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.]

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[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."

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[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:--