals. Oh, +how disheartening it was then, when, day by day, we found prophecy and +exhortation, lay and labour, flung idly before a distracted People! May +we never pass through that icy ordeal again! + +How different now! The People are united under the greatest system of +organisation ever attempted in any country. They send in, by their +Collectors, Wardens, and Inspectors, to the central office of Ireland, +the contributions needed to carry on the Registration of Voters, the +public meetings, the publications, the law expenses, and the +organisation of the Association; and that in turn carries on +registries, holds meetings, opens reading-rooms, sends newspapers, and +books, and political instructions, back through the same channel; so +that the Central Committee knows the state of every parish, and every +parish receives the teaching and obeys the will of the Central +Committee. + +The Whig Alliance has melted, like ice before the sun, and the strong +souls of our people will never again serve the purposes of a faction. + +The Conservative party, without union and without principle, is +breaking up. Its English section is dividing into the tools of +expediency and the pioneers of a New Generation--its Irish section into +Castle Hacks and National Conservatives. + +Meantime, how much have the Irish people gained and done? They have +received and grown rich under torrents of thought. Song and sermon and +music, speech and pamphlet, novel and history, essay and map and +picture, have made the dull thoughtful and the thoughtful studious, and +will make the studious wise and powerful. They have begun a system of +self-teaching in their reading-rooms. If they carry it we shall, before +two years, have in every parish men able to manufacture, to trade, and +to farm--men acquainted with all that Ireland was, is, and should +be--men able to serve The Irish Nation in peace and war. + +In the teeth, too, of the Government we held our meetings. They are not +for this time, but they were right well in their own time. They showed +our physical force to the Continent, to ourselves, to America, to our +rulers. They showed that the people would come and go rapidly, +silently, and at bidding, in numbers enough to recruit a dozen armies. +These are literal facts. Any one monster meeting could have offered +little resistance in the open country to a regular army, but it +contained the materials--the numbers, intelligence, and obedience--of a +conquering host. Whenever the impression of their power grows faint we +shall revive them again. + +The toleration of these meetings was the result of fear; the +prosecution of their chiefs sprung from greater fear. That prosecution +was begun audaciously, was carried on meanly and with virulence, and +ended with a charge and a verdict which disgraced the law. An illegal +imprisonment afforded glorious proof that the people could refrain from +violence under the worst temptation; that their leaders were firm; and, +better than all, that had these leaders been shot, not prisoned, their +successors were ready. Such an imprisonment served Ireland more than an +acquittal, for it tried her more; and then came the day of triumph, +when the reluctant constitution liberated our chiefs and branded our +oppressors. + +This is a history of two years never surpassed in importance and +honour. This is a history which our sons shall pant over and envy. This +is a history which pledges us to perseverance. This is a history which +guarantees success. + +Energy, patience, generosity, skill, tolerance, enthusiasm created and +decked the agitation. The world attended us with its thoughts and +prayers. The graceful genius of Italy and the profound intellect of +Germany paused to wish us well. The fiery heart of France tolerated our +unarmed effort, and proffered its aid. America sent us money, thought, +love--she made herself a part of Ireland in her passions and her +organisation. From London to the wildest settlement which throbs in the +tropics or shivers nigh the Pole, the empire of our misruler was shaken +by our effort. To all earth we proclaimed our wrongs. To man and God we +made oath that we would never cease to strive till an Irish nation +stood supreme on this island. The genius which roused and organised us, +the energy which laboured, the wisdom that taught, the manhood which +rose up, the patience which obeyed, the faith which swore, and the +valour that strained for action, are here still, experienced, +recruited, resolute. + +The future shall realise the promise of the past. + + + + +THE RESOURCES OF IRELAND.[42] + + +Bishop Berkeley put, as a query, could the Irish live and prosper if a +brazen wall surrounded their island? The question has been often and +vaguely replied to. + +Dr. Kane has at length answered it, and proved the affirmative. +Confining himself strictly to the _land_ of our island (for he does not +enter on the subjects of fisheries and foreign commerce), he has proved +that we possess _physical_ elements for every important art. Not that +he sat down to prove this. Taste, duty, industry, and genius prompted +and enabled him gradually to acquire a knowledge of the physical +products and powers of Ireland, and his mastery of chemical and +mechanical science enabled him to see how these could be used. + +Thus qualified, he tried, in the lecture-room of the Dublin Society, to +communicate his knowledge to the public. He was as successful as any +man lecturing on subjects requiring accurate details could be; and now +he has given, in the volume before us, all his lectures, and much more. +He then is no party pamphleteer, pandering to the national vanity; but +a philosopher, who garnered up his knowledge soberly and surely, and +now gives us the result of his studies. There was undoubtedly a good +deal of information on the subjects treated of by Dr. Kane scattered +through our topographical works and parliamentary reports, but that +information is, for the most part, vague, unapplied, and not tested by +science. Dr. Kane's work is full, clear, scientific, exact in stating +places, extent, prices, and every other working detail, and is a manual +of the whole subject. + +In such interlaced subjects as industrial resources we must be content +with practical classifications. + +Dr. Kane proceeds in the following order:--First, he considers the +_mechanical_ powers of the country--viz., its fuel and its water +powers. Secondly, its _mineral_ resources--its iron, copper, lead, +sulphur, marble, slates, etc. Thirdly, the agriculture of the country +in its first function--the raising of food, and the modes of cropping, +manuring, draining, and stacking. Fourthly, agriculture in its +secondary use, as furnishing staples for the manufacture of woollens, +linens, starch, sugar, spirits, etc. Fifthly, the modes of carrying +internal trade by roads, canals, and railways. Sixthly, the cost and +condition of skilled and unskilled labour in Ireland. Seventhly, our +state as to capital. And he closes by some earnest and profound +thoughts on the need of industrial education in Ireland. + +Now, let us ask the reader what he knows upon any or all of these +subjects; and whether he ought, as a citizen, or a man of education, or +a man of business, to be ignorant of them? Such ignorance as exists +here must be got rid of, or our cry of "Ireland for the Irish" will be +a whine or a brag, and will be despised as it deserves. We must know +Ireland from its history to its minerals, from its tillage to its +antiquities, before we shall be an Irish nation, able to rescue and +keep the country. And if we are too idle, too dull, or too capricious +to learn the arts of strength, wealth, and liberty, let us not murmur +at being slaves. + +For the present we shall confine ourselves to the subjects of the +mechanical powers and minerals of Ireland, as treated by Dr. Kane. + +The first difference between manufactures now and in _any_ former +time is the substitution of machines for the hands of man. It may +indeed be questioned whether the increased strength over matter thus +given to man compensates for the ill effects of forcing people to work +in crowds; of destroying small and pampering large capitalists, of +lessening the distribution of wealth even by the very means which +increases its production. + +We sincerely lament, with Lord Wharncliffe, the loss of domestic +manufactures; we would prefer one housewife skilled in the distaff and +the dairy--home-bred, and home-taught, and home-faithful--to a factory +full of creatures who live amid the eternal roll, and clash, and +glimmer of spindles and rollers, watching with aching eyes the thousand +twirls and capable of but one act--tying the broken threads. We abhor +that state; we prefer the life of the old times, or of modern Norway. + +But, situated as we are, so near a strong enemy, and in the new highway +from Europe to America, it may be doubted whether we can retain our +simple domestic life. There is but one chance for it. If the Prussian +Tenure Code be introduced, and the people turned into small +proprietors, there is much, perhaps every, hope of retaining our +homestead habits; and such a population need fear no enemy. + +If this do not come to pass, we must make the best of our state, join +our chief towns with railways, put quays to our harbours, mills on our +rivers, turbines on our coasts, and under restrictions and with +guarantees set the steam engine to work at our flax, wool, and +minerals. + +The two great mechanical powers are fire and water. Ireland is nobly +endowed with both. + +We do not possess as ample fields of flaming coal as Britain; but even +of that we have large quantities, which can be raised at about the same +rate at which English coal can be landed on our coast. + +The chief seats of flaming coal in Ireland are to the west of Lough +Allen, in Connaught, and around Dungannon, in Tyrone. There is a small +district of it in Antrim. + +The stone coal, or anthracite, which, having little gas, does not +blaze, and, having much sulphur, is disagreeable in a room, and has +been thought unfit for smelting, is found--first, in the Kilkenny +district, between the Nore and Barrow; secondly, from Freshford to +Cashel; and thirdly, in the great Munster coal country, cropping up in +every barony of Clare, Limerick, Cork, and Kerry. By the use of vapour +with it, the anthracite appears to be freed from all its defects as a +smelting and engine coal, and being a much more pure and powerful fuel +than the flaming coal, there seems no reason to doubt that in it we +have a manufacturing power that would supply us for generations. + +Our bogs have not been done justice to. The use of turf in a damp state +turns it into an inferior fuel. Dried under cover, or broken up and +dried under pressure, it is more economical, because far more +efficient. It is used now in the Shannon steamers, and its use is +increasing in mills. For some purposes it is peculiarly good--thus, for +the finer ironworks, turf and turf-charcoal are even better than wood, +and Dr. Kane shows that the precious Baltic iron, for which from L15 to +L35 per ton is given, could be equalled by Irish iron smelted by Irish +turf for six guineas per ton. + +Dr. Kane proves that the cost of fuel, even if greater in Ireland, by +no means precludes us from competing with England; he does so by +showing that the cost of fuel in English factories is only from 1 to +1-1/2 per cent., while in Ireland it would be only 2-1/2 to 3-1/2 per +cent., a difference greatly overbalanced by our cheaper labour--labour +being over 33 per cent. of the whole expense of a factory. + +Here is the analysis of the cost of producing cotton in England in +1830:-- + + Cotton wool L8,244,693 or per cent. 26.27 + Wages 10,419,000 " 33.16 + Interest on capital 3,400,000 " 10.84 + Coals 339,680 " 1.08 + Rent, taxes, insurance, + other charges, and profit 8,935,320 " 28.65 + ---------- ------ + L31,338,693 100.00 + +In water-power we are still better off. Dr. Kane calculates the rain +which falls on Ireland in a year at over 100 billion cubic yards; and +of this he supposes two-thirds to pass off in evaporation, leaving +one-third, equal to nearly a million and a half of horse-power, to +reach the sea. His calculations of the water-power of the Shannon and +other rivers are most interesting. The elements, of course, are the +observed fall of rain by the gauge in the district, and the area of the +catchment (or drainage) basins of each river and its tributaries. The +chief objection to water-power is its irregularity. To remedy this he +proposes to do what has increased the water-power on the Bann +five-fold, and has made the wealth of Greenock--namely, to make +mill-lakes by damming up valleys, and thus controlling and equalising +the supply of water, and letting none go waste. His calculations of the +relative merits of undershot, overshot, breast, and turbine wheels are +most valuable, especially of the last, which is a late and successful +French contrivance, acting by pressure. He proposes to use the turbine +in coast mills, the tide being the motive-power; and, strange as it +sounds, the experiments seem to decide in favour of this plan. + + "The turbine was invented by M. Fourneyron. Coals being abundant, + the steam engine is invented in England; coals being scarce, the + water-pressure engine and the turbine are invented in France. It is + thus the physical condition of each country directs its mechanical + genius. The turbine is a horizontal wheel furnished with curved + float-boards, on which the water presses from a cylinder which is + suspended over the wheel, and the base of which is divided by + curved partitions, that the water may be directed in issuing, so as + to produce upon the curved float-boards of the wheel its greatest + effect. The best curvature to be given to the fixed partitions and + to the float-boards is a delicate problem, but practically it has + been completely solved. The construction of the machine is simple, + its parts not liable to go out of order; and as the action of the + water is by pressure, the force is under the most favourable + circumstances for being utilised. + + "The effective economy of the turbine appears to equal that of the + overshot wheel. But the economy in the turbine is accompanied by + some conditions which render it peculiarly valuable. In a + water-wheel you cannot have great economy of power without very + slow motion, and hence where high velocity is required at the + working point, a train of mechanism is necessary, which causes a + material loss of force. Now, in the turbine the greatest economy is + accompanied by rapid motion, and hence the connected machinery may + be rendered much less complex. In the turbine also a change in the + height of the head of water alters only the power of the machine in + that proportion, but the whole quantity of water is economised to + the same degree. Thus if a turbine be working with a force of ten + horses, and that its supply of water be suddenly doubled, it + becomes of twenty horse-power; if the supply be reduced to + one-half, it still works five horse-power; whilst such sudden and + extreme change would altogether disarrange water-wheels, which can + only be constructed for the minimum, and allow the overplus to go + to waste." + +Our own predilection being in favour of water-power--as cheaper, +healthier, and more fit for Ireland than steam--gave the following +peculiar interest in our eyes:-- + + "I have noticed at such length the question of the cost of fuel and + of steam power, not from my own opinion of its ultimate importance, + but that we might at once break down that barrier to all active + exertion which indolent ignorance constantly retreats behind. The + cry of 'What can we do? consider England's coal-mines,' is answered + by showing that we have available fuel enough. The lament that + coals are so dear with us and so cheap in England, is, I trust, set + at rest by the evidence of how little influential the price of fuel + is. However, there are other sources of power besides coals; there + are other motive-powers than steam. Of the 83,000 horse-power + employed to give motion to mills in England, 21,000, even in the + coal districts, are not moved by fire, but by water. The force of + gravity in falling water can spin and weave as well as the + elasticity of steam; and in this power we are not deficient. It is + necessary to study its circumstances in detail, and I shall + therefore next proceed to discuss the condition of Ireland with + regard to water-power." + +Dr. Kane proves that we have at Arigna an _inexhaustible_ supply +of the richest iron ore, with coals to smelt it, lime to flux it, and +infusible sand-stone and fire-clay to make furnaces of on the spot. Yet +not a pig or bar is made there now. He also gives in great detail the +extent, analysis, costs of working, and every other leading fact as to +the copper mines of Wicklow, Knockmahon, and Allihies; the lead, gold, +and sulphur mines of Wicklow; the silver mines of Ballylichey, and +details of the building materials and marbles. + +He is everywhere precise in his industrial and scientific statements, +and beautifully clear in his style and arrangement. + +Why, then, are we a poor province? Dr. Kane quotes Forbes, Quetelet, +etc., to prove the physical strength of our people. He might have +quoted every officer who commanded them to prove their courage and +endurance; nor is there much doubt expressed even by their enemies of +their being quick and inventive. Their soil is productive--the rivers +and harbours good--their fishing _opportunities_ great--so is their +means of making internal communications across their great central +plains. We have immense water and considerable fire power; and, besides +the minerals necessary for the arts of peace, we are better supplied +than almost any country with the finer sorts of iron, charcoal, and +sulphur, wherewith war is now carried on. Why is it, with these means +of amassing and guarding wealth, that we are so poor and paltry? Dr. +Kane thinks we are so from want of industrial education. He is partly +right. The remote causes were repeated foreign invasion, forfeiture, +and tyrannous laws. Ignorance, disunion, self-distrust, quick +credulity, and caprice were the weaknesses engendered in us by +misfortune and misgovernment; and they were then the allies of +oppression; for, had we been willing, we had long ago been rich and +free. Knowledge is now within our reach if we work steadily; and +strength of character will grow upon us by every month of perseverance +and steadiness in politics, trade, and literature. + + --------------------------------------------------------------- + [42] _The Industrial Resources of Ireland_, by Robert Kane, M.D., + Secretary to the Council of the Royal Irish Academy, Professor of + Natural Philosophy to the Royal Dublin Society, and of Chemistry to + the Apothecaries' Hall of Ireland. Dublin: Hodges & Smith, 21 + College Green. + + + + +THE VALUATION OF IRELAND. + + +The Committee of 1824 was but meagrely supplied with evidence as to +foreign surveys. They begin that subject with a notice of the Survey of +England, made by order of William the Conqueror, and called the +Doomsday Book. That book took six years to execute, and is most +admirably analysed by Thierry. + +The following is their summary account of some modern surveys:-- + + "In France the great territorial survey or _cadastre_ has been in + progress for many years. It was first suggested in 1763, and after + an interval of thirty years, during which no progress was made, it + was renewed by the government of that day, and individuals of the + highest scientific reputation, MM. Lagrange, Laplace, and Delambre, + were consulted with respect to the best mode of carrying into + effect the intention of government. Subsequent events suspended any + effectual operations in the French _cadastre_ till the year 1802, + when a school of topographical engineering was organised. The + operations now in progress were fully commenced in 1808. The + principle adopted is the formation of a central commission acting + in conjunction with the local authorities; the classification of + lands, according to an ascertained value, is made by three resident + proprietors of land in each district, selected by the municipal + council, and by the chief officer of revenue. 'In the course of + thirteen years, one-third only of each department had been + surveyed, having cost the state L120,000 per annum. At the rate at + which it is carried on, it may be computed as likely to require for + its completion a total sum of L4,680,000, or an acreable charge of + 8-3/4d.' The delay of the work, as well as the increase of expense, + seem to have been the result of the minuteness of the survey, which + extends to every district field--a minuteness which, for many + reasons, your committee consider both unnecessary and inexpedient + to be sought for in the proposed Survey of Ireland. + + "The survey of Bavaria is of modern date, but of equal minuteness. + It is commenced by a primary triangulation, and principal and + verification bases; it is carried on to a second triangulation, + with very accurate instruments, so as to determine 'all the + principal points; the filling up the interior is completed by a + peculiar species of plane table; and in order to do away with the + inaccuracies of the common chain, the triangulation is carried down + on paper to the most minute corners of fields.' _The map is laid + down on a scale of twelve inches to the mile, or + one-five-thousandth part of the real size; and as it contains all + that is required in the most precise survey of property, it is used + in the purchase and sale of real estates._ + + "The cadastre of Savoy and Piedmont began in 1729, and is stated to + have at once afforded the government the means of apportioning + justly all the territorial contributions, and to have put an end to + litigations between individuals, by ascertaining, satisfactorily, + the bounds of properties. + + "The Neapolitan survey under Visconti, and that of the United + States under Heslar, are both stated to be in progress; but your + committee have not had the means of ascertaining on what principles + they are conducted." + +The committee adopted a scale for the maps of six inches to a statute +mile, believing, apparently with justice, that a six-inch scale map, if +perfectly well executed, would be minute enough for buyers and sellers +of land, especially as the larger holdings are generally townlands, the +bounds of which they meant to include. And, wherever a greater scale +was needed, the pentagraph afforded a sufficiently accurate plan of +forming maps to it. They, in another point, _proposed_ to differ from +the Bavarian Survey, in omitting field boundaries, as requiring too +much time and expense; but they stated that barony, parish, and +townland boundaries were essential to the utility of the maps. They +also seemed to think that for private purposes their utility would much +depend on their being accompanied, as the Bavarian maps were, by a +memoir of the number of families, houses, size, and description of +farms, and a valuation. And for this purpose they printed all the +forms. The valuation still goes on of the townlands, and classes of +soil in each. The Statistical Memoir has, unfortunately, been stopped, +and no survey or valuation of farms, or holdings as such, has been +attempted. We would _now_ only recall attention to the design of the +Committee of 1824 on the subject. + +They proposed to leave the whole Survey to the Board of Ordnance, and +the Valuation to Civil Engineers. + +The Valuation has been regulated by a series of Acts of Parliament, and +we shall speak of it presently. + +The Survey commenced in 1826, and has gone on under the superintendence +of Colonel Colby, and the local control of Captain Larcom. + +The following has been its progress:--First, a base line of about five +miles was measured on the flat shore of Lough Foyle, and from thence +triangular measurements were made by the theodolite and over the whole +country, and all the chief points of mountain, coast, etc., +ascertained. How accurately this was done has been proved by an +astronomical measurement of the distance from Dublin to Armagh (about +seventy miles), which only differed four feet from the distance +calculated by the Ordnance triangles. + +Having completed these large triangles, a detailed survey of the +baronies, parishes, and townlands of each county followed. The field +books were sent to the central station at Mountjoy, and sketched, +engraved on copper, and printed there. The first county published was +Derry, in 1833, and now the townland survey is finished, and all the +counties have now been engraved and issued, except Limerick, Kerry, and +Cork. + +The Survey has also engraved a map of Dublin City on the enormous scale +of five feet to a statute mile. This map represents the shape and space +occupied by every house, garden, yard, and pump in Dublin. It contains +antiquarian lettering. Every house, too, is numbered on the map. One of +its sheets, representing the space from Trinity College to the Castle, +is on sale, as we trust the rest of it will be. + +Two other sets of maps remain to be executed. First--maps of the towns +of Ireland, on a scale of five feet to a mile. Whatever may be said in +reply to Sir Denham Norrey's demand for a survey of holdings in rural +districts does not apply to the case of towns, and we, therefore, trust +that the holdings will be marked and separately valued in towns. + +The other work is a general _shaded_ map of Ireland, on a scale of one +inch to the statute mile. At present, as we elsewhere remarked, the +only tolerable shaded map of Ireland is that of the Railway Commission, +which is on a scale of one inch to four statute miles. Captain Larcom +proposes, and the Commission on the Ordnance Memoir recommend, that +contour lines should be the skeleton of the shading. If this plan be +adopted the publication cannot be for some years; but the shading will +have the accuracy of machine-work instead of mere hand skill. Contours +are lines representing series of levels through a country, and are +inestimable for draining, road-making, and military movements. But +though easily explained to the eye, we doubt our ability to teach their +meaning by words only. + +To return to the townland or six-inch survey. The names were corrected +by Messrs. Petrie, O'Donovan, and Curry, from every source accessible +in _Ireland_. Its maps contain the county, barony, parish, townland, +and glebe boundaries, names and acreage; names and representations of +all cities, towns, demesnes, farms, ruins, collieries, forges, +limekilns, tanneries, bleach-greens, wells, etc., etc.; also of all +roads, rivers, canals, bridges, locks, weirs, bogs, ruins, churches, +chapels; they have also the number of feet of every little swell of +land, and a mark for every cabin. + +Of course these maps run to an immense number. Thus, for the county of +Galway there are 137 double folio sheets, and for the small county of +Dublin, 28. Where less than half the sheet is covered with engraving +(as occurs towards the edges of a county) the sheet is sold, +uncoloured, for 2_s._ 6_d._; where more than half is covered the price +is 5_s._ + +In order to enable you to find any sheet so as to know the bearings of +its ground on any other, there is printed for each county an index map, +representing the whole county on one sheet. This sheet is on a small +scale (from one to three miles to an inch), but contains in smaller +type the baronies and parishes, roads, rivers, demesnes, and most of +the information of general interest. This index map is divided by lines +into as many oblong spaces as there are maps of the six-inch scale, and +the spaces are numbered to correspond with the six-inch map. On the +sides of the index maps are tables of the acreage of the baronies and +parishes; and examples of the sort of marks and type used for each +class of subjects in the _six-inch_ maps. Uncoloured, the index map, +representing a whole county, is sold for 2_s._ 6_d._ + +Whenever those maps are re-engraved, the Irish words will, we trust, be +spelled in an Irish and civilised orthography, and not barbarously, as +at present. + +It was proposed to print for each county one or more volumes, +containing the history of the district and its antiquities, the +numbers, and past and present state and occupations of the people, the +state of its agriculture, manufactures, mines, and fisheries, and what +means of extending these existed in the county, and its natural +history, including geology, zoology, etc. All this was done for the +town of Derry, much to the service and satisfaction of its people. All +this ought to be _as fully_ done for Armagh, Dublin, Cork, and every +other part of Ireland. + +The commissioners recommend that the geology of Ireland (and we would +add natural history generally) should be investigated and published, +not by the topographical surveyors nor in counties, but by a special +board, and for the whole of Ireland; and they are right, for our +plants, rocks, and animals are not within civil or even obvious +topographical boundaries, and we have plenty of Irishmen qualified to +execute it. They also advise that the statistics should be entrusted to +a statistical staff, to be permanently kept up in Ireland. This staff +would take the census every ten years, and would in the intervals +between the beginning and ending of each census have plenty of +statistical business to do for parliament (Irish or Imperial) and for +public departments. If we are ever to have a registry of births, deaths +(with the circumstances of each case), and marriages, some such staff +will be essential to inspect the registry, and work up information from +it. But the history, antiquities, and industrial resources, the +commissioners recommend to have published in county volumes. They are +too solicitous about keeping such volumes to small dimensions; but the +rest of their plans are admirable. + +The value of this to Ireland, whether she be a nation or a province, +cannot be overrated. From the farmer and mechanic to the philosopher, +general, and statesman, the benefit will extend, and yet so careless or +so hostile are ministers that they have not conceded it, and so feeble +by dulness or disunion are Irishmen and Irish members, that they cannot +extort even this. + +We now come to the last branch of the subject-- + +THE VALUATION. + +The Committee of 1824 recommended only principles of Valuation. They +were three, viz.:-- + + "Sec. 1. A fixed and uniform principle of valuation applicable + throughout the whole work, and enabling the valuation not only of + townlands, but that of counties to be compared by one common + measure. Sec. 2. A central authority, under the appointment of + government, for direction and superintendence, and for the + generalisation of the returns made in detail. Sec. 3. Local + assistance, regularly organised, furnishing information on the + spot, and forming a check for the protection of private rights." + +Accordingly, on the 5th of July, 1825, an Act was passed requiring, in +the first instance, the entry in all the grand jury records of the +names and contents of all parishes, manors, townlands, and other +divisions, and the proportionate assessments. It then went on to +authorise the Lord Lieutenant to appoint surveyors to be paid out of +the Consolidated Fund. These surveyors were empowered to require the +attendance of cess collectors and other inhabitants, and with their +help to examine, and ascertain, and mark the "reputed boundaries of all +and every or any barony, half barony, townland parish, or other +division or denomination of land," howsoever called. The Act also +inflicted penalties on persons removing or injuring any post, stone, or +other mark made by the surveyors; but we believe there has been no +occasion to enforce these clauses, the good sense and good feeling of +the people being ample securities against such wanton crime. Such +survey was not to affect the rights of owners; yet from it lay an +appeal to the Quarter Sessions. + +This, as we see, relates to _civil boundaries_, not _valuations_. + +In May, 1820, another Act was passed directing the Ordnance officers to +send copies of their maps, as fast as finished, to the Lord Lieutenant, +who was to appoint "_one_ Commissioner of Valuation for _any_ +counties"; and to give notice of such appointment to the grand jury of +every such county. Each grand jury was then to appoint an Appeal +Committee for each barony, and a Committee of Revision for the whole +county. This Commission of Valuation was then to appoint from three to +nine fit valuators in the county, who, after trial by the Commissioner, +were to go in parties of three and examine all parts of their district, +and value such portion of it, and set down such valuation in a parish +field book, according to the following average prices:-- + + "SCALE OF PRICES. + + Wheat, at the general average price of 10s. per cwt., of 112 lbs. + + Oats, at the general average price of 6s. per cwt., of 112 lbs. + + Barley, at the general average price of 7s. per cwt., of 112 lbs. + + Potatoes, at the general average price of 1s. 7d. per cwt., of + 112 lbs. + + Butter, at the general average price of 69s. per cwt., of 112 lbs. + + Beef, at the general average price of 33s. per cwt., of 112 lbs. + + Mutton, at the general average price of 34s. 6d. per cwt., of + 112 lbs. + + Pork, at the general average price of 25s. 6d. per cwt., of + 112 lbs." + +That is, having examined each tract--say a hill, a valley, an inch, a +reclaimed bit, and by digging and looking at the soil, they were to +consider what crop it could best produce, considering its soil, +elevation, nearness to markets, and then estimating crops at the +foregoing rate, they were to say how much per acre the tract was, in +their opinion, worth. + +From this Parish Field Book the Commissioner was to make out a table of +the parishes and townlands, etc., in each barony, specifying the +average and total value of houses in such sub-divisions, and to forward +it to the high constable, who was to post copies thereof. A vestry of +twenty-pound freeholders and twenty-shilling cesspayers was to be +called in each parish to consider the table. If they did not appeal, +the table was to stand confirmed; if they did appeal, the grand jury +committee of appeal, with the valuation commissioner as chairman, were +to decide upon the appeal; but if the assessor were dissatisfied, the +appeal was to go to the committee of revision. The same committee were +then to revise the _proportionate_ liabilities of _baronies_, subject +to an appeal to the Queen's Bench. The valuation so settled was to be +published in the _Dublin Gazette_, and thenceforward all _grand jury_ +and _parish_ rates and cesses were to be levied in the _proportions_ +thereby fixed. But no land theretofore exempt from any rate was thereby +made liable. The expenses were to be advanced from the consolidated +fund, and repaid by presentment from the county. + +It made the _proportionate_ values of parishes and townlands, pending +the baronial survey and the baronial valuation, to bind after revision +and publication in some newspaper circulating in the county; but +_within three years_ there was to be a second revision, after which +they were to be published in the _Dublin Gazette_, etc., and be final +as to the _proportions_ of all parish or grand jury rates to be paid by +all baronies, parishes, and townlands. It also directed the annexation +of detached bits to the counties respectively surrounding them, and it +likewise provided for the _use_ of the valuation maps and field books +in applotting the grand jury cess charged on the holders of lands, but +such valuation to be merely a guide and not final. From the varying +size and value of holdings this caution was essential. + +Under this last Act the valuation has been continued, as every reader +of the country papers must have seen by Mr. Griffith's Notices, and is +now complete in twenty counties, forward in six, begun in two, and not +yet begun in Cork, Kerry, Limerick, or Dublin. + +Mr. Griffith's instructions are clear and full, and we strongly +recommend the study of them, and an adherence to their forms and +classifications, to valuators of all private and public properties, so +far as they go. He appointed two classes of valuators--Ordinary +Valuators to make the first valuation all over each county, and Check +Valuators to re-value patches in every district, to test the accuracy +of the ordinary valuators. + +The ordinary valuator was to have two copies of the Townland (or +6-inch) Survey. Taking a sheet with him into the district represented +on it, he was to examine the quality of the soil in lots of from fifty +to thirty acres, or still smaller bits, to mark the bounds of each lot +on the survey map, and to enter in his field book the value thereof, +with all the special circumstances specially stated. The examination +was to include digging to ascertain the depth of the soil and the +nature of the subsoil. All land was to be valued at its agricultural +worth, supposing it liberally set, leaving out the value of timber, +turf, etc. Reductions were to be made for elevation above the sea, +steepness, exposure to bad winds, patchiness of soil, bad fences, and +bad roads. Additions were to be made for neighbourhood of limestone, +turf, sea, or other manure, roads, good climate and shelter, nearness +to towns. + +The following classification of soils was recommended:-- + + "ARRANGEMENT OF SOILS. + + All soils may be arranged under four heads, each representing the + characteristic ingredients, as--1. Argillaceous, or clayey; 2. + Silicious, or sandy; 3. Calcareous, or limy; 4. Peaty. + + For practical purposes it will be desirable to sub-divide each of + these classes:-- + + Thus argillaceous soils may be divided into three varieties, + viz.--clay, clay loam, and argillaceous alluvial. + + Of silicious soils there are four varieties, viz.--sandy, gravelly, + slaty, and rocky. + + Of calcareous soils we have three varieties, viz.--limestone, + limestone gravel, and marl. + + Of peat soils two varieties, viz.--moor, and peat or bog. + + In describing in the field book the different qualities of soils, + the following explanatory words may be used as occasion may + require:-- + + _Stiff_--Where a soil contains a large proportion, say one-half, or + even more, of tenacious clay, it is called stiff. In dry weather + this kind of soil cracks and opens, and has a tendency to form into + large and hard lumps, particularly if ploughed in wet weather. + + _Friable_--Where the soil is loose and open, as is generally the + case in sandy, gravelly, and moory lands. + + _Strong_--Where a soil contains a considerable portion of clay, and + has some tendency to form into clods or lumps, it may be called + strong. + + _Deep_--Where the soil exceeds ten inches in depth the term deep + may be applied. + + _Shallow_--Where the depth of the soil is less than eight inches. + + _Dry_--Where the soil is friable, and the subsoil porous (if there + be no springs), the term dry should be used. + + _Wet_--Where the soil or subsoil is very tenacious, or where + springs are numerous. + + _Sharp_--Where there is a moderate proportion of gravel, or small + stones. + + _Fine or Soft_--Where the soil contains no gravel, but is chiefly + composed of very fine sand, or soft, light earth without gravel. + + _Cold_--Where the soil rests on a tenacious clay subsoil, and has a + tendency when in pasture to produce rushes and other aquatic + plants. + + _Sandy or Gravelly_--Where there is a large proportion of sand or + gravel through the soil. + + _Slaty_--Where the slaty substratum is much intermixed with the + soil. + + _Worn_--Where the soil has been a long time under cultivation, + without rest or manure. + + _Poor_--Where the land is naturally of bad quality. + + _Hungry_--Where the soil contains a considerable portion of gravel, + or coarse sand, resting on a gravelly subsoil; on such land manure + does not produce the usual effect. + + The _colours of soils_ may also be introduced, as brown, yellow, + blue, grey, red, black, etc. + + Also, where applicable, the words steep, level, shrubby, rocky, + exposed, etc., may be used." + +Lists of market prices were sent with the field books, and the amounts +then reduced to a uniform rate, which Mr. Griffith fixed at 2_s._ 6_d._ +per pound over the prices of produce mentioned in the Act. + +Rules were also given for valuation of houses, but we must refer to Mr. +Griffith's work for them. + + + + +COMMERCIAL HISTORY OF IRELAND. + + +While the Irish were excluded from English law and intercourse, England +imposed no restrictions on our trade. The Pale spent its time tilling +and fighting, and it was more sure of its bellyful of blows than of +bread. It had nothing to sell; why tax its trade? The slight commerce +of Dublin was needful to the comforts of the Norman Court in Dublin +Castle. Why should _it_ be taxed? The market of Kilkenny was guarded by +the spears of the Butlers, and from Sligo to Cork the chiefs and towns +of Munster and Connaught--the Burkes, O'Loghlens, O'Sullivans, Galway, +Dingle, and Dunboy--carried on a trade with Spain, and piracy of war +against England. How _could they_ be taxed? + +Commercial taxes, too, in those days were hard to be enforced, and more +resembled toll to a robber than contribution to the state. Every great +river and pass in Europe, from the Rhine and the Alps to Berwick and +the Blackwater, was affectionately watched by royal and noble castles +at their narrowest points, and the barge anchored and the caravan +halted to be robbed, or, as the receivers called it, to be taxed. + +At last the Pale was stretched round Ireland by art and force. Solitude +and peace were in our plains; but the armed colonist settled in it, and +the native came down from his hills as a tenant or a squatter, and a +kind of prosperity arose. + +Protestant and Catholic, native and colonist, had the same +interest--namely, to turn this waste into a garden. They had not, nor +could they have had, other things to export than Sydney or Canada have +now--cattle, butter, hides, and wool. They had hardly corn enough for +themselves; but pasture was plenty, and cows and their hides, sheep and +their fleeces, were equally so. The natives had always been obliged to +prepare their own clothing, and therefore every creaght and digger knew +how to dress wool and skins, and they had found out, or preserved from +a more civilised time, dyes which, to this day, are superior to any +others. Small quantities of woollen goods were exported, but our +assertion holds good that in our war-times there was no manufacture for +export worth naming. + +Black Tom Wentworth, the ablest of despots, came here 210 years ago, +and found "small beginnings towards a clothing trade." He at once +resolved to discourage it. He wrote so to the king on July 25th, 1636, +and he was a man true to his enmities. "But," said he, "I'll give them +a linen manufacture instead." Now, the Irish had raised flax and made +and dyed linen from time immemorial. The saffron-coloured linen shirt +was as national as the cloak and birred; so that Strafford rather +introduced the linen manufacture among the new settlers than among the +Irish. Certainly he encouraged it, by sending Irishmen to learn in +Brabant, and by bringing French and Flemings to work in Ireland. + +Charles the Second, doubtless to punish us for our most unwise loyalty +to him and his father, assented to a series of Acts prohibiting the +export of Irish wool, cattle, etc., to England or her colonies, and +prohibiting the _direct_ importation of several colonial products +into Ireland. The chief Acts are 12 Charles, c. 4; 15 Charles, c. 7; +and 22 and 23 Charles, c. 26. Thus were the value of land in Ireland, +the revenue, and trade, and manufactures of Ireland--Protestant and +Catholic--stricken by England. + +Perhaps we ought to be grateful, though not to England, for these Acts. +They plundered our pockets, but they guarded our souls from being +anglicised. To France and Spain the produce was sent, and the woollen +manufacture continued to increase. + +England got alarmed, for Ireland was getting rich. The English lords +addressed King William, stating that "the growth and increase of the +woollen manufacture in Ireland had long been, and would be _ever_, +looked upon with great jealousy by his English subjects, and praying +him, by very strict laws, totally to prohibit and suppress the same." +The Commons said likewise; and William answered comfortably:--"I shall +do all that in me lies to discourage the woollen manufacture in +Ireland, and to encourage the linen manufacture there, and to promote +the trade of England." + +He was as good as his word, and even whipped and humbugged the +unfortunate Irish Parliament to pass an Act, putting twenty per cent. +duty on broad and ten per cent. on narrow cloths-- + + "But it did not satisfy the English parliament, where a perpetual + law was made, prohibiting from the 20th of June, 1699, the + exportation from Ireland of all goods made or mixed with wool, + except to England and Wales, and with the licence of the + commissioners of the revenue; duties had been before laid on the + importation into England equal to a prohibition, therefore this Act + has operated as a total prohibition of the exportation." + +There was nothing left but to send the wool raw to England; to smuggle +it and cloths to France and Spain, or to leave the land unstocked. The +first was worst. The export to England declined, smuggling prospered, +"wild geese" for the Brigade and woollen goods were run in exchange for +claret, brandy, and silks; but not much land was left waste. Our silks, +cottons, malt, beer, and almost every other article was similarly +prohibited. Striped linens were taxed thirty per cent., many other +kinds of linen were also interfered with, and twenty-four embargoes in +nineteen years straitened our foreign provision trade. Thus England +kept her pledge of wrath, and broke her promise of service to Ireland. + +A vigorous system of smuggling induced her to relax in some points, and +the cannon of the Volunteers blew away the code. + +By the Union we were so drained of money, and absentee rents and taxes, +and of spirit in every way, that she no longer needs a prohibitory code +to prevent our competing with her in any market, Irish or foreign. The +Union is prohibition enough, and that England says she will maintain. + +Whether it be now possible to create home manufactures, in the old +sense of the word--that is, manufactures made in the homes of the +workers--is doubted. + +In favour of such a thing, if it be possible, the arguments are +numberless. Such work is a source of ingenuity and enjoyment in the +cabin of the peasant; it rather fills up time that would be otherwise +idled than takes from other work. Our peasants' wives and daughters +could clothe themselves and their families by the winter night work, +even as those of Norway do, if the peasants possessed the little +estates that Norway's peasants do. Clothes manufactured by hand-work +are more lasting, comfortable, and handsome, and are more natural and +national than factory goods. Besides, there is the strongest of all +reasons in this, that the factory system seems everywhere a poison to +virtue and happiness. + +Some invention, which should bring the might of machinery in a +wholesome and cheap form to the cabin, seems the only solution of the +difficulty. + +The hazards of the factory system, however, should be encountered, were +it sure to feed our starving millions; but this is dubious. + +A Native Parliament can alone judge or act usefully on this momentous +subject. An absentee tax and a resident government, and the progress of +public industry and education, would enable an Irish Parliament to +create vast manufactures here by protecting duties in the first +instance, and to maintain them by our general prosperity, or it could +rely on its own adjustment of landed property as sufficient to put the +people above the need of hazarding purity or content by embarking in +great manufactures. + +A peasant proprietary could have wealth enough to import wrought goods, +or taste and firmness enough to prefer home-made manufactures. + +But these are questions for other years. We wish the reader to take our +word for nothing, but to consult the writers on Irish trade:--Laurence's +_Interest of Ireland_ (1682); Browne's _Tracts_ (1728); Dobbs on +"Trade" (1729); Hutchinson's _Commercial Restraints_ (1779); Sheffield +on "Irish Trade" (1785); Wallace on "Irish Trade" (1798); the various +"Parliamentary Reports," and the very able articles on the same subject +in the _Citizen_. + +Do not be alarmed at the list, reader; a month's study would carry you +through all but the Reports, and it would be well spent. But if you +still shrink, you can ease your conscience by reading Mr. John +O'Connell's Report on "The Commercial Injustices," just issued by the +Repeal Association. It is an elaborate, learned, and most useful tract. + + + + +NATIONAL ART. + + +No one doubts that if he sees a place or an action he knows more of it +than if it had been described to him by a witness. The dullest man, who +"put on his best attire" to welcome Caesar, had a better notion of life +in Rome than our ablest artist or antiquary. + +Were painting, then, but a coloured chronicle, telling us facts by the +eye instead of the ear, it would demand the Statesman's care and the +People's love. It would preserve for us faces we worshipped, and the +forms of men who led and instructed us. It would remind us, and teach +our children, not only how these men looked, but, to some extent, what +they were, for nature is consistent, and she has indexed her labours. +It would carry down a pictorial history of our houses, arts, costume, +and manners to other times, and show the dweller in a remote isle the +appearance of countries and races of his cotemporaries. + +As a register of _facts--as a portrayer of men, singly, or +assembled--and as a depicter of actual scenery, art is biography, +history, and topography taught through the eye. + +So far as it can express facts, it is superior to writing; and nothing +but the scarcity of _faithful_ artists, or the stupidity of the +public, prevents us from having our pictorial libraries of men and +places. There are some classes of scenes--as where continuous action is +to be expressed--in which sculpture quite fails, and painting is but a +shadowy narrator. + +But this, after all, though the most obvious and easy use of Painting +and Sculpture, is far indeed from being their highest end. + +Art is a regenerator as well as a copyist. As the historian, who +composes a history out of various materials, differs from a newspaper +reporter, who sets down what he sees--as Plutarch differs from Mr. +Grant, and the Abbe Barthelemy from the last traveller in India--so do +the Historical Painter, the Landscape composer (such as Claude or +Poussin) differ from the most faithful Portrait, Landscape, or Scene +Drawer. + +The Painter who is a master of composition makes his pencil cotemporary +with all times and ubiquitous. Keeping strictly to nature and fact, +Romulus sits for him and Paul preaches. He makes Attila charge, and +Mohammed exhort, and Ephesus blaze when he likes. He tries not rashly, +but by years of study of men's character, and dress, and deeds, to make +them and their acts come as in a vision before him. Having thus got a +design, he attempts to realise the vision on his canvas. He pays the +most minute attention to truth in his drawing, shading, and colouring, +and by imitating the force of nature in his composition, all the clouds +that ever floated by him, "the lights of other days," and the forms of +the dead, or the stranger, hover over him. + +But Art in its higher stage is more than this. It is a creator. Great +as Herodotus and Thierry are, Homer and Beranger are greater. The ideal +has resources beyond the actual. It is infinite, and Art is +indefinitely powerful. The Apollo is more than noble, and the Hercules +mightier than man. The Moses of Michael Angelo is no likeness of the +inspired law-giver, nor of any other that ever lived, and Raphael's +Madonnas are not the faces of women. As Reynolds says, "the effect of +the capital works of Michael Angelo is that the observer feels his +whole frame enlarged." It is creation, it is representing beings and +things different from our nature, but true to their own. In this +self-consistency is the only nature requisite in works purely +imaginative. Lear is true to his nature, and so are Mephistopheles, and +Prometheus, and Achilles; but they are not true to human nature; they +are beings created by the poets' minds, and true to _their_ laws +of being. There is no commoner blunder in men, who are themselves mere +critics, never creators, than to require consistency to the nature of +us and our world in the works of poet or painter. + +To create a mass of great pictures, statues, and buildings is of the +same sort of ennoblement to a people as to create great poems or +histories, or make great codes, or win great battles. The next best, +though far inferior, blessing and power is to inherit such works and +achievements. The lowest stage of all is neither to possess nor to +create them. + +Ireland has had some great Painters--Barry and Forde, for example, and +many of inferior but great excellence; and now she boasts high +names--Maclise, Hogan, and Mulready. But their works were seldom done +for Ireland, and are rarely known in it. Our portrait and landscape +Painters paint foreign men and scenes; and, at all events, the Irish +people do not see, possess, nor receive knowledge from their works. +Irish history has supplied no subjects for our greatest Artists; and +though, as we repeat, Ireland possessed a Forde and Barry, creative +Painters of the highest order, the pictures of the latter are mostly +abroad; those of the former unseen and unknown. Alas! that they are so +few. + +To collect into, and make known, and publish in Ireland the best works +of our living and dead Artists is one of the steps towards procuring +for Ireland a recognised National Art. And this is essential to our +civilisation and renown. The other is by giving education to students +and rewards to Artists, to make many of this generation true +representers, some of them great illustrators and composers, and, +perchance, to facilitate the creation of some great spirit. + +Something has been done--more remains. + +There are schools in Dublin and Cork. But why are those so neglected +and imperfect? and why are not similar or better institutions in +Belfast, Derry, Galway, Waterford, and Kilkenny? Why is there not a +decent collection of casts anywhere but in Cork, and why are they in a +garret there? And why have we no gallery of Irishmen's, or any other +men's, pictures in Ireland? + +The Art Union has done a great deal. It has helped to support in +Ireland artists who should otherwise have starved or emigrated; it has +dispersed one (when, oh when, will it disperse another?) fine print of +a fine Irish picture through the country, and to some extent interested +as well as instructed thousands. Yet it could, and we believe will, do +much more. It ought to have Corresponding Committees in the principal +towns to preserve and rub up old schools of art and foster new ones, +and it might by art and historical libraries, and by other ways, help +the cause. We speak as friends, and suggest not as critics, for it has +done good service. + +The Repeal Association, too, in offering prizes for pictures and +sculptures of Irish historical subjects, has taken its proper place as +the patron of nationality in art; and its rewards for Building Designs +may promote the comfort and taste of the people, and the reputation of +the country. If artists will examine the rules by which the pictures, +statues, and plates remain their property, they will find the prizes +not so small as they might at first appear. Nor should they, from +interest or just pride, be indifferent to the popularity and fame of +success on national subjects, and with a People's Prizes to be +contended for. If those who are not Repealers will treat the +Association's design kindly and candidly, and if the Repealers will act +in art upon principles of justice and conciliation, we shall not only +advance national art, but gain another field of common exertion. + +The Cork School of Art owes its existence to many causes. + +The intense, genial, and Irish character of the people, the southern +warmth and variety of clime, with its effects on animal and vegetable +beings, are the natural causes. + +The accident of Barry's birth there, and his great fame, excited the +ambition of the young artists. An Irishman and a Corkman had gone out +from them, and amazed men by the grandeur and originality of his works +of art. He had thrown the whole of the English painters into +insignificance, for who would compare the luscious commonplace of the +Stuart painters, or the melodramatic reality of Hogarth, or the +imitative beauty of Reynolds, or the clumsy strength of West, with the +overbearing grandeur of his works? + +But the _present_ glories of Cork, Maclise and Hogan, the greater, +but buried might of Forde, and the rich promise which we know is +springing there now, are mainly owing to another cause; and that is, +that Cork possesses a gallery of the finest casts in the world. + +These casts are not very many--117 only; but they are perfect, they are +the first from Canova's moulds, and embrace the greatest works of Greek +art. They are ill-placed in a dim and dirty room--more shame to the +rich men of Cork for leaving them so--but there they are, and there +studied Forde, and Maclise, and the rest, until they learned to draw +better than any moderns, except Cornelius and his living brethren. + +In the countries where art is permanent there are great +collections--Tuscany and Rome, for example. But, as we have said +before, the highest service done by success in art is not in the +possession but in the creation of great works, the spirit, labour, +sagacity, and instruction needed by the artists to succeed, and flung +out by them on their country like rain from sunny clouds. + +Indeed, there is some danger of a traditionary mediocrity following +after a great epoch in art. Superstition of style, technical rules in +composition, and all the pedantry of art, too often fill up the ranks +vacated by veteran genius, and of this there are examples enough in +Flanders, Spain, and even Italy. The schools may, and often do, make +men scholastic and ungenial, and art remains an instructor and refiner, +but creates no more. + +Ireland, fortunately or unfortunately, has everything to do yet. We +have had great artists--we have not their works--we own the nativity of +great living artists--they live on the Tiber and the Thames. Our +capital has no school of art--no facilities for acquiring it. + +To be sure, there are rooms open in the Dublin Society, and they have +not been useless, that is all. But a student here cannot learn anatomy, +save at the same expense as a surgical student. He has no great works +of art before him, no Pantheon, no Valhalla, not even a good museum or +gallery. + +We think it may be laid down as unalterably true that a student should +never draw from a flat surface. He learns nothing by drawing from the +lines of another man--he only mimics. Better for him to draw chairs and +tables, bottles and glasses, rubbish, potatoes, cabins, or kitchen +utensils, than draw from the lines laid down by other men. + +Of those forms of nature which the student can originally consult--the +sea, the sky, the earth--we would counsel him to draw from them in the +first learning; for though he ought afterwards to analyse and mature +his style by the study of works of art, from the first sketches to the +finished picture, yet, by beginning with nature and his own +suggestions, he will acquire a genuine and original style, superior to +the finest imitation; and it is hard to acquire a master's skill +without his manner. + +Were all men cast in a divine mould of strength and straightness and +gallant bearing, and all women proportioned, graceful, and fair, the +artist would need no gallery, at least to begin his studies with. He +would have to persuade or snatch his models in daily life. Even then, +as art creates greater and simpler combinations than ever exist in +fact, he should finally study before the superhuman works of his +predecessors. + +But he has about him here an indifferently-made, ordinary, not very +clean, nor picturesquely-clad people; though, doubtless, if they had +the feeding, the dress, and the education (for mind beautifies the +body) of the Greeks, they would not be inferior, for the Irish +structure is of the noblest order. + +To give him a multitude of fine natural models, to say nothing of ideal +works, it is necessary to make a gallery of statues or casts. The +statues will come in good time, and we hope, and are sure, that +Ireland, a nation, will have a national gallery, combining the greatest +works of the Celtic and Teutonic races. But at present the most that +can be done is to form a gallery. + +Our readers will be glad to hear that this great boon is about to be +given to Irish Art. A society for the formation of a gallery of casts +in Dublin has been founded. + +It embraces men of every rank, class, creed, politics, and calling, +thus forming another of those sanctuaries, now multiplying in Ireland, +where one is safe from the polemic and the partisan. + +Its purpose is to purchase casts of all the greatest works of Greece, +Egypt, Etruria, ancient Rome, and Europe in the middle ages. This will +embrace a sufficient variety of types, both natural and ideal, to +prevent imitation, and will avoid the debateable ground of modern art. +Wherever they can afford it the society will buy moulds, in order to +assist provincial galleries, and therefore the provinces are +immediately interested in its support. + +When a few of these casts are got together, and a proper gallery +procured, the public will be admitted to see, and artists to study, +them without any charge. The annual subscription is but ten shillings, +the object being to interest as many as possible in its support. + +It has been suggested to us by an artist that Trinity College ought to +establish a gallery and museum containing casts of all the ancient +statues, models of their buildings, civil and military, and a +collection of their implements of art, trade, and domestic life. A +nobler institution, a more vivid and productive commentary on the +classics, could not be. But if the Board will not do this of +themselves, we trust they will see the propriety of assisting this +public gallery, and procuring, therefore, special privileges for the +students in using it. + +But no matter what persons in authority may do or neglect, we trust the +public--for the sake of their own pleasure, their children's profit, +and Ireland's honour--will give it their instant and full support. + + + + +HINTS FOR IRISH HISTORICAL PAINTINGS. + + +National art is conversant with national subjects. We have Irish +artists, but no Irish, no national art. This ought not to continue; it +is injurious to the artists, and disgraceful to the country. The +following historical subjects were loosely jotted down by a friend. +Doubtless, a more just selection could be made by students noting down +fit subjects for painting and sculpture, as they read. We shall be +happy to print any suggestions on the subject--our own are, as we call +them, mere hints with loose references to the authors or books which +suggested them. For any good painting, the marked figures must be few, +the action obvious, the costume, arms, architecture, postures +historically exact, and the manners, appearance, and rank of the +characters strictly studied and observed. The grouping and drawing +require great truth and vigour. A similar set of subjects illustrating +social life could be got from the Poor Report, Carleton's, Banim's, or +Griffin's stories, or, better still, from observation. + +The references are vague, but perhaps sufficient. + + The Landing of the Milesians.--Keating, Moore's Melodies. + + Ollamh Fodhla Presenting his Laws to his People. Keating's, + Moore's, and O'Halloran's Histories of Ireland.--Walker's Irish + Dress and Arms, and Vallancey's Collectanea. + + Nial and his Nine Hostages.--Moore, Keating. + + A Druid's Augury.--Moore, O'Halloran, Keating. + + A Chief Riding out of his Fort.--Griffin's Invasion, Walker, Moore. + + The Oak of Kildare.--Moore. + + The Burial of King Dathy in the Alps, his thinned troops laying + stones on his grave.--M'Geoghegan, "Histoire de l'Irlande" (French + edition), Invasion, Walker, Moore. + + St. Patrick brought before the Druids at Tara.--Moore and his + Authorities. + + The First Landing of the Danes.--See Invasion, Moore, etc. + + The Death of Turgesius.--Keating, Moore. + + Ceallachan tied to the Mast.--Keating. + + Murkertach Returning to Aileach.--Archaeological Society's Tracts. + + Brian Reconnoitring the Danes before Clontarf. + + The Last of the Danes Escaping to his Ship. + + O'Ruare's Return.--Keating, Moore's Melodies. + + Raymond Le Gros Leaving his Bride.--Moore. + + Roderick in Conference with the Normans.--Moore, M'Geoghegan. + + Donald O'Brien Setting Fire to Limerick.--M'Geoghegan. + + Donald O'Brien Visiting Holycross.--M'Geoghegan. + + O'Brien, O'Connor, and M'Carthy making Peace to attack the + Normans.--M'Geoghegan, Moore. + + The Same Three Victorious at the Battle of Thurles.--Moore and + O'Conor's Rerum Hibernicarum Scriptores. + + Irish Chiefs leaving Prince John.--Moore, etc. + + M'Murrough and Gloster.--Harris's Hibernica, p. 53. + + Crowning of Edward Bruce.--Leland, Grace's Annals, etc. + + Edgecombe Vainly Trying to Overawe Kildare.--Harris's Hibernica. + + Kildare "On the Necks of the Butlers."--Leland. + + Shane O'Neill at Elizabeth's Court.--Leland. + + Lord Sydney Entertained by Shane O'Neill. + + The Battle of the Red Coats.--O'Sullivan's Catholic History. + + Hugh O'Neill Victor in Single Combat at Clontibret.--Fynes Moryson, + O'Sullivan, M'Geoghegan. + + The Corleius.--Dymmok's Treatise, Archaeological Society's Tracts. + + Maguire and St. Leger in Single Combat.--M'Geoghegan. + + O'Sullivan Crossing the Shannon.--Pacata Hibernia. + + O'Dogherty Receiving the Insolent Message of the Governor of + Derry.--M'Geoghegan. + + The Brehon before the English Judges.--Davis's Letter to Lord + Salisbury. + + Ormond Refusing to give up his Sword.--Carte's Life of Ormond. + + Good Lookers-on.--Strafford's Letters. + + Owen Conolly before the Privy Council, 1641.--Carey's Vindiciae. + + The Battle of Julianstown.--Temple's Rebellion, and Tichbourne's + Drogheda. + + Owen Roe Organising the Creaghts.--Carte, and also Belling and + O'Neill in the Desiderata Curiosa Hibernica. + + The Council of Kilkenny.--Carte. + + The Breach of Clonmel.--Do. + + Smoking Out the Irish.--Ludlow's Memoirs. + + Burning Them.--Castlehaven's Memoirs. + + Nagle before the Privy Council.--Harris's William. + + James's Entry into Dublin.--Dublin Magazine for March, 1843. + + The Bridge of Athlone.--Green Book and Authorities. + + St. Ruth's Death.--Do. + + The Embarkation from Limerick.--Do. + + Cremona.--Cox's Magazine. + + Fontenoy.--Do. + + Sir S. Rice Pleading against the Violation of the Treaty of + Limerick.--Staunton's Collection of Tracts on Ireland. + + Molyneux's Book burned. + + Liberty Boys Reading a Drapier's Letter.--Mason's St. Patrick's + Cathedral. + + Lucas Surrounded by Dublin Citizens in his Shop. + + Grattan Moving Liberty.--Memoirs. + + Flood Apostrophising Corruption.--Barrington. + + Dungannon Convention.--Wilson, Barrington. + + Curran Cross-Examining Armstrong.--Memoirs. + + Curran Pleading before the Council in Alderman James's Case. + + Tone's First Society.--See his Memoirs. + + The Belfast Club.--Madden's U. I., Second Series, vol. i. + + Tone, Emmet, and Keogh in the Rathfarnham Garden. + + Tone and Carnot.--Tone's Memoirs. + + Battle of Oulart.--Hay, Teeling, etc. + + First Meeting of the Catholic Association. + + O'Connell Speaking in a Munster Chapel.--Wyse's Association. + + The Clare Hustings.--Proposal of O'Connell. + + The Dublin Corporation Speech. + + Father Mathew Administering the Pledge in a Munster County. + + Conciliation.--Orange and Green. + + The Lifting of the Irish Flags of a National Fleet and Army. + + + + +OUR NATIONAL LANGUAGE. + + +Men are ever valued most for peculiar and original qualities. A man who +can only talk commonplace, and act according to routine, has little +weight. To speak, look, and do what your own soul from its depths +orders you are credentials of greatness which all men understand and +acknowledge. Such a man's dictum has more influence than the reasoning +of an imitative or commonplace man. He fills his circle with +confidence. He is self-possessed, firm, accurate, and daring. Such men +are the pioneers of civilisation and the rulers of the human heart. + +Why should not nations be judged thus? Is not a full indulgence of its +natural tendencies essential to a _people's_ greatness? Force the +manners, dress, language, and constitution of Russia, or Italy, or +Norway, or America, and you instantly stunt and distort the whole mind +of either people. + +The language, which grows up with a people, is conformed to their +organs, descriptive of their climate, constitution, and manners, +mingled inseparably with their history and their soil, fitted beyond +any other language to express their prevalent thoughts in the most +natural and efficient way. + +To impose another language on such a people is to send their history +adrift among the accidents of translation--'tis to tear their identity +from all places--'tis to substitute arbitrary signs for picturesque and +suggestive names--'tis to cut off the entail of feeling, and separate +the people from their forefathers by a deep gulf--'tis to corrupt their +very organs, and abridge their power of expression. + +The language of a nation's youth is the only easy and full speech for +its manhood and for its age. And when the language of its cradle goes, +itself craves a tomb. + +What business has a Russian for the rippling language of Italy or +India? How could a Greek distort his organs and his soul to speak Dutch +upon the sides of the Hymettus, or the beach of Salamis, or on the +waste where once was Sparta? And is it befitting the fiery, +delicate-organed Celt to abandon his beautiful tongue, docile and +spirited as an Arab, "sweet as music, strong as the wave"--is it +befitting in him to abandon this wild, liquid speech for the mongrel of +a hundred breeds called English, which, powerful though it be, creaks +and bangs about the Celt who tries to use it? + +We lately met a glorious thought in the "Triads of Mochmed," printed in +one of the Welsh codes by the Record Commission: "There are three +things without which there is no country--common language, common +judicature, and co-tillage land--for without these a country cannot +support itself in peace and social union." + +A people without a language of its own is only half a nation. A nation +should guard its language more than its territories--'tis a surer +barrier, and more important frontier, than fortress or river. + +And in good times it has ever been thought so. Who had dared to propose +the adoption of Persian or Egyptian in Greece--how had Pericles +thundered at the barbarian? How had Cato scourged from the forum him +who would have given the Attic or Gallic speech to men of Rome? How +proudly and how nobly Germany stopped "the incipient creeping" progress +of French! And no sooner had she succeeded than her genius, which had +tossed in a hot trance, sprung up fresh and triumphant. + +Had Pyrrhus quelled Italy, or Xerxes subdued Greece for a time long +enough to impose new languages, where had been the literature which +gives a pedigree to human genius? Even liberty recovered had been +sickly and insecure without the language with which it had hunted in +the woods, worshipped at the fruit-strewn altar, debated on the +council-hill, and shouted in the battle-charge. + +There is a fine song of the Fusians, which describes + + "Language linked to liberty." + +To lose your native tongue, and learn that of an alien, is the worst +badge of conquest--it is the chain on the soul. To have lost entirely +the national language is death; the fetter has worn through. So long as +the Saxon held to his German speech he could hope to resume his land +from the Norman; now, if he is to be free and locally governed, he must +build himself a new home. There is hope for Scotland--strong hope for +Wales--sure hope for Hungary. The speech of the alien is not universal +in the one; is gallantly held at bay in the other; is nearly expelled +from the third. + +How unnatural--how corrupting 'tis for us, three-fourths of whom are of +Celtic blood, to speak a medley of Teutonic dialects! If we add the +Celtic Scots, who came back here from the thirteenth to the seventeenth +centuries, and the Celtic Welsh, who colonised many parts of Wexford +and other Leinster counties, to the Celts who never left Ireland, +probably five-sixths, or more, of us are Celts. What business have we +with the Norman-Sassenagh? + +Nor let any doubt these proportions because of the number of English +_names_ in Ireland. With a politic cruelty the English of the Pale +passed an Act (3 Edw. IV., c. 3) compelling every Irishman within +English jurisdiction "to go like to one Englishman in apparel, and +shaving off his beard above the mouth," "and shall take to him an +English sirname of one town, as Sutton, Chester, Trym, Skryne, Corke, +Kinsale; or colour, as White, Blacke, Browne; or art or science, as +Smith or Carpenter; or office, as Cook, Butler; and that he and his +issue shall use this name, under pain of forfeiting his goods yearly." + +And just as this Parliament before the Reformation, so did another +after the Reformation. By the 28th Henry VIII., c. 15, the dress and +language of the Irish were insolently described as barbarous by the +minions of that ruffian king, and were utterly forbidden and abolished +under many penalties and incapacities. These laws are still in force; +but whether the Archaeological Society, including Peel and O'Connell, +will be prosecuted seems doubtful. + +There was, also, 'tis to be feared, an adoption of English names, +during some periods, from fashion, fear, or meanness. Some of our best +Irish names, too, have been so mangled as to require some scholarship +to identify them. For these and many more reasons the members of the +Celtic race here are immensely greater than at first appears. + +But this is not all; for even the Saxon and Norman colonists, +notwithstanding these laws, melted down into the Irish, and adopted all +their ways and language. For centuries upon centuries Irish was spoken +by men of all bloods in Ireland, and English was unknown, save to a few +citizens and nobles of the Pale. 'Tis only within a very late period +that the majority of the people learned English. + +But, it will be asked, how can the language be restored now? + +We shall answer this partly by saying that, through the labours of the +Archaeological and many lesser societies, it _is_ being revived rapidly. + +We shall consider this question of the possibility of reviving it more +at length some other day. + +Nothing can make us believe that it is natural or honourable for the +Irish to speak the speech of the alien, the invader, the Sassenagh +tyrant, and to abandon the language of our kings and heroes. What! give +up the tongue of Ollamh Fodhla and Brian Boru, the tongue of M'Carty, +and the O'Nials, the tongue of Sarsfield's, Curran's, Mathew's, and +O'Connell's boyhood, for that of Strafford and Poynings, Sussex, Kirk, +and Cromwell! + +No! oh, no! the "brighter days shall surely come," and the green flag +shall wave on our towers, and the sweet old language be heard once more +in college, mart, and senate. + +But even should the effort to save it as the national language fail, by +the attempt we will rescue its old literature, and hand down to our +descendants proofs that we had a language as fit for love, and war, and +business, and pleasure, as the world ever knew, and that we had not the +spirit and nationality to preserve it! + +Had Swift known Irish he would have sowed its seed by the side of that +nationality which he planted, and the close of the last century would +have seen the one as flourishing as the other. Had Ireland used Irish +in 1782, would it not have impeded England's re-conquest of us? But +'tis not yet too late. + +For _you_, if the mixed speech called English was laid with +sweetmeats on your child's tongue, English is the best speech of +manhood. And yet, rather, in that case you are unfortunate. The hills, +and lakes, and rivers, the forts and castles, the churches and +parishes, the baronies and counties around you, have all Irish +names--names which describe the nature of the scenery or ground, the +name of founder, or chief, or priest, or the leading fact in the +history of the place. To you these are names hard to pronounce, and +without meaning. + +And yet it were well for you to know them. That knowledge would be a +topography, and a history, and romance, walking by your side, and +helping your discourse. Meath tells it flatness, Clonmel the abundant +riches of its valley, Fermanagh is the land of the Lakes, Tyrone the +country of Owen, Kilkenny the Church of St. Canice, Dunmore the great +fort, Athenry the Ford of the Kings, Dunleary the Fort of O'Leary; and +the Phoenix Park, instead of taking its name from a fable, recognises +as christener the "sweet water" which yet springs near the east gate.[43] + +All the names of our airs and songs are Irish, and we every day are as +puzzled and ingeniously wrong about them as the man who, when asked for +the air, "I am asleep, and don't waken me," called it "Tommy M'Cullagh +made boots for me." + +The bulk of our history and poetry are written in Irish, and shall we, +who learn Italian, and Latin, and Greek, to read Dante, Livy, and Homer +in the original--shall we be content with ignorance or a translation of +Irish? + +The want of modern scientific words in Irish is undeniable, and +doubtless we should adopt the existing names into our language. The +Germans have done the same thing, and no one calls German mongrel on +that account. Most of these names are clumsy and extravagant; and are +almost all derived from Greek or Latin, and cut as foreign a figure in +French and English as they would in Irish. Once Irish was recognised as +a language to be learned as much as French or Italian, our dictionaries +would fill up and our vocabularies ramify, to suit all the wants of +life and conversation. + +These objections are ingenious refinements, however, rarely thought of +till after the other and great objection has been answered. + +The usual objection to attempting the revival of Irish is, that it +could not succeed. + +If an attempt were made to introduce Irish, either through the national +schools, or the courts of law, into the eastern side of the island, it +would certainly fail, and the reaction might extinguish it altogether. +But no one contemplates this save as a dream of what may happen a +hundred years hence. It is quite another thing to say, as we do, that +the Irish language should be cherished, taught, and esteemed, and that +it can be preserved and gradually extended. + +What we seek is, that the people of the upper classes should have their +children taught the language which explains our names of persons or +places, our older history, and our music, and which is spoken in the +majority of our counties, rather than Italian, German, or French. It +would be more useful in life, more serviceable to the taste and genius +of young people, and a more flexible accomplishment for an Irish man or +woman to speak, sign, and write Irish than French. + +At present the middle classes think it a sign of vulgarity to speak +Irish--the children are everywhere taught English, and English alone in +schools--and, what is worse, they are urged by rewards and punishments +to speak it at home, for English is the language of their masters. Now, +we think the example and exertions of the upper classes would be +sufficient to set the opposite and better fashion of preferring Irish; +and, even as a matter of taste, we think them bound to do so. And we +ask it of the pride, the patriotism, and the hearts of our farmers and +shopkeepers, will they try to drive out of their children's minds the +native language of almost every great man we had, from Brian Boru to +O'Connell--will they meanly sacrifice the language which names their +hills, and towns, and music, to the tongue of the stranger? + +About half the people west of a line drawn from Derry to Waterford +speak Irish habitually, and in some of the mountain tracts east of that +line it is still common. Simply requiring the teachers of the national +schools in these Irish-speaking districts to know Irish, and supplying +them with Irish translations of the school books, would guard the +language where it now exists, and prevent it from being swept away by +the English tongue, as the Red Americans have been by the English race +from New York to New Orleans. + +The example of the upper classes would extend and develop a modern +Irish literature, and the hearty support they have given to the +Archaeological Society makes us hope that they will have sense and +spirit to do so. + +But the establishment of a newspaper partly or wholly Irish would be +the most rapid and sure way of serving the language. The Irish-speaking +man would find, in his native tongue, the political news and general +information he has now to seek in English; and the English-speaking +man, having Irish frequently before him in so attractive a form, would +be tempted to learn its characters, and, by-and-by, its meaning. + +These newspapers in many languages are now to be found everywhere but +here. In South America many of these papers are Spanish and English, or +French; in North America, French and English; in Northern Italy, German +and Italian; in Denmark and Holland, German is used in addition to the +native tongue; in Alsace and Switzerland, French and German; in Poland, +German, French, and Sclavonic; in Turkey, French and Turkish; in +Hungary, Magyar, Sclavonic, and German; and the little Canton of Grison +uses three languages in its press. With the exception of Hungary, the +secondary language is, in all cases, spoken by fewer persons than the +Irish-speaking people of Ireland, and while they everywhere tolerate +and use one language as a medium of commerce, they cherish the other as +the vehicle of history, the wings of song, the soil of their genius, +and a mark and guard of nationality. + + --------------------------------------------------------------- + [43] 'Bright water' is the true rendering: Could Davis have been + thinking of _binn uisge_, and supposing that _binn_ meant sweet in + taste as well as in sound?--[Ed.] + + + + +INSTITUTIONS OF DUBLIN. + + +Judged by the _Directory_, Dublin is nobly supplied with institutions +for the promotion of Literature, Science, and Art; and, judged by its +men, there is mind enough here to make these institutions prosper, and +instruct and raise the country. Yet their performances are far short of +these promises, and the causes for ill-success are easily found. We +believe these causes could be almost as easily removed. + +In the first place, we have too many of these institutions. Stingy +grants from Government and the general poverty of the people render +economy a matter of the first consequence; yet we find these societies +maintaining a number of separate establishments, at a great expense of +rent and salaries. + +The consequence, of course, is that none of them flourish as they +ought--museums, meetings, lectures, libraries, and exhibitions are all +frittered away, and nothing is done so well as it might be. Moreover, +from the want of any arrangement and order, the same men are dragged +from one society to another--few men do much, because all are forced to +attempt so many things. + +But 'tis better to examine this in detail, and in doing so we may as +well give some leading facts as to the chief of these bodies. Take, for +example, as a beginning, the + + +INSTITUTIONS FOR THE PROMOTION OF FINE ARTS. + +And first there is the Hibernian Academy. It was founded in 1823, +received a present of its house in Abbey Street, and some books and +casts, from Francis Johnston, a Dublin architect, and has the miserable +income of L300 a year from the Treasury. It has a drawing-school, with +a few casts, no pictures, bad accommodation, and professors whose pay +is nearly nominal. + +It undoubtedly has some men of great ability and attainments, and some +who have neither; but what can be done without funds, statues, or +pictures? To aggravate its difficulties, the Dublin Society has another +art school, still worse off as to casts, and equally deficient in +pictures. As a place of instruction in the designing of patterns for +manufactures and the like, the Dublin Society school has worked well; +and many of the best-paid controllers of design in the English +manufactories were educated there; but as a school of fine arts it does +little; and no wonder. Another branch of the Hibernian Academy's +operations is its annual exhibition of pictures. These exhibitions +attract crowds who would never otherwise see a painting, promote +thought on art, and procure patronage for artists. In this, too, the +Hibernian Academy has recently found a rival in the Society of Irish +Artists, established in 1842, which has an annual exhibition in College +Street, and pays the expenses of the exhibition out of the admission +fees, as does the Hibernian Academy. We are not attaching blame to the +Society of Irish Artists in noticing the fact of its rivalry. + +There are three other bodies devoted to the encouragement of art. One +of these is the Art Union, founded in 1840, and maintained entirely by +subscriptions to its lottery. It distributes fine engravings from Irish +pictures among all its members, and pictures and statues, bought in the +exhibitions of the Hibernian Academy, and of the Society of Irish +Artists, among its prize-holders; and it gives premiums for the works +of native or resident artists. Its operation is as a patron of art; +and, in order to get funds for this purpose, and also to secure +superior works and a higher competition, it extends its purchases to +the best foreign works exhibited here. It has no collection, and has +merely an office in College Street--in fact, its best permanent +possession is its unwearied secretary. The Society of Ancient Art was +established last year for the formation of a public gallery of casts +from classical and mediaeval statues, and ultimately for purposes of +direct teaching by lectures, etc. It obtained some funds by +subscription; but under the expectation, 'tis said, of a public grant, +has done nothing. Lastly, there is the "Institute of Irish Architects," +founded in 1839 "for the general advancement of civil architecture, for +promoting and facilitating the acquirement of a knowledge of the +various arts and sciences connected therewith, for the formation of a +library and museum," etc. + +To us it is very plain that here are too many institutions, and that +the efficiency of all suffers materially from their want of connection +and arrangement. Some, at least, might be amalgamated with great +advantage, or rather all, except the Art Union. That is only a club of +purchasers, and any attempt materially to change its nature would peril +its funds. Some such plan as the following would accomplish all that is +vainly attempted now. Let the Government be pressed to give L2,000 a +year, if the public supply L1,000 a year. Let this income go to a new +Hibernian Academy--the present Hibernian Academy, Artists' Society, +Society of Ancient Art, the Art Schools of the Dublin Society, and the +Institute of Irish Architects being merged in it. This merger could be +easily secured through the inducements secured by the charter, and by +accommodation, salaries, and utility of the new body. The present +property of these bodies, with some moderate grant, would suffice for +the purchase of a space of ground ample for the schools, museums, +library, lecture-room, and yards of such an institution. + +At the head of it should be a small body governing and accounting for +its finances, but _no person_ should be a governing member of more than +one of its sections. These sections should be for Statuary, Painting, +Architecture, and Design Drawing. Each of these sections should have +its own Gallery and its own Practice Rooms; but one Library and one +public Lecture Room would suffice for the entire. The architectural +section would also need some open space for its experiments and its +larger specimens. A present of copies of the British Museum casts, +along with the fund of the Ancient Art Society, would originate a Cast +Gallery, and a few good pictures could be bought as a commencement of a +National Gallery of Painting, leaving the economy of the managers and +the liberality of the public gradually to fill up. Collections of +native works in canvas and marble, and architectural models, could be +soon and cheaply procured. The Art Library of the Dublin Society added +to that of the Hibernian Academy would need few additions to make it +sufficient for the new body. + +Such an Institute ought not to employ any but the best teachers and +lecturers. It should encourage proficiency by rewards that would +instruct the proficient; it should apply itself to cataloguing, +preserving, and making known all the works of art in the country; give +prizes for artistical works; publish its lectures and transactions; +issue engravings of the most instructive works of art; and hold evening +meetings, to which ladies would be admitted. It should allow at least +L400 a year for the support of free pupils. In connection with its +drawing and modelling schools should be a professorship of anatomy, or, +what were better, some arrangement might be made with the College of +Surgeons, or some such body, for courses of instruction for its pupils. +The training for its pupils in sculpture, painting, and design should +include the study of ancient and modern costumes, zoology, and of +vegetable and geological forms. For this purpose books should not be so +much relied on as lectures in gardens, museums, and during student +excursions. Of course the architectural pupils should be required to +answer at a preliminary examination in mathematics, and should receive +special instruction in the building materials, action of climate, etc., +in Ireland. + +Were the buildings standing, and the society chartered judiciously, the +sum we have mentioned would be sufficient. Four professors at from L200 +to L300 a year each, four assistants at L100 a year each, a librarian +at the same rate, with payments for extra instruction in anatomy, etc., +etc., and for porters, premiums, and so forth, would not exceed L2,000 +a year. So that if L400 were expended on free pupils, there would +remain L600 a year for the purchase of works for the galleries. + +At present there is much waste of money, great annoyance and loss of +time to the supporters of these institutions, and marvellously little +benefit to art. The plan we have proposed would be economical both of +time and money; but, what is of more worth, it would give us, what we +have not now, a National Gallery of Statuary and Painting--good +Exhibition Rooms for works of art--business-like Lecturers and +Lectures--great public excitement about art--and, finally, a great +National Academy. + +If anyone has a better plan, let him say it; we have told ours. At all +events, some great change is needed, and there can be no fitter time +than this for it. + +In any community it is desirable to have Literary Institutions, as well +classified as legal offices, and as free from counteraction; but it is +especially desirable here now. Our literary class is small, and its +duties measureless. The diseased suction of London--the absence of +gentry, offices, and Legislature--the heart-sickness that is on every +thoughtful man without a country--the want of a large, educated, and +therefore book-buying class--and (it must be confessed) the depression +and distrust produced by rash experiments and paltry failure, have left +us with few men for a great work. Probably the great remedy is the +restoration of our Parliament--bringing back, as it would, the +aristocracy and the public offices, giving society and support to +Writers and Artists, and giving them a country's praise to move and a +country's glory to reward them. + +But one of the very means of attaining nationality is securing some +portion of that literary force which would gush abundantly from it; +and, therefore, consider it how you will, it is important to increase +and economise the exertions of the literary class in Ireland. Yet the +reverse is done. Institutions are multiplied instead of those being +made efficient which exist; and men talk as proudly of the new +"Teach-'em-everything-in-no-time-Society" as if its natty laws were a +library, its desk a laboratory and a museum, and its members fresh +labourers, when all they have done is to waste the time of persons who +had business, and to delude those who had none, into the belief that +they were doing good. Ephemeral things! which die not without +mischief--they have wasted hours and days of strong men in spinning +sand, and leave depression growing from their tombs. + +It is a really useful deed to rescue from dissipation, or from idle +reading, or from mammon-hunting, one strong, passionate man or boy, and +to set him to work investigating, arranging, teaching. It is an honest +task to shame the 'broidered youth from meditation on waistcoats and +the display of polka steps into manly pursuits. It is an angel's +mission (oftenest the work of love) to startle a sleeping and +unconscious genius into the spring and victory of a roused lion. But it +is worse than useless to establish new associations and orders without +well considering first whether the same machinery do not already exist +and rust for want of the very energy and skill which you need too. +There is a bridge in a field near Blarney Castle where water never ran. +It was built "at the expense of the county." These men build their +mills close as houses in a capital, taking no thought for the stream to +turn them. + +We have already censured this in some detail with reference to +societies for the promotion of the Fine Arts, and have urged the +formation, out of all these fiddling, clashing bodies, of some one +great institution for the promotion of Painting, Sculpture, and +Architecture, with a Museum, a Library, a Gallery, and Lecturers, +governed by professional minds, great enough to be known and regarded +by the people, and popular and strong enough to secure Government +support. + +Similar defects exist everywhere. Take the Dublin Society for example. +Nothing can be more heterogeneous than its objects. We are far from +denying its utility. That utility is immense, the institution is +native, of old standing (it was founded in 1731), national, and, when +it wanted support, our pen was not idle in its behalf. + +But we believe its utility greatly diminished by its attempting too +many things, and especially by including objects more fitly belonging +to other institutions; and on the opposite side it is maimed, by the +interference of other bodies, in its natural functions. The Dublin +Society was founded for the promotion of husbandry and other useful +arts. Its labours to serve agriculture have been repeated and +extensive, though not always judicious. It has also endeavoured to +promote manufactures. It has gardens and museums fitter for scientific +than practical instruction, admirable lecturers, a library most +generously opened, a drawing-school of the largest purposes and of +equivocal success, and various minor branches. + +The Irish Academy has some of this fault. It endeavours to unite +antiquarianism and abstract science. Its meetings are alternately +entertained with mathematics and history, and its transactions are +equally comprehensive. We yield to none in anxiety for the promotion of +antiquarian studies; we think the public and the government disgraced +by the slight support given to the Academy. We are not a little proud +of the honour and strength given to our country by the science of +MacCullagh, Hamilton, and Lloyd; but we protest against the attempt to +mix the armoury of the ancient Irish, or the Celtic dialects, or the +essay on Round Towers, with trigonometry and the calculus, whether in a +lecture-room or a book. + +Let us just set down, as we find them, some of the Literary and +Scientific Institutions. There are the Royal Dublin Society, the Royal +Irish Academy (we wish these royalties were dropped--no one minds +them), the Irish Archaeological Society, the Royal Zoological Society, +the Geological Society, the Dublin Natural History Society, the Dublin +Philosophical Society, the Royal Agricultural Society, etc., etc. Now, +we take it that these bodies might be usefully reduced to three, and if +three moderate government grants were made under conditions rewarding +such a classification, we doubt not it would instantly be made. + +In the first place, we would divorce from the Irish Academy the +scientific department, requiring Trinity College to form some voluntary +organisation for the purpose. To this non-collegiate philosophers +should be admitted, and, thus disencumbered, we would devote the +Academy to antiquities and literature--incorporate with it the +Archaeological Society--transfer to it all the antiques (of which it had +not duplicates) in Trinity College, the Dublin Society, etc., and +enlarge its museums and meeting-room. Its section of "polite +literature" has long been a name--it should be made real. There would +be nothing inconvenient or strange in finding in its lecture-rooms or +transactions the antiquities and literature of Ireland, diversified by +general historical, critical, and aesthetical researches. + +The Dublin Society would reasonably divide into two sections. One, for +the promotion of husbandry, might be aggrandised by tempting the +Agricultural Society to join it, and should have a permanent museum, an +extensive farm, premiums, shows, publications, and special lecturers. +The second section, for the encouragement of manufactures, should have +its museum, workshops, and experiment ground (the last, perhaps, as the +agricultural farm), and its special lecturers. The library might well +be joint, and managed by a joint committee, having separate funds. The +general lecturers on chemistry and other such subjects might be paid in +common. The drawing school (save that for pattern and machine drawing) +might be transferred to the Art Institution; and the botanic garden and +museum of minerals to a third body we propose. + +This third body we would form from a union of the Zoological, the +Geological, the Natural History, and all other such societies, and +endow it with the Botanic and Zoological Gardens--give it rooms for a +general and for a specially Irish museum, and for lecture-rooms in +town, and supply it with a small fund to pay lecturers, who should go +through the provinces. + +We are firmly convinced that this re-arrangement of the Institutions of +Dublin is quite practicable, would diminish unproductive expenses, +economise the time, and condense the purposes of our literary, +scientific, and artistical men, and increase enormously the use of the +institutions to the public. + +Of course the whole plan will be laughed at as fanciful and improbable; +we think it easy, and we think it will be done. + + + + +IRELAND'S PEOPLE, LORDS, GENTRY, COMMONALTY. + + +When we are considering a country's resources and its fitness for a +peculiar destiny, its people are not to be overlooked. How much they +think, how much they work, what are their passions, as well as their +habits, what are their hopes and what their history, suggest inquiries +as well worth envious investigation as even the inside of a refugee's +letter. + +And there is much in Ireland of that character--much that makes her +superior to slavery, and much that renders her inferior to freedom. + +Her inhabitants are composed of Irish nobles, Irish gentry, and the +Irish people. Each has an interest in the independence of their +country, each a share in her disgrace. Upon each, too, there devolves a +separate duty in this crisis of her fate. They all have +responsibilities; but the infamy of failing in them is not alike in +all. + +The nobles are the highest class. They have most to guard. In every +other country they are the champions of patriotism. They feel there is +no honour for them separate from their fatherland. Its freedom, its +dignity, its integrity, are as their own. They strive for it, legislate +for it, guard it, fight for it. Their names, their titles, their very +pride are of it. + +In Ireland they are its disgrace. They were first to sell and would be +last to redeem it. Treachery to it is daubed on many an escutcheon in +its heraldry. It is the only nation where slaves have been ennobled for +contributing to its degradation. + +It is a foul thing this--dignity emanating from the throne to gild the +filthy mass of national treason that forms the man's part of many an +Irish lord. + +We do not include in this the whole Irish peerage. God forbid. There +are several of them not thus ignoble. Many of them worked, struggled, +sacrificed for Ireland. Many of them were true to her in the darkest +times. + +They were her chiefs, her ornaments, her sentinels, her safeguards. +Alas! that they, too, should have shrunk from their position, and left +their duties to humbler, but bolder and better men. + +Look at their station in the State. Is it not one of unequivocal shame? +They enjoy the half-mendicant privilege of voting for a representative +of their order, in the House of Lords, some twice or thrice in their +lives. One Irish peer represents about a dozen others of his class, and +thus, in his multiplex capacity, he is admitted into fellowship with +the English nobility. The borrowed plumes, the delegated authority of +so many of his equals, raise him to a half-admitted equality with an +English nobleman. And, although thus deprived of their inheritance of +dignity, they are not allowed even the privilege of a commoner. An +Irish lord cannot sit in the House of Commons for an Irish county or +city, nor can he vote for an Irish member. + +But an Irish lord can represent an English constituency. The +distinction is a strange one--unintelligible to us in any sense but one +of national humiliation. We understand it thus--an Irish lord is too +mean in his own person, and by virtue of his Irish title, to rank with +the British peerage. He can only qualify for that honour by uniting in +his the suffrages and titles of ten or twelve others. But--flattering +distinction!--he is above the rank of an Irish commoner, nor is he +permitted to sully his name with the privileges of that order. +And--unspeakable dignity!--he may take his stand with a British mob. + +There is no position to match this in shame. There is no guilt so +despicable as dozing in it without a blush or an effort, or even a +dream for independence. When all else are alive to indignity, and +working in the way of honour and liberty, they alone, whom it would +best become to be earliest and most earnest in the strife, sink back +replete with dishonour. + +Of those, or their descendants, who, at the time of the Union, sold +their country and the high places they filled in her councils and in +her glory, for the promise of a foreign title, which has not been +redeemed, the shame and the mortification have been perhaps too great +to admit of any hope in regard to them. Their trust was sacred--their +honour unsuspected. The stake they guarded above life they betrayed +then for a false bauble; and it is no wonder if they think their infamy +irredeemable and eternal. + +We know not but it is. There are many, however, not in that category. +They struggled at fearful odds, and every risk, against the fate of +their country. They strove when hope had left them. Wherefore do they +stand apart now, when she is again erect, and righteous, and daring? +Have they despaired for her greatness, because of the infidelity of +those to whom she had too blindly trusted? + +The time is gone when she could be betrayed. This one result is already +guaranteed by recent teaching. We may not be yet thoroughly instructed +in the wisdom and the virtue necessary for the independent maintenance +of self-government; but we have mastered thus much of national +knowledge that we cannot be betrayed. There is no assurance every +nation gave which we have not given, or may not give, that our present +struggle shall end in triumph or in national death. + +The writers of _The Nation_ have never concealed the defects or +flattered the good qualities of their countrymen. They have told them +in good faith that they wanted many an attribute of a free people, and +that the true way to command happiness and liberty was by learning the +arts and practising the culture that fitted men for their enjoyment. +Nor was it until we saw them thus learning and thus practising that our +faith became perfect, and that we felt entitled to say to all men, here +is a strife in which it will be stainless glory to be even defeated. It +is one in which the Irish nobility have the first interest and the +first stake in their individual capacities. + +As they would be the most honoured and benefited by national success, +they are the guiltiest in opposing or being indifferent to national +patriotism. + +Of the Irish gentry there is not much to be said. They are divisible +into two classes--the one consists of the old Norman race commingled +with the Catholic gentlemen who either have been able to maintain their +patrimonies, or who have risen into affluence by their own industry; +the other, the descendants of Cromwell's or William's successful +soldiery. + +This last is the most anti-Irish of all. They feel no personal +debasement in the dishonour of the country. Old prejudices, a barbarous +law, a sense of insecurity in the possessions they know were obtained +by plunder, combine to sink them into the mischievous and unholy belief +that it is their interest as well as their duty to degrade, and wrong, +and beggar the Irish people. + +There are among them men fired by enthusiasm, men fed by fanaticism, +men influenced by sordidness; but, as a whole, they are earnest +thinkers and stern actors. There is a virtue in their unscrupulousness. +They speak, and act, and dare as men. There is a principle in their +unprincipledness. Their belief is a harsh and turbulent one, but they +profess it in a manly fashion. + +We like them better than the other section of the same class. These +last are but sneaking echoes of the other's views. They are coward +patriots and criminal dandies. But they ought to be different from what +they are. We wish them so. We want their aid now--for the country, for +themselves, for all. Would that they understood the truth, that they +thought justly, and acted uprightly. They are wanted, one and all. Why +conceal it--they are obstacles in our way, shadows on our path. + +These are called the representatives of the property of the country. +They are against the national cause, and therefore it is said that all +the wealth of Ireland is opposed to the Repeal of the Union. + +It is an ignorant and a false boast. + +The people of the country are its wealth. They till its soil, raise its +produce, ply its trade. They serve, sustain, support, save it. They +supply its armies--they are its farmers, its merchants, its tradesmen, +its artists, all that enrich and adorn it. + +And, after all, each of them has a patrimony to spend, the honourable +earning of his sweat, or his intellect, or his industry, or his genius. +Taking them on an average, they must, to live, spend at least L5 each +by the year. Multiply it by seven millions, and see what it comes to. + +Thirty-five millions annually--compare with that the rental of Ireland; +compare with it the wealth of the aristocracy spent in Ireland, and are +they not as nothing? + +But a more important comparison may be made of the strength, the +fortitude, the patience, the bravery of those, the enrichers of the +country, with the meanness in mind and courage of those who are opposed +to them. + +It is the last we shall suggest. It is sufficient for our purpose. To +those who do not think it of the highest value we have nothing to say. + + + + +THE STATE OF THE PEASANTRY. + + +In a climate soft as a mother's smile, on a soil fruitful as God's +love, the Irish peasant mourns. + +He is not unconsoled. Faith in the joys of another world, heightened by +his woe in this, give him hours when he serenely looks down on the +torments that encircle him--the moon on a troubled sky. Domestic love, +almost morbid from external suffering, prevents him from becoming a +fanatic or a misanthrope, and reconciles him to life. Sometimes he +forgets all, and springs into a desperate glee or a scathing anger; and +latterly another feeling--the hope of better days--and another +exertion--the effort for redress--have shared his soul with religion, +love, mirth, and vengeance. + +His consolations are those of a spirit--his misery includes all +physical sufferings, and many that strike the soul, not the senses. + +Consider his griefs! They begin in the cradle--they end in the grave. + +Suckled by a breast that is supplied from unwholesome or insufficient +food, and that is fevered with anxiety--reeking with the smoke of an +almost chimneyless cabin--assailed by wind and rain when the weather +rages--breathing, when it is calm, the exhalations of a rotten roof, of +clay walls, and of manure, which gives his only chance of food--he is +apt to perish in his infancy. + +Or he survives all this (happy if he have escaped from gnawing scrofula +or familiar fever), and in the same cabin, with rags instead of his +mother's breast, and lumpers instead of his mother's milk, he spends +his childhood. + +Advancing youth brings him labour, and manhood increases it; but youth +and manhood leave his roof rotten, his chimney one hole, his window +another, his clothes rags (at best muffled by a holiday _cotamore_)--his +furniture, a pot, a table, a few hay chairs and rickety stools--his +food, lumpers and water--his bedding, straw and a coverlet--his +enemies, the landlord, the tax-gatherer, and the law--his consolation, +the priest and his wife--his hope on earth, agitation--his hope +hereafter, the Lord God! + +For such an existence his toil is hard--and so much the better--it +calms and occupies his mind; but bitter is his feeling that the toil +which gains for him this nauseous and scanty livelihood heaps dainties +and gay wines on the table of his distant landlord, clothes his +children or his harem in satin, lodges them in marble halls, and brings +all the arts of luxury to solicit their senses--bitter to him to feel +that this green land, which he loves and his landlord scorns, is +ravished by him of her fruits to pamper that landlord; twice bitter for +him to see his wife, with weariness in her breast of love, to see half +his little brood torn by the claws of want to undeserved graves, and to +know that to those who survive him he can only leave the inheritance to +which he was heir; and thrice bitter to him that even his hovel has not +the security of the wild beast's den--that Squalidness, and Hunger, and +Disease are insufficient guardians of his home--and that the puff of +the landlord's or the agent's breath may blow him off the land where he +has lived, and send him and his to a dyke, or to prolong wretchedness +in some desperate kennel in the next town, till the strong wings of +Death--unopposed lord of such suburb--bear them away. + +Aristocracy of Ireland, will ye do nothing?--will ye do nothing for +fear? The body who best know Ireland--the body that keep Ireland within +the law--the Repeal Committee--declare that unless some great change +take place an agrarian war may ensue! Do ye know what that is, and how +it would come? The rapid multiplication of outrages, increased violence +by magistrates, collisions between the people and the police, coercive +laws and military force, the violation of houses, the suspension of +industry--the conflux of discontent, pillage, massacre, war--the gentry +shattered, the peasantry conquered and decimated, or victorious and +ruined (for who could rule them?)--there is an agrarian insurrection! +May Heaven guard us from it!--may the fear be vain! + +We set aside the fear! Forget it! Think of the long, long patience of +the people--their toils supporting you--their virtues shaming +you--their huts, their hunger, their disease. + +To whomsoever God had given a heart less cold than stone, these truths +must cry day and night. Oh! how they cross us like _Banshees when +we would range free on the mountain--how, as we walk in the evening +light amid flowers, they startle us from rest of mind! Ye nobles! whose +houses are as gorgeous as the mote's (who dwelleth in the sunbeam)--ye +strong and haughty squires--ye dames exuberant with tingling blood--ye +maidens, whom not splendour has yet spoiled, will ye not think of the +poor?--will ye not shudder in your couches to think how rain, wind, and +smoke dwell with the blanketless peasant?--will ye not turn from the +sumptuous board to look at those hard-won meals of black and slimy +roots on which man, woman, and child feed year after year?--will ye +never try to banish wringing hunger and ghastly disease from the home +of such piety and love?--will ye not give back its dance to the +village--its mountain play to boyhood--its serene hopes to manhood? + +Will ye do nothing for pity--nothing for love? Will ye leave a foreign +Parliament to mitigate--will ye leave a native Parliament, gained in +your despite, to redress these miseries--will ye for ever abdicate the +duty and the joy of making the poor comfortable, and the peasant +attached and happy? Do--if so you prefer; but know that if you do, you +are a doomed race. Once more, Aristocracy of Ireland, we warn and +entreat you to consider the State of the Peasantry, and to save them +with your own hands. + + + + +HABITS AND CHARACTER OF THE PEASANTRY.[44] + + +There are (thank God!) four hundred thousand Irish children in the +National Schools. A few years, and _they will be the People of +Ireland--the farmers of its lands, the conductors of its traffic, the +adepts in its arts. How utterly unlike _that Ireland will be to the +Ireland of the Penal Laws, of the Volunteers, of the Union, or of the +Emancipation? + +Well may Carleton say that we are in a transition state. The knowledge, +the customs, the superstitions, the hopes of the People are entirely +changing. There is neither use nor reason in lamenting what we must +infallibly lose. Our course is an open and a great one, and will try us +severely; but, be it well or ill, we cannot resemble our fathers. No +conceivable effort will get the people, twenty years hence, to regard +the Fairies but as a beautiful fiction to be cherished, not believed +in, and not a few real and human characters are perishing as fast as +the Fairies. + +Let us be content to have the past chronicled wherever it cannot be +preserved. + +Much may be saved--the Gaelic language and the music of the past may be +handed uncorrupted to the future; but whatever may be the substitutes, +the Fairies and the Banshees, the Poor Scholar and the Ribbonman, the +Orange Lodge, the Illicit Still, and the Faction Fight are vanishing +into history, and unless this generation paints them no other will know +what they were. + +It is chiefly in this way we value the work before us. In it Carleton +is the historian of the peasantry rather than a dramatist. The fiddler +and piper, the seanachie and seer, the match-maker and dancing-master, +and a hundred characters beside are here brought before you, moving, +acting, playing, plotting, and gossiping! You are never wearied by an +inventory of wardrobes, as in short English descriptive fictions; yet +you see how every one is dressed; you hear the honey brogue of the +maiden, and the downy voice of the child, the managed accents of +flattery or traffic, the shrill tones of woman's fretting, and the +troubled gush of man's anger. The moory upland and the corn slopes, the +glen where the rocks jut through mantling heather, and bright brooks +gurgle amid the scented banks of wild herbs, the shivering cabin and +the rudely-lighted farm-house are as plain in Carleton's pages as if he +used canvas and colours with a skill varying from Wilson and Poussin to +Teniers and Wilkie. + +But even in these sketches his power of external description is not his +greatest merit. Born and bred among the people--full of their animal +vehemence--skilled in their sports--as credulous and headlong in +boyhood, and as fitful and varied in manhood, as the wildest--he had +felt with them, and must ever sympathise with them. Endowed with the +highest dramatic genius, he has represented their love and generosity, +their wrath and negligence, their crimes and virtues, as a hearty +peasant--not a note-taking critic. + +In others of his works he has created ideal characters that give him a +higher rank as a poet (some of them not surpassed by even Shakespeare +for originality, grandeur, and distinctness); but here he is a genuine +Seanachie, and brings you to dance and wake, to wedding and +christening--makes you romp with the girls, and race with the +boys--tremble at the ghosts, and frolic with the fairies of the whole +parish. + +Come what change there may over Ireland, in these _Tales and Sketches_ +the peasantry of the past hundred years can be for ever lived with. + + --------------------------------------------------------------- + [44] _Tales and Sketches illustrating the Irish Peasantry._ By + William Carleton. James Duffy, Dublin, 1845. 1 vol., 8vo., pp. 393. + + + + +IRISH SCENERY. + + +We no more see why Irish people should not visit the Continent than why +Germans or Frenchmen ought not to visit Ireland; but there is a +difference between them. A German rarely comes here who has not +trampled the heath of Tyrol, studied the museums of Dresden and the +frescoes of Munich, and shouted defiance on the bank of the Rhine; and +what Frenchman who has not seen the vineyards of Provence and the +bocages of Brittany, and the snows of Jura and the Pyrenees, ever drove +on an Irish jingle? But our nobles and country gentlemen, our +merchants, lawyers, and doctors--and what's worse, their wives and +daughters--penetrate Britain and the Continent without ever trying +whether they could not defy in Ireland the _ennui_ before which they +run over seas and mountains. + +The cause of this, as of most of our grievances, was misgovernment, +producing poverty, discomfort, ignorance, and misrepresentation. The +people were ignorant and in rags, their houses miserable, the roads and +hotels shocking; we had no banks, few coaches, and, to crown all, the +English declared the people to be rude and turbulent, which they were +not, as well as drunken and poor, which they assuredly were. An Irish +landlord who had ill-treated his own tenants felt a conscientious dread +of all frieze-coats; others adopted his prejudices, and a people who +never were rude or unjust to strangers were considered unsafe to travel +amongst. + +Most of these causes are removed. The people are sober, and are rapidly +advancing to knowledge, their political exertions and dignity have +broken away much of the prejudices against them, and a man passing +through any part of Ireland expects to find woeful poverty and strong +discontent, but he does not fear the abduction of his wife, or attempts +to assassinate him on every lonely road. The coaches, cars, and roads, +too, have become excellent, and the hotels are sufficient for any +reasonable traveller. One very marked discouragement to travelling was +the want of information; the maps were little daubs, and the +guide-books were few and inaccurate. As to maps we are now splendidly +off. The Railway Commissioners' Map of Ireland, aided by the Ordnance +Index Map of any county where a visitor makes a long stay, are ample. +We have got a good general guide-book in Fraser, but it could not hold +a twentieth of the information necessary to a leisurely tourist; nor, +till the Ordnance Memoir is out, shall we have thorough hand-books to +our counties. Meantime, let us not burn the little guides to Antrim, +Wicklow, and Killarney, though they are desperately dull and +inexact--let us not altogether prohibit Mrs. Hall's gossip, though she +knows less about our Celtic people than the Malays; and let us be even +thankful for Mr. O'Flanagan's volume of the Munster Blackwater (though +it is printed in London) for his valuable stories, for his minute, +picturesque, and full topography, for his antiquarian and historic +details, though he blunders into making Alaster M'Donnell a Scotchman, +and for his hearty love of the scenery and people he has undertaken to +guide us through. + +And now, reader, in this fine soft summer, when the heather is +blooming, and the sky laughing and crying like a hysterical bride, full +of love, where will ye go--through your own land or a stranger's? If +you stay at home you can choose your own scenery, and have something to +see in the summer, and talk of in the winter, that will make your +friends from the Alps and Apennines respectful to you. + +Did you propose to study economies among the metayers of Tuscany or the +artisans of Belgium, postpone the trip till the summer of '45 or '46, +when you may have the passport of an Irish office to get you a welcome, +and seek for the state of the linen weavers in the soft hamlets of +Ulster--compare the cattle herds of Meath with the safe little holdings +of Down and the well-found farms of Tipperary, or investigate the +statistics of our fisheries along the rivers and lakes and shores of +our island. + +Had a strong desire come upon you to toil over the glacier, whose +centre froze when Adam courted Eve, or walk amid the brigand passes of +Italy or Spain--do not fancy that absolute size makes mountain +grandeur, or romance--to a mind full of passion and love of strength +(and with such only do the mountain spirits walk) the passes of +Glenmalure and Barnesmore are deep as Chamouni, and Carn Tual and +Slieve Donard are as near the lightning as Mount Blanc. + +To the picture-hunter we can offer little, though Vandyke's finest +portrait is in Kilkenny, and there is no county without some +collection; but for the lover of living or sculptured forms--for the +artist, the antiquarian, and the natural philosopher, we have more than +five summers could exhaust. Every one can see the strength of outline, +the vigour of colour, and the effective grouping in every fair, and +wake, and chapel, and hurling-ground, from Donegal to Waterford, though +it may take the pen of Griffin or the pencil of Burton to represent +them. An Irishman, if he took the pains, would surely find something +not inferior in interest to Cologne or the Alhambra in study of the +monumental effigies which mat the floors of Jerpoint and Adare, or the +cross in a hundred consecrated grounds from Kells to Clonmacnoise--of +the round towers which spring in every barony--of the architectural +perfection of Holycross and Clare-Galway, and the strange fellowship of +every order in Athassel, or of the military keeps and earthen pyramids +and cairns, which tell of the wars of recent and the piety of distant +centuries. The Entomology, Botany, and Geology of Ireland are not half +explored; the structure and distinctions of its races are but just +attracting the eyes of philosophers from Mr. Wilde's tract, and the +country is actually full of airs never noted, history never written, +superstitions and romances never rescued from tradition; and why should +Irishmen go blundering in foreign researches when so much remains to be +done here, and when to do it would be more easy, more honourable, and +more useful? + +In many kinds of scenery we can challenge comparison. Europe has no +lake so dreamily beautiful as Killarney; no bays where the boldness of +Norway unites with the colouring of Naples, as in Bantry; and you might +coast the world without finding cliffs so vast and so terrible as +Achill and Slieve League. Glorious, too, as the Rhine is, we doubt if +its warmest admirers would exclude from rivalry the Nore and the +Blackwater, if they had seen the tall cliffs, and the twisted slopes, +and the ruined aisles, and glancing mountains, and feudal castles +through which you boat up from Youghal to Mallow, or glide down from +Thomastown to Waterford harbour. Hear what Inglis says of this +Avondhu:-- + + "We have had descents of the Danube, and descents of the Rhine, and + the Rhone, and of many other rivers; but we have not in print, as + far as I know, any descent of the Blackwater; and yet, with all + these descents of foreign rivers in my recollection, _I think the + descent of the Blackwater not surpassed by any of them._ A detail + of all that is seen in gliding down the Blackwater from Cappoquin + to Youghal would fill a long chapter. There is every combination + that can be produced by the elements that enter into the + picturesque and the beautiful--deep shades, bold rocks, verdant + slopes, with the triumphs of art superadded, and made visible in + magnificent houses and beautiful villas with their decorated lawns + and pleasure grounds." + +And now, reader, if these kaleidoscope glimpses we have given you have +made you doubt between a summer in Ireland and one abroad, give your +country "the benefit of the doubt," as the lawyers say, and boat on our +lake or dive into our glens and ruins, wonder at the basalt coast of +Antrim, and soften your heart between the banks of the Blackwater. + + + + +IRISH MUSIC AND POETRY. + + +No enemy speaks slightingly of Irish Music, and no friend need fear to +boast of it. It is without a rival. + +Its antique war-tunes, such as those of O'Byrne, O'Donnell, Alestrom, +and Brian Boru, stream and crash upon the ear like the warriors of a +hundred glens meeting; and you are borne with them to battle, and they +and you charge and struggle amid cries and battle-axes and stinging +arrows. Did ever a wail make man's marrow quiver, and fill his nostrils +with the breath of the grave, like the ululu of the north or the +wirrasthrue of Munster? Stately are their slow, and recklessly splendid +their quick marches, their "Boyne Water," and "Sios agus sios liom," +their "Michael Hoy," and "Gallant Tipperary." The Irish jigs and +planxties are not only the best dancing tunes, but the finest quick +marches in the world. Some of them would cure a paralytic and make the +marble-legged prince in the _Arabian Nights_ charge like a Fag-an-Bealach +boy. The hunter joins in every leap and yelp of the "Fox Chase"; the +historian hears the moan of the penal days in "Drimindhu," and sees the +embarkation of the Wild Geese in "Limerick's Lamentation"; and ask the +lover if his breath do not come and go with "Savourneen Deelish" and +"Lough Sheelin." + +Varied and noble as our music is, the English-speaking people in +Ireland have been gradually losing their knowledge of it, and a number +of foreign tunes--paltry scented things from Italy, lively trifles from +Scotland, and German opera cries--are heard in our concerts, and what +is worse, from our Temperance bands. Yet we never doubted that "The +Sight Entrancing," or "The Memory of the Dead," would satisfy even the +most spoiled of our fashionables better than anything Balfe or Rossini +ever wrote; and, as it is, "Tow-row-row" is better than _poteen_ to the +teetotalers, wearied with overtures and insulted by "British +Grenadiers" and "Rule Brittannia." + +A reprint of _Moore's Melodies_ on lower keys, and at _much_ lower +prices, would probably restore the sentimental music of Ireland to its +natural supremacy. There are in Bunting but two good sets of +words--"The Bonny Cuckoo," and poor Campbell's "Exile's of Erin." These +and a few of Lover's and Mahony's songs can alone compete with Moore. +But, save one or two by Lysaght and Drennan, almost all the Irish +political songs are too desponding or weak to content a people marching +to independence as proudly as if they had never been slaves. + +The popularity and immense circulation of the _Spirit of the Nation_ +proved that it represented the hopes and passions of the Irish people. +This looks like vanity; but as a corporation so numerous as the +contributors to that volume cannot blush, we shall say our say. For +instance, who did not admire "The Memory of the Dead"? The very Stamp +officers were galvanised by it, and the Attorney-General was repeatedly +urged to sing it for the jury. He refused--he had no music to sing it +to. We pitied and forgave him; but we vowed to leave him no such excuse +next time. If these songs were half so good as people called them, they +deserved to flow from a million throats to as noble music as ever +O'Neill or O'Connor heard. + +Some of them were written to, and some freely combined with, old and +suitable airs. These we resolved to have printed with the music, +certain that, thus, the music would be given back to a people who had +been ungratefully neglecting it, and the words carried into circles +where they were still unknown. + +Others of these poems, indeed the best of them, had no antetypes in our +ancient music. New music was, therefore, to be sought for them. Not on +their account only was it to be sought. We hoped they would be the +means of calling out and making known a contemporary music fresh with +the spirit of the time, and rooted in the country. + +Since Carolan's death there had been no addition to the store. Not that +we were without composers, but those we have do not compose Irish-like +music, nor for Ireland. Their rewards are from a foreign public--their +fame, we fear, will suffer from alienage. Balfe is very sweet, and +Rooke very emphatic, but not one passion or association in Ireland's +heart would answer to their songs. + +Fortunately there was one among us (perchance his example may light us +to others) who can smite upon our harp like a master, and make it sigh +with Irish memories, and speak sternly with Ireland's resolve. To him, +to his patriotism, to his genius, and, we may selfishly add, to his +friendship, we owe our ability now to give to Ireland music fit for +"The Memory of the Dead" and the "Hymn of Freedom," and whatever else +was marked out by popularity for such care as his. + +In former editions of the _Spirit_[45] we had thrown in carelessly +several inferior verses and some positive trash, and neither paper nor +printing was any great honour to the Dublin press. Every improvement in +the power of the most enterprising publisher in Ireland has been made, +and every fault, within our reach or his, cured--and whether as the +first publication of original airs, as a selection of ancient music, or +as a specimen of what the Dublin press can do, in printing, paper, or +cheapness, we urge the public to support this work of Mr. James +Duffy's--and, in a pecuniary way, it is his altogether. + +We had hoped to have added a recommendation to the first number of this +work, besides whatever attraction may lie in its music, its ballads, or +its mechanical beauty. + +An artist, whom we shall not describe or he would be known,[46] sketched +a cover and title for it. The idea, composition, and drawing of that +design were such as Flaxman might have been proud of. It is a monument +to bardic power, to patriotism, to our music and our history. There is +at least as much poetry in it as in the best verses in the work it +illustrates. If it do nothing else, it will show our Irish artists that +refinement and strength, passion and dignity, are as practicable in +Irish as in German painting; and the lesson was needed sorely. But if +it lead him who drew it to see that our history and hopes present fit +forms to embody the highest feelings of beauty, wisdom, truth, and +glory in, irrespective of party politics, then, indeed, we shall have +served our country when we induced our gifted friend to condescend to +sketching a title-page. We need not describe that design now, as it +will appear on the cover of the second number, and on the title-page of +the finished volume. + + --------------------------------------------------------------- + [45] A splendid edition of this work, greatly enlarged, and printed + in The Irish Exhibition Buildings, was issued by Messrs. Duffy and + Sons, September, 1882. + + [46] The artist referred to was Sir Frederick Burton. [Ed.] + + + + +BALLAD POETRY OF IRELAND. + + +How slow we have all been in coming to understand the meaning of Irish +Nationality! + +Some, dazzled by visions of pagan splendour, and the pretensions of +pedigree, and won by the passions and romance of the olden races, +continued to speak in the nineteenth century of an Irish nation as they +might have done in the tenth. They forgot the English Pale, the Ulster +Settlement, and the filtered colonisation of men and ideas. A Celtic +kingdom with the old names and the old language, without the old +quarrels, was their hope; and though they would not repeat O'Neill's +comment as he passed Barrett's castle on his march to Kinsale, and +heard it belonged to a Strongbownian, that "he hated the Norman churl +as if he came yesterday"; yet they quietly assumed that the Norman and +Saxon elements would disappear under the Gaelic genius like the tracks +of cavalry under a fresh crop. + +The Nationality of Swift and Grattan was equally partial. They saw that +the government and laws of the settlers had extended to the +island--that Donegal and Kerry were in the Pale; they heard the English +tongue in Dublin, and London opinions in Dublin--they mistook Ireland +for a colony wronged, and great enough to be a nation. + +A lower form of nationhood was before the minds of those who saw in it +nothing but a parliament in College Green. They had not erred in +judging, for they had not tried to estimate the moral elements and +tendencies of the country. They were as narrow bigots to the +omnipotency of an institution as any Cockney Radical. Could they, by +any accumulation of English stupidity and Irish laziness, have got +possession of an Irish government, they would soon have distressed +every one by their laws, whom they had not provoked by their +administration, or disgusted by their dulness. + +Far healthier, with all its defects, was the idea of those who saw in +Scotland a perfect model--who longed for a literary and artistic +nationality--who prized the oratory of Grattan and Curran, the novels +of Griffin and Carleton, the pictures of Maclise and Burton, the +ancient music, as much as any, and far more than most, of the political +nationalists, but who regarded political independence as a dangerous +dream. Unknowingly they fostered it. Their writings, their patronage, +their talk was of Ireland; yet it hardly occurred to them that the +ideal would flow into the practical, or that they, with their dread of +agitation, were forwarding a revolution. + +At last we are beginning to see what we are, and what is our destiny. +Our duty arises where our knowledge begins. The elements of Irish +nationality are not only combining--in fact, they are growing confluent +in our minds. Such nationality as merits a good man's help and wakens a +true man's ambition--such nationality as could stand against internal +faction and foreign intrigue--such nationality as would make the Irish +hearth happy and the Irish name illustrious, is becoming understood. It +must contain and represent the races of Ireland. It must not be Celtic, +it must not be Saxon--it must be Irish. The Brehon law and the maxims +of Westminster, the cloudy and lightning genius of the Gael, the placid +strength of the Sasanach, the marshalling insight of the Norman--a +literature which shall exhibit in combination the passions and idioms +of all, and which shall equally express our mind in its romantic, its +religious, its forensic, and its practical tendencies--finally, a +native government, which shall know and rule by the might and right of +all; yet yield to the arrogance of none--these are components of +_such_ a nationality. + +But what have these things to do with the "Ballad Poetry of Ireland"? +Much every way. It is the result of the elements we have named--it is +compounded of all; and never was there a book fitter to advance that +perfect nationality to which Ireland begins to aspire. That a country +is without national poetry proves its hopeless dulness or its utter +provincialism. National poetry is the very flowering of the soul--the +greatest evidence of its health, the greatest excellence of its beauty. +Its melody is balsam to the senses. It is the playfellow of childhood +ripens into the companion of his manhood, consoles his age. It presents +the most dramatic events, the largest characters, the most impressive +scenes, and the deepest passions in the language most familiar to us. +It shows us magnified, and ennobles our hearts, our intellects, our +country, and our countrymen--binds us to the land by its condensed and +gem-like history, to the future by examples and by aspirations. It +solaces us in travel, fires us in action, prompts our invention, sheds +a grace beyond the power of luxury round our homes, is the recognised +envoy of our minds among all mankind and to all time. + +In possessing the powers and elements of a glorious nationality, we +owned the sources of a national poetry. In the combination and joint +development of the latter we find a pledge and a help to that of the +former. + +This book of Mr. Duffy's,[47] true as it is to the wants of the time, is +not fortuitous. He has prefaced his admirable collection by an +Introduction, which proves his full consciousness of the worth of his +task, and proves equally his ability to execute it. In a space too +short for the most impatient to run by he has accurately investigated +the sources of Irish Ballad Poetry, vividly defined the qualities of +each, and laboured with perfect success to show that all naturally +combine towards one great end, as the brooks to a river, which marches +on clear, deep, and single, though they be wild, and shallow, and +turbid, flowing from unlike regions, and meeting after countless +windings. + +Mr. Duffy maps out three main forces which unequally contribute to an +Irish Ballad Poetry. + +The _first_ consists of the Gaelic ballads. True to the vehemence and +tendencies of the Celtic people, and representing equally their +vagueness and extravagance during slavish times, they nevertheless +remain locked from the middle and upper classes generally, and from the +peasantry of more than half Ireland, in an unknown language. Many of +them have been translated by rhymers--few indeed by poets. The editor +of the volume before us has brought into one house nearly all the +poetical translations from the Irish, and thus finely justifies the +ballad literature of the Gael from its calumnious friend:-- + + "With a few exceptions, all the translations we are acquainted + with, in addition to having abundance of minor faults, are + eminently un-Irish. They seem to have been made by persons to whom + one of the languages was not familiar. Many of them were + confessedly versified from prose translations, and are mere English + poems, without a tinge of the colour or character of the country. + Others, translated by sound Irish scholars, are bald and literal; + the writers sometimes wanting a facility of versification, + sometimes a mastery over the English language. The Irish scholars + of the last century were too exclusively national to study the + foreign tongue with the care essential to master its metrical + resources; and the flexible and weighty language which they had not + learned to wield hung heavily on them, + + 'Like Saul's plate armour on the shepherd boy, + Encumbering, and _not_ arming them.' + + If it were just to estimate our bardic poetry by the specimens we + have received in this manner, it could not be rated highly. But it + would manifestly be most unjust. Noble and touching, and often + subtle and profound thoughts, which no translation could entirely + spoil, shine through the poverty of the style, and vindicate the + character of the originals. Like the costly arms and ornaments + found in our bogs, they are substantial witnesses of a distinct + civilisation; and their credit is no more diminished by the rubbish + in which they chance to be found than the authenticity of the + ancient _torques_ and _skians_ by their embedment in the mud. + When the entire collection of our Irish Percy--James Hardiman--shall + have been given to a public (and soon may such a one come) that can + relish them in their native dress, they will be entitled to + undisputed precedence in our national minstrelsy." + +About a dozen of the ballads in the volume are derived from the Irish. +It is only in this way that Clarence Mangan (a name to which Mr. Duffy +does just honour) contributes to the volume. There are four +translations by him, exhibiting eminently his perfect mastery of +versification--his flexibility of passion, from loneliest grief to the +maddest humour. One of these, "The Lament for O'Neil and O'Donnell," is +the strongest, though it will not be the most popular, ballad in the +work. + +Callanan's and Ferguson's translations, if not so daringly versified, +are simpler and more Irish in idiom. + +Most, indeed, of Callanan's successful ballads are translations, and +well entitle him to what he passionately prays for--a minstrel of free +Erin to come to his grave, + + "And plant a wild wreath from the banks of the river + O'er the heart and the harp that are sleeping for ever." + +But we are wrong in speaking of Mr. Ferguson's translations in +precisely the same way. His "Wicklow War Song" is condensed, +epigrammatic, and crashing, as anything we know of, except the "Pibroch +of Donnil Dhu." + +The _second_ source is--the common people's ballads. Most of these +"make no pretence to being true to Ireland, but only being true to the +_purlieus_ of Cork and Dublin"; yet now and then one meets a fine burst +of passion, and oftener a racy idiom. The "Drimin Dhu," "The Blackbird," +"Peggy Bawn," "Irish Molly," "Willy Reilly," and the "Fair of +Turloughmore," are the specimens given here. Of these "Willy Reilly" +(an old and worthy favourite in Ulster, it seems, but quite unknown +elsewhere) is the best; but it is too long to quote, and we must limit +ourselves to the noble opening verse of "Turloughmore"-- + + "'Come, tell me, dearest mother, what makes my father stay, + Or what can be the reason that he's so long away?' + Oh! 'hold your tongue, my darling son, your tears do grieve me + sore; + I fear he has been murdered in the fair of Turloughmore.'" + +The _third_ and principal source consists of the Anglo-Irish ballads, +written during the last twenty or thirty years. + +Of this highest class, he who contributes most and, to our mind, best +is Mr. Ferguson. We have already spoken of his translations--his +original ballads are better. There is nothing in this volume--nothing +in _Percy's Relics_, or the _Border Minstrelsy_, to surpass, +perhaps to equal, "Willy Gilliland." It is as natural in structure as +"Kinmont Willie," as vigorous as "Otterbourne," and as complete as +"Lochinvar." Leaving his Irish idiom, we get in the "Forester's +Complaint" as harmonious versification, and in the "Forging of the +Anchor" as vigorous thoughts, mounted on bounding words, as anywhere in +the English literature. + +We must quote some stray verses from "Willy Gilliland":-- + + "Up in the mountain solitudes, and in a rebel ring, + He has worshipped God upon the hill, in spite of church and king; + And sealed his treason with his blood on Bothwell bridge he hath; + So he must fly his father's land, or he must die the death; + For comely Claverhouse has come along with grim Dalzell, + And his smoking roof tree testifies they've done their errand well. + + * * * * * * * * * * + + "His blithe work done, upon a bank the outlaw rested now, + And laid the basket from his back, the bonnet from his brow; + And there, his hand upon the Book, his knee upon the sod, + He filled the lonely valley with the gladsome word of God; + And for a persecuted kirk, and for her martyrs dear, + And against a godless church and king he spoke up loud and clear. + + * * * * * * * * * * + + "'My bonny mare! I've ridden you when Claver'se rode behind, + And from the thumbscrew and the boot you bore me like the wind; + And while I have the life you saved, on your sleek flank, I swear, + Episcopalian rowel shall never ruffle hair! + Though sword to wield they've left me none--yet Wallace wight I wis, + Good battle did, on Irvine side, wi' waur weapon than this.'-- + + "His fishing-rod with both his hands he gripped it as he spoke, + And, where the butt and top were spliced, in pieces twain he broke; + The limber top he cast away, with all its gear abroad, + But, grasping the tough hickory butt, with spike of iron shod, + He ground the sharp spear to a point; then pulled his bonnet down, + And, meditating black revenge, set forth for Carrick town." + +The only ballad equally racy is "The Croppy Boy," by some anonymous but +most promising writer. + +Griffin's "Gille Machree"--of another class--is perfect--"striking on +the heart," as Mr. Duffy finely says, "like the cry of a woman"; but +his "Orange and Green," and his "Bridal of Malahide," belong to the +same class, and suffer by comparison, with Mr. Ferguson's ballads. + +Banim's greatest ballad, the "Soggarth Aroon," possesses even deeper +tenderness and more perfect Irish idiom than anything in the volume. + +Among the Collection are Colonel Blacker's famous Orange ballad, +"Oliver's Advice" ("Put your trust in God, my boys, but keep your +powder dry"), and two versions of the "Boyne Water." The latter and +older one, given in the appendix, is by far the finest, and contains +two unrivalled stanzas:-- + + "Both foot and horse they marched on, intending them to batter, But + the brave Duke Schomberg he was shot as he crossed over the water. + When that King William he observed the brave Duke Schomberg + falling, He rein'd his horse, with a heavy heart, on the + Enniskilleners calling; 'What will you do for me, brave boys? see + yonder men retreating, Our enemies encouraged are--and English + drums are beating'; He says 'My boys, feel no dismay at the losing + of one commander, For God shall be our King this day, and I'll be + general under.'" + +Nor less welcome is the comment:-- + + "Some of the Ulster ballads, of a restricted and provincial spirit, + having less in common with Ireland than with Scotland; two or three + Orange ballads, altogether ferocious or foreign in their tendencies + (preaching murder, or deifying an alien), will be no less valuable + to the patriot or the poet on this account. They echo faithfully + the sentiments of a strong, vehement, and indomitable body of + Irishmen, who may come to battle for their country better than they + ever battled for prejudices or their bigotries. At all events, to + know what they love and believe is a precious knowledge." + +On the language of most of the ballads Mr. Duffy says:-- + + "Many of them, and generally the best, are just as essentially + Irish as if they were written in Gaelic. They could have grown + among no other people, perhaps under no other sky or scenery. To an + Englishman, to any Irishman educated out of the country, or to a + dreamer asleep to impressions of scenery and character, they would + be achievements as impossible as the Swedish _Skalds_ or the + _Arabian Nights_. They are as Irish as Ossian or Carolan, and + unconsciously reproduce the spirit of those poets better than any + translator can hope to do. They revive and perpetuate the vehement + native songs that gladdened the halls of our princes in their + triumphs, and wailed over their ruined hopes or murdered bodies. In + everything but language, and almost in language, they are + identical. That strange tenacity of the Celtic race, which makes a + description of their habits and propensities when Caesar was still a + Proconsul in Gaul true in essentials of the Irish people to this + day, has enabled them to infuse the ancient and hereditary spirit + of the country into all that is genuine of our modern poetry. And + even the language grew almost Irish. The soul of the country, + stammering its passionate grief and hatred in a strange tongue, + loved still to utter them in its old familiar idioms and cadences. + Uttering them, perhaps, with more piercing earnestness, because of + the impediment; and winning out of the very difficulty a grace and + a triumph." + +How often have we wished for such a companion as this volume! Worse +than meeting unclean beds, or drenching mists, or Cockney opinions, was +it to have to take the mountains with a book of Scottish ballads. They +were glorious, to be sure, but they were not ours--they had not the +brown of the climate on their cheek, they spoke of places afar, and +ways which are not our country's ways, and hopes which were not +Ireland's, and their tongue was not that we first made sport and love +with. Yet how mountaineer without ballads any more than without a +shillelagh? No; we took the Scots ballads, and felt our souls rubbing +away with envy and alienage amid their attractions; but now, Brighid, +be praised! we can have all Irish thoughts on Irish hills, true to them +as the music, or the wind, or the sky. + +Happy boys! who may grow up with such ballads in your memories. Happy +men! who will find your hearts not only doubtful but joyous in serving +and sacrificing for the country you thus learned in childhood to love. + + --------------------------------------------------------------- + [47] _Ballad Poetry of Ireland_,--Library of Ireland, No. II. + + + + +A BALLAD HISTORY OF IRELAND. + + +Of course the first _object_ of the work we project[48] will be to make +Irish History familiar to the minds, pleasant to the ears, dear to the +passions, and powerful over the taste and conduct of the Irish people +in times to come. More _events_ could be put into a prose history. +Exact dates, subtle plots, minute connections and motives rarely appear +in Ballads, and for these ends the worst prose history is superior to +the best ballad series; but these are not the highest ends of history. +To hallow or accurse the scenes of glory and honour, or of shame and +sorrow; to give to the imagination the arms, and homes, and senates, +and battles of other days; to rouse, and soften, and strengthen, and +enlarge us with the passions of great periods; to lead us into love of +self-denial, of justice, of beauty, of valour, of generous life and +proud death; and to set up in our souls the memory of great men, who +shall then be as models and judges of our actions--these are the +highest duties of history, and these are best taught by a Ballad +History. + +A Ballad History is welcome to childhood, from its rhymes, its high +colouring, and its aptness to memory. As we grow into boyhood, the +violent passions, the vague hopes, the romantic sorrow of patriot +ballads are in tune with our fitful and luxuriant feelings. In manhood +we prize the condensed narrative, the grave firmness, the critical art, +and the political sway of ballads. And in old age they are doubly dear; +the companions and reminders of our life, the toys and teachers of our +children and grand-children. Every generation finds its account in +them. They pass from mouth to mouth like salutations; and even the +minds which lose their words are under their influence, as one can +recall the starry heavens who cannot revive the form of a single +constellation. + +In olden times all ballads were made to music, and the minstrel sang +them to his harp or screamed them in recitative. Thus they reached +farther, were welcomer guests in feast and camp, and were better +preserved. We shall have more to say on this in speaking of our +proposed song collection. Printing so multiplies copies of ballads, and +intercourse is so general, that there is less need of this adaptation +to music now. Moreover, it may be disputed whether the dramatic effect +in the more solemn ballads is not injured by lyrical forms. In such +streaming exhortations and laments as we find in the Greek choruses and +in the adjurations and caoines of the Irish, the breaks and parallel +repetitions of a song might lower the passion. Were we free to do so, +we could point out instances in the _Spirit of the Nation_ in which the +rejection of song-forms seems to have been essential to the awfulness +of the occasion. + +In pure narratives and in the gayer and more splendid, though less +stern ballads, the song-forms and adaptation to music are clear gains. + +In the Scotch ballads this is usual, in the English rare. We look in +vain through Southey's admirable ballads--"Mary the Maid of the Inn," +"Jaspar," "Inchcape Rock," "Bishop Hatto," "King Henry V. and the +Hermit of Dreux"--for either burden, chorus, or adaptation to music. In +the "Battle of Blenheim" there is, however, an occasional burden line; +and in the smashing "March to Moscow" there is a great chorusing about-- + + "Morbleu! Parbleu! + What a pleasant excursion to Moscow." + +Coleridge has some skilful repetitions and exquisite versification in +his "Ancient Mariner," "Genevieve," "Alice du Clos," but nowhere a +systematic burden. Campbell has no burdens in his finest lyric ballads, +though the subjects were fitted for them. The burden of the "Exile of +Erin" belongs very doubtfully to him. + +Macaulay's best ballad, the "Battle of Ivry," is greatly aided by the +even burden line; but he has not repeated the experiment, though he, +too, makes much use of repeating lines in his Roman Lays and other +ballads. + +While, then, we counsel burdens in Historical Ballads, we would +recognise excepted cases where they may be injurious, and treat them as +in _no case_ essential to perfect ballad success. In songs, we would +almost always insist either on a chorus, verse, or a burden of some +sort. A burden need not be at the end of the verse; but may, with quite +equal success, be at the beginning or in the body of it, as may be seen +in the Scotch Ballads, and in some of those in the _Spirit of the +Nation_. + +The old Scotch and English ballads, and Lockhart's translations from +the Spanish, are mostly composed in one metre, though written down in +either of two ways. Macaulay's Roman Lays and "Ivry" are in this metre. +Take an example from the last:-- + + "Press where ye see my white plume shine, amid the ranks of war, + And be your Oriflamme to-day the helmet of Navarre." + +In the old ballads this would be printed in four lines, of eight +syllables and six alternately, and rhyming only alternately, thus:-- + + "Press where ye see my white plume shine, + Amid the ranks of war, + And be your Oriflamme to-day + The helmet of Navarre." + +So Macaulay himself prints this metre in some of his Roman Lays. + +But the student should rather avoid than seek this metre. The uniform +old beat of eight and six is apt to fall monotonously on the ear, and +some of the most startling effects are lost in it. In the _Spirit of +the Nation_ the student will find many other ballad metres. Campbell's +metres, though new and glorious things, are terrible traps to +imitation, and should be warily used. The German ballads, and, still +more, Mr. Mangan's translations of them, contain great variety of new +and safe, though difficult, metres. Next in frequency to the +fourteen-syllable line is that in eleven syllables, such as "Mary +Ambree" and "Lochinvar"; and for a rolling brave ballad 'tis a fine +metre. The metre of fifteen syllables with double rhymes, (or accents) +in the middle, and that of thirteen, with double rhymes at the end, is +tolerably frequent, and the metre used by Father Prout, in his noble +translation of "Duke D'Alencon," is admirable, and easier than it +seems. By the way, what a grand burden runs through that ballad:-- + + "Fools! to believe the sword could give to the children of the Rhine, + Our Gallic fields--the land that yields the Olive and the Vine!" + +The syllables are as in the common metre, but it has thrice the rhymes. + +We have seen great materials wasted in a struggle with a crotchety +metre; therefore, though we counsel the invention of metres, we would +add that unless a metre come out racily and appropriately in the first +couple of verses, it should be abandoned, and some of those easily +marked metres taken up. + +A historical ballad will commonly be narrative in its form, but not +necessarily so. A hymn of exultation--a call to a council, an army, or +a people--a prophecy--a lament--or a dramatic scene (as in Lochiel), +may give as much of event, costume, character, and even scenery as a +mere narration. The varieties of form are infinite, and it argues lack +of force in a writer to keep always to mere narration, though when +exact events are to be told that may be the best mode. + +One of the essential qualities of a good historical ballad is truth. To +pervert history--to violate nature, in order to make a fine clatter, +has been the aim in too many of the ballads sent us. He who goes to +write a historical ballad should master the main facts of the time, and +state them truly. It may be well for those perhaps either not to study +or to half-forget minute circumstances until after his ballad is +drafted out, lest he write a chronicle, not a ballad; but he will do +well, ere he suffers it to leave his study, to reconsider the facts of +the time or man, or act of which he writes, and see if he cannot add +force to his statements, an antique grace to his phrases, and colour to +his language. + +Truth and appropriateness in ballads require great knowledge and taste. + +To write an Irish historical ballad, one should know the events which +he would describe, and know them not merely from an isolated study of +his subject, but from old familiarity, which shall have associated them +with his tastes and passions, and connected them with other parts of +history. How miserable a thing is to put forward a piece of vehement +declamation and vague description, which might be uttered of any event, +or by the man of any time, as a historical ballad. We have had battle +ballads sent us that would be as characteristic of Marathon or Waterloo +as of Clontarf--laments that might have been uttered by a German or a +Hindu--and romances equally true to love all the world over. + +Such historical study extends not merely to the events. A ballad writer +should try to find the voice, colour, stature, passions, and peculiar +faculties of his hero--the arms, furniture, and dress of the congress, +or the champions, or the troops he tells of--the rites wherewith the +youth were married--the dead interred, and God worshipped; and the +architecture--previous history and pursuits (and, therefore, probable +ideas and phrases) of the men he describes. + +Many of these things he will get in books. He should shun compilations, +and take up original journals, letters, state papers, statutes, and +cotemporary fictions and narratives as much as possible. Let him not +much mind Leland or Curry (after he has run over them), but work like +fury at the Archaeological Society's books--at Harris's Hibernica, at +Lodge's Desiderata Curiosa Hibernica, at Strafford's Pacata, Spencer's +View, Giraldus's Narrative, Fynes Moryson's Itinerary, the Ormond +Papers, the State Papers of Henry the Eighth, Stafford's and Cromwell's +and Rinuccini's Letters, and the correspondence and journals, from +Donald O'Neill's letter to the Pope down to Wolfe Tone's glorious +memoirs. + +In the songs, and even their names, many a fine hint can be got; and he +is not likely to be a perfect Balladist of Ireland who has not felt to +tears and laughter the deathless passions of Irish music. + +We have condemned compilations; but the ballad student may well labour +at Ware's Antiquities. He will find in the History of British Costume, +published by the Useful Knowledge Society, and in the illustrated work +now in progress called Old England, but beyond all other books, in the +historical works of Thierry, most valuable materials. Nothing, not even +the Border Minstrelsy, Percy's Relics, the Jacobite Ballads, or the +Archaeological Tracts, can be of such service as a repeated study of the +Norman Conquest, the Ten Years' Study, and the Merovingian Times of +Augustine Thierry. + +We know he has rashly stated some events on insufficient authority, and +drawn conclusions beyond the warrant of his promises; but there is more +deep dramatic skill, more picturesque and coloured scenery, more +distinct and characteristic grouping, and more lively faith to the look +and spirit of the men and times and feelings of which he writes, in +Thierry, than in any other historian that ever lived. He has almost an +intuition in favour of liberty, and his vindication of the "men of '98" +out of the slanderous pages of Musgrave is a miracle of historical +skill and depth of judgment. + +In the Irish Academy in Dublin there is a collection (now arranged and +rapidly increasing) of ancient arms and utensils. Private collections +exist in many provincial towns, especially in Ulster. Indeed, we know +an Orange painter in a northern village who has a finer collection of +Irish antiquities than all of the Munster cities put together. Accurate +observation of, and discussion on, such collections will be of vast +service to a writer of historical Ballads. + +Topography is also essential to a ballad, or to any Historian. This is +not only necessary to save a writer from such gross blunder as we met +the other day in Wharton's Ballad, called "The Grave of King Arthur," +where he talks of "the steeps of rough Kildare," but to give accuracy +and force to both general references and local description. + +Ireland must be known to her Ballad Historians, not by flat, but by +shaded maps, and topographical and scenic descriptions; not by maps of +to-day only, but by maps (such as Ortelius and the maps in the State +Papers) of Ireland in time past; and, finally, it must be known by the +_eye_. A man who has not raced on our hills, panted on our mountains, +waded our rivers in drought and flood, pierced our passes, skirted our +coast, noted our old towns, and learned the shape and colour of ground +and tree and sky, is not master of all a Balladist's art. Scott knew +Scotland thus, and, moreover, he seems never to have laid a scene in a +place that he had not studied closely and alone. + +What we have heretofore advised relates to the Structure, Truth, and +Colouring of ballads; but there is something more needed to raise a +ballad above the beautiful--it must have Force. Strong passions, daring +invention, vivid sympathy for great acts--these are the result of one's +whole life and nature. Into the temper and training of "A Poet," we do +not presume to speak. Few have spoken wisely of them. Emerson, in his +recent essay, has spoken like an angel on the mission of "The Poet." +Ambition for pure power (not applause); passionate sympathy with the +good, and strong, and beautiful; insight into nature, and such loving +mastery over its secrets as a husband hath over a wife's mind, are the +surest tests of one "called" by destiny to tell to men the past, +present, and future, in words so perfect that generations shall feel +and remember. + +We merely meant to give some "Hints on the Properties of Historical +Ballads"--they will be idle save to him who has the mind of a Poet. + + --------------------------------------------------------------- + [48] A "Ballad History of Ireland." + + + + +THE SONGS OF IRELAND.[49] + + +There are great gaps in Irish song to be filled up. This is true even +of the songs of the Irish-speaking people. Many of the short snatches +preserved among them from olden times are sweet and noble; but the bulk +of the songs are very defective. Most of those hitherto in use were +composed during the last century, and therefore their structure is +irregular, their grief slavish and despairing, their joy reckless and +bombastic, their religion bitter and sectarian, their politics Jacobite +and concealed by extravagant and tiresome allegory. Ignorance, +disorder, and every kind of oppression weakened and darkened the lyric +genius of Ireland. Even these, such as they are, diminish daily in the +country, and a lower class comes in. We have before us a number of the +ballads now printed at Cork, in Irish, and English and Irish mixed. +They are little above the street ballads in the English tongue. If +Hardiman's and Daly's collections be fair specimens (as we believe they +are) of the Irish Jacobite songs, we should not care to have more than +a few of them given to the people; but, perhaps, there may be twenty, +which, if printed clearly in slips, would sell as ballads in the Irish +districts. + +Assuming that the morsels given in O'Reilly's catalogue of Irish +writers do not exaggerate the merits of the older bards, their works +would supply numberless pastoral, love, joy, wailing, and war songs. A +popular editor of these could condense them into three or four verses +each--cut them so as exactly to suit the airs, preserve the local and +broad historical allusions, but remove the clumsy ornaments and +exaggerations. This is what Ramsay, Burns, and Cunningham did with the +Lowland Scotch songs, and thus made them what they are--the best in +Europe. This need not prevent complete editions of these songs in +learned books; but such books are for libraries, not cabins. + +There is one want, however, in _all_ the Irish songs--it is of strictly +national lyrics. They are national in form and colour, but clannish in +opinion. In fact, from Brian's death, there was no thought of an Irish +nation, save when some great event, like Aodh O'Neill's march to +Munster, or Owen Roe's victory at Beinnburb, flashed and vanished. +These songs celebrate M'Carthy or O'More, O'Connor or O'Neill--_his_ +prowess, _his_ following, _his_ hospitality; but they cry down his +Irish or "more than Irish" neighbour as fiercely as they do the foreign +oppressor. True it is, you will find amid the flight of minstrels one +bolder than the rest, who mourns for the time when the Milesians +swayed, and tells that "a soul has come into Eire," and summons all the +Milesian tribes to battle for Ireland. But even in the seventeenth +century, when the footing of the Norman and Saxon in Ireland was as +sure as that of the once-invading Milesians themselves, we find the cry +purely to the older Irish races, and the bounds of the nation made, not +by the island, but by genealogy. + +We may remark, in passing, that on no hypothesis did these same +Milesians form more than the aristocracy of ancient Ireland--a class--a +race of conquerors. + +Dr. MacHale has made a noble attempt to supply this deficiency by his +translation of Moore into Irish; but we are told that the language of +his translation is too literary, and that the people do not relish +these songs. A stronger reason for their failure (if in so short a time +their fate can be judged) is, that the originals want the idiom and +colour of the country, and are too subtle in thought. This remark does +not apply to Moore's love songs, not to some, at least, of his +political lyrics, and we cannot doubt that, if translated into +vernacular Irish, and printed as ballads, they would succeed. For the +present nothing better can be done than to paraphrase the _Songs of the +Nation_ into racy and musical Irish; though a time may come when +someone born amid the Irish tongue, reared amid Gaelic associations, +instructed in the state of modern Ireland, and filled with passion and +prophecy, shall sing the union and destiny of all the races settled on +Irish ground, till the vales of Munster and the cliffs of Connaught +ring with the words of Nationality. + +But whatever may be done by translation and editing for the songs of +the Irish-speaking race, those of our English-speaking countrymen are +to be written. Moore, Griffin, Banim, and Callanan have written plenty +of songs. Those of Moore have reached the drawing rooms; but what do +the People know even of his? Buy a ballad in any street in Ireland, +from the metropolis to the village, and you will find in it, perhaps, +some humour, some tenderness, and some sweetness of sound; but you will +certainly find bombast, or slander, or coarseness, united in all cases +with false rhythm, false rhyme, conceited imagery, black paper, and +blotted printing. A high class of ballads would do immense good--the +present race demean and mislead the people as much as they stimulate +them; for the sale of these ballads is immense, and printers in Dublin, +Drogheda, Cork, and Belfast live by their sale exclusively. Were an +enterprising man to issue the choice songs of Drennan, Griffin, Moore, +on good paper, and well printed, he would make a fortune of "halfpenny +ballads." + +The Anglo-Irish songs, though most of the last century, are generally +indecent or factious. The cadets of the Munster Protestants, living +like garrison soldiers, drinking, racing, and dancing, wrote the one +class. The clergy of the Ulster Presbyterians wrote the other. "The +Rakes of Mallow" and "The Protestant Boys" are choice specimens of the +two classes--vigorous, and musical, and Irish, no doubt, but surely not +fit for this generation. + +Great opportunities came with the Volunteers and United Irishmen, but +the men were wanting. We have but one good Volunteer song. It was +written by Lysaght, after that illustrious militia was dissolved. +Drennan's "Wake of William Orr" is not a song; but he gave the United +Men the only good song they had--"When Erin First Rose." In "Paddy's +Resource," the text-book of the men who were "up," there is but one +tolerable song--"God Save the Rights of Man;" nor, looking beyond +these, can we think of anything of a high class but "The Sean Bhean +Bhochd," "The Wearing of the Green," Lysaght's "Island," and Reynolds' +"Erin-go-bragh," if it be his. + +Two of Lady Morgan's songs, "Savournah Dilis" and "Kate Kearney," have +certainly gone through all classes; and perhaps we might add a little +to these exceptions; but it is a sad fact that most of the few good +songs we have described are scarce, and are never printed in a ballad +shape. + +There is plenty, then, for the present race of Irish lyrists to do. +They have a great heritage in the national music. It has every +excellence and every variety. It is not needful for a writer of our +songs to be a musician, though he will certainly gain much accuracy and +save much labour to others and himself by being so. Moore is a musician +of great attainments, and Burns used to compose his songs when going +over, and over, and over the tune with or without words. But constantly +listening to the playing of Irish airs will enable any man with a +tolerable ear, and otherwise qualified, to write words to them. + +Here, we would give two cautions. First--that the airs in Moore's +Melodies are very corrupt, and should never be used for the study of +Irish music. This is even more true of Lover's tunes. There is no need +of using them, for Bunting's and Holden's collections are cheaper, and +contain pure settings. Secondly--that as there are hundreds of the +finest airs to which no English words have been written, and as the +effect of a song is greatly increased by having one set of words always +joined with one tune, our versifiers should carefully avoid the airs to +which Moore, Griffin, or any other Irishman has written even moderately +good words. + +In endeavouring to learn an air for the purpose of writing words to it, +the first care should, of course, be to get at its character--as gay, +hopeful, loving, sentimental, lively, hesitating, woeful, despairing, +resolute, fiery, or variable. Many Irish airs take a different +character when played fast or slow, lightly or strongly; but there is +some one mode of playing which is best of all, and the character +expressed by it must determine the character of the words. For nothing +can be worse than a gay song to calm music, or massive words to a +delicate air; in all cases _the tune must suggest, and will suggest, to +the lyrist the sentiment of the words_. + +The tune will, of course, fix the number of lines in a verse. +Frequently the number and order of the lines can be varied. Three +rhymes and a fall, or couplets, or alternate rhymes, may answer the +same set of notes; or rhymes, if too numerous, may be got rid of by +making one long, instead of two short lines. Where the same notes come +with emphasis at the ends of musical phrases, the words should rhyme, +in order to secure the full effect. The doubling two lines into one is +most convenient where the first has accents on both the last syllables, +for you thus escape the necessity of double rhyming. In the softer airs +the effect of this is rather agreeable than otherwise. + +Talking of double rhymes, they are peculiarly fitted for strong +political and didactic songs, for the abstract and political words in +English are chiefly of Latin origin, of considerable length and +gravity, and have double accents. The more familiar English words +(which best suit most songs) contain few doubly-accented terminations, +and are, therefore, little fitted for double rhyming. + +Expletive syllables in the beginning of lines where the tune is sharp +and gay are often an improvement, but they should never follow a double +rhyme. + +In strong and firm tunes, having a syllable for every note is a +perfection, though one hard to be attained without harshness, from the +crowd of consonants in English. With soft tunes, on the other hand, it +is commonly better to have in most lines two or more light notes to one +syllable, so that the words may be dwelt on and softly sounded; but +where and how must be determined by the taste of the writer. + +The sound of the air will always show the current of thought, its +pauses and changes; and a nice attention and bold sympathy with these +properties of a tune is necessary to lyrical success. + +A great advantage, too, of writing for existing airs is the variety of +metres thus gained, and the naturally greater variety of thought and +expression thus suggested. + +We have spoken, in reference to Ballads, of the use of Choruses and +Burdens, and said that we thought there were some Ballads which were +injured by them; but all songs, save (perhaps) those of desperate +sorrow, gain by burden lines and choruses. They are almost universal in +the Native Irish and Lowland Scotch. Beranger has employed them in most +of his songs, and Moore in many of his. A chorus should, of course, +contain the very spirit of the song--bounding, if it be gay; fierce, if +it be bold; doting, if it loves. Merely repeating one verse between, or +at the head or tail of another, is not putting a chorus; it must be +_the_ verse which beats the best on your ear, and has the most echo in +your heart. So, too, of burdens; they are not made merely by bringing +in the same words in like places. They must be marked words forcibly +brought in. + +Irish choruses have often a glorious effect in English songs, nor need +anyone familiar with the peasantry, or with Edward O'Reilly's Irish +Writers, published as the first part of the _Transactions of the +Iberno-Celtic Society_ be at any loss for them. + +These are some of the minutiae of song-writing, which we note for the +consideration of our young writers, leaving them to add to or modify +these, according to their observation. + +Of course, different men and different moods will produce various +classes of songs. We shall have places for all, Songs for the Street +and Field require simple words, bold, strong imagery, plain, deep +passions (love, patriotism, conciliation, glory, indignation, resolve), +daring humour, broad narrative, highest morals. In songs for the +wealthier classes, greater subtlety, remoter allusion, less obvious +idiom and construction, will be tolerable, though in all cases we think +simplicity and heartiness needful to the perfect success of a song. + +If men able to write will fling themselves gallantly and faithfully on +the work we have here plotted for them, we shall soon have Fair and +Theatre, Concert and Drawing-room, Road and Shop, echoing with Songs +bringing home Love, Courage, and Patriotism to every heart. + + --------------------------------------------------------------- + [49] This essay, together with another of less value, was reprinted + from _The Nation_ by M. J. Barry as an introduction to his "Songs + of Ireland" 1845. [Ed.] + + + + +INFLUENCES OF EDUCATION. + + +"Educate, that you may be free." We are most anxious to get the quiet, +strong-minded People who are scattered through the country to see the +force of this great truth; and we therefore ask them to listen soberly +to us for a few minutes, and when they have done to think and talk +again and again over what we say. + +If Ireland had all the elements of a nation, she might, and surely +would, at once assume the forms of one, and proclaim her independence. +Wherein does she now differ from Prussia? She has a strong and compact +territory, girt by the sea; Prussia's lands are open and flat, and +flung loosely through Europe, without mountain or river, breed or +tongue, to bound them. Ireland has a military population equal to the +recruitment of, and a produce able to pay, a first-rate army. Her +harbours, her soil, and her fisheries are not surpassed in Europe. + +Wherein, we ask again, does Ireland now differ from Prussia? Why can +Prussia wave her flag among the proudest in Europe, while Ireland is a +farm? + +It is not in the name of a kingdom, nor in the formalities of +independence. We could assume them to-morrow--we could assume them with +better warrants from history and nature than Prussia holds; but the +result of such assumption would perchance be a miserable defeat. + +The difference is in Knowledge. Were the offices of Prussia abolished +to-morrow--her colleges and schools levelled--her troops disarmed and +disbanded, she would within six months regain her whole civil and +military institutions. Ireland has been struggling for years, and may +have to struggle many more, to acquire liberty to form institutions. + +Whence is the difference? Knowledge! + +The Prussians could, at a week's notice, have their central offices at +full work in any village in the kingdom, so exactly known are their +statistics, and so general is official skill. Minds make +administration--all the desks, and ledgers, and powers of Downing +Street or the Castle would be handed in vain to the ignorants of ---- +any untaught district in Ireland. The Prussians could open their +collegiate classes and their professional and elementary schools as +fast as the order therefor, from any authority recognised by the +People, reached town after town--we can hardly in ten years get a few +schools open for our people, craving for knowledge as they are. The +Prussians could re-arm their glorious militia in a month, and +re-organise it in three days; for the mechanical arts are very +generally known, military science is familiar to most of the wealthier +men, discipline and a soldier's skill are universal. If we had been +offered arms to defend Ireland by Lord Heytesbury, as the Volunteers +were by Lord Buckinghamshire, we would have had to seek for officers +and drill-sergeants--though probably we could more rapidly advance in +arms than anything else, from the military taste and aptness for war of +the Irish People. + +Would it not be better for us to be like the Prussians than as we +are--better to have religious squabbles unknown, education universal, +the People fed, and clad, and housed, and independent as becomes men; +the army patriotic and strong; the public offices ably administered; +the nation honoured and powerful? Are not these to be desired and +sought by Protestant and Catholic? Are not these things _to be done_, +if we are good and brave men? And is it not _plain_, from what we have +said, that the reason for our not being all that Prussia is, and +something more, is ignorance--want of civil and military and general +knowledge amongst all classes? + +This ignorance has not been our fault, but our misfortune. It was the +interest of our ruler to keep us ignorant, that we might be weak; and +she did so--first by laws, prohibiting education; then by refusing any +provision for it; next, by perverting it into an engine of bigotry; and +now, by giving it in a stunted, partial, anti-national way. Practice is +the great teacher, and the possession of independence is the natural +and best way for a People to learn all that pertains to freedom and +happiness. Our greatest voluntary efforts, aided by the amplest +provincial institutions, would teach us less in a century than we would +learn in five years of Liberty. + +In insisting on education we do not argue against the value of +_immediate independence_. _That would be our best teacher._ An Irish +Government and a national ambition would be to our minds as soft rains +and rich sun to a growing crop. But we insist on education for the +People, whether we get it from the Government or give it to themselves +as a round-about, and yet the only, means of getting strength enough to +gain freedom. + +Do our readers understand this? Is what we have said _clear_ to _you_, +reader!--whether you are a shopkeeper or a lawyer, a farmer or a +doctor? If not, read it over again, for it is your own fault if it be +not clear. If you now know our meaning, you must feel that it is your +duty to your family and to yourself, to your country and to God, to +_act_ upon it, to go and remove some of that ignorance which makes you +and your neighbours weak, and therefore makes Ireland a poor province. + +All of us have much to learn, but some of us have much to teach. + +To those who, from superior energy and ability, can teach the People, +we now address ourselves. + +We have often before and shall often again repeat, that the majority of +our population can neither read nor write, and therefore that from the +small minority must come those fitted to be of any civil or military +use beyond the lowest rank. The People may be and are honest, brave, +and intelligent; but a man could as well dig with his hands as govern, +or teach, or lead without the elements of Knowledge. + +This however, is a defect which time and the National Schools must +cure; and the duty of the class to which we speak is to urge the +establishment of such Schools, the attendance of the children at them, +and occasionally to observe and report, either directly or through the +Press, whether the admirable rules of the Board are attended to. In +most cases, too, the expenditure of a pound-note and a little time and +advice would give the children of a school that instruction in national +history and in statistics so shamefully omitted by the Board. Reader! +will you do this? + +Then of the three hundred Repeal Reading-rooms we know that some, and +fear that many, are ill-managed, have few or no books, and are mere +gossiping-rooms. Such a room is useless; such a room is a disgrace to +its members and their educated neighbours. The expense having been gone +to of getting a room, it only remains for the members to establish +fixed rules, and they will be supplied with the Association Reports +(political reading enough for them), and it will be the plain duty of +the Repeal Wardens to bring to such a room the newspapers supplied by +the Association. If such a body continue and give proofs of being in +earnest, the Repeal Association will aid it by gifts of books, maps, +etc., and thus a library, the centre of knowledge and nursery of useful +and strong minds, will be made in that district. So miserably off is +the country for books, that we have it before us on some authority that +there are _ten counties in Ireland without a single book-seller in +them_. We blush for the fact; it is a disgrace to us; but we must have +no lying or flinching. There is the hard fact; let us face it like men +who are able for a difficulty--not as children putting their heads +under the clothes when there is danger. Reader! cannot you do something +to remedy this great, this disabling misery of Ireland? Will not you +_now_ try to get up a Repeal Reading-room, and when one is established +get for it good rules, books from the Association, and make it a centre +of thought and power? + +These are but some of the ways in which such service can be done by the +more for the less educated. They have other duties often pointed out by +us. They can sustain and advance the different societies for promoting +agriculture, manufactures, art, and literature in Dublin and the +country. They can set on foot and guide the establishment of Temperance +Bands, and Mechanics' Institutes, and Mutual Instruction Societies. +They can give advice and facilities for improvement to young men of +promise; and they can make their circles studious, refined, and +ambitious, instead of being, like too many in Ireland, ignorant, +coarse, and lazy. The cheapness of books is now such that even Irish +poverty is no excuse for Irish ignorance--that ignorance which +prostrates us before England. We must help ourselves, and therefore we +must educate ourselves. + + + + +FOREIGN TRAVEL. + + +We lately strove to induce our wealthier countrymen to explore Ireland +before they left her shores in search of the beautiful and curious. We +bid the economist search our towns and farms, our decayed manufactures, +and improving tillage. Waving our shillelagh, we shouted the cragsman +to Glenmalure and Carn Tual, and Achill and Slieve League. Manuscript +in hand, we pointed the antiquary to the hundred abbeys of North +Munster, the castles of the Pale, the palaces and sepulchres of +Dunalin, Aileach, Rath Croghan, and Loughcrew, and we whispered to our +countrywomen that the sun rose grandly on Adragool, that the moon was +soft on Lough Erne ("The Rural Venice"), and that the Nore and +Blackwater ran by castled crags like their sweet voices over old songs. + +But there are some who had not waited for our call, but had dutifully +grown up amid the sights and sounds of Ireland, and knew the yellow +fields of Tipperary, and the crash of Moher's wave, and the basalt +barriers of Antrim, and the moan or frown of Wexford over the graves of +'98, and there are others not yet sufficiently educated to prize home +excellence. To such, then, and to all our brethren and sisters going +abroad, we have to say a friendly word. + +We shall presume them to have visited London, Woolwich, the factories +of Lancashire and Warwick, and to have seen the Cumberland lakes, and +therefore to have seen all worth seeing in England, and that they are +bound for somewhere else. For a pedestrian not rich there is Wales--the +soft vales of the far North and South Clwyd, and the Wye and Llanrwst, +and the central mountain groups of Snowdon, and still finer of Cader +Idris. But if he go there we pray him not to return without having +heard and, so far as he could, noted down a few airs from the harp and +cruit, collected specimens of the plants and minerals of Wales for the +museum (existing or to be) of his native town, studied the statistics +of their great iron works or their little home-weaving; nor, if he has +had the sense and spirit to take a Welsh and an Irish vocabulary, +without some observations on the disputed analogy of the two languages, +and how far it exists in general terms, as it certainly does in names +of places. By the way, we warn him that he will know little of the +peasantry, and come home in the dark about Rebecca, unless he can speak +Welsh. The Welsh have been truer to their language than we were to +ours; their clergy ministered in it; their people refused their tongues +to the Saxon as if 'twere poison; and even their nobles, though tempted +by England, welcomed the bard who lamented the defeat of Rhuddlan, and +gloried in the frequent triumphs of Glendower. + +But let us rather classify pursuits than countries. + +We want the Irish who go abroad to bring something back besides the +weary tale of the Louvre and Munich, and the cliffs of the Rhine, and +the soft airs of Italy. We have heard of a patriot adventurer who +carried a handful of his native soil through the world. We want our +friends to carry a purpose for Ireland in their hearts, to study other +lands wisely, and to bring back all knowledge for the sustenance and +decoration of their dear home. + +How pleasantly and profitably for the traveller this can be done. There +is no taste but may be interested, no capacity but can be matched, no +country but can be made tributary to our own. The historian, the +linguist, the farmer, the economist, the musician, the statesman, and +the man of science can equally augment their pleasure and make it +minister to Ireland. + +Is a man curious upon our language? He can (not unread in Neilson, nor +unaccompanied by O'Reilly's Dictionary) trace how far the Celtic words +mixed in the classical French, or in the patois of Bretagne or Gascony, +coincide with the Irish; he can search in the mountains of North Spain, +whether in proper names or country words there be any analogy to the +Gaelic of the opposite coast of Ireland. + +The proper names are the most permanent, and if there be any truth in +Sir William Betham's theories, the names of many a hill and stream in +Tuscany, North Africa, and Syria ought to be traceable to an Irish +root. Nor need this language-search be limited to the south. Beginning +at the Isle of Man, up by Cumberland (the kingdom of Strath Clyde), +through Scotland, Denmark, Norway, to Ireland, the constant intercourse +in trade and war with Ireland, and in many instances the early +occupation by a Celtic race, must have left indelible marks in the +local names, if not the traditions, of the country. To the tourist in +France we particularly recommend a close study of the _History of the +Gauls_, by Amadeus Thierry. + +The student of our ecclesiastical history, whether he hold with Dr. +Smiles that the Irish Church was independent, or with Dr. Miley, that +it paid allegiance to Rome, may delight in following the tracks of the +Irish saints, from Iona of the Culdees to Luxieu and Boia (founded by +Columbanus), and St. Gall, founded by an Irishman of that name. Rumold +can be heard of in Mechlin, Albhuin in Saxony, Kilian in Bavaria, +Fursey in Peronne, and in far Tarentum the traveller will find more +than one trace of the reformer of that city--the Irishman, St. +Cathaldus. We cannot suppose that any man will stray from Stackallen, +or Maynooth at least, without keeping this purpose in mind, nor would +it misbecome a divine from that Trinity College of which Ussher was a +first Fellow. + +Our military history could also receive much illustration from Irish +travellers going with some previous knowledge and studying the +traditions and ground, and using the libraries in the neighbourhood of +those places where Irishmen fought. Not to go back to the Irish who (if +we believe O'Halloran) stormed the Roman Capital as the allies of +Brennus of Gaul, nor insisting upon too minute a search for that Alpine +valley where, says MacGeoghegan, they still have a tradition of Dathy's +death by lightning, there are plenty of places worth investigating in +connection with Irish military history. In Scotland, for example, +'twere worth while tracking the march of Alaster MacDomhnall and his +1,500 Antrim men from their first landing at Ardnamurchan through +Tippermiur, Aberdeen, Fivy, Inverlochy, and Aulderne, to +Kilsyth--victories, won by Irish soldiers and chiefs, given to them by +tradition, as even Scott admits, though he tries to displace its value +for Montrose's sake, and given to them by the highest cotemporary +authorities--such as the Ormond papers. + +Then there is the Irish Brigade. From Almanza to Fontenoy, from +Ramillies to Cremona, we have the names of their achievements, but the +register of them is in the libraries and war offices and private papers +of France, and Spain, and Austria, and Savoy. A set of visits to Irish +battle-fields abroad, illustrated from the manuscripts of Paris, +Vienna, and Madrid, would be a welcomer book than the reiterated +assurances that the Rhone was rapid, the Alps high, and Florence rich +in sculpture, wherewith we have been dinned. + +We have no lives of our most illustrious Irish generals in foreign +services--Marshal Brown, the Lacys, Montgomery of Donegal, the rival of +Washington; and yet the materials must exist in the offices and +libraries of Austria, Russia, and America. + +Talking of libraries, there is one labour in particular we wish our +countrymen to undertake. The constant emigration of the princes, +nobles, and ecclesiastics of Ireland, from the Reformation downwards, +scattered through the Continent many of our choicest collections. The +manuscripts from these have been dispersed by gift and sale among +hundreds of foreign libraries. The Escurial, Vienna, Rome, Paris, and +Copenhagen are said to be particularly rich in them, and it cannot be +doubted that in every considerable library (religious, official, or +private) on the Continent some MSS. valuable to Ireland would be found. +In many cases these could be purchased, in some copied, in all listed. +The last is the most practical and essential labour. It would check and +guide our inquiries now, and would prepare for the better day, when we +can negotiate the restoration of our old muniments from the governments +of Europe. + +A study of the monuments and museums throughout France, Spain, Italy, +and Scandinavia, in reference to the forts, tombs, altars, and weapons +of ancient Ireland, would make a summer pleasant and profitable. + +But we would not limit men to the study of the past. + +Our agriculture is defective, and our tenures are abominable. It were +well worth the attention of the travelling members of the Irish +Agricultural Society to bring home accurate written accounts of the +tenures of land, the breeds of cattle, draining, rotation, crops, +manures, and farm-houses, from Belgium or Norway, Tuscany or Prussia. + +Our mineral resources and water-power are unused. A collection of +models or drawings, or descriptions of the mining, quarrying, and +hydraulic works of Germany, England, or France, might be found most +useful for the Irish capitalist who made it, and for his country which +so needs instruction. Besides, even though many of these things be +described already, yet how much more vivid and practical were the +knowledge to be got from observation. + +Our fine or useful arts are rude or decayed, and our industrial and +general education very inferior. The schools and galleries, museums and +educational systems of Germany deserve the closest examination with +reference to the knowledge and taste required in Ireland, and the means +of giving them. One second-rate book of such observations, with special +reference to Ireland, were worth many greater performances unapplied to +the means and need of our country. + +Ireland wants all these things. Before this generation dies, it must +have made Ireland's rivers navigable, and its hundred harbours secure +with beacon and pier, and thronged with seamen educated in naval +schools, and familiar with every rig and every ocean. Arigna must be +pierced with shafts, and Bonmahon flaming with smelting-houses. Our +bogs must have become turf-factories, where fuel will be husbanded, and +prepared for the smelting-house. Our coal must move a thousand engines, +our rivers ten thousand wheels. + +Our young artisans must be familiar with the arts of design and the +natural sciences connected with their trade; and so of our farmers; and +both should, beside, have that general information which refines and +expands the minds--that knowledge of Irish history and statistics that +makes it national, and those accomplishments and sports which make +leisure profitable and home joyous. + +Our cities must be stately with sculpture, pictures, and buildings, and +our fields glorious with peaceful abundance. + +But this is an Utopia! Is it? No; but the practicable object of those +who know our resources! To seek it is the solemn, unavoidable duty of +every Irishman. Whether, then, oh reader, you spend this or any coming +season abroad or at home, do not forget for a day how much should be +done for Ireland. + + + + +"THE LIBRARY OF IRELAND." + + +While the Gaelic-speaking people of Ireland were restricted to +traditional legends, songs, and histories, a library was provided for +those who used English by the genius and industry of men whose names +have vanished--a fate common to them with the builder of the Pyramids, +the inventor of letters, and other benefactors of mankind. Moore has +given, in _Captain Rock_, an imperfect catalogue of this library. The +scientific course seems to have been rather limited, as Ovid's _Art of_ +(let us rather say essay on) _Love_ was the only abstract work; but it +contained biographies of _Captain Freney the Robber_, and of _Redmond +O'Hanlon the Rapparee_--wherein, we fear, O'Hanlon was made, by a +partial pen, rather more like Freney than history warrants; dramas such +as the _Battle of Aughrim_, written apparently by some Alsatian +Williamite; lyrics of love, unhoused save by the watch; imperial works, +too, as _Moll Flanders_; and European literature--_Don Beliants, and +the Seven Champions_. Whether they were imported, or originally +produced for the grooms of the dissolute gentry, may be discussed; but +it seems certain that their benign influence spread, on one side, to +the farmers' and shopkeepers' sons, and, on the other, to the cadets of +the great families--and were, in short, the classics of tipsy Ireland. +The deadly progress of temperance, politics, and democracy has sent +them below their original market, and in ten years the collector will +pay a guinea apiece for them. + +During the Emancipation struggle this indecent trash shrunk up, and a +totally different literature circulated. The Orange party regaled +themselves chiefly with theology, but the rest of the country (still +excepting the classes sheltered by their Gaelic tongue) formed a +literature more human, and quite as serious. There occasionally is +great vigour in the biographies of Lord Edward, Robert Emmet, and other +popular heroes chronicled at that time; but the long interview of Emmet +with Sarah Curran, the night before his execution, is a fair specimen +of the accuracy of these works. The songs were intense enough, +occasionally controversial, commonly polemical, always extravagant; the +Granu Wails and Shan-Van-Vochts of the Catholic agitation cannot be too +soon obsolete. The famous Waterford song:-- + + "O'Connell's come to town, + And he'll put the Orange down, + And by the heavenly G---- he'll wear the crown, + Says the Shan Van Vocht!" + +is characteristic of the zeal, discretion, and style of these once +powerful lyrics. A history of the authorship of these biographies and +songs would be interesting, and is perhaps still possible. The reprint +in the series of Hugh O'Reilly's Irish history--albeit, a mass of +popular untruth was put at the end of it--shows as if some more +considerate mind had begun to influence these publications. They, too, +are fast vanishing, and will yet be sought to illustrate their times. + +In the first class we have described there was nothing to redeem their +stupid indecency and ruffianism; in the latter, however one may grieve +at their bigotry, and dislike their atrocious style, there were purity, +warmth, and a high purpose. + +The "Useful Knowledge Society" period arrived in Britain, and flooded +that island with cheap tracts on algebra and geometry, chemistry, +theology, and physiology. Penny Magazines told every man how his +stockings were wove, how many drunkards were taken up per hour in +Southwark, how the geese were plucked from which the author got his +pens, how many pounds weight of lead (with the analysis thereof, and an +account of the Cornish mines by way of parenthesis) were in the types +for each page, and the nature of the rags (so many per cent. beggars, +so many authors, so many shoe-boys) from which the paper of the +all-important, man and money-saving Penny Magazine was made. On its +being suggested that man was more than a statistician, or a dabbler in +mathematics, a _moral_ series (warranted Benthamite) was issued to +teach people how they should converse at meals--how to choose their +wives, masters, and servants by phrenological developments, and how to +live happily, like "Mr. Hard-and-Comfortable," the Yellow Quaker. + +Unluckily for us, there was no great popular passion in Ireland at the +time, and our communication with England had been greatly increased by +steamers and railways, by the Whig alliance, by democratic sympathy, +and by the transference of our political capital to Westminster. +Tracts, periodicals, and the whole horde of Benthamy rushed in. Without +manufactures, without trade, without comfort to palliate such +degradation, we were proclaimed converts to Utilitarianism. The Irish +press thought itself imperial, because it reflected that of +London--Nationality was called a vulgar superstition, and a general +European Trades' Union, to be followed by a universal Republic, became +the final aspirations of "all enlightened men." At the same time the +National Schools were spreading the elements of science and the means +of study through the poorer classes, and their books were merely +intellectual. + +Between all these influences Ireland promised to become a farm for +Lancashire, with the wisdom and moral rank of that district, without +its wealth, when there came a deliverer--the Repeal agitation. + +Its strain gradually broke the Whig alliance and the Chartist sympathy. +Westminster ceased to be the city towards which the Irish bowed and +made pilgrimage. An organisation, centring in Dublin, connected the +People; and an oratory full of Gaelic passion and popular idiom +galvanised them. Thus there has been, from 1842--when the Repeal +agitation became serious--an incessant progress in Literature and +Nationality. A Press, Irish in subjects, style, and purpose, has been +formed--a National Poetry has grown up--the National Schools have +prepared their students for the more earnest study of National politics +and history--the classes most hostile to the agitation are converts to +its passions; and when Lord Heytesbury recently expressed his wonder at +finding "Irish prejudices" in the most cultivated body in Ireland, he +only bore witness to an aristocratic Nationality of which he could have +found countless proofs beside. + +Yet the power of British utilitarian literature continues. The wealthy +classes are slowly getting an admirable and a costly National +Literature from Petrie, and O'Donovan, and Ferguson, and Lefanu, and +the _University Magazine_. The poorer are left to the newspaper and the +meeting, and an occasional serial of very moderate merits. That class, +now becoming the rulers of Ireland, who have taste for the higher +studies, but whose means are small, have only a few scattered works +within their reach, and some of them, not content to use these +exclusively, are driven to foreign studies and exposed to alien +influence. + +To give to the country a National Library, exact enough for the wisest, +high enough for the purest, and cheap enough for all readers, appears +the object of "The Library of Ireland." + +Look at the subjects--_A History of the Volunteers_, Memoirs of Hugh +O'Neill, of Tone, of Owen Roe, of Grattan, Collections of Irish Ballads +and Songs, and so forth. It would take one a month, with the use of all +the libraries of Dublin, to get the history of the Volunteers. In +Wilson's so-called history you will get a number of addresses and 300 +pages of irrelevant declamation for eight or ten shillings. Try +further, and you must penetrate through the manuscript catalogues of +Trinity College and the Queen's Inns (the last a wilderness) to find +the pamphlets and newspapers containing what you want; yet the history +of the Volunteers is one interesting to every class, and equally +popular in every province. + +Hugh O'Neill--he found himself an English tributary, his clan beaten, +his country despairing. He organised his clan into an army, defeated by +arms and policy the best generals and statesmen of Elizabeth, and gave +Ireland a pride and a hope which never deserted her since. Yet the only +written history of him lies in an Irish MS. in the Vatican, unprinted, +untranslated, uncopied; and the Irishman who would know his life must +grope through Moryson, and Ware, and O'Sullivan in unwilling libraries, +and in books whose price would support a student for two winters. + +Of Tone and Grattan--the wisest and most sublime of our last +generation--there are lives, and valuable ones; but such as the rich +only will buy, and the leisurely find time to read. + +The rebellion of 1641--a mystery and a lie--is it not time to let every +man look it in the face? The Irish Brigade--a marvellous reality to +few, a proud phantom to most of us--shall we not all, rich and poor, +learn in good truth how the Berserk Irish bore up in the winter streets +of Cremona, or the gorgeous Brigade followed Clare's flashing plumes +right through the great column of Fontenoy? + +Irish Ballads and Songs--why (except that _Spirit of the Nation_ which +we so audaciously put together), the popular ballads and songs are the +faded finery of the West End, the foul parodies of St. Giles's, the +drunken rigmarole of the black Helots--or, as they are touchingly +classed in the streets, "sentimental, comic, and nigger songs." Yet +Banim, and Griffin, and Furlong, Lover and Ferguson, Drennan and +Callanan, have written ballads and songs as true to Ireland as ever +MacNeill's or Conyngham's were to Scotland; and firmly do we hope to +see with every second lad in Ireland a volume of honest, noble, Irish +ballads, as well thumbed as a Lowland Burns or a French Beranger, and +sweetly shall yet come to us from every milking-field and harvest-home +songs not too proudly joined to the sweetest music in the world. + +This country of ours is no sand bank, thrown up by some recent caprice +of earth. It is an ancient land, honoured in the archives of +civilisation, traceable into antiquity by its piety, its valour, and +its sufferings. Every great European race has sent its stream to the +river of Irish mind. Long wars, vast organisations, subtle codes, +beacon crimes, leading virtues, and self-mighty men were here. If we +live influenced by wind and sun and tree, and not by the passions and +deeds of the past, we are a thriftless and a hopeless People. + + + + +A CHRONOLOGY OF IRELAND. + + +There is much doubt as to who were the first inhabitants of Ireland; +but it is certain that the Phoenicians had a great commerce with it. +The Firbolgs, a rude people, held Ireland for a long period. They were +subdued by the Tuatha de Danaan, a refined and noble race, which in its +turn yielded its supremacy to the arms of the Milesians. The dates +during these centuries are not well ascertained. + + +B.C. + +1000. Dr. O'Conor, the Librarian of Stowe, fixes this as the most +probable date of the Milesian invasion. + +---- Ollamh Fodhla institutes the Great Feis, or Triennial Convention, +at Tara. + +---- Thirty-two monarchs are said to have reigned between this +sovereign and Kimbaoth, who built the Palace of Emania. + + +A.D. + + 40. Reformation of the Bardic or Literary Order, by Conquovar, +King of Ulster. + + 90. The old population successfully revolt against the Milesians, +and place one of their own race upon the throne. + + 130. Re-establishment of the Milesian sway. + + 164. King Feidlim, the Legislator, establishes the laws of Eric. + + 258. From Con of the Hundred Battles descended the chieftains who +supplied Albany, the modern Scotland, with her first Scottish rulers, +by establishing, about the middle of the third century, the kingdom of +Dalriada in Argyleshire. + + 333. The Palace of Emania destroyed during a civil war. + + 387. The birth of St. Patrick. + + 396. Nial of the Nine Hostages invades Britain. + + 432. His Mission to Ireland. + + 436. Dathi, the last of the Pagan monarchs of Ireland, succeeded Nial, +and was killed while on one of his military expeditions, at the foot of +the Alps, by lightning. + + 465. March 17--Death of St. Patrick. + + 554. The last triennial council held at Tara. + + 795. First Invasion of the Danes. + +1014. April 23, Good Friday--Defeat of the Danes at Clontarf by Brian +Boroihme. + +1152. Synod of Kells. Supremacy of the Church of Rome acknowledged. + +1159. Pope Adrian's bull granting Ireland to Henry II. + +1169. May--First landing of the Normans. + +1171. October 18--Henry II. arrives in Ireland. + +1172. A Council, called by some a Parliament, held by Henry II. at +Lismore. + +1185. Prince John is sent over by his father as Lord of Ireland, +accompanied by his tutor, Giraldus Cambrensis. + +1210. King John, at the head of a military force, arrives in Ireland. + +1216. Henry III. grants Magna Charta to Ireland. + +1254. Ireland granted, under certain conditions, by Henry III. to his +son, Prince Edward. + +1277. Some of the Irish petition Edward I. for an extension of English +laws and usages to them. + +1295. A Parliament held at Kilkenny by Sir John Wogan, Lord Justice. + +1309. A Parliament held at Kilkenny by Sir John Wogan. Its enactments +on record in Bolton's Irish Statutes. + +1315. Edward Bruce lands with 6,000 men at Larne in May, invited by the +Irish. Crowned near Dundalk. + +1318. Defeat and death of Bruce at Faghard, near Dundalk. + +1367. Parliament assembled at Kilkenny by Lionel, Duke of Clarence, at +which the celebrated Anti-Irish Statute was passed prohibiting adoption +of Irish costume or customs, intermarriage with the Irish, etc., under +very severe penalties, to the Anglo-Irish of the Pale. + +1379. The first Act ever passed against Absentees. + +1394. Richard II. lands with an army at Waterford. + +1399. Richard II.'s second expedition to Ireland. + +1463. A College founded at Youghal by the Earl of Desmond. Another at +Drogheda. + +1472. Institution of the Brotherhood of St. George for the protection +of the Pale. + +1494. Nov.--The Parliament assembled at Drogheda passed Poyning's Law. + +1534. First step of the Reformation in Ireland. + +1536. Nearly total destruction of the Kildare Geraldines. Henry VIII.'s +supremacy enacted by Statute. + +1537. Act passed for the suppression of religious houses. + +1541. Act passed declaring Henry VIII. _King_ of Ireland. + +1579. The last Earl of Desmond proclaimed a traitor. + +1583. The Earl of Desmond assassinated. + +1586. April 26--Attainder of Desmond and his followers. Forfeiture of +his estate--574,628 Irish acres. Elizabeth institutes the planting +system. + +1592. The Dublin University founded. + +1595. Aodh O'Neill's victory at Blackwater, and death of Marshal Bagnal. + +1603. March 30--Submission of O'Neill (Tyrone) to Mountjoy. + +1607. Flight of the Northern Earls, Tyrone and Tyrconnell. Consequent +seizure by the Crown of the six entire counties of Cavan, Fermanagh, +Armagh, Derry, Tyrone, and Tyrconnel (now Donegal), amounting in the +whole to about 511,456 Irish acres. + +1608. May 1--Sept.--Sir Cathair O'Dogherty's rising. + +1613. May 18--After the creation of fourteen peers and forty new +boroughs, a Parliament is assembled to support the new _plantation_ of +Ulster by the attainder and outlawry of the gentlemen of that province. + +1616. Commission for inquiring into defective titles. + +1635. Lord Wentworth's oppressive proceedings to find a title in the +Crown to the province of Connaught. + +1641. Oct. 23--The breaking out of the celebrated Irish insurrection. + +1642. The confederate Catholics form their General Assembly and Supreme +Council at Kilkenny--"Pro Deo, pro rege, _et patria, Hibernia, +unanimes_," their motto. + +1646. June 5--Monroe totally defeated by Owen Roe O'Neill at Benburb, +near Armagh. + +1649. Aug. 15--Oliver Cromwell arrives in Dublin. + +---- Sept. 2, 10, 15.--Siege, storming, and massacre of Drogheda. + +---- Oct. 1--Siege and massacre of Wexford. + +---- Nov. 6--Death of Owen Roe O'Neill at Cloch-Uachdar Castle, Co. +Cavan. + +1650. May 29--Cromwell embarks for England. + +1653. Sept. 26--The Irish war proclaimed ended by the English +Parliament.--Act of Grace, ordering the Irish Catholics to transport +themselves, on pain of death, into Connaught before 1st of March, 1654. + +1661. May 8, 1666. Acts of Settlement and Explanation. 7,800,000 acres +confiscated and distributed under them. + +1689. March 12--James II. landed at Kinsale. + +---- May 7 } The Irish Parliament summoned by him: met at the +---- July 20 } Inns of Court. + +1690. June 14--William III. landed at Carrickfergus Bay. + +---- July 1--Battle of the Boyne. + +---- Aug 30--The first siege of Limerick under William III. raised by +Sarsfield. + +1691. June 30--Athlone taken after a gallant defence. + +1691. July 12--Battle of Aughrim. + +---- Oct. 3--Capitulation and Treaty of Limerick. + +1692. April 5--The articles agreed upon by the Treaty confirmed by +William III. + +---- Nov. 3--Lord Sydney's protest against the claim of the Irish +House of Commons to the right of "preparing heads of bills for raising +money"--the beginning of the struggle between the Protestant ascendency +and the English Government, which bore national fruit in 1782, but +which was crushed in 1800. + +1695. August--Parliament violated the Treaty of Limerick-- + + 7 William III., c. 67--Prohibits Catholic education at home or + abroad. + + 7 William III., c. 5--Disarms Papists. + +1697. 9 William III., c. 1--Banishes Popish archbishops, bishops, +vicars-general, and all regular clergy, on pain of death. 9 William +III., c. 2--An Act "to confirm the Treaty of Limerick," which directly +and grossly violates its letter and spirit. It is fit to remember that +in the Irish House of Lords, from which Catholics were excluded, seven +spiritual and five temporal peers protested against this infamous +legislation. + +1698. The 9 and 10 William III., c. 40--An Act aimed at the Irish +woollen manufacture. Molyneux published his famous _Case of Ireland +being bound by Acts of Parliament passed in England_. This book, by +order of the English House of Commons, was burned by the hangman. + +1704. March 4--The "Act to prevent the further growth of Popery," one +of the most noted links in the penal chain. + +1719. October 17--Representation of the Irish House of Lords against +appeals to England. + +1720. 6 Geo. I.--Act passed by the English Legislature to secure the +dependency of Ireland. + +---- Swift's first Irish pamphlet--"A proposal for the universal use of +Irish manufactures." Prosecuted by Government. + +1724. Wood's patent to coin half-pence for Ireland, and Swift's +successful opposition to the scheme by the "Letters of M. B. Drapier." +The first time all Irish sects and parties were unanimous upon national +grounds. + +1728. 1 Geo. II., c. 9, s. 8.--The Act disfranchising Roman Catholics. + +1737. The tithe of agistment got rid of by the Irish gentry, and the +chief burden of the tithe thereby thrown on the farmers and peasantry. + +1743. Lucas rises into notice in the Dublin Corporation. + +1745. April 30--Battle of Fontenoy. + +1749. Dr. Lucas is obliged to leave Ireland. + +1753. Dec. 17--The House of Commons asserts its control successfully +over the surplus revenue, in opposition to Government. + +1756. The first public effort by Mr. O'Connor and Dr. Curry to inspire +the Catholics with the spirit of freedom. They succeed with the +mercantile body, but are opposed by many of the gentry and clergy. + +1760. March and April--Mr. Wyse and Dr. Curry revive the scheme of an +association to manage Catholic affairs. + +1761. Dr. Lucas returned as representative of Dublin to the first +parliament of George III. + +1763. Establishment of the _Freeman's Journal_ by Dr. Lucas--the +first independent Irish newspaper. + +1768. The duration of parliament limited to eight years. + +1778. First relaxation of the Penal Code, Catholics allowed long +tenures of land, etc. + +---- The Volunteers first formed. Flood the foremost popular leader. + +1779. The achievement of Free Trade [_i.e._, Ireland's right to trade +with the colonies, etc.]. + +1782. Ireland's legislative independence won. Grattan's prime. + +1785. Orde's Commercial Propositions. + +1789. Debates upon the Regency question. + +1790. The formation of the Society of United Irishmen at Belfast. +Theobald Wolfe Tone its founder. + +1792.} The Franchise restored to the Roman Catholics; the Bar opened +1793.} to them, etc. + +1795. Sept. 21--First Orange Lodge formed. + +1796. Dec. 24--The remnant of the French expedition arrives in Bantry +Bay without General Hoche, the commander. + +1798. May 23--Breaking out of the insurrection. + +---- June 21--Battle of Vinegar Hill. + +---- August 22--General Humbert lands with a small force at Killala. + +---- Dec. 9--Meeting of the Bar to oppose the projected Union. Saurin +moves the resolution, which is carried. + +1799. Jan. 22--The Union proposed. + +---- June 1--Parliament prorogued, Government having been defeated by +small majorities. + +1800. Feb. 10--The House of Lords divided, 75 for and 26 against the +Union. + +---- Feb. 15--The House of Commons divided, 158 for, 115 against the +Union. + +---- March 17--On this day, the first of the following January was +fixed in the Commons for the commencement of the Union. + +1803. Robert Emmet's insurrection and execution. + +1810. Great Repeal meeting in Dublin. + +1821. George IV. in Ireland. + +1823. Catholic Association formed. + +1825. Act passed to put down the Catholic Association. + +1828. O'Connell's election for Clare. + +1829. April 13--Emancipation granted. + +1831. Education Board formed. + +1833. Coercion Bill passed by the Whigs. + +1836. May--Parliament rejects Repeal motion. + +1838. Poor Law. Temperance Movement. + +1840. Corporation Reform. Repeal Association formed by O'Connell. + +1842. October 15--Establishment of the _Nation_. + +1843. Monster meetings. Prosecutions. William Smith O'Brien joins the +Repeal Association. + +1844. Verdict against, and imprisonment of Repeal leaders, 12th +February, and 30th May. Liberation, 7th September. + +The future is ours--for good, if we are persevering, intelligent, and +brave; for ill, if we quarrel, slumber, or shrink. + + + + +III. Political Articles. + + + + +NO REDRESS--NO INQUIRY. + + +The British Parliament has refused to redress our wrongs, or even to +inquire into them. For five long nights were they compelled to listen +to arguments, facts, and principles proving that we were sorely +oppressed. They did not deny the facts--they did not refute the +reasoning--they did not undermine the principles--but they would not +try to right us. + +"We inherit the right of hatred for six centuries of oppression; what +will you do to prove your repentance, and propitiate our revenge?"--and +the answer is, "That's an old story, we wish to hear no more of it." + +Legislature of Britain, you shall hear more of it! + +The growing race of Irishmen are the first generation of freemen which +Ireland nursed these three centuries. The national schools may teach +them only the dry elements of knowledge adulterated with Anglicism, and +Trinity College may teach them bigotry, along with graceful lore and +strong science; but there are other schools at work. There is a +national art, and there is an Irish literature growing up. Day after +day the choice of the young men discover that genius needs a country to +honour and be loved by. The Irish Press is beginning to teach the +People to know themselves and their history; to know other nations, and +to feel the rights and duties of citizens. The agitation, whose surges +sweep through every nook of the island, converts all that the People +learn to national uses; nothing is lost, nothing is adverse; neutrality +is help, and all power is converted into power for Ireland. + +Ireland is changing the loose tradition of her wrongs into history and +ballad; and though justice, repentance, or retribution may make her +cease to need vengeance, she will immortally remember her bondage, her +struggles, her glories, and her disasters. Till her suffering ceases +that remembrance will rouse her passions and nerve her arm. May she not +forgive till she is no longer oppressed; and when she forgives, may she +never forget! + +Why need we repeat the tale of present wretchedness? Seven millions and +a half of us are Presbyterians and Catholics, and our whole +ecclesiastical funds go to the gorgeous support of the Clergy of the +remaining 800,000, who are Episcopalians. Where else on _earth_ does a +similar injury and dishonour exist? Nowhere; 'twas confessed it existed +nowhere. Would it weaken the empire to abolish this? Confessedly not, +but would give it some chance of holding together. Would it injure +Protestantism? You say not. Idle wealth is fatal to a Church, and +supremacy bears out every proud and generous convert. Why is it +maintained? The answer is directly given--"England (that is, the +English aristocracy) is bigoted," and no Ministry dare give you +redress. These are the very words of Captain Rous, the Tory member for +Westminster, and the whole House assented to the fact. If you cannot +redress--if you will not go into inquiry, lest this redress, so needed +by us, should be fatal to your selfish power, then loose your hold of +us, and we will redress ourselves; and we will do so with less injury +to any class than you possibly could, for a free nation may be +generous--a struggling one will not and ought not to be so. + +We are most dishonestly taxed for _your_ debts; the fact was not +denied--an ominous silence declared that not a halfpenny of that mighty +mortgage would be taken off our shoulders. + +You raise five millions a year from us, and you spend it on English +commissioners, English dockyards, English museums, English ambition, +and English pleasures. With an enormous taxation, our public offices +have been removed to London, and you threaten to remove our Courts of +Justice, and our Lord Lieutenancy, the poor trapping of old nationhood. +We have no arsenals, no public employment here; our literary, +scientific, and charitable institutions, so bountifully endowed by a +Native Legislature, you have forced away, till, out of that enormous +surplus revenue raised here, not L10,000 a year comes back for such +purposes, while you have heaped hundred upon hundred thousand into the +lap of every English institution. For National Education you dribble +out L50,000 a year--not enough for our smallest province. Will you +redress these things? No, but you boast of your liberality in giving us +anything. + +"Oh, but you are not overtaxed," says Peel; "see, your Post-office +produces nothing to the revenue." Ay, Sir, our Post-office, which +levies the same rates as the English Post-office, produces nothing; +Ireland is too poor to make even a penny-postage pay its own cost. No +stronger mark of a stagnant trade could be adduced. "And then we +lowered your spirit duty." Yes you did, because it brought in less than +the lower duty. What single tax did you take off, except when it had +been raised so high, or the country had declined so low, that it ceased +to be productive? You increased our taxation up to the end of the war +two and a half times more rapidly than you did your own, and you +diminished our taxation after the war thirty times less rapidly. + +You have a fleet of steamers now--you had none in 1817, says some +pattern of English Senators, whose constituents are bound to subscribe +a few school-books for him if they mean to continue him as their +delegate. + +And my Lord Eliot says our exports and imports have increased. We wish +your Lordship would have separate accounts kept that we might know how +much. But they _have_ increased--ay, they have; and they are +provisions. And our population has increased: and when we had one-half +the number of People to feed we sent out a tenth of the provisions we +send away now. This is ruin, not prosperity. We had weavers, +iron-workers, glass-makers, and fifty other flourishing trades. They +sold their goods to Irishmen in exchange for beef and mutton, and +bread, and bacon, and potatoes. The Irish provisions were not +exported--they were eaten in Ireland. They are exported now--for Irish +artisans, without work, must live on the refuse of the soil, and Irish +peasants must eat lumpers or starve. Part of the exports go to buy rags +and farming tools, which once went for clothes and all other goods to +Irish operatives, and the rest goes to raise money to pay absentee +rents and imperial taxes. Will you tax our absentees? Will you employ +our artisans? Will you abate your taxes, or spend them among us? No; +you refuse redress--you refuse inquiry. + +Your conquests and confiscations have given us land tenures alien to +the country and deadly to the peasant. Will you interfere in property +to save him, as you interfered to oppress him? You hint that you might +inquire, but you only offered redress in an Arms' Bill--to prostrate +the poor man, to violate the sanctity of his home, to brand him, and +leave him at the mercy of his local tyrant. + +Will you equalise the franchise, and admit us, in proportion to our +numbers, into your Senate, and let us try there for redress? You may +inquire, perhaps, some other time; if much pressed, you may consider +some increase of the franchise--you decline to open the representation. + +And if England will do none of these things, will she allow us, for +good or ill, to govern ourselves, and see if we cannot redress our own +griefs? "No, never, never," she says, "though all Ireland cried for +it--never! Her fields shall be manured with the shattered limbs of her +sons, and her hearths quenched in their blood; but never, while England +has a ship or a soldier, shall Ireland be free." + +And this is your answer? We shall see--we shall see! + +And now, Englishmen, listen to us! Though you were to-morrow to give us +the best tenures on earth--though you were to equalise Presbyterian, +Catholic, and Episcopalian--though you were to give us the amplest +representation in your Senate--though you were to restore our +absentees, disencumber us of your debt, and redress every one of our +fiscal wrongs--and though, in addition to all this, you plundered the +treasuries of the world to lay gold at our feet, and exhausted the +resources of your genius to do us worship and honour--still we tell +you--we tell you, in the names of liberty and country--we tell you, in +the name of enthusiastic hearts, thoughtful souls, and fearless +spirits--we tell you, by the past, the present and the future, we would +spurn your gifts, if the condition were that Ireland should remain a +province. We tell you, and all whom it may concern, come what +may--bribery or deceit, justice, policy, or war--we tell you, in the +name of Ireland, that Ireland shall be a Nation! + + + + +THE RIGHT ROAD. + + +By the People the People must be righted. Disunion, and sloth, and +meanness enslaved them. Combination, calm pride, and ceaseless labour +must set them loose. Let them not trust to the blunders of their +enemies, or the miracles of their chiefs--trust nothing, men of +Ireland, but the deep resolve of your own hearts. + +As well might you leave the fairies to plough your land or the idle +winds to sow it, as sit down and wait for freedom. + +You are on the right road. + +The Repeal Year is over--what then?--Call next year the Repeal Year if +you have a fancy for names; and if that, too, searches your +fetter-sores with its December blast, work the next year, and the next, +and the next. Cease not till all is done. If you sleep, now that you +have climbed so far, you may never wake again. + +Abandon or nod over your task, and the foreign minister will treat you +as mad, and tie you down, or as idiotic, and give you sugar plums and +stripes. Every man with a spark of pride and manhood would leave you to +bear alone the scorn of the world, and from father to son you would +live a race of ragged serfs till God in his mercy should destroy the +People and the soil. + +You are on the right road. You don't want to go to war. Your greatest +leader objects, on principle, to all war for liberty. All your friends, +even those who think liberty well worth a sea of blood, agree with him +that it is neither needful nor politic for you to embark in a war with +your oppressor. It is not that they doubt your courage nor resources--it +is not that they distrust your allies--but it is that they _know_ you +can succeed without a single skirmish, and therefore he who harms +person or property in seeking Repeal is criminal to his country. + +But if they preach peace loudly, they preach perseverance with still +greater emphasis. It is the universal creed of all Liberals, that +_anything_ were better than retreat. One of the most moderate of +the Whigs said to us yesterday: "I would rather walk at O'Connell's +funeral than witness his submission." And he said well. Death is no +evil, and dying is but a moment's pang. There is no greater sign of a +pampered and brutish spirit in a man than to wince at the foot-sound of +death. Death is the refuge of the wronged, the opiate of the restless, +the mother's or the lover's breast to the bruised and disappointed; it +is the sure retreat of the persecuted, and the temple-gate of the +loving, and pious, and brave. When all else leaves us, it is faithful. +But where are we wandering to pluck garlands from the tomb? + +Retreat would bring us the woes of war, without its chances or its +pride. The enemy, elate at our discomfiture, would press upon our rear. +The landlord would use every privilege till he had reduced his farms to +insurgentless pastures. The minister would rush in and tear away the +last root of nationality. The peasant, finding his long-promised hope +of freedom and security by moral means gone, and left unled to his own +impulses, would league with his neighbour serfs, and ruin others, in +the vain hope of redressing himself. The day would be dark with +tyranny, and the night red with vengeance. The military triumph of the +rack-renter or the Whiteboy would be the happiest issue of the strife. + +If the People ought neither spring into war, nor fall through confusion +into a worse slavery, what remains? Perseverance. They are on the right +road, and should walk on in it patiently, thoughtfully, and without +looking back. + +The Repeal organisation enables the People to act together. It is the +bark of the tree, guarding it and binding it. It is the cause of our +unanimity; for where else has a party, so large as the Irish Repealers, +worked without internal squabbles? It is the secret of our discipline. +How else, but by the instant action of the Association on the whole +mass of the People, through the Repeal Press and the Repeal Wardens, +could our huge meetings have been assembled or been brought +together?--how else could they have been separated in quiet?--how else +could the People have been induced to continue their subscriptions +month after month and year after year? + +An ignorant or unorganised People would soon have tired of the constant +subscriptions and meetings, and have broken into disorder or sunk into +apathy. + +He is a long-sighted and sober-minded man that lays out money on a +complex yet safe speculation, or lays it by for an evil day. That is a +People having political wisdom which denies itself some present +indulgence for a future good. It had been pleasanter, for some at least +of the People, to have spent in eating or clothing the shilling they +sent to the Repeal Association, just as six years ago they found it +pleasanter to spend the shilling, or the penny, or the pound, on the +whiskey shop. But the same self-denying and far-seeing resolve which +enabled them to resign drink for food, and books, and clothing, induced +them to postpone some of these solid comforts to attend meetings, and +to give money, in order to win, at some future time, fixed holdings, +trade, strength, and liberty. + +The People, if they would achieve their aim, must continue their +exertions. + +It will not do to say, wait till the trials are over. The rate of the +trials will not determine Repeal. + +The conviction, imprisonment, or death of their present leaders will +not crush it. There are those ready to fill the vacancies in the +column, and to die too. The rudest and the humblest in the land would +grow into an inspired hero were leader after leader to advance and +fall. Victory would be the religion of the country, and by one means or +other it would triumph. A stronger spirit than his who died issues from +the martyr's coffin. + +Nor would the success of the accused carry Repeal. + +It would embarrass the minister--it would gain time--it would give us +another chance for peaceful justice. + +But the Queen's Bench is not the imperial Parliament, nor is the +Traversers' plea of "not guilty" a bill to overturn the Union, and +construct Irish independence on its ruins. + +To win by peace they must use all the resources of peace, as they have +done hitherto. + +Is there any parish wherein there are no Repeal Wardens active every +week in collecting money, distributing cards, tracts, and newspapers? +Let that parish meet to-morrow or to-morrow week, appoint _active_ +Wardens, send up its subscriptions, and get down its cards, papers, and +tracts, week after week, till the year goes round or till Repeal is +carried. + +Is there any town or district which has not a Temperance Band and +Reading-room? If there be, let that town or district meet at once, and +subscribe for instruments, music, and a teacher; let the members meet, +and read, and discuss, and qualify themselves by union, study, and +political information to act as citizens, whether their duty lead them +to the public assembly, the hustings, or the hill-side. By acting thus, +and not by listening for news about trials, the People have advanced +from mouldering slaves into a threatening and united People; continuing +to act thus, they will become a triumphant nation, spite of fortified +barracks, Wellington, Peel, and England. They are in the right road; +let them walk on in it. + + + + +FOREIGN POLICY AND FOREIGN INFORMATION. + + +Our history contains reasons for our extending the Foreign Policy of +Ireland. This we tried to develop some months back. + +The partial successes of the wars of the sixteenth and seventeenth +centuries, from Hugh O'Neill to James the Second, were in no slight +degree owing to the arms and auxiliary troops of Spain and France. + +Our yet more complete triumphs in the political conflicts of the +eighteenth and nineteenth centuries owed still more to our foreign +connections--witness the influence of the American war on the creation +of the Volunteers, the effect of the battle of Jemappes, and of the +French Fraternity of Ulster on the Toleration Act of 1793, and how much +the presence of American money, and the fear of French interference, +hastened the Emancipation Act of 1829. + +With reference to this last period, we may state that such an effect +had the articles published in _l'Etoile_ on Ireland that Canning +wrote a remonstrance to M. de Villele, asking him "was it intended that +the war of pens should bring on one of swords." The remonstrance was +unavailing--the French sympathy for Ireland increased, and other +offices than newspaper offices began to brush up their information on +Ireland. But arms yielded to the gown, and the maps and statistics of +Ireland never left the War Office of France. + +But our own history is not the only advocate for a Foreign Policy for +Ireland. + +Foreign alliances have ever stood among the pillars of national power, +along with virtue, wise laws, settled customs, military organisations, +and naval position. Advice, countenance, direct help, are secured by +old and generous alliances. Thus the alliance of Prussia carried +England through the wars of the eighteenth century, the alliance of +France rescued the wavering fortunes of America, the alliance of +Austria maintains Turkey against Russia, and so in a thousand instances +beside. + +A People known and regarded abroad will be more dignified, more +consistent, and more proud in all its acts. Fame is to national manners +little less than virtue to national morals. A nation with a high and +notorious character to sustain will be more stately and firm than if it +lived in obscurity. Each citizen feels that the national name which he +bears is a pledge for his honour. The soldier's uniform much less +surely checks the display of his vices, and an army's standard less +certainly excites its valour than the name of an illustrious country +stimulates its sons to greatness and nobility. The _prestige_ of Rome's +greatness operated even more on the souls of her citizens than on the +hearts of her friends and foes. + +Again, it is peculiarly needful for _Ireland_ to have a Foreign Policy. +Intimacy with the great powers will guard us from English interference. +Many of the minor German states were too deficient in numbers, +boundaries, and wealth to have outstood the despotic ages of Europe but +for those foreign alliances, which, whether resting on friendship or a +desire to preserve the balance of power, secured them against their +rapacious neighbours. And now time has given its sanction to their +continuance, and the progress of localisation guarantees their future +safety. When Ireland is a nation she will not, with her vast population +and her military character, require such alliances as a _security_ +against an English _re-conquest_; but they will be useful in banishing +any _dreams of invasion_ which might _otherwise_ haunt the brain of our +old enemy. + +But England is a pedagogue as well as a gaoler to us. Her prison +discipline requires the Helotism of mind. She shuts us up, like another +Caspar Hauser, in a dark dungeon, and tells us what she likes of +herself and of the rest of the world. And this renders foreign +information most desirable for us. + +She calls France base, impious, poor, and rapacious. She lies. France +has been the centre of European mind for centuries. France was the +first of the large states to sweep away the feudal despotism. France +has a small debt and an immense army; while England has a vast debt and +scanty forces. France has five millions of kindly, merry, well-fed +yeomen. England swarms with dark and withered artisans. Every seventh +person you meet in France is a landowner in fee, subject to moderate +taxation. Taxes and tenancies-at-will have cleared out the yeomanry +of England. France has a literature surpassing England's modern +literature. France is an apostle of liberty--England the turnkey of the +world. France is the old friend, England, the old foe, of Ireland. From +one we may judge all. England has defamed _all other countries_ in +order to make us and her other slaves content in our fetters. + +England's eulogies on herself are as false and extravagant as her +calumnies on all other states. She represents her constitution as the +perfection of human wisdom; while in reality it is based on conquest, +shaken by revolution, and only qualified by disorder. Her boasted +tenures are the relics of a half-abolished serfdom, wherein the +cultivator was nothing, and the aristocrat everything, and in which a +primogeniture extending from the King to the Gentleman _often_ placed +idiocy on the throne, and tyranny in the senate, and _always_ produced +disunion in families, monopoly in land, and peculation throughout every +branch of the public service. Her laws are complicated, and their +administration costly beyond any others ever known. Her motley and +tyrannous flag she proclaims the first that floats, and her tottering +and cruel empire the needful and sufficient guardian of our liberties. + +By cultivating Foreign Relations, and growing intimate with foreign +states of society, we will hear a free and just criticism on England's +constitution and social state. We will have a still better and fairer +commentary in the condition and civil structure of other countries. + +We will see _small_ free states--Norway, Sweden, Holland, Switzerland, +and Portugal--maintaining their homes free, and bearing their flags in +triumph for long ages. We will learn from themselves how they kept +their freedom afloat amid the perils of centuries. We will salute them +as brethren subject to common dangers, and interested in one +policy--localisation of power. + +The Catholic will see the Protestant states of Prussia, Holland, +Saxony, and America; and the Protestant will see the Catholic states +of Belgium, Bavaria, and France, all granting full liberty of +conscience--leaving every creed to settle its tenets with its +conscience, and dealing, _as states_, only with citizens, not sects. + +He who fancies some intrinsic objection to our nationality to lie in +the co-existence of two languages, three or four great sects, and a +dozen different races in Ireland, will learn that in Hungary, +Switzerland, Belgium, and America, different languages, creeds, and +races flourish kindly side by side, and he will seek in English +intrigues the real well of the bitter woes of Ireland. + +Germany, France, and America teach us that English economics are not +fit for a nation beginning to establish a trade, though they may be for +an old and plethoric trader; and therefore that English and Irish +trading interests are directly opposed. Nor can our foreign trade but +be served by foreign connections. + +The land tenures of France, Norway, and Prussia are the reverse of +England's. They resemble our own old tenures; they better suit our +character and our wants than the loose holdings and servile wages +system of modern England. + +These, and a host of lessons more, will we learn if we study the books, +laws, and manners, and cultivate an intimacy with the citizens of +foreign states. We will thus obtain countenance, sympathy, and help in +time of need, and honour and friendship in time of strength; and thus, +too, we will learn toleration towards each other's creed, distrust in +our common enemy, and confidence in liberty and nationality. + +Till Ireland has a foreign policy, and a knowledge of foreign states, +England will have an advantage over us in both military and moral ways. +We will be without those aids on which even the largest nations have at +times to depend; and we will be liable to the advances of England's +treacherous and deceptive policy. + +Let us, then, return the ready grasp of America, and the warm sympathy +of France, and of every other country that offers us its hand and +heart. Let us cultivate a Foreign Policy and Foreign Information as +useful helps in that national existence which is before us, though its +happiness and glory depend, in the first instance, on "ourselves +alone." Ireland has a glorious future, if she be worthy of it. We must +believe and act up to the lessons taught by reason and history, that +England is our interested and implacable enemy--a tyrant to her +dependants--a calumniator of her neighbours, and both the despot and +defamer of Ireland for near seven centuries. Mutual respect for +conscience, an avoidance of polemics, concession to each other, +defiance to the foe, and the extension of our foreign relations, are +our duty, and should be our endeavour. Vigour and policy within and +without, great men to lead, educated men to organise, brave men to +follow--these are the means of liberation--these are elements of +nationality. + + + + +MORAL FORCE. + + +There are two ways of success for the Irish--arms and persuasion. They +have chosen the latter. They have resolved to win their rights by moral +force. For this end they have confederated their names, their moneys, +their thoughts, and their resolves. For this they meet, organise, and +subscribe. For this they learn history, and forget quarrels; and for +this they study their resources, and how to increase them. + +For moral success internal union is essential. + +Ireland, through all its sects and classes, must demand Repeal before +the English Minister will be left without a fair reason to resist it, +and not till then we be in a state to coerce his submission. + +Conciliation of all sects, classes, and parties who oppose us, or who +still hesitate, is _essential_ to moral force. For if, instead of +leading a man to your opinions by substantial kindness, by zealous +love, and by candid and wise teaching, you insult his tastes and his +prejudices, and force him either to adopt your cause or to resist +it--if, instead of slow persuasion, your weapons are bullying and +intolerance, then your profession of moral force is a lie, and a lie +which deceives no one, and your attacks will be promptly resisted by +every man of spirit. + +The Committee of the Repeal Association have of late begun to attend to +the Registries. The majority of Irish electors belong to the middle +class; and if all of that class who could register and vote did +register and vote, it would be out of the landlords' power to coerce +them. The landlords have awoken to a sense of their danger. They begin +to know that if once the quiet patriots of this country conclude that +reform of the landlords is hopeless, the only barrier between them and +their tenants will sink, and they will sink too. + +There will be less landlordism next election--at least we warn the +landlords that there _must_ be less. + +If, then, the majority of members chosen by the middle class oppose +Domestic Legislation, the middle class is suspected of not being truly +national--the sincerity of the People is made doubtful--an impediment +is opposed to Repeal, which the Repeal Association properly strive to +upset. + +Therefore do they and we urge the Repealers to serve notices +diligently, accurately, and at once. Therefore do they and we prompt +them to attend at the Sessions, and boldly claim their rights as +citizens contributing to the State, and entitled to a vote in electing +its managers; and therefore do they and we advise each constituency to +consider well whether they have or can procure a representative whose +purity of life, undoubted honesty, knowledge of politics, and devoted +zeal to secure Domestic Government fit him to legislate in St. +Stephen's, or to agitate in the Corn Exchange, or wherever else +nationality may have a temple. + +We say, the advocacy of a "Domestic Legislature," because _that_ is +what Ireland wants. We are a province, drained by foreign taxation and +absentees, governed by a foreign legislature and executive. We seek to +have _Ireland_ governed by an Irish senate and executive for herself, +and by Irishmen; and although a man shall add to this a claim for a +share in the government of the _empire_, and of course a consent to +give taxes and soldiers, therefore that (though to us it seems unwise) +is not such a difference as should make us divide. He is a Repealer of +the Union as decidedly as if he never called himself a Federalist. Such +Repealing Federalists are Messrs. Crawford, Wyse, John O'Brien, +Caulfield, Ross, O'Malley, O'Hagan, Bishop Kennedy, and numbers of +others in and out of the Association. In selecting or in agitating +about Members we must therefore never forget that a Federalist is quite +as likely to be national as a technical Repealer, and that if his +morals and ability be better than those of a _so-called_ Repeal +candidate, he is the better man. + +We have also classed morals, ability, and zeal as being quite as +requisite as national opinions in a Representative. + +If our Members were a majority in the House, it might not be very +moral, but at least it would have some show of excuse if we sent in a +flock of pledged delegates to vote Repeal, regardless of their powers +or principles; though even then we might find it hard to get rid of the +scoundrels after Repeal was carried, and when Ireland would need +virtuous and unremitting wisdom to make her prosper. + +But now, when our whole Members are not a sixth of the Commons, and +when the English Whigs are as hostile to Repeal as the English Tories, +and more hostile to it than the Irish Tories--now, it is plain we must +get weight for our opinions by the ability and virtue of our Members; +and therefore we exhort the People, as they love purity, as they prize +religion, as they are true to themselves, to Ireland, and to liberty, +to spurn from their hustings any man who comes there without purity and +wisdom, though he took or kept a thousand Repeal pledges. + +We want men who are not spendthrifts, drunkards, swindlers--we want +honest men--men whom we would trust with our private money or our +family's honour; and sooner than see faded aristocrats and brawling +profligates shelter themselves from their honest debtors by a Repeal +membership, we would leave Tories and Whigs undisturbed in their seats, +and strive to carry Repeal by other measures. + +Conciliation, virtue, and wisdom are our moral means of success. They +must be used and sought on the hustings as well as in the Conciliation +Hall. We must not prematurely, and at Heaven knows what distance from +an election, force a good and able man to accept a pledge or quarrel +with us. Pledges are extreme things, hardly constitutional, and highly +imprudent in a well-governed country. Nevertheless, they are sometimes +needed, as are sharper remedies; and such need will exist here at the +general election. No man must go in for any place where the popular +will prevails unless he is a Repealer or a Federalist; and, what is +_equally_ essential, an upright, unstained, and zealous man, who will +work for Ireland and do her credit. But it seems to us quite premature +to insist on those pledges from honourable, proud, and patriotic men +_now_, who will, in all likelihood, be with us before an election +comes, provided they are treated with the respect and forbearance due +to them whether they join us or not. + +These are some of the canons of moral force; and if, as we trust, +Ireland can succeed without cannon of another kind, it must be by using +those we have here mustered. + + + + +CONCILIATION. + + +The People of Ireland have done well in naming the scene of their +future counsels the Conciliation Hall. + +It intimates the cause of all our misery, and suggests the cure. +Prostrated by division, union is our hope. + +If Irishmen were united, the Repeal of the Union would be instantly and +quietly conceded. A Parliament, at whose election mutual generosity +would be in every heart and every act, would take the management of +Ireland. For oh! we ask our direst foe to say from the bottom of his +heart, would not the People of Ireland melt with joy and love to their +Protestant brethren if they united and conquered? And surely from such +a soil noble crops would grow. No southern plain heavy with corn, and +shining with fruit-clad hamlets, ever looked so warm and happy as would +the soul of Ireland, bursting out with all the generosity and beauty of +a grateful People. + +We trust that the opening of the Conciliation Hall will be a signal to +Catholic and Protestant to _try_ and agree. + +Surely our Protestant brethren cannot shut their eyes to the honour it +would confer on them and us if we gave up old brawls and bitterness, +and came together in love like Christians, in feeling like countrymen, +in policy like men having common interests. Can they--ah! tell us, dear +countrymen!--can you harden your hearts at the thought of looking on +Irishmen joined in commerce, agriculture, art, justice, government, +wealth, and glory? + +Fancy the aristocracy placed by just laws, or by wise concession, on +terms of friendship with their tenants, securing to these tenants every +farthing their industry entitled them to; living among them, promoting +agriculture and education by example and instruction; sharing their +joys, comforting their sorrows, and ready to stand at their head +whenever their country called. Think well on it. Suppose it to exist in +your own county, in your own barony and parish. Dwell on this sight. +See the life of such a landlord and of such farmers--so busy, so +thoughtful, so happy! How the villages would ring with pleasure and +trade, and the fields laugh with contented and cheered labour. Imagine +the poor supporting themselves on those waste lands which the home +expenditure of our rents and taxes would reclaim, and the workhouse +turned into an hospital, or a district college. Education and art would +prosper; every village, like Italy, with its painter of repute. Then +indeed the men of all creeds would be competent by education to judge +of doctrines; yet, influenced by that education, to see that God meant +men to live, and love, and ennoble their souls; to be just, and to +worship Him, and not to consume themselves in rites, or theological +contention; or if they did discuss, they would do so not as enemies, +but inquirers after truth. The clergy of different creeds would be +placed on an equality, and would hope to propagate their faith not by +hard names or furious preaching, but by their dignity and wisdom, and +by the marked goodness of their flocks. Men might meet or part at +church or chapel door without sneer or suspicion. From the christening +of the child, till his neighbours, Catholic and Protestant, followed +his grey-haired corpse to the tomb, he might live enjoying much, +honoured much, and fearing nothing but his own carelessness or vice. + +This, 'twill be said, is a paradise. + +Alas! no--there would still be individual crime and misfortune, +national difficulties and popular errors. These are in the happiest and +best countries. + +But the condition of many countries is as Paradise to what we are. + +Where else in Europe is the peasant ragged, fed on roots, in a wigwam, +without education? + +Where else are the towns ruined, trade banished, the till, and the +workshop, and the stomach of the artisan empty? Where else is there an +exportation of over one-third of the rents, and an absenteeism of the +chief landlords? What other country pays four and a half million taxes +to a foreign treasury, and has its offices removed or filled with +foreigners? Where else are the People told they are free and +represented, yet only one in two hundred of them have the franchise? +Where, beside, do the majority support the Clergy of the minority? In +what other country are the majority excluded from high ranks in the +University? In what place, beside, do landlords and agents extort such +vast rents from an indigent race? Where else are the tenants ever +pulling, the owners ever driving, and both full of anger? And what +country so fruitful and populous, so strong, so well marked and guarded +by the sea, and with such an ancient name, was reduced to provincialism +by bribery and treacherous force, and is denied all national +government? + +And if the answer be, as it must, "nowhere is the like seen," then we +say that union amongst Irishmen would make this country comparatively a +paradise. For union would peacefully achieve independence; would enable +us to settle the landlord and tenant question; would produce religious +equality, as the first act of independence; would restore the absentees +by the first of our taxes; would cherish our commerce, facilitate +agriculture and manufactures, and would introduce peace and social +exertion, instead of religious and political strife. + +Again, then, we ask the Protestant to ponder over these things--to +think of them when he lies down--to talk over them to his Catholic +neighbours--to see if he and they couldn't agree--and to offer up in +church his solemn prayers that this righteous and noble conclusion of +our mourning may be vouchsafed. + +Where, in aught that has been said or done by the Catholic party, is +there evidence of that intolerant and usurping spirit which the +Protestants seem to dread? + +Do they think it possible for a whole People of some millions of men, +women, and children to tell a public lie, and to persevere in the giant +falsehood for years? The present generation have been brought up in +this faith of religious equality, and they would be liars, and +apostates too, if they wished for ascendency. We may add it would not +be safe nor possible for the Catholics to establish an ascendency, +even if the Union were repealed; and, therefore, we again ask the +Protestants, for the sake of peace, interest, and religion, to _try_ if +they cannot unite with the Catholics for the prosperity of Ireland. + +To the Catholics we have nothing to say but to redouble their efforts. + +Conciliation is a fixed and everlasting duty, independently of the +political results it might have. If they despaired of winning the +Protestants to Repeal, conciliation would still be their duty, as men +and Christians. But there is every ground for hope. The Protestants, in +defeating the rack-renters' anti-Repeal meeting, showed they began to +see their interest. Something has been, more shall be done to remove +the prejudice against the Catholics, derived from lying histories; and +if we may take the stern reproof of the _Banner of Ulster_ to the +_Evening Mail_ as speaking the sentiments of the Presbyterians of the +North, then they begin to feel like religious Irishmen, and they will +presently be with us. + + + + +SCOLDING MOBS.[50] + + +Why on earth have so many of the People of Dublin made fools of +themselves by getting together in Sackville Street every evening to +hoot at coaches? The coach contract was an injury and an insult to us, +but it is now irremediable. We have serious work before us, and let us +have no by-battles. To the devil with the whole affair, rather than +compromise our cause. + +Nothing could please the Government more than frequent little rows, +which would get up a hatred between the soldiers and police and the +people. They are now very good friends. The armed men are becoming +popular and patriotic, and the unarmed, we trust, more orderly, +hospitable, and kindly every day. Let us have no more tussling and +patrolling. + +What do these mobs mean? A noisy mob is always rash--often cruel and +cowardly. A good friendly shout from a multitude is well, and a passing +hearty curse endurable. The silent and stern assemblage of orderly men, +like the myriads of Tipperary, or like one of Napoleon's armies, is a +noble sight and a mighty power; but a scolding, hooting mob, which +meets to make a noise, and runs away from a stick, a horse, or a sabre, +is a wretched affair. + +"I hate little wars," said Wellington. So do we; and we hate still more +a petty mob meeting without purpose, and dispersing without success. +Perfect order, silence, obedience, alacrity, and courage make an +assemblage formidable and respectable. We want law and order--we are +seriously injured by every scene or act of violence, no matter how +transient. Let us have no more of this humbug. If we are determined men +we have enough to _learn_ and to do without wasting our time in hissing +and groaning coaches. + +In reference to popular faults, we cannot help saying a word on the +language applied to certain of the enemy's leaders, especially the Duke +of Wellington. We dislike the whole system of false disparagement. The +Irish People will never be led to act the manly part which liberty +requires of them by being told that "the Duke," that gallant soldier +and most able general, is a screaming coward and doting corporal. We +have grave and solemn work to do. Making light of it or of our enemies +may inspire a moment's overweening confidence, but would ensure +ultimate defeat. We have much to contend against; but our resources are +immense, and nothing but our own rashness or cowardice can defeat us. + + --------------------------------------------------------------- + [50] The withdrawal of the Coach Contracts from Ireland is but + another instance of the same spiteful and feeble policy. Messrs. + Bourne and Purcell had for years held the contract for building the + Irish Mail Coaches. This contract was less a source of wealth to + them than of support and comfort to hundreds of families employed + by them. The contract runs out--Messrs. Bourne & Purcell propose in + form for it--an _informal_ proposal, at a rate inconsiderably + lower, is sent in by another person, and is at once accepted. It is + accepted notwithstanding its irregularity, and notwithstanding the + offer of Messrs. Bourne & Purcell to take it, even at a loss, as + low as anyone else. It is given to a foreigner. Were the difference + triple what it was, that contract should have been left in + Ireland.--_Nation_. + + + + +MUNSTER OUTRAGES. + + +The people of Munster are in want--will murder feed them? Is there some +prolific virtue in the blood of a landlord that the fields of the South +will yield a richer crop where it has flowed? As the Jews dashed their +door-posts on the Passover, shall the blood of an agent shelter the +cabins of Tipperary? Shame, shame, and horror! Oh! to think that these +hands, hard with innocent toil, should be reddened with assassination! +Oh! bitter, bitter grief, that the loving breasts of Munster should +pillow heads wherein are black plots, and visions of butchery and +shadows of remorse! Oh! woe unutterable, if the men who abandoned the +sin of drunkenness should companion with the devil of murder; and if +the men who, last year, vowed patience, order, and virtue, rashly and +impiously revel in crime. + +But what do we say? Where are we led by our fears? Surely, Munster is +against these atrocities--they are the sins of a few--the People are +pure and sound, and all will be well with Ireland! 'Tis so, 'tis so; we +pray God 'tis so: but yet the People are not without blame! + +Won't they come and talk to us about these horrid deeds? Won't they +meet us (as brothers to consider disorders in their family) and do +something--do all to stop them? Don't they confide in us? Oh! they +know, well they know that our hearts love them better than life--well +they know that to-morrow, if 'twould serve, we would be ready to die by +their side in battle; but we are not ready to be their accomplices in +crime--we would not be unsteady on the scaffold, so we honestly died +for them, but we have no share with the murderer! + +Nor is it we alone, who have ever professed our willingness to take the +field with the people, who loathe and denounce these crimes. Let the +men of Munster read the last Act of the Repeal Association, and they +will find Daniel O'Connell, William Smith O'Brien, and the entire +Repeal League confederated to proclaim and trample down the assassins. +Let them enter their chapels, and from every altar they will hear their +beloved priests solemnly warning them that the forms of the Church are +as fiery coals on the heads of the blood-stained. Let them look upon +government, and they will find a potent code and vast police--a +disciplined army--all just citizens, combined to quell the assassin; +and then let them with their consciences approach their God, and learn +that the murderer is dark before Him. + +Heaven and earth raise their voices against these crimes. Will they not +be hopeless?--must they not be desperately wicked? + +What chance has the guilty of success?--what right to commit so deadly +a sin? These murders will not give the people the land, nor leases, nor +low rents. When the country was in a rude state, intimidation easy, and +concealment easier, they tried the same thing. They began butchering +bailiffs--they rose to shooting landlords. Did they get nearer their +object? Did they overpower their oppressors, stop the law, mitigate +their condition?--No, but the opposite; the successors of the +slaughtered men levied the rents and enforced the ejectments of the +slain. They did so with greater zeal, for vengeance strengthened their +resolve. They did so with greater effect, for the law that might have +interfered where the people were oppressed, and society, which would +have aided the wronged people, took arms against assassins, and the +death groan of the victim was the best rallying cry of oppression. + +So it will be again. Already men whose tongues, and pens, and hearts +were busy pleading for better tenures and juster rents are silenced. +They will not clamour for rights when assassins may recruit their gangs +with the words of the innocent. Already minds deep in preparing +remedies for popular suffering are meditating means of popular +coercion. The justice, not only of government but society, has grown +cautious of redress, and is preparing to punish--a repetition of guilt +will aggravate that punishment and postpone that redress. + +Headstrong and vain men, your sins will not give you a landlord the +less nor a persecutor the less; while ever the land is liable to the +rent there will be found men willing to hazard their lives to get it, +and you but arm them with fresh powers, with the sympathy of the public +and the increased force of law and government, to lean yet heavier on +you. + +Why, too, should Munster lead in guilt? Our richest province, our +purest race, our fairest scenes--oh! why should its bloodshed be as +plenteous as its rains? Other people suffer much. The peaceful people +of Kerry, the whole province of Connaught, many counties of Leinster +are under a harsher yoke than the men of North Munster: yet they do not +seek relief in butchery. + +Thank God! they do not. How horrid a blot upon earth were Ireland, if +its poor had no reliance but the murder of the rich; better by far that +that people rose and waged open war. That were wild--that were +criminal; but 'twould be wisdom and mercy compared with these +individual murders. + +How horrible is the condition of a district subject to such crimes! Few +are struck, but all suffer! 'Tis as if men knew assuredly that a spirit +of plague were passing through the land, but knew not whom it would +wither. Think of a district where there has been peace--the People are +poor, but they are innocent; some of the rich are merciless, but some +are just, and many are kind and sympathising; in their low homes, in +their safe chapels, in the faith of their fellows, in the hope of +better days, in the effort for improvement, but above all in their +conscious innocence, the most trampled of them have consolation, and +there is a sort of smile even on the wretched. But let some savage +spirits appear among them--let the shebeen house supply the ferocity +which religion kept down, and one oppressor is marked out for +vengeance, his path is spied, the bludgeon or the bullet smites, and he +is borne in to his innocent and loving family a broken and stained +corpse, slain in his sins. + +Pursuit follows--the criminals become outlaws--they try to shelter +their lives and console their consciences by making many share their +guilt--another and another is struck at. Haunted by remorse, and +tracked by danger, and now intimate with crime, a less and a less +excuse suffices. He began by avenging his own wrong, becomes the +avenger of others, then perhaps the tool of others, who use the wrongs +of the country as a cloak for unjustified malice, and the _suspected_ +tyrant or the rigid, yet not unjust, man shares the fate of the glaring +oppressors. What terror and suspicion--what a shadow as of death is +there upon such a district! No one trusts his neighbour. The rich, +excited by such events, believe the poor have conspired to slay them. +They dread their very domestics, they abhor the People, rage at the +country, summon each other, and all the aid that authority can give to +protect and to punish; they bar their doors before sunset, their +hearths are surrounded with guns and pistols--at the least rustle every +heart beats and women shriek, and men with clenched teeth and +embittered hearts make ready for that lone and deadly conflict--that +battle without object, without honour, without hope, without quarter. + +Then they cover the country with patrols--they raise up a cloud of +hovering spies--no peasant, no farmer feels safe. Those who connive +shudder at every passing troop, and see an informer in every stranger. +Those who do not connive tremble lest they be struck as enemies of the +criminal; and thus from bad to worse till no home is safe--no heart +calm of the thousands. + +As yet no district has attained this horrible ripeness; but to this +North Munster may come, unless the People interfere and put down the +offenders. + +Will they suffer this hell-blight to come upon them? Will they wait +till violence and suspicion are the only principles retaining power +among them? Will they look on while the Repeal movement--the educating, +the ennobling, the sacred effort for liberty--is superseded by the buzz +of assassination and vengeance? Or will they now join O'Connell and +O'Brien--the Association, the Law, and the Priesthood; and whenever +they hear a breath of outrage, denounce it as they would +Atheism--whenever they see an attempt at crime, interpose with brave, +strong hand, and, in Mr. O'Brien's words, "leave the guilty no chance +of life but in hasty flight from the land they have stained with their +crimes." + +Once again we ask the People--the guiltless, the suffering, the noble, +the brave People of Munster--by their patience, by their courage, by +their hopes for Ireland, by their love to God, we implore them to put +down these assassins as they would and could were the weapons of the +murderers aimed at their own children. + + + + +A SECOND YEAR'S WORK. + + +It was a bold experiment to establish _The Nation_. Our success is more +honourable to Ireland than to us, for it was by defying evil customs +and bad prejudices we succeeded. + +Let us prove this. + +Religion has for ages been so mixed with Irish quarrels that it is +often hard to say whether patriotism or superstition was the animating +principle of an Irish leader, and whether political rapacity or bigoted +zeal against bigotry was the motive of an oppressor. Yet in no country +was this more misplaced in our day than in Ireland. Our upper classes +were mostly Episcopalians--masters not merely of the institutions, but +the education and moral force of the country. The middle ranks and much +of the peasantry of one of our greatest provinces were Presbyterians, +obstinate in their simple creed--proud of their victories, yet +apprehensive of oppression. The rest of the population were Catholics, +remarkable for piety and tenderness, but equally noted for ignorance +and want of self-reliance. To mingle politics and religion in such a +country was to blind men to their common secular interests, to render +political union impossible, and national independence hopeless. + +We grappled with the difficulty. We left sacred things to consecrated +hands--theology and discipline to Churchmen. We preached a nationality +that asked after no man's creed (_friend's or foe's_); and now, after +our Second Year's Work, we have got a _practical_ as well as a verbal +admission that religion is a thing between man and God--that no citizen +is to be hooted, or abused, or marked down because he holds any +imaginable creed, or changes it any conceivable number of times. + +We are proudly conscious that, in preaching these great truths with +success, we have done more to convince the Protestants that they may +combine with the Catholics and get from under the shield of England +than if we had proved that the Repeal of the Union would double the +ears of their corn fields. + +There had been a long habit of looking to foreign arms or English mercy +for redress. We have shared the labours of O'Connell and O'Brien in +impressing on the People that self-reliance is the only liberator. We +have, not in vain, taught that, though the concessions of England or +the sympathy of others was to be welcomed and used, still they would be +best won by dignity and strength; and that, whether they came or not, +Ireland could redress herself by patience, energy, and resolution. + +Yet, deficient as the People were in genuine self-reliance, they had +been pampered into the belief that they were highly educated, nobly +represented, successful in every science and art, and that consequently +their misery was a mysterious fate, for which there was no remedy in +human means. We believe we have convinced them of the contrary of this. +Ireland has done great things. She has created an unrivalled music and +oratory, taken a first place in lyric poetry, displayed great valour, +ready wit--has been a pattern of domestic virtue and faith under +persecution; and lately has again advanced herself and her fame by +deliberate temperance, by organised abstinence from crime, and by +increasing political discipline. Yet there is that worst of all facts +on the face of the census, that most of the Irish can neither read nor +write; there is evidence in every exhibition that this land, which +produced Barry, Forde, Maclise, and Burton, is ignorant of the fine +arts; and proof in every shop or factory of the truth of Kane's motto, +that industrial ignorance is a prime obstacle to our wealth. We have no +national theatre, either in books or performance; and though we have +got of late some classes of prose literature--national fiction, for +instance--we have yet to write our history, our statistics, and much of +our science. + +We have week after week candidly told these things to the People, and, +instead of quarrelling with us, or running off to men who said "the +Irish have succeeded in everything," they hearkened to us, and raised +our paper into a circulation beyond most of the leaders of the London +press, and immensely beyond any other journal that ever was in Ireland. +What is more cheering still, they have set about curing their defects. +They are founding Repeal Reading-rooms. They have noted down their +ignorance in many portions of agriculture, manufactures, commerce, +history, literature, and fine arts; and they are working with the +Agricultural Societies, forming Polytechnic Institutions for the +improvement of manufactures, and giving and demanding support to the +antiquarian and historical and artistical books and institutions in +Ireland. Large _classes_ wished well to, and small ones supported +each of these projects before; but in this journal _all_ classes +were canvassed incessantly, and not in vain--and if there be unanimity +now, we claim some credit for ourselves, but much more for the People, +who did not resent harsh truth, and took advice that affronted their +vanity. + +A political impatience and intolerance have too often been seen in this +country. It is one of the vices of slaves to use free speech to insult +all who do not praise their faults and their friends and their +caprices. We rejoice, in looking over our files, to see how rarely we +were personal and how generally we recognised the virtues of political +foes. It is an equal pleasure to recall that in many questions, but +especially in reference to the Liberal Members not in the Association, +we stood between an impolitic fury and its destined victims. The People +bore with us, and then agreed with us. We told them that men able and +virtuous--men who had gone into Parliament when Repeal was a Whig +buggaboo to frighten the Tories, were not to be hallooed from their +seats because Repeal had suddenly grown into a national demand. These +men, we said, may become your allies, if you do not put them upon their +mettle by your rudeness and impatience. If they join you, they will be +faster and more useful friends than men who compensate for every defect +by pledge-bolting at command. + +Mr. O'Connell, who had at first seemed to incline to the opposite +opinion, concurred with us. Mr. O'Brien was zealous on the same side; +the "premature pledges" were postponed to their fit time--an +election--and the people induced to apply themselves to the Registries, +as the true means of getting Repeal members. + +We have maintained and advanced our foreign policy--the recognition and +study of other countries beside England, and a careful separation of +ourselves from England's crimes. We have, we believe, not neglected +those literary, antiquarian, and historical teachings, and those +popular projects which we pointed to last year as part of our labours; +and we are told that the poetry of _The Nation_ has not been worse than +in our first year. But these things are more personal, less indicative +of national progress, and therefore less interesting than our success +in producing political tolerance, increased efforts for education, and +that final concession to religious liberty--the right to change without +even verbal persecution. + +The last year has been a year of hard work and hard trial to the +country and to us. Our first year was spent in rousing and +animating--the second in maintaining, guiding, and restraining. Its +motto is, "Bide your time." Never had a People more temptation to be +rash; and it is our proudest feeling that in our way we aided the +infinitely greater powers of O'Connell till his imprisonment, and of +O'Brien thereafter, to keep in the passion, while they kept up the +spirit of the People. + +They and we succeeded. + +The People saw the darling of their hearts dragged to trial, yet they +never rioted; they found month after month go by in the disgusting +details of a trial at bar, yet, instead of desponding, they improved +their organisation, studied their history and statistics--increased in +dignity, modesty, and strength. At length came the imprisonment; we +almost doubted them, but they behaved gloriously--they recognised their +wrongs, but they crossed their arms--they were neither terrified, +disordered, nor divided--they promptly obeyed their new leaders, and, +with shut teeth, swore that their "only vengeance should be victory." +They succeeded--bore their triumph as well as their defeat, and are now +taking breath for a fresh effort at education, organisation, and +conciliation. + +It is something to have laboured through a Second Year for such a +People. Let them go on as they have begun--growing more thoughtful, +more temperate, more educated, more resolute--let them complete their +parish organisation, carry out their registries, and, above all, +establish those Reading-rooms which will inform and strengthen them +into liberty; and, ere many years' work, the Green Flag will be saluted +by Europe, and Ireland will be a Nation. The People have shown that +their spirit, their discipline, and their modesty can be relied on; +they have but to exhibit that greatest virtue which their enemies deny +them--perseverence--and all will be well. + + + + +ORANGE AND GREEN. + + +Here it is at last--the dawning. Here, in the very sanctuary of the +Orange heart, is a visible angel of Nationality:-- + + "If a British Union cannot be formed, perhaps an Irish one might. + What could Repeal take from Irish Protestants that they are not + gradually losing '_in due course_'? + + "However improbable, it is not impossible, that better terms might + be made with the Repealers than the Government seem disposed to + give. A hundred thousand Orangemen, with their colours flying, + might yet meet a hundred thousand Repealers on the banks of the + Boyne; and, on a field presenting so many solemn reminiscences to + all, sign the Magna Charta of Ireland's independence. The Repeal + banner might then be Orange and Green, flying from the Giant's + Causeway to the Cove of Cork, and proudly look down from the walls + of Derry upon a new-born nation. + + "Such a union, not to be accomplished without concession on all + sides, would remove the great offence of Irish Protestants--their + Saxon attachment to their British fatherland. Cast off, as they + would feel themselves by Great Britain, and baptised on the banks + of the Boyne into the great Irish family, they would be received + into a brotherhood which, going forward towards the attainment of a + national object, would extinguish the spirit of Ribbonism, and + establish in its place a covenant of peace." + +So speaks the _Evening Mail_, the trumpet of the northern confederates, +and we cry amen! amen! + +We exult, till the beat of our heart stays our breathing, at the vision +of such a concourse. Never--never, when the plains of Attica saw the +rivals of Greece marching to expel the Persian, who had tried to +intrigue with each for the ruin of both--never, when, from the uplands +of Helvetia, rolled together the victors of Sempach--never, when, at +the cry of Fatherland, the hundred nations of Germany rose up, and +swept on emancipating to the Rhine--never was there under the sky a +godlier or more glorious sight than that would be--to all slaves, +balsam; to all freemen, strength; to all time, a miracle! + +If Ireland's wrongs were borne for this--if our feuds and our weary +sapping woes were destined to this ending, then blessed be the griefs +of the past! His sickness to the healed--his pining to the happy +lover--his danger to the rescued, are faint images of such a birth from +such a chaos. + +It is something--the cheer of an invisible friend--to have, even for a +moment, heard the hope. It must abide in the souls of the Irish, +guaranteeing the moderation of the Catholic--wakening the aspirations +of the Orangemen. There it is--a cross on the sky. + +It may not now lead to anything real. Long-suffering, oft-baffled +Ireland will not abandon for an inch or hour its selected path by +reason of this message. + +We hope from it, because it has been prompted by causes which will +daily increase. Incessantly will the British Minister labour to gain +the support of seven millions of freed men, by cutting away every +privilege and strength from one million of discarded allies. + +We hope from it, because, as the Orangemen become more enlightened, +they will more and more value the love of their countrymen, be prouder +of their country, and more conscious that their ambition, interest, and +even security are identical with nationality. + +We hope from it, because, as the education of People and the elevation +of the rich progress, they will better understand the apprehensions of +the Orangemen, allow for them in a more liberal spirit, and be able to +give more genuine security to even the nervousness of their new +friends. + +We hope most from it, because of its intrinsic greatness. It is the +best promise yet seen to have the Orangemen proposing, even as a +chance, the conference of 100,000 armed and ordered yeomen from the +North, with 100,000 picked (ay, by our faith! and martial) Southerns on +the banks of the Boyne, to witness a treaty of mutual concession, +oblivion, and eternal amity; and then to lift an Orange-Green Flag of +Nationhood, and defy the world to pull it down. + +Yet 'tis a distant hope, and Ireland, we repeat, must not swerve for +its flashing. When the Orangemen treat the shamrock with as ready a +welcome as Wexford gave the lily--when the Green is set as consort of +the Orange in the lodges of the North--when the Fermanagh meeting +declares that the Orangemen are Irishmen pledged to Ireland, and +summons another Dungannon Convention to prepare the terms of our +treaty; then, and not till then, shall we treat this gorgeous hope as a +reality, and then, and not till then, shall we summon the Repealers to +quit their present sure course, and trust their fortunes to the League +of the Boyne. + +Meantime, we commend to the hearts and pride of "the Enniskilleners" +this, their fathers', declaration in 1782:-- + + "COUNTY FERMANAGH GRAND JURY. + + "We, the Grand Jury of the county of Fermanagh, being + constitutionally assembled at the present assizes, held for the + county of Fermanagh, at Enniskillen, this 18th day of March, 1782, + think ourselves called upon at this interesting moment to make our + solemn declarations relative to the rights and liberties of + Ireland. + + "We _pledge ourselves_ to this our country, that we will never + pay obedience to any law made, or to be made, to bind Ireland, + except those laws which are and shall be made by the King, Lords, + and Commons of Ireland. + + "Signed by order, + + "ARTHUR COLE HAMILTON, Foreman." + + + + +ACADEMICAL EDUCATION.[51] + + +The rough outlines of a plan of Academical Education for Ireland are +now before the country. The plan, as appears from Sir James Graham's +very conciliatory speech, is to be found three Colleges; to give them +L100,000 for buildings, and L6,000 a year for expenses; to open them to +all creeds; the education to be purely secular; the students not to +live within the Colleges; and the professors to be named and removed, +now and hereafter, by Government. + +The announcement of this plan was received in the Commons with +extravagant praise by the Irish Whig and Repeal members, nor was any +hostility displayed except by the blockhead and bigot, Sir Robert +Inglis--a preposterous fanatic, who demands the repeal of the +Emancipation Act, and was never yet missed from the holy orgies of +Exeter Hall. Out of doors it has had a darker reception; but now that +the first storm of joy and anger is over, it is time for the people of +Ireland to think of this measure. + +It is for them to consider it--it is for them to decide on it--it is +for them to profit by it. For centuries the Irish were paupers and +serfs, because they were ignorant and divided. The Protestant hated the +Catholic, and oppressed him--the Catholic hated the Protestant, and +would not trust him. England fed the bigotry of both, and flourished on +the ignorance of both. The ignorance was a barrier between our +sects--left our merchant's till, our farmer's purse, and our state +treasury empty--stupefied our councils in peace, and slackened our arm +in war. Whatsoever plan will strengthen the soul of Ireland with +knowledge, and knit the sects of Ireland in liberal and trusting +friendship, will be better for us than if corn and wine were scattered +from every cloud. + +While 400,000 of the poor find instruction in the National Schools, the +means of education for the middle and upper classes are as bad now as +they were ten or fifty years ago. A farmer or a shopkeeper in Ireland +cannot, by any sacrifice, win for his son such an education as would be +proffered to him in Germany. How can he afford to pay the expense of +his son's living in the capital, in addition to Collegiate fees; and, +if he could, why should he send his son where, unless he be an +Episcopalian Protestant, those Collegiate offices which, though they +could be held but by a few score, would influence hundreds, are denied +him. Even to the gentry the distance and expense are oppressive; and to +the Catholics and Presbyterians of them the monopoly is intolerable. + +To bring Academical Education within the reach and means of the middle +classes, to free it from the disease of ascendency, and to make it a +means of union as well as of instruction, should be the objects of him +who legislates on this subject; and we implore the gentry and middle +classes, whom it concerns, to examine this plan calmly and closely, and +to act on their convictions like firm and sensible men. If such a +measure cannot be discussed in a reasonable and decent way, our +progress to self-government is a progress to giddy convulsions and +shameful ruin. + +Let us look into the details of the plan. + +It grants L100,000 and L18,000 a year for the foundation of three +Provincial Colleges. The Colleges proposed are for the present numerous +enough. It will be hard to get competent Professors for even these. +Elementary Education has made great way; but the very ignorance for +which these Institutions are meant as a remedy makes the class of +Irishmen fit to fill Professors' chairs small indeed; and, small as it +is, it yearly loses its best men by emigration to London, where they +find rewards, fame, and excitement. The dismissal, hereafter, of +incompetent men would be a painful, but--if pedants, dunces, and cheats +were crammed into the chairs--an unavoidable task. A gradual increase +of such Colleges will better suit the progress of Irish intelligence +than a sudden and final endowment. But though the Colleges are enough, +and the annual allowance sufficient, the building fund is +inadequate--at least double the sum would be needed; but this brings us +to another part of the plan--the residence of the students outside the +College. + +To the extern residence we are decidedly opposed. It works well in +Germany, where the whole grown population are educated; but in Ireland, +where the adult population are unhappily otherwise, 'tis a matter of +consequence to keep the students together, to foster an academic spirit +and character, and to preserve them from the stupefying influences of +common society. However, this point is but secondary, so we pass from +it, and come to the two great principles of the Bill. + +They are--Mixed Education and Government Nomination; and we are as +resolute for the first as we are against the second. + +The objections to separate Education are immense; the reasons for it +are reasons for separate life, for mutual animosity, for penal laws, +for religious wars. 'Tis said that communication between students of +different creeds will taint their faith and endanger their souls. They +who say so should prohibit the students from associating _out_ of the +Colleges even more than _in_ them. In the Colleges they will be joined +in studying mathematics, natural philosophy, engineering, chemistry, +the principles of reasoning, the constitution of man. Surely union in +these studies would less peril their faith than free communication out +of doors. Come, come, let those who insist on unqualified separate +Education follow out their principles--let them prohibit Catholic and +Protestant boys from playing, or talking, or walking together--let them +mark out every frank or indiscreet man for a similar prohibition--let +them establish a theological police--let them rail off each sect (as +the Jews used to be cooped) into a separate quarter; or rather, to save +preliminaries, let each of them proclaim war in the name of his creed +on the men of all other creeds, and fight till death, triumph, or +disgust shall leave him leisure to revise his principles. + +These are the logical consequences of the doctrine of Separate +Education, but we acquit the friends of it of that or any other such +ferocious purpose. Their intentions are pious and sincere--their +argument is dangerous, for they might find followers with less virtue +and more dogged consistency. + +We say "an _unqualified_ separate Education," because it is said, with +some plausibility, that the manner in which theology mixes up with +history and moral philosophy renders common instruction in them almost +impossible. The reasoning is pushed too far. Yet the objection should +be well weighed; though we warn those who push it very far not to fall +into the extravagance of a valued friend of ours, who protested against +one person attempting to teach medicine to Catholics and Protestants, +as one creed acknowledged miraculous cures and demoniacal possessions, +and the other rejected both! + +It should be noted, too, that this demand for separate _Professors_ +does not involve separate Colleges, does not assume that any evil would +result from the friendship of the students, and does not lead to the +desperate, though unforeseen, conclusions which follow from the other +notion. + +'Tis also a different thing to propose the establishment of Deans in +each College to inspect the religious discipline and moral conduct of +the students--a Catholic Dean, appointed by the Catholic Church, +watching over the Catholic students; and so of the Episcopalians and +Presbyterians. Such Deans, and Halls for religious teaching, will be +absolutely necessary, should a residence in the Colleges be required; +but should a system of residence in registered lodgings and +boarding-houses be preferred, similar duties to the Deans might be +performed by persons nominated by the Catholic, Protestant, and +Presbyterian Churches respectively, without the direct interposition of +the College; for each parent would take care to put his child under the +control of his own Church. An adequate provision in some sufficient +manner for religious discipline is essential, and to be dispensed with +on no pretence. + +These, however, are details of great consequence to be discussed in the +Commons' Committee; but we repeat our claim for mixed education, +because it has worked well among the students of Trinity College, and +would work better were its offices free, because it is the principle +approved by Ireland when she demanded the opening of those offices, and +when she accepted the National Schools--because it is the principle of +the Cork, the Limerick, and the Derry meetings; but above all, because +it is consistent with piety, and favourable to that union of Irishmen +of different sects, for want of which Ireland is in rags and chains. + +Against the nomination of Professors by Government we protest +altogether. We speak alike of Whig or Tory. The nomination would be +_looked on_ as a political bribe, the removal as a political +punishment. Nay, the nomination _would_ be political. Under great +public excitement a just nomination might be made, but in quiet times +it would be given to the best mathematician or naturalist who attended +the levee and wrote against the opposition. And it would be an enormous +power; for it would not merely control the immediate candidates, but +hundreds, who thought they might some ten years after be solicitors for +professorships, would shrink from committing themselves to uncourtly +politics, or qualify by Ministerial partisanship, not philosophical +study, for that distant day. A better engine for corrupting that great +literary class which is the best hope of Ireland could not be devised; +and if it be retained in the Bill, that Bill must be resisted and +defeated, whether in or out of Parliament. We warn the Minister! + +We have omitted a strange objection to the Bill--that it does not give +mixed education. It is said the Colleges of Cork and Galway would be +attended only by Catholics, and that of Belfast by Protestants. Both +are errors. The middle class of Protestants in Cork is numerous--they +and the poorer gentry would send their sons to the Cork College to save +expense. The Catholics would assuredly do the same in Belfast; they do +so with the Institution in the Academy there already; and though the +Catholics in Cork, and the Protestants in Belfast, would be the +majorities, enough of the opposite creed would be in each to produce +all the wholesome restraint, and much of the wholesome toleration and +goodwill, of the mixed system of Trinity. Were the objection good, +however, it ought to content the advocates of separate education. + +It has been said, too, that the Bill recognises a religious ascendency +in the case of Belfast. This seems to us a total misconception of the +words of the Minister. He suggested that the Southern College should be +in Cork, the Western in Limerick or Galway, the Northern in Derry or +Belfast. Had he stopped at Derry the mistake could never have occurred; +but he went on to say that if the College were planted in Belfast, the +building now used for the Belfast Academy would serve for the new +College, and unless the echoes of the old theological professors be +more permanent than common, we cannot understand the sectarianism of +the _building_ in Belfast. + +A more valid objection would be that the measure was not more complete; +and the University system will certainly be crippled and impotent +unless residence for a year at least in it be essential to a University +degree. + +The main defect of the Bill is its omitting to deal with Trinity +College. It is said that the property is and was Protestant; but the +Bill of '93, which admitted Catholics to be educated on this Protestant +foundation, broke down the title; and, at all events, the property is +as public as the Corporation, and is liable to all the demands of +public convenience. But it is added that the property of Trinity +College is not more than L30,000 or L40,000 a year, and that the grant +for Catholic Clerical Education alone is L26,000 a year; and certainly +till the Protestant Church be equalised to the wants of the Protestant +population there will be something in the argument. When that +Reformation comes, a third of the funds should be given for Protestant +Clerical Education, and the College livings transferred to the Clerical +College, and the remaining two-thirds preserved to Trinity College as a +secular University. + +Waiting that settlement, we see nothing better than the proposal so +admirably urged by the _Morning Chronicle_, of the grant of L6,000--we +say L10,000--a year, for the foundation of Catholic fellowships and +scholarships in Trinity College. Some such change must be made, for it +would be the grossest injustice to give Catholics a share, or the +whole, of one or two new, untried, characterless Provincial Academies, +and exclude them from the offices of the ancient, celebrated, and +national University. If there is to be a religious equality, Trinity +College must be opened, or augmented by Catholic endowment. For this no +demand can be too loud and vehement, for the refusal will be an affront +and a grievance to the Catholics of Ireland. + +We have only run over the merits and faults of this plan. Next to a +Tenure or a Militia Bill, it is the most important possible. Questions +must arise on every section of it; and, however these questions be +decided, we trust in God they will be decided without acrimony or +recrimination, and that so divine a subject as Education will not lead +to disunions which would prostrate our country. + + --------------------------------------------------------------- + [51] From _The Nation_, May 17, 1845. + + + + +IV. Poetical Works. + + + + +A NATION ONCE AGAIN. + + +I. + +When boyhood's fire was in my blood + I read of ancient freemen +For Greece and Rome who bravely stood, + THREE HUNDRED MEN AND THREE MEN.[52] +And then I prayed I yet might see + Our fetters rent in twain, +And Ireland, long a province, be + A NATION ONCE AGAIN. + + +II. + +And, from that time, through wildest woe, + That hope has shone, a far light; +Nor could love's brightest summer glow + Outshine that solemn starlight: +It seemed to watch above my head + In forum, field and fane; +Its angel voice sang round my bed, + "A NATION ONCE AGAIN." + + +III. + +It whispered, too, that "freedom's ark + And service high and holy, +Would be profaned by feelings dark + And passions vain or lowly: +For freedom comes from God's right hand, + And needs a godly train; +And righteous men must make our land + A NATION ONCE AGAIN." + + +IV. + +So, as I grew from boy to man, + I bent me to that bidding-- +My spirit of each selfish plan + And cruel passion ridding; +For, thus I hoped some day to aid-- + Oh! can _such_ hope be vain?-- +When my dear country shall be made + A NATION ONCE AGAIN. + + --------------------------------------------------------------- + [52] The Three Hundred Greeks who died at Thermopylae, and the + Three Romans who kept the Sublician Bridge. + + + + +THE GERALDINES. + + +I. + +The Geraldines! the Geraldines!--'tis full a thousand years +Since, 'mid the Tuscan vineyards, bright flashed their battle-spears; +When Capet seized the crown of France, their iron shields were known, +And their sabre-dint struck terror on the banks of the Garonne: +Across the downs of Hastings they spurred hard by William's side, +And the grey sands of Palestine with Moslem blood they dyed; +But never then, nor thence, till now, has falsehood or disgrace +Been seen to soil Fitzgerald's plume, or mantle in his face. + + +II. + +The Geraldines! the Geraldines!--'tis true, in Strongbow's van, +By lawless force, as conquerors, their Irish reign began; +And, oh! through many a dark campaign they proved their prowess stern, +In Leinster's plains and Munster's vales on king and chief and kerne; +But noble was the cheer within the halls so rudely won, +And generous was the steel-gloved hand that had such slaughter done; +How gay their laugh, how proud their mien, you'd ask no herald's sign-- +Among a thousand you had known the princely Geraldine. + + +III. + +These Geraldines! these Geraldines!--not long our air they breathed; +Not long they fed on venison, in Irish water seethed; +Not often had their children been by Irish mothers nursed; +When from their full and genial hearts an Irish feeling burst! +The English monarchs strove in vain, by law and force and bribe, +To win from Irish thoughts and ways this "more than Irish" tribe; +For still they clung to fosterage, to _breitheamh_[53], cloak, + and bard: +What king dare say to Geraldine, "your Irish wife discard?" + + +IV. + +Ye Geraldines! ye Geraldines!--how royally ye reigned +O'er Desmond broad, and rich Kildare, and English arts disdained: +Your sword made knights, your banner waved, free was your bugle call +By Gleann's[54] green slopes, and Daingean's[55] tide, from + Bearbha's[56] banks to Eochaill.[57] +What gorgeous shrines, what _breitheamh_ lore, what minstrel + feasts there were +In and around Magh Nuadhaid's[58] keep, and palace-filled Adare! +But not for rite or feast ye stayed, when friend or kin were pressed; +And foemen fled, when "_Crom Abu_"[59] bespoke your lance in rest. + + +V. + +Ye Geraldines! ye Geraldines!--since Silken Thomas flung +King Henry's sword on council board, the English thanes among, +Ye never ceased to battle brave against the English sway, +Though axe and brand and treachery your proudest cut away. +Of Desmond's blood through woman's veins passed on th' exhausted tide; +His title lives--a Sacsanach churl usurps the lion's hide; +And, though Kildare tower haughtily, there's ruin at the root, +Else why, since Edward fell to earth, had such a tree no fruit? + + + +VI. + +True Geraldines! brave Geraldines!--as torrents mould the earth, +You channelled deep old Ireland's heart by constancy and worth: +When Ginckel 'leaguered Limerick, the Irish soldiers gazed +To see if in the setting sun dead Desmond's banner blazed! +And still it is the peasants' hope upon the Cuirreach's[60] mere, +"They live, who'll see ten thousand men with good Lord Edward here"-- +So let them dream till brighter days, when, not by Edward's shade, +But by some leader true as he, their lines shall be arrayed! + + +VII. + +These Geraldines! these Geraldines!--rain wears away the rock +And time may wear away the tribe that stood the battle's shock; +But ever, sure, while one is left of all that honoured race, +In front of Ireland's chivalry is that Fitzgerald's place: +And, though the last were dead and gone, how many a field and town, +From Thomas Court to Abbeyfeile, would cherish their renown, +And men would say of valour's rise, or ancient power's decline, +"'Twill never soar, it never shone, as did the Geraldine." + + +VIII. + +The Geraldines! the Geraldines!--and are there any fears +Within the sons of conquerors for full a thousand years? +Can treason spring from out a soil bedewed with martyrs' blood? +Or has that grown a purling brook, which long rushed down a flood?-- +By Desmond swept with sword and fire--by clan and keep laid low-- +By Silken Thomas and his kin,--by sainted Edward, no! +The forms of centuries rise up, and in the Irish line +COMMAND THEIR SON TO TAKE THE POST THAT FITS THE GERALDINE![61] + + --------------------------------------------------------------- + [53] _Angl._ Brehon. + + [54] _Angl._ Glyn. + + [55] _Angl._ Dingle. + + [56] _Angl._ Barrow. + + [57] _Angl._ Youghal. + + [58] _Angl._ Maynooth. + + [59] Formerly the war-cry of the Geraldines, and now their motto. + + [60] _Angl._ Curragh. + + [61] The concluding stanza was found among the author's papers, and + was inserted in the first edition. It is believed to have had a + personal reference, not to any Geraldine but to William Smith + O'Brien.--Ed. + + + + +O'BRIEN OF ARA.[62] + +AIR--_The Piper of Blessington_. + + +I. + +Tall are the towers of O'Ceinneidigh[63]-- + Broad are the lands of MacCarrthaigh[64]-- +Desmond feeds five hundred men a-day; + Yet, here's to O'Briain[65] of Ara! + Up from the Castle of Druim-aniar,[66] + Down from the top of Camailte, + Clansman and kinsman are coming here + To give him the CEAD MILE FAILTE. + + +II. + +See you the mountains look huge at eve-- + So is our chieftain in battle-- +Welcome he has for the fugitive,-- + _Uisce-beatha_[67] fighting, and cattle! + Up from the Castle of Druim-aniar, + Down from the top of Camailte + Gossip and ally are coming here + To give him the CEAD MILE FAILTE. + + +III. + +Horses the valleys are tramping on, + Sleek from the Sacsanach manger-- +_Creachts_ the hills are encamping on, + Empty the bawns of the stranger! + Up from the Castle of Druim-aniar, + Down from the top of Camailte, + _Ceithearn_[68] and _buannacht_ are coming here + To give him the CEAD MILE FAILTE. + + +IV. + +He has black silver from Cill-da-lua[69]-- + Rian[70] and Cearbhall[71] are neighbours-- +'N Aonach[72] submits with a _fuililiu_-- + Butler is meat for our sabres! + Up from the Castle of Druim-aniar + Down from the top of Camailte, + Rian and Cearbhall are coming here + To give him the CEAD MILE FAILTE. + + +V. + +'Tis scarce a week since through Osairghe[73] + Chased he the Baron of Durmhagh[74]-- +Forced him five rivers to cross, or he + Had died by the sword of Red Murchadh![75] + Up from the Castle of Druim-aniar, + Down from the top of Camailte, + All the Ui Bhriain are coming here + To give him the CEAD MILE FAILTE. + + +VI. + +Tall are the towers of O'Ceinneidigh-- + Broad are the lands of MacCarrthaigh-- +Desmond feeds five hundred men a-day; + Yet, here's to O'Briain of Ara! + Up from the Castle of Druim-aniar, + Down from the top of Camailte, + Clansman and kinsman are coming here + To give him the CEAD MILE FAILTE. + + --------------------------------------------------------------- + [62] Ara is a small mountain tract south of Loch Deirgdheire, and + north of the Camailte, or the Keeper, hills. It was the seat of a + branch of the Thomond princes, called the O'Briens of Ara. + + [63] _Vulgo_ O'Kennedy. + + [64] _Vul._ M'Carthy. + + [65] _Vul._ O'Brien. + + [66] _Vul._ Drumineer. + + [67] _Vul._ Usquebaugh. + + [68] _Vul._ Kerne. + + [69] _Vul._ Killaloe. + + [70] _Vul._ Ryan. + + [71] _Vul._ Carroll. + + [72] _Vul._ Nenagh. + + [73] _Vulgo_, Ossory. + + [74] _Vul._ Lurrow. + + [75] _Vul._ Murrough. + + + +THE SACK OF BALTIMORE.[76] + + +I. + +The summer sun is falling soft on Carbery's hundred isles-- +The summer sun is gleaming still through Gabriel's rough defiles-- +Old Inisherkin's crumbled fane looks like a moulting bird; +And in a calm and sleepy swell the ocean tide is heard; +The hookers lie upon the beach; the children cease their play; +The gossips leave the little inn; the households kneel to pray-- +And full of love and peace and rest--its daily labour o'er-- +Upon that cosy creek there lay the town of Baltimore. + + +II. + +A deeper rest, a starry trance, has come with midnight there; +No sound, except that throbbing wave in earth, or sea, or air. +The massive capes and ruined towers seem conscious of the calm; +The fibrous sod and stunted trees are breathing heavy balm. +So still the night, these two long barques round Dunashad that glide, +Must trust their oars--methinks not few--against the ebbing tide-- +Oh! some sweet mission of true love must urge them to the shore-- +They bring some lover to his bride, who sighs in Baltimore! + + +III. + +All, all asleep within each roof along that rocky street, +And these must be the lover's friends, with gently gliding feet-- +A stifled gasp! a dreamy noise! "the roof is in a flame!" +From out their beds, and to their doors, rush maid, and sire, and dame-- +And meet, upon the threshold stone, the gleaming sabre's fall, +And o'er each black and bearded face the white or crimson shawl-- +The yell of "Allah" breaks above the prayer and shriek and roar-- +Oh, blessed God! the Algerine is lord of Baltimore! + + +IV. + +Then flung the youth his naked hand against the shearing sword; +Then sprung the mother on the brand with which her son was gored; +Then sunk the grandsire on the floor, his grand-babes clutching wild; +Then fled the maiden moaning faint, and nestled with the child; +But see, yon pirate strangled lies, and crushed with splashing heel, +While o'er him in an Irish hand there sweeps his Syrian steel-- +Though virtue sink, and courage fail, and misers yield their store, +There's _one_ hearth well avenged in the sack of Baltimore! + + +V. + +Mid-summer morn, in woodland nigh, the birds began to sing-- +They see not now the milking maids--deserted is the spring! +Mid-summer day--this gallant rides from distant Bandon's town-- +These hookers crossed from stormy Skull, that skiff from Affadown; +They only found the smoking walls, with neighbours' blood besprent, +And on the strewed and trampled beach awhile they wildly went-- +Then dashed to sea, and passed Cape Cleire, and saw five leagues before +The pirate galleys vanishing that ravaged Baltimore. + + +VI. + +Oh! some must tug the galley's oar, and some must tend the steed-- +This boy will bear a Scheik's chibouk, and that a Bey's jerreed. +Oh! some are for the arsenals, by beauteous Dardanelles; +And some are in the caravan to Mecca's sandy dells. +The maid that Bandon gallant sought is chosen for the Dey-- +She's safe--he's dead--she stabbed him in the midst of his Serai; +And when to die a death of fire that noble maid they bore, +She only smiled--O'Driscoll's child--she thought of Baltimore. + + +VII. + +'Tis two long years since sunk the town beneath that bloody band, +And all around its trampled hearths a larger concourse stand, +Where high upon a gallows tree, a yelling wretch is seen-- +'Tis Hackett of Dungarvan--he who steered the Algerine! +He fell amid a sullen shout, with scarce a passing prayer, +For he had slain the kith and kin of many a hundred there-- +Some muttered of MacMurchadh, who brought the Norman o'er-- +Some cursed him with Iscariot, that day in Baltimore. + + --------------------------------------------------------------- + [76] Baltimore is a small seaport in the barony of Carbery, in + South Munster. It grew up round a Castle of O'Driscoll's, and was, + after his ruin, colonized by the English. On the 20th of June, + 1631, the crew of two Algerine galleys landed in the dead of the + night, sacked the town, and bore off into slavery all who were not + too old, or too young, or too fierce for their purpose. The pirates + were steered up the intricate channel by one Hackett, a Dungarvan + fisherman, whom they had taken at sea for the purpose. Two years + after he was convicted and executed for the crime. Baltimore never + recovered this. To the artist, the antiquary, and the naturalist, + its neighbourhood is most interesting. See "The Ancient and Present + State of the County and City of Cork," by Charles Smith, M.D. + + + + +LAMENT FOR THE DEATH OF EOGHAN RUADH O'NEILL.[77] + + +I. + +"Did they dare, did they dare, to slay Eoghan Ruadh O'Neill?" +"Yes, they slew with poison him they feared to meet with steel." +"May God wither up their hearts! May their blood cease to flow! +May they walk in living death, who poisoned Eoghan Ruadh!" + + +II. + +"Though it break my heart to hear, say again the bitter words. +From Derry, against Cromwell, he marched to measure swords: +But the weapon of the Sacsanach met him on his way, +And he died at Cloch Uachtar,[78] upon St. Leonard's day. + + +III. + +"Wail, wail ye for the Mighty One! Wail, wail ye for the Dead! +Quench the hearth, and hold the breath--with ashes strew the head. +How tenderly we loved him! How deeply we deplore! +Holy Saviour! but to think we shall never see him more. + + +IV. + +"Sagest in the council was he, kindest in the hall! +Sure we never won a battle--'twas Eoghan won them all. +Had he lived--had he lived--our dear country had been free; +But he's dead, but he's dead, and 'tis slaves we'll ever be. + + +V. + +"O'Farrell and Clanrickarde, Preston and Red Hugh, +Audley and MacMahon, ye are valiant, wise, and true; +But--what, what are ye all to our darling who is gone? +The Rudder of our Ship was he, our Castle's corner stone! + + +VI. + +"Wail, wail him through the Island! Weep, weep for our pride! +Would that on the battle-field our gallant chief had died! +Weep the Victor of Beann-bhorbh[79]--weep him, young men and old; +Weep for him, ye women--your Beautiful lies cold! + + +VII. + +"We thought you would not die--we were sure you would not go, +And leave us in our utmost need to Cromwell's cruel blow-- +Sheep without a shepherd, when the snow shuts out the sky-- +Oh! why did you leave us, Eoghan? Why did you die? + + +VIII. + +"Soft as woman's was your voice, O'Neill! bright was your eye, +Oh! why did you leave us, Eoghan? Why did you die? +Your troubles are all over, you're at rest with God on high, +But we're slaves, and we're orphans, Eoghan!--why didst thou die?" + + --------------------------------------------------------------- + [77] Commonly called Owen Roe O'Neill. Time, 10th November, 1649. + Scene--Ormond's Camp, County Waterford. Speakers--A veteran of + Eoghan O'Neill's clan, and one of the horsemen just arrived with an + account of his death. + + [78] Clough Oughter. + + [79] Benburb. + + + + +THE PENAL DAYS. + +AIR--_The Wheelwright_. + + +I. + +Oh! weep those days, the penal days, + When Ireland hopelessly complained. +Oh! weep those days, the penal days, + When godless persecution reigned; + When year by year, + For serf and peer, + Fresh cruelties were made by law, + And filled with hate, + Our senate sate + To weld anew each fetter's flaw. +Oh! weep those days, those penal days-- +Their memory still on Ireland weighs. + + +II. + +They bribed the flock, they bribed the son, + To sell the priest and rob the sire; +Their dogs were taught alike to run + Upon the scent of wolf and friar. + Among the poor, + Or on the moor, + Were hid the pious and the true-- + While traitor knave, + And recreant slave, + Had riches, rank, and retinue; +And, exiled in those penal days, +Our banners over Europe blaze. + + +III. + +A stranger held the land and tower + Of many a noble fugitive; +No Popish lord had lordly power, + The peasant scarce had leave to live; + Above his head + A ruined shed, + No tenure but a tyrant's will-- + Forbid to plead, + Forbid to read + Disarmed, disfranchised, imbecile-- +What wonder if our step betrays +The freedman, born in penal days? + + +IV. + +They're gone, they're gone, those penal days! + All creeds are equal in our isle; +Then grant, O Lord, thy plenteous grace, + Our ancient feuds to reconcile. + Let all atone + For blood and groan, + For dark revenge and open wrong; + Let all unite + For Ireland's right, + And drown our griefs in freedom's song; +Till time shall veil in twilight haze, +The memory of those penal days. + + + + +THE SURPRISE OF CREMONA. + +1702. + + +I. + +From Milan to Cremona Duke Villeroy rode, +And soft are the beds in his princely abode; +In billet and barrack the garrison sleep, +And loose is the watch which the sentinels keep: +'Tis the eve of St. David, and bitter the breeze +Of that mid-winter night on the flat Cremonese; +A fig for precaution!--Prince Eugene sits down +In winter cantonments round Mantua town! + + +II. + +Yet through Ustiano, and out on the plain, +Horse, foot, and dragoons, are defiling amain. +"That flash!" said Prince Eugene: "Count Merci, push on"-- +Like a rock from a precipice Merci is gone. +Proud mutters the Prince: "That is Cassioli's sign: +Ere the dawn of the morning Cremona'll be mine; +For Merci will open the gate of the Po, +But scant is the mercy Prince Vaudemont will shew!" + + +III. + +Through gate, street, and square, with his keen cavaliers-- +A flood through a gulley--Count Merci careers-- +They ride without getting or giving a blow, +Nor halt till they gaze on the gate of the Po. +"Surrender the gate!"--but a volley replied, +For a handful of Irish are posted inside. +By my faith, Charles Vaudemont will come rather late, +If he stay till Count Merci shall open that gate! + + +IV. + +But in through St. Margaret's the Austrians pour, +And billet and barrack are ruddy with gore; +Unarmed and naked, the soldiers are slain-- +There's an enemy's gauntlet on Villeroy's rein-- +"A thousand pistoles and a regiment of horse-- +Release me, MacDonnell!"--they hold on their course. +Count Merci has seized upon cannon and wall, +Prince Eugene's headquarters are in the Town-hall! + + +V. + +Here and there, through the city, some readier band, +For honour and safety, undauntedly stand. +At the head of the regiments of Dillon and Burke +Is Major O'Mahony, fierce as a Turk. +His sabre is flashing--the major is dress'd, +But muskets and shirts are the clothes of the rest! +Yet they rush to the ramparts, the clocks have tolled ten, +And Count Merci retreats with the half of his men. + + +VI. + +"In on them!" said Friedberg--and Dillon is broke, +Like forest-flowers crushed by the fall of the oak; +Through the naked battalions the cuirassiers go;-- +But the man, not the dress, makes the soldier, I trow +Upon them with grapple, with bay'net, and ball, +Like wolves upon gaze-hounds, the Irishmen fall-- +Black Friedberg is slain by O'Mahony's steel, +And back from the bullets the cuirassiers reel. + + +VII. + +Oh! hear you their shout in your quarters, Eugene? +In vain on Prince Vaudemont for succour you lean! +The bridge has been broken, and, mark! how, pell-mell +Come riderless horses, and volley and yell! +He's a veteran soldier--he clenches his hands, +He springs on his horse, disengages his bands-- +He rallies, he urges, till, hopeless of aid, +He is chased through the gates by the IRISH BRIGADE. + + +VIII. + +News, news, in Vienna!--King Leopold's sad. +News, news, in St. James's!--King William is mad. +News, news, in Versailles!--"Let the Irish Brigade +Be loyally honoured, and royally paid." +News, news, in old Ireland!--high rises her pride, +And high sounds her wail for her children who died, +And deep is her prayer: "God send I may see +MacDonnell and Mahony fighting for me!" + + + + +THE FLOWER OF FINAE. + + +I. + +Bright red is the sun on the waves of Lough Sheelin, +A cool, gentle breeze from the mountain is stealing, +While fair round its islets the small ripples play, +But fairer than all is the Flower of Finae. + + +II. + +Her hair is like night, and her eyes like grey morning, +She trips on the heather as if its touch scorning, +Yet her heart and her lips are as mild as May day, +Sweet Eily MacMahon, the Flower of Finae. + + +III. + +But who down the hill-side than red deer runs fleeter? +And who on the lake-side is hastening to greet her? +Who but Fergus O'Farrell, the fiery and gay, +The darling and pride of the Flower of Finae? + + +IV. + +One kiss and one clasp, and one wild look of gladness; +Ah! why do they change on a sudden to sadness?-- +He has told his hard fortune, no more he can stay, +He must leave his poor Eily to pine at Finae. + + +V. + +For Fergus O'Farrell was true to his sire-land, +And the dark hand of tyranny drove him from Ireland; +He joins the Brigade, in the wars far away, +But he vows he'll come back to the Flower of Finae. + + +VI. + +He fought at Cremona--she hears of his story; +He fought at Cassano--she's proud of his glory. +Yet sadly she sings _Siubhail a ruin_[80] all the day, +"Oh! come, come, my darling, come home to Finae." + + +VII. + +Eight long years have passed, till she's nigh broken-hearted, +Her _reel_, and her _rock_, and her flax she has parted; +She sails with the "Wild Geese" to Flanders away, +And leaves her sad parents alone in Finae. + + +VIII. + +Lord Clare on the field of Ramillies is charging-- +Before him, the Sacsanach squadrons enlarging-- +Behind him the Cravats their sections display-- +Beside him rides Fergus and shouts for Finae. + + +IX. + +On the slopes of La Judoigne the Frenchmen are flying +Lord Clare and his squadrons the foe still defying, +Outnumbered, and wounded, retreat in array; +And bleeding rides Fergus and thinks of Finae. + + +X. + +In the cloisters of Ypres a banner is swaying, +And by it a pale, weeping maiden is praying; +That flag's the sole trophy of Ramillies' fray; +This nun is poor Eily, the Flower of Finae. + + --------------------------------------------------------------- + [80] Shule aroon. + + + + +CLARE'S DRAGOONS. + +AIR--_Viva la_. + + +I. + +When, on Ramillies' bloody field, +The baffled French were forced to yield, +The victor Saxon backward reeled + Before the charge of Clare's Dragoons. +The Flags we conquered in that fray +Look lone in Ypres' choir, they say, +We'll win them company to-day, + Or bravely die like Clare's Dragoons. + + +CHORUS. + +_Viva la_, for Ireland's wrong! + _Viva la_, for Ireland's right! +_Viva la_, in battle throng, + For a Spanish steed, and sabre bright! + + +II. + +The brave old lord died near the fight, +But, for each drop he lost that night, +A Saxon cavalier shall bite + The dust before Lord Clare's Dragoons. +For never, when our spurs were set, +And never, when our sabres met, +Could we the Saxon soldiers get + To stand the shock of Clare's Dragoons. + + +CHORUS. + +_Viva la_, the New Brigade! + _Viva la_, the Old one, too! +_Viva la_, the rose shall fade, + And the shamrock shine for ever new! + + +III. + +Another Clare is here to lead, +The worthy son of such a breed; +The French expect some famous deed, + When Clare leads on his bold Dragoons. +Our Colonel comes from Brian's race, +His wounds are in his breast and face, +The _bearna baoghail_[81] is still his place, + The foremost of his bold Dragoons. + + +CHORUS. + +_Viva la_, the New Brigade! + _Viva la_, the Old one, too! +_Viva la_, the rose shall fade, + And the shamrock shine for ever new! + + +IV. + +There's not a man in squadron here +Was ever known to flinch or fear; +Though first in charge and last in rere, + Have ever been Lord Clare's Dragoons; +But see! we'll soon have work to do, +To shame our boasts, or prove them true, +For hither comes the English crew, + To sweep away Lord Clare's Dragoons. + + +CHORUS. + +_Viva la_, for Ireland's wrong! + _Viva la_, for Ireland's right! +_Viva la_, in battle throng, + For a Spanish steed and sabre bright! + + +V. + +Oh! comrades! think how Ireland pines, +Her exiled lords, her rifled shrines, +Her dearest hope, the ordered lines, + And bursting charge of Clare's Dragoons. +Then fling your Green Flag to the sky. +Be "Limerick" your battle-cry, +And charge, till blood floats fetlock-high, +Around the track of Clare's Dragoons! + + +CHORUS. + +_Viva la_, the New Brigade! + _Viva la_, the Old one, too! +_Viva la_, the rose shall fade, + And the shamrock shine for ever new! + + --------------------------------------------------------------- + [81] Gap of danger. + + + + +THE BATTLE EVE OF THE BRIGADE. + +AIR--_Contented I am_. + + +I. + +The mess-tent is full, and the glasses are set, +And the gallant Count Thomond is president yet; +The veteran stands, like an uplifted lance, +Crying--"Comrades, a health to the monarch of France!" +With bumpers and cheers they have done as he bade, +For King Louis is loved by the Irish Brigade. + + +II. + +"A health to King James," and they bent as they quaffed, +"Here's to George the _Elector_," and fiercely they laughed, +"Good luck to the girls we wooed long ago, +Where Shannon and Barrow and Blackwater flow;" +"God prosper Old Ireland,"--you'd think them afraid, +So pale grew the chiefs of the Irish Brigade. + + +III. + +"But, surely, that light cannot come from our lamp, +And that noise--are they _all_ getting drunk in the camp?" +"Hurrah! boys, the morning of battle is come, +And the _generale's_ beating on many a drum." +So they rush from the revel to join the parade: +For the van is the right of the Irish Brigade. + + +IV. + +They fought as they revelled, fast, fiery, and true, +And, though victors, they left on the field not a few; +And they who survived fought and drank as of yore, +But the land of their heart's hope they never saw more; +For in far foreign fields, from Dunkirk to Belgrade, +Lie the soldiers and chiefs of the Irish Brigade. + + + + +FONTENOY. + +1745. + + +I. + +Thrice, at the huts of Fontenoy, the English column failed, +And twice the lines of Saint Antoine the Dutch in vain assailed; +For town and slope were filled with fort and flanking battery, +And well they swept the English ranks and Dutch auxiliary. +As vainly, through De Barri's wood, the British soldiers burst, +The French artillery drove them back, diminished, and dispersed. +The bloody Duke of Cumberland beheld with anxious eye, +And ordered up his last reserve, his latest chance to try, +On Fontenoy, on Fontenoy, how fast his generals ride! +And mustering come his chosen troops, like clouds at eventide. + + +II. + +Six thousand English veterans in stately column tread; +Their cannon blaze in front and flank, Lord Hay is at their head; +Steady they step a-down the slope--steady they climb the hill; +Steady they load--steady they fire, moving right onward still, +Betwixt the wood and Fontenoy, as through a furnace blast, +Through rampart, trench, and palisade, and bullets showering fast; +And on the open plain above they rose and kept their course, +With ready fire and grim resolve, that mocked at hostile force: +Past Fontenoy, past Fontenoy, while thinner grew their ranks-- +They break, as broke the Zuyder Zee through Holland's ocean banks. + + +III. + +More idly than the summer flies, French tirailleurs rush round; +As stubble to the lava tide, French squadrons strew the ground; +Bomb-shell and grape and round-shot tore, still on they marched + and fired-- +Fast from each volley grenadier and voltigeur retired. +"Push on, my household cavalry!" King Louis madly cried: +To death they rush, but rude their shock--not unavenged they died. +On through the camp the column trod--King Louis turns his rein: +"Not yet, my liege," Saxe interposed, "the Irish troops remain." +And Fontenoy, famed Fontenoy, had been a Waterloo +Were not these exiles ready then, fresh, vehement, and true. + + +IV. + +"Lord Clare," he says, "you have your wish; there are your Saxon foes!" +The Marshal almost smiles to see, so furiously he goes! +How fierce the look these exiles wear, who're wont to be so gay, +The treasured wrongs of fifty years are in their hearts to-day-- +The treaty broken, ere the ink wherewith 'twas writ could dry, +Their plundered homes, their ruined shrines, their women's parting cry, +Their priesthood hunted down like wolves, their country overthrown-- +Each looks as if revenge for all were staked on him alone +On Fontenoy, on Fontenoy, nor ever yet elsewhere, +Rushed on to fight a nobler band than these proud exiles were. + + +V. + +O'Brien's voice is hoarse with joy, as, halting, he commands +"Fix bay'nets!--charge!" Like mountain storm, rush on these fiery bands! +Thin is the English column now, and faint their volleys grow, +Yet, must'ring all the strength they have, they make a gallant show. +They dress their ranks upon the hill to face that battle-wind-- +Their bayonets the breakers' foam; like rocks, the men behind! +One volley crashes from their line, when, through the surging smoke, +With empty guns clutched in their hands, the headlong Irish broke. +On Fontenoy, on Fontenoy, hark to that fierce huzza! +"Revenge, remember Limerick! dash down the Sacsanach!" + + +VI. + +Like lions leaping at a fold when mad with hunger's pang, +Right up against the English line the Irish exiles sprang: +Bright was their steel, 'tis bloody now, their guns are filled with + gore; +Through shattered ranks and severed files the trampled flags they + tore; +The English strove with desperate strength, paused, rallied, staggered, + fled-- +The green hill-side is matted close with dying and with dead. +Across the plain, and far away, passed on that hideous wrack, +While cavalier and fantassin dash in upon their track. +On Fontenoy, on Fontenoy, like eagles in the sun, +With bloody plumes, the Irish stand--the field is fought and won! + + + + +THE DUGANNON CONVENTION. + +1782. + + +I. + +The church of Dungannon is full to the door, +And sabre and spur clash at times on the floor, +While helmet and shako are ranged all along, +Yet no book of devotion is seen in the throng. +In the front of the altar no minister stands, +But the crimson-clad chief of these warrior bands; +And, though solemn the looks and the voices around, +You'd listen in vain for a litany's sound. +Say! what do they hear in the temple of prayer? +Oh! why in the fold has the lion his lair? + + +II. + +Sad, wounded, and wan was the face of our isle, +By English oppression and falsehood and guile; +Yet when to invade it a foreign fleet steered, +To guard it for England the North volunteered. +From the citizen-soldiers the foe fled aghast-- +Still they stood to their guns when the danger had passed, +For the voice of America came o'er the wave, +Crying: Woe to the tyrant, and hope to the slave! +Indignation and shame through their regiments speed: +They have arms in their hands, and what more do they need? + + +III. + +O'er the green hills of Ulster their banners are spread, +The cities of Leinster resound to their tread, +The valleys of Munster with ardour are stirred, +And the plains of wild Connaught their bugles have heard; +A Protestant front-rank and Catholic rere-- +For--forbidden the arms of freemen to bear-- +Yet foemen and friend are full sure, if need be, +The slave for his country will stand by the free. +By green flags supported, the Orange flags wave, +And the soldier half turns to unfetter the slave! + + +IV. + +More honoured that church of Dungannon is now, +Than when at its altar communicants bow; +More welcome to heaven than anthem or prayer +Are the rites and the thoughts of the warriors there; +In the name of all Ireland the Delegates swore: +"We've suffered too long, and we'll suffer no more-- +Unconquered by Force, we were vanquished by Fraud; +And now, in God's temple, we vow unto God +That never again shall the Englishman bind +His chains on our limbs, or his laws on our mind." + + +V. + +The church of Dungannon is empty once more-- +No plumes on the altar, no clash on the floor, +But the councils of England are fluttered to see, +In the cause of their country, the Irish agree; +So they give as a boon what they dare not withhold, +And Ireland, a nation, leaps up as of old, +With a name, and a trade, and a flag of her own, +And an army to fight for the people and throne. +But woe worth the day if to falsehood or fears +She surrenders the guns of her brave Volunteers! + + + + +TONE'S GRAVE. + + +I. + +In Bodenstown Churchyard there is a green grave, +And wildly along it the winter winds rave; +Small shelter, I ween, are the ruined walls there, +When the storm sweeps down on the plains of Kildare. + + +II. + +Once I lay on that sod--it lies over Wolfe Tone-- +And thought how he perished in prison alone, +His friends unavenged, and his country unfreed-- +"Oh, bitter," I said, "is the patriot's meed; + + +III. + +"For in him the heart of a woman combined +With a heroic life and a governing mind-- +A martyr for Ireland--his grave has no stone-- +His name seldom named, and his virtues unknown." + + +IV. + +I was woke from my dream by the voices and tread +Of a band, who came into the home of the dead; +They carried no corpse, and they carried no stone, +And they stopped when they came to the grave of Wolfe Tone. + + +V. + +There were students and peasants, the wise and the brave, +And an old man who knew him from cradle to grave, +And children who thought me hard-hearted; for they +On that sanctified sod were forbidden to play. + + +VI. + +But the old man, who saw I was mourning there, said: +"We come, sir, to weep where young Wolfe Tone is laid, +And we're going to raise him a monument, too-- +A plain one, yet fit for the simple and true." + + +VII. + +My heart overflowed, and I clasped his old hand, +And I blessed him, and blessed every one of his band: +"Sweet! sweet! 'tis to find that such faith can remain +To the cause, and the man so long vanquished and slain." + + +VIII. + +In Bodenstown Churchyard there is a green grave, +And freely around it let winter winds rave-- +Far better they suit him--the ruin and gloom-- +TILL IRELAND, A NATION, CAN BUILD HIM A TOMB. + + + + +NATIONALITY. + + +I. + +A Nation's voice, a nation's voice-- + It is a solemn thing! +It bids the bondage-sick rejoice-- + 'Tis stronger than a king. +'Tis like the light of many stars, + The sound of many waves, +Which brightly look through prison bars, + And sweetly sound in caves. +Yet is it noblest, godliest known, +When righteous triumph swells its tone. + + +II. + +A nation's flag, a nation's flag-- + If wickedly unrolled, +May foes in adverse battle drag + Its every fold from fold. +But in the cause of Liberty, + Guard it 'gainst Earth and Hell; +Guard it till Death or Victory-- + Look you, you guard it well! +No saint or king has tomb so proud +As he whose flag becomes his shroud. + + +III. + +A nation's right, a nation's right-- + God gave it, and gave, too, +A nation's sword, a nation's might, + Danger to guard it through. +'Tis freedom from a foreign yoke, + 'Tis just and equal laws, +Which deal unto the humblest folk, + As in a noble's cause. +On nations fixed in right and truth, +God would bestow eternal youth. + + +IV. + +May Ireland's voice be ever heard + Amid the world's applause! +And never be her flag-staff stirred, + But in an honest cause! +May Freedom be her very breath, + Be Justice ever dear; +And never an ennobled death + May son of Ireland fear! +So the Lord God will ever smile, +With guardian grace, upon our isle. + + + + +SELF-RELIANCE. + + +I. + +Though savage force and subtle schemes, + And alien rule, through ages lasting, +Have swept your land like lava streams, + Its wealth and name and nature blasting; +Rot not, therefore, in dull despair, + Nor moan at destiny in far lands! +Face not your foe with bosom bare, + Nor hide your chains in pleasure's garlands. +The wise man arms to combat wrong, + The brave man clears a den of lions, +The true man spurns the Helot's song; + The freeman's friend is Self-Reliance! + + +II. + +Though France that gave your exiles bread, + Your priests a home, your hopes a station, +Or that young land where first was spread + The starry flag of Liberation,-- +Should heed your wrongs some future day, + And send you voice or sword to plead 'em, +With helpful love their help repay, + But trust not even to them for Freedom. +A Nation freed by foreign aid + Is but a corpse by wanton science +Convulsed like life, then flung to fade-- + The life itself is Self-Reliance! + + +III. + +Oh! see your quailing tyrant run + To courteous lies, and Roman agents, +His terror, lest Dungannon's sun + Should rise again with riper radiance. +Oh! hark the Freeman's welcome cheer, + And hark your brother sufferers sobbing +Oh! mark the universe grow clear, + Oh! mark your spirit's royal throbbing-- +'Tis Freedom's God that sends such signs, + As pledges of his blest alliance; +He gives bright hopes to brave designs, + And lends his bolts to Self-Reliance! + + +IV. + +Then, flung alone, or hand in hand, + In mirthful hour, or spirit solemn; +In lowly toil, or high command, + In social hall, or charging column: +In tempting wealth, and trying woe, + In struggling with a mob's dictation; +In bearing back a foreign foe, + In training up a troubled nation: +Still hold to Truth, abound in Love, + Refusing every base compliance-- +Your Praise within, your Prize above, + And live and die in SELF-RELIANCE! + + + + +THE BURIAL.[82] + + +Why rings the knell of the funeral bell from a hundred village shrines? +Through broad Fingall, where hasten all those long and ordered lines? +With tear and sigh they're passing by--the matron and the maid-- +Has a hero died--is a nation's pride in that cold coffin laid? +With frown and curse, behind the hearse, dark men go tramping on-- +Has a tyrant died, that they cannot hide their wrath till the rites + are done? + + +THE CHANT. + +"_Ululu! ululu!_ high on the wind, +There's a home for the slave where no fetters can bind. +Woe, woe to his slayers!"--comes wildly along, +With the trampling of feet and the funeral song. + + And now more clear + It swells on the ear; + Breathe low, and listen, 'tis solemn to hear. + +"_Ululu! ululu!_ wail for the dead. +Green grow the grass of Fingall on his head; +And spring-flowers blossom, 'ere elsewhere appearing, +And shamrocks grow thick on the Martyr for Erin. +_Ululu! ululu!_ soft fall the dew +On the feet and the head of the martyred and true." + + For awhile they tread + In silence dread-- + Then muttering and moaning go the crowd, + Surging and swaying like mountain cloud, + And again the wail comes fearfully loud. + + +THE CHANT. + +"_Ululu! ululu!_ kind was his heart! +Walk slower, walk slower, too soon we shall part. +The faithful and pious, the Priest of the Lord, +His pilgrimage over, he has his reward. +By the bed of the sick lowly kneeling, +To God with the raised cross appealing-- +He seems still to kneel, and he seems still to pray, +And the sins of the dying seem passing away. + + "In the prisoner's cell, and the cabin so dreary, + Our constant consoler, he never grew weary; + But he's gone to his rest, + And he's now with the bless'd, + Where tyrant and traitor no longer molest-- + _Ululu! ululu!_ wail for the dead! + _Ululu! ululu!_ here is his bed!" + +Short was the ritual, simple the prayer, +Deep was the silence, and every head bare; +The Priest alone standing, they knelt all around, +Myriads on myriads, like rocks on the ground. +Kneeling and motionless--"Dust unto dust. +He died as becometh the faithful and just-- +Placing in God his reliance and trust." + +Kneeling and motionless--"ashes to ashes"-- +Hollow the clay on the coffin-lid dashes; +Kneeling and motionless, wildly they pray, +But they pray in their souls, for no gesture have they; +Stern and standing--oh! look on them now. +Like trees to one tempest the multitude bow; +Like the swell of the ocean is rising their vow: + + +THE VOW. + +"We have bent and borne, though we saw him torn from his home by the + tyrant's crew-- +And we bent and bore, when he came once more, though suffering had + pierced him through: +And now he is laid beyond our aid, because to Ireland true-- +A martyred man--the tyrant's ban, the pious patriot slew. + "And shall we bear and bend for ever, + And shall no time our bondage sever + And shall we kneel, but battle never, + "For our own soil? + "And shall our tyrants safely reign + On thrones built up of slaves and slain, + And nought to us and ours remain + "But chains and toil? + "No! round this grave our oath we plight, + To watch, and labour, and unite, + Till banded be the nation's might-- + "Its spirit steeled, + "And then, collecting all our force, + We'll cross oppression in its course, + And die--or all our rights enforce, + "On battle field." + +Like an ebbing sea that will come again, +Slowly retired that host of men; +Methinks they'll keep some other day +The oath they swore on the martyr's clay. + + --------------------------------------------------------------- + [82] Written on the funeral of the Rev. P. J. Tyrrell, P.P., of + Lusk; one of those indicted with O'Connell in the Government + prosecution of 1843. + + + + +WE MUST NOT FAIL. + + +I. + +We must not fail, we must not fail, +However fraud or force assail; +By honour, pride, and policy, +By Heaven itself!--we must be free. + + +II. + +Time had already thinned our chain, +Time would have dulled our sense of pain; +By service long, and suppliance vile, +We might have won our owner's smile. + + +III. + +We spurned the thought, our prison burst, +And dared the despot to the worst; +Renewed the strife of centuries, +And flung our banner to the breeze. + + +IV. + +We called the ends of earth to view +The gallant deeds we swore to do; +They knew us wronged, they knew us brave, +And all we asked they freely gave. + + +V. + +We took the starving peasant's mite +To aid in winning back his right, +We took the priceless trust of youth; +Their freedom must redeem our truth. + + +VI. + +We promised loud, and boasted high, +"To break our country's chains, or die;" +And, should we quail, that country's name +Will be the synonym of shame. + + +VII. + +Earth is not deep enough to hide +The coward slave who shrinks aside; +Hell is not hot enough to scathe +The ruffian wretch who breaks his faith. + + +VIII. + +But--calm, my soul!--we promised true +Her destined work our land shall do; +Thought, courage, patience will prevail! +We shall not fail--we shall not fail! + + + + +O'CONNELL'S STATUE. + +LINES TO HOGAN. + + +Chisel the likeness of The Chief, +Not in gaiety, nor grief; +Change not by your art to stone, +Ireland's laugh, or Ireland's moan. +Dark her tale, and none can tell +Its fearful chronicle so well. +Her frame is bent--her wounds are deep-- +Who, like him, her woes can weep? + +He can be gentle as a bride, +While none can rule with kinglier pride; +Calm to hear, and wise to prove, +Yet gay as lark in soaring love. +Well it were, posterity +Should have some image of his glee; +That easy humour, blossoming +Like the thousand flowers of spring! +Glorious the marble which could show +His bursting sympathy for woe: +Could catch the pathos, flowing wild, +Like mother's milk to craving child. + +And oh! how princely were the art +Could mould his mien, or tell his heart +When sitting sole on Tara's hill, +While hung a million on his will! +Yet, not in gaiety, nor grief, +Chisel the image of our Chief, +Nor even in that haughty hour +When a nation owned his power. + +But would you by your art unroll +His own, and Ireland's secret soul, +And give to other times to scan +The greatest greatness of the man? +Fierce defiance let him be +Hurling at our enemy-- +From a base as fair and sure +As our love is true and pure; +Let his statue rise as tall +And firm as a castle wall; +On his broad brow let there be +A type of Ireland's history; +Pious, generous, deep and warm, +Strong and changeful as a storm; +Let whole centuries of wrong +Upon his recollection throng-- +Strongbow's force, and Henry's wile, +Tudor's wrath, and Stuart's guile, +And iron Strafford's tiger jaws, +And brutal Brunswick's penal laws; +Not forgetting Saxon faith, +Not forgetting Norman scath, +Not forgetting William's word, +Not forgetting Cromwell's sword. +Let the Union's fetter vile-- +The shame and ruin of our isle-- +Let the blood of 'Ninety-Eight +And our present blighting fate-- +Let the poor mechanic's lot, +And the peasant's ruined cot, +Plundered wealth and glory flown, +Ancient honours overthrown-- +Let trampled altar, rifled urn, +Knit his look to purpose stern. + +Mould all this into one thought, +Like wizard cloud with thunder fraught; +Still let our glories through it gleam, +Like fair flowers through a flooded stream, +Or like a flashing wave at night, +Bright,--'mid the solemn darkness, bright. +Let the memory of old days +Shine through the statesman's anxious face-- +Dathi's power, and Brian's fame, +And headlong Sarsfield's sword of flame; +And the spirit of Red Hugh, +And the pride of 'Eighty-Two, +And the victories he won, +And the hope that leads him on! + +Let whole armies seem to fly +From his threatening hand and eye. +Be the strength of all the land +Like a falchion in his hand, +And be his gesture sternly grand. +A braggart tyrant swore to smite +A people struggling for their right; +O'Connell dared him to the field, +Content to die but never yield; +Fancy such a soul as his, +In a moment such as this, +Like cataract, or foaming tide, +Or army charging in its pride. +Thus he spoke, and thus he stood, +Proffering in our cause his blood. +Thus his country loves him best-- +To image this is your behest. +Chisel thus, and thus alone, +If to man you'd change the stone. + + + + +THE GREEN ABOVE THE RED. + +AIR--_Irish Molly O!_ + + +I. + +Full often when our fathers saw the Red above the Green, +They rose in rude but fierce array, with sabre, pike and _scian_, +And over many a noble town, and many a field of dead, +They proudly set the Irish Green above the English Red. + + +II. + +But in the end throughout the land, the shameful sight was seen-- +The English Red in triumph high above the Irish Green; +But well they died in breach and field, who, as their spirits fled, +Still saw the Green maintain its place above the English Red. + + +III. + +And they who saw, in after times, the Red above the Green +Were withered as the grass that dies beneath a forest screen; +Yet often by this healthy hope their sinking hearts were fed, +That, in some day to come, the Green should flutter o'er the Red. + + +IV. + +Sure 'twas for this Lord Edward died, and Wolfe Tone sunk serene-- +Because they could not bear to leave the Red above the Green; +And 'twas for this that Owen fought, and Sarsfield nobly bled-- +Because their eyes were hot to see the Green above the Red. + + +V. + +So when the strife began again, our darling Irish Green +Was down upon the earth, while high the English Red was seen; +Yet still we held our fearless course, for something in us said, +"Before the strife is o'er you'll see the Green above the Red." + + +VI. + +And 'tis for this we think and toil, and knowledge strive to glean, +That we may pull the English Red below the Irish Green, +And leave our sons sweet Liberty, and smiling plenty spread +Above the land once dark with blood--_the Green above the Red_! + + +VII. + +The jealous English tyrant now has banned the Irish Green, +And forced us to conceal it like a something foul and mean; +But yet, by Heavens! he'll sooner raise his victims from the dead +Than force our hearts to leave the Green, and cotton to the Red! + + +VIII. + +We'll trust ourselves, for God is good, and blesses those who lean +On their brave hearts, and not upon an earthly king or queen; +And, freely as we lift our hands, we vow our blood to shed +Once and for evermore to raise the Green above the Red. + + + + +THE VOW OF TIPPERARY. + + +I. + +From Carrick streets to Shannon shore, + From Slievenamon to Ballindeary, +From Longford Pass to Gaillte Mor, + Come hear The Vow of Tipperary. + + +II. + +Too long we fought for Britain's cause, + And of our blood were never chary; +She paid us back with tyrant laws, + And thinned The Homes of Tipperary. + + +III. + +Too long with rash and single arm, + The peasant strove to guard his eyrie, +Till Irish blood bedewed each farm, + And Ireland wept for Tipperary. + + +IV. + +But never more we'll lift a hand-- + We swear by God and Virgin Mary! +Except in war for Native Land, + And _that's_ The Vow of Tipperary! + + + + +TIPPERARY. + + +I. + +Let Britain boast her British hosts, + About them all right little care we; +Not British seas nor British coasts + Can match the Man of Tipperary! + + +II. + +Tall is his form, his heart is warm, + His spirit light as any fairy-- +His wrath is fearful as the storm + That sweeps the Hills of Tipperary! + + +III. + +Lead him to fight for native land, + His is no courage cold and wary; +The troops live not on earth would stand + The headlong charge of Tipperary! + + +IV. + +Yet meet him in his cabin rude, + Or dancing with his dark-haired Mary, +You'd swear they knew no other mood + But Mirth and Love in Tipperary! + + +V. + +You're free to share his scanty meal, + His plighted word he'll never vary-- +In vain they tried with gold and steel + To shake the Faith of Tipperary! + + +VI. + +Soft is his _cailin's_ sunny eye, + Her mien is mild, her step is airy, +Her heart is fond, her soul is high-- + Oh! she's the Pride of Tipperary! + + +VII. + +Let Britain brag her motley rag; + We'll lift the Green more proud and airy-- +Be mine the lot to bear that flag, + And head the Men of Tipperary! + + +VIII. + +Though Britain boasts her British hosts, + About them all right little care we-- +Give us, to guard our native coasts, + The matchless Men of Tipperary! + + + + +THE WEST'S ASLEEP. + +AIR--_The Brink of the White Rocks._ + + +I. + +When all beside a vigil keep, +The West's asleep, the West's asleep-- +Alas! and well may Erin weep, +When Connaught lies in slumber deep. +There lake and plain smile fair and free, +'Mid rocks--their guardian chivalry-- +Sing oh! let man learn liberty +From crashing wind and lashing sea. + + +II. + +That chainless wave and lovely land +Freedom and Nationhood demand-- +Be sure, the great God never planned, +For slumbering slaves, a home so grand. +And, long, a brave and haughty race +Honoured and sentinelled the place-- +Sing oh! not even their sons' disgrace +Can quite destroy their glory's trace. + + +III. + +For often, in O'Connor's van, +To triumph dashed each Connaught clan-- +And fleet as deer the Normans ran +Through Corlieu's Pass and Ardrahan. +And later times saw deeds as brave; +And glory guards Clanricarde's grave-- +Sing oh! they died their land to save, +At Aughrim's slopes and Shannon's wave. + + +IV. + +And if, when all a vigil keep, +The West's asleep, the West's asleep-- +Alas! and well may Erin weep, +That Connaught lies in slumber deep. +But, hark! some voice like thunder spake: +"_The West's awake! the West's awake!_"-- +"Sing oh! hurra! let England quake, +We'll watch till death for Erin's sake!" + + + + +A SONG FOR THE IRISH MILITIA. + +AIR--_The Peacock._ + + +I. + +The tribune's tongue and poet's pen +May sow the seed in prostrate men; +But 'tis the soldier's sword alone +Can reap the crop so bravely sown! +No more I'll sing nor idly pine, +But train my soul to lead a line-- +A soldier's life's the life for me-- +A soldier's death, so Ireland's free! + + +II. + +No foe would fear your thunder words, +If 'twere not for your lightning swords-- +If tyrants yield when millions pray, +'Tis less they link in war array; +Nor peace itself is safe, but when +The sword is sheathed by fighting men-- +A soldier's life's the life for me-- +A soldier's death, so Ireland's free! + + +III. + +The rifle brown and sabre bright +Can freely speak and nobly write-- +What prophets preached the truth so well +As HOFER, BRIAN, BRUCE, and TELL? +God guard the creed these heroes taught-- +That blood-bought Freedom's cheaply bought +A soldier's life's the life for me-- +A soldier's death, so Ireland's free! + + +IV. + +Then, welcome be the bivouac, +The hardy stand, and fierce attack, +Where pikes will tame their carbineers, +And rifles thin their bay'neteers, +And every field the island through +Will show "what Irishmen can do!" +A soldier's life's the life for me-- +A soldier's death so Ireland's free! + + +V. + +Yet, 'tis not strength and 'tis not steel +Alone can make the English reel; +But wisdom, working day by day, +Till comes the time for passion's sway-- +The patient dint and powder shock, +Can blast an empire like a rock. +A soldier's life's the life for me-- +A soldier's death, so Ireland's free! + + +VI. + +The tribune's tongue and poet's pen +May sow the seed in slavish men; +But 'tis the soldier's sword alone +Can reap the harvest when 'tis grown. +No more I'll sing, no more I'll pine, +But train my soul to lead a line-- +A soldier's life's the life for me-- +A soldier's death, so Ireland's free. + + + + +OUR OWN AGAIN. + + +I. + +Let the coward shrink aside, + We'll have our own again; +Let the brawling slave deride-- + Here's for our own again! +Let the tyrant bribe and lie, +March, threaten, fortify, +Loose his lawyer and his spy-- + Yet we'll have our own again! +Let him soothe in silken tone, +Scold from a foreign throne: +Let him come with bugles blown-- + We shall have our own again! +Let us to our purpose bide, + We'll have our own again! +Let the game be fairly tried, + We'll have our own again! + + +II. + +Send the cry throughout the land, + "Who's for our own again?" +Summon all men to our band,-- + Why not our own again? +Rich and poor, and old and young, +Sharp sword, and fiery tongue, +Soul and sinew firmly strung-- + All to get our own again! +Brothers strive by brotherhood-- +Trees in a stormy wood-- +Riches come from Nationhood-- + Sha'n't we have our own again? +Munster's woe is Ulster's bane! + Join for our own again-- +Tyrants rob as well as reign-- + We'll have our own again! + + +III. + +Oft our fathers' hearts it stirred, + "Rise for our own again!" +Often passed the signal word, + "Strike for our own again!" +Rudely, rashly, and untaught, +Uprose they, ere they ought, +Failing, though they nobly fought-- + Dying for their own again! +Mind will rule and muscle yield +In senate, ship, and field: +When we've skill our strength to wield, + Let us take our own again! +By the slave his chain is wrought-- + Strive for our own again. +Thunder is less strong than thought-- + We'll have our own again! + + +IV. + +Calm as granite to our foes, + Stand for our own again; +Till his wrath to madness grows, + Firm for our own again. +Bravely hope, and wisely wait, +Toil, join, and educate; +Man is master of his fate; + We'll enjoy our own again! +With a keen constrained thirst-- +Powder's calm ere it burst-- +Making ready for the worst-- + So we'll get our own again. +Let us to our purpose bide, + We'll have our own again! +God is on the righteous side, + We'll have our own again! + + + + +CELTS AND SAXONS.[83] + + +I. + +We hate the Saxon and the Dane, + We hate the Norman men-- +We cursed their greed for blood and gain, + We curse them now again. +Yet start not, Irish-born man! + If you're to Ireland true, +We heed not blood, nor creed, nor clan-- + We have no curse for you. + + +II. + +We have no curse for you or yours, + But Friendship's ready grasp, +And Faith to stand by you and yours + Unto our latest gasp-- +To stand by you against all foes, + Howe'er, or whence they come, +With traitor arts, or bribes, or blows, + From England, France, or Rome. + + +III. + +What matter that at different shrines + We pray unto one God? +What matter that at different times + Your fathers won this sod? +In fortune and in name we're bound + By stronger links than steel; +And neither can be safe nor sound + But in the other's weal. + + +IV. + +As Nubian rocks, and Ethiop sand + Long drifting down the Nile, +Built up old Egypt's fertile land + For many a hundred mile, +So Pagan clans to Ireland came, + And clans of Christendom, +Yet joined their wisdom and their fame + To build a nation from. + + +V. + +Here came the brown Phoenician, + The man of trade and toil-- +Here came the proud Milesian, + A hungering for spoil; +And the Firbolg and the Cymry, + And the hard, enduring Dane, +And the iron Lords of Normandy, + With the Saxons in their train. + + +VI. + +And oh! it were a gallant deed + To show before mankind, +How every race and every creed + Might be by love combined-- +Might be combined, yet not forget + The fountains whence they rose, +As, filled by many a rivulet, + The stately Shannon flows. + + +VII. + +Nor would we wreak our ancient feud + On Belgian or on Dane, +Nor visit in a hostile mood + The hearths of Gaul or Spain; +But long as on our country lies + The Anglo-Norman yoke, +Their tyranny we'll stigmatize, + And God's revenge invoke. + + +VIII. + +We do not hate, we never cursed, + Nor spoke a foeman's word +Against a man in Ireland nursed, + Howe'er we thought he erred; +So start not, Irish-born man, + If you're to Ireland true, +We heed not race, nor creed, nor clan, + We've hearts and hands for you. + + --------------------------------------------------------------- + [83] Written in reply to some very beautiful verses printed in the + _Evening Mail_, deprecating and defying the assumed hostility + of the Irish Celts to the _Irish_ Saxons. + + + + +ORANGE AND GREEN WILL CARRY THE DAY. + +AIR--_The Protestant Boys._ + + +I. + +Ireland! rejoice, and England! deplore-- + Faction and feud are passing away. +'Twas a low voice, but 'tis a loud roar, + "Orange and Green will carry the day." + Orange! Orange! + Green and Orange! + Pitted together in many a fray-- + Lions in fight! + And linked in their might, + Orange and Green will carry the day. + Orange! Orange! + Green and Orange! + Wave them together o'er mountain and bay. + Orange and Green! + Our King and our Queen! + "Orange and Green will carry the day!" + + +II. + +Rusty the swords our fathers unsheathed-- + William and James are turned to clay-- +Long did we till the wrath they bequeathed, + Red was the crop, and bitter the pay! + Freedom fled us! + Knaves misled us! + Under the feet of the foemen we lay-- + Riches and strength + We'll win them at length, + For Orange and Green will carry the day! + Landlords fooled us; + England ruled us, + Hounding our passions to make us their prey; + But, in their spite, + The Irish UNITE, + And Orange and Green will carry the day! + + +III. + +Fruitful our soil where honest men starve; + Empty the mart, and shipless the bay; +Out of our want the Oligarchs carve; + Foreigners fatten on our decay! + Disunited, + Therefore blighted, + Ruined and rent by the Englishman's sway; + Party and creed + For once have agreed-- + Orange and Green will carry the day! + Boyne's old water, + Red with slaughter! + Now is as pure as an infant at play; + So, in our souls, + Its history rolls, + And Orange and Green will carry the day! + + +IV. + +English deceit can rule us no more; + Bigots and knaves are scattered like spray-- +Deep was the oath the Orangeman swore, + "Orange and Green must carry the day!" + Orange! Orange! + Bless the Orange! + Tories and Whigs grew pale with dismay, + When from the North + Burst the cry forth, + "Orange and Green will carry the day!" + No surrender! + No Pretender! + Never to falter and never betray-- + With an Amen, + We swear it again, + ORANGE AND GREEN SHALL CARRY THE DAY. + + + + +THE LOST PATH. + +AIR--_Gradh mo chroidhe._ + + +I. + +Sweet thoughts, bright dreams, my comfort be, + All comfort else has flown; +For every hope was false to me, + And here I am, alone. +What thoughts were mine in early youth! + Like some old Irish song, +Brimful of love, and life, and truth, + My spirit gushed along. + + +II. + +I hoped to right my native isle, + I hoped a soldier's fame, +I hoped to rest in woman's smile + And win a minstrel's name-- +Oh! little have I served my land, + No laurels press my brow, +I have no woman's heart or hand, + Nor minstrel honours now. + + +III. + +But fancy has a magic power, + It brings me wreath and crown, +And woman's love, the self-same hour + It smites oppression down. +Sweet thoughts, bright dreams, my comfort be, + I have no joy beside; +Oh! throng around, and be to me + Power, country, fame, and bride. + + + + +THE GIRL OF DUNBWY. + + +I. + +'Tis pretty to see the girl of Dunbwy +Stepping the mountain statelily-- +Though ragged her gown, and naked her feet, +No lady in Ireland to match her is meet. + + +II. + +Poor is her diet, and hardly she lies-- +Yet a monarch might kneel for a glance of her eyes. +The child of a peasant--yet England's proud Queen +Has less rank in her heart, and less grace in her mien. + + +III. + +Her brow 'neath her raven hair gleams, just as if +A breaker spread white 'neath a shadowy cliff-- +And love, and devotion, and energy speak +From her beauty-proud eye, and her passion-pale cheek. + + +IV. + +But, pale as her cheek is, there's fruit on her lip, +And her teeth flash as white as the crescent moon's tip, +And her form and her step like the red-deer's go past-- +As lightsome, as lovely, as haughty, as fast. + + +V. + +I saw her but once, and I looked in her eye, +And she knew that I worshipped in passing her by; +The saint of the wayside--she granted my prayer, +Though we spoke not a word, for her mother was there. + + +VI. + +I never can think upon Bantry's bright hills, +But her image starts up, and my longing eye fills; +And I whisper her softly, "Again, love, we'll meet! +And I'll lie in your bosom, and live at your feet." + + + + +BLIND MARY. + +AIR--_Blind Mary._ + + +I. + +There flows from her spirit such love and delight, +That the face of Blind Mary is radiant with light-- +As the gleam from a homestead through darkness will show +Or the moon glimmer soft through the fast falling snow. + + +II. + +Yet there's a keen sorrow comes o'er her at times, +As an Indian might feel in our northerly climes! +And she talks of the sunset, like parting of friends, +And the starlight, as love, that not changes nor ends. + + +III. + +Ah! grieve not, sweet maiden, for star or for sun, +For the mountains that tower or the rivers that run-- +For beauty and grandeur, and glory, and light, +Are seen by the spirit, and not by the sight. + + +IV. + +In vain for the thoughtless are sunburst and shade, +In vain for the heartless flowers blossom and fade; +While the darkness that seems your sweet being to bound +Is one of the guardians, an Eden around! + + + + +OH! THE MARRIAGE. + +AIR--_The Swaggering Jig._ + + +I. + +Oh! the marriage, the marriage, + With love and _mo bhuachaill_ for me, +The ladies that ride in a carriage + Might envy my marriage to me; +For Eoghan[84] is straight as a tower, + And tender, and loving, and true; +He told me more love in an hour + Than the Squires of the county could do. + Then, Oh! the marriage, etc. + + +II. + +His hair is a shower of soft gold, + His eye is as clear as the day, +His conscience and vote were unsold + When others were carried away; +His word is as good as an oath, + And freely 'twas given to me; +Oh! sure, 'twill be happy for both + The day of our marriage to see. + Then, Oh! the marriage, etc. + + +III. + +His kinsmen are honest and kind, + The neighbours think much of his skill, +And Eoghan's the lad to my mind, + Though he owns neither castle nor mill. +But he has a tilloch of land, + A horse, and a stocking of coin, +A foot for a dance, and a hand + In the cause of his country to join. + Then, Oh! the marriage, etc. + + +IV. + +We meet in the market and fair-- + We meet in the morning and night-- +He sits on the half of my chair, + And my people are wild with delight; +Yet I long through the winter to skim, + Though Eoghan longs more I can see, +When I will be married to him, + And he will be married to me. + Then, Oh! the marriage, the marriage, + With love and _mo bhuachaill_ for me, + The ladies that ride in a carriage, + Might envy my marriage to me. + + --------------------------------------------------------------- + [84] _Vulgo_, Owen, a name frequent among the Cymry (Welsh). + + + + +THE BOATMAN OF KINSALE. + +AIR--_An Cota Caol._ + + +I. + +His kiss is sweet, his word is kind, + His love is rich to me; +I could not in a palace find + A truer heart than he. +The eagle shelters not his nest + From hurricane and hail, +More bravely than he guards my breast-- + The Boatman of Kinsale. + + +II. + +The wind that round the Fastnet sweeps + Is not a whit more pure-- +The goat that down Cnoc Sheehy leaps + Has not a foot more sure. +No firmer hand nor freer eye + E'er faced an autumn gale-- +De Courcy's heart is not so high-- + The Boatman of Kinsale. + + +III. + +The brawling squires may heed him not, + The dainty stranger sneer-- +But who will dare to hurt our cot + When Myles O'Hea is here? +The scarlet soldiers pass along; + They'd like, but fear to rail; +His blood is hot, his blow is strong-- + The Boatman of Kinsale. + + +IV. + +His hooker's in the Scilly van + When seines are in the foam; +But money never made the man, + Nor wealth a happy home. +So, blest with love and liberty, + While he can trim a sail, +He'll trust in God, and cling to me-- + The Boatman of Kinsale. + + + + +LOVE AND WAR. + + +I. + +How soft is the moon on Glengariff, + The rocks seem to melt with the light: +Oh! would I were there with dear Fanny, + To tell her that love is as bright; +And nobly the sun of July + O'er the waters of Adragoole shines-- +Oh! would that I saw the green banner + Blaze there over conquering lines. + + +II. + +Oh! love is more fair than the moonlight, + And glory more grand than the sun: +And there is no rest for a brave heart, + Till its bride and its laurels are won; +But next to the burst of our banner, + And the smile of dear Fanny, I crave +The moon on the rocks of Glengariff-- + The sun upon Adragoole's wave. + + + + +MY LAND. + + +I. + +She is a rich and rare land; +Oh! she's a fresh and fair land; +She is a dear and rare land-- + This native land of mine. + + +II. + +No men than her's are braver-- +Her women's hearts ne'er waver; +I'd freely die to save her, + And think my lot divine. + + +III. + +She's not a dull or cold land; +No! she's a warm and bold land; +Oh! she's a true and old land-- + This native land of mine. + + +IV. + +Could beauty ever guard her, +And virtue still reward her, +No foe would cross her border-- + No friend within it pine! + + +V. + +Oh! she's a fresh and fair land; +Oh! she's a true and rare land; +Yes! she's a rare and fair land-- + This native land of mine. + + + + +THE RIGHT ROAD. + + +I. + +Let the feeble-hearted pine, +Let the sickly spirit whine, +But work and win be thine, + While you've life. +God smiles upon the bold-- +So, when your flag's unrolled, +Bear it bravely till you're cold + In the strife. + + +II. + +If to rank or fame you soar, +Out your spirit frankly pour-- +Men will serve you and adore, + Like a king. +Woo your girl with honest pride, +Till you've won her for your bride-- +Then to her, through time and tide, + Ever cling. + + +III. + +Never under wrongs despair; +Labour long, and everywhere, +Link your countrymen, prepare, + And strike home. +Thus have great men ever wrought, +Thus must greatness still be sought, +Thus laboured, loved, and fought + Greece and Rome. + + + + +MY GRAVE. + + +Shall they bury me in the deep, +Where wind-forgetting waters sleep? +Shall they dig a grave for me, +Under the green-wood tree? +Or on the wild heath, +Where the wilder breath +Of the storm doth blow? +Oh, no! oh, no! + +Shall they bury me in the Palace Tombs, +Or under the shade of Cathedral domes? +Sweet 'twere to lie on Italy's shore; +Yet not there--nor in Greece, though I love it more, +In the wolf or the vulture my grave shall I find? +Shall my ashes career on the world-seeing wind? +Shall they fling my corpse in the battle mound, +Where coffinless thousands lie under the ground? +Just as they fall they are buried so-- +Oh, no! oh, no! + +No! on an Irish green hill-side, +On an opening lawn--but not too wide; +For I love the drip of the wetted trees-- +I love not the gales, but a gentle breeze +To freshen the turf--put no tombstone there, +But green sods decked with daisies fair; +Nor sods too deep, but so that the dew, +The matted grass-roots may trickle through. +Be my epitaph writ on my country's mind, +"HE SERVED HIS COUNTRY, AND LOVED HIS KIND." + +Oh! 'twere merry unto the grave to go, +If one were sure to be buried so. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Thomas Davis, Selections from his +Prose and Poetry, by Thomas Davis + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THOMAS DAVIS, SELECTIONS *** + +***** This file should be named 21210.txt or 21210.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/1/2/1/21210/ + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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