By LAURENCE GINNELL, B.L., M.P.
A DISTINCTION. Ireland having been a self-ruled country for a stretch
of some two thousand years, then violently brought under subjection
to foreign rule, regaining legislative independence for a brief
period toward the close of the eighteenth century, then by violence
and corruption deprived of that independence and again brought under
the same foreign rule, to which it is still subject, the expression
"Law in Ireland" comprises the native and the foreign, the laws
devised by the Irish Nation for its own governance and the laws
imposed upon it from without: two sets, codes, or systems proper to
two entirely distinct social structures having no relation and but
little resemblance to each other. Whatever may be thought of either
as law, the former is Irish in every sense, and vastly the more
interesting historically, archaeologically, philologically, and in
many other ways; the latter being English law in Ireland, and not
truly Irish in any sense.
ORIGIN AND CHARACTER OF IRISH LAW. _Seanchus agus Féineachus na
hEireann_ == _Hiberniae Antiquitates et Sanctiones Legales_--The
Ancient Laws and Decisions of the _Féini_, of Ireland. _Sen_ or
_sean_ (pronounced shan) == "old," differs from most Gaelic
adjectives in preceding the noun it qualifies. It also tends to
coalesce and become a prefix. _Seanchus_ (shanech-us) == "ancient
law." _Féineachus_ (fainech-us) == the law of the _Féini_, who were
the Milesian farmers, free members of the clans, the most important
class in the ancient Irish community. Their laws were composed in
their contemporary language, the _Bearla Féini_, a distinct form of
Gaelic. Several nations of the Aryan race are known to have cast into
metre or rhythmical prose their laws and such other knowledge as they
desired to communicate, preserve, and transmit, before writing came
into use. The Irish went further and, for greater facility in
committing to memory and retaining there, put their laws into a kind
of rhymed verse, of which they may have been the inventors. By this
device, aided by the isolated geographical position of Ireland, the
sanctity of age, and the apprehension that any change of word or
phrase might change the law itself, these archaic laws, when
subsequently committed to writing, were largely preserved from the
progressive changes to which all spoken languages are subject, with
the result that we have today, embedded in the Gaelic text and
commentaries of the _Senchus Mór_, the _Book of Aicill_, and other
law works, available in English translations made under a Royal
Commission appointed by Government in 1852, and published, at
intervals extending over forty years, in six volumes of "Ancient Laws
and Institutions of Ireland," a mass of archaic words, phrases, law,
literature, and information on the habits and manners of the people,
not equalled in antiquity, quantity, or authenticity in any other
Celtic source. In English they are commonly called Brehon Laws, from
the genitive case singular of _Brethem_ = "judge", genitive
_Brethemain_ (pronounced brehun), as Erin is an oblique case of Eire,
and as Latin words are sometimes adopted in the genitive in modern
languages which themselves have no case distinctions. It is not to be
inferred from this name that the laws are judge-made. They are rather
case law, in parts possibly enacted by some of the various assemblies
at which the laws were promulgated or rehearsed, but for the most
part simple declarations of law originating in custom and moral
justice, and records of judgments based upon "the precedents and
commentaries", in the sort of cases common to agricultural
communities of the time, many of the provisions being as inapplicable
to modern life as modern laws would be to ancient life. A reader is
impressed by the extraordinary number and variety of cases with their
still more numerous details and circumstances accumulated in the
course of long ages, the manner in which the laws are inextricably
interwoven with the interlocking clan system, and the absence of
scientific arrangement or guiding principle except those of moral
justice, clemency, and the good of the community. This defect in
arrangement is natural in writings intended, as these were, for the
use of judges and professors, experts in the subjects with which they
deal, but makes the task of presenting a concise statement of them
difficult and uncertain.
SOCIETY LAW. The law and the social system were inseparable parts of
a complicated whole, mutually cause and consequence of each other.
_Tuath, clann, cinel, cine_, and _fine_ (pronounced thooah, clong,
kinnel, kineh, and fin-yeh) were terms used to denote a tribe or set
of relatives, in reality or by adoption, claiming descent from a
common ancestor, forming a community occupying and owning a given
territory. _Tuath_ in course of time came to be applied indifferently
to the people and to their territory. _Fine_, sometimes designating a
whole tribe, more frequently meant a part of it, occupying a distinct
portion of the territory, a potential microcosm or nucleus of a clan,
having limited autonomy in the conduct of its own immediate affairs.
The constitution of this organism, whether as contemplated by the law
or in the less perfect actual practice, is alike elusive, and
underwent changes. For the purpose of illustration, the _fine_ may be
said to consist, theoretically, of the "seventeen men" frequently
mentioned throughout the laws, namely, the _flaithfine_ = chief of
the _fine_; the _geilfine_ = his four fullgrown sons or other nearest
male relatives; the _deirbhfine, tarfine_, and _innfine_, each
consisting of four heads of families in wider concentric circles of
kinship, say first, second, and third cousins of the _flaithfine_.
The _fine_ was liable, in measure determined by those circles, for
contracts, fines, and damages incurred by any of its members so far
as his own property was insufficient, and was in the same degree
entitled to share advantages of a like kind accruing. Intermarriage
within this _fine_ was prohibited. The modern term "sept" is applied
sometimes to this group and sometimes to a wider group united under a
_flaith_ (flah) = "chief", elected by the _flaithfines_ and provided,
for his public services, with free land proportionate to the area of
the district and the number of clansmen in it. _Clann_ might mean the
whole Irish nation, or an intermediate homogeneous group of _fines_
having for wider purposes a _flaith_ or _ri-tuatha_ = king of one
_tuath_, elected by the _flaiths_ and _flaithfines_, subject to
elaborate qualifications as to person, character, and training, which
limited their choice, and provided with a larger portion of free
land. This was the lowest chief to whom the title _ri, righ_ (both
pr. ree) = _rex_, or "king", was applied. A group of these kinglets
connected by blood or territory or policy, and their _flaiths_,
elected, from a still narrower circle of specially trained men within
their own rank, the _ri-mor-tuatha_--king of the territory so
composed, to whose office a still larger area of free land was
attached. In turn, kings of this class, with their respective
sub-kings and _flaiths_, elected from among the _riogh-dhamhna_
(ree-uch-dhowna) = _materia principum_ or "king-timber", a royal
_fine_ specially educated and trained, a _rì-cuighidh_ (ree
coo-ee-hee) supreme over five _ri-mor-tuathas_--roughly, a fourth of
Ireland. These, with their respective principal supporters, elected
the _ard-ri_--"supreme king", of Ireland, who for ages held his court
and national assemblies at Tara and enjoyed the kingdom of Meath for
his mensal land. Usually the election was not direct to the kingship,
but to the position of _tanaiste_--"second" (in authority),
heir-apparent to the kingship. This was also the rule in the learned
professions and "noble" arts, which were similarly endowed with free
land. The most competent among those specially trained, whether son
or outsider, should succeed to the position and land. All such land
was legally indivisible and inalienable and descended in its entirety
to the successor, who might, or might not, be a relative of the
occupant. The beneficiaries were, however, free to retain any land
that belonged to them as private individuals.
Membership of the clan was an essential qualification for every
position; but occasionally two clans amalgamated, or a small _fine_,
or desirable individual, was co-opted into the clan--in other words,
naturalized. The rules of kinship determined _eineachlann_
(ain-yach-long)--"honor value", the assessed value of status, with
its correlative rights, obligations, and liabilities in connection
with all matters civil and criminal; largely supplied the place of
contract; endowed members of the clan with birthrights; and bound
them into a compact social, political, and mutual insurance
copartnership, self-controlled and self-reliant. _Eineachlann_ rested
on the two-fold basis of kinship and property, expanding as a
clansman by acquisition of property and effluxion of time progressed
upward from one grade to another; diminishing if he sank; vanishing
if for crime he was expelled from the clan.
FOSTERAGE. To our minds, one of the most curious customs prevalent
among the ancient Irish was that of _iarrad_, called also _altar_ =
"fosterage"--curious in itself and in the fact that in all the
abundance of law and literature relating to it no logically valid
reason is given why wealthy parents normally put out their children,
from one year old to fifteen in the case of a daughter and to
seventeen in the case of a son, to be reared in another family, while
perhaps receiving and rearing children of other parents sent to them.
As modern life does not comprise either the custom or a reason for
it, we may assume that fosterage was a consequence of the clan
system, and that its practice strengthened the ties of kinship and
sympathy. This conjecture is corroborated by the numerous instances
in history and in story of fosterage affection proving, when tested,
stronger than the natural affection of relatives by birth. What is
more, long after the dissolution of the clans, fosterage has
continued stealthily in certain districts in which the old race of
chiefs and clansmen contrived to cling together to the old sod; and
the affection generated by it has been demonstrated, down to the
middle of the nineteenth century. The present writer has heard it
spoken of lovingly, in half-Irish, by simple old people, whom to
question would be cruel and irreverent.
LAND LAW. The entire territory was originally, and always continued
to be, the absolute property of the entire clan. Not even the private
residence of a clansman, with its _maighin digona_ = little lawn or
precinct of sanctuary, within which himself and his family and
property were inviolable, could be sold to an outsider. Private
ownership, though rather favored in the administration of the law,
was prevented from becoming general by the fundamental ownership of
the clan and the birthright of every free-born clansman to a
sufficiency of the land of his native territory for his subsistence.
The land officially held as described was not, until the population
became numerous, a serious encroachment upon this right. What
remained outside this and the residential patches of private land was
classified as cultivable and uncultivable. The former was the common
property of the clansmen, but was held and used in severalty for the
time being, subject to _gabhail-cine_ (gowal-kinneh)--clan-resumption
and redistribution by authority of an assembly of the clan or _fine_
at intervals of from one to three years, according to local customs
and circumstances, for the purpose of satisfying the rights of young
clansmen and dealing with any land left derelict by death or
forfeiture, compensation being paid for any unexhausted improvements.
The clansmen, being owners in this limited sense, and the only
owners, had no rent to pay. They paid tribute for public purposes,
such as the making of roads, to the _flaith_ as a public officer, as
they were bound to render, or had the privilege of
rendering--according to how they regarded it--military service when
required, not to the _flaith_ as a feudal lord, which he was not, but
to the clan, of which the _flaith_ was head and representative.
The uncultivable, unreclaimed forest, mountain, and bog-land was
common property in the wider sense that there was no several
appropriation of it even temporarily by individuals. It was used
promiscuously by the clansmen for grazing stock, procuring fuel,
pursuing game, or any other advantage yielded by it in its natural
state.
Kings and _flaiths_ were great stock-owners, and were allowed to let
for short terms portions of their official lands. What they more
usually let to clansmen was cattle to graze either on private land or
on a specified part of the official land, not measured, but
calculated according to the number of beasts it was able to support.
A _flaith_ whose stock for letting ran short hired some from a king
and sublet them to his own people. A _féine, aithech_, or _ceile_
(kailyeh), as a farmer was generally called, might hire stock in one
of two distinct ways: _saer_-"free", which was regulated by the law,
left his status unimpaired, could not be terminated arbitrarily or
unjustly, under which he paid one-third of the value of the stock
yearly for seven years, at the end of which time what remained of the
stock became his property, and in any dispute relating to which he
was competent to sue or defend even though the _flaith_ gave
evidence; or _daer_--"bond", which was matter of bargain and not of
law, was subject to onerous conditions and contingencies, including
maintenance of kings, _flaiths_, or brehons, with their retinues, on
visitations, of disbanded soldiers, etc., under which the stock
always remained the property of the _flaith_, regarding which the
_ceile_ could not give evidence against that of the _flaith_, which
degraded the _ceile_ and his _fine_ and impaired their status; a
bargain therefore which could not be entered into without the
sanction of the _fine_. This prohibition was rendered operative by
the legal provision that in case of default the _flaith_ could not
recover from the _fine_ unless their consent had been obtained. The
letting of stock, especially of _daer_-stock, increased the
_flaith's_ power as a lender over borrowers, subject, however, to the
check that his rank and _eineachlann_ depended on the number of
independent clansmen in his district.
Though workers in precious metals, as their ornaments show, the
ancient Irish did not coin or use money. Sales were by barter. All
payments, tribute, rent, fulfilment of contract, fine, damages,
wages, or however else arising, were made in kind--horses, cows,
store cattle, sheep, pigs, corn, meal, malt, bacon, salt beef, geese,
butter, honey, wool, flax, yarn, cloth, dye-plants, leather,
manufactured articles of use or ornament, gold, and silver--whatever
one party could spare and the other find a use for.
Tributes and rent, being alike paid in kind and to the same person,
were easily confused. This tempted the _flaith_, as the system
relaxed, to extend his official power in the direction of ownership;
but never to the extent of enabling him to evict a clansman. For a
crime a clansman might be expelled from clan and territory; but,
apart from crime, the idea of eviction from one's homestead was
inconceivable. Not even when a _daer-ceile_, or "unfree peasant",
failed to make the stipulated payments could the _flaith_ do more
than sue as for any other debt; and, if successful, he was bound, in
seizing, to leave the family food-material and implements necessary
for living and recovering.
LAW OF DISTRAINING. _Athgabail_ ([)a]h-gowil) = "distress", was the
universal legal mode of obtaining anything due, or justice or redress
in any matter, whether civil or criminal, contract or tort. Every
command or prohibition of the law, if not obeyed, was enforced by
_athgabail_. The brehons reduced all liabilities of whatsoever origin
to material value to be recovered by this means. Hence its great
importance, the vast amount of space devoted to it in the laws, and
the fact that the law of distress deals incidentally with every other
branch of law and reveals best the customs, habits, and character of
the people. A claimant in a civil case might either summon his debtor
before a brehon, get a judgment, and seize the amount adjudged, or,
by distraining first at his own risk, force the defendant either to
pay or stop the seizure by submitting the matter in dispute to trial
before a brehon, whom he then could choose. There was no officer
corresponding to a sheriff to distrain and realize the amount
adjudged; the person entitled had to do it himself, accompanied by a
law-agent and witnesses, after, in "distress with time", elaborate
notices at intervals of time sufficient to allow the defendant to
consider his position and find means of satisfying the claim if he
could. In a proper case his hands were strengthened by very explicit
provisions of the law. "If a man who is sued evades justice, knowing
the debt to be due of him, double the debt is payable by him." In
urgent cases "immediate distress" was allowed. In either case the
property seized--usually cattle--was not taken to the plaintiff's
home, but put into a pound, and by similar easy stages became his
property to the amount of the debt. The costs were paid out of what
remained, and any ultimate remainder was returned. On a _fuidir_
(foodyir) = serf or other unfree person resident in the territory
incurring liability to a clansman, the latter might proceed against
the _flaith_ on whose land the defendant lived, or might seize
immediately any property the defendant owned, and if he owned none,
might seize him and make him work off the debt in slavery.
Seizure of property of a person of higher rank than the plaintiff had
to be preceded by _troscead_ (truscah) = fasting upon him. This
consisted in waiting at the door of the defendant's residence without
food until the debt was paid or a pledge given. The laws contained no
process more strongly enforced than this. A defendant who allowed a
plaintiff properly fasting to die of hunger was held by law and by
public opinion guilty of murder, and completely lost his
_eineachlann_. Both text and commentary declare that whoever refuses
to cede a just demand when fasted upon shall pay double that amount.
If the faster, having accepted a pledge, did not in due course
receive satisfaction of his claim, he forthwith distrained, taking
and keeping double the amount of the debt. The law did not allow
those whom it at first respected to trifle with justice.
_Troscead_ is believed to have been of druidical origin, and it
retained throughout, even in Christian times, a sort of supernatural
significance. Whoever disregarded it became an outcast and incurred
risks and dangers too grave to be lightly faced. Besides being a
legal process, it was resorted to as a species of elaborate prayer,
or curse,--a kind of magic for achieving some difficult purpose. This
mysterious character enhanced its value in a legal system deficient
in executive power.
NON-CITIZENS. From what precedes it will be understood that there
were in ancient Ireland from prehistoric times people not comprised
in the clan organization, and therefore not enjoying its rights and
advantages or entitled to any of its land, some of whom were
otherwise free within certain areas, while some were serfs and some
slaves. Those outsiders are conjectured to have originated in the
earlier colonists subdued by the Milesians and reduced to an inferior
condition. But the distinction did not wholly follow racial lines.
Persons of pre-Milesian race are known to have risen to eminence,
while Milesians are known to have sunk, from crime or other causes,
to the lowest rank of the unfree. Here and there a _daer-tuath_ =
"bond community", of an earlier race held together down to the Middle
Ages in districts in which conquest had left them and to which they
were restricted. Beyond that restriction, exclusion from the clan and
its power, some peculiarities of dialect, dress, and manners, and a
tradition of inferiority such as still exists in certain parishes,
they were not molested, provided they paid tribute, which may have
been heavy.
There were also _bothachs_ = cottiers, and _sen-cleithes_ = old
adherents of a _flaith_, accustomed to serve him and obtain benefits
from him. If they had resided in the territory for three generations,
and been industrious, thrifty, and orderly, on a few of them joining
their property together to the number of one hundred head of cattle,
they could emancipate themselves by appointing a _flaithfine_ and
getting admitted to the clan. Till this was done, they could neither
sue nor defend nor inherit, and the _flaith_ was answerable for their
conduct.
There being no prisons or convict settlements, any person of whatever
race convicted of grave crime, or of cowardice on the field of
battle, and unable to pay the fines imposed, captives taken in
foreign wars, fugitives from other clans, and tramps, fell into the
lowest ranks of the _fuidre_--"serfs." It was as a captive that Saint
Patrick was brought in his youth to Ireland. The law allowed, rather
than entitled, a _flaith_ to keep unfree people for servile
occupations and the performance of unskilled labor for the public
benefit. In reality they worked for his personal profit, oftentimes
at the expense of the clan. They lived on his land, and he was
responsible for their conduct. By analogy, the distinctions _saer_
and _daer_ were recognized among them, according to origin,
character, and means. Where these elements continued to be favorable
for three generations, progress upward was made; and ultimately a
number of them could club together, appoint a _flaithfine_, and apply
to be admitted to the clan.
A _mog_ was a slave in the strict sense, usually purchased as such
from abroad, and legally and socially lower than the lowest _fuidir_.
Giraldus Cambrensis, writing towards the close of the twelfth
century, tells us that English parents then frequently sold their
surplus children and other persons to the Irish as slaves. The Church
repeatedly intervened for the release of captives and mitigation of
their condition. The whole institution of slavery was strongly
condemned as un-Christian by the Synod held in Armagh in 1171.
CRIMINAL LAW. Though there are numerous laws relating to crime, to be
found chiefly in the _Book of Aicill_, criminal law in the sense of a
code of punishment there was none. The law took cognizance of crime
and wrong of every description against person, character, and
property; and its function was to prevent and restrict crime, and
when committed to determine, according to the facts of the case and
the respective ranks of the parties, the value of the compensation or
reparation that should be made. It treated crime as a mode of
incurring liability; entitled the sufferer, or, if he was murdered,
his _fine_, to bring the matter before a brehon, who, on hearing the
case, made the complicated calculations and adjustments rendered
necessary by the facts proved and by the grades to which the
respective parties belonged, arrived at and gave judgment for the
amount of the compensation, armed with which judgment, the plaintiff
could immediately distrain for that amount the property of the
criminal, and, in his default, that of his _fine_. The _fine_ could
escape part of its liability by arresting and giving up the convict,
or by expelling him and giving substantial security against his
future misdeeds.
From the number of elements that entered into the calculation of a
fine, it necessarily resulted that like fines by no means followed
like crimes. Fines, like all other payments, were adjudged and paid
in kind, being, in some cases of the destruction of property,
generic--a quantity of that kind of property. Large fines were
usually adjudged to be paid in three species, one-third in each, the
plaintiff taking care to inform correctly the brehon of the kinds of
property the defendant possessed, because he could seize only that
named, and if the defendant did not possess it, the judgment was "a
blind nut." Crime against the State or community, such as wilful
disturbance of an assembly, was punished severely. These were the
only cases to which the law attached a sentence of death or other
corporal punishment. For nothing whatsoever between parties did the
law recognize any duty of revenge, retaliation, or the infliction of
personal punishment, but only the payment of compensation. Personal
punishment was regarded as the commission of a second crime on
account of a first. There was no duty to do this; but the right to do
it was tacitly recognized if a criminal resisted or evaded payment of
an adjudged compensation. Criminal were distinguished from civil
cases only by the moral element, the sufferer's right in all cases to
choose a brehon, the loss of _eineachlann_, partial or whole
according to the magnitude of the crime, the elements used in
calculating the amount of fine, and the technical terms employed.
_Dire_ (djeereh) was a general name for a fine, and there were
specific names for classes of fines. _Eric_ = reparation, redemption,
was the fine for killing a human being, the amount being affected by
the distinction between murder and manslaughter and by other
circumstances; but in no case was a violent death, however innocent,
allowed to pass without reparation being made. A fine was awarded out
of the property of the convict or of his _fine_ to the _fine_ of the
person slain, in the proportions in which they were entitled to
inherit his property, that being also according to their degrees of
kinship and the degrees in which they were really sufferers. This
gave every clan and every clansman, in addition to their moral
interest, a direct monetary interest in the prevention and
suppression of crime. Hence the whole public feeling of the country
was entirely in support of the law, the honor and interest of
community and individual being involved in its maintenance. The
injured person or _fine_, if unable to recover the fine, might, in
capital cases, seize and enslave, or even kill, the convict. Probably
restrained by the fact that, there being no officers of criminal law,
they had to inflict punishment themselves, they sometimes imprisoned
a convict in a small island, or sent him adrift on the sea in a
_currach_ or boat of hide. Law supported by public opinion, powerful
because so inspired, powerful because unanimous, was difficult to
evade or resist. It so strongly armed an injured person, and so
utterly paralyzed a criminal, that escape from justice was hardly
possible. The only way in which it was possible was by flight,
leaving all one's property behind, and sinking into slavery in a
strange place; and this in effect was a severe punishment rather than
an escape.
FOREIGN LAW. The Danes and other Norsemen were the buccaneers of
northwestern Europe from the eighth to the eleventh century. They
conquered and settled permanently in Neustria, from them called
Normandy, and conquered and ruled for a considerable time England and
part of Scotland and the Isles. In Ireland they were little more than
marauders, having permanent colonies only round the coast; always
subject, nominally at least, to the _ard-ri_ or to the local chief;
paying him tribute when he was strong, raiding his territory when he
was weak, and fomenting recurrent disorder highly prejudicial to law,
religion, and civilization. They never made any pretence of extending
their laws to Ireland, and their attempt to conquer the country was
finally frustrated at Clontarf in 1014.
The Anglo-Norman invaders also seized the seaports. The earlier of
them who went inland partially adopted in the second generation the
Gaelic language, laws, and customs; as many non-Celtic Lowlanders of
Scotland about the same period adopted the Gaelic language, laws, and
customs of the Highlanders. Hence they did not make much impression
on the Gaelic system, beyond the disintegrating effect of their
imperfect adoption of it.
Into the eastern parts of Ireland, however, a fresh stream of English
adventurers continued to flow, as aggressive and covetous as their
means and prudence permitted; calling so much of the country as they
were able to wrench from the Irish "the English Pale", which
fluctuated in extent with their fortunes; and, when compelled to pay
tribute to Irish chiefs, calling it "black rent", to indicate how
they regarded it. Their greatest difficulty was to counteract the
tendency of the earlier colonists to become Hibernicized--a most
unwilling tribute to the superiority of the Irish race. They, and
still more those in England who supported them, knew nothing of the
Irish language, laws, and institutions but that they should all be
impartially hated, uprooted, and supplanted by English people and
everything English as soon as means enabled this to be done. This was
the amiable purpose of the pompously-named "Statute of Kilkenny",
passed by about a score of these colonists in 1367. Presuming to
speak in the name of Ireland, the statute prohibited the English
colonists from becoming Irish in the numerous ways they were
accustomed to do, and excluded all Irish priests from preferment in
the Church, partly because their superior virtue would by contrast
amount to a censure. The purpose was not completely successful even
within the Pale. Outside that precinct, the mass of the Irish were
wholly unconscious of the existence of the "Statute of Kilkenny." But
expressing, as the statute did correctly, the views of fresh
adventurers, it became, in arrogance and in the pretension to speak
for the whole of Ireland, a model for their future legislation and
policy.
Under King Henry VI. of England, Richard, Duke of York, being Lord
Deputy, the Parliament of the Pale, assembled in Dublin, repudiated
the authority of the English Parliament in Ireland, established a
mint, and assumed an attitude of almost complete independence. On the
other hand, in 1494, under Henry VII., the Parliament of the Pale,
assembled at Drogheda, passed Poyning's Act, extending all English
laws to Ireland and subjecting all laws passed in Ireland to revision
by the English Council. This, extended to the whole of Ireland as
English power extended, remained in force until 1782. Henry VIII. was
the first English sovereign to take practical measures for the
pacific and diplomatic conquest of the whole of Ireland and the
substitution of English for Irish institutions and methods. His
daughter, Queen Elizabeth, continued and completed the conquest; but
it was by drenching the country in blood, by more than decimating the
Irish people, and by reducing the remnant to something like the
condition of the ancient _fuidre_. Her policy prepared the ground for
her successor, James I., to exterminate the Irish from large tracts,
in which he planted Englishmen and Scotchmen, and to extend all
English laws to Ireland and abolish all other laws. James's English
attorney-general in Ireland, Sir John Davies, in his work, _A
Discoverie of the True Causes, etc._, says:
"For there is no nation of people under the sunne that doth love
equall and indifferent [= impartial] justice better than the Irish;
or will rest better satisfied with the execution thereof, although it
bee against themselves; so as they may have the protection and
benefit of the law, when uppon just cause they do desire it."
The ancient Irish loved their laws and took pride in obeying and
enforcing them. The different attitude of the modern Irish towards
foreign laws and administration is amply explained by the morally
indefensible character of those laws and that administration, to be
read in English statutes and ordinances and in the history of English
rule in Ireland--a subject too vast and harrowing, and in every sense
foreign to what has gone before, to be entered upon here. Though the
Parliament of 1782-1800 was little more than a Pale Parliament, in
which the mass of the Irish people had no representation whatever,
one of its Acts, to its credit be it said, was an attempt to mitigate
the Penal Laws and emancipate the oppressed Gaelic and Catholic
population of Ireland. With the partial exception of that brief
interval, law in Ireland has, during the last 360 years, meant
English laws specially enacted for the destruction of any Irish trade
or industry that entered into competition with a corresponding
English trade or industry. In later times those crude barbarities
have been gradually superseded by the more defensible laws now in
force in Ireland, all of which can be studied in statutes passed by
the Parliament, since the Union with Scotland, called British.