UNIVERSITY OF 
 
 ILLINOIS LIBRARY 
 
 AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN 
 
The person charging this material is re- 
 sponsible for its return to the library from 
 which it was withdrawn on or before the 
 Latest Date stamped below. 
 
 Theft, mutilation, and underlining of iMeks are reasons 
 for disciplinary action and may result in dismissal from 
 the University. 
 To renew call Telephone Center, 333-8400 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN 
 
 JAN ^ 4 Ii4 
 
 ..., ( 
 
 -r m 
 
 i^^Qzsm 
 
 I 
 
 L161— O-1096 
 
/>>u; 
 
 THE MAKING OF IRELAND 
 AND ITS UNDOING 
 
MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited 
 
 LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA 
 MELBOURNE 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO 
 DALLAS • SAN FRANCISCO 
 
 THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. 
 
 TORONTO 
 
THE 
 MAKING OF IRELAND 
 
 AND ITS UNDOING 
 
 1 200- 1 600 
 
 ALICE ^(^TOPFORD GREEN 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED 
 
 ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON 
 
 1913 
 
COPYRIGHT. 
 
 First Edition June 1908 
 
 Reprinted July and September 1908, January and February i9.->9 
 
 Second Edition October 1909 
 
 Reprinted 1913- 
 
 C.-.ASGOW : PKINTF.D AT THF UNIVERSITY PRKSS 
 I'V HPISKIIT MACLEHOSE AND CO. I.Tli. 
 

 
 motniAOiT) Anoif OAOine cifc^thLA, 7 Af« tiAicfte 00 ^ein pnn. 
 
 Oo oibftig AD Ci^eAptiA st6i|i iti6|t mAttte pid cp^ iia th4|\coii)Achc 
 6n ccoj*Acli. 
 
 An tlicf)c piAif\ UActiCAf\AnAc)ic lotiA ftfo^Achc, VAOine ni6pt)il,A£A 
 ji tiA cconiAcVicAibli A5 CAbAipc 6oniAij\te fkitiA ccuicpn, 7 Ag 
 poillfittgAoVi fAiseD6i)\eAchcA. 
 
 C;Aeopaigc6if\ An f>obAil te nA doifiAi|\te, 7 le beottif a b^^lomcA 
 lomcubAi'oh x>on pobAi, c)\ionnA 'oeAglAbApcAd Ann a cceAgAfCAibb. 
 
 An T>|\ong ftJAi]\ AniAch ftiinn reotb, 7 t>o Aicpi|-eAt> vAncA a 
 fcpibmn. 
 
 t)AOine fAi'6b|\e ai]\ mbeic ^L£up>A \A ctamAf, ai]\ mbeich fio<>- 
 dAncA ion A nAicib cotiin«iiT>e. 
 
 T>o bondfxtiigeAvtt lAOfo tiiLe lonA iisineAlAdtiibh, 7 t>o but) iat> 
 gtbip A nAimpjxe. 
 
 AcAiT) cnio x)ioh x>o fig Ainm lonA nt>iAi$, lonoof 50 nAicf\eofCAOi 
 A moLcA. 
 
 Aguf ACA1T) T>Aoine Ann A15 nAcb bf cuithne aij\ biocb op)tA, vivo Af 
 mAj\ nAC beiTjif }\\a,m Ann, CAinic AnnfA piocbc foin Aihoit. nAch 
 beA]\CAOi )\iAm iao, 7 a cclAnn lonA noiAtgb. 
 
 Acfic hat t>AOine cp6cAifteA6A lAVfo nAd a]\ t>eA]\fflAT>A<> [a] 
 bppeAncAcVic. 
 
 Aig A fLiocbc AnpiiT) A ccoinnu{t>e otgpeAcbc itiaicIi, 7 acaio ^ 
 cclAnn CAob ApMJ won ctinpAT>1i. 
 
 tTlAipit) A yio\j 50 feAjTnAcb 7 a cctAnn ai]* a fonfAn. 
 
 mAippit) A ffob 50 b]\Ach, 7 ni fcni|ifi5eAi\ AmAch a n^Lditt. 
 
 AcAiT) A cctiiftp AT)lAicce A Ho^dAin, Achc mAipiT>h A nAinm ^o 
 jmcbuin. 
 
 [From the unpublished MS. of the translaiioH done under Bishop Bedell in 
 Marsh's Library, Dublin.'] 
 
 [Let us now 
 
 
Let us now praise famous men, and our fathers that begat us. 
 
 The Lord hath wrought great glory by them through his great 
 power from the beginning. 
 
 Such as did bear rule in their kingdoms, men renowned for 
 their power, giving counsel by their understanding, and declaring 
 prophecies : 
 
 Leaders of the people by their counsels, and by their knowledge 
 of learning meet for the people, wise and eloquent in their 
 instructions : 
 
 Such as found out musical tunes, and recited verses in 
 writing : 
 
 Rich men furnished with ability, living peaceably in their 
 habitations : 
 
 All these were honoured in their generations, and were the 
 glory of their times. 
 
 There be of them, that have left a name behind them, that 
 their praises might be reported. 
 
 And some there be, which have no memorial ; who are 
 perished, as though they had never been ; and are become as 
 though they had never been born ; and their children after 
 them. 
 
 But these were merciful men, whose righteousness hath not 
 been forgotten. 
 
 With their seed shall continually remain a good inheritance, 
 and their children are within the covenant. 
 
 Their seed standeth fast, and their children for their sakes. 
 
 Their seed shall remain for ever, and their glory shall not 
 be blotted out. 
 
 Their bodies are buried in peace ; but their name liveth for 
 evermore. 
 
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION 
 
 Many reasons have prevented the writing of Irish 
 history. The invading people effaced the monuments 
 of a society they had determined to extirpate, and so 
 effectively extinguished the memory of that civilization 
 that it -will need a generation of students to recover and 
 interpret its records. The people of the soil have been in 
 their subjugation debarred from the very sources of learn- 
 ing, and from the opportunities of study, and association 
 which are necessary for the historical scholar. The 
 subject too has transcended the courage of the Irish 
 patriot. Histories of nations have been inspired in times 
 of hope and confidence, when the record of triumph 
 has kindled the writers and gladdened the readers. 
 The only story of a " decline and fall " was composed 
 when the dividing width of Europe, with the span of a 
 dozen centuries, and the proud consciousness of the 
 heir of the conquering race, encouraged the historian 
 to describe the catastrophe of a ruined State. 
 
 Thus the history of the Irish people has been left 
 unrecorded, as though it had never been ; as though 
 indeed, according to some, the history were one or 
 dishonour and rebuke. 
 
 It is the object of these studies to gather together 
 some records of the civilization of Ireland before the 
 
 r\ 
 
M PREFACE 
 
 immense destruction of the Tudor wars ; to trace her 
 progress in industry, in wealth, and in learning ; and to 
 discover the forces that ruined this national life. Three 
 reasons have led me to undertake this work. 
 
 It was the fashion among the Tudor statesmen, very 
 confident of their methods, to talk of "the godly 
 conquest," "the perfecting of Ireland." The writers 
 of triumphant nations are enabled to give the story of 
 their successes from their own point of view ; but from 
 this partial tale not even the victorious peoples can learn 
 what the warfare has implied, nor know how to count 
 the cost nor credit the gain. The present state of 
 Europe is the result of vast destructions and vast 
 obliterations. The aspect of its troubled civilization may 
 one day lead to a new and more searching study of the 
 conditions of such destructions, with their interminable 
 penalties both to the conqueror and the conquered. 
 In the history of Ireland we may learn to measure the 
 prodigious and endless waste of a "godly conquest" 
 and of the "perfecting" of one race by another. 
 
 There is no more pious duty to all of Ireland birth 
 than to help in recovering from centuries of obloquy 
 the memory of noble men, Irish and Anglo-Irish, who 
 built up the civilization that once adorned their country. 
 To them has been meted out the second death, — the 
 lot feared beyond all else by men of honour. They 
 have been buried by the false hands of strangers in 
 the deep pit of contempt, reproach, and forgetfulness — 
 an unmerited grave of silence and of shame. 
 
 The Irish of to-day have themselves suffered by the 
 calumny of their dead. They, alone among the nations, 
 
PREFACE xi 
 
 have been taunted with ancestors sunk in primitive 
 disorders, incapable of development in the land they 
 wasted. A picture of unrelieved barbarism " hateful to 
 God" served to justify to strangers the English extirpa- 
 tion of Irish society ; and has been used to depress the 
 hearts of the Irish themselves. For their birthright — 
 they have been told — they have inherited the failings 
 of their race, and by the verdict of the ages have been 
 proclaimed incapable of success in their own land, or 
 pf building up there an ordered society, trade, or culture, 
 and have indeed ever proved themseWes a people ready 
 " to go headlong to the Devil " if England " seek not 
 speedy remedy to prevent the same." Thus their energy 
 has been lowered, and some natural pride abated. It is 
 in the study of their history alone that Irishmen will 
 find this just pride restored, and their courage assured. 
 
 In this effort however Irishmen are confronted with 
 a singular difficulty. In no other country in the world 
 has it been supposed the historian's business to seek 
 out every element of political instability, every trace 
 of private disorder, every act of personal violence, every 
 foreign slander, and out of these alone, neglecting all 
 indications of industry or virtue, to depict a national 
 life. Irish annals are still in our own days quoted by 
 historians as telling merely the tale of a corrupted land — 
 feuds and battles, murderings and plunderings ; with no 
 town or church or monastery founded, no law enacted, 
 no controversy healed by any judgment of the courts. 
 If the same method had been followed for England, what 
 an appalling story we should have had of that mediaeval 
 
xii PREFACE 
 
 time, of its land-thefts, its women-lifting, its local wars, 
 the feuds handed on from father to son with their count- 
 less murders and atrocities, devastating for generations 
 whole country sides. In Germany or Italy or France 
 the picture of anarchy would appear like hell let loose 
 on earth. In all other histories however than that of 
 Ireland a certain convention has been observed. Men 
 by some high instinct of faith have agreed amid all 
 disorders to lay stress on every evidence of reason, 
 humanity, justice, and to leave out of the record the 
 tale of local barbarities, the violences of the rich, the 
 brutalities of the ignorant and the starving. No human 
 society could endure in fact if these made up in any 
 nation the sole history of the people. In our country 
 alone the common convention has been reversed, and 
 the comparison of its culture with that of other lands 
 has thus been falsified at the outset. " No man," cried 
 a learned Irishman as the torrent of accusation swelled 
 against his countrymen, " can be so inveterately attached 
 to vice as not to break its chains occasionally, and 
 perform some virtuous action."^ 
 
 Ireland indeed not only shared in the sufferings and 
 confusions of the whole mediaeval world, but had 
 moreover to contend with a ceaseless war of conquest. 
 But in Ireland not less than elsewhere, side by side 
 with mediaeval violence the forces of learning and piety 
 and humanity were maintaining the promise of better 
 things. This was the justification of its patriotic sons 
 in the passion of their sorrow at the destruction of 
 their national civilization.^ "So are we all impelled, 
 * Cambrensis Eversus iii. 247. ' lb. i. 109. 
 
PREFACE xiii 
 
 by an instinct of nature," wrote one in the hour of 
 her darkest ruin, " to centre all the affections of our 
 souls on the land that gave us birth. In solitude it 
 engrosses all our thoughts ; in society it is our favourite 
 topic ; and even when the clouds of woe have closed 
 over it it still commands our sympathies." 
 
 ALICE STOPFORD GREEN. 
 
 36 Grosvenor Road, 
 London, S.W., June, 1908. 
 
 PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION 
 
 The revised edition of this book needs a few words of 
 explanation. 
 
 Many of the statements I have made have been some- 
 what hotly controverted.^ I have therefore added in an 
 appendix additional proofs and illustrations in support of 
 my argument. For example, the idea of Irish tillage 
 and export of corn has been met with incredulity, 
 but, as the illustrations shew, this disbelief has entirely 
 disregarded the testimony of the State Papers. The fre- 
 quent intercourse with the Continent of traders, travellers, 
 and men of learning, which has been denied by modern 
 English writers on Irish history, seems fiilly established 
 by the records. A series of entries in home and foreign 
 authorities reveals an extensive and various European 
 
 ' I have discussed some objections in the Nineteenth Century, Mar. 
 1909. 
 
XIV PREFACE 
 
 commerce carried on continuously throughout the Middle 
 Ages till the Elizabethan wars. There is nothing 
 in these entries to support the current opinion which 
 has been urged, that the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries 
 marked a time of decay and relapse to semi-barbarism, 
 that industries slackened in districts, or in periods, when 
 Irish influence prevailed over English or Norman. The 
 advance on the other hand was uninterrupted, however 
 complete was the Irish predominance. I have been 
 charged with exaggerating with a false emphasis the part 
 played by the native Irish in town life, in commerce, 
 and in manufactures, which have been claimed as wholly 
 the work of the English : I would refer the reader to 
 the evidence on which I base my statements, which 
 seems to me to put the matter beyond doubt. I have 
 not only given illustrative lists of Irish names that occur 
 in municipal life ; but I have also shewn by further 
 references the extent to which the Irish were obliged 
 to take foreign names, a matter that has been much 
 questioned. These are a few of the debated points 
 on which additional references will be found in the 
 appendix. 
 
 Some few notes have also been added regarding the 
 progress of Ireland in the arts and sciences. I have 
 found on every hand indications of fresh evidence, and 
 the mine of materials is rich. But this evidence cannot 
 be fully set out without a complete study of Irish sources 
 by competent Irish scholars ; an examination by historical 
 students of the materials existing in Irish, English, and 
 foreign libraries and collections ; and an investigation by 
 trained archaeologists into the wealth of mediaeval ruins 
 
PREFACE XV 
 
 that should be the glory of Ireland, but are in fact too 
 often rapidly disappearing through indifference. 
 
 In the text of the book itself I have carefully corrected 
 various errors of detail which have been pointed out to 
 me, or which I have discovered. Some phrases have 
 also been altered in the hope of avoiding, if possible, 
 misapprehension. And some new notes and references 
 have been given. 
 
 I would point out however that these corrections refer 
 in every case to minor points and special instances, and 
 do not affect my general line of argument or my con- 
 clusions, which I have seen no reason to change. 
 
 The suggestion was made to me by an Irish scholar 
 that in the interests of goodwill I should omit some 
 reflections on modern English versions of Irish history ; 
 the suggestion was voluntarily withdrawn after a visit 
 to England where this gentleman happened to see the 
 effects produced in schools by teaching from such books. 
 
 Is it too much to hope that English historians should 
 reconsider the history of Ireland which is at present 
 circulated in schools and universities? Those who have 
 seen the results, both in schools and among general 
 readers, must deplore the present state of things. 
 
 ALICE STOPFORD GREEN. 
 Ott. 1909. 
 
I 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PART I 
 TRADE AND INDUSTRIES 
 
 CHAPTER p^^,j 
 
 I. Irish Commerce ~ - . . . j 
 
 II. Irish Industries ----- 44. 
 
 III. Country Life- ----- 72 
 
 IV. The War on Irish Trade - - - 123 
 V. The Towns and the Clans - - - 168 
 
 VI. The Ruin of the Towns - - . 203 
 
 PART II 
 
 EDUCATION AND LEARNING 
 
 VII. Irish Learning - - . . . 235 
 
 VIIL The Irish at Oxford - - - - 265 
 
 IX. The National Education - - - 303 
 
 X. Destruction of Irish Learning - - 360 
 
 XI, The New Learning - - . . 401 
 
 XII. Foreign Universities - - - _ 4^0 
 
 XIII. The Political Myth and its Consequences 4.59 
 
 Appendix - - . _ - 401: 
 
 . ^^^^^ 557 
 
N 
 
LIST OF BOOKS CONSULTED, AND SOME 
 ABBREVIATIONS USED. 
 
 Acton, Lord. Lectures on Modern History. London, 1907. 
 
 Alithinologus (Eudoxius) pseudonym {i.e. Lynch, John, D.D., of Killala). 
 
 Alithinologiasiveveridicaresponsioad ... etc., 1664. Published apparently 
 
 at St. Oiner. Brit. Mus. Catalogue, Press Mark G. 5768 (i). 
 Anderson, Adam. History of Commerce. London, 1801. 
 Annals of Boyle, ed. D'Alton. 2 vols. Dublin, 1845. 
 Annals of Dublin, in Dublin Penny Journal. Dublin, 1832-36. 
 Annals of the Four Masters. Ed. J. O'Donovan, Dublin, 1856 ... 4 M. 
 Annals of Ireland. J. Clyn and T. Dowling. I.A.S., Dublin, 1849. 
 Annals of Loch C^. London, ed. Hennessy, 1871 ... An. Loch 06. 
 Annals of Tighcrnach, ed. Stokes. Revue Celtique vols, xvi.-xviii. 1895-7. 
 Annals of Ulster. Ed. W. M. Hennessy and B. MacCarthy. Dublin, 1887- 
 
 1901 ... An. Uls. 
 Anccdota Oxoniensia. Texts, Documents, and extracts chiefly from manuscripts 
 
 in the Bodleian and other Oxford Libraries. Oxford : Clarendon Press. 
 Saltair na Rann, ed. W. Stokes, 1883. 
 Cath Finntriga, ed. K. Meyer, 1885. 
 
 Lives of the Saints from the Book of Lismore, ed. W. Stokes, 1890. 
 Hibernica Minora, ed. K. Meyer, 1894. 
 Cain Adamnain, ed. K. Meyer, 1905. 
 Archaeologia or Miscellaneous Tracts relating to Antiquity. Pub. by the 
 
 Society of Antiquaries of London. 
 Arch. Selden, A. i.-iv.. Collection MSS. in Bodleian. 
 Archdall, M. Monasticon Hibernicum. Dublin, 1786. 
 Atkinson, Sarah. Essays. Dublin, 1895. 
 Bacon's Works. London, 1841. 
 Bagwell, R. Ireland under the Tudors, 1885-90. 
 Beazley, C. R. Dawn of Modern Geography. London, 1897. 
 Bellesheim. Geschichte der Katholischen Kirche in Irland. Mainz, 1890. 
 
 ... Bellesheim. 
 Berens, Lewis H. The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth. 
 
 London, 1906. 
 Berry, H. F. Old Irish Statutes. Dublin, 1907 ... Berry, Stat. 
 Blake Family Records, by Martin Blake. London , 1902 : also the original 
 
 documents in the possession of Mr. Blake. 
 Boase, C. W. Register of Exeter College. Oxford, 1894 ... Boase, Exon. 
 Borde's Introduction of Knowledge. Early English Text Society. Extra 
 
 Ser., 10, 1870. 
 
XX LIST OF BOOKS CONSULTED 
 
 Boyle, Rev. P. The Irish College in Pails, from 1578-1901. London, Dublin, 
 
 and New York, 1901. 
 Brady, W. M. State Papers concerning Irish Church in time of Elizabeth, 
 
 London, 1867 ... Brady, St. Pap. 
 Brenan, M. J. Ecclesiastical History of Ireland. Dublin, 1864. 
 British Museum, Additional MSB. Some of these have been consulted. 
 Brodrick, G. C. Merton College. 0.\ford, 1S85. 
 Bulletins de la Commission Royale d'Histoire. Briissel. 1859. 
 Calendar of State Papers ... C.S. P. 
 
 Calendar of Documents, Ireland, ed. Sweetnian ... Cal. Doc. Sweetman. 
 Calendar of Justiciary Rolls ... Cal. Justic. Rolls. 
 Calendar of Patent Rolls ... Cal. Pat. Rolls. 
 
 Calendar of Ancient Records of Dublin, Gilbert ... Cal. Rec. Dub. 
 Canibrensis Eversus, ed. Kelly. Dublin, 1848 ... Camb. Ev. 
 Cambridge Modern History. In progress, Loudon. 
 Camden, W. Britannia. London, 1594. 
 Campion, History of Ireland. Dublin, 1653 ... Camp. 
 Capmany y Montpalau, A. Memorias Historicas de Barcelona, 1779-93. 
 Carew. Calendar of State Papers ... Car. 
 Cartulary of St. Frideswide's. Oxford, 1896. 
 Cartwright, Julia. Life of Isabella d'Este, 1903. 
 Cellachan of Cashel, ed. Bugge. Christiania, 1905. 
 Charlemont. Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy, 1787. 
 Churchill, Lord R. , Life of. London, 1506. 
 
 Collins, A. Letters and Memoirs of the Sidneys, 1746 ... Sid. Let., Sid. Mem. 
 Concise View of the New Plantation in Ulster. B. ed. of 1842 by Vandercom, 
 
 Saunders and Bond. 
 Cork Archaeological Society Journal. 
 Cork Historical Journal. 
 
 Cormac's Glossary, tr. O'Donovan, ed. W. Stokes, 1862. Irish Arch. Soc. 
 Davies. Historical Tracts. Dublin, 1787 ... Davies. 
 Dictionary of Nation.il Biography ... Die. Nat. Bio. 
 Ditta Mundi. Fazio degli Uberti. Liriche editeed inedite Firenze, 1883. 
 Dix. Earliest Dublin Printing. 
 Dix and Dugan. Catalogue of Early Dublin Printed Books, 1601-1700. 
 
 Dublin, 1 898- 1902. 
 Emmet, T. A. Ireland under English Rule. New York, 1903. 
 English Historical Review. 
 English Statutes. 
 
 firiu. Journal of the School of Irish Learning. Dublin. 
 Espinas and Pirenne. Recueil de Documents relatifs a I'Histoire de I'lndustrie 
 
 drapiere en Flandre. Bruxelles, 1906 ... Espinas and Pirenne. Rec. 
 
 Doc. Flandre. 
 Expugnatio Hibernica, ed. W. Stokes. English Historical Review, January, 
 
 1905. 
 Facsimiles of National Manuscripts, Gilbert .. Fac. Nat. MSS. 
 Fiants of Henry viil., Edward VI., and Elizabeth. (Reports of Deputy 
 
 Keeper of Public Records. ) 
 Fitzgerald, P. History of Limerick. Dublin, 1826-7. 
 Flood, W. H. G. History of Music. Dublin, 1905. 
 
LIST OF BOOKS CONSULTED xxi 
 
 Flood, W. H. G. The Harp. London, 1905. 
 
 Fowler, T. Corpus Christi College. Oxford, 1898. 
 
 Frati. Vita Privata di Bologna. Bologna, 1900. 
 
 Froissart. Chronicle. London, 1857. 
 
 Froude, J. A. The English in Ireland. London, 1881. 
 
 Fynes Moryson. History of Ireland, 1599-1603. Dublin, 1735. 
 
 ,, ,, Itinerary. Dublin, 1617. 
 
 Galway Archaeological Society. 
 Gibson, C. B. History of Cork. London, 1861. 
 Gilbert, J. T. Viceroys of Ireland. Dublin, 1865 ... Gil. Viceroys. 
 Gilbert, J. T. Historic and Municipal Documents of Ireland, 1x72-1320. From 
 
 the Archives of the City of Dublin. London, 1870. 
 Giraldus Cambrensis. Itinerarium Cambriae. London, 1861 ... Gir. Cambr. 
 Green, J. R. Illustrated Short History. London, 1874. 
 Green, A. S. Town Life in the Fifteenth Century. London, 1894. 
 Grose, F. Antiquities. 2 vols. London, 1791-1795. 
 Hakluyt. Voyages. 
 
 Hanmer. Chronicle of Ireland. Dublin, 1633. 
 Hanseatisches Urkundenbuch. Halle. 1876-99 ... Hans. U.B. 
 Hapke, Rudolf. Briigges Entwicklung. 
 
 Hardiman. History of Galway. Dublin, 1820 ... Hard. Gal. 
 Harrington. Nugae Antiquae, 1804. 
 Harris. Hibernica. Dublin, 1770. 
 Harris, Miss Dormer. Coventry Leet Book, 1907. 
 Haverty. History of Ireland. Dublm, 1865 ... Hav. 
 Heterogenea. Downpatrick, 1803. 
 Hill, G. MacDonnells of Antrim. Belfast, 1873. 
 Historical Manuscripts Commission ... H.M.C. 
 Hogan. Ibernia Ignatiana, 1540-1607. Dublin, 1880. 
 Holinshed. Chronicle, 1807-8 ... Hoi. 
 Hore. Town and County of Wexford, 1900. 
 
 ,, Old and New Ross, igoo. 
 Hume. The Great Lord Burghley, 1898. 
 Hyde. Literary History of Ireland, 1899. 
 
 ,, Songs of Connacht, 1906. 
 Hy-Fiachrach, Tribes cf, ed. O'Donovan, 1844 ... Hy-Fiachrach. 
 Hy-Many, Tribes and Customs of, ed. O'Donovan, 1843. 
 Irish Archaeological Society ... Irish Arch. Soc. 
 Irish Statutes. 
 
 Irische Texte, ed. Stokes and Windisch. Leipzig, 1894-1900 ... Ir. Texte. 
 Italian Relation of England. Camden Society, 1847. 
 Joyce, P. W. Social History of Ancient Ireland. London, 1903. 
 Keating. History of Ireland ... Tr. D. O'Connor. D. 1841. 
 Ker, W. P. Dark Ages. London, 1904. 
 
 ,, ,, Mediaeval Literature. London, 1905 ... Ker, Med. Lit. 
 Kiesselbach, A. Die wirthschaftlichen Grundlagen der deutschen Hanse. 
 
 Berlin, 1907. 
 King, R. Church History of Ireland. Dublin, 1845. 
 
 Knox, H. T. Notes on the Early History of the Dioceses of Tuam, Killala, 
 and Achonry. D. 1904. 
 
xxii LIST OF BOOKS CONSULTED 
 
 Kunze, K. Hansenkten aus England. Halle a. S. , 1891. 
 
 Labbe. Novae Hibliothecae MSS. Paris, 1657. 
 
 Lanigan, J. Irish Ecclesiastical History. Dublin, 1829. 
 
 Lawson. The Agriculturist's Manual. Edinburgh, 1836. 
 
 Lenihan, M. History of Limerick. Dublin, 1866. 
 
 Letter of Captain Cuellar, tr. Sedgwick. London, 1896. 
 
 Libel of English Policy, Political Songs, Rolls Series ... Lib. Eng. Policy. 
 
 Liber Hymnoruni. Bernard, J. H., and Atkinson. 1898. 
 
 Liber Munerum Publicorura Hiberniae, 1830. 
 
 Life of Lord Herbert of Cherbury, 1872. 
 
 Little. Grey Friars in Oxford. Oxford, 1892. 
 
 Little Red Book of Bristol, published by the Council of Bristol, 1900. 
 
 Lives of the Earls of Kildare, 1858. 
 
 Lives of Saints : book of Lismore, ed. W. Stokes, 1890 ... Lismore Lives. 
 
 Lodge. Desiderata Curiosa Hibernica. Dublin, 1772 ... Des. Cur. Hib. 
 
 Lombard. Spicilegium Ossoriense, ed. Moran. Dublin, 1874-84 ... Lombard, 
 
 ed. Moran. 
 MacCarthy. Life and Letters. London, 1867. 
 MacFirbis. Annals of Ireland. Three Fragments, ed. O'Donovan. I.A.S. 
 
 Dublin, i860. 
 MacGeoghegan, Abb^. History of Ireland. Amsterdam, 1758-63. 
 Macleane, D. Pembroke College. Oxford, 1897. 
 Macnamara, N. C. Story of an Irish Sept in Clare. London, 1896 ... Ir. 
 
 Sept. 
 Macpherson. Annals of Commerce. London, 1805 ... Macph. 
 Madden, Mr. Justice. Classical Learning in Ireland. Dublin, 1908, 
 Madox, T. History of the Exchequer. London, 1769. 
 Mahaffy, J. P. Epoch of Irish History. London, 1904. 
 Metrical History of the Deposition of Richard il. Rolls Series. 
 Meyer, Kuno. Triads of Ireland. Dublin, 1906. 
 
 ,, ,, Translations by, see p. 340. 
 
 Miscellany, Celtic Society. Dublin, 1849. 
 
 Miscellany, Irish Archaeological Society, 1846 ... Misc. Irish Arch. Soc. 
 Moore, Norman. Medicine in Ireland, Report S. Bartholomew's Hospital. 
 
 Vol. xi. London, 1875. 
 Moore, Norman. History of the Study of Medicine in the British Isles. Oxford, 
 
 1908. 
 Moran. History of the Catholic Archbishops of Dublin. Dublin, 1864 ... 
 
 Moran's Archbishops. 
 Napier, H. E. Florentine History. London, 1846. 
 Nucius, Nicander. Camden Society, 1841. 
 O'Connell, D. Memoir of Ireland, Native and Saxon, 1172-1660. Dublin, 
 
 1843. 
 O'Conor, W. A. History of the Irish People. London, 1886. 
 O'Curry. MS. Materials of Ancient Irish History. Dublin, 1861. 
 
 ,, Manners and Customs. Dublin, 1873. 
 
 O'Flaherty. Jar Connacht, Description of West Connacht. I.A.S. , Dublin, 
 
 1846. Ed. Hardiman. 
 O'Grady, S. Catalogue of Manuscripts in British Museum. London, 1894. 
 O'Laverty. History of Down and Connor. 5 vols. Dublin, 1878-95. 
 O'Reilly. Irish Writers. Dublin, 1820 ... O'Reilly's Cat. 
 
LIST OF BOOKS CONSULTED xxiii 
 
 O'Rourke. History of Sligo. Dublin, N.D. 
 
 O'SuUivan Bear, Ireland under Elizabeth. Dublin, 1850. 
 
 Oxford, Register of the University of. Oxford, 1885 ... Oxf. Reg. 
 
 papers Foreign and Domestic, Henry viii. ... Pap. F. and D. 
 
 Perrot, Sir John, History of, ed. London, 1728 ... Perrot's Life. 
 
 Piers. Chorographical Description of the County of Westmeath, written 1682. 
 
 Pub. by Vallancey in " Collectanea de Rebus Hibernicis," No. r. Dublin, 
 
 1770. 
 Pipe Rolls of Ireland. 
 
 Pirenne. Dinant dans la Hanse Teutonique. Nainur, 1904. 
 Plato. Hippias Minor. 
 Rashdall. Universities of Europe, 1895. 
 Revue Celtique. 
 
 Ricart. Mayor of Bristol's Calendar. Camden Society, 1872. 
 Richey, A. G. Lectures on Irish History. Dublin, 1869. 
 Rolls of Parliament ... Rot. Pari. 
 Royal Irish Academy ... R.I. A. 
 Rymer, Foedera. London, 1704 ... Rym. 
 Schulte, A. Geschichte des mittel-alterlichen Handels und Verkchrs zwischen 
 
 Westdeutschland und Italien niit Ausschluss von Venedig. Badische 
 
 Historische Commission, 1900. 
 
 Severen, Ciilliodts van. Cartulaire de I'ancienne Eataple de Bruges ... Cart. 
 
 Bruges. 
 Shirley, E. P. Original Letters Illustrating History of Church in Ireland under 
 
 Edward VI., Mary, and Elizabeth, 1851. 
 Simon. Irish Coins. D. 1810. 
 
 Smith, C. County and City of Cork, 1750. Dublin, 1774. 
 Society of Antiquaries, founded as the Kilkenny Archaeological Society till 
 
 i858, continued as the Journal of the Historical and Archaeological 
 
 Association till 1890, and finally the Journal of the Royal Society of 
 
 Antiquaries ... Soc. of Ant. 
 Spenser. View of Ireland. Dublin, 1633. 
 
 ,, Fairy Queen. 
 
 Stanyhurst. De Rebus in Hibernia Gestls. Antwerp, 1584. 
 
 State Papers, reign of Henry viii. Record Commission ... St. Pap, 
 
 Strafford's Letters and Despatches. Dublin, 1740. 
 
 Theiner, A. Vetera Monumenta Hibernorum et Scotorum, 1216-1547. Rome^ 
 1864. 
 
 Thomas, The Pilgrim, ed. Froude. London, 1861. 
 
 Todd, J. H. War of the Gaedhil with the Gaill. Rolls Series, 1867. 
 
 Topographical Poems, ed. by O'Donovan, i860. 
 
 Tour of M. de la Boullaye le Gouz, ed. Croften Croker, 1837. 
 
 Townsend, H. Survey of Cork. Cork, 1815. 
 
 Tuckey. Cork Remembrancer. Cork, 1837 ... Tuckey'S Cork. 
 
 Ulster Archaeological Journal ... Uls. Arch. Journ. 
 
 Varenbergh, E. Relations diplomatiques entre Flandres et I'Angleterre. 
 
 Bruxelles, 1874. 
 Victoria County History. In progress. 
 Ware. Antiquities. Dublin, 1764. 
 
 ,, Writers of Ireland. Dublin, 1764. 
 
 „ History of the Bishops of Ireland. Dublin, 1764. 
 
xxiv LIST OF BOOKS CONSULTED 
 
 Wilde, W. Catalogue of the Royal Irish Academy Museum. Dublin, 1857. 
 Wood, A. Oxford. Oxford, 1889. 
 
 ,, Life and Times. Oxford, 1891. 
 
 „ Oxford Bishops. ■» 
 
 „ Oxford Writers. j-Athenae Oxonienses. London, 1813-15. 
 
 Fasti. J 
 
 Yver. Le Commerce et les marchands dans I'ltalie m^ridionale, 1903. 
 Zeitschrift fur Celtische Philologie. Halle, a. S. ... Z.C.P. 
 Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung fur Rechtsgeschichte. Weimar, 1880-1901. 
 Zimmer. Uber direkte Handelsverbindungen Westgalliens mil Irland im 
 Altertum und friihen Mittelalter. (Sitzungsberichte der Koniglich Preus- 
 sischen Akademie der Wissenschaften.) Berlin, 1909. 
 
PART I. 
 TRADE AND INDUSTRIES. 
 
 I. IRISH COMMERCE. 
 
 Ireland — a name by which the whole island 
 was known in southern France at least as early c. looo. 
 as lOOO A.D. — was distinguished then as "that 
 very wealthy country in which there were twelve 
 cities, with wide bishoprics, and a king, and 
 which had its own languag-e and Latin letters."^ 
 Hundreds of years later it was still wealthy, c. 1450. 
 From hence to Rome in all Christendom, men 
 said, was no ground or land like to Ireland, so 
 large, so good, so plenteous, or so rich:^ 
 " none other but a very Paradise, delicious of all 
 pleasaunce, to respect and regard of any other 1536. 
 land in this world."* 
 
 Ireland had long been desired by continental 
 peoples. In Roman times her channels and 
 harbours, opening to Gaul and Spain, were well 
 known to continental traders from the frequency 
 
 'Chronicle of Ademar, monk of Angouleme, before 1031 ; 
 Labbe, Novae Bibl. MSS. torn. 2, p. 177. v. app. 
 '•'Lib. Eng. Policy (Pol. Songs, Rolls Series). 
 'St. Pap. II. iii. 31. 
 
2 IRELAND UNCONQUERED cii. 
 
 A.D. Ss. of commerce and merchants, and Agricola 
 stationed troops in Britain fronting the island, 
 with an idea of rounding off the empire. But 
 the Romans stopped short of the conquest of 
 79°- Ireland. The Norsemen pried out the country 
 and seized or planted trading towns on its coasts. 
 The Danes came with an immense fleet, carrying 
 their wives and children, to extirpate the Irish 
 and occupy in their stead that very wealthy land ; 
 
 1015. and king Cnut would have made Ireland an 
 outlying part of a vast Northern Empire with 
 its centre at London. That dream too was 
 defeated. From the Welsh cliffs the Norman 
 
 1087- William Rufus looked across the Channel towards 
 ' Ireland — " a land very rich in plunder, and famed 
 for the good temperature of the air, the fruit- 
 fulness of the soil, the pleasant and commodious 
 seats for habitation, and safe and large ports 
 and havens lying open for traffic." " For the 
 conquest of that land," said he, " I will gather 
 together all the ships of my kingdom, and will 
 make of them a bridge to cross over." " After 
 so tremendous a threat as that," said the king 
 of Leinster, " did the king add, ' if the Lord 
 
 1175. will '.''" ^ Henry of Anjou, the empire-maker, 
 established the first lasting settlement of foreigners 
 to dominate Ireland, sat in his timber palace in 
 Dublin, and made treaties with the Irish chiefs. 
 
 *Gir. Cambr. Itin. Cambriae, lib. ii. c. i (vol. vi. p. 109, ed. 
 Dimock) ; Freeman's Rufus, ii. 94. 
 
I. THE NORMAN SETTLEMENT 3 
 
 These invasions drew Ireland into the current 
 of European life, and quickened intercourse of 
 trade. The gradual fusion of Danish settlers was 
 followed by a movement towards a more organized 
 national life, which may be traced in the history of x"- cent, 
 the church, of the state, and of Irish learning. 
 This progress was indeed broken by the violence 
 of the Norman invasion. But again centuries of 
 intercourse overlaid the first animosities of war with 
 kindlier ties of co-operation, Henry's knights, 
 Norman, French, and Welsh, seized lands, built 
 castles, declared themselves conquerors, and, them- 
 selves vanquished by the Irish civilization, turned 
 into patriots in their new country. Other settlers xm. cent 
 came from Germany, Gascony, Savoy, Italy, who 
 had no hostility to Irish civilization. The 
 " foreigners," said a mediaeval Irish writer, " had 
 given up their foreignness for a pure mind, 
 their surliness for good manners, and their i3«5. 
 stubbornness for sweet mildness, and who had 
 given up their perverseness for hospitality." ^ 
 Successive generations of newcomers cast in their 
 lot with their adopted land, till there was not 
 more than twenty miles about Dublin where men c. 1435. 
 spoke the English tongue or used English law. 
 
 To the English government the new Anglo- 
 Irish race was as dangerous as the Irish themselves. 
 They petitioned for home rule in law, administra- 
 tion, finance. They made terms with the Irish, 
 
 'Tribes and Customs of Hy-Many, ed. O' Donovan, 1843, p. 136. 
 
4 THE IRISH R1<:V1VAL c.i. 
 
 and ignored English laws " for the extinction of 
 1368. amity " between them. "Ireland was at point 
 to be lost." ^ After near three hundred years 
 of war the English were penned into a tract 
 around Dublin — " the little Place," as they called 
 the Pale, "out of which they durst not peep."^ 
 "There was not left in Dublin, Meath, Louth, 
 1.135. 2nd Kildare, scarce 30 miles in length and 20 
 in breadth there as a man may surely ride or 
 go in answer to the King's writs and his 
 commandments."' In those days 30 miles from 
 Dublin was "by west of English law." "The 
 1536. English blood of the English conquest is 
 in manner worn out of this land, and at all 
 seasons in manner, without any restoration, is 
 diminished and enfeebled. . . . And, contrary- 
 wise, the Irish blood ever more and more, without 
 such decay, encreaseth." * The fifteenth century, 
 like the twelfth, saw the beginnings of a new 
 national upbuilding, which in its turn fell before 
 a new English invasion. 
 
 We are not concerned here, however, with the 
 political history of Ireland, but with its industrial 
 and social aspect. 
 
 Ireland had carried on trade with the Continent 
 from the earliest times. Her internal traffic was 
 shewn by many an ancient fair, some long for- 
 gotten, some which have left at least a memory ; 
 
 ^7'. app. - Hav. 355; Hoi. vi. 21-2. 
 
 3 Gilbert's Viceroys, 331. ^ St. Pap. u. iii. 33S. 
 
I. EARLY IRISH TRADE 5 
 
 like the Fair of Teltown, renowned down to 
 the Middle Ages ; ^ the Fair of Connacht;* the 
 Fair of Clapping of Hands ; ' the Fair of Car- 
 main;^ Aonach, now Nenagh, "the place of 
 fairs"; Monaster-anenagh ;'' Killeagh in OfFaly ; 
 Dunananie near the landing-place of the sons 
 of Usnach, a trading place of the Scots." 
 The people of Tuam gather to this day in a 
 bare field three miles out of the town, remote 
 from any shop or public-house, to an ancient 
 Fair of Tulach na Dala (the Hillock of Assembly), 
 and, despising all persuasion to bring the fair into 
 their town, still buy and sell once a year on 
 the silent spot formerly peopled and prosperous 
 by the industry of their fathers. The chiefs 
 maintained highways of communication, and 
 took compensation for any injury done them.^ 
 Seven kinds oi roads were recognised, high-ways, x. cent, 
 cross-roads, avenues, lanes, etc.; and three regular 
 cleansings for each, from brushwood, water, and 
 weeds ; to be made in the times of horse-racing, 
 of winter, and of war.^ The five ways to Tara 
 were in use down to the sixteenth century ; the 
 " sanctuary of Ireland was the House of Cairnech 
 upon the Road of Asal," ^. that ran from Tara 
 
 '4 M. 23, 392, 414, 417, 541, 1 169 (a.d. 1168). 
 
 -4 M. 552. -4 M. 371. *4 M. 914 (see note p. 40). 
 
 '4 M. 1266 n. 
 
 "7/. The "fair of crosses" in Antrim. Irish Arch. Soc. 1841, 31. 
 
 ^O'Grady Cat. 81, 384. 
 
 "v. app. •Triads, K. Meyer. 
 
6 EXPANSION OF TRADE ch. 
 
 across West-Meath. A king of Gowran, in Great 
 Munster, had his house on the " noisy " or 
 frequented Pass of Gowran, and the earls of 
 Ormond as their first adventure planted them- 
 selves on that road and took its tolls. At 
 Raithlean the O'Mahonys maintained the Road 
 of the Chariots to the north, the Road of the 
 Mules below, and the Ford of Spoils eastward.^ 
 
 Early commerce in Ireland, as in England, was 
 greatly developed by the sea-going Danes, makers 
 of ships and builders of towns. The settlement 
 of the Normans, "citizens " of the world, opened 
 here too a new era. Financiers, merchants, specu- 
 lators, from Germany, France, and Italy, poured 
 into Ireland. A surprising number of fairs and 
 1200 markets were granted by John and Henry in., 
 ■ which can scarcely have been all new, and some of 
 which students may trace back to earlier times. 
 Trade was not limited to markets within the Pale, 
 such as Trim, Athboy, Fore, or Maynooth ; ^ in 
 Irish lands there was the market town of Port-na- 
 1231. Cairge^ near Boyle, built by Cormac MacDermot; 
 Rory O'Connor's stone-built town of Ballymote; 
 Tirerill in Sligo ; and many more from end to end 
 of the country. 
 
 The commerce developed by the Normans in- 
 creased through the whole period of the Irish 
 revival. In the decay of English interference, in 
 
 ' V. app. ^ Col. Doc. Sweetnian, i. 2696 ; iii. 23S. 
 
 ^Annals of Boyle. 
 
I. IRISH MARKETS 7 
 
 the helplessness of the government to enforce 
 English law and manners, and in the ceasing of 
 English plantations, the industries of Ireland 
 multiplied. New markets were founded, and the 
 old added new activities. Irish moneys called 
 Reillys, an Act alleged,^ do increase from day to 1447- 
 day to the hurt of the King's mint. There was 
 much exchange of gold and silver : and great 
 carriage of plate was made into England. 
 
 All Ireland shared in this prosperity. In 
 Wexford the fair at Eniscorthy ^ on Great Lady 
 Day " is far the greatest of any in Ireland, and 
 held yearly, and usually at a day certain " ; it 
 would be hard to number or describe, the Annals 
 say, all the steeds, horses, gold, silver, foreign 
 wares at that fair. There were markets at Irish- 
 town near Kilkenny, at Youghal, incorporated 1463. 
 under earl Thomas of Desmond, at Dungarvan 1483. 
 and Maynooth.^ Perhaps the greatest extension 
 of commerce was in the border countries between 
 Leinster and Ulster, running from Dundalk to 
 Sligo by Longford, Granard and Cavan. In Cavan, 
 lying in the shelter of the morasses and mazes of 
 Lough Oughter, we may still trace the remains of 
 a peaceful and undefended open trading centre — 
 the sunny valley with gardens stretching up the 
 hills, the great monastery, and by its side on a 
 
 Mr. St. 1447. ^Car. ii. 343; 4 M. p. 1631. 
 
 " Cal. Pat. Rolls, i. 363 ; Smith's Waterford ; Gilbert's Vice- 
 roys, 414. 
 
8 IRISH ROADS ch. 
 
 low lift of grass the palace and business centre 
 of the O'Reillys, among the greatest of Irish 
 trading chiefs, whose money was spread by their 
 traffic over all Ireland, and was even "commonly 
 current " in England. The Maguires were famed 
 for the husbandry, crafts, and commerce that occu- 
 pied the men of Enniskillen. 
 
 From market to market^ the country was 
 traversed by roads or by water-ways. It is 
 commonly supposed that the Irish had no roads, 
 and indeed it is evident that the people obliter- 
 ated all passages before the advance of invading 
 troops. But where the English armies had not 
 yet penetrated, the deputy was surprised to see 
 the highways and paths so well beaten.^ We 
 hear, for example, of an open road^ that ran 
 1478. between Rathconyll' and Queylan, used only by 
 the "Irish enemies of the King," where were to 
 be seen trains of bullocks and horsepacks of 
 merchandise and victuals, to the profit of these 
 " Irish enemies." Roads from one monastery to 
 another served the double purpose of religion 
 and of trade, such as the famous pilgrims' way 
 which led from the east to Clew Bay, traversed 
 
 ' V. app. ^ Fynes Moryson, "j"]. 
 
 3Tr. Rel. to Irel. St. of Kilk. 82-3 n. 
 
 ■* Kathconyll is probably Rathconnell about three miles north- 
 e;ist of MuUingar ; there is another Rathconnell in Kildare. 
 Queylan would probably now be Anglicised " Cullen," but where 
 it is I am unaware. This trading road may possibly have been 
 the ancient Slighe Asail. Rathconnell is at any rate in Magh 
 Asail. 
 
I. BRIDGES 9 
 
 by pilgrims to Croagh Patrick and by traders to 
 Westport and Burris. There was some making 
 of bridges. Turlough O'Connor made three 
 bridges/ Athlone and Athcroghta over the "20. 
 Shannon and Dunlo upon the Suck. Where 
 Bandon now stands there was an ancient bridge 
 of the O'Mahonys, Droghid - Ui - Mahouna. 
 Manus O'Conor built a bridge in Leitrim.^ 12+4- 
 "There hath been a worthy prelate, canon in 13 19. 
 the cathedral church of Kildare, named Maurice 
 Jake, who among the rest of his charitable 
 deeds builded the bridge of KilcooUen, and the 
 next year following he builded in like manner 
 the bridge of Leighlin, to the great and daily 
 commodity of all such as are occasioned to travel 
 in those quarters."^ In later days O'Brien, lord 
 of Thomond, made his famous bridge over the 1506. 
 Shannon of good timber, in length 300 paces. 
 
 We know how the Roman roads driven across 
 England formed its main communications till some 
 1 400 years brought them to decay. England had 
 no mediaeval road-makers who could overcome 
 the difficulties of bog and mountain. In Ireland 
 the traveller who drives from Dundrum through 
 the hillocks of Monaghan, with sinuous marshes 
 creeping up every hollow and valley, or who 
 follows the threatening passes from Sligo to 
 
 ' 4 M. a. 1 1 20. Athcroghta was by the ford, opposite Shannon 
 Harbour in King's County ; Dunlo was part of BaUinasloe. 
 
 -O'Grady, Cat. 332-3. ^ Hoi. vi. 45. v. app. 
 
lo WATERWAYS ch. 
 
 Enniskillen, or crosses the shaking bogs, or the 
 mountains of Munster or of Wicklow, will 
 not wonder that the old Irish were content in 
 such places to carry their traffic on mountain 
 ponies and pack-horses along paths known to the 
 people. They used too the natural waterways 
 of the country, now neglected. Ruins of villages 
 and little ports on the water's edge still tell of 
 the once active life on lake and river. Long 
 before the English invasion men of Connacht and 
 1 1 24- Leinster had their fleets on the Shannon ; and 
 when Elizabethan adventurers got grants of a 
 monopoly of the Shannon traffic, the Irish were 
 accused of " distressing Her Majesty's boats and 
 victuals and disturbing the trade of merchandise 
 upon the river." ^ The lakes of Leitrim and 
 Cavan, the Upper and Lower Erne where at 
 Enniskillen the masts of Maguire's fleet stood 
 as it were a grove along the shore,^ the Bann, 
 the Barrow and the Nore and the Suir,* were 
 gay with boats — three large and navigable rivers 
 these last, by which inland commodities could 
 be cheaply carried to Waterford from the very 
 centre of the kingdom, out of the seven counties 
 washed by those rivers and other adjacent lands.* 
 " Would God," cried a deputy, weary of his 
 
 *4 M. a. 1124, 1127, 1135 ; Camb. Ev. ii. 1S7 ; Car. ii. 2S4, 
 371; C.S.P. 1580, 239, 474. 
 -O'Grady, Cat. 431. 
 
 ■'13th Eliz. c. ii. ; C.S.P. 1552, 126. v. app. 
 < Smith's Waterford, 168. 
 
I. PROSPERITY OF IRELAND ii 
 
 toilsome marches, " that all carriage was by 
 water I " 
 
 Until the traces of earlier industry have been 
 systematically collected it must be but guess-work 
 to apportion to the various peoples their share in 
 the development of Ireland. Coming to a land 
 well known to commerce, the Normans opened 
 new channels of trade, and exploited a wealth 
 which in its origin owed nothing to them. After 
 their settlement the work of material progress 
 and of culture was carried on by the two races, 
 Anglo-Norman and Irish. Men of Ireland, 
 skilled craftsmen at home, traded over Europe, 
 and through their constant communication with 
 the Continent kept in relation with foreign learn- 
 ing, while maintaining their own culture. 
 
 It was in fact the activity, the importance, and 
 the riches of Ireland that drew to it the attention 
 of commercial England under the Tudor kings. 
 For in the spacious days of their business adven- 
 tures, wealth that was not in English hands seemed 
 to practical Englishmen resources merely wasted 
 and lost. Traders and adventurers overran the x\i. cent, 
 country, and gave vent to their anger at the 
 people's unwillingness to hand over to them all 
 the profits of their labour. Ireland, said the specu- 
 lators, " hath not shewed herself so bountiful a 
 mother in pouring forth riches as she proveth her- 
 self an envious step-dame." They were shocked 
 at the sloth of him " who will not by his painful 
 
12 IRISH ENTERPRISE ch. 
 
 travail reap the fruit and commodity that the 
 earth yieldeth," for the benefit apparently of the 
 English invader. They cried out to the world that 
 the Irishman was idle, negligent, without enter- 
 prise, the profligate waster of his rich resources. 
 " Diligent Englishmen " were needed to replace 
 these " luskish loiterers," and so fair a land 
 made perfect by " the bringing in of a better 
 race. 
 
 The true answer to these political legends can 
 only be given by a scientific study of mediaeval 
 Irish history, such as has never yet been 
 attempted. The practical Englishman of that 
 ^ day indeed had himself no belief in fictions of 
 Irish lethargy and incapacity for business. The 
 English difficulty, in fact, was how to destroy 
 the trading and industrial energies of their rivals. 
 For if at one time the Irish were charged with 
 having no activities, at another it was said they 
 
 1429. had too much. " Divers Irish enemies of our Lord 
 the King " were accused in an act of parliament 
 of raising and holding among them different 
 fairs and markets where English colonists were 
 drawn to buy and sell, and Irish enemies 
 gained great custom and profit in their too 
 successful competition : and fifty years after the 
 
 1480. lament was renewed — "to wit, they have com- 
 menced markets in the country of O'Reilly and 
 the country of O'Farrell, at Cavan, Granard, 
 Longford, and other places, which, if they be 
 
,. TRADE WITH EUROPE 13 
 
 long continued, will cause great riches to the 
 King's enemies." ' 
 
 The inland trade fed and was in turn supported" 
 by a large European commerce. There was 
 extensive Irish trade with France, Spain, and 
 Italy as far south as Naples : merchants of the 
 society of the Ricardi of Lucca were dwelling 1294. 
 in Ireland, and foreigners of the dominion of 
 the king of France, who carried their mer- 
 chandise to sell.'^ Youghal merchants traded in 
 Bordeaux. Irish ships sailed to Bruges, each 1265. 
 mariner allowed to carry as his provision four is^s- 
 barrels of beef, salmon, suet, butter, and lard. 
 At the request of Ghent, Bruges, Ipres, and 1387- 
 Franc, Phillippe le Hardi gave a special safe 
 conduct to Irish merchants to settle in the Low^ 
 Countries with their goods and families;^ and 
 "ships of Ireland " were long known in Antwerp.'' 1565 
 Wine was carried by Irish navigators in their 
 own vessels ; the chiefs were used to make the 
 pilgrimage to Compostella, sometimes two or 
 three times, and commerce followed the road of 
 pilgrimage and intercourse. So frequent was 
 ocean traffic that when Chester wanted to send 
 
 ^Tr. Rel. to Irel. ii. Stat. Kilk. 115, 117. v. app. 
 
 "Cal. Doc. Sweetman, 77-80. Edward I. (1294) for the 
 Ricardi debts owed to him ordered the Lucca merchants in 
 Ireland to be attached, v. app. 
 
 ^GilHodts Van Severen Cartulaire de I'ancienne Estaple 
 de Bruges, t. i. pp. 49, 50, 87, 89, 156, 358 n., 424, 435 (Bruges, 
 1904). 
 
 * Shirley, 175; Macpherson, Ann. Com. i. 706. 
 
14 THE IRISH HARBOURS cii. 
 
 messengers in a hurry to Spain, they went by 
 way of Ireland as the quickest route, a fact 
 which shows the number of Spanish trading ships 
 in Irish waters. Capacious harbours, where 
 navies might lie at anchor, are now left 
 vacant and unfrequented, so that scarce a sail 
 save that of a poor fisherman's boat can be 
 seen on their broad waters. But every port 
 in the circuit of Ireland was then filled with 
 ships busy in the Continental trade, and in 1570 
 Stanihurst reckoned 88 "chief haven towns."' 
 
 A rapid circuit round the coasts of Ireland 
 may give some idea of the business done in 
 these harbours. The ships of Bretons, Spaniards, 
 French and Scots sailed up the narrow seas of 
 the east.'"' There Wexford, Dublin, and Drogheda 
 had their own shipping ; in case of danger 
 Drogheda could successfully man its fleet^ as well 
 
 I r4o. as Dublin. They traded with Chester, Gloucester, 
 Chepstow, and Bristol — " a commodious and safe 
 receptacle for all ships directing their course for 
 the same from Ireland"* — supplying wine at times 
 to these ports, and they imported stores of powder, 
 lead, and ammunition, which they sold to the 
 
 1500. Irish.^ Dublin had a very large Continental trade, 
 its great fair of S. James crowded with foreign 
 merchants, its market " stored by strangers " 
 with coal and fruit and wine, carpets, broad-cloth 
 
 iHol. vi. 35. V. app. "^v. app. ^ C.S.P. 1509, i. v. app. 
 *Hakluyt, i. 315. ^C.S.P. 1543, 67. 
 
r. ARDGLASS 15 
 
 and kerseys, velvet, silk, satin, cloth of gold and 
 embroideries.^ 
 
 Dundrum harbour was dangerous from shoals 
 and reefs : there Shane O'Neill had great cellars, 
 where 200 tuns of wine were commonly stored.^ 
 In the 106 miles of coast that lie between 
 Kingstown mole and Belfast bay, there is but 
 one harbour where a ship can enter at all stages 
 of the tide without a local pilot — Ardglass ; traces - 
 remain of the shore road that connected it with the 
 neighbouring harbour of Killough, used for the 
 out-trade, and known as " the haven of Ardglass." 
 It is said that a trading company with a grant 
 from Henry IV. built the famous " New Works." 
 Close to the harbour ran a range of buildings 
 250 feet long, with three square towers, walls 
 three feet thick pierced on the sea-side orily by 
 narrow loop-holes, and opening into the bawn 
 with sixteen square windows, and fifteen arched 
 door-ways of cut stone that gave entrance to 
 eighteen rooms on the ground floor and eighteen 
 above. A wail surrounded the bawn or court of 
 the New Works sloping up the hill, and on the 
 higher ground a building with narrow loopholes 
 must have been part of the defences. Since the 
 destruction of 1790, the great circuit of the 
 enclosure, the massive New Works, with the old 
 central tower and remnants of another by the 
 
 'Cal. Rec. Dub. i. 8-16; Cal. Rec. Dub. i. 233. f. app. 
 2 Hoi. vi. 331. 
 
1 6 TRADE OF ARDGLASS ch. 
 
 water's edge, and the line of the road by the 
 shore, alone survive of a trade the very recollec- 
 tion of which is lost. 
 
 The town had a port-reeve and corporation in 
 mediaeval times,^ and sent members to parliament. 
 English kings from John to Henry viii, granted 
 it in frequent generosity to courtiers. Its many 
 forts — King's castle, Jordan's castle, Horn castle, 
 Cowd castle, Margaret castle ^ — tell of wars that 
 raged round so important a harbour. The O'Neill 
 burned the town in 1433 : in 1453 Henry O'Neill 
 of Clannaboy was driven back from Ardglass by 
 the help of a Dublin fleet. At the close of the 
 fifteenth century the English almost disappeared out 
 of Lecale.^ The great Earl of Kildare * marching 
 to protect Magennis from the Savadges, was 
 allowed supremacy of Ardglass and the lands 
 about it ; the next earl Gerald got a grant from 
 1514- Henry viii. of the customs of Strangford and 
 Ardglass, which traded in wines, cloth, kerseys, all 
 kinds of fish, wool and tallow.^ In the rising 
 1538. of Gerald's son, Silken Thomas, the English 
 1552- marched through, burning Lecale ; ® but when they 
 
 ' Harris saw the charter in 1744. 
 
 -Grose's Antiq. n. 96. v. app. 
 
 'O'Laverty, Down and Connor, 342. 
 
 ^ He claimed through his mother to inherit Lecale which 
 Richard 11. had given to her ancestor d'Artois. 
 
 °A copy of this interesting grant, with the list of services 
 to be given by the tenants, is in the Belfast Morning News 
 of June 27, 1902. 
 
 "Annals of Dublin, Dublin Penny Journal, 1832-3, 315. 
 
I. THE ENGLISH AT CARRICKFERGUS 17 
 
 sought to plant in it the new earl of Kildare, 
 an obedient Angliciser, Shane O'Neill cast them ' *- 
 out and " forcibly patronised himself in all 
 Lecale . . . and the Ardes, which are great 
 countries." ^ In that time of his pride, " the 
 queen had nothing in possession in this vast 
 tract of land but the miserable town of Carrick- 
 fergus, whose goods he would take as oft as 
 he listed." 1 
 
 The English castle of Carrickfergus was planted 
 on the site of an ancient Irish fort. On a rock 
 thirty feet high a huge fortress like the White 
 Tower of London rose sheer above the waters 
 of Belfast Lough, dominating this second chief 
 harbour of Ulster to the east. A castle, a church, 
 a dozen stone houses, and a number of circular 
 dome-shaped huts made up this military post.^ 
 We may still see the Irish town lying on one ^ 
 side of the fortress, the English on the other ; 
 and the old circular huts survived, built then 
 in stone, till the end of the eighteenth cen- 
 tury. Two years after the "New Works" at 1578. 
 Ardglass had been taken by Bagenall, the English 
 pulled down Woodburn abbey at Carrickfergus 1580. 
 and used the stones to build Castle stores, calling 
 them their own " New Works." The old Irish 
 fair persisted : " In Carrickfergus twice a week 
 a good market was kept,^ where out of the 
 
 'Sidney to Walsingham, 1583. 
 
 ^Uls. Arch. Journal, N.S. v. 4. ' *Car. ii. 342. 
 
 B 
 
i8 O'DONNELL'S HARBOURS en. 
 
 English Pale, the Isle of Man, and Scotland 
 came much merchandise, victuals, and other 
 commodities, and out of France ; and in one 
 summer three barks of 40 tons apiece dis- 
 charged their loading of excellent good Gascoigne 
 wine, the which they sold for 9 cowskins the 
 hogshead." 
 
 The fortresses of Ardglass and Carrickfergus are 
 note-worthy because they recall the secular con- 
 flict that was waged across S. George's channel 
 for the possession of the growing Irish trade. 
 But the chief harbours of Ireland did not front 
 England : it was to the great Ocean that they 
 looked, and the direct commerce with the Conti- 
 nent. O'Donnell's country "was large, profitable, 
 and good, that a ship under sail may come to 
 four of his houses": "King of fish"^ he was 
 called, for his great commerce in fish for foreign 
 goods. Hulks were laden in France for O'Donnell 
 with salt;'^ trading ships frequented Lough Foyle, 
 Lough Swilly, and the bay of Donegal, and from 
 Ulster carried staple merchandise to Scotland,* 
 without heeding any claim of the foreign king 
 for tolls. 
 
 The ports and islands of Connacht were full 
 of ships that sailed the Atlantic from the Orkneys 
 to Spain. For the province was by nature opened 
 to trade. "There are upwards of twenty safe 
 
 ■Car. i. 308. 2C.S.P. 1592, 524. 
 
 »Ir. St. i2th Ed. IV. 
 
r. CONNACHT HARBOURS 19 
 
 and capacious harbours fit for vessels of any 
 burthen ; about 26 navigable lakes in the interior 
 of a mile or more in length, besides hundreds 
 smaller ; the sea-coast and these lakes abound 
 with fish." The castle of Sligo, built by Maurice 1245. 
 FitzGerald, fell back to the Irish O'Conor, maker 1318. 
 of the stone bridge at Ballysadare.^ An Irish 1360. 
 city whose buildings of wood and stone were 
 said to be splendid, whose ships traded with 
 Spain, and carried cloth to Southampton^ (doubt- 
 less for the trade with the Low Countries), Sligo 
 was one of the chief ports of the west. " This 
 county, or these countries," wrote Sir H. Sydney,^ 1576' 
 "are well inhabited and rich, and more haunted 
 with strangers than I wish it were, unless the 
 Queen were better answered of her custom." 
 Mac William of Mayo " is a great man," and 
 in his land " he has many goodly havens." On 
 his coast the OMailles, the most expert mariners 
 in Ireland, swept the sea with their famous long- 
 ships* far beyond the western isles — "John ofi;i3. 
 the Sails " famous among them in Elizabeth's 
 day; and the chief (DMaille,* "an original 
 Irishman, strong in galleys and seamen " ; not 
 to speak of the "most famous feminine sea- 
 captain, Grania OMaille," with three galleys and 
 two hundred fighting-men at her command, wife 
 
 '4 M. 3iS> 619. 
 
 "^ Green, Town Life, ii. 289; O'Rourke's Sligo, 349-50. 
 
 'Car. ii. 48-9. ^4 M. 1323. ^Car. ii. 49, 285, 353. 
 
20 OMAILLE HARBOURS cu. 
 
 of Richard-in-Iron Burke, whom "she brought 
 with her, for she was as much by sea 
 as by land more than Mrs. Mate with him." 
 Their ruined church on Clew bay is crowded with 
 the graves of O'Conors, Kellys, O'Donnells, 
 1580. O'Craidhens : " Buresowle,' an Abbey standing 
 very pleasant upon a river side, within three miles 
 from the sea, where a ship of 500 tons may lie 
 at anchor at low water. It hath a goodly and 
 large lough on the upper part of the river, full 
 of great timber, grey marble, and many other 
 commodities; there cometh thither every year 
 likely about fifty English ships for fishing ; they 
 have been before this time compelled to pay a 
 great tribute to the OMailles, which I have 
 forbidden hereafter" (in other words an honest 
 rent for the fishing). " It is accounted," Malby 
 adds, " one of the best fishing places in Ireland 
 for salmon, herring, and all kind of sea-fish." 
 Another castle of OMaille commanded the 
 southern half of the bay^ — " Cathair-na-Mart," 
 the Stone Fort of the Beeves, was remembered 
 till our own time by the Irish when the stones 
 had been long removed, and gave its Irish name 
 to Westport. South of these the O'Flahertys 
 held a long line of coast: Morogh ne Moor* in 
 1588. Elizabeth's time had a fleet of galleys — Tibbott 
 '599- "^ Long (Theobald of the Ships), was his half 
 brother. 
 
 •C.S.P. 1580, Ixii-iii, 216. ^4 M. 1803 n. ^W. Conn. 402. 
 
I. GALWAY PORT 21 
 
 A mile outside Galway the road climbs a hill, 
 where suddenly there burst on the visitor's 
 sight the towers of Galway, lying in its fair bay 
 and girt about with lakes. On that " Hand to 
 Face Hill," Buais-le-h^adan, the frequent travellers 
 of an older time, Irish merchants, pilgrims, min- 
 strels, factors of the trading chiefs, were used 
 at the first sight of Galway to cross themselves 
 and bless the town. Under Turlough O'Conor^ 1125. 
 there was a strong fort at Galway, and a fleet in ii54- 
 the bay. Munster long fought with Connacht 
 for so important a site. Richard de Burgo built 1232. 
 a new fort to mark his dominion ; but the 
 O'Briens, lords of the Arran islands, remained 
 the traditional guardians of the bay, and policed 
 it for a tribute of twelve tuns of wine yearly, 
 of connoue^ and meals given to them every 
 year within the town for two days and two 
 nights, and a promise of aid at all times from 
 the Galway men. 
 
 From St. James' Fair at Compostella, the 
 centre of the Galway trade, merchants of Ireland 
 spread over Spain and Portugal. There is re- 
 membrance in the Church of S. Nicholas of 
 centuries of trade with S. Malo and other ports 
 
 ^v. app. 
 
 ^ Connow or connowe seems to be merely an anglicised form 
 of coinneamh or coinninheadh, usually turned into coyne or 
 coyney : it may be founded on the south Connacht pronun- 
 ciation of the Irish word. Its meaning is "entertainment" 
 or "billeting." 
 
22 TRADE OF GAL WAY ch. 
 
 of France, from the old French tomb-stone of 
 the early fourteenth century for Adam Burie, 
 to the French inscription on the bell of 1631. 
 
 1361. Galway ships sailed to Lisbon and to Ltlbeck,' 
 Her markets held Irish cloaks, Irish cloth 
 
 1 38 1, and blankets coarse and fine, Irish linen, sail- 
 cloth and ropes, leather, gloves, brogues for the 
 poor and ornamental shoes for the rich, baskets, 
 carts, chests and boxes, dishes and platters, 
 kettles, hemp and flax, nails ; with all kinds of 
 skins, and cheese, butter, and honey. They sold 
 carpets ; there was coal and cloth from England ; 
 wine from Canary and the Levant, with ginger, 
 safiron, figs, pepper, and cloves ; gold thread 
 and satins from Italy ; iron and wine from Spain ; 
 woad, salt, and wine from Toulouse and Picardy ; 
 painted glass, such as adorned their church." 
 ; In the sixteenth century Galway had become 
 one of the greatest ports of the British islands, 
 and paid ;^iooo of impost a year.' Its streets 
 
 1485. were already lined with "houses all of hewed 
 stone up to the top, garnished with fair battle- 
 ment in an uniform course, as if the whole town 
 had been built upon one model," all thatch and 
 straw forbidden:* and besides these mansions 
 
 1568. built after the Spanish fashion, merchants and 
 
 'C.S.P. 1587, 320; ^- P- 25. 
 
 -Hard. Gal. App. xviii, x.x, 58, 208. 
 
 SC.S.P. 1587, 394; Hard. Galway; Tuckey's Cork, 35. 
 
 *llist. MSS. Com. Rep. x. v. App. 399. 
 
I. TRADE OF LIMERICK 23 
 
 craftsmen had country houses. An Italian tra- 
 veller ^ being at mass at a private house, " saw, 
 at one view, the blessed sacrament in the hands 
 of the priest, boats passing up and down the 
 river, a ship entering the port in full sail, a 
 salmon killed with a spear, and hunters and 
 hounds pursuing a deer ; upon which he ob- 
 served, that, although he had travelled the greatest 
 part of Europe, he had never before witnessed 
 a sight which combined so much variety and 
 beauty." 
 
 Munster possessed " such commodity of havens 
 as indeed I think in all Europe in so short a 
 tract of ground there is not so many good to be 
 found." ** Galway's closest neighbour and com- 
 petitor was Limerick, " a wondrous proper city, ^ 
 and it may be called Little London for the situa- 
 tion and the plenty.* A ship of 200 tons might 
 sail to the quay of Limerick, and it had, like 
 Galway and Sligo, its stone houses, and its 
 citizens dressed in Irish array with silk em-- 
 
 broideries and peaked shoes. In its midst was ^ ^^^' 
 
 1 194. 
 the church said to be built by Donnell O'Brien ; 
 
 and the poorest streets still hold ruins of stone 
 
 houses where Limerick merchants once grew 
 
 wealthy on Irish trade. 
 
 Munster " of the swift ships " was famed for - 
 
 » Hard. Gal. 79, 85. 2 Sid. Let. 24. 
 
 'Ir. Sept. 153, 215, 228; V. C.S.P. 1579, 188. Gilliodts van 
 Severen. Cart, de Bruges, iii. 52 ; Hoi. vi. 30 ; Lenihan's Lim. 
 74; 4 IVI. a. 1413; Car. i 411. v. app. 
 
24 MUNSTER HARBOURS ch. 
 
 934-954- its wealth. Its fleet sailed east to battle with 
 
 1 1 27. Danes of Dublin, or west to fight the men of 
 Connacht.^ Enriched by Danish and Norman 
 
 1303-19. enterprise Cork had its stone houses, its bridges 
 and quays and paved streets and water conduits. 
 
 1450. The eleven parishes of the city stretched a mile 
 every way within the walls, and round the walls 
 
 1344- lay a mile of "suburbs." Cork merchants were 
 
 '359- 'allowed to pass freely out of Ireland when all 
 other travellers were forbidden.^ Into its harbour 
 sailed great ships from Venice, alongside of those 
 of France and Spain,* and from the opulent 
 trade of the merchants their wives " kept very 
 honourable, at least very plentiful houses."* 
 Dungarvan, Kinsale, Youghal,^ Bantry, Baltimore, 
 all had their busy trade with Europe. The 
 
 1295. men of Kerry traded from the Continent to Scot- 
 land — Irish men of the race and affinity of the 
 Scots. MacCarthy had " a number of good 
 havens at his devotion, and those not without 
 many galleys and other convenient shipping." 
 
 '537- O'DriscoU of Baltimore could put to sea with 
 his chief galley of thirty oars, and above three 
 
 1376. or four score of pinnaces.® Kinsale, a staple 
 
 [380. • ' town, was given the customs of its sea traffic 
 
 iCellachan of Cashel, Bugge, 76, 95-113, 151 ; 4 M. a. 1125, 
 1127. 
 
 2Tuckey's Cork, 15-23, 38. ^c.s.P. 1548, 92 ; Car. i. 439. 
 
 * MacCarthy, Life and Letters, 2. v. app. 
 
 'Smith's Cork, i. 114. v. app. '^Tuckey's Cork, 47. 
 
I. KINSALE AND DINGLE 25 
 
 for building its wall, and Athenry merchants, ^ 
 sailing from Galway to Liibeck, touched there 
 to pay their dues when stubborn Galway refused 141 6. 
 to admit an English collector of customs. Cork 
 and Kinsale were closely united in business, as 
 we may see by the Latin inscription in the 
 church to Patrick Mede, or Meagh, burgess and 1558. 
 often sovereign of Kinsale, and citizen of Cork.'' 
 A traveller in the eighteenth century describes 
 the relics of the ancient wealth of Dingle (a '' 
 forlorn village now) — the remembrance of Spanish 
 merchants who had lived there for commerce 
 and built the church dedicated to S. James of 
 Compostella — the houses " built in the Spanish 
 fashion, with ranges of stone balcony windows, 
 this place being formerly much frequented by 
 ships of that nation who traded with the in- 
 habitants and came to fish on this coast ; most 
 of them are of stone, with marble doors and 
 window frames." One Rice carved on the house 15^3 
 he built two roses, and beneath them a notice 
 that, "At the Rose is the best Wine," While 
 travellers " well refreshed " themselves, " the Irish 
 harp sounded sweetly" in their ears.* The 
 country round was full of people industrious 
 
 * In the murage charier of Athenry (1310) we find mentioned 
 among a number of other articles of trade Irish cloth and 
 mantles, linen, cheese, butter, oil, wax, honey, verdigris, onions, 
 nails, wheels, brass and copper worked and unworked, iron 
 implements. W. Connacht, 266. 
 
 ^Tuckey's Cork, 27, 28, 32, 35, xxxvi. 
 
 *Soc. of Ant., 1852, n. i. 133. 
 
26 WATERFORD ch. 
 
 and prosperous : every parish having its own 
 church, many of which were very large as appears 
 by their ruins ; while several of the mountains, 
 though but of poor and stony soil, are marked 
 by old enclosures and other signs of former 
 culture even to the very tops. 
 
 Waterford — said to have been called by the 
 Irish the harbour of the sun ' — was full of 
 traffic by means of their excellent good haven, 
 the people thereof " very civil, and for this 
 country full of industry." ^ The quay, above^ 
 half a mile in length, was held not inferior but 
 rather to exceed the most celebrated in Europe,/' 
 for to it the largest trading vessels might con- 
 veniently come to load and unload, and at a 
 small distance opposite to it lie constantly afloat, 
 sixty of them at a time — French, Spanish, 
 Portuguese, Florentine, from the Netherlands 
 and Brittany.^ The town made a boast of the 
 wealthy citizen of Bruges " le Noble de le scluse," 
 who amid the lamentations of Bruges settled at 
 Waterford,* and was buried in a fine tomb in 
 
 'Smith's Waterford, i66. 
 
 ^ Sid. Let. 22. Some of their arf icles of commerce are given 
 in Hist. MSS. Com. Rep.-^ jf. App.' v. 290. 
 
 'Tr. Rel. to Ireland, ii., K\ik. Stat. 18 n. ; Hist. MSS. 
 Com. Rep. x. App. v. 330, 267, 289. 
 * Smith's Waterford, 176: 
 
 "Bruges crie et lamente, 
 Apres son citadin. 
 Waterford s'en augmente, 
 D'avoir fait tel Butin" 
 records the inscription. 
 
I. THE MUNSTER FLEET 27 
 
 the cathedral. A contest of centuries with Balti- 
 more and with New Ross for command of the 
 foreign trade shows the energy with which their 
 commerce was prosecuted.^ Their practical capa- 1591. 
 city was proved in the conduit which was highly 
 thought of 200 years later. " Many towns abroad 
 are much admired by travellers for the con- 
 veniency of having two or three fountains in a 
 town ; but although these may contribute to the 
 beauty of a place, yet it must be allowed that 
 the advantages of having water conveyed by 
 pipes to every street are much more preferable 
 and convenient."^ 
 
 In all these cities of the south the earls of^ 
 Desmond kept retainers and factors for their 
 foreign trade. They had a house in the city 
 of Waterford.' Earl James aimed at building 
 up a fleet to command the Irish Channel, and 
 to secure the commerce of his country* from-" 
 English piracy. The Spanish envoy reported 
 that Desmond kept better justice than any other 1530. 
 chief, and robbers and man-slayers were executed 
 out of hand ; that his people were in high order 
 and discipline, armed with short bows and swords, 
 and his own guard in mail from neck to heel ; 
 and that he had a number of horse, some 
 trained to break a lance, and all admirable riders 
 
 1 Smith's Waterford, 127-9, ^4°> i?^- v. app. 
 ''Smith's Waterford, 196-8. ^c.S.P. 1587, 311. 
 
 ^Car. i. 309, Pap. F. and D. Henry viii. iv. ii. 4485, p. 1962. 
 V. CS.P. 1525, p. 5, n. 50, 52; p. 7, n. 66. 
 
28 IRISH IMPORTS cii. 
 
 "^without stirrup or saddle.^ His people were 
 very civil, in manner the best in Ireland, and 
 well fed with fish, beef, and wine. He kept 
 15^8. his ships stirring. Twenty thousand Irishmen 
 flocked over to St. David's and round Milford 
 Haven. Tenby was almost all Irish, rulers and 
 commons, and a townsman there had two heavily 
 armed ships manned by Irish sailors : " they will 
 take no English or Welsh into their service." 
 
 Rich in all that was wanted for daily life, there 
 were only two necessaries that Ireland had to 
 ask of other lands — salt and iron. A salt well at 
 Carrickfergus was used in old days, but the salt- 
 mines there were only opened in modern times ; 
 land as Strafford pointed out, salt was a first 
 jJ^ j necessity for much of the Irish trade ^ — the pre- 
 serving of fish and meat and skins. There was 
 some iron in the country,* but it had long been 
 the custom for Irish smiths to mix Irish iron with 
 Spanish. Except however for these two articles 
 \ the trade of Ireland with Europe was a trade 
 of luxuries, which she bought with what remained 
 over of her produce when her own people were 
 ?d and clothed. 
 "Rich store of wine" was the chief and the 
 
 \ 
 
 * Froude's Pilgrim, 173. 
 
 2 Strafford's Letters (Dub. 1740), i. 93. 
 
 '"There is very rich and great plenty of Iron stone, and 
 one sort more than we have in England, which they call Bog 
 mine, of the which a smith there will make at his forge Iron 
 presently." Irish Arch. Soc. 1841 ; Payne, 6. 
 
I. WINE TRADE 29 
 
 most ancient import, since the days of the wine- 
 drinking at Tara festivals under King Laoghaire. 
 Gaulish merchants from "the land of the Franks" 
 sold wine at Clonmacnois in the time of S. 550. 
 Ciaran : ' the Norsemen of Limerick who paid 
 tribute to Brian Boru of a tun of wine for every 
 day in the year only developed an existing Irish 1000. 
 trade with Gaul and Spain. In 1381, 8d. had 
 been fixed as the price of a bottle of red 
 wine of Gascony,^ two hundred years later wine 
 was sold at Youghal for ^d. a gallon/ and 1000 
 tuns of Spanish wine were imported yearly into 
 Munster alone.* Galway and Waterford exceeded 
 the commerce even of Cork : Galway, which 
 practically monopolised the wine trade of the 
 west and north-west, was reported to have had 
 vaults and stores on the site of the great 
 fair at Athboy in Meath, the ruins of which 
 it is said remain to this day.* When in course ^ 
 of their wars the English occupied the towns 
 and English fleets seized their trade, Irish ships 
 still " ran into every creek and unhaunted port 
 and place with cargoes that paid no revenue to 
 the queen."® 
 
 Materials of war too were imported, " the com- 
 modities which the Irish make by entertaining 
 pirates," said the English, " and also Portingalls 
 
 'Stokes, Lismore Lives, 277. -Tuck. Cork, 30. 
 ^Car. i. 76. -"Car. ii. 286. v. app. 
 
 *Hard. Gal. 79. «Ir. St. p. 410. 
 
30 MEDITERRANEAN TRADE en. 
 
 and Spaniards that yearly come to fish in those 
 
 harbours, bringing with them powder, calivers, 
 
 sculls, targets, swords, and other munition, whereby 
 
 the idle men of this realm are most plentifully 
 
 replenished."' There was much trade in eastern 
 
 XIII. cent, spices and in costly materials of Europe, displayed 
 
 in every market. In the towns merchants' wives'* 
 
 and even their servants went abroad splendid in 
 
 gold embroidery and silk and taffetas, in furs 
 
 and fringed laces, wearing coloured hats and caps 
 
 trimmed with costly gold thread from Genoa or 
 
 Venice, and pointed shoes. The young men, even 
 
 the prentices, paraded in gorgeous apparel of silk 
 
 garments and linings of silk, with long double 
 
 ruffs thick and starched, fine knit silken stockings, 
 
 and foreign pantoufles — shoes with beaks and 
 
 points and laces of silver.^ Their display was 
 
 rivalled by the Irish captains. From Venice came 
 
 the rich stuff^s for O'Donnell's coat of crimson 
 
 velvet with 20 or 30 pairs of aiglets, and cloak 
 
 of rich crimson satin bordered with black velvet.* 
 
 " Rich dresses " are always mentioned as part of 
 
 ' the plunder of the camps in war,* " Linen 
 
 shirts the rich do wear for wantonness and bravery, 
 
 with wide hanging sleeves pleated, thirty yards 
 
 'Car. ii. 285. 2 28th H. vni. 
 
 'Hard. Gal.; Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. x. App. v. 336. 
 ^Haverty, 371 n. 
 
 = 4 M. pp. 1551, 1559; Cormac's Poem, Irish Arch. Soc. 
 1841, p. 39. 
 
I. IMPORTS AND EXPORTS 31 
 
 are little enough for one of them." * " Against 
 the high feasts as Christmas and Easter," * said 
 their enemies, " there is no Irishman of war . . . 
 but will steal, rob out of churches and elsewhere, 
 to go gay at a feast, yea, and bestoweth for saffron 
 and silk to one shirt many times five marks." 
 The Irish women were not behind the merchants' 
 wives in stateliness of dress : when Margaret 
 O'Carrol, wife of Calvagh of OfFaly, entertained 1450. 
 the poets and learned men of freland, it was 
 in a dress of cloth of gold that she stood on 
 the " garret " of the church, and made offerings 
 of golden cups at the altar.* English law in vain 
 proclaimed that there should be no saffron dye for 
 caps and ties and smocks, no women's garments 
 " embroidered or garnished with silk, nor couched 
 nor laid with usker " after the Irish fashion.* 
 
 A trade on such a scale as this could scarcely 
 be paid for, as we are asked to believe, by the 
 raw hides or salt fish of barbarian traffickers,^ 
 nor was it the work of " luskish loiterers." It 
 might even seem that Ireland carried out more 
 goods than she brought in, from the English 
 complaint of ' large tributes of money ' given 1465. 
 her by the foreigner, such as must cause the 
 enemies' increase in wealth,' and the augmenta- 
 tion of their power and force. 
 
 English writers, concerned at Ireland's growing 
 
 •Camp. cap. vi. ^ g^ p jj jj; ^-q sggg (.j, \^ 
 
 *28th H. VIII. c. 15 ; Catnb. Ev. ii. 205. *Ir. St. 1465, c. vi. 
 
32 ORGANISED INDUSTRY en. 
 
 ■43X- prosperity, tlrcw up lists of the many commodities 
 of her trade. ^ " They have havens, great and 
 goodly bays ; " " it is fertile for things that there 
 do grow ; " " of silver and gold there is the 
 ore." The Irish merchants' mansions, an eye- 
 witness tells, were adorned with costly furniture, 
 and the stranger was ever welcome to the 
 hospitable and splendid board. " Commerce was 
 not less busy or profitable in our cities than 
 in those of other countries." ^ 
 
 Ireland in fact was a country of active and 
 organised industry, with skilled manufacturers and 
 a wide commerce. Its artizans and merchants had 
 long been passing over to other lands for trade 
 in considerable numbers. A multitude, said Sir 
 
 1576. Henry Sydney, of poor men of Ireland were 
 freemen of divers mean crafts in London,^ as 
 they were of many other cities. Besides these 
 working people there were Irish vintners and 
 goldsmiths and merchants of good fame, with 
 their apprentices, in London and all the English 
 towns.* Irish dealers carried to Liverpool " much 
 
 1533- Irish yarn that Manchester men do buy there." 
 
 1 Hakluyt, ii. 132-3. 
 
 -Camb. Ev. i. 61. "Touching the customs of this realm in 
 the time of king Edward the Third, that those duties in those 
 days should yearly amount to ten thousand marks, which by 
 my own search and view of the records here, I can 'ustly 
 control." Davies, 30, D. 1787. 
 
 ^Car. i. 133. V. app. 
 
 * Green, Town Life, i. 173-4; ii. 41, 42, 206, 289; St. H. 
 V. 1413 ; Berry, Stat. 560; Gilb. Viceroys, 308. 
 
I. IRISH TRADERS IN I<:NGLANI) 33 
 
 Men of Dublin and Droghecia joined the Corpus 
 Christ! Guild of Coventry. Irish vessels fed the 
 smuggling trade of Gloucester in its fight with 
 Bristol. Edmund Yryshe, a brewer, was alder- '1547- 
 man and mayor of Oxford.^ Irishmen flocked '55'- 
 in numbers to Bristol, and took their places on 
 the Town Council, till the order went out 
 that no Irishman born within the country of 1437- 
 Ireland of an Irish father and mother should!/ 
 be in future admitted to the Common Council.'^ 
 The year after the victory at St. Albans of 
 the Duke of York, lord lieutenant of Ireland, 
 some daring " Irish burgesses began a suit 1456- 
 against the Mayor and Council before my Lord 
 Chancellor, with subpoenas and privy seals, of 
 which Irishmen one Harry May was vaunt 
 parloure and chief labourer."" It was for this 
 appeal to law in defence of some liberty that ' 
 " he and all his fellows were discommerced of 
 their freedom till they bought it again with the 1456- 
 blood of their purses, and with weeping eyes, 
 kneeling on their knees, besought the mayor 
 and his brethren of their grace." ^ There was 
 
 'Oxf. Reg. ii. 296-7, 330. In 1529 a case went to arbitra- 
 tion of William Clare and Edmund Irishe, bailiffs of Oxford. 
 Little's Grey Friars in Oxford, 93. For Coventry v. app. 
 
 - Little Red Book of Bristol, i. 86. 
 
 ■' Ricart, Calendar (Cam. Soc), 41. He was probably of a lead- 
 ing Waterford family. Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. x. .A.pp.v. 3CXD, 331-2. 
 
 ^Ricart, Mayor of Bristol's Calendar, 41 (Camden Soc). 
 This was the time when the corporations were turning the 
 town governments into oligarchies. 
 
 C ' 
 
34 IRISHMEN IN EUROPE en. 
 
 1525. rioting at Bristol between inhabitants of the 
 town and the retinue of Piers earl of Ormond, 
 and 600 of them pressed upon his lodgings to 
 burn the house while he was in bed in the 
 night ;^ they were probably Irishmen, for Piers 
 was travelling with money harshly exacted from 
 his people to supplant Kildare, and to take the 
 earldom of Ossory by a bad bargain with Henry. 
 The Bristol Irish evidently remained faithful to 
 the Fitzgerald house, for the Earl of Desmond, 
 
 1562. imprisoned in London, prayed to be sent at least 
 to Bristol.^ 
 
 But the chief resort of Irish merchants was 
 
 XII. to the Continent. A hospital for the Irish in 
 
 ""^•., Genoa shows their presence there' before ever 
 the English had settled in Ireland. When king 
 
 1388. John of Portugal built the great monastery of 
 Batalha to commemorate his victory of Alcoba9a, 
 one of the two original master builders was 
 Hacket an Irishman, called in the Portuguese 
 records Houguet or Huet. Numbers of married 
 
 1387- Irishmen settled in the Netherlands and in Spain, 
 
 'C.S.P. 1525, 5. "The reason of the inhabitants of Bristol 
 riotously attacking the Earl of Ormond's house at night was 
 that, previously, they and the Earl's servants had been in 
 conflict with one another, through the seeking and fault of 
 the said inhabitants, of which the Earl was ignorant until 
 afterwards, for otherwise he would have punished his servants, 
 or delivered them to the officers of the town when demanded." 
 S.P. Ireland, Hen. viii. vol. i. No. 48 (Cal. 1526, p. 5). 
 
 'C.S.P. 1562, 204. 
 
 'Schultze, Geschich. Mittel-alterlichen Handels, 85. 
 
I. IRISH MERCHANTS ABROAD 35 
 
 and had free access and traffic there.* In the 
 Spanish war with England, Philip ordered that' 
 the Irish traders should not be interfered with : 
 they passed freely everywhere.' English traders 
 in Lisbon pretended to be French to escape 
 disturbance from war, but the Irish residents 
 carried on commerce openly.' They were to be 
 found throughout France.* Irishmen were in 
 the guild-merchants of many European as well' 
 as English ports.* European culture was carried 
 back to Ireland by her merchants abroad, and'' 
 Irish scholars were supported on the Continent 
 and Irish colleges endowed by these traders in^ 
 foreign lands. 
 
 It has been commonly reported that the Irish, 
 too idle or incompetent for trade, left the profits 
 of their national industries to foreigners. But 
 the names of many traders showed them of 
 the race forbidden by the English, those " born 
 of an Irish father and mother." ' Galway was 
 
 'C.S.P. 1572, 469. V. app. 2C.S.P. 1587, 439. 
 
 'C.S.P. 1585-6, 25; 1587, 423; 1588, 486-9. 
 
 *Car. ii. 250. ^ Kenny, Lect. Mediaeval Life in Ireland. 
 
 'Dr. Lynch describes the situation under James. " If the 
 Irish do not renounce the Catholic faith, they are to have no 
 share in the government of their country, which was won by 
 the blood of their ancestors ; none of them is ever made 
 lord deputy, or chancellor, or attorney-general ; none of them 
 are raised to the bench or allowed to plead at the bar ; the 
 best benefices of the church are never given to the Irish, and 
 in the army they cannot rise even to the rank of a sergeant. 
 Admirable indeed must be their patient industry, when they 
 bear up against such discouragements. Yet the bounteous 
 
^6 GAELIC TRADING ENTERPRISE ch. 
 
 full of Irish traders.^ The O'Craidhens were 
 " rich and affluent merchants " in Sligo from 
 1506. father to son,^ one of them in Donegal "a pious 
 1576. and conscientious" trader.^ MacWilliam Oughter, 
 ruler of a land where there was not one English- 
 man, had fifty householders* trading in Galway. 
 Archbishop Creagh was the son of a wealthy 
 Limerick merchant/ and was himself in his youth 
 a trader and partner in a ship worth 9000 
 ducats ; on a business journey to Spain he 
 delayed too long at mass, and came out of 
 church to find the ship which was to have 
 brought him home had already sailed, and to 
 see it sink at the mouth of the harbour ; turn- 
 ing: back to the altar he devoted himself to 
 the religious life.® The O'Shaughnessys near 
 Galway were very wealthy,'' apparently from 
 1535. their Galway trade; Garrett MacShane, wrote 
 an English official, " the which is a man that 
 
 grace of God has favoured them so, that many of them not 
 only support their famiHes independently, but have even 
 amassed great riches. They do not murmur that foreigners 
 of obscure origin have suddenly amassed enormous wealth, 
 and are now parading their pomp and accumulated titles." 
 Camb. Ev. iii. 71. 
 
 ^v. p. 187. *4 M. 1657; C.S.P. 1591, 464. 
 
 S4 M. p. 1287. *Car. ii. 49. 
 
 ^ In 1547 an award was made between John Stacboll and 
 James Creagh of Limerick concerning a carvell laden with 
 wines to the number of six score butts. Cal. Pat. Rolls, i. 167. 
 
 * Shirley, Orig. Let. 170, 178, 287; Bellesheim, ii. 149. 
 
 7 C.S.P. 1567, 340- 
 
T. GAELIC TRADING ENTERPRISE 37 
 
 can speak never a word of English and made 
 us very good cheer"; and twenty years later 
 the Deputy camped at one of O'Shaughnessy's 
 houses^ and "dined so worshipfuUy as divers 
 wondered at it, for the like was not seen 
 in no Irishman's house": the conforming host 
 ventured, it would seem, to display his wealth. 
 The Roches traded from Kinsale ;^ and the 
 Myaghs, the O'Heyns, the Murroughs, the 
 Reilleys of Cork were as famed as the Blakes 
 of Galway. Before the Desmond wars and the 
 ruin of Munster James Myagh, citizen of Cork, 
 represented that, being by profession a Merchant 
 Adventurer,' he was very well able to live and 
 maintain himself by his trade in transporting wines 
 from beyond the seas, and this at a time when 
 the English, in no favour with the Spaniards or 
 unaccustomed to the trade, complained of their 
 miserable state, begging their bread in Cork and 1580 
 Kinsale.* No doubt John Olonye* was an Irish- 
 man, he who helped a merchant of Fecamp to 
 take £600 of plunder from the English Nicholas 
 St. John on the high seas ; and John Brian of 
 Ross, speculator in fish and wines.® 
 
 With this active trade a spirit of enterprise, 
 of growing independence, and of proud hope 
 was stirring over the land, insomuch that Henry 1501. 
 
 'Car. i. 76, 277. 2c_s.p. 1580, 226; 1583, 487. 
 
 ^C.S.P. 1586, 93-4. <C.S.P. 1580, 226. 
 
 ^C.S.P. 1548, 80. m.M.C. Rep. X. App. v. 330. 
 
38 IRISH BARBARISM ch. 
 
 duke of York, being sent at eleven years old 
 by his father Henry vii. with an army royal 
 into that country to be lieutenant there, he 
 I found William de Burgo, O'Brien, MacNamara, 
 O'Carroll, and certain others ready to make head 
 against him. It was from very boyhood therefore 
 that Henry viii. in his "royal appetite" had 
 determined to reduce " that realm to knowledge 
 ^ of God and obedience of Us," and by conquest 
 cure " all the disease and infirmity of all this 
 land," bring the wild Irish into civilization, and 
 introduce for the first time, according to the 
 invaders' fiction, tranquillity and restfulness, 
 wealth and prosperity, to a savage people.^ 
 1515. Some say, Henry was told, that all the noble 
 folk of the land of Ireland, from the highest 
 degree to the lowest, English or Irish, that used 
 Irish customs, had liever to continue the same 
 at their liberty, and bear the great danger of 
 God and of their enemies, than to have all 
 , the land as well ordered as England, and as 
 obedient to God, and to the King.^ But " bar- 
 barism " was not tolerable to Englishmen. Pious 
 prayers deplored it. " God with the beams of 
 His grace clarify the eyes of that rude people, 
 that at length they may see their miserable 
 estate." ^ 
 
 > St. Pap. II. iii. 17, 31, 32. 2st_ p^p. n. iii. 16. 
 
 ^ Hoi. vi. 69. 
 
NOTE ON IRISH "AONACHS" 39 
 
 Mr. G. E. Hamilton has kindly sent me the 
 following notes : 
 
 A Note on Irish "Aonachs." 
 
 For the whole subject see Mr. Goddard Orpen's paper 
 in Journal Roy. Soc. Antiquaries, Ireland, 1906, p. il, in 
 which he shews that " Aonach Carmain " was held on 
 the Curragh of Kildare, at the foot of Knockaulin, or 
 Dun Aillinne, and not at Wexford. 
 
 To hold the Aonach Carmain was a prerogative of 
 the King of Leinster (" Book of Rights," pp. 4, 14). '' 
 It was a triennial festival, held on Li Lughnasadh or 
 1st of August, and lasting seven days. It was apparently 
 celebrated for the last time in a.d. 1079 (according to the 
 Four Masters) by Conchobhar Ua Conchobhair Failghe, 
 who was jointly with Domhnall Mac Murchadha (the 
 fatlier of Diarmuid na nGall) the 66th Christian King 
 of Leinster; they were both slain in 11 15 by Domhnall 
 Ua Briain and the foreigners of Dublin after a reign 
 of two years, (Mac Firbhisigh, Book of Genealogies, p, 
 428.) Aonach Carmain was also called Aonach Aillinne, 
 Aonach Life, Aonach Curraigh, and Aonach nGubha 
 or " Fair of Mourning." 
 
 It was the prerogative of the King of Tara to hold 
 the Aonach Tailltenn, celebrated at Teltown in Meath 
 on Ld Lughnasadh in every third year. This Aonach 
 had the same importance for the men of Meath as 
 had Aonach Carmain for the men of Leinster. Its 
 last official celebration was in 1 169 by Ruaidhri O 
 Conchobhair, King of Ireland. 
 
40 NOTE ON IRISH "AONACHS" ch. 
 
 The Aonach Muirthe'nnbne was held on Ld Lughnasadh, 
 probably at Tnligh Bhaile Mhic Bhuain, the modern 
 " Seatown " or part of Dundalk next the strand. 
 
 Aonach Cruachan licld at Rath Croghan in the Barony 
 of Roscommon, most probably had the same importance 
 for the King of Connacht ; it is probably identical with 
 the " Fair of Connacht." 
 
 Aonach Ailbhe "at which the men of Leinster were 
 wont to bury " was perhaps held on the Hill of Ballon 
 in the Barony of Forth O'Nolan, Co. Carlow. It was 
 at any rate in Magh Ailbhe, the plain between the 
 Barrow, Sliabh Mairge and the Wicklow Mountains. 
 
 Aonach Cholmain where the men of Munster were 
 buried, was held in thfe parish of Lann Eala or Lynally 
 in the Barony of Ballycowan, King's County, about a 
 mile to the south-east of TuUamore, in the ancient tuath 
 of Feara Ceall, and province of Meath ; this district was 
 originally in Munster, from which it was taken by 
 Tuathal Teachtmhar a.d. 130. 
 
 Aonach Cholmdin would appear to have been the 
 original site of the Mor-Aonach of Munster, which 
 was afterwards transferred to Aonach Teite, called in 
 later times Aonach Urmhumhan (" the fair of Ormond ") 
 and now Nenagh (an Aonach) in Co. Tipperary. 
 
 Aonach Cholmdin then became merely a tribal 
 assembly of the Feara Ceall under O'Maolmhuaidh 
 or O'Molloy. 
 
 Aonach Guile, also called Aonach Clochair, Aonach 
 Beag, and Aonach Cairbre, was held at Monasteranenagh 
 (Mainistir an Aonaigh) near Croom in the Barony of 
 Pubblebrien, Co. Limerick. 
 
 An Aonach Macha is mentioned by the Four Masters 
 A.M. 3579, it was probably held at Eamhain Macha. 
 
 Aonach Carmain was situate on the Slighe Ddla or 
 Bealach Mor Muighe Dala which led from Tara to 
 Nenagh, it passed througli Naas, crossed the Liffey at 
 
I. NOTE ON IRISH "AONACHS" 41 
 
 Ath Garvaii, traversed the Currach, and so led through 
 the north of the Queen's County to Roscrea. 
 
 Aonach Tlachtga was celebrated at the Tlachtga or 
 the Hill of Ward about two miles from Athboy in 
 Meath. Tlachtga was situate in the ancient Munster. 
 
 Aonach Uisneach at Uisneach or the Hill of Usnagh 
 in West Meath, in the ancient Connacht. Aonach an 
 Bhrogha at Brugh na B6inne, now New Grange on 
 the Boyne. 
 
 So too the Ui Amhalgaidh, or people of the Barony 
 of Tirawley, celebrated an Aonach every year at Carn 
 Amhalgaidh, the carn of Amhalgaidh, son of Fiachra 
 Ealgach, son of Dathi, son of Fiachra. This carn 
 is near Killala in County Mayo. 
 
 These provincial Aonachs must originally have had a 
 very intimate and close connection with the great " Feis 
 Teamhrach " or " Festival of Tara " which was the 
 national assembly held by the High-King of Ireland, 
 the other Aonachs being merely provincial gatherings. 
 The sites of these Aonachs are mostly near the great 
 roads and only about 50 to 70 miles away from Tara 
 in a straight line. In fact they are all much more 
 conveniently situated to Tara than to their own pro- 
 vinces. While the official celebrations of some of these 
 provincial Aonachs lasted until the 12th century, the 
 last Feis Teamhrach was held in a.d. 560. 
 
 Although these Aonachs were primarily established 
 for political and tribal reasons, it is probable that in 
 the course of time their commercial importance increased 
 v/hile their political aspect vanished with the decay of 
 the provincial kings, and that they survived as modern 
 "fairs." 
 
 For a general description of what took place at these 
 Aonachs see Joyce, Social History, ii. p. 438, et seq. 
 
42 NOTE ON IRISH ROADS en. 
 
 A Note on Irish Roads. 
 
 In the A. F. Masters of the year 123 a.d., there 
 occurs the following passage. 
 
 "The first year of Conn C^adcathach as King over 
 Ireland. The night of Conn's birth were discovered 
 five principal roads (priomhroid) to Tara, which were 
 never observed till then. These are their names : Siighe 
 Asaii, Siighe Miodhluachra, Siighe Cualann, Siighe Mor, 
 Siighe Dila. Siighe Mor is that called Eiscir Riada, 
 t.e. the division line of Ireland into two parts between 
 Conn and Eoghan Mor." 
 
 This probably means that according to the tradition 
 the building of these principal roads from Tara was 
 completed by Feidhlimidh Reachtmhar, King of Ireland, 
 Conn's father. He died in the year 119 a.d. 
 
 Siighe J sail ran from Tara due west towards Lough 
 Owel in West Meath : it divided the province of Meath 
 into two equal parts, North and South. It crossed 
 Magh Asail or Feara Asail which was that portion of 
 the Barony of Moyashel and Magheradernon on the East 
 of the River Brosna and of tlie town of MuUingar. It 
 probably then turned in a north-westerly direction and 
 ran to Rath Croghan. 
 
 Siighe Miodhluachra ran to Slane on the Boyne, 
 then northwards t4irough the Moyry Pass on the borders 
 of Armagh and Louth, past Newtown-Hamilton to 
 Eamhain Macha. 
 
 Siighe Cualann ran south-eastwards to Dublin, where 
 it was called Bealach Duibhlinne, it followed the line of 
 the Bothar na gCloch (Stoney batter), crossing the LifFey 
 by the ancient hurdle-bridge from which Dublin takes its 
 Irish name of Baile Atha Cliath (Town of the Hurdle 
 ford). This bridge, which was called DroicJiead Dubh- 
 ghaill (The Dane's Bridge) in Brian Boroimhe's time, 
 
NOTE ON IRISH ROADS 
 
 43 
 
 occupied the site of the present Whitworth Bridge. 
 The Slighe Cualana would then appear to have divided 
 into two parts, one leading towards Bray through 
 Baile an Bh6thair or Booterstown, the other by Dun 
 Liamhna or the Hill of Lyons to Naas. It then crossed 
 the LifFey again at Ath Garvan, passed by Diin Aillinne 
 or Knockaulin, and ran by Bealach Mughna or Ballairh- 
 moon in the south of Co. Kildare, towards Bealach 
 Gabhrdin or Gowran in Co. Kilkenny, here it was called 
 Bealach an Fheadha Mhoir or Road of the Great Wood. 
 Then it turned westwards across Ossory to Cashel. 
 
 Slighe Dala ; this road apparently ran due south from 
 Tara and joined the Slighe Cualann near Naas, it 
 parted from it again near Dun Aillinne, turned west- 
 wards across the Curragh and ran through the North 
 of the Queen's County to Roscrea in County Tipperary. 
 Presumably it then led by Nenagh to Limerick. 
 
 The Slighe Mor led south-west from Tara until 
 it joined the Eiscir Riada near Clonard, which it then 
 followed to Galway. This Eiscir Riada is "a long, 
 natural, wavy ridge formed of gravel, running almost 
 across the whole county from Dublin to Galway. It 
 was much celebrated in old times, and divided Ireland 
 into two equal parts, Leath-Chuinn on Conn's Half, on 
 the north, and Leath-Mhogha or Mogh's Half, namely 
 Eoghan Mor's Half, on the South." 
 
 Thirty-seven other roads are mentioned by the Four 
 Masters, but their lines cannot now be more than guessed 
 at. 
 
 For the whole subject see Joyce, Social History, ii. 
 393 et seq., from which this note is .mainly derived. 
 There is also a good notice in O'Donovan's Introduction 
 to the Book of Rights. 
 
IL 
 
 IRISH INDUSTRIES. 
 
 We have seen the evidences of an extensive 
 commerce round the entire coast of Ireland, 
 and spreading thence over the whole of Europe. 
 The imports were rich and various — iron, salt, 
 silks and satins, cloth of gold and embroideries, 
 carpets, wines and spices — all the luxuries of a 
 wealthy country. Irish merchants of the towns 
 were sailing their ships to the chief ports of 
 Europe, and amassing substantial fortunes. At 
 home they were building houses and improving 
 the towns in a manner that befitted their stand- 
 ing. The country gentry were flocking into so 
 promising a trade, and serving their time as 
 apprentices to successful merchants, with agree- 
 ments to be made free of the foreign commerce. 
 Inland trade prospered with the traffic of fre- 
 quent markets, the interchange of gold and 
 silver and pflate, and the " large tributes of 
 money " given to Ireland by the commerce of 
 European nations. The people who had some 
 /Schooling naturally talked Latin, the language 
 of their continental trade, for English would 
 
cH.ii. IRISH RESOURCES 45 
 
 have been of little use to them in commerce, 
 and " the Irish is as wise as the Spaniard is 
 proud," said aifi English observer.^ 
 
 What then did Ireland send out to pay for 
 the imports landed at her harbours ? 
 
 There was no doubt a vast country trade in 
 hides and skins of all kinds and meat, an early 
 and an enduring industry. But this alone would 
 neither have bought the foreign luxuries, nor 
 exhausted the resources of Irishmen ; and many 
 other trades and manufactures were developed 
 by their labour. 
 
 The country had much natural wealth. The 
 people worked quarries for stone, and others 
 famous for the variety and solidity of their marbles,* 
 which they cut, polished, and exported. Presents 1566. 
 of stone for their buildings were sent to Cecil, 
 Leicester, and Sir N. Bacon ; and patterns of stone 1584. 
 sought for in Ireland to be sent to Barbary. The 
 timber trade was very active ; amid all the wars 
 of Dublin with the O'Byrnes stacks of Wicklow 
 timber were piled up on her quays,* laths and 
 boards to make barrels " for the export of the 
 
 ' Ir. Arch. Soc. 1841. Payne, 13. v. app. 
 
 * " Of hewen stone the porch was fairly wrought, 
 Stone more of value, and more smooth and fine 
 Than jet or marble far from Ireland brought" 
 
 Fairy Queen, Book ii. Canto ix. {1590). 
 C.S.P. 1566, 290; 1580, 230; 1584, 519; Soc. of Ant., May 
 1859, 324. V. app. 
 
 ''Cal. Dub. Rec. i. 13, 284-5. '^- ^PP- 
 
46 TIMBER INDUSTRY cn. 
 
 inbred commodities,"* or to be sent away for 
 shipbuilding or for herring-casks. There was 
 also a finer trade. Irish wood was often cited 
 in French lists of the fourteenth century as a 
 specially choice wood^ for furniture, painting, and 
 sculpture ; the holly, which grew to a great size, 
 was probably used for painting; yew perhaps,^ 
 as with the Greeks, for carving. Great oaks 
 jwere felled in successive centuries for the roof 
 T2oo.lof Westminster Hall, for the palace at White- 
 1700. hall, for the Dutch Stadthaus at Amsterdam.' 
 
 The coasts of Ireland were famous for their 
 fisheries ; large quantities of fish were exported 
 along with other provisions. O'Sullivan, prince of 
 Bear and Bantry, ruled over a people who lived 
 by fishing, and had his native fleet:* when an 
 English ship seized a Spanish fishing-vessel off the 
 coast he manned a small squadron, brought both 
 
 'F. Moryson, p. 33; iii. 161 ; Piers' Desc. of Westmeath; 
 C.S.P. 1568, 385; 1595, 306; H.M.C. Rep. x. app. v. 394-5; 
 Hore, Town of Wexford, 157 ; export of timber was forbidden 
 in Galway, 1579: H.M.C. Rep. x, app. v. 430. Irish casks 
 and barrels were very cheap. Ir. Arch. Soc. 1841, Payne, 7; 
 Camb. Ev. ii. 113. 
 
 "A simple workman with a brake axe will cleave a great 
 oak to boards of less than one inch thick, xiiii inches broad 
 and XV foot in length." Ir. Arch. Soc. 1841 ; Payne, 6. 
 
 'Z.C.P. vi. 1907, 192-3. 
 
 'As late as 1760 Lord Hertford got ^500 a year from the 
 oak-woods of Ballinderry. Heterogenea, 214. For the woods 
 of Glenconkine see Concise view of the Society of the new 
 Plantation, called the Irish Society. B. ed. of 1842 by Vander- 
 com, Saunders & Bond. 
 
 * C.S.P. 1587, 364; cf. Cormac, 29, Irish Arch. Soc. 1841 
 V. app. 
 
ir. FISHERIES 47 
 
 ships to Bearhaveii, hanged the English captain 
 and set the other free.^ Fishermen of Duncannon 
 and Waterford carried their hake to France ;'^ 
 MacSweenys,^ O'Briens, OMdilles fished in their 
 own seas. Foreigners joined in a profitable 
 trade. Devon and Cornwall sent fleets to 
 Munster, and 50 English ships sailed yearly 
 to Clew bay, paying rent to the OMailles. 
 Certain English merchants * in time of war 
 took, an Irish escort to carry "big packs of 1452. 
 fish " from Athlone to Trim, Athboy, and 
 Dublin, but were fallen on and slaughtered 
 by the MacGeoghegans, " and no man living 
 shall give account of the multitude of Eels lost 
 or left therein, wherefore that defeat was called 
 'the defeat of the fish.'" Three thousand 1535. 
 Englishmen, they boasted, gathered to the fishing 
 off Carlingford.^ The most dangerous foreign 
 rivals of the English were the Spaniards, great< 
 fishers along the southern coast ; they viewed with 
 jealousy this Continental trade with the wealth 
 it brought to Irishmen, and passed an act to 
 forbid any strangers from fishing on the Irish 1465. 
 shores without license;® while to encourage the 1548. 
 English trade another act forbade any exactions 
 of money or shares of fish from merchants or 
 fishermen going to Ireland and other places 
 
 'Gibson's Cork, ii. 36. ^C.S.P. 1590, 291. 
 
 3C.S.P. 1569, 405. <4 M. 985 n. 
 
 « Car. i. 85. 6 Ir. St. 5th Ed. iv. c. 6. 
 
48 RIVER FISHING ch. 
 
 commodious for fishing.^ But statutes were vain 
 against an ancient and thriving commerce, 
 
 1569. and a century later at least six hundred Spanish 
 ships, besides others, sailed to Ireland every year 
 for fishing alone. Two or three hundred used to 
 fish off MacCarthy's coast, lying in his harbour of 
 Valencia, — a harbour much coveted by Henry viii. 
 
 1569. — and carried away 2000 beeves, hides, and tallow, 
 paying no dues to the queen but leaving coin 
 for Irish traders.^ Besides the sea-fishing there 
 was a large export of salmon and eels carried in 
 trading ships from the river fisheries,' then of 
 great value and strictly regulated ; no swine 
 allowed on the strand of rivers from March to 
 October, and no flax to be steeped there for the 
 linen yarn.* 
 
 The laws that forbid the steeping of flax recall 
 one of the most famous of Irish industries. 
 
 The spirit of Irish civilisation was finely 
 expressed in their old proverb of the " three 
 slender things that best support the world:* the 
 slender stream of milk into the pail, the slender 
 
 ' Hakluyt, viii. 8. 
 
 ^C.S.P. 1569, 405; Car. i. 439; ib. 209. 
 
 ^ In 1608 a Dublin merchant Henry Quinn wrote that he 
 had abandoned the business of purchasing yarn and sending 
 it to Manchester, the trade having decayed from the long 
 civil war, and had taken instead to the trade of fishing in the 
 Bann. In Pennant's time 320 tons of salmon were taken from 
 the Bann in one year. Ulster Arch. J., ii. p. 149. 
 
 ^Tuckey's Cork, 31 ; Ir. St. 1569. 
 'Triads, Kuno Meyer. 
 
,1. IRISH LINEN 49 
 
 blade of green corn upon the ground, the slender 
 thread over the hand of a skilled woman." Linen, 
 as we see by the trade lists, was sold on the 
 stalls of every Irish market, and was carried 
 abroad ; and flax was grown in every part 
 of Ireland from north to south, " Foreign 
 writers attest the great abundance of linen in 
 Ireland. 'Ireland,'^ they say, 'abounds in lint 
 which the natives spin into thread, and export 
 in enormous quantities to foreign nations. In 
 former ages they manufactured very extensively 
 linen cloths, the greater portion of which was 
 absorbed by the home consumption, as the natives 
 allowed thirty or more yards for a single cloak, 
 which was wound or tied up in flowing folds. 
 The sleeves also were very capacious, extending 
 down to the knees. But these had gone nearly 
 out of fashion'^ in 1566.' Need I mention the 
 common linen covering which the women wear 
 in several wreaths on their heads, or the hoods 
 used by others ; for a woman was never seen 
 without either the veil or a hood on her head, 
 except the unmarried, whose long ringlets were 
 tastefully bound up in knots, or wreathed around 
 the head and interwoven with some bright-coloured 
 ribband. If to these we add the linens for the 
 altar, the cloths for the table, the various linen 
 robes of the priests, and the shrouds which 
 
 'Camb. Ev. ii. 169. v. app. 
 
 * Forbidden by Statute in 1539; v. Campion, cap. vi. 
 
 D 
 
50 EXPORT OF LINEN ch- 
 
 were wrapped around the dead/ there must have 
 
 been a great abundance of linen in Ireland. We 
 
 read of St. Brighid that ' she spun and wove 
 
 with her own hands the linen cloths which were 
 
 wrapped around St. Patrick's sacred remains.'" 
 
 1539- The Act of Henry viii. which forbade any 
 
 1569. shirt to be made of more than seven yards of 
 
 linen, Elizabeth's Act which forbade the laying 
 
 of hemp or flax on any running stream, the 
 
 repeated orders'^ that neither flax nor linen yarn 
 
 1550, should be carried out of Ireland, show the extent 
 
 '^ ^' of the industry and of the cultivation of flax. 
 
 Charged by the English, among other vices, 
 
 with an extravagant use of linen in their dress, 
 
 1336. they nevertheless provided for foreign markets, 
 
 1437. exporting linen cloth and faldings' to Chester, the 
 
 Netherlands, and Italy. Even as late as 1592, 
 
 when Connacht had been brought to its lowest 
 
 • misery, we still find traces of the old trade — 
 
 merchants from Galway making their circuits 
 
 in the country to buy from the rich their store 
 
 of horses and cattle, and from the cottages of 
 
 the poor their linen cloth and yarn.* " The 
 
 women are all naturally bred to spinning," 
 
 said Strafford.* The excessive competition, the 
 
 'After the Armada the women of Galway wrapped the 
 Spanish dead in fine linen. 
 
 ^C.S.P. 1550, 108; Ir. Stat. 1569. 
 
 3 Libel of Eng. Pol. Rolls Series ; Hist. MSB. Com. Rep. x. 
 App. V. 290; Cal. Rec. Dub. i. 15. 
 ••CS.?. 1592, 563. "Letters (Dub. 1740), ii. 19. 
 
ir. WOOLLEN MANUFACTURE 51 
 
 extravagant profits, of English nobles and officials 
 in licenses to transport linen yarn from Ireland 
 in Elizabeth's reign, show not only the extent 
 of the cultivation of flax but the magnitude of 
 the linen manufacture which they had de- 
 stroyed.^ 
 
 The linen trade in fact rivalled the woollen 
 manufacture. In old time tribute was paid to 
 kings of mantles green and blue and variegated 
 and purple of fine brilliance, cloaks of strength 
 and cloaks of fine texture,^ and Irish skill in 
 weaving never failed.* " Three excellencies of i. cent, 
 dress," they said, "elegance, comfort, lasting- 
 ness." * Every market in Ireland had for sale xm. 
 Irish cloth of all colours, and cloaks. The book ""'' 
 of Lismore tells of linen and woollen shirts, and xv. cent 
 serge, along with silk and satin.* An Elizabethan 
 governor® in Connacht prayed to have the livery- 
 money of the soldiers spent in Irish manufactures 
 to clothe them there with frieze and mantles, both 
 
 ' Dr. Kuno Meyer (Gael. Journ.) gives a list of fanciful names 
 of women, referring to spinning etc., which occur in the tale 
 called Airec menman Uraird mate Cotse, preserved in the 
 Rawlinson MS. B. 512, Oxford fol. ma, I4-I5th cent., but 
 of much older origin. Anecdota, ii. 56. 
 
 ^Book of Rights, Rev. Celt. v. 71 ; Cormac's Poem, Irish 
 Arch. Soc. 1 84 1, p. 49. 
 
 ^Tr. Rel. to Irel. Kilk. St. 21 n. « Triads, K. Meyer. 
 
 "Stokes, Lismore Lives, xcix. For Kilkenny see C.S.P. 
 1548, 90; -'. Waterford, Galway and Dublin, Hist. MSS. Com. 
 Rep. X. App. v. 267, 289, 394; Gal. Rec. Dub. i. 9, 15. 
 
 'Car. ii. 311. ) 
 
52 EXPORT OF CLOTH ch 
 
 to bed them in the night and for warmth. The 
 mantle, linen cloth, frieze, and brogue of Ireland 
 would serve the soldier well/ wrote another 
 official, and in fact Irish cloaks, brogues, and 
 
 1560- stockings were supplied to the troops instead of 
 
 '^^^" English clothing. 
 X. cent. Centuries before the Norman invasion Irish 
 traders were known as far as Cambridge bring- 
 ing woollen cloaks for sale ; * for hundreds of 
 
 1200. years they sold in the English markets friezes 
 ' and serges, cloth white and red, russet and 
 
 1290. green. It was carried to Chester, to Here- 
 ford, to Gloucester and Bristol, to Winchester 
 and Southampton, to Coventry, to Canter- 
 
 1382. bury. The Pope's Collector was given special 
 permission to carry away with him free of duty 
 mantles of Irish cloth. ^ A Limerick cloak or 
 
 1558- a blue Galway mantle was a worthy gift from one 
 great minister of Elizabeth's court to another,* 
 and Sir T. Heneag-e building a new house wrote 
 for a dozen of the finest and lightest Irish rugs 
 that can be got to lay upon beds.* Spanish wool 
 was imported for the best fabrics.® The fine Irish 
 
 'C.S.P. 1581, 309; 1585, cxxii. ; 1595, 406; Car. i. 294; 
 O'Grady, Cat. 452. 
 
 ^ Liber Eliensis, 148. 
 
 ^v. Hakluyt ; Kunze, 144-5 > Town Life, Green, i. 173-4 ; ii-4i! 
 42, 206, 289 ; Rym. vii. 356 ; Madox, Hist, of Excheq. i. 55° I 
 Anderson's Commerce, i. 204, 280. v. app. 
 
 *C.S.P. 1558, 39, 516; St. Pap. II. iii. 159. v. app. 
 
 »Car. 1590, 47. ^H.M.C. Rep. x. App. v. 290. 
 
II. 
 
 IRISH DYES 53 
 
 sense of colour^ had made their dyes renowned. 
 Much madder was grown for the trade,'' and woad, 
 which was objected to in England as poison to 
 cattle, was allowed in Ireland and seems to have 
 been planted or sown there. ^ Other traditional 
 dyes were handed down, and Catalonian manu- 
 facturers* who rivalled the skill of the Florentines, 
 sought the secret of the Irish colours, as well 
 as of their fabrics. We hear of an English 
 adventurer who journeyed to Connacht to find 
 " the wood wherewith black may be dyed " — a 
 journey on which he was probably sent to divert 
 him from the real secret of the dyers.* 
 
 But the fame of the Irish fabrics reached far 
 beyond England. Fine Irish "saia" or serge was 
 
 'O'Grady, Cat. 495. 
 
 -C.S.P. 1567, 338, 340; 4 M. p. 1703 n. Madder is a native 
 of the south of Europe. About the end of the 17th century, 
 the British paid to the Dutch ^60,000 annually for madder. 
 The price increased afterwards; and several people attempted 
 its cultivation in England (Miller's Gardeners' Diet.). In times 
 of peace the price fell, and it did not pay to cultivate it in 
 England, as the imported was cheaper than the home-grown. 
 Lawson, Agriculturist's Manual, 302 (1836). 
 
 ^C.S.P. 1585, SS5, 560, 562; 1586, 35, 60; 1587, 275. The 
 English proved bad planters of woad. Ir. Arch. Soc. 1841, 
 Payne, 6. 
 
 *Macph. i. 562, 655. "En el vando que en 1420 se publico 
 en Barcelona sobre el derecho de bolla se especifican los paiios, 
 cadiries, fustanes, sargas, sarguillas, estameiias, telillas, drapa, 
 saya de Irlanda, chamelotes de Reims, ostendes, y otras ropas 
 fiamencas. Todos estos generos estrangeros fueron imitados 
 luego en Cateluna." Capmany, Meraorias Historicas de Bar- ■ 
 celona, part ii. 242. 
 
 "C.S.P. 1584, 512, 519; O'Curry, Anc. Ire. i. ccccv. 
 
54 IRISH SERGE IN ITALY ch. 
 
 xni. used in Naples as trimming for the robes of the 
 cent. 
 
 kmg and queen.^ "Saia d' Irlanda " was known 
 
 J, 2/ in Bologna,^ in Genoa, in Como,' in Florence: 
 1400. Ireland was a country worthy of renown, they 
 said, for the beautiful serge it sent them.* It cost 
 1343- 5s. 5^d. an ell in that city of the finest woollen- 
 weavers of the world, where the masters of the 
 art were great and honoured citizens, and was 
 used by the Florentine women * accustomed to the 
 utmost luxury of dress. It was famous in southern 
 
 "'Sergie de Irlanda de quibus forcha fuerunt diversa guarni- 
 menta robbarum ad opus regium et domine Sanchie regine, 
 consertis nostre" (G. Yver, Le commerce et les marchands 
 dans I'ltalie mdridionale, p. 92 (Paris, 1903)). 
 
 ' Frati, Vita Privata di Bologna, 32. " Ed insieme alle mode 
 vennero importate anche le stoffe forestiere. Nei process! 
 criminali del xiv secolo si trovano spesso ricordati furti di vesti 
 di panno azzurrino di Francia foderate di vaio ; di saia d' Irlanda 
 di colore azzurro con fibbiette derate, o di panno ceiuleo de 
 Uliar 131 5. 1324. 
 
 ^Schultze, Geschich. Mittel-alter. Handels, 702. 
 
 *"Similimente passamo en Irlanda, 
 La qual fra noi e degna de Fama 
 Per le nobile Saie che ci monda." 
 
 (Ditta Mundi, Fazio degli Uberti, cap. xxvi. lib. iv.) 
 
 " Questa Gente, benche mostra selvagia, 
 E per gli monti la contrada accierba, 
 Nondimeno I'e dolcie ad cui I'asaggia." 
 
 (Ditta Mundi.) 
 Fazio degli Uberti probably visited Ireland: 
 " Qui vi(V 10 di piu natura Laghi." 
 (Charlemoiit, Transactions of R. Irish Academy, 1787.) 
 
 ^•'Per un pezza di Saia d' Irlanda per vestir della moglie 
 d' Andrea" (Old Florentine ace. bk. in Dizion. della Crusca: 
 see Napier, ii. 593). 
 
II. IRISH CLOTH IN EUROPE 55 
 
 Spain. Irish friezes found a good market in 
 France.^ They passed up the Rhine ; Richard 11. 
 gave leave to a Cologne merchant to export 1378 
 Irish cloth.^ At Bruges and Antwerp,' and the 1265. 
 Irish establishments in the Brabant fairs, the Irish 
 sold both a low-priced cloth and the famous 
 serges, Irish cloaks, and linen sheets. The trade 
 was so large that when foreign cloth was for- 
 bidden a clamour arose from all the poor in i497- 
 the Netherlands to be allowed still to buy the 
 cheap cloth and linen, Irish cloaks and Scot ker- 
 seys ; and archduke Philip gave orders that these 
 cloths from Ireland and Scotland and elsewhere 
 should be freely sold as before by the strangers 
 frequenting the country and occupied in the 
 trade. Cloaks were sold, the large at 45, the 
 small at 20 sols, and frieze at 3 sols a yard. 
 To preserve their manufacture the Irish for- ^ 
 bade the carrying of flax or wool into England : 
 only "Lords, Prelates, and of the Privy Council 
 may take flock beds under the weight of 3 
 stone with them to use for their ease in their 
 passage." * 
 
 'Tour of M. de la Boullaye le Gouz. Ed. Crofton Croker, 
 '837. v. app. 
 
 ^Hanzeakten aus England, Kunze, 144. 
 
 ^Gilliodts van Severen, Cart. Bruges, ii. 90, 314; iii. 35, 52, 
 ■54, 276; V. p. 13 ; Guicciardini, Descr. of Netherlands, quoted 
 by Macph. ii. 131 2'. app. 
 
 Mr. St. 13th H. viu. c. 2; 28th H. viii. c. 17; nth Eliz. 
 c. X.; 13th Eliz. c. 2. V. app. 
 
56 LEATHER TRADE ch. 
 
 The leather of Ireland ^ was well known too 
 in France, Flanders, Bruges, in England and 
 Scotland. Belts and straps for spurs, no doubt 
 finely ornamented, were gifts fit for a poet's 
 
 1 100. reward,^ and a French hero in a novel of the 
 twelfth century wore a belt of Irish leather.^ 
 
 I3S4- Irishmen were allowed by statute of Edward in. 
 to bring their leather to the staple towns of 
 England,* Wales, and Scotland, and must have 
 shown too great enterprise in the trade during 
 the next 200 years, which Elizabeth checked by 
 
 1569- laws to limit the places for tanning. They 
 made gloves, and a large variety of shoes shown 
 in the markets ; rich shoes exquisitely finished 
 and ornamented were common in early Ireland,* 
 and Spenser noted that the Irish knight of his 
 day affected " costly cordwainery." The Water- 
 ford shoemakers were formed into a brotherhood 
 
 1485- under Irish leaders, John Poer, Teigue Breack, 
 and Thomas Flwyn.^ In Galway church we may 
 still see the beautiful Celtic cross graven on a 
 tomb that preserves the memory of a shoe-maker 
 of that town. 
 
 It must be remembered that whatever was 
 
 *T'. app. 
 
 "O'Grady, Cat. 435. ^C.Z.P. vi. 1907, pp. 192-3. 
 
 *Eng. St. 27th Ed. III. c. 18; Ir. St. nth Eliz. c. 2. 
 
 * Wilde's Catalogue Roy. I. Acad, quoted by Joyce, ii. 217-220; 
 Cal. Rec. Dub. i. 128. 
 
 "Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. x. App. v. 320. 
 
,1. THE CRAFTSMEN 57 
 
 the fame or ardour of the Irish in military 
 adventure, they never neglected the artist or fine 
 craftsman, nor placed the soldier above him ; 
 master craftsmen held a position equal to the ' 
 lesser nobles, and their names were handed down 
 with honour. " Tuileagna O'Moelchonaire, a 
 scholar profoundly versed in Irish histories and 
 laws, has informed me by letter," wrote Dr. 
 Lynch, " that special tribunals were established 
 in Ireland for adjudicating on all causes arising 
 from the exercise of mechanical arts. A 
 master was appointed for each art, who was 
 bound to indemnify the purchaser for any 
 damage arising from the ignorance or fraud of 
 the mechanic." ^ The workers asked high wages, 
 as we see by the prices paid to fullers, coopers, 
 and other craftsmen in Limerick :^ it was ordered 
 in Galway ^ that no carpenter or mason should 1526. 
 have more than 2d. a day for his hire, with his 
 meat and drink. 
 
 The best hands in the world, after an Irish 
 saying, were the hand of a good carpenter, the 
 hand of a skilled woman, the hand of a good 
 smith.* We have seen the hand of the skilled 
 woman in weaving. The carpenter was judged 
 
 'Canib. Ev. ii. 193. ^ Arthur MS. Brit. Mus. 
 
 'Soc. of Ant., Dec. 1895, 384; U'lsi. MSS. Com. Rep. x. 
 App. V. 401 ; V. VVaterford, ib. 322. Soldiers were paid 8d. 
 a day and had to feed and provide themselves. Car. i. 379 ; 
 11. 46. V. app. 
 
 * Triads, K. Meyer. 
 
58 CARPENTERS ch. 
 
 by the proverbial tests, "joining together without 
 calculating (?), without warping (?); agility with 
 the compass ; a well- measured stroke." ' They 
 built ships, both before the Norman settlement 
 and in later centuries,'' and wrought much beau- 
 tiful work famous in its day. How often in 
 the ruins of once noble Irish churches we find 
 the stone that commemorates a carpenter, perhaps 
 a race of workmen,* marked with compass and 
 hammer : we may there give our homage to 
 skilled artists such as those who in the twelfth 
 century covered the chiselled stone cathedral of 
 Armagh with a roof of oak shingles, and adorned 
 its arches with festoons of grapes carved in red 
 yew and coloured ; * or made the " variegated 
 door " * (perhaps of inlaid woods) of Turrain 
 Castle near Athlone, which was so admired by 
 1536. its captors that they carried it away to set up 
 1531- in Sligo ; or who at Lough Allen constructed 
 the finest wooden house in all Ireland,® rich no 
 doubt in carvings. John Lawles, organ-maker 
 1476. in Kilkenny,^ was in the old Irish fashion given 
 'Triads, K. Meyer. ^z/. app. 'Soc. of Ant., 1852, go. 
 
 *0'Curry, iii. 58. See account given in 1689 of the root of 
 the Augustinian abbey at Waterford. "The boards on which 
 the vault was turned still remain entire though much exposed 
 to wet, which shews the durability of our Irish oak, they being 
 but half inch planks, and the building above 400 years erected." 
 Smith's Waterford, 89. 
 
 *4 M. 1435. *4 M. 1401. 
 
 'Soc. of Ant., Oct. 1873, 542-3- Galway Organs and Bells, 
 Misc. Ir. Arch. Soc. 1846, i. 51. 
 
ri. 
 
 SMITHS 59 
 
 a farm as his wage to live and carry on his 
 craft in the town. 
 
 The smiths had the blessing of an Irish saint 
 since the day the seven master-smiths^ made for 
 St. Findchu the seven iron sickles on which he 
 purposed to kneel for seven years until he should 
 get a place in heaven, having in his charity 
 given away his original place to the king of the 
 Deisies. " He then blessed the smiths of that 
 place, and left them the gift of handiness, viz. 
 the gift of ornamenting for ever and the gift 
 of being professors of it, but so that it would 
 be in that town they would begin or finish it." 
 And the smiths requested of him in reward of 
 their work to call the town by their name, Bri 
 Gobhann, the Hill of the Smiths.^ Skilled 
 artificers were known by " weaving chains, a 
 mosaic ball, an edge upon a blade." * Iron was xiii. 
 imported for their work, and " sheaves of steel." ^^'^ 
 Fermanagh was the centre where the best engines xv. 
 of war were constructed. " The Irish are in this ^^" 
 age," wrote a Baron of the Exchequer in Dublin, 
 
 ' Soc. of Ant, 1902, 375. 
 
 ^Novv Brigown, a village near Mitchelstown, Co. Cork. 
 
 'Triads, K. Meyer. 
 
 "Robin pulled forth an Iris/i knife, 
 And knicked Sir Guy in the face" 
 
 (from the ballad of "Robin Hood and Guy of Gisbome." 
 Presumably written circa 1500. Percy in his Reliques says 
 that "it carries marks of much greater antiquity than any of 
 the common popular songs on this subject"). 
 
6o GUNS IN IRELAND ch. 
 
 i5'5-" become more politic, and have more use of 
 ammunition and artillery than either before the 
 
 1487- conquest or long time after." ^ The first gun 
 
 we read of in Ireland was in the hands of 
 
 /'an O'Donnell, son of PI ugh O'Donnell the 
 
 1516. Anglicised. A French knight gave great guns 
 
 1555- to Hugh O'Donnell, and his son Calvagh had 
 a gun from Scotland " Gonna-Cam," the 
 Crooked Gun or Tormentum Curvum. The 
 O'CarroUs possessed cannons called falcons.- 
 Castlemore in Mayo had " every kind of engines, 
 . . . such as cannon and all sorts of weapons," ' 
 and O'Brien, lord of Thomond, fortified his 
 bridge with " a piece of iron which shot bullets 
 
 1507- as big as a man's head," and other guns of many 
 kinds. The forts of O'Conor Faly,* especially 
 Dengen, his " castle of most assurance," were well 
 
 1537- victualled, well ordnanced, and well-manned ; 
 and his gunners " so good marksmen as that few 
 spake after they shot them either with handgun 
 or with any other piece of ordnance." Much 
 Irish ordnance was bought in the foreign trade, 
 but some of their guns may have been the work 
 of Irish craftsmen from the Spanish iron which 
 was imported at every Irish harbour.* O'Conor's 
 
 •Car. i. 5. U M. 1 149-51. i335, i54i, 1409- 
 
 ^4 M. p. 1391. Galway cannons, Misc. Ir. Arch. 1846, i. 50. 
 
 ^Car. i. 124; Richey, Lect. Ir. Hist. ii. 19. 
 
 *In 1 688 the bell of Benburb was cast in Limerick by 
 Matthew MacMahon. It seems likely that this was a survival 
 of an older industry. 
 
,1. IRISH BUILDERS 6i 
 
 neighbour MacGillapatrick of Ossory had set 
 an iron grate' in his castle at Coolcill, which i5'7- 
 was forcibly carried off by Sir Piers Butler and 
 placed in the new stone gateway of Kilkenny, 
 when cannon were made and hauberks bought 
 for the defence of the town. 
 
 The masons added their skill. The Irish 
 had long been great builders, as we may see 
 from the round towers alone, and from ruins of 
 ancient churches. The tower of Clonmacnoise 1 124. 
 was built under Turlough O'Conor, and his son 
 Roderick raised a stone castle at Tuam, known 1161. 
 as the "wonderful castle."^ The imposing ruin 
 of Shanid Castle of the Desmonds shows how 
 fine was the Norman-Irish work of later times, 
 and there is a list in Irish of 124 castles, that is 
 to say, " piles " or " peels," in County Clare, with 
 the names of their Irish owners and builders.^ A 
 Spanish envoy reported that Desmond had ten 1530. 
 strong and well-built castles of his own, especi- 
 ally Dungarvan which the English king had ever 
 failed to take.* English deputies were amazed 
 at the fortifications of O'Brien's Bridge, with 
 fortresses at either end "edified after the manner 1506. 
 of block-houses . . . strongly builded in such 
 wise that neither one culverin nor yet six 
 falcons and a sacre of brass could very scarcely 
 
 'Soc. of Ant., Jan. 1880, 237. 
 
 "^v. app. ^o'Grady, Cat. 68-75. ""■ app. 
 
 *Froude's Pilgrim, 173. 
 
62 ARCHITECTURE ch, 
 
 perish them, but at certain lopes, and that was 
 very little." Castles of hewn marble were built 
 on each side in the water by the fourth arch 
 of the bridge, with walls 12 or 13 feet thick, 
 and well defended with " such fortifications of 
 timber and hogsheads of earth as the like have 
 not been seen in this land." After deputy 
 Sentleger with his ordnance, "and great travail 
 1536. and labour of poor men," had partly ruined 
 1538. O'Brien's great work. Lord Leonard Grey 
 " came to the same bridge, where was re-edified 
 one of the castles, and the other builded 
 strongly 15 or 16 foot high above the water, 
 and 7 arches of the said bridge, which I brake 
 down, both castle and bridge, hand-smooth."^ It 
 is no wonder that Elizabeth, anxious about her 
 1561. border fastnesses against the Scots, fetched over 
 three hundred good and fit masons from Ireland 
 for the Berwick fortifications, and more " hard- 
 hewers " followed later.'' We need a full study 
 of mediaeval architecture in Ireland, where the 
 country is covered with ruins of admirable design, 
 perfect in workmanship and decoration. The 
 traveller may select either of the great periods 
 of the Irish revival, the eleventh and twelfth 
 centuries, after the Danish invasion, or the later 
 fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, after the 
 
 *4M. p. 1289; Richey, ii. 89-90; Haverty, 356; Car. i. 
 104, 146. 
 
 'C.S.P. 1561, 162-166. V. app. 
 
II. GOLDSMITHS 63 
 
 Norman ; he may journey in " mere Irish " 
 districts, or in those where the Normans settled ; 
 he may visit Clonmacnois or Limerick, Tuam or 
 Galway, Ballintober, Boyle, Sligo, Burrishoole, 
 Creavlea, Fore, or countless other sites — every- 
 where he will find noble work done by native 
 hands, and stamped with the fine skill and art 
 of Irish builders.^ 
 
 Nor had the Irish goldsmith lost his cunning. 
 The churches held their finest treasures. The 
 four richest goblets^ in Ireland were at the 
 Temple More of Derry : one called Mac Riabac 1197 
 (worth 60 cows) ; a second called the goblet of 
 O'Maoldoraidh ; and the goblet of O'Doherty, 
 Cam-chopan (crooked goblet). There was the 
 marvellous Cross of Cong, and the holy Colum- 
 cille's cross,^ stolen by Perrot in 1584, which was 
 probably like the Cross of Cong cased in metal 
 and adorned with crystal bosses. Wonderful 
 jewels enriched the great church of Clonmacnois 1129. 
 
 ' In the 14th century S. Canice of Kilkenny had superb 
 glass windows of which fragments survive. Two hundred 
 years later the legate Rinuccini offered ;^7oo for the splendid • 
 east window. Cromwell in 1650 wrecked the place utterly, 
 taking away the five great and goodly bells, broke the windows 
 and carried away the costly glass. Hist, of S. Canice, 42. 
 In 1408 MacGilmore plundered the Franciscan church at 
 Carrickfergus and carried away the iron bars of the windows, 
 which it would seem held glass. .A.rchdairs Monasticon, i. 5. 
 I do not know if there was any manufacture of glass in 
 Ireland, v. Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. x. App. v. 265-6. For 
 Waterford v. ib. 318. 
 
 ^Soc. of Ant., 1863, 389. 'C.S.P. 1584, 530. V. app. 
 
64 IRISH METAL WORK en, 
 
 — silver chalices and gohlcts burnished with gold 
 and engraved, and a model of Solomon's Temple.' 
 But there was a wealth of treasure also in the 
 houses of the chiefs. From old time the Irish 
 chiefs delighted in fine metal work : " A covetous, 
 unconscientious man ' was Feradach, King of 
 Ossory. And if he heard of only one scruple 
 of gold or of silver in the hands of anyone in 
 his country, it would be brought perforce to 
 him and put in ornaments of horns and goblets 
 and swords and draftboards."'' Every lord had 
 his artificers in gold and silver finishing his cups 
 of wood and horn with fine metal work. There 
 was in every chief's house the sheen of goblets 
 held high * when ale was quaffed " from golden 
 goblets and from beakers of horn," and the 
 trophies ranged of victory — the great goblets 
 taken from the battle fields, some standing a 
 fist higher than the rest, in which their enemies 
 had drunk the wines of France. A mazer 
 captured from Sorley Boy was garnished with 
 silver gilt and his arms graven in the bottom ; 
 and the O'Neill armies went out to war carrying 
 rich and beautiful mazers and cups and wine- 
 1522. vessels.* The goldsmith's work was seen in their 
 armour, in the gold spurs such as Sir Owen 
 O'Gallagher wore, in the trappings of the horses, 
 
 '4 M. p. 1033. 2 Stokes, Lismore Lives, 307. 
 
 'O'Grady, Cat. 424, 431, 433, 353; v. Cellachan of Cashel, 
 Bugge, 76. 
 *4 M. 1361, 1653. 
 
II. 
 
 STORED TREASURES 65 
 
 the gilt bridles, peytrels or small chains hung i447- 
 on the chests of war-horses, and other harness,' 
 which an Act of Parliament sought to restrict to 
 knights and prelates. Poets told of the gilt- 
 bridled horses, the dazzling glitter in the chief's 
 house of " compact and close and glittering 
 mail," of "well-knit flashing armature" •,^ the gilt 
 armour of James FitzMaurice was in charge of 1580. 
 Owen Sullivan and was given by his wife to 
 Captain Apsley.^ 
 
 It is certain that vast quantities of gold and 
 silver were stored up in the towns and in 
 the lords' houses — rich stuffs, precious goods, 
 jewels and cups and ornamented goblets.* 
 Under mediaeval laws no goldsmith's work 
 could be openly carried to Europe, but we ' ' " 
 know that it was certainly exported from the 1299. 
 time of Edward 1. to Henry vii. ;* and later still ^5o4- 
 
 >25th H. VI. c. 6. "O'Spelan of the golden spurs." Hy- 
 Fiachrach, 251. 
 
 ''O'Grady, Cat. 376, 433; 4 M. 1427. 
 
 'In 1420 Blake bequeathed to his two sons two coats of 
 mail, two iron shoulder-plates, and two helmets. Blake, 
 Family Records, i. i8. 
 
 *See the great presents MacQuillan gave to O'Donnell, 
 horses, armour, and other beautiful articles of value, 1542. 
 4 M. p. 1471. And the wealth of O'Neill's camp — mead, wine, 
 rich clothing, arms, coats of mail, "and all other necessaries," 
 '557- 4 M. p. 1551, 1559. "A beautiful present of dress." 
 Ir. Arch. Soc. 1841, Cormac, 39; "coloured mantles for 
 every chieftain, ib. 35. " Munster of the great riches." Cel- 
 lachan of Cashel, Bugge, 98. v. app 
 
 'Berry, Stat. 225; Ir. St. 1447; Eng. St. 19th H. vii. c. 5. 
 
 S 
 
66 THE SOLDIERS' RAIDS ch. 
 
 one Francis Digby, very shrewd in exploiting 
 1549. Irish resources, " useth for his private commodity^ 
 to bring over halfpence and receives plate 
 for the same," so that a new proclamation was 
 made against buying plate. English deputies 
 and officials describe the Irish houses as bare 
 • and sordid : they may have had good reasons 
 for their prudence. No officer, bitterly com- 
 plaining of his lot and praying for grants or a 
 pension, could have wished to advertise his 
 - chances of " loot " from the enemy. And it is 
 certain that precious plate and vases were not 
 willingly displayed on the table when rough plenty 
 of food was set out with a forced show of welcome 
 for English officers and soldiers on their pillaging 
 journeys. They carried with them the right of 
 torture, and freely used it in the search for 
 Spanish treasure after the Armada : did it ever 
 serve to discover Irish heirlooms for the hungry 
 deputy, the president, the provost marshal, or 
 the unpaid and starving captains and soldiers ? 
 We know at least that in the raids and visita- 
 tions of the invaders, chieftain or merchant hid 
 his rich dresses, his arms and coats of mail," 
 and " beautiful articles of value," jewelled cups 
 and vessels of copper, brass, and gold, which 
 in those days of terror " the father would not 
 have acknowledged to his heir or the mother 
 to her daughter." 
 
 »C.S.P. 1549. 99- M M. 1559, 1471, 1653. 
 
II. WEALTH OF THE TOWNS 67 
 
 The natural riches of Ireland, " their own 
 most delightful and beloved country,"^ had been 
 garnered and her commerce widened by the 
 labour of her people. Frequent Acts forbidding 1299- 
 them to send bullion or plate or coin abroad '^°'*' 
 show that the Irish had gold and silver to pay for ' 
 goods bought in foreign markets.^ Their wealth 
 can be traced in the coin current in MacCarthy's 
 land,^ in the considerable money rents paid 
 on the Desmond estates (valued at over ;^7000 
 a year),* in the store of Spanish silver and 
 gold* used by the Irish, and in the treasures 
 of the Irish lords or the golden cups and 
 chains that made the dower of a merchant's 1547. 
 daughter.® When Youghal gave itself up to 
 Desmond's army it was full of riches and goods,^ 
 besides gold and silver which the merchants and 
 burgesses sent away in ships before the town was 
 taken : " many a poor indigent person became 
 rich and affluent by the spoils of this town." 
 The spoils on John Fitz-Edmund of Cloyne'isSi. 
 amounted to £61^']. A great Irish landowner, 
 James fifth earl of Ormond, left in his house 1452-62 
 at Blackfriars ;^40,ooo in gold besides his plate. 
 In the north, the Old Lady of Kildare* had 
 
 'Camb. Ev. i. 43. 
 
 ^Berry, Stat. 215, 225, 237, 239, 251; If. St. 2Sth H. VI.; 
 35th H. VI. ; 19th H. VII. 
 'C.S.P. 1569, 405. <C.S.P. 1586, 230. 
 
 "Car. ii. 415. «Hard. Gal. 82. 
 
 '4 M. 1723. 8C.S.P. 1581, 305. 
 
 'C.S.P. 1592, 490. 
 
r 
 
 68 
 
 IRISH TREASURE 
 
 CH, 
 
 j^iooo and more out of one barony in Clan- 
 1552. naboy. The Earl of Tyrone had laid up at 
 Dungannon ;^8oo of gold and silver, besides 
 plate and other stufF.^ When the town traders 
 were ordered to pay an impost on wines to 
 the English queen, their excitement showed the 
 1570. magnitude of their interests : " I might have 
 had," said Sidney, " ;^2ooo in gold to have 
 opposed the Act respecting the custom for wines."^ 
 Irish treasure was lavishly offered to save their 
 1577- heroes from English prison or death — ;^300 for 
 1581. the rescue of Murrough O'Brien, ;^iooo for the 
 life of Turlough O'Brien, ,^2000 for the freedom 
 of Hugh O'Donnell,^ and so on. It became a 
 recognised part of English policy to drain the 
 Irish bare of their accumulated store. Who 
 can measure the vast prices paid for yearly 
 " pardons " and " protections " of the chiefs, for 
 the keeping of their pledges, and the Protestant 
 training of their Catholic sons?* We might take 
 instances from the province reputed the poorest 
 
 *C.S.P. 1552, 126; cf. C.S.P. 1579, xiv. "Car. ii. 350. 
 
 ^Bagwell, ii. 338; C.S.P. 1581, 308; 1589, 165. There is 
 great difficulty in calculating the value of these sums. In 
 the first half of the century beeves had been worth 6s. 8d., 
 sheep IS., pigs 3s., chickens |d. But Elizabeth's wars and 
 devastations had increased prices by two or three times. 
 For later prices cf. Irish Arch. Soc. 1841, Payne's Descr. Irel. 
 ,'And her coinage policy was planned to keep Ireland bare 
 of money. These sums represent therefore a surprising 
 treasure stored. Car. ii. 58-9. See pp. 90, 146. 
 
 *See ch. xi. 
 
II. 
 
 WEALTH OF CONNACHT 
 
 69 
 
 in Ireland. The chiefs of Connacht lay under 
 forfeit of ;^io,ooo recognisances to the President.^ i577- 
 Six thousand pounds was Clanrickard's fine for 1579. 
 the destruction of Athenry.^ The Galway people 1576. 
 were taxed ;^20oo, and a bond taken of ;^5000 
 of lord Clanrickard to see this performed.^ A 
 lord Bourke spent over ;^iooo in suit for his 
 tide besides the money paid for his education 1593. 
 in Oxford.* President Bingham calculated the 
 revenue from Connacht at ;^4000* over and 
 above the ancient revenue and impost, besides 
 a good sum in fines, and to these sums he 
 added ;^2c>do in preys and booties® — this in a 
 time of ruined trade, when the imposts of Galway 
 had fallen to nothing and no wine any longer 
 came there.^ Sir Owen MacCarthy and his 
 country of Carbery, in furtherance of her 
 majesty's service, paid in money and cattle 1579-83 
 in three years ;^7500.* 
 
 It was indeed the wealth and not the poverty 
 of the people of Ireland that had drawn the '''' 
 invaders to her pillage. Official life held rich 
 
 'Car. ii. 155. ^C.S.P. 1579, 170. 
 
 ^C.S.P. 1574, p. 37; Sid. Letters, 106; Car. ii. 5a 
 
 *C.S.P. 1593, 74- 
 
 'C.S.P. 1586, 207; 1587, 382. 
 
 "C.S.P. 1586, 394, 184. The revenues of the twelve 
 monasteries founded by O'Conor in Connacht were reported 
 sufficient to maintain each of them the dignity and family 
 of an earl or marquis. Camb. Ev. iii. 309, 321. 
 
 'C.S.P. 1586, 22. SMacCarthy's Life, 19. 
 
70 THE OFFICIAL SPOILS ch. 
 
 rewards. " No man could imagine in what an 
 inconceivably short time the scriveners in the 
 courts of justice in Dublin have scraped together 
 enormous properties. It is not by inches, but 
 by cubits, to use a common phrase, that they 
 ascend to wealth." ^ The governorship of Ireland 
 ^as considered by Elizabeth a chief place of profit 
 under her crown. When Sidney came to Hamp- 
 ton Court with two hundred gentlemen in his train, 
 it happened that the queen was looking out of 
 the window, and was surprised thereat until she 
 was told it was the Lord Deputy of Ireland, and 
 then she replied /'/ was well enough for he had two 
 of the best offices in the kingdom} " Now he shall 
 be envied more than ever he was ! " cried Perrot's 
 brother at his appointment.^ Elizabeth's lieutenants 
 and those of Henry viii. did not journey there to 
 make a trade in raw hides, or take their pillage 
 of naked savages living in caves, nor even of a 
 people who had attained the level of Hottentots 
 and Zulus. The hardships they endured were 
 paid with a richer spoil.* 
 
 *Camb. Ev. iii. 71, 177. "Swarms of foreigners, swept into 
 the country from time to time, who never did any service to 
 the Irish, but devoted all their energies to ruin them without 
 resource, and amassed enormous properties for themselves by 
 the plunder of their fellow-subjects." lb. i. 69-71. The Irish 
 of English descent protested in 1314, that all the honours 
 and wealth of their native land were monopolised by successive 
 hordes of Englishmen, who came over to Ireland to glut 
 their rapacity. lb. iii. 177. v. Moran's Archbishops, 93. 
 
 ^Memoirs of the Sidneys, Collins, 1746, i. 88. 
 
 ^Perrot's Life, 137. * v. app. 
 
ir. IRISH EMIGRATION 71 
 
 There have been three periods in which Ice- 
 land has poured out her people over the sea. 
 The great and singular missionary movement, 600- 
 when for 500 years Irishmen were dispersed over y 
 England and the Continent in the cause of 
 religion and learning, has been to some extent 
 studied by historians. With the spread of 
 Christianity the missionary work came to a 
 natural close : Irish scholars still studied and 
 taught in the Universities of Europe, but there 
 was a new dispersion, of which the records have 
 not been sought out nor the history written, iioo- 
 when for some 500 years Irish merchants • ^■ 
 wandered over Europe, taking a peaceable part 
 in the new progress of manufactures and inter- 
 national trade. These movements had enriched 
 the land from which they sprung : they had 
 broadened its culture and its wealth. But the 
 violent suppression of Irish commerce and 
 industry under Elizabeth opened a last phase 
 of emigration — the dispersion of a people out- 
 lawed and exiled, whose hopeless banishment 
 could only herald the death of their country. 
 The lament of the first great exile has been the 
 prophetic story of his race in its later days ; 
 
 " There is a grey eye 
 That looks back upon Ireland, 
 It will never see afterwards 
 Ireland's men, nor her women." ^ 
 
 * Stokes, Lismore Lives, 310. 
 
III. 
 
 COUNTRY LIFE. 
 
 Some of the natural resources of Ireland were 
 so considerable and so remarkable that they 
 have been commonly spoken of as forming its 
 whole wealth — a wealth to be gathered without 
 toil by the easy methods of the chase and of 
 open pasture. According to this theory nomadic 
 tribes of herdsmen and hunters, unskilled, dis- 
 orderly, and incapable of political organisation, 
 were encouraged by the fertility of their soil 
 and cattle to persevere in the " doltish customs " 
 of tribal holdings, with neglect of industry ; 
 leaving their cattle to wander over vast ranches 
 of pasture held in effect by the chief of the 
 tribe, who extracted from them a barbaric 
 wealth ; while the natives, ill-fed, ill-clothed, 
 dirty, riotous, in contempt of any other labour 
 lived more or less by " driving " the cattle of 
 their neighbours, or in the excitement of a free 
 fight with any tribe whatever. The picture 
 in fact might serve as well for that which is 
 sometimes drawn of English Ireland to-day, save 
 that the chief is replaced by the more modern 
 landlord. 
 
cH. in. NATURAL RESOURCES 73 
 
 Such simplicity as this has never been the 
 history of the Irish. Their mediaeval trade was 
 far more manifold and complicated than belongs 
 to a grazing and hunting community. 
 
 The natural traffic of Ireland in hides and 
 sheepskins, and in the skins of deer and lambs, 
 is well known ; and the rivers and rude moun- 
 tains of bare granite yielded the skins of wild 
 animals to the hunter, otter and martin, squirrel, 
 wild-cat, hare, and wolf. The large landowners 
 exported cattle and horses, the famous Irish 
 stag-hounds,^ and hawks. Their horses were of 
 many kinds, from the ancient Connemara pony 
 to the steed worth 400 cows •} " horses of 
 service are called chief horses, being well broken 
 they are of an excellent courage. . . . Of the 
 horse of service they make great store, as 
 wherein at times of need they repose a great 
 piece of safety."' Hawks became so scarce by 1480. 
 the numbers carried away that a heavy tax was 
 put on their export :* a map of 1609 shows 
 "the high Hills of Benbulben where Clarke 
 limbereth a Falcon esteemed the Handsomest in 
 Ireland." 
 
 These were the profitable trades of hunters 
 and graziers. But other exports came from the 
 
 'Gilb. Viceroys, 543. 
 
 *Tr. of Metr. Hist, of Depos. of R. 11.; Archaeologia, 
 vol. XX. p. 40. 
 
 'Hoi. vi. 21. <20th Ed. iv. c. i. 
 
74 THE IRISH CAPTAINS ch. 
 
 farmers who ploughed and tilled the land. We 
 have a picture of Ulster as it was when the 
 t- English drove out the Irish to enjoy it them- 
 selves. " It yieldeth store of all necessary for 
 man's sustenance in such measure as may not 
 only maintain itself but also furnish the city of 
 London yearly with manifold provision. ... As 
 it is fit for all sorts of husbandry so for increase 
 of cattle it doth excel. . . . Hemp and flax 
 do more naturally grow there than elsewhere," 
 and " the goodliest and largest timber " may 
 " easily be brought to the sea by Lough Neagh 
 and the river of the Bann."^ 
 
 Beyond the English Pale lay the " Regions " 
 1515. of the Irish enemies, as Henry was informed, 
 where reigneth more than 64 Chief Captains 
 with other lesser captains, each region having 
 its army of from 400 to 800 trained men besides 
 the common folk : and besides these territories 
 30 great captains of the English noble folk that 
 followed the same Irish order. ^ All that outer 
 world was to the English a land of barbarous men 
 hiding in caves or in wattle and mud huts. Irish 
 records tell a different story. In these we see 
 houses that gave proof of wealth and comfort, and 
 of a love of beauty and colour. The dwelling of 
 
 ' Concise View of the Society of the new plantation in Ulster, 
 called the Irish Society, 19. B. ed. of 1842 by Vanderconi, 
 Saunders & Bond. 
 
 ''St. Pap. II. iii. 1-9. 
 
III. THEIR HOUSES 75 
 
 wood was often finely-wrought and finished — " a 
 white wattled edifice of noble polish, habitation of 
 the sweet-scented branches." ^ Or men watching c. 1300. 
 the rise of a stone house like Cloonfree in Ros- 
 common would say, " whiter than the egg's shell 
 is the mansion . . . every drop runs off of it 
 without wetting, even as it would run ofT" a 
 waterfowl."^ Poets told of " white-mansioned 
 Munster," of the "white edifices" of Connacht c. 1300 
 and of Ulster hung with crimson cloths, of 
 " the fort of the splendid lime-doors." ^ "A 
 house beloved is that on which I have turned c. i6oq 
 my back," sang O'Hussey after a visit to Felim 
 O'Byrne * — " populous burgh of many a white 
 liss — mansion of fairy light : smooth, evened, 
 noble every way — delicate rath : perfected in 
 colour and complete. Dwelling beloved : refined, 
 and blooming freshly, and majestic, to leave 
 
 ^ Hy-Fiachrach, 265 ; v. ch. ii. p. 58. The ordinary Irish 
 house must in fairness be judged by the ordinary house of 
 other countries. For example, the hbrary of Exeter College, 
 Oxford, was thatched in 1375. Boase, Exon. xlvii. v. app. 
 
 ^O'Grady, Cat. 353-4, 361. v. app. 
 
 'Hy-Fiachrach, 255-261; O'Grady, Cat. 452, 423. "A 
 blessing bide on Ballinacor : my visit thither I deem all too 
 brief; mine own will is not prescribing for me to depart from 
 the wine-abundant white-walled mansion. Ballinacor is our 
 resort for the chase [i.e. to it we repair in quest of largesse] : 
 ancient sanctuary of Innis-Neill's generosity ; such is the 
 multitude of its blithe and accomplished companies that 'tis 
 small wonder though its denizens bear away the palm." 
 O'Grady, Cat. 507. v. app. 
 
 * Felim mac Fiacha mac Hugh O'Byrne. O'Grady, Cat. 474. 
 
76 O'BYRNE'S HOUSE ch. 
 
 which I in sooth have been most loth ; a rath 
 of gentle lissome women which (now that I am 
 gone from it) has plunged me deep in pining 
 sadness. Dear to me was the joyous uproar of 
 its sons of chiefs, and dear the decoration of 
 its bright apartments ; dear was the frolicking 
 of its clean-built wolfdogs, and its gay caparisoned 
 horses at their speed. I loved the fair white 
 colour of its textures, with its garrison that ever 
 plied some cunning feat ; the heavenly dulcet 
 melody of its harps, and voice of its yellow tubed 
 trumpets various.^ Dear to me were its welcome 
 and its amenity, dear too the loud hum of its 
 occupants ; with headlong trial made there of its 
 racers, with pointing of its tough and burnished- 
 headed spears." 
 
 It was with the same affection that blind 
 Teigue O'Higgins told of his poet's dream 
 to see Maguire's court of Enniskillen by the 
 blue hills," and how beyond all dreams was the 
 bright reality. From afar the blithe uproar of 
 the chase greeted him, wolf-dog and greyhound 
 in field and wood and the horses trying their 
 speed. By the mansion the masts of the Lough 
 Erne flotilla stood as a grove along the shore. 
 The courtyard was thronged with gentlemen of 
 the Clan-Colla who dispensed largesse ; the hall 
 crowded with minstrels and poets ; ladies and 
 their women in another room embroidered rare 
 
 'Much ornamented. "O'Grady, Cat. 431; v. app. 
 
III. MAGUIRE'S HOUSE 77 
 
 tissues and wove golden webs ; " of wrights a 
 whole regiment is there — of artificers also, that 
 finish beakers — of smiths that forge weapons ; 
 mantles and rugs are taking a crimson stain, 
 swords are tempered to a right blue, spearheads 
 riveted to shafts ; * pledges ' are enlarged, others 
 again brought in ; gallant men hurt are tended 
 by the leech, brave men uninjured are being 
 damaged." ^ Part of the day was spent in 
 listening to romances, in comparing genealogies ; 
 there was drinking and music; and so much to 
 see and hear that the full day seemed but an 
 hour till at even they sat in due order for 
 supper. Fighting men were to be seen on all 
 sides, pervading all the house ; as they sat in 
 their own quarters each man's arms hung ready 
 above his head, for those were days of fear, 
 when deputies and O'Neills fought for lordship 
 of Fermanagh, and English troops were out on 
 all their borders, in Monaghan, the Annally, the 
 BrefFnies, to plant sheriffs and provost-marshalls 
 with their stocks and gallows, to break up the 
 patrimony of the tribes and parcel it out with 
 their measuring-rods, and with the new tenures 
 and the foreign oath to kindle undying feuds 
 in every territory and on every holding.^ At 
 night couches were strewn for the gentlemen, 
 
 * Punishment of malefactors must be intended. 
 
 ^"In the end," wrote Essex, "it may be put to her [the 
 Queen's] choice whether she will suffer this people to inhabit 
 here for their rent or extirpe them and plant other people in 
 
78 THE WARRIORS en. 
 
 with down covers. A short nap, and Maguire 
 was heard with his picked men in harness 
 making ready to ride at break of day, return- 
 ing with wounded prisoners, lowing cattle, and 
 things of price. 
 
 The chiefs court had a gay splendour. Irish 
 captains and horsemen were old-fashioned — 
 arrayed, according to Spenser, like Chaucer's 
 knights.^ The young men of the kin — " hudy ves 
 gentz " in the statute of Kilkenny, " idle-men " 
 or gentle-men in the phrase of the Pale,* — 
 were the nucleus of his fighting force. Wear- 
 ing in war skulls or conical iron bascinets, 
 with chain mail tippets falling on neck and 
 shoulders, sometimes whole suits of armour 
 silver-gilt, and golden spurs, they rode on 
 pillions' so as to cast the great Irish spear, the 
 
 it. The force which shall bring about the one shall do the 
 other, and it may be done without any show that such a 
 thing is meant," 1574; O'Grady, Cat. 418 n. 
 
 ^ V. Camb. Ev. i. 193, 195. "We never were victims," wrote 
 Lynch, "of such fickleness that, like Proteus, we should be 
 constantly changing our dress according to the fleeting fashions 
 daily imported from England." 
 
 ^ Berry, Stat. 446. In Old French hudevesce is given as a 
 variant of oisivesse. Hudyves is probably a form of oisif or 
 oisdif. Tr. Rel. to Irel., St. Kilk. 63 n.; Ware's Ant. 186, for 
 use of word idle-men. 
 
 ^Even the English marchers refused to obey orders that 
 they should " ride as Englishmen," for that " being skilful in 
 their Irish weapons which they cannot use in the saddle, it 
 should be right perilous to give the Irishry that odds" of 
 compelling the marchers to use the English saddle. St, 
 Pap. U. iii. 450. 
 
III. THE GALLOVV-GLASSES 79 
 
 horses jingling their gilt bridles and the gilded 
 chains or peytrels that hung across their chests.' 
 Spenser saw later these dashing horsemen, riders 
 without stirrups, springing on their horses at 
 gallop, charging with spear held aloft above their 
 heads : " I have heard some great warriors say 
 that in all the services they had seen abroad in 
 foreign countries they never saw a more comely 
 man than the Irishman, nor that cometh on 
 more bravely in his charge."^ "Proud they 
 are of long crisped glibbes, and do nourish the 
 same with all their cunning : to crop the front 
 thereof they take it for a notable piece of 
 villainy."* Next to them came the foot-men,, 
 hired gallow-glasses who made war their business. 
 A carved tomb of the xiii. century shows them 
 in high conical helmets, ring-armour to the knees, 
 tippets of chain mail, bare legs, and shoes ; * they 
 carried a weapon called "a spar much like the 
 axe of the Tower " : " their boys bear for them 
 three darts apiece, which darts they throw ere 
 they go to the hand stripe. These sort of men 
 
 ^v. p. 64. Each horseman had his horse and two boys 
 and two hackneys. 4 M. p. 1874 n. 
 
 ^v. Camb. Ev. iii. 235-7. "For in his getting up his horse 
 is still going, whereby he gaineth way ; and therefore the 
 stirrup was so called in scorn, as it were, 'a stay to get up,' 
 being derived of the old English word sty (sic), which is to 
 get up or mount." 
 
 'Campion, cap. vi. 18. 
 
 *Soc. Ant., Sep. 1907, 344. v. app. 
 
 .,/ 
 
8o THE MEN OF PEACE ch. 
 
 be those that do not lightly abandon the field 
 but abide the brunt to the death." ^ 
 
 Idle-men and gallow-glasses, warriors necessary 
 for the defence of the territory .^ often active in 
 disturbing the neighbours' peace, were not mere 
 free-booters ; for even the gallow-glasses were in 
 some cases settled on the land, which they tilled 
 for their living in time of peace.^ It was in the 
 town-land of the Tyrone gallow-glasses that we 
 hear of a "beautiful herb-garden."* Many of 
 the soldiers were men of culture. Some of them 
 were landed proprietors. But men of peace took 
 as high rank in the lord's mansion as the soldiers : 
 the great landowners that stood round the chief 
 were the leading lawyers, historians, poets, scribes, 
 the most cunning artificers and wrights. They 
 took the high places at the feast, and displayed 
 their pride in the colour and richness of their 
 dress * — men " of the fair hands," as distinguished 
 
 ' St. Pap. III. iii. 444. 
 
 * Generations of war with the English for the possession of 
 the land — a war in which the foreigners exhausted every 
 device to set each tribe at strife with its neighbours — must 
 have enormously increased the military retinue of the chief, 
 out of all proportion to the remainder of the household. 
 Thus in the height of the great war for Irish independence 
 in Leinster (1461) O'Connor Faly and MacRichard Butler had 
 1000 horsemen or more all wearing helmets. 4 M. p. loiS- 
 V. app. 
 
 ^C.S.P. 1592, 464; Davies, 245, 257, I). 1787. The idle- 
 men were defamed and persecuted with great virulence by 
 the English, who objected to a patriotic force that refused 
 to be conquered. 
 
 ^v. p. 254. ^v. ch. vii. 
 
III. 
 
 IRISH DRESS 8 1 
 
 from the labourer.^ The pantaloon of white 
 frieze, " a long garment not cut at the knees 
 but combining in itself the sandals, the stockings, 
 and the drawers,^ which all classes wore till 
 Elizabeth's day, was convenient in the very 
 swift running for which the Irish were famed — 
 " Hounds can scarcely follow them, much less 
 men " ; it is curious to note that according to 
 Petty this swift running disappeared at the time 
 when Irish dress was abolished. The tunic or 
 shirt was highly embroidered and trimmed with 
 silk for festival days, and adorned with enormous 
 hanging sleeves.^ Over all hung the much- 
 maligned Irish mantle — the rich purple cloak of 
 the chief with its fringes of silk or delicate 
 thread of woollen round the border, or the 
 coarser frieze of the poor with its edgings of 
 woollen thread, the hoods adorned with folds 
 and fringes for ornament, for warmth, and for 
 protection from the rain.* 
 
 Mr. Arch. Soc. 1841, Cortnac, 29. 
 
 ^Camb. Ev. ii. 209-11 ; O'Grady, Cat. 138. 
 
 ' St. Pap. II. iii. 450 ; Cellachan of Cashel, Bugge, 58, 64. 
 
 "'The hairy fringes attached to the hem of the mantle, 
 and projecting particularly from the hoods, were generally 
 useful as a protection against the rain. The material of the 
 mantle was not always of coarse or flimsy stuff. It varied 
 according to the higher or lower rank of the wearer, some- 
 times fine, sometimes coarse, often dyed with purple, and 
 adorned with fringes of silk, or at least with a delicate thread 
 of woollen, around the borders ; to the sides of the mantle 
 'vas attached a plain, narrow selvage, so woven that the threads 
 
 F 
 
82 IRISH WOMEN ch. 
 
 The women of the household were much 
 regarded : " They are great workers and house- 
 keepers after their fashion," Captain Cuellar said 
 of the women who sheltered him.^ In the richer 
 houses they were noted for their wisdom, their 
 comeliness and fine apparel — linen and fine 
 woollen, with embroideries and gold thread, even 
 cloth of gold, and on their heads the great linen 
 rolls which were the fashion of their day. They 
 appear in the Annals humane and beautiful, dis- 
 tinguished for intelligence and grace, or eminent 
 for knowledge and good sense and piety, for 
 prosperity and wealth, for bounty and open houses 
 d. 1447. of hospitality^ — women such as Sarah O'Mulconry, 
 " a nurse to all guests and strangers, and to all 
 the learned," or Finola, daughter of Calvagh 
 O'Conor Faly and Margaret O'Carroll, the most 
 beautiful and stately, the most renowned and 
 illustrious woman of her time in all Ireland.^ 
 
 should flow down from its borders, like the fringes which are 
 usually seen hanging from the curtains of a bed. But, on 
 the uppermost border of the mantle, several folds of those 
 selvages were arranged, which, by their swelling proportions, 
 were at once more ornamental, and concentrated more warmth 
 on the naked neck. The man who describes the Irish mantle 
 as a greasy kersey, and compares the fringes flowing from 
 its borders to a horse's mane, may prove his malignant wit, 
 but not a love for truth." Camb. Ev. ii. 205. See also 221, 222. 
 
 ' Captain Cuellar's Adventures, ed. Hugh Allingham, London, 
 1907, p. 62. 
 
 U M. pp. 851, 871, 885, 939, 1117, 1133, 1351, 1363, 1375. 
 1401, 1501, 1603; Ir. Arch. Soc. 1841, Cormac, 55, 57. 
 
 ^4 M. 953, 153. i>. Misc. Ir. Arch. Soc. 1846, i. 50, 212, 
 217. 21S. 
 
III. THEIR POSITION 83 
 
 " Graceful hospitality is ministered 
 To all who come each night, 
 At the quiet banquet of the populous mansion 
 By the placid, generous, cheerful dame " : 
 
 so a poet sang of the mistress of an Irish house 
 
 in the midst of the fierce Elizabethan wars ; and 
 
 yet another : 
 
 " She is sufficiently distinguished from every side 
 By her checking of plunder, her hatred of injustice, 
 By her serene countenance, which causes the trees 
 To bend with fruit ; by her tranquil min.d." ^ 
 
 The spirit of such women is seen in the Irish 
 proverb of courteous manners : " Three things 
 there are for which the Son of the living God is 
 not grateful : haughty piety, harsh reproof, revil- 
 ing a person if it is not certain." ^ 
 
 The Irish women had evidently a position of 
 great independence and influence. They held 
 personal property, and by the custom of the 
 country were well endowed : the whole standing 
 rent due to O'Sullivan from his land of crag and 
 rock (£^0) was ever allotted to the lady for the 
 time being towards her idle expenses.^ Among 
 the richer classes they were well educated, using 
 Latin as a second language, and the more culti- 
 vated learned also English.* When the blind 
 
 'Misc. Celt. See. 351, 369. 
 
 ^Triads, ed. Kuno Meyer. For urbanity of manners v. 
 app. 
 
 ^C.S.P. 1587, 364- 
 
 *v. ch. vii. "The women have in their English tongue a 
 harsh and broad kind of pronunciation, with uttering their 
 
84 PUBLIC PLACE OF WOMEN ch. 
 
 1118. king of Connacht, Rory O'Conor, died on his last 
 pilgrimage to Clonmacnois, his daughter herself 
 engraved for the shrine there a silver chalice with a 
 burnishing of gold ; ^ and as we have seen women 
 were skilled in embroidering rare tissues ^ and 
 weaving golden webs. They took a high place in 
 all works of intelligence and mercy. In the 
 humane ideal of Irish civilisation women were 
 called to public duties of conciliation and peace. 
 " In all controversies between O'Neill and Nelan 
 O'Neill," ran the order of the Government, "they 
 shall stand to the arbitration of the Lord Deputy, 
 Rose daughter of O'Donnell and wife of Nelan, 
 and Henry son of Shane O'Neill."* A contro- 
 versy between Ormond and Ulick Burke was 
 referred by common consent to the determination 
 of the wives of the said Ulick and of John Grace, 
 gentleman ; if they fail to agree, it was to go to 
 the lord deputy and council.* In a dispute 
 between Desmond and Thomond respecting the 
 two earls' relation to Irish tribes, " we have 
 remitted the hearing of the process to the Ladies 
 of Desmond and Thomond," with various others, 
 " or any four of them, so that the said ladies be 
 two."^ The women of Ireland, of every race, 
 
 words so peevishly and faintly, as though they were half sick, 
 and ready to call for a posset." Hoi. vi. 4. 
 
 »4M. p. 1033. 
 
 ^O'Grady, Cat. 431 ; Joyce, Soc. Hist. ii. 365-6. 
 
 •Car. i. 1535, 7<^- * Car. i. 1544, 213. 
 
 ' *Car. i. 1550, 225. Cf. Misc. Ir. Arch. Soc. 1846, i. 195. 
 
III. 
 
 HOSPITALITY 85 
 
 had shared in the ancient Irish tradition of public 
 esteem and influence.^ j 
 
 Hospitality was lavish, " without sorrow, with- 
 out gloom in the house " ; ^ and even in the 
 towns it was held a shame to have an inn or send 
 a traveller to seek entertainment there.' In every 
 homestead the mistress kept an oaten cake whole 
 for the stranger. The saying ran : " Three pre- 
 parations of a good man's house : ale, a bath, a 
 large fire."* "This is the first thing ye need," 
 said St. Ciaran to his visitors, *' warm water over 
 your feet."* The floor was strewn, as in France 
 and England, with green rushes^ and sweet- 
 scented herbs in summer, in winter with plaited 
 
 ^The day on which Cellachain came to Cashel (934) there 
 was a great host of the two provinces of Munster electing a 
 king. It was Cennedig son of Lorcan whom they would make 
 king. Cellachain's mother the queen proceeded to Glennamain 
 and said to the nobles of Munster " remember the arrangement 
 which Cormac Cas and Fiachu Muillethan made between their 
 great descendants ! and there is of the descendants of Eogan 
 a man who is senior by age and knowledge to you O Cennedig, 
 and who is a king in figure and appearance." They asked 
 who he was. The queen said he was the son of Buadachan 
 [Cellachain] and she made the lay. . . . When the champions 
 of Munster heard these great words and the speech of the 
 woman, Clan Eogan said that the heir (?) should be brought 
 to them that they might make him king. Cellachan of Cashel : 
 A. Bugge, 59-61. For Irish hospitality, and for the women's 
 embroidery, ib. 58, 119. 
 
 ^Ir. Arch. Soc. 1841, Cormac, 53. z/. app. 
 
 ^ Camb. Ev. i. 59-63. * Triads, ed. Kuno Meyer. 
 
 'Stokes, Lismore Lives, 277. 
 
 "Hy-Fiachrach, ed. O'Donovan, 53; cf. Fields of France, 
 by Mary Duclaux, p. 285. 
 
86 IRISH HOUSEKEEPING ch. 
 
 rushes or straw, over which were laid the carpets 
 sold in the markets, and rugs of leather and 
 skins, and the people preferred seats or cushions 
 of grass or straw mattresses to the hard benches.^ 
 The English, when they had swept MacMur- 
 
 1541. rough's land with a hosting, ordered him to 
 provide his plundered tenants' houses with 
 • benches and boards after the English sort.^ 
 But a Spanish visitor describes in Irish houses 
 seats and tables such as were used in other 
 countries, the seats ranged at the table facing the 
 entrance door. Food was abundant and varied — 
 milk, butter, herbs, spices from the East, with great 
 store of wild swans, partridges, plover, quails, 
 and all other game, oysters and fish in plenty, and 
 all kinds of meat and fowls. ^ From silver-rimmed 
 mazers and beakers of gold they drank ale, mead,^ 
 nectar made of honey and wine, with ginger, 
 pepper, cinnamon, and other ingredients,^ and 
 " their excellent aqua vitae, or usquebaugh as 
 they call it, which inflames much less than the 
 English aqua vitae." 
 
 1590. " Their entertainment for your diet shall be 
 
 more welcome and plentiful than cleanly and 
 
 handsome : for though they did never see you 
 
 before they will make you the best cheer their 
 
 ' Moran's Archbishops, 93. 
 
 2C.S.P. 1540, 55; 1541, 57; 4M. 1535. 
 
 ^Ir. Arch. Soc. 1841, Payne, 6-7. v. app. 
 
 * Hy-Fiachrach, 216. 
 
 ^Ware's Ant. 182-4. 
 
in. 
 
 IRISH FEASTS 87 
 
 country yieldeth for two or three days, and take 
 not anything therefor : " ^ this account, like all 
 others that we have from Englishmen, was written 
 in a time of war and poverty. There were many 
 charges against the Irish of being dirty and 
 slovenly — some of these were stories of the very 
 poor, evidently not very different from the poor 
 elsewhere in mediaeval times ; some were pictures 
 of women enduring the cruelties of war and a 
 fugitive life, or demoralised by want and famine ; 
 and all were the tales of strangers and enemies. 
 The Irish themselves did not accept such charges ^ 
 — in fact they flung them back at the invaders.^ 
 In the country the tribesmen of the kin, in the 
 towns the craftsmen and tradesmen, went "cosher- 
 ing" at the times of feasts, joyously sharing in the 
 entertainments given at the wealthy man's house 
 
 'Descrip. of Ireland, 1590, Ir. Arch. Soc. 1841. v. app. 
 
 ^" There is," wrote Lynch, who should have known some- 
 thing of his people, "no quarter of the world where the 
 infant is attended with more affectionate solicitude than in . 
 Ireland at the present day, where they are kept longer in 
 swathing bands, or are more frequently bathed in tepid 
 baths. Even the poorest woman strains every exertion to 
 swath her babe according to her means ; she bathes it often 
 in warm water, lest a distortion of the neck or legs or arms 
 should be a disgrace to herself or an injury to the child 
 when it arrived at the years of maturity." Camb. Ev. ii. 143. 
 
 ' " My mourning's cause is that my country is ground down 
 by a mangy brutish clown, devoid of religion or of justice : 
 that these followers of Cromwell, by whom our Prince was 
 cropped \i.e. docked of his head], should now in our fair 
 dwellings dance and gamble and drink away." O'Grady, 
 Cat. 30. 
 
88 SONGS AT FEASTS en. 
 
 without distinction OT rank ; for it was the boast 
 of every great man to welcome alike the mighty 
 and the learned, the humble and the needy — 
 any Plebeian of whom might himself rise by his 
 ability, whether in Church, in State, or in Art, 
 and " wear a Chief's head." * " They love music 
 mightily," * said Good, a teacher at Limerick, 
 "and of all instruments are particularly taken with 
 the harp, .which ... is very melodious," and 
 every feast had its harper, " incomparably more 
 skilful than any nation- 1 have ever seen," accord- 
 ing to Gerald of Wales. In Spenser's judgment 
 the Irish poems " savoured of sweet wit and good 
 invention , . . sprinkled with some pretty flowers 
 of their natural device, which gave good grace and 
 comeliness unto them " : * their verses were 
 " taken up with a general applause, and usually 
 sung at all feasts and meetings." These demo- 
 cratic gatherings brought gaiety to the country- 
 side and a real intellectual life. The odes of the 
 chief bards were stored in the people's memories : 
 so were the chanted records of their race, the 
 genealogies and boundaries of their tribes, and the 
 names of their famous men. Poor and rich of 
 *' the blood" were reminded of their tie of kinship 
 and the tradition of the Irish race and nation, 
 " whereby it came to pass, in times of trouble and 
 
 lO'Grady, Cat. 149. 
 
 * Flood, Hist. Mus 112; Camb. Ev. i. 309-21; v. Flood's 
 Harp. 
 ^Spenser, View of Ireland; v. Hoi. vi. 67. 
 
1,1. THE CORN-FIELDS 89 
 
 dissension, that they made great parties and 
 factions, adhering one to another with much 
 constancy ; because they were tied together, vin- 
 culo sanguinis." * | 
 
 Round the house lay the cornyards,' the orchards, 
 and tilled fields of Irish landowners famed for 
 good tillage ..." praiseworthy in the eyes of 
 English and Irish " for their well-furnished and 
 commodious courts, castles, and comfortable seats — '■' 
 " prodigious the shadow of their corn-fields " : * 
 "the neighbouring countries seldom produce a 
 larger or heavier grain than what is to be found 
 in many parts of Ireland."'* Popular proverbs 
 show the interest in tillage: "Three unfortunate 
 things for a man : a scant drink of water, thirst 
 in an ale-house, a narrow seat upon a field. . . . 
 Three unfortunate things of husbandry : a dirty 
 field, leavings of the hurdle, a house full of 
 sparks. . . . Three tokens of a cursed site : 
 elders, a corncrake, nettles."® Once a governor 
 on his march wondered " that by so barbarous 
 inhabitants the ground should be so manured, 
 the fields so orderly fenced, the towns so fre- 
 quently^ inhabited, and the highways and paths 
 so well beaten as the lord deputy now found 
 
 •Davies, 131, D. 1787. "O'Grady, Cat. 384. 
 
 ^4 M. 1881, 1893 ; V. ch. ix. v. app. 
 
 * Hy-Fiachiach, ed. O'Donovan, 281, 231, 235. 
 
 'Ware's Ant. 189; O'Curry, Manners and Customs, ccclxii. 
 
 * Triads, ed. Kuno Meyer. 
 
 ' Fynes Moryson. " Frequently " here means crowdedly. 
 
90 ORCHARDS AND GARDENS ch. 
 
 them. The reason whereof was that the queen's 
 forces during these wars never till then came 
 amongst them." But if along the track of 
 Elizabeth's soldiers houses, corn-fields, orchards, 
 fences, every token of a people's industry, were 
 laid " hand-smooth," the land had once been rich 
 with grain, gardens of herbs, groves of " fair- 
 nutted hazel," stretches of flowering apple-trees, 
 and " beautiful fruit trees with a mellow top of 
 honey on their pods."^ Kilkenny, the lordship 
 of the earl of Ormond, was protected from the 
 worst ravages of war, and remained fertile when 
 the rest of the land had been devastated : " Yet 
 is not Ireland altogether destitute of these flowers 
 and fruits, wherewith the county of Kilkenny 
 seems to abound more than any other part."^ 
 " Kilkenny is a pleasant town, the chief of the 
 towns within this land, memorable for the civility 
 of the inhabitants, for the husbandmen's labour, 
 and the pleasant orchards."^ Munster had long 
 c. i4oo.'been very rich, with eleven great lords* spending 
 yearly ;^ 15,300, and a number of wealthy knights, 
 squires, and gentlemen who prospered in agri- 
 culture and in commerce ; and the southern 
 
 ' Hy-Fiachrach, 185, 201, 219, 247, 255, 261, 273, etc. v. app. 
 
 ^Moryson, iii. 159. 
 
 'Moryson, Itinerary, iii. 157, 1617. The description of the 
 Wollaghan trees (C.P.S. 1586, 240) of Munster answers to the 
 arbutus. The explanation of the word is obscure ; but I am 
 told that "arbutus fruit" is known as ubla caitne (pronounced 
 as oolacahney), i.e. apples of the arbutus. 
 
 * Campion, cap. vii. 94-6. 
 
in. FRUITFUL LANDS 91 
 
 plains long remained "a pleasant and fruitful 1580. 
 country, as the sun cannot shine on better": 
 " no province of this realm of Ireland is com--^ 
 parable with the province of Munster," ^ Parts 
 of Limerick were " called the gardens of the 
 land for the variety and great plenty of all 
 grain and fruits." ^ In Connacht the people were 
 "good and civil and full of cattle always." " I 1560. 
 travelled through Clanrickard," wrote Sidney, 
 "and found the country in good quiet, universal 1567. 
 well tilled and manured " ; * and the vision of 
 that wealth gave the measure to the invaders 
 of the terrible fines to be levied from the earl of 
 Clanrickard, and the pillage which might be got 
 from the industries of Connacht.* Before the 
 devastation of the north Tyrone, according to 
 the English, was the "fairest and goodliest- 
 country in Ireland universal," wealthy and well 
 inhabited, and Armagh " one of the fairest and 
 best churches in Ireland." ^ It was in fact a 
 land " meet for the English to inhabit." Poets 
 sang of " Ulster's art-loving province," " that 
 noble apple-blossomed expanse of ancient soil," 
 where there was " all worthy produce of fruit- 
 
 'C.P.S. 1580, 232; Car. ii. 284. 
 
 ^Ir. Arch. Soc. 1841, Payne, 4. 
 
 ' Car. i. 308 ; Sid. Let. 28. v. app. 
 
 *v. p. 69. Car. i. 308, 334. The English undertakers 
 were to make profit by exporting butter, cheese, bacon, beef, 
 honey, wax, tallow, corn, herring, with divers other merchan- 
 dise. Ir. Arch. Soc. 1841, Payne, 7. v. app. 
 
 *Car. i. 243-4; cf. O'Grady, Cat 409 n. i. 
 
92 WEALTH OF ULSTER en. 
 
 bearing boughs."^ It had its "beautiful herb- 
 gardens."^ Spenser himself marvelled at the 
 wealth of Ulster : it " was as thickly inhabited," 
 he wrote, " and as well stocked with wealth as 
 any portion of England. Records of undoubted 
 antiquity prove that when the king was engaged 
 in war 30,000 marks were paid by Ulster."- 
 
 1557. On their first raid on Shane O'Neill, the English 
 had found in Armagh enough butter, corn, and 
 victuals collected to maintain an army of Scots 
 for a whole year — so great a mass indeed that 
 the English could not by any means have it 
 carried away or during their abode in Armagh 
 gather it in one place, for that almost every 
 house was full with one or other kind of victual, 
 so " it was resolved that the victuals should be 
 burned in the houses where they lay, the lord 
 primate's and dean's houses only preserved." 
 
 1516. When Ulster-men were described as "more beast- 
 like and barbarous than the people of other 
 countries," Shane haughtily asked the English 
 queen to observe the peace and wealth of his 
 country as compared to her own possessions in 
 Ireland. Three hundred of the queen's farmers 
 in the Pale had fled from English rule to seek 
 the safety and well-being of Tyrone ; " it was 
 a very evil sign," Shane added in his biting 
 irony, " that men shall forsake the Pale and 
 come and dwell among wild savage people." 
 'O'Grady, Cat. 364. ^v. p. 254. ^Camb. Ev. ii. 125-7- 
 
III. lARMING AND TILLAGE 93 
 
 An old Irish proverb gave " three sounds of 
 increase : the lowing of a cow in milk, the din 
 of a smithy, the swish of a plough."^ From 
 their dairies they sent out butter (so much that 1550. 
 the export was forbidden ^) and cheese ; the two 
 first presidents of Munster, exploiting the re- 
 sources of the province, got patents to export 1571. 
 from Cork 30 barrels of butter and 500 stones ^51'^- 
 of cheese ; and a suitor anxious to win Burghley's 
 favour sent him a present of two Irish cheeses.^ 1588. 
 But the most important trade of the farmers - 
 was in grain. " The country people themselves 
 are great plowers and small spenders of corn,"* 
 reported Spenser, and by their labour they had 
 for hundreds of years made Ireland the granary. ^, '' 
 of England, Wales, Scotland, and even more 
 distant countries.* Eight kinds of corn are men- 
 tioned by early writers. English monasteries and '200. 
 nobles drew provisions from Ireland. Edward i. 
 fed his armies in Wales, Scotland, and Gascony 1295. 
 with Irish oats, wheat, wheat-malt, pease, beans, 
 bran, and other provisions of beer, meat, and fish,® 
 Edward 11. ordered free export of corn and victuals 1324. 
 from Ireland to England.^ Edward in. drew from 1360. 
 
 'Triads, K. Meyer. ^cs.P. 1550, 108. 
 
 'Gibson's Cork, 210; Irish Arch. Soc. 1841, Desc. of Irel. 
 8-9. V. ib. Cormac, 35. An "ale-house without cheese'' 
 forbidden to a chief. O'Grady, Cat. 91. 
 
 *Vie\v of Ireland, 97. I 
 
 *Tr. Rel. to Irel. ii., St. of Kilk. App. 133 n. ; Cal. Rec. 
 Dub. i. 25, 172, 302. 
 
 * Gilbert, Viceroys, 525. v. app. 'Eng. St. 17th Ed. n. c. v. 
 
94 EXPORT OF CORN ch. 
 
 it supplies for his wars in France. Parliaments in 
 Ireland forbade the transport of grain out of 
 1468. the country when it was above lod. a peck : "A 
 1472- scarcity," they said, " being occasioned by a great 
 export of corn of every sort into England, 
 Scotland, and Wales, it is enacted that no corn 
 shall be carried out of this kingdom." In the 
 Book of Lismore we read the old complaint of 
 the men of Connacht — a strange forecast of the 
 grief of 1848 : "Every year foreigners used to 
 take from them their goods over sea to the 
 east, so that they left famine and scarcity of 
 food in the province."^ 
 
 The corn trade spread far beyond England.' 
 Ships from Galway, Waterford, and Cork bore 
 grain to France, to Spain, even to Florence ; ^ 
 lOjOoo quarters a year could be exported from 
 Cork alone.* " I know," said Spenser, " there 
 is great plenty of corn sent over sea from 
 thence."* Such a commerce was too valuable to 
 be left in Irish hands, and English speculators 
 swarming over Munster snatched at the trade,* 
 soldiers and planters competing for the monoply 
 of exploiting the sale of corn. There were no 
 better labourers, they said, than the poor com- 
 
 ' Stokes, Lismore Lives, 241. 
 
 Mr. St. 8th Ed. IV.; 12th Ed. IV. 
 
 3C.S.P. 1573, 521; >59o, 389; 1577, 125; 1592, 554-5; Hist. 
 MSS. Com. Rep. x. app. v. 267, 289, 478. 
 
 *Car. ii. 286. ^View of Ireland, 97. 
 
 "C.S.P. 1561, 185. V. Irish complaint, Moran's Archbishops, 95. 
 
HI. OFFICIAL LICENSES 95 
 
 mons of Ireland. Perrot was no sooner president 1571- 
 of Munster than he got a patent to transport 
 yearly looo quarters of grain, and president Drury 1576. 
 followed his example, and the treasurer Wallop.^ ^578- 
 The queen, the deputies, the merchants vied with 
 one another to capture the profits of the trade. 
 After a generation of war, when Parliament 
 was deploring the grievous decay of tillage and 1586. 
 husbandry,^ grants for export were sold to who- 
 ever could best pay for them. The Duke of -^ 
 Florence had a license for a large export.' The 1591. 
 right to transport became so valuable that it 
 was proposed from London to put an end to 1592. 
 these licenses, to resume the leases of port corn 
 to the crown, and to let the lands to tenants 
 at a higher price, making a double profit for 
 the queen. The crown interest, however, was 
 not that of lord deputy Fitzwilliam, who was 
 making his own terms with the clamorous dealers 
 about him. He protested against the change, 
 urging "the great plenty of corn, and the parties' 
 deserts and services"* to whom he had issued 
 licenses ; and at the bidding of the merchants 
 he pressed on the export trade: when merchants 
 thought 5s. a quarter too high a duty, " and 
 therefore not desirous to transport, the Council 
 and I have drawn it to 3s. 4d."* 
 
 'Gib. Cork, i. 210; C.S.P. 1576, 195, 209. 
 Mr. St. p. 410. 'C.S.P. 1591, 389. 
 
 « C.S.P. 1592, 519. 6C.S.P. 1592, 519. 
 
96 IRISH TILLAGE ch. 
 
 The large export of corn would alone show 
 the industry of the people. According to current 
 theory there was no tillage, and sometimes the 
 character of the people was blamed, sometimes 
 the customs of land tenure. When archbishop 
 FitzSimons set up his political workhouses he 
 put forward the hackneyed plea of sloth — "on 
 account of the great plenty of all kinds of pro- 
 vision that the land naturally produceth, and for 
 this they neglect to labour." But if we refer 
 the reports of untilled fields and an idle people 
 to their just place and time, and to the purpose 
 of those who wrote them, there remains abundant 
 evidence of Ireland as a land, not only of pasture, 
 but of an industrious and successful agriculture. 
 I590- An English traveller described the indomitable 
 Irish at a time when they were staggering under 
 the calamities of thirty years of war and con- 
 fiscation, painfully digging their wasted fields and 
 gathering the ashes of their homes: "the most of 
 them are greatly inclined to husbandry ; although 
 as yet unskilful, notwithstanding through their 
 great travail many of them are rich in cattle." ' 
 There are not yet materials to give a just 
 account of the disposition of the land in Ireland 
 and the place of the people on the soil, or to 
 compare the lot of an Irish tribesman with that 
 of a feudal copy-holder or serf in England. But 
 
 ^Desc. Irel. Irish Arch. Soc. 1841, Payne, 3 : O'Grady, Cat. 
 378. 
 
III. 
 
 PROPERTY IN LAND 97 
 
 some f;icts may be noted from the English State 
 Papers, which refer to the tenure of land and 
 the relation of the farmer to his lord or chief. 
 Even these facts will show, not only the wide 
 chasm between the English and the Irish con- 
 ception of where property in land should lie, 
 but some reasons for the deep attachment of the 
 Irish to their own law.^ 
 
 It was the common talk of the English that 
 the Irish lived " as brute beasts holding all things 
 ill common," or at best had "only a scambling 1610. 
 and transitory possession, at the pleasure of the 
 chief of every sept." "^ As a matter of fact, how- 
 ever, the Irish land system was regulated after 
 the manner of a highly complicated and orderly 
 society. Even in the ninth century the fields 
 were scored with boundaries showing the growth 
 of separate demesnes,* and in mediaeval times the 
 sense of ownership was highly developed. There 
 was not an acre of land, the English officers in 
 Connacht wrote, that was not "ownered properly 
 by one or other, and each man knows what 
 belongs to himself"* Even deer on the moun- 
 tain and waste v/ere marked for the owner, and 
 
 ' Land Tenure by A. S. Green in Eriu, v. iii. part ii. v. app. 
 
 ^Davies, 277, D. 1787. v. app. 
 
 ""v. passage in Lebor na hUidre, iioo a.d. in Hull's 
 CuchuUin Saga. 
 
 'Cf. C.S.P. 1589, 285. "Every plough-land in Connolaghe 
 was known with the owners or occupiers thereof, and what 
 rent of money or cattle they should pay." Cf. Davies, Tracts, 
 1787. / 
 
 G 
 
 / 
 
98 INFLI]I':NCL: OV I-'-NGLISII law en. 
 
 only the uiimiirked were fair gamc.^ The Norman 
 settlements in the twelfth century introduced 
 complications of law and custom. Under the 
 influence of new ideas the rules of succession 
 varied : some freeholders " claim to succeed by 
 tanistry, some by inheritance."* Feoffments, 
 mortgages, trusts, leases, evidences of title, were 
 as common in Ireland as in England, and were 
 executed with such skill that the English lawyers 
 could find no flaw in them : " their evidences 
 be very fair and very lawlike without exception." ' 
 In the sixteenth century every important land- 
 owner had a lawyer trained in Oxford or London, 
 as conversant with English as with Irish law. 
 
 The social system in Ireland, in fact, among 
 a people of mixed race and active intellect, busied 
 in manufacture and commerce, was far from rigid : 
 it is very possible that there was a growth and 
 change as rapid as any in mediaeval England. 
 This development was doubtless most evident 
 in the richer lands : in the poorer regions we 
 may see the old customs in their original order. 
 A brief picture is left us of the division of the 
 tribal land in the O'Sullivan territory,* " being 
 
 >0'Grady, Cat. 8i. ^CS-P. 1588, 536. 
 
 ^v. the Statute of Kilkenny: Tr. rel. to Irel. ii. 73. The 
 complaint was that "the Irishry (especially by their daily 
 feoffments to uses) have practised as many fraudulent shifts 
 for preserving their lands from forfeiture as in England!^ 
 C.S.P. 1587, 406; cf. 1586, 99; 1588, 552. V. app. 
 
 ♦C.S.P. 1587, 364. 
 
„i. DIVISION OF TKRIUTORY 99 
 
 no good farm land, but all valleys, craggcd rocks, 
 and hills." One quarter of the land, " the lord's 
 portion," which did never alter, was there allotted 
 to the chief, with all the castles. About a quarter 
 was set apart for the maintenance of a royal 
 family — the tanist, the next to him in succession, 
 and certain cousins and kinsmen to the lord — "as 
 their shares of old ancient custom to live upon." 
 The order of the Irishry was to give a living 
 to every gentleman of the sept whose fathers 
 or grandfathers were lords of the countries : ^ 
 when the name did augment everyone's portion 
 was diminished, and the portion of any deceased 
 was divided among the out-livers. The remaining 
 half of the land was held by the chief branches 
 of the O'SuUivans. 
 
 The chief held the demesne allotted to him for 
 
 ' Cork Arch. Soc. J., June 1906, 67. The English settlers, 
 who were accustomed to describe all the Irish of every rank 
 as peasants, were especially anxious to secure cheap labour, 
 and regarded Irish customs from this point of view. Thus 
 Walter FitzSimons, archbishop of Dublin, wrote to Henry vn. 
 (1493): "The gre.itest and chiefest thing that not only im- 
 poverisheth this your highness's lordship of Ireland, as also 
 causeth so many stirs and jars with them, is idleness, for if 
 the father have an estate, and dies, though he have never so 
 many children, they all hanker on that name, who is prince 
 or chief of them, rather than to take an employment or trade, 
 supposing it a disgrace so to do, their father afore them having 
 acquired an estate ; this is the custom of the country', which 
 your highness's subjects [the English] have learned of the 
 natives, filling their paunches, care not for any other than 
 brawling and plotting. There are so many stragglers and 
 poor, that it is a more charity to put them to work, than to 
 succour them with victuals." Tuckey's Cork, 44. 
 
loo THE CHIEF AND FREEHOLDERS en. 
 
 his life only in trust for the kin, and used its 
 revenues for the public service and defence. It 
 supported, so far as it went, his following — the 
 " idlemen " who formed his military household, 
 the kcrntye or over-seers who collected the taxes, 
 perhaps the factors who conducted his trade. He 
 himself tilled no land. The richer parts of his 
 demesne he leased out to graziers and farmers 
 who supplied his household with provisions. The 
 forts were occupied by his men-of-war. Bog- 
 lands, forest, and pasture, were never leased, for 
 on these by immemorial custom no rent was 
 paid. But these lands too supported servants 
 of the chief, who were given grants of cows for 
 grazing on the waste, and paid for them in military 
 service or in supplies of milk and butter.^ 
 
 Outside the chief's personal demesne were the 
 ancient freeholders of the tribe. Some of these 
 paid nothing for their land but only suit of court to 
 the chief: they were doubtless the brehons, poets, 
 historians, and gallow-glasses, who in return for 
 their land gave to the tribe trained service in peace 
 or war. Other freeholders paid what the English 
 called a " rent certain " — a rent or tax of a penny 
 an acre on good land, not counting waste or wood, 
 so that the ploughland of 120 acres might actually 
 stretch to 480 acres in all,^ good and bad. This 
 rent of ten shillings on a nominal 120 acres, if 
 paid on a "pretty farm " of several hundred acres 
 >». app. 'Car. ii. 286; C.S.P. 1589, 132; 1587, 405. 
 
III. 
 
 TAXES AND RENTS loi 
 
 given to an Englishman, would make (wrote the 
 planter Smith) " a fit match for younger brothers 
 . . . sufficient to yield wherewith to make a 
 friend drink." ^ The Norman invaders had left 
 these old Irish dues on the land as they found 
 them, and they continued unchanged till Eliza- 
 beth's time. 
 
 Other estates or farms paid their rent or tax to 
 the tribe in provisions or in service. These were 
 called by the English "chargeable lands" and 
 were reported to pay a " rent uncertain " and to 
 lie at the lord's mere will.^ On these farms the 
 chief had a claim for meals or provisions — in fact 
 he had the right, with his officers and servants, of 
 " eating his rents " in the manner of the mediaeval 
 English kings on their royal progresses. He 
 could moreover call for men and horses to build 
 forts and bridges or maintain the highway, and a 
 convocation of the inhabitants might be summoned 
 to pay his debts, or supply him with money for 
 war or for a journey to the deputy, or for ransom 
 from captivity. " Spend me and defend me " was 
 
 'Smith's Tract in MacDonnells of Antrim. 
 
 ^C.S.P. 1593, 145. An Englishman who acquired farms in 
 1570 immediately raised the los. rent to 53s. 4d. ; it was 
 calculated in 1580 that a fine might be set by the English 
 of ^10 and a rent of £,2 ; or a rent of £i„ with militarj- 
 service ; in 1 586 Elizabeth gave orders to raise the rent to 
 3d- instead of id. an acre, to be paid for good and bad land 
 alike; and in 1590 the London lawyers advised that rents 
 fixed by jury in Ireland should be increased fourfold. Car. i. 
 417; Car. ii. 286; Life of MacCarthy, 155; Bagwell, ii. 157; 
 C.S.P. 1589, 248. 
 
I02 FIXED CHARGES ch. 
 
 the people's saying ; that is, no taxation without 
 protection. 
 
 But a chief could not, as the English ignorantly 
 or wilfully reported, " at his mere will and 
 pleasure," call for food or service from the 
 "chargeable" lands. By Brehon law the dues to 
 be levied had everywhere fixed limits and degrees. 
 Extraordinary taxes were levied by convocation of 
 the people. The ordinary rents and taxes were 
 exactly defined for every farm ; how much corn 
 or meat or butter, how many men to be billeted, 
 or if the number was unlimited how many meals 
 they were to have — three meals in a year, food 
 for twenty-four hours, and so forth.^ If these 
 ordinary rents were increased, or if heavy extra- 
 ordinary charges were added to them, the farmer 
 had an equitable protection by law. Since no rent 
 could be claimed on waste land, " and men only 
 paid on the quantity they did manure,"^ the 
 farmer could go to the lord and warn him that he 
 would only till a portion of his land and pay rent 
 on that alone.' The remainder of the farm so 
 
 'See the O'Reilly rents : 4 M. p. 1804 n., 1191 n.; and the 
 taxes due from O'Sullivan to MacCarthy More: Tuckey's 
 Cork, 50; C.S.P. 1588, 528-9, 533-4 ; Life of MacCarthy, 222; 
 Irish deed, Misc. Ir. Arch. Soc. 1846, i. 102 ; ib. 192. 
 
 2 C.S.P. 1588, 528. 
 
 ' If the tenant would come to the lord and say, I will pay 
 no more for my land than for this quantity, and name it, 
 then the lord may use the remain as his own, and convert 
 the profits thereof to his own use, until the said tenant would 
 take the same, and undertake to answer all charge out of it. 
 
 If the lord would let out for rent of corn or money, that 
 
Til. THE FARMERS' PROTECTION 103 
 
 long as it was " waste " would then lie in the 
 lord's hand, who might use its wood and pasture, 
 but might not till it or let it without giving a 
 fourth of the profit to the owner ; and at any 
 moment the owner might re-enter on his land on 
 an agreement being made about the taxes. It was 
 not to the lord's interest to exact taxes which 
 would leave the whole of the country lying waste 
 on his hands, nor was it to the farmer's interest 
 to throw up his tillage save for good reason, and 
 no doubt a compromise was generally agreed 
 upon. 
 
 The Irish freeholder had thus both fixity ofi 
 rent and fixity of tenure. It was impossible to 
 deprive him of his land for any cause what- 
 ever ; so strictly was the indestructible right 
 of a man in his holding maintained, that in 
 Ireland a mortgage might be held void which did 
 not make provision for the redemption of the 
 land by the mortgager.^ That security of tenure 
 was a fact we know from the number of families 
 who held the same estates for at least 500 years, • 
 from the days of the Irish kings before the 
 
 parcel of land so seized upon by him during the continuance 
 thereof in his hands, the usual tenant, whom they term the 
 freeholder thereof, should have the fourth part of the said 
 corn, or money rent, yearly of the lord. 
 
 The land is not chargeable with any arrearages as long 
 as it is waste, by reason the lord had the profit of the 
 grass, wood, and pasture thereof during the waste. C.S.P. 
 1587, 262. 
 
 'C.S.P 1588, 552. 
 
104 SETTING OF LANDS ch. 
 
 Norman invasion down to the plantations of 
 Elizabeth and the evictions of Cromwell. ^ 
 
 There was very frequent hiring of land. The 
 
 usual Irish arrangement was made for two, three, 
 
 or four years ; and this system of short lettings 
 
 and new bargains every two or three years seems 
 
 to have been as much liked by Irish farmers as it 
 
 was disliked by English planters. When God 
 
 shall call the country to the knowledge of His 
 
 Word, and the rule of civility, it would not be 
 
 amiss, they thought, to fix twenty-one years as 
 
 the term of the ordinary lease. It seemed to 
 
 them that " inconveniences grow by the uncertain 
 
 course that the lords and captains hold in setting 
 
 their lands to their tenants, who hold the same not 
 
 above four years, and so wander from one place to 
 
 another, which course being redressed, and they 
 
 commanded to set their lands as the undertakers 
 
 must do, would do much good to breed civility 
 
 generally in the country."^ The short terms of 
 
 the Irish tenant, in territories where the security 
 
 of a lord depended on the size of his following, 
 
 probably worked out rather as a scheme of tenant- 
 
 at-tenant's-will than one of tenant-at-landlord's- 
 
 will, and the people seem to have prized the 
 
 'Two poems by Seaan ODubhag^in of Hy-Many d. 1372, 
 and O'Huedhrin d. 1420, give the chief Irish families who 
 owned lands before the Norman invasion ; most of these 
 families still lived on their ancient lands in Elizabeth's time. 
 Topographical Poems, ed. by O'Donovan, i860. 
 
 ^C.S.P. 1586, 99; 1589, 249. 
 
HI. MOUNTAIN LANDS 105 
 
 freedom and liberty of choice given them. No 
 doubt the " flitting " was enormously increased by 
 the wars, and when soldiers settled on a rich 
 quarter to eat up the land, or English planters 
 seized a lordship, they must have seen with great 
 disfavour the silent disappearance of herdsmen 
 and earth-tillers the next May-day to seek safer 
 or more hidden farms elsewhere. 
 
 There remained the stretches of hill pasture 
 and thicket and marsh which lay intermingled 
 with the rich lands, and were never leased or 
 rented : " One half of Irish chiefry hath been ever 
 her wilderness and her desert places : her mountain 
 eminences, spoils of her streams, and her forests' 
 dark-haired passes."' The tribesmen had their 
 immemorial right to the use of these unrented 
 lands — to the industry of herding cattle and sheep 
 over the hillsides, pasturing swine in the woods, 
 and driving horses among the spring growth of 
 rough thickets and bogs. The lord of the estate 
 loaned out cattle for grazing and the follower who 
 accepted them became bound to certain fixed 
 services. Once or twice a year, on May-day and 
 All Hallows,^ the kerntye went out to count 
 on one day all the cattle loaned ; the bargain was 
 then renewed, or the tenant was free to make a 
 "yearly flitting" and seek better terms elsewhere. 
 The right of the people to the use of the free 
 unfenced land gave to the tribesmen something of 
 'O'Grady, Cat. 459. ^Migc. Ir. Arch. Soc. 1846. i. 193. 
 
io6 NO FOREST LAW ch. 
 
 dignity, of security, and of independence in bar- 
 gaining for their labour. No landlord in Ireland 
 ever thought of molesting them in that ancient 
 privilege, hallowed by the blessing of the saint : 
 
 " Like sand of sea under ships, 
 Be the number of tlieir hearths : 
 On slopes, on plains, 
 On mountains, on peaks." * 
 
 It was left to the English planters to point out, 
 in the name of civilisation, that the unlimited 
 authority of the landlord, the subjugation of the 
 Irish, and a supply of cheap and helpless labour 
 for the lords of the fat plains, might be compassed 
 by clearing the cattle and their herds out of the 
 uplands. The mind of attorney-general Davies 
 went back to the terrific forest-making of the kings 
 of England, and to the no less cruel enclosures of 
 commercial landlords. It shocked him to find 
 that though the chief of the nobility and gentry 
 were of English race, yet none of them had made 
 for himself a forest, park, or free-warren as in 
 England :^ not one but the Earl of Ormond had 
 enclosed a deer-park. The forest law, said the 
 advocate of conquest by legal chicanery, would 
 have driven the Irish out of the hills,^ " and have 
 made them yield up their fast places to those wild 
 
 ^Stokes, Lismore Lives, 164. ^v. app. 
 
 ^Davies, 124, D. 1787. A singular parallel occurs in the 
 picture of Ireland "tenanted by lowing herds instead of howling 
 assassins," which was given in 1863 by the Saturday Review, 
 when the "raw materials of treason and sedition," it rejoiced to 
 see, were being carried off by famine and emigration, v. app. 
 
III. FEAR OF IRISH CUSTOMS 107 
 
 beasts which were indeed less wild and hurtful 
 than they." It " hindered the perfection of the 
 conquest very much" to have the shepherd and 
 the herdsmen making a living where the lord 
 might have hunted a desert waste,^ 
 
 The propertied classes evidently feared the 
 Irish land system as expressing what might be ' 
 called the Socialism of the time. We may see 
 their instinctive antipathy in the crude accounts 
 they give of Irish customs. " They of the wild 
 Irish as unreasonable beasts lived without any 
 knowledge of God or good manners, in common 
 of their goods, cattle, women, children, and every 
 other thing. . . . And hereof it followed that 
 because their savage and idle life could not be 
 satisfied with the only fruit of the natural 
 unlaboured earth, therefore continually they in- 
 vaded the fertile possessions of their Irish neigh- 
 bours that inhabited the said English pale, reaping 
 and mowing the corn that they sowed not, and 
 carrying away the cattle that they nourished not."^ 
 A Papal nuncio was given a similar account of 15 17. 
 Irish philosophy by his English escort : " They are 
 very religious, but do not hold theft to be wrong, 
 saying that it is sinful to have property and 
 fortunes of our own, and that they live in a state 
 of nature and have all things in common. And 
 
 ' The Creaghts, herds in time of peace, in war attended the 
 army. They drove the prey with their clubs and defended them- 
 selves with their knives. Tr. Rel. to Irel. ii., St. of Kilk. 43 n. 
 
 ^Froude's Pilgrim, 66. v. app. 
 
io8 THE IRISH CHIEF ch. 
 
 for the same cause there are so many thieves."* 
 To judge from the landlords' accusations, the 
 lawyers' arguments, and the planters' practice, the 
 hostility of the Tudor adventurer sprang from 
 the sense that the occupying farmer on the lands 
 he proposed to appropriate had not too little 
 .security, but too much. While landlords in Eng- 
 land were rounding off their estates by evictions 
 and enclosures " without asking Jjave of the 
 clouted shoe," the Irish farmer's tenure was 
 secure.* The chief could not evict him and take 
 his land, nor make a forest waste for his hunting. 
 He could not tie the tenant down to his service 
 for twenty-one years. He could not permanently 
 seize on his land through a mortgage. If an 
 Irish chief exceeded the law, he might forfeit his 
 estate. 
 
 For an Irish chief could claim no divine right. 
 " With the people things go by seniority ; with 
 the chief by qualifications." ^ He had to pass 
 through a double election — by the Commons, 
 as we might say, ratified by consent of the 
 Lords. When the people had chosen the 
 ruler,* there remained the " giving of the rod " 
 or sceptre, or the " putting on of the shoe " 
 
 'Julia Cartwright's Life of Marchioness of Mantua, 172-183. 
 
 2t/. app. 
 
 ^O'Cirady, Cat. 96. "Three things that constitute a kin<r : 
 a contract with (other) kings, the feast of Tara, abiuuiaiue 
 during his reignP Triads, ed. K. Meyer. 
 
 ^v. Hy-Fiachrach, ed. O'Donovan, 440-8, 451. 
 
III. 
 
 ANGLO-IRISH LORDS 
 
 109 
 
 by a leading chief whose family held this here- 
 ditary right,* who represented the powerful septs 
 of the province, and by advice of the leading 
 brehons acted as the guardian of right tradition 
 and the laws of inheritance, and without whose 
 consent the chief could not be legally installed. 
 Like the chief an Anglo-Irish landlord, whose' 
 whole fortunes and hopes were cast in Irish soil, 
 dared not rwughly repudiate the people's law, 
 exasperate them by wholesale extortions, or 
 diminish them by hunger and despair. It was 
 proved by witnesses in court that the Kildares 1557. 
 had never exacted illegal levies for war, such as 
 
 • " Felim Finn O'Conor was inaugurated at Carne near the 
 village of Tulsk in Roscommon, and MacDermot put on his 
 shoe." 1461, 1488; 4 M. p. 1015, 1 161. 
 
 "When O'Donnell was proclaimed at Kilmacrenan O'Fir- 
 ghil presented him with a white wand perfectly straight and 
 without the slightest bend as the emblem of his dignity, 
 warning him that the unsullied whiteness and straightness of 
 the wand should be his model in all his acts." Camb. Ev. iii. 
 341. O'Sullivan More refused to give the white rod to 
 Donnell MacCarthy, even when supported by O'Neill, and 
 reserved the inauguration for Florence MacCarthy, then 
 prisoner in London. Life of MacCarthy, 194, 220, 221. The 
 English found this power of the sub-chiefs a formidable 
 barrier against the illegal captains whom they were in the 
 habit of setting over tribes, to bring them to subjection or to 
 ruin them by civil war. It was proposed (1594) to restrain 
 O'Cahan (whose office it was to cast the shoe over O'Neill 
 at his inauguration) never from henceforth to call or appoint 
 any to be O'Neill, for should any undertake the title not 
 appointed by O'Cahan, the people would not obey him. 
 C.S.P. 1594, 266. See the case of Turlough O'Neill, ch. i.\. 
 P- 348. For " the shout of a king " v. Cellachan of Cashel, 
 61, 124. 
 
no JUSTICE OF THE CHIEFS ch. 
 
 the king's officers were in the habit of doing.i 
 And English officials who inquired in 1586 
 asserted that Desmond ^ had never taken any rents 
 from any farm, save the particular due that ought 
 to be levied on that farm. " He did not deal as a 
 tyrant by extortion, but took a noble of some, ten 
 shillings of others, and of some only suit of court, 
 and so held an equal course with everyone accord- 
 ing to his tenure." In most of the instances 
 given in the annals of a chief raising by force his 
 " warlike refection," the people had denied any 
 just claim on the ground that the usurping chief 
 was not the rightful lord.^ Law was regarded 
 and obeyed.* " But as touching their government 
 in their corporations where they bear rule," wrote 
 
 »C.S.P. 1557, 137; Car. i. 264-5. 
 ' Hy-Fiachrach, 209. 
 
 ^C.S.P. 1589, 249. 
 
 * We know how the difficulties and dangers of Irish elections 
 were deliberately aggravated by successive English rulers from 
 John to Elizabeth, in order to ensure the ruin of the Irish 
 polity. " We will learn from the Florentine how to make them 
 kill one another," wrote a deputy. False claimants were set up 
 — a tanist against an English heir, an English heir against a 
 tanist, as best suited the occasion. During four hundred years 
 the instances are innumerable of civil wars thus contrived by 
 the authorities to weaken their enemies. Burleigh brought 
 the system to perfection. On stray scraps of paper, on the 
 margins of official reports, he untiringly "tricked" the names 
 and pedigrees of Irish clans, keeping his lists ever ready of 
 men of ''the name" who could be advanced against any 
 given chief, and could be themselves destroyed when that 
 in turn was needed. The Irish system had its weaknesses, 
 but it was unduly and falsely discredited by this treacherous 
 policy. 
 
,11. ENGLISH ON IRISH CUSTOMS in 
 
 Payne from Connacht, "is done with such wisdom, 
 equity, and justice, as demerits worthy commenda- 
 tions. For I myself divers times have seen in 
 several places within their jurisdictions well near 
 twenty causes decided at one sitting, with such 
 indifference that, for the most part, both plaintiff,, 
 and defendant hath departed contented : yet many 
 that make show of peace and desireth to live by 
 blood do utterly mislike this or any good thing 
 that the poor Irishman doth."^ 
 
 Terrible pictures have been given of the 
 iniquity of the Irish rents or taxes — the pro- 
 gresses and billetings, and the feeding of kerne, 
 horses and horse-boys, dogs and dog-boys 
 by the people, besides " cuttings, tallages, and 
 spendings high or low at the chiefs pleasure." 
 Coin and livery, or the taking of horse-meat 
 and man's meat for the army on the war-march, 
 was held up to special opprobrium, and denounced 
 as a "filthy and damnable custom," by which 
 chiefs above all law taxed at their own will, 
 and seized by force their " warlike refection " of 
 the people. Hell itself would be emptied if the 
 Irish coyne and livery were allowed there. " And 
 it is said in an ancient discourse of the decay 
 of Ireland, that though it were first invented in 
 hell, yet if it had been used and practised there, 
 as it hath been in Ireland, it had long since 
 destroyed the very kingdom of Beelzebub." ^ 
 'Ir. Arch. Soc. 1841, Payne, 12. ^Davies, 22, D. 1787. 
 
112 ENGLISH USE OF IRISH TAXES cu. 
 
 No mediaeval latid-system, feudal or tribal, 
 fully protected the peasant from a rapacious lord. 
 The tyranny of royal purveyance in England, 
 and certainly the English king's cess levied in 
 Ireland, exceeded the exactions of Irish chiefs. 
 Amid English tales of extortion, sent out in 
 vague and general terms, and for political pur- 
 poses, we should remember two main facts. 
 Throughout the records we do not find a single 
 case of a tribe accepting the help of the English 
 to defend them from the extortions of a lawful 
 chief: "they show an inviolable fidelity to their 
 chiefs" wrote a Spaniard.^ And in the Middle 
 Ages, under their own law, there was no Peasants' 
 Revolt among the Irish, nor any rising of the 
 poor.^ 
 
 The English objection to coyne and livery was 
 not moral but political. A chief by its use main- 
 tained his army, defended his territory, and 
 diverted taxes from the English treasury. Hence 
 the desire to replace this tax by a royal pur- 
 veyance and cess. Coin and livery, forbidden 
 by the English to the " queen's enemies," was 
 allowed to her friends. It was universally 
 levied by English deputies and officers for their 
 own armies — and with an ignorance and contempt 
 of the safe-guards of Brehon law, a violence and 
 disorder, such as had never been known among 
 the Irish. When deputies used charges of extor- 
 *Moran's Archbishops, 93. ^v. app. 
 
III. CAUSES OF IRISH POVERTY 113 
 
 tions and exactions to prove the savagery of Irish 
 customs, and the tyranny from which English 
 conquest was to free the natives, they proved 
 only the uncontrolled violence of military con- 
 quest in that ferocious and corrupted time.^ 
 
 We have seen the agricultural wealth of Ireland 
 and the industrious tillage of the people. How 
 then did there arise the wide-spread impression 
 of Irish waste and poverty? 
 
 English officials whose reports have been 
 accepted knew the country only along the line of 
 the soldiers' march. " The inhabitants can and 
 do live more hardily than any other people, after 
 mine opinion, in Christendom or Turkey,"^ says 1521. 
 the lord deputy Surrey; for in face of the English 
 armies that poured out of the Pale specially armed 
 with scythes to level the growing corn, the Irish 
 of the border-lands had learned to keep " their 
 countries of purpose waste, uninhabited, as where 
 nothing is nothing can be got " ^ — a policy which 
 gave the English a new excuse to complain of 
 the Irish character for laziness. "The cess and 
 
 'v. Ware's Ant. 77. "The English complained of our old 
 Irish chieftains and landlords, that they visited their vassals 
 so frequently, and with so great a train of attendants, that 
 all the substance of the tenant was devoured. The men who 
 have criminally seized the government of my country have 
 merely changed, not cured, that disorder. They still oppress the 
 farmers more grievously with the same extortions, and include 
 the former landlords in the common affliction." Camb. Ev. i. 25. 
 
 ''St. Pap. II. iii. 74. 
 
 ^Richey, 7, 8; Moran's Archbishops, 129. 
 
 H 
 
114 THE RUIN OF WAR 
 
 CII. 
 
 vexation of the soldiers," wrote Sir W. Herbert 
 1588. sixty years later, " make the labouring man care- 
 less of his tillage and husbandry, holding as good 
 to play for nothing as to work for nothing (the 
 soldier consuming the fruit of his labour)." 1 
 When English troops, fed with corn of Danzig 
 and fish of Newfoundland, were sent out on 
 organised work of destruction, to burn the winter 
 haggards and the corn gathered in church-yards 
 or hidden in pits, to raze the fences, cut down 
 the orchards, slay every living beast, and break 
 every loom, that hunger and cold might exter- 
 minate the people — then the water-cresses of 
 famine, the shelter in a thicket of the woods, 
 the russet trowsers and single ragged cloak of 
 the fugitive, were scornfully pictured as the only 
 fare and dress the Irish had ever known. They 
 had " neither bread nor good victuals," said the 
 English, and indeed the corn that the country- 
 men furtively grew in hidden clefts and valleys 
 of the hills they saved for the horses, stinting 
 themselves. " The ordinary food of these rebel 
 Irish is a kind of grass, neither clothes nor houses 
 T 582. do they care for."^ "The wolf and the best 
 rebel lodge in one inn, with one diet and one 
 kind of bedding." ^ " The Irish men," ran the 
 
 'C.S.P. 1588, 545. "When the husbandman had laboured 
 all the year, the soldiers in one night consumed the fruit of 
 all his labour. . . . Had he reason then to manure the land 
 for the next year?" Davies, 132, D. 1787. 
 
 2 Life, MacCarthy, 122. ^cs.?. 15S2, 410. 
 
III. 
 
 SLANDERS OF THE ENGLISH 1 1 5 
 
 scoffing description of an English lawyer sent 1581 
 over in the midst of a war which the English 
 themselves admitted to exceed in suffering any- 
 thing known even in that day of Alva's campaigns, 
 "the Irish men, except in the walled towns, are '' 
 not Christians, civil, or humane creatures, but 
 heathen, or rather savage, and brute beasts. For 
 many of them, as well women as men, go 
 commonly all naked, saving only a loose mantle 
 hanging about them : if any of them have a 
 shirt and a pair_ of., single soled shoes, which 
 they call brogues, they are especially provided 
 for; and the earl of Clancarr and the lord 
 Morris " [great and wealthy lords reduced to the 
 last extremity by war] " came the third of this 
 instant to present themselves to my lord deputy 
 at Dublin, being the chief city of all Ireland, 
 in all their bravery, and the best robe or garnxent 
 they wore was a russet Irish mantle (rug) worth 
 about a crown apiece, and they had each of them 
 a hat, a leather jerkin, a pair of brogues, but 
 not all worth a noble that either of them had. 
 . . . And their food is flesh if they can steal 
 any, for they have no occupations, or have been 
 brought up to any labour to earn anything. And 
 if they can get no stolen flesh, they eat if they 
 can get them, like [leek] blades, and a three- 
 leaved grass which they call shamrocks, and for 
 want thereof carrion, and grass in the fields, with 
 such butter as is loathsome to describe: the best 
 
ii6 THE LAWYERS' SLANDERS cu. 
 
 of them have seldom bread, and the common 
 sort never look after any. They have neither 
 ministers or churches, or those which are be 
 decayed and never used. They never marry, 
 christen, or bury, but howl over the corpses like 
 dogs, and because they themselves cannot make 
 noise enough, they will many times hire some 
 to howl with them. . . . Many live with grass 
 in the field like brute beasts, and spend no corn, 
 if great store of victual had not been sent thither 
 out of England." ^ 
 
 With such tales the planters urged the queen 
 to new slaughter of a barbarous people, and the 
 giving of their land to Englishmen.^ So complete 
 1603. was the havoc that attorney-general Davies, 
 arriving a stranger in Ireland, took it for granted 
 that the desolate waste and famished people 
 represented the normal savage life of the " wild 
 Irish." " I dare boldly say that never any par- 
 ticular person before or since [the reign of Henry 
 II.] did build any stone or brick house for his 
 private habitation but such as had lately obtained 
 
 •C.S.P. 1581, Ixxxiv. This victual was sent for the English 
 soldiers only. Some editors of the Irish State Papers made 
 " it their custom in the Calendars, with much abbreviation of 
 other matter, to put at full length any passages that would 
 give an impression of Irish poverty or misery, and further 
 to repeat these in full also in the Preface with appropriate 
 expressions of reprobation. A disproportionate picture has 
 thus been produced, v. app. 
 
 2 " No man," wrote one with unconscious irony, " is lord of 
 his own any longer than he can defend it against others." 
 Dymock, 6. 
 
III. 
 
 THEIR IGNORANCE 
 
 117 
 
 estates according to the course of the law of 
 England. Neither did any of them in all this 
 time plant any gardens or orchards, enclose or 
 improve their lands, live together in settled 
 villages or towns, nor make any provision for 
 posterity ; which being against all common sense 
 and reason, must needs be imputed to those 
 unreasonable customs which made their estates so 
 uncertain and transitory in their possessions."^ 
 He had his own explanation ready to hand. All 
 poverty and disorders were due to the " bar- 
 barous " Irish land-tenure and customs of sue- " 
 cession, tanistry and gavel-kind. Sir John Davies' 
 facts were untrue, and his reasons were unneces- 
 sary, but his fanciful account has passed into 
 common acceptance. It was no doubt such 
 sayings as these that made Hugh of Tyrone 
 declare him a man more fit to be a stage-player 
 than counsel to his majesty.* 
 
 ' Davies, 129, 280, D. 1787. " They never esteemed lawful 
 matrimony, to the end they might have lawful heirs. They 
 did never build ar.y houses, nor plant orchards, or gardens, 
 nor take any care of their posterities." Another English 
 account of the same time repeats the same current fallacies 
 of the tenant holding only at will of the lord, so that he 
 never buildeth, repaireth, or encloseth the ground ; and when- 
 soever the lord listeth, is turned out, or departeth at his 
 most advantage, which left a great want of grain to suffice 
 the country, and left the people idle and wandering with no 
 settled home. Dymock, i. 
 
 " O'Grady, Cat. 479. In four years after Davies' arrival (1603), 
 without any knowledge of Irish, or seeking adequate informa- 
 tion from the people of the country, he had made up his mind 
 on the historical and economical aspects of the Irish question, 
 
ii8 
 
 MARTIAL ANARCHY 
 
 CM. 
 
 Seventy years of this tyranny brought its 
 natural results. " O man that ploughest the hill- 
 side . . ." cried the poet, " art thou he that in 
 the hour of gathering up its corn in ear shalt reap 
 its tillage ? " ^ With the war came the entire 
 dislocation of Irish life — land measured and 
 divided out anew, often under new names, till the 
 very boundaries and properties of old times 
 passed out of memory^ — the whole machinery of 
 labour shattered — the status of every class con- 
 founded in a common poverty.* Adventurers 
 claimed the right that they alone should buy any 
 corn sown. Trafficking on Irish industry and on 
 
 on which he laid down opinions (in 1607, 1610, 1612) with a 
 confidence, and in a style, which have won for them a success 
 not due to the accuracy of his facts. His work needs to be 
 re-edited by a competent scholar. 
 
 ' O'Grady, Cat. 443 ; compare with the rest of this poem, 
 Sidney's letter : " The rest tremble, for most part ; they fight 
 for their dinner ; and many of them lose their heads before 
 they be served with their supper. Down they go in every 
 corner, and down they shall go, God willing ! " Sid. Let., 
 Collins, 1746, p. 108. 
 
 *The memory of the old divisions of the town-lands in 
 some districts at least seemed actually obliterated by 16S4. 
 Hy-Fiachrach, ed. O'Donovan, 454. 
 
 *"Not one in a hundred of the Irish nobles, at this day, 
 possesses as much of his land as he could be buried in, 
 though they expect it in this year, 1664." "And thus the 
 Burkes came over the Barretts in Tir Amhalgaidh, and took 
 nearly the whole of their lands from theip ; but at length 
 the Saxon heretics of Oliver Cromwell took it from them all, 
 in the year of our Lord 1652 ; so that now there is neither 
 Barrett nor Burke, not to mention the Clann Fiachrach, in 
 possession of any lands there." Hy-Fiachrach, ed. O'Donovan, 
 33', 339- 
 
„r. THE ENGLISH RENTS no 
 
 the passion of the people for their soil, they raised 
 the profits on their farms : " Irish rents," they 
 said, "will not maintain English diet and 
 apparel," ^ and in such cases Irish " extortion " 
 had to give way to English "justice." So prices 
 mounted — in the English-ruled districts " the 
 acre in most, or at least in many places, being 
 letten for I2d. [Irish] by the year,"^ according to 
 an official report — that is when they let to Irish 
 tenants, for no Englishman could take the land at 
 more than 6d.^ The laborious Irishman could 
 even be made to pay for a beast's grass the fourth 
 sheaf of all his corn, and i6d. yearly, besides other 
 accustomed Irish duties. We may imagine what 
 hunger and poverty followed on these pitiless 
 rents, and how that distress was again charged 
 against the Irish as an offence. 
 
 This poverty was increased by devices of the 
 commercial planters to secure cheap labour. A 
 law forbade peasants to glean in bands after 1534. 
 the Irish custom in the harvest-fields,* or to 
 take sheaves of corn as wages instead of the 
 bad money ; cottiers and farmers were forbidden 1556. 
 any more to make a livelihood by buying and 
 fattening horses, because they sold them " very 
 dear," and because having this industry " they 
 
 'C.S.P. 1593, 14s; cf. ib. 15S9, 249. 
 
 'Car. ii. 63. Sir Corniac of Muskerrj' let 400 cow-lanes 
 for ^800 a year. Cork Arch. J., Apr. 1906, 66-7. 
 Mr. Arch. Soc. 1841, Payne, 7-8; v. p. loi. 
 * Stat. Irel. p. 62, 248. 
 
I20 CHEAP LABOUR cu. 
 
 will not labour on request made." Elizabeth ex- 
 
 1575 pcctcd the Irish to give "reasonable relief" to 
 the planter Essex, in other words to dig and 
 carry ^ for him and such like either gratis or 
 for a small hire, and for mere friendship supply 
 him with flesh for the soldiers and oats for the 
 horses. To provide by cold and nakedness a 
 supply of cheap labour, Carew's cousin Herbert 
 used the statute against Irish cloaks : " the 
 mantle," he said, " made the Irish more apt to 
 live and lie out in bogs and woods . . . and 
 thereby are they less addicted to a loyal, 
 dutiful, and civil life." His neighbour Denys 
 scoffed at the pretence of spreading English 
 apparel by seizing the last covering of the 
 famine-stricken peasant, " for the rest of their 
 garments they be all Irish, or the men naked with 
 only such a cloak." ^ 
 
 It was not the peasants only who were to 
 labour. " As there is nothing that the Irish more 
 esteem than the nobility of blood, preferring it 
 far before either virtue or wealth, so abhor they 
 nothing more than disparagement, more odious 
 unto them than death," ^ so wrote Sentleger, 
 and this pride was used in order to inflict fresh 
 
 1576 humiliations.* When the chiefs feared for their 
 
 1 Car. ii. 3-6. ^cs.P. 1589, 129, 192, 222. 
 
 2 Life of MacCarthy, 19. 
 
 * Lord Burghley measured the value to England of breaking 
 up the Irish landed classes . " That gentleman who sells an 
 
Ill, THE DIGNITY OF LABOUR 121 
 
 lives to come in to Sidney, " I can have them 
 when I will," he boasted, " and made them both 
 arm in arm bear and draw with their fellows." ' 
 Lord justice Pelham desired that all saving free- 1580. 
 holders (i.e. those holding by English title) 
 should be disweaponed and disarmed,^ and forced 
 to follow either the plough or some science or 
 occupation ; and lord deputy Perrot approved 
 this course : " Their hands," he wrote, " begin 
 to wax hard with labour, as their feet once did 
 in running to mischief."' A little later Taffe 1585. 
 advised Burghley to make all Irish gentlemen who ,-■ 
 did not put their sons to school (to become 
 Protestants and English) to be forced to bind 
 them as apprentices in the Pale to learn crafts as 
 artificers.* " Those who were appointed factors 
 for the Indian trade used to jocosely ask the 
 collectors of the revenue, that when the entire 
 property of the Irish was extracted by the public 
 charges of the State, and the whole juice 
 squeezed out of the golden apples, then the rind 
 of those apples, the wretched bodies of the Irish, 
 should be bestowed on them, to enable them to 
 amass a fortune. Thus were the children of the 
 Irish made a prey."* 
 
 acre of land sells an ounce of credit, for gentility is nothing 
 else than ancient riches." Hume's Burghley, 25. v. app. 
 
 ^Car. ii. 135; W. Conn. 303; Sid. Let. 106-7, 116. 
 ^Car. ii. 285. ^Bagwell, ii. 249-51. 
 
 *C.S.P. 1585, 562. 'Camb. Ev. i. 63. v. app. 
 
122 THE CHARGE OF IDLENESS ch. 
 
 V. 
 
 Such were the lessons of industry and the 
 dignity of labour which the Irish refused at the 
 hands of their supplanters. " The old rural 
 populations of other lands devote themselves to 
 their peaceful labours and avocations in happy 
 security, but the mournful doom, ' old rural 
 tenants away,' grates daily on the ear of the old 
 occupants of our soil." ' Davies, travelling over 
 a devastated country, commented in his un-seeing 
 and supercilious way, " Though their portions 
 were ever so small and themselves ever so poor, 
 yet they scorned to descend to husbandry or 
 merchandise or to learn any mechanical art or 
 science."^ Surveying the desolation themselves 
 had made, and the disorders of this various ruin, 
 the English added to their charges against the 
 Irish the blame of poverty and idleness. 
 
 But through this later devastation we may still 
 trace the records of a civilization where in the 
 country, as in the towns, there was busy industry 
 — where fields were fenced and tilled, orchards 
 and gardens planted, farms leased, and houses 
 built by men who enjoyed secure tenure and 
 protection against unjust taxation — where raids 
 and tribal wars were not so universal as to 
 destroy the steady growth of wealth, even ot 
 luxury, and the amenities of a courteous and 
 hospitable society. 
 
 *Camb. Ev. i. 6i. '''Davies, 130, D. 1787. 
 
IV. 
 THE WAR ON IRISH TRADE. 
 
 The reign of Henry viii. opened for Ireland a 
 new era. For now began a scheme of " con- 
 quest " the most calamitous in kind that can 
 happen to any people — an invasion of trading 
 speculators, whose object was to exploit for their 
 own gain the material wealth of the land they 
 overran. 
 
 It is true that trading instincts were active 
 throughout the three previous centuries of Eng- 
 lish settlement in Ireland, but now for the first 
 time the trader gained the chief and dominating 
 power. England had definitely and consciously 
 entered on her great commercial ventures. 
 
 The English merchants had long been feeling 
 their way to the command of the seas and the 
 carrying trade of the world. Between the reigns 1327- 
 of Edward iii. and Henry vii. a revolution in ^5°9- 
 commerce gave in effect to English ships the 
 foreign trade of England, which had till then 
 been carried in Continental vessels.^ The appoint- 1485. 
 ment at Pisa^ of the first consul for English 
 
 ' Green's Town Life, ch. iii. 
 
 "Rym. xii. 270 ; Macpherson, i. 714. 
 
124 REPORTS OF IRISH WEAI^TII en. 
 
 merchants in the Mediterranean marked their 
 further triumph : l^^nglish vessels openly aimed at 
 carrying the trade of foreign countries. The 
 war to capture Irish trade was part of the com- 
 mercial wars with Europe. Here at their very 
 doors was an active Continental commerce. 
 Here was a trade to be coveted. " Ireland lieth 
 better for vent of all commodities than England 
 doeth." All reports gave hopes of great profits 
 to be found there. The first commercial pamphlet 
 c. 1445. written in England for circulation among the 
 middle classes urged in rhyming doggerel that 
 the trading interests of the country demanded 
 the complete annexation of a land so plenteous 
 and so rich : ^ 
 
 "That me seemeth that right were and no wrong 
 To get the land : and it were piteous wrong 
 To us to lose this high name Dominus. 
 
 That name and people together might accord 
 All the ground subject to the Lord." 
 
 Stories circulated of the wealth of Ireland, with 
 
 its fair fields and bounteous harvests, with such 
 
 trade in wool and corn and hides and fish, and 
 
 woollen and linen goods, with " such notable 
 
 quarries of marble, such store of pearl and 
 
 other rich stones, such abundance of coal, such 
 
 plenty of lead, iron, laten, and tin, so many rich 
 
 mines furnished with all kind of metals, as nature 
 
 • Ir. .'\.rch. Soc. 1841, Payne, 3 ; Libel of Eng. Pol., Pol- 
 Songs, ii. Rolls Series ; v. Green's Town Life, i. 61. 
 
IV. IRISH MINES 125 
 
 seemed to have framed this country ror the 
 storehouse or jewel house of her chief treasure."' 
 " Would you had seen the countries we have 
 seen in this our journey, and then you would say 
 you had not seen the like, and think it were much 
 pity the same were not in subjection." " I never, 
 nor no other man that ever I have communed 
 with, but saith that for all things it is the goodliest 
 land that ever they have seen, not only for 
 pleasure and pastime of a prince, but as well 
 for profit to his Grace and to the whole realm of 
 England."^ "The fertility and commodity of 1536. 
 Ireland is such as within short space, after my poor 
 opinion, would be to the King's high profit." ^ 
 
 The glitter of mines too dazzled invaders 
 and planters for over 300 years.* Edward in., 
 understanding that there were various mines of 1360, 
 gold and silver in Ireland which might be very 
 beneficial to himself and the people of that 
 country, commissioned his principal ministers 
 there to order a search. But a greater excite- 
 ment was stirred when news came that Spain 1531. 
 had found gold in Brazil, and had despatched 
 the first royal governor and divided the coast 
 into captaincies, and poured in colonists, and 
 negroes from Guinea. Henry, having secured 
 his title to the realm of Ireland, at once sent 1543. 
 
 'Hoi. vi. 41-2 ; V. Ware's Ant. 172 ; "great store of Orient 
 Pearl," C.S.P. 1589, 125. 
 
 ^Car. i. 109, 1 1 5-6. 3 Car. i. 105. *v. app. 
 
126 FAILURE OF THE MINES ch. 
 
 prospectors to seek anew for Irish mines : " it 
 is thought that great riches might be had of 
 them,"^ and ;^iooo was devoted to the mines 
 and ;^iooo to the mint. Edward vi,, in hope 
 
 1551. of some ;^30,ooo a year clear profit, brought 
 over German Protestants to Wicklow to replace 
 the home miners, and paid them down ;^2ooo 
 before they wrought one day. In two years, 
 when they had been discharged as " idle vaga- 
 bonds not worth their keep," {,6666 had been 
 spent on the mines for a trifling profit of a few 
 
 1562. hundreds. Elizabeth's deputy anxiously fined the 
 ore in his own house to discover the ever vanish- 
 
 1568- ing returns from gold. On the final collapse of 
 
 ^5°5- gold-searching, at a huge expense, adventurers 
 divided the prospects of other mines of alum, 
 tin, iron, copper, and " a metal found in the 
 Connacht mountains, from which the English 
 hope to gain advantage." 2 
 
 Landowners in England also had thrown in their 
 lot with the trading world. The wool-trade, the 
 competition for the new wealth, their merchant 
 marriages, stirred them to business enterprise — 
 to the robbing of the commons of the poor, 
 the plunder of monasteries, the rich adventures 
 of continental wars, the voyages of the Spanish 
 main, the driving back of Indians from American 
 
 >St. Pap. HI. iii. 469, 585. 
 
 2Soc. of Ant. 1852, 141 ; C.S.P. 1568, 368, 381 ; 1584, 528; 
 1585. SS4 
 
IV. ENGLISH YOUNGER SONS 127 
 
 soil. They were already, in the time of Henry 
 viii., seeking for good investments for the 
 penniless younger sons of their land system, and 
 lust of plunder and slaughter deepened as succes- 
 sive generations from English families — grand- 
 father, father, and sons in turn^ — set off to 
 the European wars, serving under the Low 
 Countries, Spain, France, Savoy, Venice, Florence, 
 or ail in turn, against Turks, Infidels, or Christians, 
 as pay and spoil might tempt them, and returned 
 to set up house on the profits of their raids by 
 sea and land. A wealthy Ireland offered great 
 hopes of livelihood for '* younger sons of 
 English families who had little or nothing to 
 spend there," '^ and these poor sons of rich fathers 
 figured largely in all the adventures of the six- 
 teenth century. The arguments used under 
 Henry viii. were expanded by a planter of 
 Elizabeth's time, who undertook " to reform 
 Ireland by replenishing it with English inhabi- 
 tants." " England was never that can be heard 
 of fuller of people than it is at this day ... the 
 excessive expense, both in diet and apparel, 
 maketh that men which have but small portions 
 cannot contain themselves in the emulation of 
 this world with like countenance as the grounded 
 rich can do." Where were these younger sons 
 to find sufficient wealth ? There was no hope, 
 
 ' Herbert of Cherbury, p. 1 5. 
 
 - St. Pap. II. iii. 74, 326, 328, 329, 452, 469 ; Des. Cur. Hib. i. 57. 
 
128 USES OF CONQUEST ch. 
 
 he considered, of the conquest of France or 
 Spain, and Scotland was barren. Ireland, how- 
 ever, was the Queen's inheritance: a "pretty 
 farm " there would make " a fit match for 
 younger brothers," who could at the same time 
 " inhabit and reform so barbarous a nation," and 
 bring them " to knowledge and law." " I judged 
 surely," said this pious imperialist, *' that God 
 did make apt and prepare this nation for such 
 a purpose. There resteth only to persuade the 
 multitude already destined thereto with the will 
 and desire to take the matter in hand. Let us 
 therefore use the persuasion which Moses used 
 to Israel, they will serve fitly in this place, and 
 tell them that they shall go to possess a land 
 that floweth with milk and honey, a fertile soil 
 truly if there be any in Europe."^ 
 
 In the union of strict business with piety the 
 English colonists indeed felt their superiority 
 to the rival empire-makers " the Spaniards, 
 . . . because with all cruel immanity, con- 
 trary to all natural humanity, they subdued a 
 naked and a yielding people, whom they sought 
 
 ^ Smith's Tract, MacDonnells of Antrim. A noteworthy 
 parallel occurs in the comments of the Times, in 1S63 and 
 1S65, on the flight of some two million Irishmen after the 
 great famine. " The Irish will go. English and Scotch settlers 
 must be speedily got in their places." " The Celt goes to yield 
 to the Saxon. This island of one hundred and sixty harbours, 
 with its fertile soil, with noble rivers and beautiful lakes, with 
 fertile mines and riches of every kind, is being cleared quietly 
 for the interest and luxury of humanity ! " 
 
IV. ENGLISH AND SPANISH EMPIRES 129 
 
 for gain and not for any religion or plantation 
 of a commonwealth." " For what can be more 
 pleasant to God, than to gain and reduce in all 
 christianlike manner, a lost people to the know- 
 ledge of the gospel and a true christian religion, 
 than which cannot be a more pleasant and a 
 sweet sacrifice, and a more acceptable service 
 before God ? And what can be more honourable 
 to princes, than to enlarge the bounds of their 
 kingdoms without injury, wrong, and bloodshed ; 
 and to frame them from a savage life to a civil 
 government, neither of which the Spaniards in 
 their conquests have performed ? And what can 
 be more beneficial to a common-weale, than to 
 have a nation and a kingdom to transfer unto 
 the superfluous multitude of fruitless and idle 
 people (here at home daily increasing) to travel, 
 conquer, and manure another land, which by the 
 due intercourses to be devised, may and will 
 yield infinite commodities } " ^ 
 
 The English submitted to their manifest 
 destiny. The expectation of untold wealth 
 united all classes in the same policy of exploiting 
 Ireland. Kings with empty exchequers and the 
 expenses of " conquest," were promised " infinite 
 sums of gold and silver," not only from the 
 mines, but from land-rents and trade-dues ; for 
 250 years the duties paid in all the ports together 
 to the Crown never exceeded ^/^looo,^ and richer 
 
 *Hol. vi. 107. ^Davies, 31, D. 1787. 
 
 I 
 
I30 
 
 PROFITS FROM IRELAND 
 
 Cil. 
 
 customs should be levied from the Irish com- 
 merce. The whole commercial world of England, 
 nobles and middle class alike, saw new outlets 
 of business and trade. The poorer classes looked 
 to share in the pillage — 600 herring-boats at the 
 
 1536. fishing off Carlingford offered, if there was war 
 in those parts, " to make 3000 fighting men for 
 a few days."^ With the discovery that money 
 was to be made in Ireland there came a new 
 rush of settlers, and there was soon let loose on 
 the country a flood of speculators. Government 
 servants were fain to join in their plunder. One 
 of them " was contented to inhabit that barbarous 
 corner only to do good among the savage 
 people"^ — in other words he had got a great 
 demesne for his portion with a fair ancient castle. 
 " He came hither with a small male, but he 
 Cometh home with his trussing coffers,"* was 
 
 ^.SSS- the record of a rapid official tour — "at least 16 
 or 20 hobbies, the worst worth 5 marks and 
 3 or 4 caste of hawks, and as for privy stuff, 
 God knows what : ... he will probably en- 
 deavour to come again." 
 
 It is the driving power of traders which gives 
 . an ominous character to the wars of the sixteenth 
 century. The exploitation of Ireland by violence 
 signalised the rise of a new commercial England. 
 Its final success has been seen in a ruin and 
 poverty without parallel in civilised Europe. 
 
 ' Car. i. 85. ^ C.S.P. 1581, 334. v. app. ^ Car. i. 66. v. app. 
 
,v. ENGLISH TRADERS' INFLUENCE 131 
 
 When Henry viii. first turned his attention to 
 Ireland it was evident that earlier methods of 
 securing Irish trade and profits for the English 
 had generally failed. The policy had been inaugu- 
 rated long before, but there had been no sufficient 
 force behind it. 
 
 Old laws had forbidden to the mere Irish 
 any inland trade. Irish enemies of our Lord the 
 King, a statute of Henry vi.^ complained, raise 1429. 
 and hold amongst them different fairs and markets 
 to which sundry merchants, liege Englishmen, go 
 and repair, and some send their merchandise to 
 the said enemies by their servants or people called 
 laxmen, and there sell and buy divers merchandises 
 and things vendible, whereout the said enemies 
 take great customs and benefits, to their great 
 profit, and depression of all the boroughs and 
 trading towns and liege subjects : " it is agreed and 
 established that henceforth no manner of merchant, 
 nor any other liege person, shall go nor resort 
 in time of peace nor of war^ to any manner of fair, 
 market, nor other place among the said enemies 
 with merchandises or things vendible, nor send the 
 same to them, unless it be to redeem some prisoner 
 from them who may be the King's liege man." 
 Any such trader was to be held a felon. The 
 Irish towns remonstrated against the officious 
 protection of the government : their petition i43S. 
 urged that so great was the emigration of the 
 
 ^Tr. Rel. to Ire. St. Kilk. p. 115; Gilb. Vice. 327, 331. 
 
132 INLAND TRADE FORBIDDEN ch. 
 
 English out, of Ireland that the " few liege people " 
 left were not " sufficient to victual the cities of 
 Waterford, Cork, and Limerick," nor the walled 
 towns Kilkenny, Ross, Wexford, Kinsale, Youghal, 
 Clonmel, Kilmallock, Thomastown, Carrick, Fet- 
 hard, Cashel, and many others, "whereby the said 
 countries and towns are on the point to be 
 famished." All of them united in desiring the 
 forbidden Irish trade. The Earl of Desmond 
 
 1464. being deputy, a Dublin parliament suspended 
 
 I the Acts against commerce^ and licensed towns 
 
 to traffic with " Irish enemies " ; but again the 
 
 jealousy of English politicians and merchants 
 
 1480. triumphed, and once more the government raised 
 the cry^ that Irish merchants, lately stocked with 
 store of goods by the concourse of English 
 merchants in Irish land, have of late times injured 
 the merchants of Athboy, Kells, Faure, Mullin- 
 gar, Oldcastle, and other ancient English market- 
 towns, to wit they have commenced markets in 
 the country of O'Reilly, and the country of 
 O'Farrell, at Cavan, Granard, Longford, and other 
 places, which if they be long continued will cause 
 great riches to the King's enemies. It was again 
 enacted that no traders should carry merchandise 
 to the borders, or visit markets in Irish territories, 
 and that any man guilty of such a crime should 
 forfeit his goods, and his body at the King's 
 
 1 Gilbert, 379. 
 
 «Tr. Rel. to Irel. Kilk. St. 117. 
 
:v. 
 
 PRECAUTIONS AGAINST IRISH 133 
 
 pleasure. Monasteries alone were allowed to 
 traffic with their country estates. 
 
 It was a part of the general policy of depressing 
 Irish activity to keep the Irish penned back into 
 their own territories, Irish prelates, being held 1416. 
 peers of the realm, were forbidden to bring any 
 Irish attendants, rebels to the king, to parliaments 
 or councils, where they might become acquainted 
 with the secrets and state of the English, to the 
 peril of lawful liege people.^ Irishmen were 1413. 
 voided out of England, except only graduates, 
 clergy, and merchants ; and later all people born 1422. 
 in Ireland were ordered to depart, unless they 
 were graduates or married to Englishwomen.^ 
 It has been commonly supposed that the 
 rejected burghers and artisans were " unde- 
 sirables," carrying to an orderly England their 
 native riotousness. The story of the Bristol 
 weavers,^ and probably the hoopers, shows the 
 whole matter to have been an English trade ' 
 strike against Irish competition. Nor was the 
 rioting on the side of the Irish dealers, to 
 judge by a petition from the Parliament in 1429. 
 Ireland that their merchants travelling * from 
 Chester to Coventry, Oxford, and London, 
 be protected against beating, robbery, and im- 
 prisonment on the part of English traders, a 
 
 '4 H. V. c. vi. 
 
 I H. V. c. viii. ; I H. vi. c. iii. ; Gi'ib. Viceroys, 308. 
 ^i"- 144- ■'Fac. Nat. MSS. hi. xxxix. 
 
134 VIOLENCE TO IRISH TRADERS ch. 
 course of violence on which the petition had no 
 
 effect.^ 
 
 We may note that this remonstrance was drawn 
 up in the same year as the Act that forbade 
 merchants in Ireland to go to any Irish fair 
 or market whatever. Felons if they took the 
 Irish road, beaten and imprisoned if they carried 
 their wares to England, such was the legal 
 lot of all who were infected with the air of 
 Ireland. 
 
 Another disability laid on the Irish proved 
 1464. strangely enduring. A statute of Edward iv. 
 ordered that " all residing within the counties of 
 Meath, Dublin, and Kildare (namely the terri- 
 tories to which the power of the king of England 
 was then restricted), should adopt an English 
 surname — either from a town, as Sutton, Chester, 
 Trim, Skrine, Cork, Kinsale, or from some 
 colour, as Black, White, Brown ; or from some 
 trade, as Smith, Carpenter ; or from an office, as 
 Cook, Butler ; and that their posterity should 
 • retain that name in future time."^ Thus an 
 Irishman of the Pale, or " subject," who 
 abandoned the customs, dress, language, the 
 games and the songs, the laws of his people, 
 and the very remembrance and name of an 
 
 *Cal. Dub. Rec. i. 322, a.d. 1466. 
 
 2 Lynch, Cam. Ev. iii. 173; 5th Ed. IV. c. 3, Ir. St. The 
 German de Renzi was only allowed to take land and live in 
 Ireland on the condition that he should not take an Irish 
 name, c. 1600. v. app. 
 
IV. IRISH NAMES FORBIDDEN 135 
 
 Irishman Was alone (so far as English law went) 
 counted worthy to trade and make a living. 
 Such was the humiliation and treachery demanded 
 for such a bribe. This statute only confirmed 
 the practice of two centuries before, by which 
 Irishmen received license to use English law, 
 and therefore trade in towns as burgesses, under 
 names in which all sign of the Irish sept, or 
 even of Irish descent, was often obliterated. We 1279- 
 find among these grants such names as Gerald ^ ^' 
 Fitzjohn, Maurice de Lessan, Roger of New- 
 castle, Hugh Kent, William Brown, Philip de 
 Seche, and the like. There is no telling how 
 many mayors and councillors and merchants of 
 the towns were allowed to use their ability and 
 industry if they did it in the name and to 
 the honour of another people. For centuries 
 Irishmen were driven into the same melan- 
 choly disguise. "Whenever," wrote Dr. Lynch 1640. 
 200 years after the statute, " the vicissitudes of 
 war gave the ascendancy to the English, many 
 of the Irish adopted names conformable to the 
 English fashion. . . . Thus, the Sinnachs called 
 themselves Fox ; the Mac-anghobhann, Smith ; 
 the Galbhain, White ; the Brannach, Walsh ; 
 which are merely translations of the Irish name. ' 
 I knew one of the Dalbhans, a tavern keeper in 
 Dublin, who changed his name into ' Painter,' 
 in order to conceal his Irish name under an 
 English one of precisely the same signification " ; 
 
136 IRISH NAMES CHANGED ch. 
 
 and in the 250 years that followed, even to 
 our own day, Irish names honoured in every 
 State in Europe, were too often counted a 
 shame, and withdrawn, changed, hidden, in every 
 country where English was spoken.^ 
 
 In spite of the legislation of 300 years, Irish 
 trade survived, and even flourished. Business 
 men, however, had now entered the field, and 
 the methods of the sixteenth century were more 
 practical and vigorous. Tudor sovereigns needed 
 for their conquest a larger share of Irish profits. 
 Henry viii. passed an act for the resumption 
 of his customs in the sea ports ; and " more 
 reason is that the king should have it being 
 his own."^ Mary complained that the Irish 
 chiefs still levied abundant taxes of their people 
 and kept them ready to do their will in all 
 things, while the arrears of rents claimed by 
 the Crown were notably great : it angered her 
 to see Irish trade not yet suppressed : " what 
 
 • 4 M. pp. 112311., 1301 n., 140011.; Tribes of Hy-Fiachra, 
 189, 191, 201, 229, 244, 258, 264, 273, 275, etc. Actual instances 
 down to our own days are known to every one who has any 
 knowledge of Irish life. The English indeed, while they 
 profited by the extinguishing of Irish names, disliked to be 
 reminded of their policy. " Another Dowdal of the name of 
 John," Ware wrote, " was lately living, and commonly called 
 Dorrell : For it is a practice among the Romish ecclesiastics 
 of Ireland to assume names different from those of their birth, 
 hi order io persuade foreigners that the persecution is so severe 
 in that country, that they dare not with safety appear in public 
 without disguising their persons and names, the contrary of 
 which is manifestly true." Ware's Writers, 94. 
 
 2 St. Pap. II. iii. 370, 404. 
 
IV. THE CROWN FINANCE 137 
 
 great commodities of the realm be vented out 
 to foreign ports is well known." ^ Elizabeth 
 and her chief minister added to their interest in 
 the royal dues enterprise in commercial ventures. 
 Cecil was promoter and shareholder of the Russia 
 Company ; Elizabeth held shares in the Gold 
 Coast trade on the highest grounds — when the 
 Spaniards and Portuguese remonstrated against 
 unfair English invasion of their trade in W. 
 Africa and Brazil, Cecil answered that they did 
 so to oppose the Pope's claim to give away 
 kingdoms much more than from any profit 
 they expected to get.* The same argument 
 would serve for Ireland. There was to be a 
 "thorough conquest,"^ or, as Elizabeth preferred" 
 to term it, "a godly conquest." The matter was 
 committed to traders and speculators, who had 
 private interests to gratify as well as imperialist 
 ambitions, and a new trade war was now opened 
 by sea and land. 
 
 A realm, Cecil declared, " can never be rich 
 that hath not an intercourse and trade of mer- 
 chandise with other nations,"* and this lack 
 was to be the lot of Ireland. Competition of 
 Irish mariners had long been condemned : Lord 
 Justice D'Arcy sailed round Ireland with a 
 fleet of 56 vessels, and plundered the islands 1334- 
 
 ^ Car. i. 254-5 ; Hume's Burghley, 83, 144. 
 Mb. 117-8; Engl. Hist. Rev., Oct. 1905, p. 260. 
 ^C.S.P. 1553, 130. *Des. Cur. Hib. 45. 
 
138 THE TRADERS' WAR ch. 
 
 of the O'Briens,* guardians of Galway harbour; 
 
 1339. and an admiral was appointed for the Irish 
 seas to arrest traders with the Irish ; * while 
 
 1 36 1. English merchants were given leave by statute to 
 come unto Ireland with their merchandise and 
 return with their merchandise without fine or 
 ransom, saving to the king his ancient customs 
 and duties.^ Special protection was given to alien 
 
 1465. merchants.* An Act of Edward iv.* deplored the 
 prosperity of Irish commerce, and recounted how 
 foreign vessels in great numbers were used to go 
 fishing among the Irish, in divers parts of Ireland, 
 by which the enemies were greatly advanced and 
 strengthened, as well in victuals, as harness, 
 armour, and other necessaries, and large tributes 
 of money were given by such vessels to the Irish 
 from day to day to the great augmentation of 
 their power and force, against the King's honour 
 and wealth, and to the utter destruction of his 
 land. It was ordered therefore that no foreign 
 vessel should fish in Irish waters without leave of 
 the lord deputy. 
 
 This law was of course unheeded, but with 
 the rapid growth of English shipping under 
 Henry viii. the merchants took in hand them- 
 selves to capture the Irish trade. Pirate vessels 
 
 1548. hung round the coasts— ships of sea adventurers, 
 
 'Hard. Gal. 319. *Ryin. v. 113; Gilb. 250. 
 
 *34th Ed. ni. c. 17. *Cal. Rec. Dub. i. 170. 
 
 *Sth Ed. IV. c. 6, Ir. St, 
 
IV. RAIDS ON IRISH TRADE 139 
 
 Smiths and Thompsons, Whiteheads and Steven- 
 sons, and the like, between whom and the southern 
 towns there was animated war.^ Hard fighters 
 and cunning dealers, English rovers had the repu- 
 tation of using their shipping for no other purpose 
 than to harass the trade of other peoples in the 
 narrow seas, and " obstruct the utility of com- 
 merce throughout all Christendom." They plun- 
 dered the fishing boats off" the Irish coast, robbed 
 the barks from France, Spain, and Portugal, and 
 sold the stolen wares in Ireland. The Irish revolt 
 against the king's bad money seems to have given 
 them a footing on the coast : the captain of a 
 pinnace married the aunt of Barry Oge who 
 refused the bad money, and dwelt in his castle 
 and stopped Kinsale harbour, sufi^ering no victuals 1548 
 to come to its people. Others do much harm to 
 Cork and the whole line of coast : they haunt 
 the haven mouth, and will be like enough to take 
 them over ; and so terrified the mayor that they 1549. 
 were refreshed with victual and were making of 
 ordnance within the city. Desmond's protection, 1562. 
 the towns said, was their only hope.^ 
 
 The English "pirates," in fact, that haunted 
 the coasts in the time of Henry viii., were 
 
 but the skirmishing advance guards of the 
 
 { 
 
 iC.S.P. 1548, 80, 83; 1549, 100; Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. x. 
 App. V. 412; V. Green's Town Life, i. 88-96. 
 
 ^C.S.P. 1562, 190, 192, 196, 214. 
 
I40 THE ENGLISH NAVY ch. 
 
 greater fleets to come, for the royal navy was 
 now rapidly increasing. Cecil's strong common 
 sense preserved him from all illusions. " Neither 
 train them up in wars," he was used to say, 
 " for he that sets up to live by that profession 
 can hardly be an honest man or a good 
 Christian";^ and sea-rovers trained on the coasts 
 of Guinea and Barbary and Brazil merited and 
 earned the hate of Europe at that time — "corsairs 
 and sea-robbers," " a company of thieves," so 
 went their reputation. Mary had twenty-two 
 ships. Elizabeth ordered twenty-eight more 
 to be built in five years, and turned a large 
 number of merchantmen into warships. In 1562 
 she had 20,000 fighting men ready for sea-service 
 
 1561. done. In the first years of her reign she was 
 prepared to shatter Irish commerce by means 
 more forcible than statutes. No sooner had her 
 deputy, as she supposed, secured Ulster by the 
 
 1567. murder of Shane O'Neill, than she sent orders 
 to bring the commerce of Munster " into our 
 own people's hands." ^ An English fleet under 
 Sir W. Winter lay about Baltimore to keep 
 off the Spaniards. The greatest of Elizabeth's 
 seamen were among the destroyers — Grenville, 
 Frobischer, Raleigh, Courtenay, Rawson, Gilbert. 
 They were all on the same errand as the old 
 
 'Eng. Hist. Rev., 1905 Oct., 671-2; ib. 1906 July; Hume's 
 Burghley, 25. 
 = C.S.P. 1567, 335. V. app. 
 
,v. THE NAVY AND IRISH TRADE 141 
 
 pirates. Sir Humphrey Gilbert (of all men, said 
 Raleigh, that ever he heard the most feared by 
 the Irish people) laid down the policy — to destroy i573- 
 the trade with Spain,^ and take it for themselves. 
 For this he alone was to levy custom of the 
 Spaniards and Biscayans, no Irishman to share 
 those rents. He was to be Admiral of the Seas, 
 and to have power to press from the defrauded 
 people the fishermen and mariners who were to 
 complete their ruin and establish English traders. 
 He and his company were to have for themselves 
 Baltimore and all lands and islands they could 
 take from the wild Irish and other such rebels, 
 and " to have granted to me and my partners 
 the privilege and only traffic with the lords 
 and people of Ireland for such Irish wares and 
 commodities as is now traded by the Spaniards 
 and Irishmen onlv." The scheme had been 
 preparing for some half dozen years ; trade 
 and politics cunningly intermingled. 
 
 A fatal blow was at the same time struck at the 
 foreign commerce in wine by lord deputy Sidney. 
 An old law had ordered that wine and all other 
 liquors were only to be sold by English measures, 1450. 
 but there was no impost on it. The king might 
 levy 1 2d. out of every 20s. worth of wares 
 brought into or out of Ireland except wine and 
 oil.^ By Sidney's law a subsidy was granted to 
 Elizabeth of 40s. per tun on wine of Spain or 
 
 'Car. i. 423. ^ijth Hen. vii. c. i., Ir. St. 
 
142 THE WINE TRADE ch. 
 
 the Levant, and 26s. 8d. on French wine ; but 
 it must be imported in "subjects' vessels"^ 
 1569. or the subsidy was doubled — in other words, 
 Spaniards and mere Irish were to be driven 
 out of the trade by ruinous charges, and all 
 commerce given to "subjects," or men of 
 English name. And the law was backed up 
 by fleets and armies till no wine at all came 
 into Galway, and the southern ports were 
 ruined.* 
 
 The annihilation of inland industries was to 
 match the ruin of outland commerce. In one 
 case the attack failed. Irish whiskey, already 
 1150. known in the twelfth century, was choice enough 
 1584. to be sent as a present to Lady Walsingham.' 
 It does not seem to have been much drunk 
 by the poor country people or by Irish soldiers 
 out for war : water and buttermilk were the 
 drink of these hardy livers. An English ob- 
 server wrote* that among the wildest and most 
 savage Irish he had never seen or heard of 
 the degraded drunkenness of the Germans. A 
 witty proverb gives an Irish view of the matter : 
 " Three sorrowful ones of an alehouse : the 
 man who gives the feast, the man to whom 
 it is given, the man who drinks without being 
 satiated."* Queen Mary (moved possibly by a 
 
 'nth Eliz. sess. 4, c. i., Ir. St. "See p. 211. 
 
 'FitzG. Limerick, i. 185; C.S.P. 1584, 518. 
 
 * Hoi. vi. 14. 
 
 * Triads, K. Meyer; Moran's Archbishops, 91. 
 
,v. CLOTH MANUFACTURl': 143 
 
 fantastic philanthropy towards the inferior race 
 she was endeavouring to extirpate) ordered that 
 aqua-vitae should not be made* without license of iS5''>. 
 the deputy under the great seal, save by peers 
 and gentlemen, or freemen in boroughs for their 
 own use. But this legislation broke down : 
 the country, the English planters said,* hath plenty 1590. 
 of grain whereof this aqua-vitae is made, a drink 
 of necessity to be used in that moist and cold 
 country, and the statute has not been used 
 as the late deputies and the judges have been 
 unwilling to put it in force. There was no 
 profit for the English in this law, but considerable 
 inconvenience, so the Irish industry in this one 
 case was allowed to survive. 
 
 With the cloth and linen trade it was another 
 matter. " If," said a later deputy, " they should 
 manufacture their own wools, which grow to very 
 great quantities, we should not only lose the profit 
 we made now by indraping their wools, but ... it 
 might be feared they would beat us out of the 
 trade itself by underselling us, which they were 
 well able to do," ' as they had shown in Bruges. 
 
 ' In St. 3rd and 4th Ph. and M. c. vii. 
 
 ^C.S.P. 1590, 373. 
 
 'Strafford's Letters (Dublin, 1740), ii. 19. Davles, whose 
 object was to show that the Irish had no industry or wealth till 
 English lawyers came to their help, spoke as ignorantly of their 
 trade as of their tillage : " the greatest profit did arise by the 
 cocquet of hides ; for wool, and wool-felts were ever of little 
 value in this kingdom." Davies, 31, D. 1787. 
 
144 THE 15RISTOL SLAVE-TRADE ch. 
 
 A long and bitter conflict marked the cloth 
 manufacture. In the slave-trade of Bristol we 
 find the most terrible proof of its violence. For 
 Bristol, pushing on at all costs its woollen trade, 
 looked across the water to the trained workers 
 of Ireland, rivals of Catalonians and Florentines, 
 and for " profit provoked and stirred up divers 
 merchants and others to bring into the town 
 strangers and aliens not bom under the king's 
 obeisance but rebellious^ which hath been sold 
 to them as it were heathen people^ who were 
 received and put in occupation of the craft of 
 weavers : and these strangers and aliens were 
 so greatly multiplied and increased within the 
 town of Bristol that the king's liege people 
 within the town and in other parts were 
 vagrant and unoccupied, and may not have 
 their labour for their living."^ These weavers 
 were clearly kidnapped from Irish districts 
 where the native industry was in full strength, 
 and it was not for his disorder the Irishman 
 was driven from the loom in Bristol, but for 
 his competition as a skilled workman with " the 
 1439. king's liege people " of England. It was pro- 
 bably for the same reason that the hoopers 
 were ordered to take no rebel of Ireland or 
 alien as apprentice, and to void all Irish servants 
 or aliens forthwith.^ 
 
 The war between the English and the Flemish 
 
 'Lit. Red Book of Bristol, ii. 128. ^\h. ii. 163. 
 
IV. 
 
 NETHERLANDS WOOL TRADE 145 
 
 dealers in wool and cloth gathered strength under 
 Henry vii.^ English merchants, pressing on the 
 sale of their cloth in the Netherlands, wanted 
 both to shut all Irish cloth out of the market 
 and to secure the whole stock of Irish wool 
 for their own weavers. The charter of Henry iS4S- 
 viir. to Galway^ forbade the export of linen 
 and woollen goods from there. The quarrel 
 reached its height under Elizabeth, when the 
 Spanish governor forbade English cloth to come 1563- 
 into the Flanders market, and Flanders wool to '^ *' 
 be brought to England, and exports from Flanders 
 to be carried in English ships.^ In this crisis 
 the English, dreading that Irish enterprise should 
 find its opportunity, were the more resolved to 
 seize all Irish wool, bar Irish cloth out of the 
 Flemish markets, and suppress Irish shipping. 
 Hence the sending of great captains to seize 
 the Munster trade, in the interest of English 
 manufacturers and merchants. Elizabeth ordered* 
 that no one should export cloth or stuff made 1571. 
 in Ireland except a merchant living in a staple 
 town, with, however, a special exception in 
 favour of English merchants or strangers who 
 might receive cloth in exchange for their 
 own wares and take it away with them. Mean- 
 
 ' Town Life, Green, i. ch. iii. v. app. 
 ^ Hard. Gal. 82-3, App. xxi. 
 ^Hume's Burghley, 151-2. 
 * 13th Eliz. c. I, Ir. St. 
 
146 
 
 EXPORT OF YARN 
 
 CH. 
 
 1522 
 
 1537 
 1550' 
 1569 
 
 1577 
 
 1569. 
 
 IS72' 
 
 while great quantities of yarn were carried to 
 England. The parliament in Dublin^ forbade 
 the export of woollen and linen yarn, which 
 only " encouraged idleness " in Ireland, and on 
 the faith of the keeping of their yarn at home, 
 and the forbidding of private licenses to export 
 it,^ Richard Fyan, alderman of Dublin, set up 
 six looms of linen and woollen yarn at the 
 old nunnery called the Hogges. English dealers, 
 however, by special licenses transported wool for 
 the English manufacturers, and when they had 
 broken the weaving trade complained that the 
 Irish were naturally given to idleness.^ 
 
 Lord deputy Sidney made the last attempt 
 to save, as he said, " the manufacture of com- 
 modities within the country"* by an Act which 
 not only forbade the export of yarn unwrought, 
 but restrained the deputies for ever from 
 granting any licenses for its carriage over sea. 
 His effort was vain. The queen was besieged 
 for patents to bring Irish yarn to Manchester, 
 where 4000 hands were employed in weaving. 
 Mr. Moore got leave to export 3000 packs of 
 linen yarn in five years,^ which was opposed by 
 Dublin and Drogheda till their officers were thrown 
 into prison. Moore was to pay them no cus- 
 
 'C.S.P. 1550, 108; 13th H. vni. c. 2, Ir. St.; 28th H. vni. 
 c. 17, Ir. St. ; iith Eliz. Sess. 3, c. 10, Ir. St.; Cal. Pat. Rolls, 7. 
 ^C.S.P. 1549, 99. V. app. 3 Bagwell, ii. 177. 
 
 *Sid. Let. 159. *C.S.P. 1572, 474; Bagwell, ii. 178. 
 
IV. 
 
 LICENSES TO EXPORT 147 
 
 torn, and the looms that had been set up 
 for weaving in Ireland on the faith of a late 
 statute would be stopped and many men ruined. 
 Elizabeth tried to compromise by reducing 
 the amount to 200 packs, but seven of the 
 chief lawyers in Dublin declared that her letters 
 patent were waste paper as against an act of 
 parliament, Tremayne, Sidney's secretary, made 
 a settlement, and Dublin and Drogheda prayed 
 Burghley to intercede against any such patents 
 in future. 
 
 Petitions from Ireland had no efFect. Sidney 
 protested against a license to Christopher Hatton.^ 
 Lord Chancellor Gerrard begged a license in the 1577. 
 name of his eldest son at Harrow.^ On his 
 father's death, young Gerrard bargained with the 1581. 
 Dublin merchants to sell his patent,^ driving 
 the bargain by seizing yarn transported without 
 his license, and pressing his uncle, the Master 
 of the Rolls, into the service : Walsingham 
 made ;^30oo profit in the matter before, after a 1585. 
 ten years' struggle, the license was closed owing 1592. 
 to the abuses of the dealers. They had pitilessly 
 drained Ireland of its yarn, and "fully accom- 
 plished" in their hasty greed the number of 
 packs licensed, though they should not have run 
 
 'C.S.P. 1577, 103. 
 
 ^Car. ii. 130, 350; C.S.P. 1577, 104. 
 
 'C.S.P. 1582, 366, 373, 384, 400, 560; 1589, 280; 1592, 
 457, 462. 
 
148 RUIN OF IRISH WEAVING ch. 
 
 out for another seven years ^ — the deceits of 
 one dealer alone amounting to ;^2 900 lost to 
 the queen. 
 1592. Lord deputy Fitzwilliam, noted for his cor- 
 ruption, interfered, not for the protection of the 
 people under his rule, but to transfer the yarn 
 profits into his own hands. He proposed to 
 undertake the export himself, 6000 packs in eight 
 years, and so evade Sidney's beneficent Act ; 
 and to smooth the way would give half to Sir 
 Robert Cecil. In that exploited land there was 
 still yarn enough, he wrote plausibly, for him 
 to promise the queen " much more than ;^iooo 
 a year " ^ on the export, with sufficient to main- 
 tain the poor weavers left in Ireland : " The 
 deputy," he falsely wrote, " suffereth some 
 portion to be transported by Her Majesty's 
 license until this country may provide sufficient to 
 work the same here^ The suggestion of the 
 incapacity of Ireland for the weaving trade was 
 as ingenious as hypocritical. Fitzwilliam was 
 only completing the destruction already wrought 
 by deliberate purpose. "The benefit growing 
 upon the licenses of linen yarn comes in daily, 
 and I think will prove no less profitable to Her 
 Majesty than formerly I wrote of." ^ His desired 
 monopoly was checked by the arrival of one 
 Williams from Caermarthen with a queen's 
 
 iC.S.P. 1592,462,465. V. app. ^cs.P. 1592, 457, 462. 
 
 'c.s.p. 1592, 519, 578. 
 
,v. REASONS FOR THE RUIN 149 
 
 license to export : if that had been let alone, 
 said Fitzwilliam, he could have raised the 
 queen's profits very shortly to ;^2000 a year 
 on his increased transportation of linen yarn. 
 
 The figures shew the extent of the woollen 
 and linen trades in Ireland before their ruin by 
 English manufactures. Sidney's Act to preserve 
 the most flourishing of Irish industries had thus 
 passed into utter oblivion before the energy of 
 the English speculators and the policy of the 
 government. " Here now, lastly," deputy Perrot 
 had asked, " doth the old common objection ^ oppose 
 itself, requiring an answer, whether it be safety 
 or danger for England to have Ireland reformed, 
 lest growing to civility and strength it should 
 cast off the yoke." " Good government," he 
 answers, " breeds wealth, and wealth obedience." 
 Such a policy, however, was held too dangerous, 
 and English rulers preferred other methods of 
 subjection. "To serve your Majesty completely 1633. 
 well in Ireland, we must not only endeavour 
 to enrich them," wrote Strafford, "but make 
 sure still to hold them dependent upon the 
 Crown, and not able to subsist without us, 
 which will be effected by wholly laying aside 
 the manufacture of wools into cloth or stuff 
 there, and by furnishing them from this king- 
 dom, and then making your Majesty sole 
 merchant of all salts on that side : for thus shall 
 
 ' Camb. Ev. i. 33 n. ; Car. ii. 370. 
 
150 LAWS AGAINST IRISH DRESS ch. 
 
 they not only have their clothing, the improve- 
 ment of all their native commodities (which are 
 principally preserved by salt) and their victual 
 itself from hence ; (strong ties and enforcements 
 upon their allegiance and obedience to your 
 Majesty)." ^ " Besides, in reason of state, so 
 long as they did not indrape their own wools, 
 they must of necessity fetch their clothing from 
 us, and consequently in a sort depend upon us 
 for their livelihood, and thereby become so 
 dependent upon this Crown, as they could not 
 depart from us without nakedness to themselves 
 and children."* 
 
 The political question of Irish dress was used 
 in the same way for the benefit of the English 
 trader. No doubt officials in their despatches 
 abused Irish garments as betokening savages, 
 but in practice they commended them.' In 
 Elizabeth's wars her soldiers were clothed, as 
 far as possible, in Irish dress as more con- 
 venient and suitable, and only distinguished in 
 battle from the " savages " by a red cross on 
 back and front. So the spectacle was seen of 
 English soldiers in Irish dress tearing cloaks 
 and tunics from Irish men as treasonable, and 
 from women the linen rolls that covered their 
 
 'Strafford's Letters (Dublin, 1740), 16 July, 1633. 
 
 ^Strafford's Letters (Dublin, 1740), vol. ii. p. 19; 1636, 
 July 25. 
 
 ^C.S.P. 1584, 512, 519. 
 
,v. POLITICAL REASONS 151 
 
 heads.' It is evident that the Acts against Irish 
 dress were not designed in the sole interests of 
 " civilisation." 2 Their first intention was by an 
 outward and visible sign to mark out the Irish 
 race for destruction : when the crude idea of 
 physical extermination was abandoned, they were 
 to be used in such manner " that the next gener- 
 ation will in tongue and heart and everywhere 
 else become English, so that there will be no 
 difference or distinction but the Irish Sea betwixt 
 us."* We may gather how the system worked 
 from the scene at Tullagher chapel, where the de 
 Freynes in the eighteenth century ordered the 
 dress of the people at their pleasure, cutting off 
 the long hair of the men and regulating the 
 
 1 Laws which allowed any one to seize the goods and per- 
 son of a man who was found wearing a mantle, or who was 
 not shaven every fortnight (cf. St. 25 H. VI. c. 4 ; 28 H. viii. 
 c. 20) were no doubt welcome to famishing troops recom- 
 mended by the Government to wear Irish dress. 
 
 ^"I never heard," Lynch commented, "that Rome com- 
 pelled by law any of her conquered provinces to abandon 
 their own dress or adopt her own." Camb. Ev. ii. 195. 
 
 'Davies, 202, D. 1787. Dr. Lynch saw the end of that 
 melancholy battle when the clergy threw their might into the 
 scale, added to the terrors of the soldiers and the influences 
 of respectability. " The more respectable ranks of society had 
 laid aside the braccae before I was born, but neither the 
 threats of judges, nor pecuniary fine, could compel the humbler 
 orders to abandon them altogether. At length, however, 
 before this fatal war broke out in 1641, they were prevailed 
 upon, partly by the exhortations of the clergy or of their own 
 accord, to lay them aside." Camb. Ev. ii. 209-11. "It is 
 only within my own days that English dress has been com- 
 monly worn," he adds. Camb. Ev. i. 193-5. 
 
152 TRADE REASONS ch. 
 
 fashion of their coats and breeches, while the 
 ladies saw to the caps and gowns of the vvomen.^ 
 But behind these reasons lay a practical view to 
 trade, and to replacing Irish industries by English 
 for the benefit of the " mother country." This 
 was well understood at the time. " Barnaby 
 Rich very properly declared ' that he was not 
 such an enemy to the prosperity of Irishmen as 
 to advise them to conform to all English 
 fashions.' Hardly can you find a single carrier 
 going from Chester to Dublin who does not 
 import different fashions of dress, both for men 
 and vi omen, from EnglandT^ 
 
 English traders prospered in proportion as the 
 Irish workers suffered. With the decline of 
 manufactures in their own land, Dublin mer- 
 15S2. chants made suits for free import of English 
 cloth.* The complaints of the towns and of their 
 burghers forced to take to tillage tell too of the 
 destruction of manufactures and the old exchange 
 of trade. Elizabeth did not die till her work 
 of destruction was done. A few years later it 
 could be urged in the English parliament, as 
 an argument for allowing Irish cattle to be sold 
 in England, that half the money received for 
 them by the Irish was spent in England, as 
 there is no household stuff used in Ireland but what 
 
 >Soc. of Ant. iii. 1854-5, p. 81. 
 
 ^Camb. Ev. i. 195. 
 
 3C.S.P. 1582, 388, 417; 1591, 416. 
 
,v. VICTORY OF ENGLISH TRADERS 153 
 
 comes out of England} The lament of a people 
 rose on the great silence of the land and sea : 
 "Long time now they lie^ in slumber in Erin's 
 land of heavy grass : that foreigners should at 
 their ease have Ireland is a disgrace to the fair- 
 haired race of Conn." 
 
 Politicians had thus developed their project to 
 complete the work of the sword by the poverty 
 and beggary of the people. It was now recog- 
 nised by practical men that "to enterprise the whole 1540. 
 extirpation and total destruction of all the Irishmen 
 of the landy it would be a marvellous sumptious 
 charge and great difficulty."^ But "poor earth- 
 tillers " of the Irish might be permitted to live, 
 "which be good inhabitants" : ■• strong garrisons 
 could hold a people down who had been cast 
 from their independence into diggers of the 
 ground. The plan was explained to Henry viii. 
 "Take first from them their corn ... so that 1536. 
 the Irishry shall not live thereupon ; then to 
 have their cattle and beasts . . . and then shall 
 they be without corn, victual, or cattle, and 
 thereof shall ensue the putting in effect of all 
 these wars against them." * A plea being once 
 put forward for the Irish, " Now, if this argu- 
 ment be for the Irishry," replied lord deputy 
 
 'Davies, xxxii. D. 1737. See Waterford, p. 223. v. app. 
 ^O'Grady, Cat. MSS. 219. ^ st. P. pt. ni. vol. iii. 176. 
 
 *St. Pap. lu. iii. 100, 148, 167, 176-8, 347. 
 'St. Pap. II. iii. 329. 
 
154 FINANCIAL RELATIONS cm. 
 
 Sidney of the country in his charge, " then to 
 weaken the enemies of the English race is good 
 policy." 1 
 
 The financial relations of the two countries 
 were from the outset deplorable for Ireland. 
 One of the earliest acts of the English invaders 
 
 I2IO. had been to set up mints at their chief towns, 
 and by royal edict forbid Irish coinage, " the 
 
 1336- black money called Turneys," which was used 
 
 1339- all over the country and in the towns, "in 
 deterioration of our sterling money and to our 
 great loss and damage."* Irish money was de- 
 clared in a statute to be " commonly current " 
 even in England and at Calais. " The moneys 
 
 1447- called O'Reilly's do increase from day to day,"' 
 to the hurt of the King's mint, and passed across 
 the sea in trade, along with " great carriage of 
 Irish plate into England." Edward iv. again 
 
 1477. forbade Irish money in England, Wales, and 
 Calais, and men of Waterford were imprisoned 
 for bringing it to Bristol.* 
 
 The coins, moreover, which Irishmen were 
 forced to receive from London were, by a 
 
 'Car. ii. 153. 
 
 ' Rym. V. 113; Simon's Irish Coins, App. i. 77-86; 9th 
 Ed. III. ; 25th H. VI. c. 6. Ir. St. ; i6th Ed. IV. c. 21 ; v. Ware's 
 Antiquities, 204, etc. v. app. 
 
 ^Ir. Stat. 35 H. VI. c. 12 ; Sim. Ir. Coins, App. 78. v. app. 
 
 *Ricart, 47. "They call the Pope their king, and stamp 
 the keys and triple tiara on their coin," wrote a papal nuncio. 
 Letter to Marchioness of Mantua, Aug. 28, 1517, quoted in 
 Life of Marchioness by Cartwright. 
 
IV. DEBASED COINAGE 155 
 
 curious system, kept debased at least a quarter 
 below the English standard, by a fixed principle 
 of English policy, that money in Ireland should 
 always be kept at a lower value than in England. ' 
 Three reasons may be suggested. The King 
 saved expense by paying his Irish army in 
 Ireland, not in sterling money, but in a cheaper 
 coin.^ The English trader could profit by buying 
 with bad money in Ireland and selling for good 
 in England.^ And a blow was struck at the 
 foreign commerce of Ireland : no foreign merchant, 
 as Ireland men protested, would bring goods 
 where money was light and bad.^ What is 
 certain is, that there was no point on which the 
 English kings were more determined. When- 
 ever money was decried in England, for whatever 
 reason might prevail there, its value had to fall ^ 
 in Ireland, simply to keep it always at the 
 lower rate required by the interests of the 
 English. For those interests the price of money 
 in Ireland, with her Continental trade, was made 
 to hang on its value in England, with which 
 the trade of Ireland was comparatively small. 
 
 One great effort was made by Ireland to free 
 herself from this bondage to the British treasury. 1455 
 When the island was declared independent under 
 the Duke of York, she set up a new national' 
 coinage.* The old coins were pronounced void. 
 
 'Car. ii. 90 n. ^^ jr. Arch. Soc. 1841, Payne, 9. 
 
 'Gib. Cork, i. 169. * v. app. 
 
156 NATIONAL COINAGE en. 
 
 NoriiKindy and Guicnnc, said the Act of Parlia- 
 
 1460. mcnt,^ "when thcv were under the obedience 
 
 of the realm of l^ngland, yet were no less separate 
 
 from the laws and statutes of England, and had 
 
 also coin for themselves, different from the coin 
 
 of England ; so Ireland, though it be under the 
 
 obedience of the same realm, is, nevertheless, 
 
 separate from it, and from all the laws and statutes 
 
 of it, only such as are there by the lords, spiritual 
 
 and temporal, and commons, freely admitted and 
 
 accepted of in parliament or great council." 
 
 The new mintage^ was "utterly damned" by 
 
 the English, and the country flooded anew with 
 
 1470. cheap money, reduced by Act to half value.* The 
 
 1472. mayor of Cork was ordered to try three coiners, 
 
 or execute the law on them as traitors attainted 
 
 if they did not appear, and the mint was to 
 
 147S. remain in Dublin alone, with a promise of 
 
 coinage of the fineness of England.* 
 
 The promise was forgotten. " New coin was 
 
 introduced into Ireland, i.e. copper," say the 
 
 1540. Annals, "and the men of Ireland were obliged 
 
 » Tr. Rel. to Irel. ii., St. of Kilk. 4 n. 
 
 2 Smith's VVaterf. 130; Gib. Cork, i. 184. 
 
 ^Tr. Rel. to Ire. St. Kilk. 21 n. Now as the Mayor, Bailiffs 
 and Commons of Waterford are daily encumbered for want 
 of small coins for change of greater, it is enacted at their 
 petition that the above-mentioned small coins be struck at 
 Waterford in a place called Dondory, alias Reynold's-Tower. 
 1463. Smith's Waterford, 129-30, 3 ed. iv. 39. 
 
 *Gilb. Vice. 599. 
 
,v. RESULTS OF BAD MONEY 157 
 
 to use it as silver."^ This was the money of 
 Henry viii., which bore in solemn mockery ' 
 the print of a harp^ — a money little better than 
 brass, not above 4 oz. fine and 8 alloy, though 
 according to the indenture they were to be 
 8 oz. fine and 4 alloy. Under Edward vi., 
 church plate, ** crosses and such like," was 1549. 
 melted down for the Mint in Dublin Castle ;'' 
 but in spite of a proclamation at Galway,'' 
 the Irish " neighbours " refused to receive the 
 new-coined money, as well as the Earl of 
 Thomond and his cousins and his sons. It was 
 a misery that affected the English in Ireland even ' 
 more, they declared, than the Irish. "The Irish 1551- 
 are in best case, for he hath least need of money, 
 for he careth only for his belly and that not 
 delicately. . . . We that are stipendiaries must 
 live upon our stipends, and buy with our money 
 which no man esteemeth."* Prices went up 
 beyond belief : deputy Croft declared corn had 
 risen from 6s. 8d. to 30s. ; six herrings were 
 sold for a groat. The English merchants profited 
 by the exchange, and " utterly impoverished all 
 the king's subjects " by the " unreasonable prices " 
 they paid in the bad money for all kinds of 
 merchandise.^ "All things were in such dearth 
 as the like hath not been seen." " The clamour 
 
 4 M. p. 1499. ^Car. i. 171-2 ; Simon's Irish Coins, p. 33. 
 C.S.P. 1549, 99, III, 114. *C.S.P. 1548, 81, 84 
 
 C.S.P. 1551, 116, 125. "CS.?. 1551, 116. 
 
ic8 RESISTANCE OF THE PALE ch. 
 
 of the poor artificers who live in towns and are 
 reduced to extreme hunger by means of the great 
 scarcity sounded continually " in the deputy's 
 ears.^ 
 
 The anger of the Pale was one of the 
 signs of a new spirit in Ireland — the forcing 
 of the " loyal " English settlers into the current 
 of national life by the neglect in London of 
 their necessities. Lords and merchants protested 
 against orders to accept bad money " even 
 though it be as base as counters." We hear of 
 
 155^- the name of " Ireland men," or " Common- 
 wealth men," in the struggle to assert their 
 country's claims to just dealing. They knew 
 not why this realm should have worse money 
 than England,^ and believed that the same 
 reason that persuaded the Council to make the 
 money fine in England should serve likewise for 
 Ireland : ' the baseness of the coin increaseth 
 
 1552. idleness, decayeth nobility, one of the principal 
 keys of a commonwealth, and bringeth magistrates 
 in contempt and hatred of the people.* The 
 inhabitants of the towns were called together to 
 debate^ on the dearth that had followed the bad 
 money : and an allied movement began which 
 was not unlike that 350 years later which 
 followed the enquiry into the Financial Relations 
 
 »C.S.P. 1552, 125. i'C.S.P. 1551, 118-9. 
 
 3C.S.P. 1551, 121. <C.S.P. 1551, 122. 
 
 »C.S.P. 1551, 121. 
 
,v. THE COMMON SUPPLICATION 159 
 
 of the two countries. Treasury officials would 
 apparently have persuaded the townsmen that 
 their grievance was merely imaginary, a matter 
 of words, for that money " is for none other 
 use but for exchange" and should be taken 
 for the value proclaimed. " It followeth not," 
 they answered, "... that we should esteem 
 anything otherwise than reason would we did 
 esteem it. . . . If we would use lead to make 
 armour or edge tools, our labour were in 
 vain. If we should use iron to make money, 
 it would . . . rust, canker, break, and be 
 filthy." The country was united on the fiscal 
 question, " the first and principal cause " of 
 the dearth, " without remedy whereof it is 
 thought impossible to set a stay " ; and a ^SS^- 
 Common Supplication^ was sent to Edward vi. 
 from the Council, Nobility, Gentlemen, Mer- 
 chants, and Attorneys for the towns, praying 
 that the money in Ireland may be of like 
 valuation, weight, and fineness as in England. 
 New promises of the king followed, new dis- 
 cussions, new envoys to the mint.'' But the 
 privy council in London held firm, demanding 
 whether such equality was expedient for the 
 Sovereign, and whether the Irish council was 
 talking of what was profitable for the people, 
 or for the king.' . . 
 
 'C.S.P. 1552, 122. 2C.S.P. 1552, 127. 
 
 ^C.S.P. 1552, 120, 
 
i6o THE IRISH PROTEST en. 
 
 The protest of Ireland went for nothing.^ 
 Mary throughout her reign coined harp money 
 at the Tower of London.^ " Everything that was 
 
 1559. worth a penny is now worth four"; the very 
 deputy required a higher salary " because of the 
 great dearth of all things here."' Elizabeth had 
 
 1560. a new crying down of Irish money/ and refiners 
 sent to the mint to calculate how the queen 
 could gain ;r2000 by refining (adulterating ?) and 
 re-coining the 60,000 lbs. weight of Irish harps 
 supposed to be in Ireland.* She promised to 
 amend the baseness of the moneys " very 
 grievous unto our subjects," but there was no 
 intention of changing the old policy. Merchants 
 refused to send to the treasury the old coins* 
 — better at least than those likely to follow 
 them — and continued to freight them out of the 
 realm,^ along with the good Spanish gold and 
 silver money, in exchange for their foreign trade. 
 
 1561. Money was sent over from England "now newy 
 coined with the stamp of our arms of Ireland." 
 — each 1 2d. in Ireland to be rated at gd. in 
 
 'Even a discount for exchange of bad money was made 
 an accusation against the Irish of barbaric ignorance. " ^Tost 
 of the coin in Ireland, and that which the people generally desire, 
 is base money made of copper or brass, they will not chans^^i 
 you an angel into that ir.oney without iiiid. gains. ^^ Ir. Arch. 
 Soc. 1 84 1, Payne, 9. 
 
 *Soc. of Ant., 1855, 35763; C.S.P. 1560, 152, 166. 
 
 = Car. i. 283-6. *Car. ii. 93; C.S.P. 1560, 162-5. 
 
 *C.S.P. 1560, 166; Car. i. 295; C.S.P. 1560, 159, 162-3. 
 
 •C.S.P. 1561, 168, 169. 7 C.S.P. 1561, 164. 
 
IV. 
 
 THE EMBASING OF COIN i6i 
 
 England, and 4d. in Ireland at 3d. in Eng- 
 land, and vessels freighted from Ireland were 
 searched to seize any money in them and to 
 arrest offenders."* 
 
 Promises endlessly repeated issued in the con- 
 tinual deception of Irish hopes and the profit 
 of the English traders. A bank was talked of 
 for the exchange of Irish money. A ready 
 reckoner was drawn up for turning it into sterling 
 English.^ But the misery still deepened. "God 
 keep Sir John of Desmond and base money out 15 71. 
 of Ireland, yet are they both at the sea side to 
 come over, if bruits be true," wrote lord justice 
 Fitzwilliam.^ Alderman Ussher of Dublin won 1572- 
 credit by "opening a device that seems very 
 feasible for coinage of base money in pence."* 
 The shilling shrank to 6d.* Sydney noticed that 
 the impost on wines had not increased, "through 1577. 
 the small trade of coins in these troublesome 
 years."® Amid the distress to get money for 
 commerce, attempts were made by the Irish to 1576. 
 coin Spanish money,^ and an Act was passed 1586. 
 against counterfeiting foreign coin.* It was 
 
 'C.S.P. 1561, 164. 2C.S.P. 1565, 267; 1570, 436. 
 
 'C.S.P. 1571, 460. « C.S.P. 1572, 477. 
 
 'Car. ii. 94. The real was a small Spanish silver coin still 
 used in Mexico and in the United States up to 1850, worth 6|d. 
 
 'Sid. Let. 205. V. app. 
 I 'O'Rourke's land was wasted for his refusal to deliver up 
 his coiners. Hoi. vi. 398. In Ormond's land were also 
 coiners. Car. ii. 42. 
 
 'C.S.P. 1576, 93; Hoi vi. 398; 28th Eliz. c. 6, Ir. St. 
 
 L 
 
1 62 LOANS OF MONEY ch. 
 
 1583. presently proposed to debase the money yet 
 further, leaving but one-fourth part of silver : 
 prices may be doubled, but the *' reformation " will 
 recompense the loss treble, as far as the English 
 
 1585. treasury was concerned.^ Lord justice Perrot 
 desired to call in all the half-face money ^ and 
 change it for new made base coin, whereby Her 
 Majesty shall be a great gainer, for she shall 
 have good silver instead of such base coin. 
 Charged by the Queen to set down his opinion 
 how the realm might with the least charge be 
 reclaimed from barbarism to a godly government, 
 
 1583. " The embasing of coin," the Englishman de- 
 clared, " can do no harm in Ireland, which is 
 all out of order."' 
 
 In every detail, in fact, there was discrimina- 
 ' tion against the Irishman.* While a man might 
 
 1504. carry without contradiction 6s. 8d. from England 
 to Ireland, no man might take more than 3s. 4d. 
 from Ireland to England. The inconvenience of 
 the financial system may be imagined and the 
 open way to fraud. The long roll of Irish chiefs 
 summoned in turn to London, O'Briens, O'Neills, 
 Clanrickards, Desmonds, and the rest, had to 
 borrow from the deputy for their journey, 
 
 iCar. ii. 368. =! Car. ii. 416. 'Car. ii. 368. 
 
 * Eng. St. 19th H. VII. The mayor of Cork was commanded 
 to permit the messengers of the bishop of Cork, to carry ^100 
 into England, notwithstanding the prohibition against remitting 
 money out of Ireland ; 131 7. Tuckey's Cork, 17. 
 
IV. OFFICIAL USURERS 163 
 
 because " there was no money in Ireland " — no 
 money lawful, that is, to buy food or hire a 
 horse at an English inn. And the Deputy 
 would perhaps lend base money, " an hundred 
 pounds sterling^ in harp grotes in default of 
 other money, for there is no sterling money to 
 be had within this your realm." Without a bank 
 of exchange, without a " ready reckoner," who 
 can tell by what tricks and deceptions the loan 
 melted away, whether on the road or in the terms 
 of repayment. Shane O'Neill knew it well when 1561- 
 he asked an advance for his journey to London, 
 and with his stinging sarcasm offered to repay 
 the queen in Irish money, then in spite of her 
 frequent promises debased to half its value.^ 
 "You must come furnished with store of money, 1568. 
 as there is none to be had here. I have borrowed 
 ;^40 from the lord justice":^ so Carew's agent 
 in Dublin wrote to him, who as an Englishman 
 favoured by the Court, was obliged with sterling 
 money. Dublin trade under these conditions 
 was carried on to the benefit of London.* 
 
 We may wonder that trade survived at all. 
 Indeed the plea of the Cork citizens for their rising 
 was the hardship they underwent in being obliged 
 to take the mixt money of Queen Elizabeth.* 
 There was coin in the sea-port towns where 
 
 'Ir. Sept. 153, 228. 2 Gil. Viceroys, 398-9. 
 
 ^Car. i. 383. <Car. ii. 400. 
 
 'Tuckey's Cork, 78. 
 
1 64 DIFFICULTIES OF TRADE cm. 
 
 men traded for ready moncy,^ much of it good 
 Spanish money from their foreign business, and 
 there was plate.^ But "there was utterly no coin 
 stirring in any great lord's house,"' nor among 
 the country folk, who followed the old Brehon 
 law that no man but a king was bound to pay 
 in brass, silver, or gold, and exchanged cloth, 
 linen, leather, cattle, for their wine and salt. 
 In spite of all impediments, the Irish still 
 trafficked with Europe. Governors had been 
 accustomed to look to the towns for advances 
 of money ; but now, Fitzwilliam complained, 
 
 1574. " merchants will rather hazard their money on 
 the seas than lend to the Deputy."* "All the 
 treasury your highness sendeth," wrote Sidney, 
 " is issued out of this realm, and so it will be 
 if your highness sent as much as England 
 
 1585. hreedeth."* To destroy this trade a proposal 
 was made to raise every shilling that came from 
 England to i4d., while the Irish shilling was 
 still to be 9d., and gold raised ;^io in the ;^ioo, 
 so that the Irish merchant could carry out no 
 coin without a loss of 10 per cent." 
 
 The financial dealings of Cecil with Ireland did 
 not spring out of economic ignorance. " That 
 
 'Sid. Let. 24. In 1581 one man paid ^50 a year for the 
 loan of £,20, and another paid ^t. for the loan of £,\o for a 
 month. C.S.P. 1581, 319. 
 
 'Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. x. App. v. 415, 442. 
 
 'Ir. Sept. 215, 228, 153. *C.S.P. 1574, 21. 
 
 *Car. ii. 284, 479-80. "Car. ii. 401. 
 
,v. CECIL'S FINANCE 165 
 
 realm," he used to say, "cannot be rich whose 
 coin is poor and base ; nor that hath not inter- 
 course and trade of merchandise with other 
 nations ; and that carrieth not out more than it 
 bringeth in " : ^ " Religion the life of the soul, 
 rich monies the sinews of our strength, and peace 
 the harvest of our labours and fountain of our 
 wealth."^ We have seen what religion, rich 
 monies, and peace his rule held for Ireland. 
 English governors themselves noted the misery, 
 poverty, and discontent that followed on their 
 rule, the decay even of their own profits, and 
 grumbled at the frowardness of the wild Irish 
 and "this cursed country": "The secret judg- 1582 
 ment of God hangeth over this soil causing the 
 best endeavours for reformation to come to 
 nought." ^ 
 
 In brief, therefore, we have seen a determined 
 war made to destroy the outland and the inland 
 trade of Irish men. The growing fleet of Eng- 
 land and her roving buccaneers dealt with the 
 sea-commerce. Inland industries were forbidden 
 by laws against trading with a man of Irish name, 
 or in an Irish fair, and by shutting the Irish 
 back into their territories as in a prison : and 
 when statutes failed to eflfect their purpose, a 
 more practical combination was arranged between 
 the planters and the government to secure for the 
 
 ' Desid. Cur. ii, 45. -Des. Cur. 11. 
 
 3C.S.P. 1582, 366. 
 
i66 ENGLISH POLICY ch. 
 
 English the whole stock of raw material of the 
 country, and to enforce the suppression of every 
 Irish manufacture.^ If Ireland had been a foreign 
 country it would be possible to understand the war 
 made by England on the commerce and wealth of 
 the people. The matter takes another aspect when 
 this ruin was the deliberate action of a govern- 
 ment against its own subjects. Ireland in its 
 relations to England bore in fact the miseries 
 both of an alien state and a subject people. So 
 far as trade went she was treated as an inde- 
 pendent and hostile power whose wealth had to 
 be destroyed. But if she attempted in the 
 last resort to protect her interests by appeal 
 to arms, her people were reckoned English 
 subjects, liable to the terrible penalties of 
 "rebellion" and exempted from any protection 
 of the laws of war. The policy was justified 
 to the popular sense by the profits that were 
 
 'A bill in England to forbi4 the coming of Irish cattle to 
 England or the sending of coin from England to Ireland 
 (1621) was discussed purely with regard to English interests. 
 As Sir John Davies said, the bill proposed to deal worse 
 with Ireland, which was a member of this crown, than with 
 the Low Countries. Davies, 1787, xxxii-iii. In 1636 the Irish 
 were, Strafford wrote, "discouraged "by harder usage than 
 either English or Scotch found. The instances I gave were 
 the imposition of coals, wherein the Irish were not treated as 
 English but as foreigners, by imposing four shillings upon a 
 ton which was full as much as either French or Dutch paid ; 
 next that excessive rate set upon a horse or man to be trans- 
 ported forth of this kingdom . . . and lastly eighteen pence 
 set upon every live beast that comes thence." Strafford, 1636. 
 (Letters and Despatches, Dublin, 1740, ii. 20.) 
 
,v. IRELAND ALIEN AND SUBJECT 167 
 
 won in the successful pillage of the country. 
 So great in fact was the fame of Ireland among 
 plunderers that, as we see in Two Gentlemen of 
 Verona^ it became part of the polite education 
 o{ the time to go and " look for islands." 
 
V. 
 
 THE TOWNS AND THE CLANS. 
 
 There were, as we have seen, many forms of 
 attack on the trade of the Irish from the invasion 
 of Henry ii. to the wars of Henry viii. The 
 conflict had been inaugurated by the planting 
 
 1 200. or occupying of towns. It was a moment of 
 vigorous life for the borough in England, and 
 Henry 11. saw in this rising force a new means 
 for completing the conquest of Ireland. The 
 life of a self-contained commune with its char- 
 tered right of government gave to the new 
 settlers wherever they were planted a position of 
 defence, and an opportunity for attack. Governed 
 by English law, religiously maintaining English 
 y manners, dress, and speech, they would be so 
 many islands of English civilisation lifted above 
 the encompassing sea of Irish life, and outposts 
 of further conquest. 
 
 The towns were thus planted out, like the 
 English monasteries, as colonies and fortresses of 
 
 1333. the stranger, commissioned " to treat with the 
 Irish enemy and reform them, also to make war 
 on them " — towns such as Galway, Wexford, 
 
cH. V. COLONIES OF STRANGERS 169 
 
 Watcrford, Kinsale, or New Ross built by 
 Strongbow's daughter and fortified by a great 
 walV ^' which the very priests and women had 
 laboured. Special leave had to be given in these 
 municipal fortresses for the mayor and bailiffs 
 to go outside the walls and hold a parley 
 with the Irish, or to go with them in famine 
 or pestilence on pilgrimage to Compostella.* 
 Loyal merchants were forbidden to resort to 
 fairs on the enemies' land, and countless Acts 
 passed to ruin Irish rivalry in commerce. They 
 were to be shut out from all direction of trade, 
 and from skilled work : no Irishman might be 
 mayor of a town, or in some cases apprentice 
 to a trade.* 
 
 The real colonists, those who had been born 
 and meant to live in the country, desired peace 
 to get a living. To them statutes which forbade 
 English settlers to buy and sell with the people 
 of the land* meant starvation and ruin. Lords 
 
 'Fac. Nat. MSS. iii. pi. v. v. app. 
 
 ^In 1462 Waterford council prayed leave to go out and 
 parley with Irish enemies and English rebels. Tr. Rel. to 
 Ireland ii., St. Kilk. 64 n. In 1472 the mayor and bailiffs were 
 allowed to avoid the city either to parley with Irish enemies or 
 English rebels, or in time of pestilence, or to go in pilgrimage 
 to St. James' in Spain. Another Act (1483) was passed to 
 allow James Rice, mayor, Patrick Mulgan and Philip Bryan, 
 bailiffs, to go in pilgrimage to Compostella. Smith's Waterford, 
 130, 131 ; 12, 13 Ed. IV. c. 27 ; I Rich. in. c. 24 ; H.M.C. 
 Rep. X. App. V. 313. 
 
 'Hard. Galway, 214; Lenihan's Limerick, 65; v. Cal. Dub. 
 Rec. V. app. * V. app. 
 
170 IRISH FRIENDSHIP AND TRADE cm. 
 
 and gcntlonicn busied in the country trade 
 begged for leave, if they were to live at all, 
 that they should hold parleys with the Irish, 
 buy and sell with them, foster, and take Irish 
 tenants, and have Irish minstrels and law-men 
 in their houses. Burghers besieged the Casdc 
 for licenses to disobey the statutes. Clonmel, 
 Cashel, and Fethard complained when the Deputy 
 1567. was warring on the Butlers that they were as 
 people besieged and ready to famish,' for all trade 
 and commerce was bereft them, for neither durst 
 the people of the country bring anything in to 
 
 1538. them nor they issue out to buy. The merchants 
 of Limerick, appeached of treason* for "victualling 
 and maintaining " Morough O'Brien and Irish 
 
 1539. rebels, prayed for a special clause^ in their charter 
 that they may buy and sell with Irishmen at 
 all times. Kilkenny itself asked to trade even 
 with "enemies" and "rebels." Sometimes com- 
 merce flourished under the name of philanthropy. 
 
 1389. A grant was given by the king to Cork to buy 
 corn, fruit, and victuals because the people would 
 have to leave that desolate place unless they could 
 bring in provisions, and two hundred years later 
 Cork claimed by this old grant to have the privi- 
 
 1543. lege of selling enemies' goods in time of war.* 
 
 iSid. Letters, 19. ^Car. i. 147. 
 
 ^C.S.P. 1539, 49. Leave was renewed (t4i6) to Cork, 
 Waterford, and Youghal to buy and sell with Irish enemies. 
 Smith's Waterford, 1 30 ; 3 Ed. iv. c. 44. v. app. 
 
 *Tuckey's Cork, 32; C.S.P. 1543, 66, 67. 
 
V. m()nastj';ries and irade 171 
 
 In monasteries such as All Saints'' near Dublin, 1474. 
 which had a great country trade through its 
 scattered estates, or in towns like Navan and 
 Trim, the shelter of religion was invoked. Trim 
 asked protection for all rebels and enemies coming 
 and going as pilgrims to its Abbey of the Blessed 
 Mary;'' and the tradition of the hoarded wealth 
 of the place drew hundreds of people within 
 living memory to dig by night at Newtown 
 Priory for the underground passage leading to 
 the high altar with the golden candlesticks not 
 to be touched under pain of death, by which 
 lie two sleeping bishops, who when awakened 
 would give back to their own people the keys 
 of two small chambers, one full of silver and 
 one of gold. The wealth of Navan was not 
 less, with its store of vessels, iron, copper, brass, 
 and gold, a town of luxury and prosperity,^ due 
 no doubt to the Dublin parliament's protection 1454 
 by letters patent from the king to all those, 
 whether rebel or otherwise, who undertook a 
 pilgrimage to the monastery of the Blessed Virgin. 
 On one plea or another, the first strictness 
 of the laws was slackened. Bye ways were found 
 along which trade could travel without or against 
 English statutes and the towns in fact won rights 
 
 *Tr. Rel. to Ireland, Kilk. St. 11. v. app. 
 
 ^Gilbert, Viceroys, 298; Kilk. Arch. J., Ap. 1S73, 388. 
 
 '4 M. p. 1453; Soc. of Ant, Dec. 1888, 521 ; v. Mullingar. 
 4 M. 2039. 
 
172 WINNlNCi OF TRADE RIGHTS en. 
 
 of barter which Spenser viewed with indignation : 
 " There are also other privileges granted unto 
 most of the corporations there ; that they shall 
 not be bound to any other government than their 
 own, that they shall not be charged with any 
 garrisons, that they shall not be travelled forth 
 of their own franchises, that they may buy and 
 sell with thieves and rebels." ^ 
 I The closest relations were gradually established 
 between the town traders and the Irish people, 
 ^through whose labour alone they existed. Mer- 
 chants bought up the surrounding estates, or 
 took them on mortgage, and tied the tenants 
 1429. to furnish to them alone all their wares.^ In spite 
 1^ °' of the laws against dealing with the Irish they 
 1536- employed agents to traffic in the country, and 
 ' through two centuries complaints were sent to 
 England of the great abuse of the merchants of 
 the haven towns, who " in amity with the Irish 
 rebels " sent servants and factors called " lax- 
 men " or " grey merchants " through all the Irish 
 countries, to buy up Irish wares.* In repeated Acts 
 they were accused of thus forestalling the market 
 so that " the decay of the towns is occasioned." 
 But the merchants pursued their country trade, 
 and all efforts to cut them off from their Irish 
 
 1 Spenser, View of Irel., Works, vol. ix. p. 55. 
 
 ''Car. ii. 38, 396; Sid. Let. 90; H.M.C. Rep. x. App. v. 309. 
 
 'Tr. Rel. to Irel., Kilk. St. 115, 117; Soc. of Ant., Dec. 
 1895, 383; Car. i. 56, 91; C.S.P. 1556, 295; Hard. Galw. 
 210-12; 33rd H. VIII. cap. 2. 
 
V. IRISH CHARACTKR OF TOWNS 173 
 
 clients were vain. Every December, when ships 
 from France and Spain arrived, their wines were 
 carried in little barrels on horse-back through the 
 Irish countries, by dealers who brought back 
 corn of the old grain or of the new harvest,' 
 and horses and beeves then in best condition from 
 the great men and large farmers, and from the 
 cottages stores of woollen and linen cloth and 
 yarn. English as they were supposed to be, 
 the towns in fact drew their wealth wholly from 
 Irish industry. Wexford, for example, some 300 
 years or more after it had opened its trade 
 of sawn timber with Dublin and its export for 
 ship-building to Scotland, could not supply an 1548 
 English officer with four lath-makers : there was 
 only one in the town, for all their laths came to 
 them from Mac Mur rough's men.^ 
 
 With this close intercourse the towns fell away ■■ , 
 from their first estate of alien fortresses against' 
 the " wild Irish." Burghers and merchants used 
 Irish dress in the very Pale, in Kells, Trim, 
 Navan, Ardee, Dundalk,* showing how to the 1498 
 borders of Dublin itself trade had fallen into 
 Irish hands. A hundred years later "all English, 1578 
 
 'C.S.P. 1592, 554-5, 563; 1581, 321. The fat cattle cost 
 in winter about 12/. Ir. Arch. Soc. 1841, Payne, 14. 
 
 ^ C.S.P. 1548, 91, 385; Cal. Dub. Rec. i. 9, 10, 13, 284. 
 
 ^Gilbert, Viceroys, 466. "All the common people of the 
 said half counties that obeyeth the king's laws for the most 
 part be of Irish birth, of Irish habit, and of Irish language." 
 1515. St. Pap. u. iii. 8. v. app. 
 
174 IRISH TOWN-OFFICERS ch. 
 
 and for the most part with delight, even in 
 Dublin, speak Irish, and greatly are spotted in 
 manners, habit, and conditions with Irish stains."^ 
 If the towns held their charters on the express 
 condition that none of the Irish blood or nation 
 shall be of their corporation,^ it was a condition 
 which they diligently neglected. A long series of 
 Irish mayors marks the roll of Cork — O'Heyns, 
 Meaghs, Murroughs, Terrys, O'Reillys, Creaghs. 
 Sexton, "an Irishman of blood, and (as they say) 
 he useth himself according his nature," was given 
 the freedom of Limerick by the king himself, so as 
 he hath been mayor there contrary to the English 
 statutes and their liberties.^ Waterford and Gal- 
 way made Irish artificers and merchants freemen, 
 councillors, and masters in their trades. Irishmen 
 who had taken English names were doubtless 
 found in every town. Men of Norman blood 
 too, intermarried with the Irish till they had 
 themselves become in fact Irish : thus the heads 
 of the great Cork families, even the merchants, 
 kept the title of captains of septs in the deeds 
 of that time.* So intimate were the relations of 
 
 "C.S.P. 1578, 130. 
 
 2C.S.P. 1549, 103. 
 
 *St. Pap. III. iii. 107. See also 4 M. p. 1133. 
 
 *The Roches had gained large estates by marriage with the 
 Kearneys there : Margaret de Barrd married Robert Holhganes, 
 who, though he had the surname of an Irish family, was given 
 by the king the freedom of the city (1425). Tuckey's Cork, 
 xxxvi. 36, 37. Irish names occur among the citizens and 
 the officers of Cork — Creagh, Meagh, Murrough, Terry, 
 
y 
 
 V. IRISH IN TOWN SCHOOLS 175 
 
 town and country that it was the custom of Irish 
 chiefs to send the Tanists to the towns for their 
 schooling. A chance notice tells us of scholars 
 in Limerick — O'Briens, O'Mulrians, and Burkes.^ 
 The O'Sullivan of Edward's day was "a child 1550. 
 at school at Waterford." ^ " Sturdy beggars and 
 young fellows pretending themselves to be scholars 
 do daily flock and resort " to Galway from all 
 parts of the kingdom.* And when in time 
 of war Irish boys were taken as pledges and 
 hostages from the tribes by the governors and 
 put in the towns for safe-keeping, they found 
 there such friendship* that it was thought better 
 to send them to England. The most trusted 
 mediators from the English to the Irish were the 
 merchants of the boroughs. The Anglicised earl 
 
 Keary, Anagh, Kerrigan, Heyn, Mahon, O'Morroth, Fagan ; 
 some Welsh — ESrenaghe, Lawallyn, Fleming, Rice, Cardiff ; 
 many of the old Anglo- Irish, Fitzmorris, Archdeacon, Roche, 
 etc. John Moriagh, a citizen, in 1432 was appointed by the 
 king to enquire of treasons. 
 
 ^C.S.P. 1590, 340. "Many Irish gentlemen have withdrawn 
 their sons from school in Limerick, so that they might not 
 be detained as pledges for their fathers upon the landing of 
 the foreign power. These four are the chief of them : 
 
 " I. Brian Duff O'Brien, chieftain of Pobblebrien, who hath 
 a very strong fort and castle, called Carrickogonel, a most 
 dangerous place if the enemy were seized thereof. 
 
 "2. Conoghour O'Mulrian, chieftain of Owney (Wothny) 
 O'Mulrian, about five miles from Limerick. 
 
 " 3. Shane O'Mulrian, brother of the said Conoghour. 
 
 "4. Richard Burke, of Carikonlis, Esq., J. P., who pretends 
 title to the Lordship of Clanwilliam." 
 
 ^C.S.P. 1587, 342, 344. ^H.M.C. Rep. x. App. v. 474. 
 
 ^Car. ii. 211. 
 
176 LOYAL LAWS OF DUBLIN ch. 
 
 of Clanrickard employed Nicholas Lynch of Gal- 
 way as agent to collect rents from the Irish on 
 his wide estates.^ On occasions when lord deputy 
 or president laid aside for a moment the terrors of 
 the sword and opened negotiations with the Irish 
 of Connacht, they were forced to use merchants 
 1589. as their only possible envoys to the people. If 
 the Englishman's broken word and his treacherous 
 safe-conduct no longer won any faith, the Galway 
 merchants went freely round the Irish tribes, con- 
 ferred with them and made arrangements for 
 composition and peace. The Irish yielded to their 
 persuasion with complete confidence ; " so Lord 
 Burghley may see what those rude barbarous men 
 would do if they were governed by loving justice 
 without raven." * 
 
 It might be supposed that true English loyalty 
 would have been found in Dublin, a stranger city 
 by foundation, the head-quarters of the foreign 
 officials and English trade, and commonly called 
 then the Irish or Young London.' Dublin was 
 to be the English bulwark against the Irish 
 — the rallying city for the men of the " better 
 race." Mayor and bailiffs were accustomed to 
 forsake the council chamber for the slaughter 
 of the Irish, and "no council was held" when they 
 rode out with the deputy to war on O'Byrnes 
 
 iC.S.P. 1576, 141, 228. 
 *C.S.P. 1589, 260; 1590, 3cx)-i 
 2 Hoi. vi. 21-2. V. app. 
 
V, IRISH EXCLUDED BY LAW 177 
 
 and O'Conors " carrying the ragged and jagged 
 black standard, almost through tract of time 
 worn to the hard stumps, being never displayed 
 but when they are ready to enter into battle 
 and come to the shock." ^ The city had made ' 
 valiant attempts to keep its blood pure. Men of 1448. 
 the Irish nation might not be admitted to the 
 franchise. There were to be no Irish apprentices, 1454- 
 an order repeated four times in twenty years. ^'*^75- 
 All Irish householders of less than 12 years' 1557. 
 standing were to depart or pay "ransom" as 1455. 
 Irish enemies ; also all nuns and clerks and 
 servants and ottaghys, beggars, or wandering Irish 
 minstrels, and no scholar was to walk at night '^So- 
 begging for fear of the stocks.^ No Irishman nor 
 any man with a beard above his mouth was to be 
 lodged within Dublin walls, nor his horse nor 
 his horseboy. No corn was to be sold to any 1461. 
 Irishman, nor bread nor ale nor victuals.' None 
 was to be of the goldsmith's fraternity who 
 was not born of English parents. If we compare 
 these rules with the laws of Waterford, Galway, 
 Cork, we can judge of the pride of the English 
 capital in Ireland. 
 
 But Dublin could not do without the Irish 
 any more than any other town in Ireland. So 
 in spite of legal prohibitions, Irishmen came 
 
 'Hoi. vi. 23. 
 
 ^Cal. Rec. Dub, i. 292, 331, 352, 467, 280, 287, etc., "otta- 
 ghys" or "holtaghys." 
 'lb. 309, 339-40, 360. 
 
 M 
 
178 IRISH FILLED THE CITY ch. 
 
 openly into the city that needed them. They 
 became freemen,^ Gawnys, Husseys, Ryans, Dow- 
 lans, Irrells, Neills, Uriells, Femes, Kennys, 
 Kellys, and the mayors Fagan and Fyan'' — 
 dropping their Os and Macs, or even their old 
 names to call themselves, according to the statute, 
 after a town or district. They took their full 
 share in the trade of the city. We may say in 
 fact that not only the bulk of the poorer classes, 
 but more than half of the craft guilds were 
 Gaels.' They bought Irish cloaks * in the market, 
 and joined in the yearly pilgrimages* when the 
 gates of Dublin were thrown open and the 
 country men allowed to pour in and worship at 
 1466. the shrine of S. Patrick.® Perhaps we may 
 trace the Irish influence in the old struggle as" to 
 holding the fair on St. Patrick's day. 
 
 'w. Cal. Rec. Dub.; Cal. Doc. Sweetman ; Mise. Ir. Arch. 
 Soc. 1846, I. III. > 
 
 «C.S.P. 1588, 510. 
 
 ' See Cal. Rec. Dub. " We find Irish names among the 
 mayors, bailiffs, treasurers, auditors, aldermen, sergeants, mace- 
 bearers, constables, pledges, buyers for the city, merchants, 
 freemen, and leading craftsmen — such names as Synnagh, 
 Byrne, Ohause, Oling, More, Malone, Mulghan, Reilly, 
 Naghten, Carroll, etc. Many Irishmen had put away their own 
 names for a foreign form : Robert de Bree was a native Irish- 
 man, merchant and holder of large property in Dublin, and 
 mayor; his descendants married into leading municipal families. 
 Other names tell nothing of their origin. Gilbert, Hist, and 
 Mun. Doc. XXX. 
 
 *Cal. Rec. Dub. i. 326. *Cal. Rec. Dub. i. 324. v. app. 
 
 * The Castle and indeed the Corporation were very careful 
 of entering on any conflict with the Irish population. An 
 
V. 
 
 IRISH LIFE IN GAL WAY 179 
 
 While Irish influences thus penetrated into the 
 central fortress of the English, it was in vain 
 that Henry viii. ordered the men of Galway or 
 Limerick to dress like Englishmen and "endea- 
 vour" to speak English, and put their children 
 to school to learn it :^ they still shaved their heads 1536. 
 after the Irish fashion, and kept the Irish hand- 
 breadths — " a hand-breadth between ear and hair, 
 a hand-breadth between shoes and hose, a hand- i 
 breadth between the fringe of the tunic and the 
 knee."^ They played the Irish games, hurlings 1527. 
 and quoitings and hand-ball,' forbidden by the 
 statute of Kilkenny. Priests, doctors, clerks, 1544- 
 nurses, Irish messengers, harpers, porters, millers, 
 bakers, shoemakers, butchers, came after the 
 
 Irish hay-boy, Henry White (1532), killed an English soldier 
 who insulted him in the street, on which rose a great uproar 
 between the apprentices and the soldiers — the deputy Skeff- 
 ington issued from the castle as far as the pillory, " to whom 
 the mayor posted through the press with the sword naked 
 under his arm, and presented White that was the brewer of 
 all this garboil to his lordship, whom the governor pardoned, 
 as well for his courage in bickering as for his retchless 
 simplicity and pleasantness in telling the whole discourse. 
 Whereby a man may see how many bloody quarrels a brawl- 
 ing swashbuckler may pick out of a bottle of hay, namely 
 when his brains are forebitten with a bottle of nappie ale." 
 Hoi. vi. 285. When a judge of the admiralty charged a 
 Dublin alderman and merchant with joining with a Bristol 
 man to rob a French ship as common pirates (1587), "the 
 mayor of the city of Dublin, Mr. Richard Raunsell, of mere 
 power hath rescued and taken the prisoners from the con- 
 stable." C.S.P. 1587, 269; cf. ch. vi. 
 
 'Car. i. 91, 411 ; ii. 167; Soc. of Ant, Dec. 1895, 383-4; 
 28th H. VIII. cap. 15. 
 
 -Triads, K. Meyer. ^H.M.C. Rep. x. App. v. 402. 
 
i8o GAL WAY LAWS AGAINST IRISH ch. 
 
 accustomed manner of their country to crave 
 meat and drink at the great festivals ;^ and the 
 women "coshered" with their friends, a train of 
 dependants following them in the old Irish 
 fashion, to enjoy hospitality. They keened over 
 the dead — making: open noise of an unreasonable 
 
 1485- r . 
 
 1625. cry after the Irishry at wakes and in the house, 
 street, church, and fields — " we mean," said the 
 virtuous invaders, " their singing songs, songs to 
 the praise of men both dead and also alive, and 
 not to God everliving."^ 
 
 Galway bye-laws have often been quoted to 
 prove the natural hatred of the civilised Anglo- 
 Irishman to the surrounding savages, and the 
 dangerous situation of the town among ferocious 
 enemies — laws for example that no guns or 
 
 1 5 17. powder or saltpetre were to be sold to any Irish 
 1522. or outlandish man, nor armour (not even "yarn 
 
 for a cross-bow string") ; that if any man should 
 bring any Irishman to brag or boast upon 
 the town, to forfeit I2d. ; that no man of 
 this town shall hoste or receive into their 
 
 1 5 18. houses at Christmas, Easter, and no feast else, 
 any of the Burkes, MacWilliams, Kellys, nor 
 no sept else ; and that neither O nor Mac 
 should strut or swagger through the streets.^ 
 
 These things however were what Galway 
 
 'Hard. Gal. 211-12; H.M.C, Rep. x. App. v. 410. 
 2Hard. Gal. 211-12; H.M.C. Rep. x. App. v. 473. "To 
 weep Irish." Hoi. vi. 67. 
 
 ^ H.M.C. Rep. X. App. v. 397-8. v. app. 
 
V. 
 
 TOWN AND COUNTRY i8i 
 
 men were accustomed to do, and continued '5'J3- 
 to do, till the end of the century. Their rules 
 do not represent a battle of civilised Englishmen 
 against Irish savages, but merely the battle found 
 all over Europe of self-governed and peaceful 
 trading communities against the interference of 
 the warlike lord of the neighbourhood, who, as 
 he saw the town grow rich, would have exploited 
 it for his private gain, or mastered it by his 
 men-at-arms. The English noble with his inso- 
 lent cavalry was dreaded by an English borough 
 for just the same reason as an Irish chieftain 
 with his spurs " swaggering " through the town. 
 In an Irish borough indeed there was fully as 
 much fear of the quarrelsome Englishman of 
 the country-side as of any Irish man of war. 
 The faithful subjects of Cork complained of 1326. 
 great men, as well English as Irish, who con- '359- 
 federated in evil deeds against them.^ Waterford, 
 surrounded by English settlers, gained leave by 
 statute for the citizens to assemble and ride in 1447. 
 manner of war, with banners displayed, against 
 the Powers, Walshes, Grants, and Daltons, who 
 continually preyed and robbed their town : * a 
 later statute spoke of the peril of the city 
 "environed round about" as much by English 1477.8. 
 rebels as Irish enemies.^ Waterford men there- 
 
 ^Tuckey's Cork, 20, 23. 
 
 ^Smith's Waterford, 138-9; 25 H. vi. cap. 18. 
 
 ^H.M.C. Rep. X. App. v. 267. 
 
1 82 TOWN AND COUNTRY ch. 
 
 fore asked of Henry vii. that no interest in 
 the city should be given to the neighbouring 
 lords of the land (descendants here of Anglo- 
 Norman settlers), and considering their mixed 
 surroundings, the city laws against sale of weapons 
 1480-1. were directed against any one outside the town, 
 Irish or English.^ In Galway, on the other hand, 
 since there was not a single Englishman in the 
 country round, no such precautions were needed, 
 and the word Irishman in its code stood for 
 what would have been called an " outland man," 
 or country man, in town laws of England. 
 
 It is evident that the makers of the Galway 
 rules were not concerned with racial animosities 
 and political schemes, but with the business of 
 town government, the protection of its mono- 
 polies, and the credit of its trade. Ordinances 
 15 16- against selling ships to Irishmen, or carrying 
 isS4- freight for unfree men, or secret goods, or 
 loading Irish barques, or taking an Irishman 
 on board a ship when merchandise was to 
 be sold, or buying cattle from any but "true 
 men," were merely precautions against a smug- 
 1485. gli"g competition. Prudent rules directed that 
 1560- there should be no sale of land within the 
 town to an Irishman save by leave of the 
 Council?' They ordered that a man who would 
 
 » H.M.C. Rep. X. App. v. p. 315, 380, 396, 397, 405, 413, 433-4; 
 Hard. Gal.; Soc. of Ant., Dec. 1895, l^Z- 
 2 Hard. Gal. 64-5 ; H.M.C. Rep. x. App. v. 385, 397, 400- 
 
V. 
 
 IRISH IN GALWAY 183 
 
 not "abide the judgement" of the Mayor and 1526. 
 Council should not " convey hira out of the town 
 under any Irishman his safeguard and wings, 
 whereby he might procure loss and hindrance 
 to the town " by his advice to the outlander ; ^ 
 and forbade that when words of discord and 1505. 
 variance arose between any brother or neighbour 
 of Galway, an " outlandish man or enemy of 
 the inhabitants" might be called in to capture 
 the injurious speaker, if *' one neighbour procure 
 for evil will to his neighbour so to be taken."* 
 No man of Irish race however was shut out of 
 Galway. Once the captains of half a dozen septs, 1549* 
 who seem to have been daily parading in their 
 spurs, were ordered to be arrested until they 
 made restitution for their debts and damages, 
 and not to enter the town again without leave of 
 those to whom they had committed trespass or owed 
 debts? But the Galway laws, far from showing 
 any hostility of race, ordered,* for the tranquillity 1532. 
 and peace of the town, that no man or woman 
 should make comparison of lineage and lineage, 
 or sow any variance or discord between them 
 to make unquietness or strife, under forfeit of 
 100 shillings for every such offence. 
 
 " Os and Macs indeed were never strangers 
 in the Galway streets. The O'Flahertys* had 
 
 'H.M.C. Rep. V. App. v. 402. ^Va. 391. 
 
 'H.M.C. Rep. X. App. v. 412-3. *Ib. 405. -u. app 
 
 ^Hardiman, Gal. 48. 
 
1 84 O'FLAHERTYS AND O'BRIENS en. 
 
 once protected it by land. In the first confisca- 
 tion of Connacht, Richard de Burgo drove the 
 O'Flahertys out of Galway ; the plunderers 
 walled the town and virtuously prayed, *' From 
 the fury of the O'Flahertys, good Lord deliver 
 us." But in later times the O'Flahertys traded, 
 intermarried, and took their share in the life of 
 Galway, councillors, merchants, masters of the 
 guild of coopers, and the like. The town had 
 risen under the protection of the O'Briens of 
 Arran, descendants of Brian Boru, who for a 
 yearly payment guarded their bay and harbour. 
 Stated visits of the O'Briens to Galway,' 
 of the Corporation to Arran, with rights for 
 each of two accustomed meals, reminded both 
 1565. sides of their alliance. The chief men of Galway 
 sailed to revenge an injury to the O'Briens. 
 1575- When danger threatened, the mayor and com- 
 mons renewed their promise to defend the sept; 
 and they pleaded for Murrough O'Brien when 
 the queen expelled him and the O'Flahertys alike 
 from Arran, to plant it and overawe Galway 
 with English soldiers. 
 
 It was the MacWilliams, moreover, who had 
 
 led the city in the time of its vigorous growth. 
 
 1233. Lords of Galway, founders of St. Nicholas 
 
 1320. church, the "king's enemies" who had cast 
 
 1333. off English dress and language and laws, they 
 
 claimed the real dominion by conquest, by grant 
 
 'Hard. Gal. 51, 5211., 319; H.M.C Rep. x. App. v. 424-5- 
 
V. MACWILLIAMS 185 
 
 of Henry iii,, and by Irish inheritance/ In 
 defence of their rights against the English royal 
 house the burgesses of the town and all the 1388 
 commonalty, by common agreement,^ ""^"g ^^^ 
 common bell, and paid the fealty, which (said the 
 English) they owed the king, unto William, son 
 of Richard de Burgo, the king's enemy ; who, 
 in the name of dominion, received from them 
 the said fealty, fishing weirs, fisheries, mills, rents, 
 services, and all other emoluments in the said 
 town belonging to the king ; they aided the said 
 William to resist the king and his ministers, 
 and afterwards rang the common bell, and 
 delivered to him all the keys of the gates of 
 the town, to resist and prevent the entrance 
 of the king and his ministers. 
 
 'William de Burgo, first of the Norman invaders in the 
 west, made alliance with Cathal of the Red Hand, king of 
 Connacht (i20o). Richard de Burgo, the " Great Earl of 
 Connacht," married Cathal's daughter (1221). Camb. Ev. iii. 
 151-5. His descendant of the elder branch, earl William, died 
 (1333) leaving only a baby daughter who was carried to 
 England ; upon which two Burkes of the younger branch 
 refused to hand over the Irish inheritance of Connacht (in the 
 heat of its wars) after English law to an infant girl in London, 
 divided its lands between them as joint heirs of the Great 
 Earl and of Cathal, were elected in Irish fashion by the title 
 of Mac William, and became Irish leaders. Ulick MacWilliam 
 of Castlebar had thus the dominion of Galway. The child heiress 
 meanwhile married Lionel of Clarence, son of Edward iii., 
 who came to Ireland as lord lieutenant (1360) to seek his 
 shadowy "inheritance," and handed on his theoretic claim 
 again to his daughter, married to Edmund Mortimer, in his 
 turn lord lieutenant after Lionel (1380). v. app. 
 
 ^Hard Gal. 60. 
 
1 86 ANGLO-IRISH IN GAL WAY ch. 
 
 Commonly reputed by modern writers an 
 English borough that had cast all Irish clergy 
 and traders outside its walls, Galway in fact 
 had in it the blood of all the peoples — D'Arcy 
 and French, men of France ; Joyce and Walsh, 
 from Wales ; Blake and Skerrett, English ; 
 Kirwan and perhaps Marten, Irish ; the Bodkins 
 bore the Geraldine motto Crom-aboo.^ The 
 
 15 1 2. Irish inhabitants who crowded in were only 
 put out if they paid no taxes.* An old rule 
 that no man should be made free unless he could 
 speak English and shaved his upper lip weekly' 
 
 1522. was repeated, like other ordinances which were 
 neglected or which had been impossible to enforce. 
 The number of Irish burgesses was certainly very 
 great ; we find them serving as bailiffs, public 
 notaries, clerks, vicars, arbitrators or umpires, 
 tribunes, jurymen, witness to deeds, or among 
 the landowners, residents, and traders.* It was 
 even amicably arranged that if any one was 
 chosen port-reeve who could not speak English 
 nor order himself after the English sort and 
 
 jeci. fashion in court, he should be asked to wage 
 a substitute — the sovereign and council to mode- 
 rate the said wages reasonably, apparently to leave 
 the Irishman a fair profit from his honorary post. 
 At the reconstruction of S. Nicholas College 
 
 1 Hard. Gal. 9, 10. Misc. Tr. Arch. Soc, 1846, i. 87-8. 
 
 »H.M.C. Rep. X. App. v. 395. 
 
 ' lb. 40a * V. app. 
 
V. IRISH OFFICIALS 187 
 
 under Edward vi., five of the eight vicars choral 
 were evidently Irish ^ — Derby Ohoysshine, Derby 
 Onowan, John Dermoyte, John Obraughan, 
 Edmund Offlartye — along with other Irish clerks. 
 The band of Youngmen (an association formed 
 under a captain for the town defence), any of 
 whom might be " put in credit or trust with any 
 commission on goods into any foreign country," 
 enrolled Irishmen^ — "lay, indeed, have been all 
 Irish. There were many Irish apprentices and 
 merchants — the goldsmith Ddnnell O'Volloghan, 1560- 
 with all rights of a merchant trading to foreign ^59i- 
 lands ; O'Trehy, O'Dowan, Halloran, O'Mar- 
 Icighan, O'Muylen, formally taken as apprentices 
 by Skerretts and Martens and Frenches and 
 Lynches, on the terms that after seven years 
 they should be freemen and merchants in partner- 
 ship for a time with the employer, who was to 
 give a loan to start them in trade.' These must 
 have been the apprentices, young gentlemen from 
 the country learning their business as merchants, 
 who made the streets of Galway brilliant with 
 
 iRym. XV. 258; C.S.P. 1592, 455; H.M.C. Rep. x. App. v. 
 387. 
 
 Mb. 403, 444, 447. 
 
 2 H.M.C. Rep. X. App. v. 390, 441, 445-6, 447, 452, 455; 
 Soc. of Ant., Dec. 189;, 382-3. Other Irish names appear 
 in the records— O'Donnell, MacDonnell, O'Conor, O'Neill, 
 Dermot, O'Braughan, O'Donovan, O'Coyne. Inter-marriages 
 are noted with O'Malleys, O'Flahertys, O'Donoghies. 
 
 In 1420 an Irishman, O'Haygayn, bought in Galway white 
 English cloth and red cloth and other things, and paid chiefly 
 in money. Blake Records, i. 19. 
 
1 88 IRISH TRADERS ch. 
 
 15S5. their silk coats and linings and ruffles and peaked 
 pantouffles. Lurcan was the writer of the court, 
 
 1 56 1. Dermott the public notary. One James Lawless 
 (was he of the organ-builder's family ?) was re- 
 stored to the liberty, "according as his sept 
 was so found to be freemen ... as members 
 of the same corporation." ^ William O'Shaugh- 
 'nessy at a later date ( 1 640) had the freedom " in 
 consideration of his alliance in blood to the whole 
 town and for the good nature and affection 
 that he and his whole family do bear it." ^ The 
 merchants' families married freely with O'Flahertys, 
 Tierneys, FitzTeiges, O'Malleys, O'Briens, and 
 "degenerate" Mac Williams : ' professing, if 
 necessary, to the king that their only object in 
 such marriages was to bring these men " of wild 
 governance " into " civility, good order, and con- 
 versation with the king's honourable council." 
 
 The streets of Galway were thronged too 
 with Irishmen from the surrounding lands. The 
 
 1547. country folk came to leave their hides and linen- 
 cloth with " the Master of the Spittill-House " 
 and the Keepers of the Abbeys east and west.* 
 There was constant traffic with the surround- 
 ing hamlets, and with Irish Roscommon, much 
 buying and selling, debts to be collected, or a 
 mortgage on land given to an Irishman.^ Some- 
 
 >H.M.C. Rep. X. App. v. 390. ^Hard Gal. 216. 
 
 3 Hard. Gal. 40 n., 81 n. ; C.S.P. 1589, 219; Tombs in 
 S. Nich. Church. 
 
 *H.M.C. Rep. X. App. v. 396. *z/. app. 
 
V. THE GALWAY LANDS 189 
 
 times the mayor sent to conduct the leading 
 men of a sept into the town for a parley on 
 common business.^ The gentry still rode in 
 wearing their weapons without hindrance. In 1594. 
 time of need they came to ask their friends, 
 men of the town, councillors, even the mayor 
 himself, to stand surety for them. Gal way laws 
 were tolerant : no townsman might be surety 
 for a gentleman in the country or ransom him 
 in suck wise that the town took any hurt', and, 1513. 
 presently, none of the Corporation were to be 1552. 
 sureties for country men to aid them in delaying 
 their just debts to the town ; while later yet 
 they went so far as to order that no person 1579. 
 who had been or was in the chief offices of the 
 borough should be received for suretyship.^ 
 
 Other Irish visitors came on business of the 
 country estates. For Galway merchants, " rich 
 and great adventurers of the sea," aimed too at 
 wide territorial rule. James Lynch had the 
 islands of Arran^ in mortgage, so that, if the 
 sept of Clan Teige deceased and perished, he 
 should be sole heir and possessor. There must 
 have been many other mortgages, and there 
 was much buying of tithes.* Galway merchants 
 and craftsmen were accustomed to live among 
 
 •H.M.C. Rep. X. App. V. 409. ! 
 
 *Ib. 395, 414, 428, 459; cf. Cal. Rec. Dub. i. 432. 
 ^H.M.C. Rep. X. App. v. 425. 
 *Ib. 403. 
 
190 
 
 ANNAGHDOWN 
 
 CH. 
 
 their Irish relations in their country houses out- 
 side the walls.^ 
 
 The town itself, moreover, had a land hunger. 
 
 1484. In the year of its great success, when it made 
 
 its compact with Richard iii. for a mayor, it 
 
 made another alliance equally profitable, uniting 
 
 with the archbishop of Tuam to break the see 
 
 of Annaghdown on Lough Corrib. Tuam thus 
 
 assured its spiritual supremacy over a refractory 
 
 see, and Galway got as one reward an independent 
 
 collegiate church of S. Nicholas, with warden and 
 
 vicars elected by the town, and very much subject 
 
 to the town.^ For its second recompense, it 
 
 1487-97. requested from the next archbishop (a Galway 
 
 man) a gift of nearly all the parishes of 
 
 Annaghdown diocese, a rich extension to their 
 
 trading lands. Hatred of the wild Irish and 
 
 English loyalty were not the motives of this 
 
 : excellent bargain, for the bishops of Annaghdown 
 
 . since the time of Henry 11. had been maintained 
 
 lagainst Tuam by the English kings — "especially" 
 
 'said Edward in., " as the church of Annaghdown 
 
 IS amongst the mere English, and ruled by a mere 
 
 English bishop, and the church of Tuam among the 
 
 mere Irish, and ruled by a mere Irish prelate." ^ 
 
 'Hard. Gal. 210-12. 
 
 «H.M.C. Rep. X. App. v. 386-7, 461. 
 
 ^King, Church Hist. Ire. iii. 1 171, etc.; Galway Arch. Soc, 
 1904. Annaghdown had been O'Flaherty land, and possibly 
 its annexation to Galway was looked on as recovering 
 O'Flaherty heritage from English to Irish supremacy. 
 
V. IRISH LAW IN GAL WAY 191 
 
 The tenants of Galway lands lived under Irish 
 law — of saut or ransom for manslaughter, of land- 
 tenure, of customary fines for cattle-taking, and 
 the rest. Irish Brehons came into the town to 
 expound their code to the Galway lawyers and 158 
 sit with them in arbitration.^ When the mayor 
 forbade Irish judges in his court, he himself 
 accepted from the people the customary fee for 1519- 
 his sentence, called oleigethe, and doubtless gave 
 them in return Irish law.'' 
 
 The prosperity of Galway in fact did not hang 
 on its hostility to the Irish or the purity of its 
 English blood and customs. Its wealth grew out 
 of a policy of fellowship, compromise, and respect 
 for their Irish neighbours — equals and friends 
 in business and in learning. We have seen 
 that the Irish boroughs in general, whether 
 they were the very strongholds of English 
 government, or towns set in purely Irish 
 districts, or where the Norman settlers were in 
 
 'H.M.C. Rep. X. App. v. 403, 408, 417. William Marten 
 claiming his saut from the town for the slaughter of Thomas 
 Marten, the case " was judged upon the town by Piers Lynch 
 for the town his part, and by MacEgan [of the family of 
 Brehons] for the country his part," and the Court and 
 Commons acted by their decision, so that the said William 
 and his heirs "made the said town and Commons quiet and 
 clear for ever as touching the said slaught and saut." A 
 Brehon, Boetius MacEgan, was called as one of the arbi- 
 trators in a question about land, 1543. Blake Records, i. 
 80-83; lar Connacht, 211. For English use of Brehon law 
 see Berry's Stat. 389. 
 
 'Hard. Gal. 80; H.M.C. Rep. x. App. v. 398; Hoi. vi. 428. 
 (This fee was one twelfth part.) 
 
192 RIVALRY IN TRADE ch. 
 
 strength, were all alike flooded with Irish life, 
 /■ and the more active in trade the more Irish. 
 The burghers everywhere, instead of remaining 
 after their original intention the destroyers of 
 Irish Ireland, became in fact the champions of 
 her freedom — so completely had Irish civilisa- 
 tion embraced the incoming peoples in town and 
 country, and made them a part of the com- 
 monwealth. Their alliance was confirmed by the 
 policy of the new English planters and mono- 
 polists, and of the English government, who 
 shewed no less hostility to the English bann in 
 Ireland than to the mere Irish. 
 
 It may be supposed that towns in Ireland 
 could have thriven by hearty co-operation with 
 English traders, and preserved an independence 
 equal to the English boroughs. But so long as 
 conquest and domination were in men's minds 
 such an alliance was impossible. The English 
 trader like the English king claimed nothing 
 less than supremacy. He could call legislation 
 to his aid, and the might of England to sup- 
 port him in a domination so profitable to his 
 business ; and in the unequal balance there could 
 be no fair measure. A single case, that of 
 Dublin, may illustrate the difficulties of traders 
 of Ireland, even in the most favoured city. 
 
 We have seen the attempt of the English 
 colonists there to secure an English " atmo- 
 sphere." Their loyalty was ill rewarded. While 
 
V. 
 
 THE FIGHT OF DUBLIN 193 
 
 they would have cast the Irish out of trade for 
 their own profit, the traders in England assumed 
 that it was themselves, of the governing country, 
 who should exploit the commerce. Dublin, they 
 argued, was an English city, and English mer- 1456. 
 chants should have free trade there. Thus Dublin, 
 severing itself from the Irish, was to be robbed 
 of its trade by Englishmen yet more loyal and 
 of more unmistakable English blood. So began 
 a singular history. The governing class, neither 
 English nor Irish, hanging between two worlds, 
 greedy of the profits of both, narrowed to the 
 mere material interests of commerce, carried on a 
 lively war with England and with Ireland, hoping 
 probably to dominate the situation by a political 
 bargain with England, and by a commercial 
 monopoly in Ireland. 
 
 Dublin, however, had shrewd rivals in the Eng- 
 lish traders, who declared that Irish towns were a 
 part of England, and announcing themselves men 
 of London, Coventry, Chester, and so on, claimed 
 to trade without dues in Dublin. These the 
 city ordered to pay custom until they brought 1456. 
 evidence of their continual abiding in those 
 towns.^ A confederation of the English then 
 refused to carry the packs of Dublin merchants 
 in their ships ; Dublin denied them the fran- 1460. 
 chise of the city.'* Within a month or two, it 
 would seem, the Englishmen bought a royal 
 
 'Gilbert's Cal. Rec. Dub. i. 291. v. app. »Ib. i. 305. 
 
 N 
 
194 
 
 DUBLIN AND LONDON 
 
 CH. 
 
 charter allowing them to have a guild and 
 make laws in Dublin ; and did make laws to 
 the effect that no Dublin freeman might hence- 
 forth carry their wares over-sea to England ; 
 threatening that any one not sworn into their 
 own English fraternity should be beaten and 
 slain if he were caught on the English road. 
 
 1460. Dublin immediately fined and cast out of its 
 franchise any of its freemen who should enrol 
 his name on this foreign guild, " unless they 
 will be reformed to give and yield with their 
 neighbouring citizens of the said city."^ Their 
 merchants carried over wares, and were arrested, 
 
 1466. vexed, troubled, imprisoned, and beaten by the 
 men of Chester and other places. The Dublin 
 corporation issued a claim, doubtless a vain one, 
 for damages ; '^ and made English dealers as 
 uncomfortable as possible in the Irish markets. 
 
 1538. London citizens appealed to their own mayor 
 
 and aldermen for redress, complaining that 
 
 Dublin would not allow them to buy or sell 
 
 with any man in the liberties ; and Sir Richard 
 
 'Gresham' asked Thomas Cromwell to take order 
 
 ^ against those who refused London men free 
 
 ^^ trade in Dublin, or leave to carry their wares 
 Into the country ; " the Mayor and Aldermen,' 
 was his scandalised complaint, " will not give 
 us for our goods so much as they stand us 
 
 * lb. i. 306-7. " lb. 322. 
 
 3 lb. 502-3; C.S.P. 1538, 43. 
 
V. DUBLIN MONOPOLY; 195 
 
 in, but use all Englishmen with such extreme 
 manner that no man is able to continue among 
 them." 
 
 Dublin traders defied the interference of 
 Cromwell. They pressed their monopoly yet 
 further. Merchants from France and Flanders 
 as well as England gathered to its great fair 
 of S. James, and " offered their wares so dog- 
 cheap in respect of the city merchants that the 
 country was year by year sufficiently stored 
 by strangers"-' with coal and fruit and wine, 1558 
 carpets, broadcloth and kerseys, velvet and silk, 
 satin and cloth of gold and embroideries.^ But 
 by the jealousy of the Dublin merchants "that 
 famous mart was suppressed and all foreign sale 155 1. 
 wholly abandoned." The cost of living rose. 
 A visitor to Ireland found that in the country 
 prices were " at a far more reasonable hand 
 than in Dublin, where I do find all things at 1568. 
 double price in respect of our things in 
 England."* The only fault of the city, it was 
 said in Elizabeth's time, was that it was less 
 frequented by strangers because of the bare 
 haven. But this was not the only reason. 
 "The merchants of Dublin,"* the deputy was 1585 
 informed, " of late have restrained all foreign 
 merchants from traffic hither, whereby they 
 
 'Hoi. 25. 
 
 ' Car. i. 383. * Car. ii. 399 ; Cal. Rec. Dub. i. 427. v. app. 
 
 ^Cal. Rec. Dub. i. 8-16; Cal. Rec. Dub. i. 233. 
 
196 DUBLIN AND ENGLISH TRADE ch. 
 
 hinder the Queen greatly, and hurt themselves, 
 and the whole country ; for whereas all com- 
 modities were afore brought unto them by 
 strangers, now nothing cometh in but of their 
 own bringing ; so that all things by that means 
 waxeth so dear as passeth, and the merchants 
 of Dublin bind all men to buy all commodities 
 of them ; whereas if the common course of 
 traffic were used still as it hath been, we 
 should have plenty of all things, and everything 
 good cheap." 
 
 They claimed moreover by ancient privileges to 
 
 1419. bring all wares produced in Ireland to England 
 and Gascony and wherever else they may desire, 
 and to carry on trade freely and buy and sell 
 wines and all kinds of victuals without any 
 
 1582. hindrance from the king ; ^ and kept up a con- 
 
 '^ ■ tinual stir to be free of poundage for merchandise 
 they should ship at Chester and Liverpool. 
 According to the English they evaded customs 
 and cockets, got Chester officials to wink at 
 
 1575- their sleights, were so "stout and undutiful" 
 that they would show neither goods nor cockets 
 to the Dublin officers, maliciously threatened the 
 English remembrancer and customer there, and 
 defrauded the revenue of immense sums.'' Her 
 majesty has not and need not confirm their 
 charters, said the angry remembrancer. 
 
 »Cal. Rec. Dub. i. 24, 29; C.S.P. 1582, 388, 417; 1588, S'°- 
 2C.S.P. 1575.51. 55, 76, 78, 406. 
 
V. OFFICIAL WEALTH 197 
 
 Monopoly poured wealth into the merchants' 
 coffers. " Very few such officers under the crown 
 of England keep so great a port, none I am sure 
 greater, than the mayor and sherifFs. The mayor 
 kept open house and a princely table. He spent 
 at least ;^500 a year in viands and diet, no small 
 sum where victuals are so good, cheap, and the 
 presents of friends diverse and sundry."^ Mayor 
 Sarsfield had " three barns well stored and 1551. 
 thwacked with corn,"* in one of which he '^^''' 
 thought sufficient to have stored his house with 
 bread, ale, and beer for the year, " and now 
 God and good company be thanked I stand in 
 doubt whether I shall rub out my mayoralty 
 with my third barn, which is well nigh with my 
 three ended." He spent that year in house- 
 keeping, twenty tuns of claret, over and above 
 white wine, sack. Malmsey, muscatel, etc. His 
 house was open from five in the morning till 
 ten at night, and " he and his wife did never 
 frown or wrinkle their foreheads at any guest 
 were he never so mean, nor was his porter 
 allowed to give the simplest man Tom Drum 
 his entertainment, which is to hale a man in 
 by the head and thrust him out by both the 
 shoulders." Mayor Stanyhurst was so great and d. 1554- 
 good a householder that the Lord Chancellor was 
 his daily and ordinary guest. 
 
 'Hoi. vi. 21-2. ' 
 
 ^Hol. vi. 23, 64; Cal. Rec. Dub. i. 437, 441. 
 
198 DUBLIN POVERTY ch. 
 
 But while these favoured monopolists rejoiced 
 in great gains, high prices and dearth afflicted 
 the country, and the extraordinary number of 
 beggars that swarmed the streets made the whole 
 city in effect their hospital.* Beggars were 
 punished by the English stocks and workhouse. 
 Campion, who had come from Oxford, commented 
 
 1575. on the Dublin life: "Our time," he remarked, 
 " that gaineth excessively and whineth at every 
 farthing to be spent on the poor, is yet oppressed 
 with scarcity and beggary." ^ Burghley's kins- 
 man Goche wrote to him that " Dublin was 
 so changed for the worse that he scarcely 
 
 r582. knew it : ^ a poor horse burnt in his stable 
 was devoured by the famishing multitude." 
 Surrounding towns shared in the distress. 
 Drogheda fell into decay by the heavy customs 
 imposed on English wares, its bridge and quay 
 idle and ruined, its people driven from trade 
 to tillage.* 
 
 Detached from Irish interests, Dublin traders 
 in fact fell, with or without their will, into the 
 service of increasing London profits. Their 
 high prices gave opportunity to English rivals 
 to push their goods, and lure Ireland, by device 
 of cheapness of commodity or by tricks of 
 financial exchange, to support English trade. 
 You can keep as good a house here as at 
 
 'Hoi. vi. 23. ^Camp. cap. vi. 
 
 3C.S.P. 1582, 392. <C.S.P. 1591, 416- 
 
V. DUBLIN MONEY TO LONDON 199 
 
 Exeter, Carew's agent in Ireland wrote to him, 
 in apparent ignorance of any import trade at 
 Irish ports, " so that you do furnish yourself 
 out of your country spice, sugar, and such other 
 foreign wares and merchandise." ^ In another 
 way London merchants made gain of the Dublin 
 trade. The base coin that England sent to 
 Ireland was useless in Dublin, and there was 
 often no money unless the deputy or justices 
 would advance a loan, adding usurer's business 
 to their, other profits. Therefore, "the merchants 1585. 
 of Dublin 2 have a vent to London, to take up 
 all their wares upon credit to very great sums, 
 the money to be paid here at Dublin. The 
 nobility, knights, captains, gentlemen, and soldiers, 
 and others, of this realm, they again take up of 
 the merchants of Dublin such commodities as 
 they want upon their credit, and for time 
 paying out of all reason for the same. At 
 length, when the treasure cometh over from 
 England, when these men have their pay, the 
 money cometh presently to the merchants of 
 Dublin. Then come the merchants, factors, and 
 agents of London, and they receive a great part 
 thereof for their masters' use, never employing 
 any part thereof in or about any commodity 
 here, but they, viz. the merchants, 'oy one means 
 or other, and likewise divers gentlemen, convey 
 the same privily out of this realm in this trunk 
 
 1 Car. i. 384. - Car. ii. 4cxx 
 
200 DUBLIN DISCONTENT ch. 
 
 or that trunk, which must not be searched (they 
 say) ; for this gentleman allegeth it is his provision 
 of apparel, and this merchant saith that he hath 
 license to carry his money ; and so between both, 
 what with the gentleman with his device, and 
 what with the merchant having license as he 
 will allege for ;^ioo, when by colour thereof 
 shall be carried a thousand or more of sundry 
 men's money, defrauding her majesty and abusing 
 her highness' officers, we have scarce of any 
 money here." Official privileges and licenses 
 to favourites had brought it about that " the 
 statute for restraint of money, viz., that none 
 shall carry it over out of this realm, but he 
 shall pay 3s. 4d. of the pound for custom to the 
 Queen, is not put in use here." 
 
 Experience of this finance and trade did not 
 confirm Dublin loyalty. Its citizens too, like 
 those of the other towns, were turned to sympathy 
 with the struggles of their countrymen. Mer- 
 
 1582. chants of Dublin supplied Lord Baltinglass with 
 carbines and powder in his rising against the 
 English government, and when the Lord Justices 
 arrested them they escaped punishment by " an 
 old Act" of Edward iv. (1475), which gave them 
 the right to be liberated from gaol and tried by 
 a jury of twenty-four citizens,^ on whose sympathy 
 1 apparently they could rely. There was secret 
 
 1590, correspondence with Spain ;2 and from Dublin, 
 
 r" 
 
 iC.S.P. 1583, 454, 458. 2C.S.P. 1590, 296. 
 
V. LESSON OF THE TOWNS 201 
 
 as from Dundalk and Drogheda, weapons and 
 ammunition were continually supplied to the 1595 
 proclaimed "traitor" Hugh O'Neill. 
 
 But in Dublin there were special bribes for 
 the trading classes. There was the lucrative traffic 
 of the government for war supplies, the castle 
 patronage, the official monopolies, the import 
 of English cloth and manufactures when Irish 
 industries were ruined : in one way or another 
 Dublin merchants could still live on a dying 
 country, even if they missed the prosperity that 
 might have been theirs through its life. 
 
 From the history of the towns it is clear that 
 the original English settlers, almost from the first 
 generation, had been led by interest and intelli- 
 gence to enter into the civilisation of Ireland, and 
 become faithful citizens of their new land, united 
 with its people, and devoted to its fortunes. 
 Left to themselves, English and Irish joined in ' 
 fruitful alliance, the English accepting Irish 
 culture and jurisprudence, and enriching it with 
 their own organisation of business and municipal 
 laws. The picture of Galway, or indeed that of 
 any other town, illustrates this fortunate union, 
 by which civic prosperity was assured, the gaiety 
 and urbanity of life enhanced, and a common 
 net-work of interests spread over the country. 
 
 This hope was wrecked by Tudor statesmen ' 
 and their captains of industry. No wisdom 
 of the boroughs could have averted the menaced 
 
202 CONQUEST AND THE TOWN ch.vi. 
 
 ruin — not if they had remained as English as 
 on the first day of their planting. For the 
 English policy was not the development of Irish 
 industries for Ireland, in which the towns could 
 have co-operated, but the capture of all trade 
 for the benefit of England. Settlers of their 
 own blood had to be ejected from competition 
 as ruthlessly as the wild Irish. The issue was 
 clear. It gave meaning to the " conquest," and 
 a desperate purpose. In the case of Dublin 
 we have seen the conflict under the interesting 
 conditions of a city which had, more than any 
 other, sought to combine English loyalty and 
 self-preservation. And here, as in every other 
 town, England demanded nothing less than her 
 own entire advantage out of Irish trade. 
 
 The English government had perceived that 
 the hopes with which England first planted her 
 burghers in Ireland had been frustrated ; and 
 other methods were henceforth to be adopted. 
 
VI. i 
 
 THE RUIN OF THE TOWNS. 
 
 i 
 With the growth of their commerce, the situation 
 
 of the towns became one of extreme difficulty. 
 The boroughs in Ireland, like those in England, 
 bargained with the kings to secure rights of 
 governing and taxing themselves. But in addi- 
 tion, as the wars of conquest broadened, they 
 were plunged into conflicts with the crown » 
 unknown in England, in defence of their trade 
 and their country. In that cruel situation the 
 problems of city life and of national life became 
 entangled in a complicated struggle, in which 
 the towns fought first for their own commercial 
 and self-governing charters, then for national 
 freedom, and at last for life itself. Men were 
 forced in that extreme conflict to take sides, to 
 elect the country they would serve. There was 
 no room for the half-hearted : 
 
 " The Gaeidhil regard us as English, 
 The English proclaim us from our lands ; 
 Narrow is our share of the earth, 
 We are like apples on a flood ! " ^ 
 
 ' Cainb. Ev. ill. 167. 
 
204 GALWAY AND THE ENGLISH ch 
 
 The national war brought its calamities to 
 every town in Ireland. Galway for example, 
 which has been held to represent the English 
 power in the west, was in a constant state of 
 armed defence against the crown. The protec- 
 tion of MacWilliam marked the strength of the 
 friendship of Galway with the surrounding Irish, 
 and for 200 years the main object of English 
 kings was to break the Irish alliance,- and to 
 recover " Our town of Galway " with all its 
 customs and rents. The quarrel of dues thus 
 widened into a war of conquest in which Galway, 
 held down by an English garrison, was required to 
 hand over its profits to the king as English land- 
 lord, and its trade to English subjects. The task 
 1333- took 300 years to accomplish, and required the 
 ^ ^^' utter destruction of the whole society and corpora- 
 tion of Galway, and the ruin of its commerce. 
 1333- After the risings of the town under Ulick 
 138S. and William Burke, the kings were practically 
 forced to allow the claims of the IVIacWilliams 
 to the lordship of Galway, Richard 11. gave the 
 1397- town a charter with rights to trade and elect 
 yearly a " sovereign." But even after this truce 
 Henry iv. granted a license to war on rebels 
 1400. and enemies to some Bristol merchants, slave- 
 dealers of that day, who had prayed leave 
 to go in four ships and take the city and 
 islands.^ All efforts to levy customs for the 
 
 1 Hard. Gal. 62 n. v. app. 
 
VI. OFFICIALS IN GALWAY 205 
 
 crown were vain, and the government proposed 
 that ships and merchandise from Galway, Limerick, 
 and Cork in any English port should be seized till 
 the owners gave surety that the burghers would 
 pay their debts. A Bristol merchant (perhaps 
 one of the buyers, " as they were heathen people," 
 of Irish weavers) and other Englishmen were 1419- 
 appointed keepers and inspectors of Galway, 
 Cork, Kinsale, and Youghal ; ^ and made water- 
 bailifF, examiner of ports, buyer of the king's 
 wines, deputy gauger of wines. These officials 
 from over sea were probably got rid of by means 
 of a new charter from Edward iv.,'* that no one 1464. 
 should enter the town without leave of the Cor- 
 poration, the king's lieutenant and chancellor only 
 excepted. The next move was when Richard in. 1484. 
 made terms with Galway and gave it by charter 
 a mayor and bailifFs : by this treaty even deputy 
 and chancellor were forbidden to enter the town 
 without license of its officers ; on the other hand, 
 the lord MacWilliam too was forbidden without 
 license of the mayor to have any rule or authority 
 whatsoever within the town to exact, ordain, or 
 dispose of anything therein by land or water as 
 he and his predecessors had been accustomed 
 to do. The good-will of Galway however main- 
 tained MacWilliam in his old position. 
 
 The long conflict between the city and the 
 king entered on its last stage under Henry viii. 
 'Tuckey's Cork, 36. ^Hard. Gal. 65, App. xx. 
 
2o6 CLANRICKARD AND GAL WAY ch. 
 
 He proposed to shove in pretensions of men 
 deriving from himself — Robert Cowley the 
 1525- plover-taker with a tax on hides/ Ormond with 
 1526.3 prisage on wine,^ though " prisage has not 
 hitherto been accustomed to be paid there " — 
 fastening on Galway a quarrel that lasted for 
 58 years. He made Ulick Burke, lord of 
 •^ '543- Galway, first earl of Clanrickard, and imposed 
 as part of the bargain that the Crown should take 
 all the pensions and exactions claimed by Mac- 
 William in Galway, with compensation promised, 
 so that he and his heirs should be totally 
 excluded from the town for ever. But Clan- 
 1544. rickard still claimed the customs and fee- 
 farm, which his ancestors possessed time out of 
 mind.^ Then began a time of what the English 
 called " the spoils of Clanrickard " — a struggle 
 apparently for Galway dues between the intruding 
 king's officers and the non-conforming Burkes, 
 Clanrickard's revolted sons carrying on hot war 
 for the ancestral dominion and privileges. Gal- 
 way suffered from the conflict, and dutifully com- 
 plained to the government of these "bad sons" 
 and their " spoils." Still, however, the Earl had 
 his great house in Galway with its underground 
 passage to the port, imposing now even in its last 
 
 ' Hard. Gal. 77. v. app. " lb. 79, App. xxi. 
 
 3 Car. i. 204, 210. It was admitted (1574) that annuities 
 remained due to the earl both from the Galway customs, and 
 from a grant in exchange on the Dublin exchequer ; which 
 were the source of constant trouble. Car. i. 458. 
 
VI. ITS IRISH SYMPATHIES 207 
 
 heaps of ruin ; still the leading merchants there 
 were his factors^ to collect the rents and dues in 
 all his lands and castles ; still William, the most 
 rebellious of all the sons of Clanrickard, and the 
 most desperate in his hostility to the English ^ 
 invader, was beloved of Galway men. When he 
 was condemned to death by the president at 1580 
 Galway, the mayor sought his pardon ; and when 
 the marshal hastened his execution before it could 
 arrive,* the whole town broke into open revolt. 
 A merchant of Galway who went to London with 1577. 
 a little stock pitifully spent it all on Clanrickard's 
 diet in the Tower where he was lying as a 
 traitor ; ' and it was to Galway that the Earl 
 at last came back after six years of London 
 prison, a dying man released to breathe once 
 more the air of his native country, and with 1582. 
 the enthusiastic greetings of the townsmen in 
 his ears ended his troubled life in their midst, 
 in a town as devoted to his clan as when 1333 
 old Ulick de Burgo ruled over it. 
 
 Successive Deputies who for a century marched 
 their armies through Galway failed to effect any 
 "reformation" of the town. It was accustomed is.s^j. 
 to sell victuals and salt to O'Brien* and other 
 Irishmen, and iron for their guns. In its most 
 thriving days the burghers refused on the plea 
 of poverty to fortify the town on the land side, 
 
 'C.S.P. 1576, 141, 228. ^Hard. Gal. 88 n.; Car. ii. 270. 
 
 'C.S.P. 1577, 127. *Car. i. 92. 
 
2o8 DECAY OF GALWAY ch. 
 
 1548. and with loud protestation of loyalty declared they 
 
 could withstand any invasion by Irishmen : ^ all 
 
 they wanted was a present of great ordnance from 
 
 England to protect them by sea, apparently from 
 
 i their customers the Spaniards and the French. 
 
 1569. Lord deputy Sidney visited Galway to plant Sir 
 Edward Fitton as president of Connacht, and 
 under his eye the corporation began to use the 
 term " Her Majesty's town of Galway."^ After a 
 few years of Fitton's exactions and MacWilliam 
 
 1576. " spoils," Sidney returned to a diminishing and 
 disloyal population : ^ " I find the town of Galway 
 much decayed, both in number of expert sage 
 men of years and young men of war ... it was 
 evidently proved before me that 50 householders 
 of that town do now inhabit under MacWilliam 
 Eughter" — fled from English to Irish protection. 
 Running over the names of " Barretts, Cusacks, 
 Lynches, and sundry English surnames now 
 degenerate," he told how Galway men had "lost 
 
 1576. their wits and hearts," and had "almost forgotten 
 that they had received any corporation from 
 the Crown " : "I trust they are now revived," 
 he added, with small reason, as later years were 
 to show. 
 
 To preserve this revived loyalty a charter w;is 
 drawn up in London, and lord justice Pelham, 
 
 >C.S.P. 1548, 81, 834. 
 
 -H.M.C. Rep. X. App. v. 421, etc. 
 
 *Car. ii. 49; Hoi. vi. ^81. 
 
VI. ITS SUBJECTION 209 
 
 marching with the Berwick troops, while admiral 
 Winter kept the sea,^ bestowed it on Galway at 
 the sword's point to encourage them to dutiful 1579. 
 obedience. It renewed the town's privileges and 
 powers " for the delivery of cloth and hoods." ^ 
 A limited traffic was permitted. The citizens 
 had prayed license, for their scarcity, to buy 
 corn "from the rebels";' and the charter 
 allowed the mayor by the advice of four alder- 
 men and other four discreet men of the town, 
 upon good considerations, to give safe conduct 
 and protection to English rebels and Irish 
 enemies,* and thus continue some little country 
 trade. They might also (with license of the 
 deputy first obtained) grant to Spanish merchants, 
 who, from time beyond memory until now had 
 freely sailed into their harbour, a safe-conduct 
 to come into the town and depart again, so that 
 only ten came at a time, and that no stranger 
 might view the strength of the town or walk 
 on the walls, and that ships were searched for 
 munition. The proud merchants saw their 
 ancient commerce left at the deputy's nod. 
 They were put under official supervision. Sir 
 Lucas Dillon, an official of good trust about 
 Sidney, was appointed to be counsel to the 
 corporation,* a political post which he held as 
 
 *Hol. vi. 427. 2 Hard. Gal. 90, App. xxii. 
 
 ^C.P.S. 1577, io8. «Hol. vi. 427. 
 
 H.M.C. Rep. X. App. v. 443 ; Car. ii. 53. 
 
 O 
 
2IO PRESIDENTS OF CONNACHT oh. 
 
 attorney general, even as chief baron, till i J87. 
 Fitton had made his brother Antony collector 
 and controller of Impost, and the unhappy 
 corporation, " for the great love and amity that 
 we generally do bear to him," elected Mr. 
 
 1578. Antony to the freedom of the town, "and we 
 to dwell together in brotherly love and charity 
 as good neighbours and townsmen."^ But Mr. 
 Antony, a good Protestant, showed himself " dili- 
 
 1579- gent to reform the church and people there."^ 
 A year of the next president Malby's cruelty 
 
 1580. stirred the Galway men to a new revolt, "with 
 much bravery in marching up and down the 
 streets, with sound of drum, with spiteful speeches 
 of their conquest against the English soldiers, 
 terming them and all the rest no better than 
 English churls."' A garrison of 100 Berwick 
 soldiers did not win their hearts for England. 
 " I wonder,"* the deputy wrote to the mayor 
 of Galway, " you have not according to my letters 
 sent to Castle Mayne the twenty tuns of sack 
 and five of claret wine. I disallow of your sending 
 continually wine and other relief in your pinnaces 
 and galleys to those Munster traitors, who are 
 thus greatly refreshed." The women wrapped 
 the Spaniards slain after the Armada in fine linen. 
 
 1583. Their richest merchants remained "greatly addicted 
 
 >H.M.C. Rep. X. App. v. 427. «C.S.P. 1579, 191- 
 
 ^C.S.P. 1580, 227; Hard. Gal.; Car. ii. 270. 
 *Car. ii. 281. 
 
VI. 
 
 THE RUIN OF GAL WAY 
 
 211 
 
 to the Spaniards."^ Under Malby there was a 
 general " reformation," and new oaths of office, 1584. 
 the constables swearing to " suffer no Irish rebel 
 or enemy to abide within the wards without 
 apprehending them or signifying the ^ame speedily 
 to the mayor." ^ Ormond was given his long- 
 disputed prisage of wines^ (i 526-1 584). 
 
 p>om this time calamity deepened in the town. 
 The heavy exactions of the president, the loss 
 of trade, had left the merchants bereft of money, 
 and " detestable and inordinatly gains " of usury 
 were reared* — a peck of wheat or a good hide 
 by the year for a mark of money (13s. 4d.). 
 There was perpetual trouble now 'about taxes 1585. 
 and debts.* The corporation engagediChristopher 1587. 
 Leyns of Croboy in Meath (doubtless one of 
 the law students sent to England),* to be of 
 council with them in all matters of law, growing 
 every day more perilous. Their trade was so 
 ruined by wars, impositions, the devastation of J 
 the country round, that from ;^iooo a year the 1584-87 
 impost money fell in three years to ;^ioo, and 
 presently to nothing : " this year it hath not been 
 anything worth, for there came no wine thither."^ 1588. 
 The stricken inhabitants remained unreconciled -' 
 to English methods. When FitzWilliam visited 
 
 'C.S.P. 1583, 457. 
 ■H.M.C. Rep. X. App. v. 437. 
 H.M.C. Rep. X. App. v. 430. 
 
 ■V- ch. viii. 
 
 ^ Hard. Gal. 92. 
 
 * lb. 439-40, 442. 
 
 'C.S.P. 1587,394; 1588,22. 
 
212 RULE OF SOLDIERS ch. 
 
 1590- the town no one councillor came to the Lord 
 Deputy's table, which he took offensively' — 
 
 1592. "There be merchants of Galway which daily 
 come out of Spain." 
 
 A later scene in Galway in the time of the Com- 
 monwealth will show how far removed was the 
 history of an Irish town from that of an English 
 
 1655. borough. " A fellow named Hurd, who was 
 promoted, I hear, from his carpenter's shop to 
 a lieutenancy in the army, was governor of 
 Galway in the absence of Peter Stuburs, the 
 superintendent of commerce, who had once been 
 a pedlar." Hurd " under the prompting of 
 some evil spirit " ordered that no woman in 
 Galway should wear her Irish cloak. "But lo ! 
 next day the unseemly exhibition in the streets 
 of Galway — most of the women appearing in 
 men's coats — high-born ladies, who had been 
 plundered of all their property by the rapacious 
 soldiers, sinking with shame before the gaze of 
 the public, with their ragged or patched clothes, 
 and sometimes with embroidered table covers, 
 or a stripe of tapestry torn down from the 
 walls, or some lappets cut from the bed curtains, 
 thrown over their head and shoulders. Other 
 women covered their shoulders only, with 
 blankets or sheets, or table cloths, or any other 
 sort of wrapper they could lay their hands on. 
 You would have taken your oath, that all 
 
 »C.S.P. 1590, 298; 1592, 524, 454- 
 
V,. REVOLT OF THE TOWNS 213 
 
 Galway was a masquerade, the unrivalled home 
 of scenic buffoons, so irresistibly ludicrous were 
 the varied dresses of the poor women " — a 
 scene planned for the sport of Hurd and his 
 associates, " that they might distort their visages 
 and shake their sides at the ridiculous plight of 
 the people, and that the soldiers might not only 
 make money by the confiscated cloaks, but 
 
 wring with his property bitter tears from the 
 
 " 1 
 citizen. 
 
 Amid such scenes towns, occupied by soldiers, . 
 
 crushed by impositions, and forbidden to trade, 
 
 were driven to universal revolt. The struggle 
 
 of Galway was neither factious nor accidental. " 
 
 It was but an example of what was happening 
 
 in every corporation in Ireland. The policy of 
 
 a "godly conquest" of commerce threw the 
 
 towns into the ranks of the Irish, and the 
 
 horror of the English wars in Ireland drove all// 
 
 alike to the fury of a struggle for bare existence." 
 
 'Camb. Ev. ii. 207. See Misc. Ir. Arch. Soc. 1846, i. 173. 
 
 ^H. Egan Kenny writes to me: "From 1580 the east 
 coast ports were slowly but surely secured by the English : 
 before that time the natives (or settlers) ran their own ships. 
 The Spanish State Papers, various ms. wills, etc., show -^ 
 that Irish ships were in foreign countries. I compiled lists 
 of ships, owners, cargoes, etc., from customs returns in Record 
 Office and elsewhere. The few that survive are very illumin- 
 ating. The pre-Elizabethan lists are Irish in ships and ' 
 shippers and merchants : in the later years (1589-1601) English ^ 
 bottoms were the carriers. Englishmen the captains. When 
 Hie clans were strong and English power weak our commerce 
 was flourishing. The fall of the greater earls was the fall of ■ 
 the greater merchants." 
 
214 OPPRESSION OF THE TOWNS en. 
 
 Differences of race were levelled : the new English 
 trader, backed by his government, warred alike 
 on the old English settlers andf'on the Irish ; 
 they in turn united in a common defence. 
 
 It is true that at a moment when English 
 hopes of "a pcrfc-ct conquest" mounted high 
 under the powerful will and amazing energy of 
 lord deputy Sidney, he reported with his full self- 
 confidence that all the towns in the realm were 
 the queen's forts and garrison, " costing nothing, 
 
 1567. but rendering service and rent;' the only monu- 
 ments of obedience and nurseries of civility in 
 the land, the loss of them would be the loss 
 of this your country." For a military ruler it 
 was in truth easier to overawe a small unarmed 
 town of traders with a garrison of picked troops 
 from the Scotch border ' than to control a whole 
 country side, and loyal addresses were from time 
 to time sent up under military persuasion. We 
 
 1578. have seen the subjection of Galway under Pel- 
 ham's troops from Berwick. Sidney at the head 
 
 1576. of his army was received at Limerick "with far 
 greater pomp than I myself ever had or saw 
 yielded to any other in this land " — a prudent 
 act, for Limerick was then begging for a charter 
 to rid them of the king's judges in their courts, 
 the king's admiral in their river, the king's tax- 
 gatherers in their franchise. Waterford had been 
 sharply punished for a show of independence, and 
 'Sid. Let. 20-1, 24. *Car. ii. 168. 
 
VI. 
 
 LIMERICK DISCONTENT 
 
 215 
 
 for the moment bowed to the storm. " Limerick 
 and Waterford," Sidney wrote in a sanguine 
 mood, " are Pieces of great regard, and greatly 
 show their willingness to advance the service of 
 our sovereign."' 
 
 A service however which was only meant to 
 advance their own ruin could not long command 
 their devotion, and the records of Limerick and 
 Waterford show them in sullen if not active 
 revolt. Limerick did not trouble any more 1578 
 than Waterford to keep watch and Vvfard,^ but • 
 gave intelligence and relief to the Irish, and 
 provided them with ships, munition, gunpowder, 
 wine, and provisions,' while they showed " no 
 disposition to help the soldiers" left in the town. 
 Nothing was to be had by the English with the 1580. 
 good will of the townspeople, though they pay 
 treble and quadruple in ready money.* They 
 would not lend ;^20, nor would sell or lend 
 wheat : they have been so spoiled, they com- 
 plained to the queen, in peace by wrongs of 1582. 
 neighbours, in war by enemies, in peace by 
 extortion of officers, in war by oppression of 
 soldiers, that many honest housekeepers are 
 begging about the country,* The chief fort of 
 the whole province was the castle of Limerick,'' 
 
 'Car. ii. 25; Sid. Lett. 94. *Car. ii. 188. v. app. 
 ^Car. ii. 282; Soc. of Ant., Dec. 1895, 383. 
 *C.S.P. 1582, 387; 1580, 228, 231 ; Car. ii. 212. 
 'C.S.P. 1582, 391. «C.S.P. 1586, 181. 
 
2l6 
 
 MUNSTER TOWNS 
 
 CH. 
 
 but the townsmen were scarcely held down by 
 its terrors : " they had not yet deserved much 
 
 1586. blame," the deputy wrote, "but considering their 
 most obstinate contrariety in religion,^ and the 
 inward affection that they have always borne to the 
 Spaniard, which, as well by their several former 
 actions as by the continual trade and free inter- 
 course that they have with them at this day 
 may appear, I do think it somewhat dangerous 
 that too much trust be reposed in them." 
 
 Revolt was universal in all the trading towns 
 of the south. When Desmond lay in a Lon- 
 don prison, Cork, Kinsale, and Youghal sent 
 
 1562. petitions to have him back,^ who was their 
 only hope against rovers, pirates, and malefactors, 
 and in the Desmond war the Councils of all 
 those towns sided with the people. YoughaF 
 
 1579- drew its Irish besiegers over the wall with ropes, 
 
 1580. the mayor devoted to the Earl of Desmond. 
 The mayor and recorder of Cork, and the 
 citizens, were on the side of the "rebels":* 
 in the war the square mile of Cork city with 
 
 15^2. its surrounding mile of suburbs were reduced 
 
 ■ to a single street^ one quarter of a mile long. 
 
 But even out of that desolation no loyal Cork 
 
 arose. " At Cork," ran one official account, " I 
 
 iC.S.P. 1586, 181. J 
 
 2C.S.P. 1562, 190-2, 195; 1563, 214; 1548, 80-1; 1549. 10^ 
 
 'Car. ii. 189, 204-7, 299; C.S.P. 1580, 234. 
 
 «Car. ii. 299; C.S.P. 1580, 234. ^ c.S.P. 15S2, 361 
 
VT. 
 
 LOYALTY OF WATERFORD 217 
 
 stayed 18 days for passage. There Sir Warhame 1590, 
 Sendeger, knight, and /Andrew Skydmore assaulted 
 me upon the North Bridge for religion with a 
 great train following them, they arrogantly 
 barking condemned the religion established. 
 They did put me in great fear of my life, the 
 said Skydmore comparing Her Majesty's godly 
 proceedings to the vile sects of anabaptists 
 and family of love."^ ! 
 
 Galway and Limerick and Cork were encom- 
 passed by Irish life, and their nearest ports 
 were those of France and Spain : they may have 
 been supposed especially " degenerate." But the 
 loyalty of Waterford was the boast of the English. ^ 
 " The city of Waterford hath continued to the 
 crown of England so loyal, that it is not found 
 registered since the conquest to have been dis- 
 tained with the smallest spot, or dusked with 
 the least freckle of treason." This undeserved 
 laudation of a town which was in practical 
 revolt through the whole of Elizabeth's reign 
 did credit to the acuteness of Waterford men : 
 "the air is not very subtil, yea natheless the 
 sharpness of their wits seemeth to be nothing 
 rebated or dulled by reason of the grossness of 
 the air. For in good sooth the townsmen, and 
 namely students, are pregnant in conceiving, 
 quick in taking, and sure in keeping."^ 
 
 These excellent business qualities had won for 
 
 'C.S.P. 1590, 340, 341. ''Hoi. vi. 29. 
 
2i8 WATERFORD TRADERS ch. 
 
 them large liberties worthy of their skill in 
 keeping, the fullest rights of self-government, 
 justice, and trade.^ 
 
 Waterford, as its laws show/ had always been full 
 of Irish inhabitants, free-men, apprentices, house- 
 holders, artificers, merchants, children fostered in 
 the town or educated, men married into it, pleading 
 in Irish in its courts, bringing into it their law 
 and their judges. The " commonwealth," they 
 said, " which may not subsist without artificers 
 and manufacturers," welcomed Irishmen to be its 
 leading craftsmen, and they made it famous for 
 its linen and woollen goods, its cloaks, and its 
 rugs, the best in Ireland, and for the beauty 
 and skill of the illuminators and writers who 
 
 1485. adorned the city rolls/ Teig Carroll and John 
 Nangle were among the leading weavers who 
 formed the weavers' guild, as Teig Breack and 
 Thomas Flyn founded that of the shoemakers ; 
 
 1626. when the Waterford guild of all the trades of 
 the whole city was incorporated, the Master 
 was Donogho O'Fyne, and the two Wardens, 
 Richard O'Donogho and Peter Callaghan. 
 
 * " Also that no officer nor officers of the kings or queens 
 of England, nor their deputies shall intermeddle, nor exercise 
 any authority nor jurisdiction, within the city and liberties, 
 but only the mayor and officers of the same. . . . Also that 
 in all doubts, the words of their charters should be expounded 
 to the best sense, and if then there were any further doubt, 
 the same should be determined and decided by the king or 
 his council in the realm of England." Hoi. vi. 379-80. 
 
 *H.M.C. Rep. X. App. v. 265. ^ lb. 265-6. v. app. 
 
VI. IRISH IN WATERFORD 219 
 
 The Waterford rules are very interesting. " The 
 city consisteth, and always did consist, of traffic 
 and merchant trade" ;^ its intercourse reached to 
 Florence ; its mayors, bailiffs, recorders, were 1441- 
 used, like its citizens, to frequent journeys to 1477. 
 England, Flanders, Portugal, and the Compo- 
 stella pilgrimages, " The townsmen loved no idle - 
 bench-whistlers, young and old being wholly 
 addicted to thriving,^ the men commonly to 
 traffic, the women to spinning and carding. The 
 citizens are very heedy and wary in all their public 
 affairs, slow in the determining of matters of 
 weight, loving to look ere they leap. In choosing 
 their magistrate they respect not only his riches, 
 but also they weigh his experience, and therefore 
 they elect for their mayor neither a rich man 
 that is young nor an old man that is poor." 
 They showed a marked dislike to racial quarrels. 
 The burghers were closely linked with the country 
 people through owning large tracts of land, by 
 purchase or mortgage.' Their main object was 
 peace, and a number of their laws were framed 
 to prevent the citizens from falling, by any 
 rashness, discourtesy, or disrespect, into quarrel 
 with the Irish of the country, or from getting 
 into war at sea. If any hurt was done to 
 Waterford by a man of any nation of the 
 land of Ireland, "the Mayor shall send to the 
 Captain or chief of the country and pray and 
 
 >Ib. 334. 2 lb. 268. *Car. ii. 38. 
 
220 EQUALITY OF RACES ch. 
 
 require a remedy " ; only if the chief failed to 
 provide a sufficient remedy " the mayor and 
 bailiffs shall restrain for the said hurt." It was 
 ordered that if any man dwelling within the 
 liberty curse, defame, or despise any citizen in 
 calling him Irishman he should be made to pay 
 1 3/4 to the Irishman without any grace. Countrymen 
 who had been indicted or outlawed as "rebels," 
 were allowed to be given safe-conduct into the 
 city on business ; and all were equally protected 
 from arrest save with the mayor's leave. Their 
 language was secured to the Irish. They were 
 made freemen and merchants of the staple, with 
 certain safeguards to preserve the city from out- 
 side interferences and challenges. Their names 
 appear among the mayors, bailiffs, councillors, 
 and shipmasters. " The outcome man " of any 
 nation, Irish or another, was hemmed round with 
 precautions as " all other strangers " : but within 
 the city freemen of whatever blood were equal,' 
 " hearty one to another, nothing given to factions." 
 1492. " English array " and English speech were en- 
 couraged by law, but Irish seems to have been 
 common in practice. 
 
 A city built on trade and peace, full of 
 industry, tolerant, of broad statesmanship within 
 its limits, in constant trade with England, 
 might have been supposed sure of support from 
 the " Queen of Ireland." But the history of 
 1 H.M.C. Rep. X. App. v. 292, 299, 308, 323, etc. v. app. 
 
VI. 
 
 WATERFORD INDEPENDENCE 221 
 
 Elizabeth's war, and the bitter complaints of her 
 officers, show their deep distrust of Waterford, 
 its banquets and protestations of loyalty. Sus- 
 picion, tyranny, and the plunder of its commerce 
 had their natural effect, and Waterford, like all 
 the rest of the towns, " reverted from good 
 obedience."^ Exempted by charter from hostings 1569. 
 unless the king was present, its citizens refused^ 
 to go out to war against the Irish, who had been 
 excited to revolt by the violence of Sidney's 
 packed parliament. The deputy " wrote to the 
 mayor and his brethren of the city of Waterford 
 to send unto him the assistance of a very few 
 soldiers only for three days : who did very 
 insolently and arrogantly return an answer by 
 way of disputing their liberties with her majesty's 
 prerogative, and so sent him no aid at all." 
 Sidney had asked for 300 men,* and being given 
 a banquet instead, bitterly threatened the whole 
 town with " swift vengeance," which he boasted 
 afterwards to have fulfilled. It did not cure the 
 temper of the city. The people crowded to 
 Mass at 4 o'c. of a Sunday morning. "Thisi577- 
 is shameful," wrote Drury w^o chanced one 
 
 'Sidney's Letters, 22. ^ Sid. Let. 21 ; Hoi. vi. 365, 380. 
 
 'C.S.P. 1569, 422. The funeral of Sir Peter Carew at Water- 
 ford was attended by the Lord Deputy, who during his stay 
 there was nobly entertained by the mayor and aldermen, for 
 which he returned them thanks after he had given the city a 
 check for insisting on their privileges when the public required 
 their assistance. Smith's Waterford, 142. 
 
222 SYMPATHIES OF WATERFORD ch. 
 
 morning to see them, " in a reformed town."* 
 The mayor was charged with "contemptuous and 
 obstinate behaviour " ; another mayor " is not a 
 sufficient governor in case of a siege." ^ No 
 imposts or gifts were to be got from Waterford, 
 and no victuals willingly." " A time may serve," 
 
 1580. wrote Pelham furiously, " for the reforming of 
 the townsmen there, who are the most arrogant 
 ' Papists that live within this State." The rebels 
 were supplied with wine, and the lord justice 
 with water for twenty days together.* Towns- 
 men were selling their ships into Lisbon and 
 
 1588. Spain.* It may have been from Waterford the 
 
 1580. vessel came, indirectly laden with corn for 
 Spain and sent by way of Gloucester.® "There 
 be not more forward men to victual and relieve 
 the Spaniards," wrote the deputy, " than these 
 Irish merchants, especially those of Waterford" — 
 some of whom had even unladed at Lisbon Irish 
 corn and horses for the Armada. In war-time 
 
 15^8- Irishmen got free passports in and out of 
 Lisbon, and certain spies from Waterford took 
 advantage of the privilege, calling themselves 
 Irishmen.'^ The alarmist reports they sent to 
 
 'Bellesheim, ii. 238. ^c.S.P. 1589, 347, 348. 
 
 3 Car. ii. 212; C.S.P. 1580, 228. 
 
 *Car. ii. 181; C.S.P. 1580, 199, 235. The other form of 
 this complaint is given in the same despatch — the city used 
 idolatry : Rome itself holdcth no more superstition. 
 
 * C.S.P. 1588, 5, 31, 67. « C.S.P. 1580, 227. 
 
 ^ C.S.P. 1588, 486-9. 
 
VI. 
 
 RUIN OF WATERFORD TRADE 223 
 
 the Castle were of very doubtful truth — 
 perhaps no more than a device to escape the 
 crushing fine of ;^300 laid on all traders with 
 Spain.^ "All Waterford men, as well they which i590' 
 reside in Spain as the rest that do use traffic 
 thither are traitors, and do not stick to say 
 when they are in Spain that they acknowledge 
 no other prince but the Pope and the King of 
 Spain. 
 
 This deep and passionate resentment expressed 
 the indignation of Waterford men against the 
 determined ruin of their trade and the destruc- 
 tion of their liberties. Once in their loyalty 
 they had ordered that their constables should 
 wear English gowns "made of English cloth"; i477- 
 but experience had wakened them to a later 
 wisdom. To save their weaving trade they 1516. 
 ordered that no wool should be carried out ofisiS. 
 their port ; in the general destruction of Irish 
 industry, they attempted a last remedy : ^ " how 
 greatly the city is impoverished and daily like 
 to decay that not only the ablest and wealthiest 
 
 'C.S.P. 1589, 280. I 
 
 ^C.S.P. 1587, 422; 1590, 290, 293. On the accession of 
 king James I. this city was ill inclined to the English interest. 
 When Sir Nicholas Walsh the recorder was proclaiming the 
 king, they pulled him down from the Market-cross. They 
 also broke the doors of the Hospital and admitted Dr. White 
 to preach a seditious sermon in St. Patrick's church ; wherein 
 among other invectives he said that Jezebel (meaning Q. Eliza- 
 beth) was dead. Smith's Waterford, 143. 
 
 ^H.M.C. Rep. X. App. v. 313, 326, 336. 
 
224 CAUSES OF DISCONTENT cii. 
 
 persons do wear in their attire no part or 
 parcel of anything wrought within this city or 
 realm, but also their men-servants, maid-servants, 
 and nurses, in like manner do wear no other 
 than their masters." All foreign finery and all 
 foreign woollen and linen were forbidden ; and 
 to the end the inhabitants of this city may be 
 withdrawn from idleness, they were to content 
 themselves with clothes wrought and made 
 within this realm, on pain of forfeiture of such 
 garments and their bodies to be imprisoned."^ 
 
 It was the custom for officials to flatter the 
 queen and please current opinion in England 
 by asserting that Papistry was the sole and 
 original cause of the town risings, and to make 
 no mention of any grievances of the burghers. 
 
 1590. "The sting of rebellion,"^ wrote an English 
 official, " which in times past remained among 
 the Irishry, is transferred and removed into the 
 hearts of the civil gentlemen, aldermen, and bur- 
 gesses, and rich merchants of Ireland, papistry," 
 he falsely explained, " being the original cause 
 
 1600. and ground thereof." " The priests have in 
 their devilish doctrine," said Carew, " so much 
 prevailed among the people ... as for fear of 
 excommunication very few dare serve against 
 the rebels, or any way aid her majesty : and 
 this infection has so far crept into the hearts 
 of the inhabitants of the cities and corporate 
 
 »2/. pp. 139, 14s, 152. "C.S.P. 1590, 340. 
 
VI. LOSS OF TOWN LIBERTIES 225 
 
 towns as the chief magistrates and mayors 
 thereof do refuse to come to the church, which 
 at no time heretofore hath been seen." 
 
 It was more agreeable to lay the blame of 
 unrest on Irish depravity in religion than on 
 the real causes, the destruction of the burgh j 
 liberties, the annihilation of their trade, and the! 
 threatenings of beggary and nakedness. The 
 complaint of Cork for example was that the bad 
 money ruined their trade, and that the king's 
 officers in this province, waiters and base-born 
 fellows, were destroyers of the city and commonwealth ; 1603. 
 the citizens in their pride refused to acknowledge 
 any other than the mayor s authority, who compared 
 himself to the doge of Venice. The crowd that 
 swept the streets turned out all such Englishmen 
 as would not join them — the new men who had 
 come as pillagers and supplanters of their laborious 
 trade and their liberties. They had been taught 
 for forty years that " Englishman " and " Pro- 
 testant" meant the enemy of Ireland and of 
 Cork, and Thomas Pagan, v/ho carried a white 
 rod about the city and was styled their principal 
 churchwarden, never suffered any such to pass 
 by him unabused. If they burned all the bibles 
 and prayer books they could find,^ it v/as for the 
 
 'Tuckey's Cork, 75, 76. The constant confounding of religion 
 with politics is illustrated in Payne's remark — "our Catholics 
 that will be saved by their works, and yet will not give God 
 thanks at their meat, for that they will not once have in their 
 mouth the prayer for our queen, annexed to our usual thanks- 
 giving at meat." Ir. Arch. Soc. 1841, Payne, 6. 
 
226 ATTACK ON TOWN CHARTERS ch. 
 
 same reason that the boys tore the title-pages 
 out of Lilly's grammar; the bible, under the 
 patronage of the "Queen of Ireland and Defender 
 of the Faith," with the arms of England, had been 
 made to signify to them the ruin of their national 
 life and of the Irish people. 
 
 A war which cost the towns so sore a price, 
 a war in which every one of them took the same 
 part, was not a mere outburst of folly or of 
 bigotry. The sufferings of the boroughs give 
 us the measure of the issues they felt at stake, 
 and the records leave no doubt of the cause of 
 itheir revolt. A lord chancellor of Henry viii. 
 had long before given his warning against letting 
 the Irishry enjoy their freedoms : the Scots and 
 
 ' wild Irishmen, he said, contend only for liberty.^ 
 The possession of this individual liberty, wrote 
 
 . an Irishman a hundred years later, is the greatest 
 happiness the Irish desire.^ But every town now 
 saw its charter and privileges threatened. When 
 Spenser summed up their freedoms and licenses to 
 trade with the Irish, he added the comment, "all 
 which, though at the time of their first grant 
 they were tolerable, and perhaps reasonable, yet 
 now are most unreasonable and inconvenient." 
 
 Sidney's " nurseries of civility and monuments 
 of obedience " had to be new planted if they 
 were to be made the English king's forts and 
 garrison for the destruction of Irish life. A 
 
 iC.S.P. 1549, 103. 2Camb. Ev. i. 69. 
 
VI. THE PRINCE'S PREROGATIVE 227 
 
 definite policy therefore shaped itself — to break 
 the old charters, to bring the obstinate boroughs^ 
 to beggary, and foment enmity between town 
 and country, by setting up new markets to 
 wreck their power and privilege. Sir Humphrey 
 Gilbert and his company-promoters swept away 
 the royal grants that protected the towns as 1569 
 ruthlessly as they banished Irish law. He did 
 not hesitate " to infringe the pretended liberties 
 of any city or town corporate not knowing their 
 charters to further the Queen's Majesty's service, 
 answering them that the Prince had a regular and 
 absolute power, and that which might not be 
 done by the one I would do it by the other 
 in case of necessity." The policy was pursued 
 by later officials. Humble yourselves. Hooker 
 exhorted even the much praised Waterford, to 
 your prince. "Examine not his authority norc. 1581 
 decipher his power : compare not your privileges 
 with his authority, nor do you dispute your 
 liberties w-ith his prerogative. For, notwith- 
 standing your privileges, liberties, and grants be 
 great and many, yet they can not abate nor 
 impugn the least part of the prince's prerogative : 
 which is so great as nothing can be greater, if 
 you will take the view of God's own ordinances."^ 
 When Waterford pleaded law to a later deputy, 1603. 
 he would cut king John's charter, answered 
 Mountjoy, with king James' sword.^ 
 
 'Hoi. vi. 380. * Smith's Waterford, 144. 
 
228 RUIN OF TOWN TRADE ch. 
 
 Presently, in fact, the boroughs saw emissaries 
 
 going about to make enquiries as to their 
 
 charters,^ " whereby their city may be ruined, 
 
 i as was the town of Maryborough " — that town 
 
 1536. of evil omen, founded in the blood of the 
 Irish, the triumphant centre of the first English 
 
 1569. plantation, their borough town to announce the 
 new policy of extermination of the Gaels so that 
 the country " would be desolate of Irishry and 
 made habitable." Poverty and dissension were 
 
 ^584- to complete the ruin of the towns. It was 
 ordered that two markets at the least should be 
 erected in every county within Munster and 
 continued weekly in meet places, in competition 
 with the borough merchants, so as to prevent 
 their any longer engrossing to themselves the 
 country trade.^ Waterford and Cork were made 
 
 1580. into army stores.^ At the end of the wars the 
 customs of Cork were only worth ;^225 in 
 
 16 10. seven years; Youghal, £']0\ and Kinsale, ;^l8.* 
 Once thriving centres of business were now held 
 by the English as close garrisons in an enemy's 
 land. Dungarvan, much decayed, was under an 
 English constable. Youghal was so famished 
 that it could not even receive the army in 
 circuit. The pier of Kinsale was destroyed 
 and no protection left for shipping:* it was no 
 
 •C.S.P. 1590, 373-4. ^ Cat. W. 2,9(>- 
 
 ^ Car. ii. 210. *Tuck. Cork, 80. 
 
 *Sid. Lett. 91, 102 ; Tuckey's Cork, 70. 
 
vi. DECAY OF CORK 229 
 
 wonder that amid the ruins of their ancient 
 Spanish trade the citizens resolved to "hold ^ 
 their town against all enemies of Christ and the 
 king of Spain." Sidney reported Cork "amended 1576. 
 as in so few years I have seldom seen any 
 town : if ministration of justice be continued, it 
 will daily multiply in people and amplify in 
 building " ; but the city, so wealthy under the 
 Desmonds, was now in fact a mere fortress : the 
 townsmen had each half a soldier's wage. "At 
 this day the city of Cork is so encumbered with 
 unquiet neighbours of great power, that they 
 are foi»qed to watch their gates continually, to 
 keep them shut at service times, at meals, from 
 sunset to sunrising : nor suffer any stranger to 
 enter there with his weapon, but to leave the 
 same at a lodge appointed. They walk out for 
 recreation at seasons, with strength of men 
 furnished."^ Limerick had a new charter from 1582. 
 Elizabeth, but the thriving city was in fact ruined : 
 its people now reported " of all Ireland the most 
 tractable " : ^ "i/ is the poorest city under Her High- 
 ness." Bad coin and heavy taxes had handed 
 over the people to the usurer. " The poor 
 citizens of Limerick are impoverished by a few 
 rich merchants there through usury," the agent 
 for Limerick wrote to Burghley. The townsmen 
 complained of the suppression of their trade; so 
 that the citizens were forced to turn husband- 
 
 * Campion, cap. vii. ^C.S.P. 1590, 341. 
 
230 
 
 DECAY OF LIMERICK 
 
 CH. 
 
 men,^ and prayed for their great poverty that 
 they might have license to trade for 200 tuns 
 of Spanish wines to be transported to Limerick, 
 to be paid for of such Ireland commodities as are 
 now prohibited. The Clare side of the river had 
 been taken from them by the new charter and 
 their old limits curtailed. Their wall had fallen 
 down for thirty yards by the river, and when 
 they were about to draw a branch of the 
 Shannon round their north franchises to protect 
 them, they were confounded by prying strangers 
 peering into the question of their charters and 
 whether they had any right to exist at all. The 
 Irish were now " not half a quarter of the 
 number of those which England continually 
 maintaineth."^ "That poor Irish town,"^ Davies 
 wrote of the once rich and prosperous Cavan. 
 
 We cannot follow the later sufferings of the 
 boroughs. The Irish inhabitants were every- 
 where degraded, the corporations purged, and the 
 towns planted anew. Galway was not "reformed" 
 till the old citizens' names were obliterated and 
 a new English corporation set up. The great 
 1652. names of Lynch and French and Blake — men 
 who had given the deepest pledges of submission 
 and loyalty — being still on the roll of mayors 
 and sheriffs, the new planted English inhabitants 
 did petition that the government of the town 
 
 / 
 
 ic.s.p. 1590, 373-4. 
 
 ^Davies, 262, D. 1787. 
 
 2C.S.P. 1 58 1, Ixxxv. 
 
VI. DECAY OF WATERFORD 231 
 
 should no longer be in the hands of Irish and 
 Papists but of English and Protestants, and so 
 it was done, and Hurd of infamous memory 
 was acclaimed their mayor.^ Waterford had years 
 of no settled government, the magistrates for 
 refusing the oath of supremacy turned out and 
 sent prisoners to Cork, and the corporation 
 governed by sheriffs ; till Donough earl of 
 Thomond, lord president of Munster in the 1617. 
 name of the English, was sent to seize on the 
 liberties of the city, its ensigns of authority and 
 public revenues, and its charter.^ In the next 
 dozen years Irish names were replaced by 
 English ; Irish merchants, no longer admitted 
 to the government, were tacitly allowed to trade 
 until mayor Bolton showed that neither their 1662. 
 old pretence nor acts or orders of the king 
 could be of any effect to them until they were 
 Protestants.^ 
 
 Every effort was made to drive even the poorer 
 Irish out- of the towns, by order of the govern- 
 ment, or by pulling down the houses and so 
 casting them out as wanderers. " The lord 
 lieutenant and council by letter ordered the 
 Popish inhabitants to be removed from Galway, 167S. 
 Limerick, Waterford, Clonmel, Kilkenny, and 
 Drogheda, except some trading merchants, artifi- 
 cers, and others necessary for the towns and 
 
 ^Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. x. App. v. 501. 
 
 ^Smith's Waterford, 145, 162-6. ^ lb. 156-7. 
 
232 DESTRUCTION OF COMMERCE ch. 
 
 garrisons ; by virtue whereof many were expelled, 
 bu|: were afterwards re-admitted " ^ — the State 
 being after all unable entirely to do without 
 the population of the country, nor the English 
 masters without servants. 
 
 The contrast between the thriving commerce 
 of the Irish with the Low Countries, France, and 
 Spain, and the *' reformation " by the English 
 adventurers, has been given by one who saw 
 what he described : " Other nations overflow 
 with abundance of all things : we are emaciated 
 by want. They not only do not lose their civic 
 rights, but make daily accessions to the roll of 
 their citizens : the foreigner is naturalised amongst 
 us ; the natives are made alien. In foreign cities 
 majestic piles of new buildings are every day 
 towering to the skies, or old ones are repaired : 
 with us the foundations of not a single house 
 are laid, while the old are heaps of crumbling 
 ruins, their roofs open to the rains, and their 
 adamantine walls rent, or mere shells and shape- 
 less masses. The men who are now at the head 
 of our government, rather than allow the former 
 to rent his own house in the town, leaves it 
 uninhabited. Some mansions have been degraded 
 into workshops of the mechanical arts, or taverns 
 for the revellers, or prisons for the innocents, 
 and daily resound to the noisy hum of the 
 trades, or the yells of the drunkard, or the 
 
 'lb. 157. V. Misc. Ir. Arch. Soc. 1846, i. 173. 
 
VI. 
 
 THE FINAL RUIN 
 
 233 
 
 groans of the afflicted ; in others, once adorned 
 with costly furniture, the stranger was ever 
 welcome to the hospitable and splendid board, 
 now he must go to inns or taverns, where food 
 is doled out for money. Commerce was not 
 less busy or profitable in our cities than in those 
 of other countries, but now it has fallen to 
 decay, all right of trading being taken from the 
 natives, though allowed to foreigners of all sorts." ^ 
 To the onlooker of that day "all the might 
 of English arms, all the devices of English 
 policy, were called into play to plunge the Irish' 
 into the abyss of the worst barbarism." ^ The" 
 towns had shown that there was no difficulty 
 in conciliation to protect common interests, that 
 Englishmen and Irishmen could work together 
 on equal terms, that, as in other countries at all 
 times, good order was best maintained by a fusion 
 of laws suited to the circumstances of the land, 
 and that under these conditions a great prosperity -i 
 could be reached, and a common patriotism. But 
 the English government would allow no truce, 
 nor English politicians and adventurers. " For it 1620. 
 is manifest," the attorney-general Davies wrote, 
 having seen all these things, " that such as had 
 the government of Ireland under the crown of 
 England did intend to make a perpetual separa- 
 tion and enmity between the English and the 
 Irish, pretending, no doubt, that the English 
 
 'Camb. Ev. i. 5963. ^Ib. i. 223. t/. app. 
 
234 THE FINAL RUIN cm. vi. 
 
 should in the end root out the Irish ; which, the 
 English not being able to do, caused a perpetual 
 war between the nations, which continued four 
 hundred and odd years, and would have lasted 
 to the world's end." ^ We have the lament of 
 an Irishman of the same period : " That time 
 could not slacken or cool down the fiery ardour 
 of this hatred, that English obstinacy should be 
 eternal, is truly astonishing. Never, since the 
 creation of the world, were hostile feelings so 
 systematically kept alive for such a length of time 
 in any other nation." ^ With every generation the 
 struggle was renewed through centuries of wilful 
 ruin, till of the flourishing markets and fair towns 
 of the Irish nothing was left but a starving 
 village, a dim tradition, a crumbling wall, or the 
 name of a silent meadow, while the ports lay 
 empty and rivers and lakes deserted. 
 
 ^Davies, 76, D. J7S7. *Camb. Ev. i. 219. 
 
PART 11. 
 EDUCATION AND LEARNING. 
 
 VII. IRISH LEARNING. 
 
 The Irish have long been famed for their love 600. 
 of learning. By their first missionaries they gave 
 to the English the alphabet and the Christian 
 faith. When the English made return by 
 breaking the Irish schools and destroying their 
 libraries, they were still forced to recognise the 1570. 
 talents of the people — " sharp-witted, lovers of 
 learning, capable of any study to which they 
 bend themselves" — "lovers of music, poetry, 16 12. 
 and all kinds of learning." ^ 
 
 In Ireland in fact, so long as any independent 
 Irish life survived, the scholar was the most *■ 
 honoured man in the community. The spell 
 of its culture fell on every foreigner who came 
 to make his home in the country — on Norman 
 barons, French soldiers, English citizens of the 
 towns and lords of the Pale. There was a 
 common saying " that ten Englishmen would 
 
 'Campion, cap. v.; Davies, Hist. Tracts, D. 1787, p. 128. 
 Cf. the line in Hudibras : 
 
 "As learned as the wild Irish are." 
 
 (1. 53S, 1662-1678.) 
 
236 IRISH CULTURE ch. 
 
 adopt Irish, for the one Irishman who would 
 adopt English habits."^ The human fellowship, 
 the gaiety, the urbanity of Irish life, the variety 
 of its ties and the vivacity of its intellectual 
 diversions, and not least its passionate and un- 
 dying appeal to those who esteemed learning 
 and whatever may feed the life of the mind, 
 drew to it irresistibly all who came within its 
 1627. circle. " My first endeavour shall be to under- 
 stand the tongue of this country which I see 
 (although it be accounted otherwise) is a learned 
 and exact language and full of difficulty," so 
 wrote a great scholar from England, bishop 
 Bedell.^ " Having practised and learned some 
 skill in the Irish tongue," says an English writer 
 of the time of Charles 11., " I took great delight 
 therein, finding it to be sharp, sententious, 
 elegant, spacious, and full of delightful know- 
 ledge and liberal ingenuity."* In spite of every 
 effort of the London officials " for the extincting 
 of amities between the Englishry and the 
 Irishry,"* generation after generation of new- 
 comers for 350 years were gathered into the 
 Irish civilisation ; until the passion of trade 
 
 'Camb. Ev. i. 189. 
 
 * Letters of Bishop Bedell, no. xxxiii. ; written immediately 
 after taking up his duties as Provost of Trinity College, 
 Dublin. Bedell reckoned among his languages Arabic, 
 Hebrew, and Chaldee as well as Italian and the ordinary 
 classics. 
 
 ^Soc. of Ant., Oct. 1871, p. 593. <St. Pap. II. iii. 449' 
 
vii. RANGE OF LEARNING 237 
 
 and of plunder quenched in the invaders all 
 other aspirations. 
 
 Ireland had her full share in the general life of 
 Europe : her people had hospitality of mind as 
 of manners. All the great mediaeval movements 
 made themselves felt there — the wanderings of 
 peoples, the progress of trade, monastic revivals, 
 the growth of literature and science. But what- 
 ever outer influences affected Ireland, the native 
 genius is shown in two arts which Irishmen could . 
 not have borrowed, their highly developed system 
 of law, and their subtle metrical system. A people 
 capable of constructing these might be held capable ,0' 
 of any high intellectual achievement. 
 
 For obvious reasons there was little English 
 learning. The Irish showed indifference to the 
 homilies and moral treatises and tracts to pro- 
 mote Christian and useful knowledge that 
 flourished across St. George's Channel. It was 
 not without reason indeed that they pre- 
 ferred the literary air of Europe to that ot 
 England.^ There was more life in the original 
 model than in the copy, and if Ireland along 
 with other countries borrowed from the writings 
 in vogue at the time, she took the usual com- 
 monplaces direct from the Latin sources which 
 mfluenced the prose writers of England. 
 When a new literary age opened with the 
 poetry of Chaucer, the English people had 
 ^See Ker, Med. Lit. "English Prose." 
 
238 
 
 STUDY OF ENGLISH 
 
 CH. 
 
 begun, as we shall see, to fence in their places 
 of learning and barricade the Irish out of their 
 society. 
 
 In the fifteenth century, however, there was 
 some study of English among cultivated Irish- 
 men. It was not the homilies but travels and 
 stories that they preferred. In one of the 
 mountain peninsulas thrust out from Cork into 
 the Atlantic the chief Fingin O'Mahony had a 
 castle at Rosbrin, under the shadow of mount 
 Gabriel and overlooking the islanded waters of 
 Roaring Bay. " Wild and desolate," modern 
 tourists call it, " the ultimate Thule of civilisa- 
 tion " ;^ but in those days it was an intellectual 
 d. 1496. centre : there O'Mahony, a wise man skilled in 
 the Latin and English, was general supporter of 
 the humanity and hospitality of West Munster.^ 
 Among the learned men who gathered to his 
 house was Donnell O'Fihely, a scholar who had 
 studied in Oxford, one who was much valued 
 by his countrymen for his unwearied industry 
 in matters relating to history and antiquity : he 
 dedicated to O'Mahony his Annals of Ireland,^ 
 which passed afterwards into the library of 
 Florence MacCarthy. It was at Rosbrin that 
 1475- O'Mahony himself made a translation from the 
 English of the travels of Maundeville.* Other 
 scholars, unknown to us, took from the English 
 
 ^v. app. 
 
 * Ware's Writers, 90, 107. 
 
 *4 M. p. 1225. 
 
 ♦Ed. Stokes, Z.C.P. ii. i. 
 
VII. 
 
 SPEAKING OF ENGLISH 239 
 
 with less discretion the adventures of Guy of 
 Warwick ^ and Bevis of Hampton, using how-i 
 ever the freedom and independence that mark 
 Irish work, and giving chapters and incidents " 
 lacking in any other known version. Students 
 of English were scattered over the country. 
 There remain four instances of deeds and 
 arbitrations drawn up in English for some of 
 the leading Galway families.^ There was a Hugh 1430- 
 O'Donnell " the anglicised,"^ a Neal O'Neill 1449- 
 "the anglicised" who talked English and admired c. 1480. 
 English customs, and the wife of O'Reilly was d. 1490. 
 learned in Latin, English, and Irish.* A Mac- 
 Dermot was known as Dermot na-nGall, " of d. 1496. 
 the English " ; it was told of the prior of Ros- 
 common who went with O'Conor Roe to the 
 deputy that he "spake good English."' Mar- 
 garet O'Conor Faly travelled to London to pray 
 Queen Mary to restore her father from the 1553. 
 Tower, relying " on her . knowledge of the 
 English language." * It is certain that many 
 chiefs had their heirs instructed in English, like 
 the O'Sullivans who were sent to school at 1550. 
 Waterford ;'^ "The country was not so barbarous," 1562. 
 wrote one of them, " but that the heirs thereof 
 were always brought up in learning and civility, 
 
 'Ed. Robinson, Z.C.P. vi. 9. ^o'Flaherty, W. Conn. 203. 
 
 '4 M. pp. 1 149, 1227. *4 M. p. 1 184 n. 
 
 'St. Kilk. Tr. relat. to I. ii. 13 n. 
 
 ''4M. p. 1531. 'C.S.P. 1587, 342, 344- 
 
240 
 
 LATIN SPEECH 
 
 CH. 
 
 and could speak the English and Latin tongues." 
 One Butler, a Waterfordian sometime scholar 
 to master Peter White, " translated Maturinus 
 Corderius his book of phrases into English."' 
 
 1562. Robert Garvey of Kilkenny diocese, was noted 
 not only for his skill in civil and canon 
 law, but for "a volubility in the English and 
 Latin tongues."'^ An O'Rourke who ruled in 
 BrefFni on the Connacht border was known 
 
 1562. as Hugh "Gallda,"' the anglicised; and it was 
 
 1569. a sort of reproach to the wealthy O'Shaughnessy 
 that he was "not skilled in Latin or English,"* 
 
 1570. and to Mac William of Mayo, " though wanting 
 the English tongue understanding the Latin." 
 
 1579. O'Reilly spoke English and Latin.* The way of 
 intercourse and comprehension lay open for the 
 English through the intellectual curiosity and 
 the wide sympathies of the Irish. That door 
 as we shall see was rudely closed. 
 
 It is evident however that neglect of English 
 speech did not, as the English reported, make 
 the Irish barbarians. It was to the Continent 
 they looked rather than to England. " The 
 Latin education of Ireland began earlier and was 
 better maintained than in other countries."^ For 
 
 *Hol. vi. 57. *Wood, Oxf. Writers, 201. 
 
 'O'Grady, Cat. 414. *4 M. p. 1631. «C.S.P. 1579, 170. 
 
 •Ker, Dark Ages, 319-20. Archbishop Brown reported the 
 Irish clergy who showed themselves discontented at his 
 violences to be so ignorant of Latin speech " that a bird 
 might be taught to speak with as much sense as several of 
 them do in this country"; which probably indicates a quanel 
 
VII. 
 
 IRISHMEN IN EUROPE 241 
 
 twelve hundred years letters, science, architecture, 400- 
 the changing fashions of the goldsmith's craft, '^oo. 
 came to her direct from the great Continent, to 
 be altered and adapted by the living Irish genius. 
 Her people were in the current of the larger ' 
 world. Its tidings were carried over by the 
 succession of Irish scholars who never ceased 
 to travel over Europe in search of knowledge, 
 by the constant stream of pilgrims to Compos- 
 tella and Rome, by Irish merchants as much at 
 home in Spain or France or Italy as in Ireland, 
 by visitors and traders coming from the Con- 
 tinent. It was through Rome that the Irish i45p. 
 heard of the English disasters in their French 
 wars.^ There was possibly indeed a school of 
 the Irish in Rome: if so it had a vivid Irish 
 tradition and life of its own well supported from 
 home: "Tadhg the Black," we read, "son of 1466. 
 Brian Mac Gilla Coisgle died ... a man of great 
 consideration in Ireland and in Italy ; for it is 
 he that exacted the eric of Cuchulainn from the 
 Connacians in Rome."^ Foreign pilgrims to 
 S. Patrick's Purgatory travelled from Lombardy, 
 Florence, Lucca, Rimini, Hungary, France, Spain, 1400- 
 and Holland.^ German earls and merchants came ^ ' 
 
 as to the theories of pronunciation that were advocated by 
 Burghley and his friends of the Reformation at Cambridge. 
 Hume's Burghley, 9. 
 
 ^4 M. p. 971 n. 2 An. Uls. iii. 217. 
 
 'Gilb. Viceroys, 212-13; Bellesheim, i. 581; Hoi. vi. 36; 
 4 M. p. 1239 n., 1335; Camb. Ev. i. 150 n., 153-4. 
 
 Q 
 
242 IRISH TRAVELLERS ch. 
 
 to visit the island :^ and it was probably some 
 old connection of family or trade that drew to 
 Ireland Sir Matthew de^Jlenzi, a citizen of 
 1622. Cologne.^ 
 
 Travellers poured out too from Ireland. 
 Wandering poets, pilgrims and travellers, traversed 
 Spain and Italy, crossed Europe, sailed the 
 Adriatic, journeyed in the Levant.^ One Kil- 
 bride made a song of his tempestuous eastern 
 pilgrimage, his three months' buffeting at sea 
 against head winds and the incompetence of his 
 navigator groping about into a succession of 
 bad landfalls. " Let us take a hardy course : 
 these clouds are from the north-east ; let us 
 then leave the foothills of the stormy peaks of 
 Greece, and strive to make Damietta. Dark 
 are these clouds out of the east, that from Acras* 
 come in our teeth. Come, O Mary Magdalen, 
 
 c. 1213-and altogether clear the sky!"^ Another poet, 
 24. 
 
 'C.S.P. 1572, 479; 1579, liiii. Iv. 169-71. 
 
 '■^ Matt, de Renzi, a native of Germany, obtained a grant 
 from James I. of upwards of 1000 acres of the forfeited lands 
 of the Irish provided he should not take the name of Roirke, 
 O'Molloy, the Fox, Mac Coghlan or O'Doyne (Dun), nor 
 receive or pay Irish rent, taxes or services, or divide his land 
 according to the Irish custom of gavelkind. It is said in 
 his epitaph in Athlone Church : " He v;as a great traveller 
 and general linguist, and kept correspondency with most 
 nations in many weighty affairs, and in three years gave 
 great perfection to this nation dy cotnposing a grammar^ 
 dictionary^ and chronicle in the Irish tongue.^'' Tr. Rel. to 
 Irel. ii. 12 n. v. app. 
 
 » V. app. * Acre ? * O'Gr. Cat. 336. 
 
VII. DAVID FITZGERALD 243 
 
 homeward bound, wrote with much afFection to 
 Cathal O'Conor from the Adriatic.^ We read 
 of the grey friar Hugo de Hibernia, a traveller 1360. 
 who wrote an Itinerary.^ The apparition of 
 David Fitzgerald is too glorious to be omitted ; 
 » David Fitzgerald, usually called David Duff 
 [or Black Daniel], born in Kerry, a civilian, a 
 maker in Irish, not ignorant of music, skilful 
 in physic, a good and general craftsman much 
 like to Hippias, surpassing all men in the mul- 
 titude of crafts, who coming on a time to Pisa 
 to the great triumph called Olympicum, ware 
 nothing but such as was of his own making ; 
 his shoes, his pattens, his cloak, his coat, the 
 ring that he did wear, with a signet therein 
 very perfectly wrought, were all made by him. 
 He played excellently on all kind of instruments, 
 and sung thereto his own verses, which no man 
 could amend. In all parts of logic, rhetoric, 
 and philosophy he vanquished all men, and was 
 vanquished of none":* so this shining figure 
 appears, clear evidence of the Greek heritage 
 claimed by the poets for the Fitzgerald race, 
 limited by no date, suddenly irradiating Stani- 
 hurst's lists of learned men with the glories not 
 yet extinct of a heroic age. I 
 
 The roll of scholars stretches unbroken across 
 the middle ages. " The company that read all 
 books, they of the church and of the poets 
 
 ' lb. 338. '^ Hoi. vi. 61. V. app. ' HoL vi. 60. v. app. 
 
244 STUDENTS IN EUROPE ch. 
 
 both : such of these as shall be perfect in 
 knowledge, forsake not thou their intimacy 
 ever," ^ so an Irish bard counselled his chief, 
 and of such students known to Europe there 
 was no lack. Dim names come down to us — 
 Petrus Hybernicus scholar^ — Thomas Hybernus^ 
 born in Palmerstown near the Naas, "who pro- 
 ceeded doctor of divinity in Paris, a deep clerk 
 and one that read much as may easily be gathered 
 by his learned works." 
 1320. David Obuge was born in the town of Kildare, 
 and here he died ; " for his learned lectures and 
 subtle disputations openly published in Oxford 
 and Treves in Germany, he was taken for the 
 gem and lantern of his country. . . . Over this 
 he was so politic a counsellor, that the nobility 
 and estates in causes of weight would have 
 recourse to him as to an oracle. He was in 
 philosophy an Aristotle, in eloquence a Tully, 
 in divinity an Augustine, in the civil law a 
 Justinian, in the canon a Panormitane." * During 
 his travels he ran up against another Irishman 
 of foreign renown, one of the Geraldines, and 
 Italy and England resounded with their con- 
 troversy, David being suddenly disclosed as an 
 Angliciser. " In his time Giraldus Bononiensis 
 being master general of the Carmelites was at 
 
 1 O'Grady, Cat. 486. 2 HoI. vi. 63. ^ HoI. vi. 65. 
 
 *v. app. 
 
vii. TWO IRISH SCHOLARS 245 
 
 jar with William Lidlington, the provincial of 
 all the English Carmelites. Whereupon ten of 
 the wisest and learnedest Carmelites that were 
 then resiant in England, being fully elected to 
 resist their general, Obuge was chosen to be 
 the foreman of all the said [English] crew. 
 Giraldus Bononiensis understanding that he being 
 an Irishman was so hot in the controvers/, was 
 eagerly bent against Obuge, because he assured 
 himself to have had favour at his hands by 
 reason Obuge was born in that country where 
 the Giraldines his kinsmen were planted, and 
 thereupon he was banished Italy. This storm 
 in process of time being appeased, the outcast 
 Carmelite was made the general guardian of all 
 his fraternity in Ireland : which country by his 
 continual teaching and preaching was greatly 
 edified."^ Another scholar of that time, Radul- 
 phus Kelly, who wrote a book on canon law 
 and made excursions also into the region of 
 belles lettres with one or more volumes of familiar 
 letters, had also been brought up in Kildare, 
 where he profited so well in Latin that for his 
 eloquence and wisdom he was sent to Pope 
 Clement vi. as the speaker or prolocutor of all 
 his order, and also was appointed the general 
 advocate or deputy for the Carmelites, and later 
 archbishop of Cashel.'* i345- 
 
 ' Hoi. vi. 62-3 ; MacGeoghegan, 289. 
 ^ Hoi. vi. 61 ; Ware's Bishops, 478. 
 
246 MAURICE DE HIBERNIA ch. 
 
 High above all the Irish scholars on the 
 continent stands the great figure of Maurice 
 de Portu or O'Fihely, a native of county Cork, 
 (brother perhaps of O'Mahony's friend Donneli) 
 who passed from his Oxford studies to become 
 1488. regent of the Franciscan Schools at Milan and 
 1491. regent doctor in theology at Padua v?ith "universal 
 applause " ; known as Maurice de Hibernia there 
 and in Venice, where he helped some of the 
 great printers of the time in their learned editions, 
 ("an office which the greatest and most learned 
 men of that age thought worthy of their employ- 
 ment "). He was a writer of many books, and of 
 a very great repute, " profoundly learned in the 
 logics, philosophy, metaphysics, and divinity. It 
 is difficult to relate with what humanity, sanctity 
 of manners he was adorned " — the Flower of 
 the world, Flos Mundi^ to those who knew him.^ 
 
 There must have been many Irish professors 
 
 in Spain, many in Italy and France whose names 
 
 might still be discovered. Thomas O'Hurley, 
 
 d. 1542 "an exquisite divine" brought up in Italy,^ may 
 
 have been the canonist of great reputation who 
 
 * Hoi. vi. 62 ; Ware's Bishops, 614. For his works see 
 < Ware's Writers of Irel. p. 91. He was minister of Ireland 
 and took a prominent part in deposing the General, Aegidius 
 Delphinus, in the first capitulum generalissimum at Rome in 
 that year (1506). Julius II. made him archbishop of.Tuam; 
 he was present at the Lateran Council (1512), died the next 
 year (1513), and was buried among the Grey Friars of Galway. 
 Little's Grey Friars in Oxford, 267. 
 
 «Hol. vi. 63. 
 
VII. ' SCHOLARS IN PARIS 247 
 
 erected a college for secular priests in his own 
 church at Emly.^ After him was Dermot 
 O'Hurley who took his lawyer's degree at 
 Louvain, studied then in Paris and became 1559. 
 professor at Louvain and afterwards at Rheims.^ 
 There was a succession of scholars in Paris. 
 Theodore Anguilbert, doctor of physic of the 
 University of Paris, printed there a book ofi53o> 
 Table-talk, and professed himself an Irishman. 
 One Daly was schooled in the University of 
 Paris ; having a pretty insight in scholastical 
 divmity, he made " Diversas conciones." * Also 
 Thomas Long proceeded at Paris, doctor of 1576. 
 both civil and canon law, a proper philosopher, 
 no stranger in scholastical divinity, a pretty 
 Latinist* Oliver Hussey was professor of the a. 1575 
 arts in Douay.^ Thady Dun carried the learning 
 he had got in an Irish school to Lucerne where 1591. 
 he was physician : he dedicated a book to his 
 friend Lewis Roncus — "They were of the same 
 country," he wrote, " educated at the same school, 
 and that being both banished for religion, they 
 had suffered great and numberless troubles on 
 that account."^ 
 
 Continental learning was carried over to Ireland 
 itself. Greek was studied in early times. A collec- 
 tion of sayings translated by some Irish scholar in 
 
 * Ware's Bishops, 499. 2 Die. Nat. Bio. 
 
 3 Hoi. vi. 58. *Hol. vi. 61. 
 
 °Hol. vi. 61. * Ware's Writers, 100. 
 
248 STUDY OF GREEK ch. 
 
 Ireland from the Greek into Latin before the 
 seventh century survives in the " Proverbia 
 Grecorum " ; ^ Greek was taught in the dark 
 ages in Irish schools, and Greek manuscripts 
 remain copied by Irish hands.^ But the know- 
 ledge of Greek after the tenth century has not 
 yet been examined by scholars.* Archbishop 
 Ussher tells of a church at Trim which still 
 kept in 1632 the name of "the Greek Church," 
 or according to a visitation book " the Greek 
 School."* Roderick Cassidy was known as "the 
 Grecian." * 
 
 > K. Meyer, Triads. 
 
 ^R.I.A., 3rd series, ii. 1891-3, p. 187. See the curious entry in 
 Thesaurus, pal. hib., ed. Stokes and Strachan, ii. 285 ; and the 
 Greek fragment written in Latin letters. Rev. Celt. xxvi. 384-5. 
 
 ^ "Praeter monachos, sanctimonalium quoque congregationem, 
 si non heic, certe Euttingae, villa haud procul dissita, quondam 
 extitisse constans persuasio est, et hodie, dum supersunt nomina 
 quarundam Abbatissarum et Monialium, ad calcem Diplomatarii 
 miscelli B. legenda : quas inter eminebat Leukardis, de gente, 
 ut aiunt, Scotorum quattuor linguarum, patriae suae, graecae, 
 latinae, theotiseae gnara, quae plures sua rnanu codices in 
 membrana exaravit, hodie subtractos, quorum alicui sequentes 
 versiculi inserti legebantur." Mon. Boica (ed. Acad. Scient. 
 Boici) (Monumenta Mallerstorpensia), xv. p. 249. Munich, 
 1787. The nunnery at Euttingen, which was connected with 
 the neighbouring Benedictine monastery of Kalbersdorf near 
 Regensburg, was founded in nog. Leukardis, who is described 
 in the list of inmates given at the end of Diplomatariuin 
 miscellium B as " uxor," lived apparently in the first half of 
 the twelfth century. The fact that she is described as "uxor" 
 seems to point to a survival of the Keltic monastic tradition in 
 south Germany. lb. pp. 248, 432. 
 
 *Soc. of Ant., Ap. 1873, 388; Ware's Ant. 194. 
 
 ^Bellesheim, ii. 28. 
 
vii. KNOWLEDGE OF LATIN 249 
 
 There is no doubt as to Latin learning among 
 laymen. The Irish poets were qualified to take 
 part with the bishops in council : " the poets 
 and bishops of Ireland were gathered to Armagh, n^o. 
 and there they considered what v^as the cause 
 of the plague of outlanders upon tHem." ^ All 1466. 
 missives from Dublin merchants to the Irish 1240. 
 were in Latin.^ Felim O'Connor used it before 
 Henry iii., as MacGillapatrick's envoy did before 1522. 
 Henry viii., for Latin was the second language 
 of the educated Irishman, taught in every school, ' 
 used by traders, by students, by chiefs, and by the 
 educated women. Desmond's Irish councillors 1529. 
 understood Latin, and Shane O'Neill wrote in 1560. 
 Latin to the earl of Essex and Charles ix. of 
 France and the cardinal of Lorraine. When 
 James FitzMaurice called all Ireland to join his 1579. 
 rising, his appeal was sent out in English to the 
 gentry of the Pale, in Latin to the Irish. The 
 Spanish captain Cuellar, shipv/recked from the 
 Armada, wandered for nine months in the 
 mountains of Connacht and Ulster, and found 
 
 '"This they all understood, that it was because of buying 
 children from the English, for the English, when they were 
 in want of wealth, used to sell their children to the Irish 
 (as slaves). And God does not inflict more punishment on 
 him who sells his children than on him who buys them. They 
 therefore counselled that all the English they held in bondage 
 should be let go free. And thus was it done." Irish Abridge- 
 ment of " Expugnatio Ilibernica" ed. Stokes. Eng. Hist. Rev. 
 Jan. 1905, p. 87. 
 
 ^Cal. Rec. Dub. i. 323. MacMahon wrote Latin, 1569. 
 C.S.P., 416. 
 
250 IRISH SCHOOLS ch. 
 
 the " savages " speaking Latin — a clerk hidden 
 in a lay habit, a poor scholar in the hills who 
 sheltered him in his hut on a bed of straw, the 
 chiefs O'Rourke and MacClancy, and it would 
 seem also the women of their houses.^ 
 
 We have an account of an Irish school by 
 an Englishman, a partial observer, whose purpose 
 was the destruction of Irish culture to replace 
 1574 it by English obedience : "Without any precepts 
 or observation of congruity they speak Latin 
 like a vulgar language, learned in their common 
 schools of Leachcraft and Law, whereat they 
 begin children and hold on sixteen or twenty 
 years, conning by rote the Aphorisms of Hippo- 
 crates and the Pandects of Justinian, and a fev/ 
 other parings of these two faculties. I have seen 
 there where they kept school, ten in some one 
 chamber grovelling upon couches of straw, their 
 books at their noses, themselves lying flat 
 prostrate, and so to chant out their lessons by 
 piece-meal, being the most part lusty fellows of 
 25 year and upwards."^ Thus Campion dis- 
 
 * Letter of Capt. Cuellar, Sedgwick. 
 
 ^Campion, cap. vi., does not say where he "had seen" the 
 school. Stanihurst, Hoi. vi. 68, repeating his friend's infor- 
 mation, enlarges the description of one school to ai» universal 
 practice — " in their schools they grovell upon couches of straw," 
 etc. Commentators on Dante, Paradiso, Canto x. 136, explain 
 "vico delgi strame" from the straw on which scholars sat, only 
 using benches in churches ; and " rue de Fouarre " from the 
 " straw-strewn floors of schools." The theory, whether true or 
 not, is not used as a reproach to the scholars of Paris. 
 
vir. 
 
 IRISH TRANSLATIONS 251 
 
 missed a subject of which he had scanty know- 
 ledge, perhaps none outside Dublin. 
 
 A sure evidence however that the mediaeval 
 Irish were in touch "with the literary life of the 
 Continent lies in the Celtic translations of Latin ^ 
 and French texts ^ throughout the fourteenth and 
 fifteenth centuries, which were made in the very 
 schools so curtly condemned by Campion. In 
 mediaeval Ireland there was a demand for the 
 old tales and histories of Greece and Rome and 
 for more modern travels, for the romances of 
 the Grail and for French songs or legends, for 
 historical dissertations, and for the wonder-world 
 of apocalypse and Gnostic visions. And there^ 
 were Irish writers able to supply translations full 
 of freedom and vigour, with a scholarship beyond: 
 all cavil, whose work occasionally gives passages <^ 
 not to be found in any known version — either ''^ y 
 original or else preserving for us some old 
 material not yet discovered elsewhere. We may 
 judge of the interest in continental literature by 
 the library of the earl of Kildare, where he had 1514-35 
 thirty-four Latin books, thirty-six French, twenty- 
 two English, and over twenty Irish.^ 
 
 The books borrowed by the Irish were much the 
 same as those translated in other countries. Latin 
 as a cosmopolitan language handed on the formal 
 commonplaces of the decaying Roman Empire — 
 
 'A list is given on p. 261 ; cf. Rev. Celt. x. 178, 416, 463. 
 ^O'Gr. Cat. 154. 
 
252 EUROPEAN INFLUENCE ch. 
 
 formulae that had ceased to have the vigour of 
 national vitality behind them, but potent enough 
 to dominate the average mind by a lingering 
 prestige. If we may judge by art, the impact 
 of Europe on Ireland was both impressive and 
 dangerous. Such a work as the Domnach Airgid, 
 the " Silver Shrine " of Clones in Monaghan, illus- 
 trates the successive stages of a real Irish art of 
 the twelfth century, overlaid by the hand of an 
 Irish artist under foreign influences of about 1360, 
 and finally by the cheap and facile cosmopolitan 
 work of the fifteenth century, with all trace of 
 Irish ornament lost. In literature there was a 
 .double current of thought, and notable instances 
 I survive of the revolt of Irish scholars against 
 iforeign conventions of Latin teaching, which 
 fwere profoundly opposed to the lessons of new 
 (experience and of national life, and which have 
 ^themselves in modern times faded out of existence. 
 In matters of science we can see that Ireland 
 followed closely all that was being done on the 
 Continent. Irish scribes cited for their ecclesias- 
 tical calendars^ the leading authorities of the 
 1582. foreign schools; and the Gregorian Calendar, 
 drawn up by the greatest men of science in 
 Europe, was in use in Connacht 3nd Ulster 
 the next year. There was much interest in 
 astronomy, to judge from the amount of astro- 
 nomical writings stored in the Irish libraries, 
 
 1 O^Grady, Cat. 285-327. 
 
VII. ASTRONOMY 253 
 
 still unedited.^ One remarkable treatise was 
 written at a time when the study of astronomy c. 1400. 
 had scarcely begun in Europe — a discussion of 
 how to ascertain the size of the earth by 
 eclipses.2 jj. jg worthy of notice that Leonardo 
 da Vinci not only uses the same optical argu- 
 ment about the eclipse of the fixed stars, but 
 illustrates it with a similar diagram, showing 
 the direction and effect of the shadow cast by 
 the earth. Leonardo refers to Poseidonius, and 
 if we suppose — what cannot be proved — that he 
 had access to this or some other ancient authority, 
 the Irish astronomer may have learned from the 
 same source. In any case the diagram and 
 demonstration throw light on the advanced state 
 of knowledge in Ireland, for this early astronomer 
 must have been a man either of original power 
 or of great erudition ; and the problem which 
 he presented was not finally solved till the 
 eighteenth century. 
 
 In the study of medicine Irish doctors were 
 in no way behind their continental brethren, 
 so that, as scholars have pointed out, no better 
 physicians were to be found in the court of - 
 Henry viii. or Elizabeth than in the houses 
 of the Irish chiefs.^ They had a full and not 
 
 'See O'Grady, Cat. MSS. 323. | 
 
 ^See Green, Illust. Hist. Eng. ii. 908, Ixxxi. 
 
 'O'Grady, Cat. 172; Moore's Med. in Irel. Baith. Hosp. 
 Rep. xi. William Kelly was long surgeon to the privy council 
 in Dublin. C.S.P. 1582, 368. 
 
254 IRISH DOCTORS ch. 
 
 unscientific array of remedies : an Irish writer 
 on the healing properties of plants gives a list 
 of over two hundred and eighty substances, 
 mineral, animal and vegetable, to be used for 
 medical purposes/ and in his work he not only 
 culled and condensed from a long array of 
 learned sources but probably added matter of 
 his own. Besides the " beautiful herb-garden " 
 near Dungannon there were probably others that 
 gave their name to places now corrupted into 
 LufFertane, Lorton, and Lower-town.^ 
 
 The names of many leading physicians survive. 
 Among the storm-swept moorlands of Donegal, 
 where relics of primeval forests gleam white 
 from the bogs, and the dark-hued mountains give 
 shelter to falcons and golden eagles, lived the 
 MacDunlevys, the famous hereditary physicians 
 of the O'Donnells, men "of consideration and 
 great power," who like the O'Clerys descended 
 from chiefs once equal to O'Donnell himself,* 
 and now revived in the world of learning the 
 
 • Rev. Celt. ix. 224 ; O'Grady, Cat. 223. The defects in the 
 Museum treatise in materia medica are supplied by Lord 
 Crawford's medical MS. now in the Rylands Library, Man- 
 chester. For the discovery of this MS. by Dr. Stokes (1896) 
 and the additions made from it to the lists of substances used 
 in medical practice which he had previously drawn up (1888), 
 see .Academy, May 16, 1896, pp. 406-7. 
 
 2 "The town of MacDonnell, i.e. Cnoc-an-Chluiche [Knockin- 
 clohy], was burned by O'Donnell, and a beautiful herb garden 
 there was cut down and destroyed by his forces"; 4 M. 
 pp. 1365-7. See Misc. Ir. Arch. Soc, 1846, i. 131. 
 
 34 M. p. 742 n. 
 
VII. 
 
 MEDICAL TREATISES 255 
 
 dignity and hospitality of ancient rulers. There 1395. 
 was Muiris, " physician of the schools : he himself 
 shall not exist but his fame shall be!";^ Cormac, 1450. 
 who wrote a vellum MS. on medicine now in 
 the British Museum; Donnchadh, "a doctor of 1526. 
 medicine and learned in other sciences, a man 
 of great affluence and wealth, and who kept a 
 house of hospitality"; Edghan — all of them 15S6. 
 men noted for more than professional learning — 
 a race of scholars who were to be driven out 
 with the rest of their people in the extirpation 
 under James i.^ At the other end of Ireland 
 the fame of the O'Callanans of Carbery lived 
 in the proverb — " O'Callanan himself cannot cure 
 him."' One of the race wrote a medical treatise 
 with the doctor of the O'Briens O'Hickey;* and 1403- 
 another with his master O'Huallahan translated 1414. 
 a Latin manuscript into Irish.* 
 
 The Irish-writing doctors of the middle ages ^ 
 used the medical books approved in the great 
 schools of Europe. Like their fellow-students on 
 the Continent they were scholastics, living at a 
 time when Arabian influence was supreme in 
 Europe,® and they accepted the best learning of 
 their own day. A fragment of an Irish treatise 
 
 'O'Grady, Cat. 331 ; 4 M. p. 13S9. 
 ^Moore's Med. in Irel. Barlh. Hosp. Rep. xi. 
 ^Smith's Cork. i. 32. *0'Grady, Cat. 222. 
 
 '4 M. p. 817 n. ; OGrady, Cat. 358; v. app. 
 ^O'Gr. Cat. 171-285. 
 
256 IRISH TRANSLATORS ch. 
 
 on surgery has lately been discovered in the Bod- 
 leian/ on one page of which Dr. Stokes has 
 found the names of Avicenna, Guido de Cauliaco, 
 and Lanfranc of Milan, quoted as authorities. 
 When it became the fashion to produce editions 
 and translations of the " Lily of the Art of Medi- 
 cine'''' by the excellent Master Bernard de 
 Gordon of Montpelier, an Irish scholar was 
 1482. early in the field,^ working from a Latin manu- 
 script. From the bold square hand the trans- 
 lation seems to have been written by Domhnall 
 albanach O'Troighthigh in Clare, and it was 
 certainly the work of a genuine scholar : *' the 
 mediaeval Irish," Mr. S. H. O'Grady says of it, 
 " were when they gave their minds to it admir- 
 able translators, and could solve the problem 
 of how to render closely from a strange tongue 
 without distorting the idiom of their own." The 
 great earl of Kildare bought the book for his 
 library, and an inscription was added to ask for 
 " a prayer for Gerald the Earl, Lord Justice of 
 Ireland, who bought this book for twenty cows. 
 Two-and-twenty skins in this book." From his 
 library it returned again to Clare there to 
 remain.* 
 
 ' Arch. Seld. supra, 32. 
 
 ^O'Gr. Cat. 202. The first Naples edition was in 1480, the 
 first French translation in 1495, and the first Spanish in 1494- 
 
 ^It is said by John Windele to have been bought by the 
 earl of Desmond from the Lord Justice, but no reference is 
 given. (Kilk. Arch. J. 1857, July, 372.) He also states that 
 
VII. IRISH JURISTS 257 
 
 Leading lawyers of mediaeval Ireland, no less 
 than the doctors, were educated in the learning 
 of the Continent and of England, besides the 
 study of their national codes. The annals tell 
 of honoured jurists: the great line of the 
 MacEgans — among them Maelisa the mostd. 1318. 
 learned man in Ireland in law and judicature, 
 "a sage without contention or reproach who 
 kept a house of general hospitality for all 
 comers"; Aedh oUave of Lower Connacht "thed. 1443. 
 most eloquent man of the Irish of his time"; 
 and Gilla-na-naev oUave of Munster " a great d. 1443. 
 author of Irish laws " ; the unbroken line too 
 of the MacClancys of Thomond, ollaves to the 
 Dal-Cais ; and many others. We must not 
 suppose that these jurists knew nothing but 
 the Brehon code. Take for example MacMailin d. 1322. 
 chief professor of the law of New Witness, of 
 both ancient and canon law; O'Gibellan ofd. 1328. 
 Sligo, a " professor of the old and new laws, 
 civil and canon, a cunning and skilful philo- 
 sopher, an excellent poet, learned in many other 
 good sciences"; O'Naan "professor of many d. 1336. 
 sciences and of the Civil and Canon law"; down 
 to Teige O'Beirne, "a learned student very cele- d. 1580. 
 brated for his knowledge of the civil and canon 
 
 sixty milch cows were paid for its transcription in Scotland. 
 One of the very finest vellum medical MSS. of the 15th century 
 •n the King's Inns Library is not generally known. It was 
 transcribed by William mac an Legha, i.e. son of the physician. 
 The cream-yellow pages might have been written yesterday. 
 
 R 
 
258 STUDY OF FOREIGN LAW ch. 
 
 law." There must have been teaching of con- 
 V ., tinental law in Ireland itself, if we judge by 
 the position that Irish students took in foreign 
 universities; such as Dermot O'Hurley,^ brought 
 up in Ireland, who after two years' study in 
 Louvain took his degree with great applause in 
 c. 1550. civil and canon law, and was made professor 
 both there and at Rheims.'* 
 
 , Our knowledge of the Irish legal system 
 i remains at present in many ways incomplete. 
 English invaders, bent on the destruction of 
 Irish law, overwhelmed it with loud contempt, 
 nor can we learn anything from a general con- 
 demnation by enemies who in fact themselves 
 knew nothing of either the principles or the 
 practice of the Brehon code. Modern study of 
 Irish jurisprudence is hindered, since the text of 
 the five volumes of Brehon laws printed is un- 
 trustworthy, and much of the translation mere 
 unlucky guess-work.^ There has been similar 
 guess-work, also unlucky, as to the administration 
 of the laws. No attempt has yet been made to 
 ' study the only period after the English invasion 
 when, under the rule of the Fitzgeralds, the law 
 of the people was fairly administered by the 
 
 'Die. Nat. Bio. ^v. app. 
 
 'Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung fiir Rechtsgeschichte, xv 
 Rom. Abtheilung. Prof. Zimmer says "the edition is, as 
 regards the text, more than imperfect, and the English render- 
 ing in all cases of difficulty is absolutely worthless." This 
 translation is from Henderson's Leabhar nan Gleann, p. 41. 
 
VII. IRISH CULTURE 259 
 
 governors for the peace of Ireland, and the 
 results of that reasonable experiment. 
 
 It will need in fact long labour of scholars 
 before the range of Irish learning in the middle 
 ages can be known. The varied evidences of 
 civilization that we already possess show however 
 that the country was not savage, ignorant, and- 
 outside the circle of European civilization. Ireland 
 would seem to have had a culture like that of other 
 western countries of that time. She had learned 
 men, not only clerics but a large class of laymen, 
 who studied letters, theology, astronomy, medi- 
 cine, and law ; her people, in touch through 
 their trade, their travellers, their scholars, their 
 general knowledge of Latin, with continental 
 art and science, were willingly open to foreign 
 influences and read the books of western Europe. 
 Education was widely distributed in schools very 
 varied in character — monastic, bardic, and muni- 
 cipal — but all of them full of vitality and 
 movement. That they were fitted to train men 
 in erudition and science is plain from the success 
 of the Irish in universities over-sea. That Irish- 
 men were eager for knowledge we may see from 
 the multitude of her pilgrims of learning. The 
 country might honourably boast of the number 
 of her scholars and of their fame. 
 
 The irreparable calamity of the nation was 
 that all this learning was allowed no natural 
 growth or harvest in Ireland. No group of 
 
26o NO IRISH UNIVERSITY ch. vh. 
 
 Irish scholars might gather in a university in 
 1315. their own land. There had been three attempts 
 ^3g°*to found a university in Ireland, all blighted 
 t from their birth.^ The mysterious extinction of 
 these shadowy schools seems to have been part 
 of the official policy — the same policy that was 
 shown under Elizabeth in the vehement opposi- 
 tion to proposals for a new college in Dublin. 
 No better means of disintegration in fact could 
 have been devised than a system which sent 
 every scholar abroad to take his degree, and 
 when he had taken it, refused him any official 
 post at home, or any possibility of gathering 
 pupils in a school of University studies in Ire- 
 land. For thus no corporate group of graduate 
 scholars could be formed, no continuous tradition 
 of men united in learning. The long years of 
 foreign study which we find in notices of scholars,* 
 what are these but a sign of their practical 
 banishment from intellectual work in their own 
 land ? It was the doom of Ireland to send 
 unwillingly her successive generations to swell 
 the list of continental scholars, and ever to 
 drain herself bare of the genius she had 
 created. 
 
 1 Ware's Bishops, 330 ; Ware's Ant. 242 ; Hoi. vi. 58, 64. 
 
 ^v. p. 289. Philip Marchin, "a poor Irishman lately taken 
 by the French, . . . having studied five years in this university, 
 and two and a half in France, and seven at home in civil 
 and canon law." 1512. Oxf. Reg. 85. 
 
SOME IRISH TRANSLATIONS. 
 
 A friend has very kindly given me the following 
 list of Irish translations from Latin, French or Spanish. 
 No complete list can be made till the Irish manuscripts 
 in Dublin and elsewhere have been fully catalogued. 
 
 The Travels of Maundeville, from the English. Ed. 
 Stokes, Z.C.P. ii. i. t. 
 
 Guy of Warwick, from the English. Ed, Robinson, 
 Z.C.P. vi. 9. 
 
 Bevis of Hampton, from the English. lb. 273. 
 
 The Gaelic version of Marco Polo, abridged with great 
 freedom from the Latin of Francesco Pipino. Ed. 
 Stokes, Z.C.P. i. 245. 
 
 The version of the Aeneid by an Irishman whose trans- 
 lation shows his scholarship in Latin and Gaelic to 
 be "beyond all cavil." Calder, The Irish ^Eneid, 
 London 1907, p. xv. 
 
 A version of the story of Ulysses (Uilix mac Lertis), 
 ed. K. Meyer, "The Irish Odyssey." London, 
 1885. 
 
 The Destruction of Troy, founded on Dares Phrygius. 
 Ed. Stokes, two recensions, one from H. 2. 17, 
 Ir. Texts, ii. pt. i, Leipzig 1884, and the other 
 from the Book of Leinster, 397-408. Calcutta, 
 1881. 
 
 A free version of Lucan's Bellum Civile. Books i.-vii. 
 In Cath Catharda now in press. Ed. Stokes. 
 
262 SOME IRISH TRANSLATIONS ch. 
 
 The history of Philip and Alexander. From Leabar 
 Brec, ed. Meyer, Ir. Texte, ii. p. 2. 
 
 The Story of Hercules and the Grief of Deianira, 
 from H. 2. 7, p. 258, not yet edited ; v. Rev. Celt. 
 X. 179. 
 
 The Quest of the Grail. Stowe MS. 992 (R.I.A., 
 D. 4. 2), not yet edited; v. Rev. Celt. x. 184. 
 Two fragments, iv. 381, and v. Trip. Life, p. xxxviii. 
 Another fragment. Rev. Celt, xxvii. 81. 
 
 A translation of parts of Bede's Ecclesiastical History. 
 Laud, 610, fF. 87b-92a, not yet edited. See K. 
 Meyer, Z.C.P. ii. 321. 
 
 Abridgment of Giraldus Cambrensis' Expugnatio Hiber- 
 nica. Ed. Stokes, Eng. Hist. Rev., Jan. 1905. 
 
 The Irish Nennius, ed. Todd (Historia Britonum), 
 Dublin, and v. Zimmer, "Nennius Vindicatus." 
 
 The Theban War, founded on Statius' Thebais. Eg. 
 1701, fF. 87-120, and a fragment in H. 2. 7, 
 pp. 457-460. 
 
 A translation of Heliodorus' novel " Aegyptiaca," in 
 manuscript in the Bodleian Library. 
 
 Barlaam and Josaphat, from the Latin of Johannes 
 Damascenus, Eg. 136, fo. 57a. 
 
 Fierabras, founded on an Old French chanson de geste. 
 Ed. Stokes, Rev. Celt. xix. pp. 14, 118, 252, 364. 
 
 Vision of Merlin, ed. by R. A. Stewart Macalister. 
 Z.C.P. iv. 304. See ibid. v. 186. 
 
 The Dialogue of the Body and the Soul, ed. Doltin, 
 Rev. Celt, xxiii. 8-38. 
 
 Life of St. Fursa, Rev. Celt. xxv. 388-400. A version 
 of chap. 19 of Bede's Eccl. History. 
 
vii. SOME IRISH TRANSLATIONS 263 
 
 Life of St. Martin of Tours, from the Latin of 
 Sulpicius Severus, Rev. Celt, ii. 384-402., 
 
 Dfgal Fola Crfst (Revenge for Christ's Blood), from 
 the mediaeval French Vengeance du Sauveur. See 
 for MSS. Lismore Lives, vi. 
 
 Turpin, or the Conquests of Charlemagne, Bk. of 
 Lismore, fF. 54-66. Lismore Lives, xviii. 
 
 Historia Lombardica, Bk. of Lismore, ff. 70-78. 
 
 Laud Misc. 610 f. 25a contains a tract wrhich tells of 
 the circuit made by St. Paphnutius in the desert 
 and the miracles wrought by him there, also of his 
 presence at the self-deposition of pope Marcellinus. 
 There is an imperfect copy in the Leabar Brecc, 
 printed as Nos. iii. and iv. in Atkinson's Passions 
 and Homilies. But there are 5^ columns in Laud 
 which are not in the L. Br. The Laud copy 
 begins " Bdi comthinol manach crdibdech ocht 
 bliadna hi tir Egept " — i.e. " There was a company 
 of ascetic monks for eight years in Egypt." 
 
 There is also a fragment in the Leabar Brecc, printed in 
 Atkinson's Passions and Homilies, pp. 55-59. 
 
 A third fragment is in the Bodleian. It is in MS. 
 Ashm. 1763, pp. i67a-i68a. The corresponding 
 part of the copy in Laud 610 begins in fo. 25^."' 
 The Irish title is Stair manach n-Egipte, "Story 
 of the monks of Egypt." It is either translated 
 from, or founded on, a Latin original. 
 
 The originals have not been discovered of the " Ever- 
 new Tongue," ed. Stokes, Eriu. iii. i. 
 
 Or of the " Fifteen Tokens of Doomsday," ed. Stokes, 
 Rev. Celt, xxviii. 308. 
 
 The Spanish Homer, in Irish, was printed in 16 16. 
 See Dix and Cassedy's list of Irish printing. The 
 
264 SOME IRISH TRANSLATIONS ch.vh. 
 
 Spanish Homer is Palafox y Mendoza (Juan de), 
 Bishop of (i) Puebla de los Angeles, and (2) of 
 Osma. Flor. 17th cent. The work translated 
 into Irish was no doubt his "El Pastor de Noche 
 Buena." Eng. trans, publ. 1735, and Dublin 
 (1740?), "The New Odyssey, by the Spanish 
 Homer : being the travels of the Christian Hero 
 Ulysses Desiderius Pius, throughout the Universe. . . 
 Now first trans, into English [by A. P.] Lond. 
 1735." If the date 1616 given by Mr. Dix is 
 correct, the Irish ed. must have appeared about 
 the same time as the original. His only authority 
 is a sale catalogue. 
 
VIII. 
 
 I 
 
 THE IRISH AT OXFORD. 
 
 As "the Emperor's law" was required in a 
 trading country, and the canon law in one 
 attached to the Roman See, so the law of 
 England was necessary to be known after the 
 invasion of settlers from England.^ When the 
 two peoples lived side by side, married and 
 tilled the soil together, there came changes in 
 the laws and customs of both. There were new 
 leases and mortgages, new modes of inheritance 
 and the holding of land. Theories were put 
 forward, unknown to Irish jurisprudence, of the 
 English king's rights, of the grants he made as 
 a "conqueror," and of his "inheritance" again 
 by English feudal custom of those same grants 
 —a vicious circle of confiscation. There were 
 questions of taxation, of the constitutional place 
 of parliament, of the final authority by which 
 new laws were to be made for Ireland. To the 
 Irish these were problems of life and death. 
 The great landowners needed lawyers trained in 
 both codes; the chiefs to whom treaties were 
 offered couched in unknown terms, or English 
 
 ^v. app. 
 
266 IRISH STUDENTS IN ENGLAND ch. 
 
 titles that carried obscure obligations, or who were 
 summoned to pass laws devised by Englishmen, 
 under the ill-defined constitution and dubious 
 practice of a Pale parliament, needed no less the 
 help of trained advisers. 
 
 So it came about that Oxford, Cambridge, the 
 London Inns of Court, were thronged with 
 Irish students, graduates, sergeants, apprentices 
 of the law.^ Oxford had no sooner risen to 
 1 167. the dignity of a Studium Generale or University, 
 ^^' with a Chancellor,*^ than students flocked to it 
 from all the four Provinces' of Ireland in such 
 numbers as to form one of the most important 
 
 a. 1252. "southern nations" of the university. There 
 was already an Yrysshemanstrete, an Ireland 
 Meadow on the west of South Bridge, an 
 Irishman's Mede belonging to Brasenose, an 
 Irishman's Pool and Piscaria in Holywell.* Irish 
 
 a. 1255. scholars gathered in "the ancient Patrikehall " — 
 " Aula Hibernorum " ; * there were halls set 
 apart for law students — Aula Aqullae or Hyron 
 hall, Vine hall, Aristotle hall, Coventry hall, and 
 others were either Irish, or enrolled Irish 
 students — de la Schield hall, la Chymney hall, 
 Dunstan, and some of the old neighbouring 
 
 ' St. H. IV. ; Gilb. Viceroys, 308 ; v. app. 
 *Rashdall, Universities ii. 338-61. 
 
 ^ lb. 362 ; Macleane, Pembroke Coll. 45. 
 
 * Cart, of S. Frideswides, i. 369, 370, 372 ; Wood's Oxford, 
 i. 363, 365 n., 458. 
 
 *Cart. of S. Frideswides, i. 446, 485 ; Reg. Exet. Coll. 364. 
 
viii. IRISH STUDENTS AT OXFORD 267 
 
 halls,^ while the ancient Bovina or Beef hall was 
 inhabited by Irish clerks.^ ! 
 
 Some of these Irish scholars rose to posts 
 of importance, as Master Mody of Hibernia 1313. 
 Principal of Ape hall, and Master Laurence of 13 14. 
 Hibernia Principal of St. Andrew's hall, and 
 Richard Fitz-Ralph born in Dundalk, who was ^ 
 Chancellor of the university.' Besides the 1333. 
 students of the halls there were others un- 
 attached, poor scholars who begged their way 
 to Oxford after the fashion of all mediaeval 
 universities. Like their English and Scotch 
 brethren, these " Irish and Welsh vagabonds " 
 crowded into wretched lodgings, where they 
 lived by begging and by licenses to sing Salve r 
 Regina at rich men's doors, and "in the habit 
 of poor scholars" disturbed the peace of the 
 University by the lively disorders of youth and 
 of poverty.* 
 
 This frequent resort of the Irish to Oxford ■' ^^ 
 lasted for some 200 years, when it was sud- 
 denly brought to an end. The Pale parliament 
 under Henry iv. passed a law that " no Irishman 1410. 
 adhering to the enemies shall be suffered hence- 
 forth to pass over the sea, by colour of going to 
 the schools of Oxford, Cambridge, or elsewhere" : 
 
 * Wood's Oxford, i. 162, 171, 181, 190, 587, 639-40; Macleane, 
 Pembroke Coll. 48. 
 
 ^Wood's Oxford, i. 211, 590. 
 
 ^Wood's Oxford, i. 509, 510; cf. 189; Ware's Bishops, 81-2. 
 
 * Macleane, Pembroke Coll. 32. 
 
268 "VOIDING" OF THE IRISH ch. 
 
 anyone might arrest him and bring him to the 
 king's jail, and he that taketh him shall have 
 half his goods.^ Scholars of the Pale how- 
 • ever were allowed to go to the universities with 
 leave under the great seal. Henry v. had no 
 sooner come to the throne than a series of 
 statutes went forth for the ruin of Ireland men 
 
 1413- at Oxford. All absentees in England were 
 ordered home for the defence of their lands 
 against the Irish enemy there. Irishmen were 
 to be " voided out of the realm " of England, 
 excepting graduates of schools and professed 
 religious persons.^ " Clerks beggars," all those 
 " called by the wicked name of ' chamber 
 deacons,' " all unattached students of the Irish, 
 were to be driven out of Oxford. Graduates, 
 sergeants, and apprentices in the law were still 
 tolerated. But new statutes deprived Irishmen 
 of the right to practise their learning. If a 
 scholar from Ireland expected to use an Oxford 
 ' training as a means for a professional living, 
 that hope was to be withered at the roots. 
 
 The young men's studies in divinity and law 
 were intended no doubt to fit them for posts 
 at home, as clerks, secretaries, agents, legal 
 
 1416. advisers, and interpreters. But Henry v. now 
 enacted^ that no Irish prelate, who in spite of 
 
 *ii Henry IV. c. 24; Haverty, 315; v. app. 
 
 2 I H. V. cap. 8 ; t/. 4 Rot. Pari. pp. 13, 102, 190, 254, 255. 
 
 *Engl. St. 4 H. V. cap. 6 ; v. app. 
 
VIII. LAW STUDIES CHECKED 269 
 
 the laws had been given a bishopric in Irish 
 territory, say in Thomond or Mayo, should 
 henceforth bring any Irish servants to parliament 
 or councils or other assemblies, " whereby the secrets 
 of Englishmen have been and be daily discovered to ^ 
 the Irish people, rebels to the king," to the peril 
 of liege people. At the same time, and probably 
 under the same influence, the London Inns of 
 Court also used their powers to restrain or limit 
 the number of students from Ireland, and in 
 the Middle Temple not one was allowed.^ This 
 combined banning of the Irish from English' 
 education alarmed the gentry of the Pale : they 
 prayed the English privy council that when 141 7. 
 Irishmen were sent back there should be excepted 
 beneficed clergy, law students, and scholars study- 
 ing at the universities ; the Dublin parliament 1429. 
 declared that after the death of the existing 
 lawyers there would be none in Ireland who ^ 
 knew the English law, and petitioned that law 
 students be not forbidden to go to the Inns 
 of Court.'' Their complaint seems to have 
 been vain, for a hundred years later it was said 
 that for want of high schools there was no 
 Irishman who possessed the highest degree in' 
 jurisprudence. ! 
 
 In intricate law dealings with the deputy or 
 lord chancellor in Dublin the Irish chief was 
 thus to be left to the uncovenanted mercies 
 
 ' St. Pap. III. iii. 417. 2 Fac. Nat. MSS. III. xxxix. App. vi. 
 
270 DIVINITY STUDIES CHECKED ch. 
 
 of an adviser " of English birth," " whose 
 father and mother were English." A hundred 
 and fifty years later archbishop Curwen opposed 
 the making of a university in Dublin on the 
 ground that there Irishmen might learn the 
 secrets of the English. 
 
 The theological students were in no better 
 case. If the Irish lawyer was forbidden the 
 exercise of his craft, no scholar from the divinity 
 hall was to obtain a benefice. The statute was 
 
 1416. renewed that no one of the Irish nation might 
 be elected in Ireland bishop, abbot, or prior, or 
 hold any benefice.^ By this atrocious law if a 
 benefice was given to an Irishman it was counted 
 void and in the gift of the king. The Pale 
 
 1429- parliament later petitioned that the deputy on 
 the spot should be allowed to appoint to all 
 benefices,^ so as to prevent that " when they be 
 long void Irishmen occupieth them." The legal 
 shutting out of Irish clergy served to keep 
 the higher and richer posts for the English : 
 where however benefices were poor, remote, or 
 uncomfortable by reason of foreign speech and 
 customs, no Englishman sued for them, and the 
 deputy might on occasion relax his rule ; so 
 that in spite of law Irishmen still occupied places 
 in their own Church. 
 
 Irish students persisted in Oxford, and perhaps 
 
 lEng. St. 4 H. V. c. vi. 
 *Fac. Nat. MSS. iii. p. xxxix. 
 
viri. NEW RESTRICTIONS 271 
 
 Henry, starting on his last march over the fields 
 of France, planned the new statute which was 1422. 
 passed after his death. Every Irish scholar, 
 whatever his ability in learning, was henceforth . 
 to remain under perpetual reproach and disability.^ 1422. 
 The statute ordained that all people born in 
 Ireland except those whose fat/ier and mother were 
 English were to depart out of England, save 
 graduates and some others. These graduates 
 however had to carry letters testimonials from 
 the lords justices in Dublin testifying that they 
 be of the king's obeisance, (which practically 
 meant dwellers in the Pale and of English 
 blood,) or else were to suffer punishment as 
 "rebels." Even with all testimonials in due 
 form they might never henceforth rise to the 
 headship of any hall or hostel, but were to 
 remain among English scholars under the Prin- 
 cipality of others. A further statute provided 1423. 
 that students from Ireland should bring sureties.^ 
 Again a later act confirmed the law against the 
 Irish students, and the crown and the lords 1429. 
 spiritual and temporal refused to make it apply 
 also to disorderly Scotch and Welsh students,' 
 or to exclude from one university students who 
 had been expelled from the other.* 
 
 ' I Henry VI. c. iii. 2 H. vi. c. 8 ; v. app. 
 
 ' Yet many Welsh students had fled from the universities in 
 1400-1, and borne arms against the king. 
 
 * The object was evidently not to promote discipline. 3 Rot. 
 Pari. p. 457 ; 8 Henry vi. ; 4 Rot. Pari. pp. 349, 358. 
 
2 72 THE IRISH DESERT OXFORD ch. 
 
 The efforts of Henry v. were crowned with 
 success. Oxford ceased to be gymnasium Hyber- 
 norum ; the halls for Irish scholars sank into 
 decay, and Irishman Street fell to ruin when 
 the university was deserted by Irishmen.^ A 
 few scholars survived through the next century 
 and there were some one or two masters of 
 halls in spite of the law.^ Bovina hall continued 
 during the fifteenth century to receive divinity 
 students and some Irish bishops were bred there.' 
 But the numbers must have been small if the 
 report to Henry viii. was true, that a few 
 Irishmen possessed the highest degree in theology, 
 but not more than eight persons at that time 
 had a degree and livings were given away to 
 the uneducated — a misfortune which cannot justly 
 be attributed to the fault of the Irish. 
 
 Two and a half centuries had passed away 
 after the death of Henry v., when a singular 
 ceremony recalled the time that Oxford had 
 been the hospitable home of learning for Irish- 
 
 ' ' Macleane, Pembroke Coll. 45. 
 
 * William Walsh principal of Hare hall, 1461. Wood's 
 Oxford, i. 595. Richard Mayow, born at Bray, of Exeter 
 College, was principal of Hart hall 1468-76, and Canon of 
 Exeter; d. 1499. Reg. Exeter Coll. 45. Thomas Irish of 
 Exeter Coll. 1509, was principal of Hart hall 1514-22. Reg. 
 Exeter Coll. 52. 
 
 ' Wood's Oxford, i. 211, 587, 590. "William Dewre Hibernicus 
 was principal of the Hall for a few months (1514), but with 
 the reformation the dwindling life of Bovina hall and ilrish 
 clerks in Oxford came to an end." Macleane, Pembroke 
 Coll. 45- 
 
VIII. GIFT OF IRISH BOOKS 273 
 
 men. Cosmo de Medici, prince of Tuscany, 1668. 
 made a visit in great state to Oxford, and with 
 his train of marquises and cavaliers complimented 
 every school and leading man of the university 
 and the library and all its, rarities, and was highly 
 complimented in turn. Among the gifts offered 
 to him Dr. Thomas Barlow, archdeacon and 
 provost of Queen's, " presented to him by the 
 hands of the lord Gorestis [Albertus de Galevia 
 Gorecki, who was usually called the lord Goreskie] 
 several books, one or two in the Irish tongue, 
 which was a missal or breviary or penitentiary," ^ 
 said the English reporter vaguely. In those days 
 Irish scholars were famous in the great Conti- 
 nental schools, though except on occasion of a 
 foreign visit they had fallen into oblivion in 
 their old " gymnasium Hibernorum." 
 
 The " voiding " of the Irish from Oxford 
 happened at a time of increasing Irish commerce 
 and intercourse with foreign peoples, and the 
 records of European universities will probably 
 show that from that time a greater number of 
 scholars went abroad. It is in fact in the cen- 
 tury after their expulsion that the chief part of 
 the Irish translations from Latin books were , 
 made, almost to the entire exclusion of English 
 writings. 
 
 Riots and murders " to the great fear of all 
 manner of people " were the excuse for the Acts 
 
 * Wood's Life and Times, ii. 156-62. 
 s 
 
274 OXFORD DISORDERS ch. 
 
 against Irish students. So far as the Oxford 
 records go charges of exceptional wickedness of 
 the Irish do not seem borne out. In a turbulent 
 mediaeval Oxford every yard of ground was 
 stained with blood. Sometimes the frequent 
 inquest is on the body of an Irishman, some- 
 times of an Englishman — the slayer may be of 
 either people. As for the disorders of unattached 
 students in lodgings, there were more of these 
 " poor scholars " English than Irish, and when 
 the Irish " vagabonds " had been " voided " the 
 authorities were as busy as before in trying to 
 check the riots of the unattached scholars that 
 remained. Two general wars, as we know, 
 engaged the University. There was the feud 
 between the northern and southern " nations " — 
 the Scots and Englishmen north of the Tweed, 
 against the English of south England, the 
 Welsh, and the Irish ^ — the southern nations not 
 
 1334. always perhaps in the wrong, for Merton refused 
 
 1349-99. to admit northern scholars, and had many a riot 
 
 in consequence with arms bought for defence.^ 
 
 1350- The relentless war of 100 years for the subjugation 
 
 M5°- of the Town to the University would have been 
 fought out with all its savageries if there had 
 never been an Irishman in it : a number of 
 
 1354. Irish clerks were slain in the fray of St. Scholastica, 
 but it was no Irish quarrel, nor was it Irishmen 
 
 1 Rashdall's Universities, ii. 368. 
 "Brodrick, Merton Coll. 17, 18. 
 
viii. EDICTS AGAINST THE IRISH 275 
 
 who scalped the chaplains so far as the tonsure 
 went to show their scorn of the clergy.^ 
 
 The records in fact show no cause why, for 
 the safety of Oxford, Irish students after 200 
 years of their coming should be of a sudden ■ 
 dismissed. The reason must probably be sought 
 elsewhere. For the edicts against the Irish were 
 not framed in Oxford but in Westminster, and 
 the sweeping accusations of their violence come ' 
 from preambles of Acts with their usual vague 
 generalities and self-justifying phrases. It would 
 seem indeed that the attack on Irish education 
 was a move in the high imperial policy of English 
 kings. The Irishman was welcomed in every 
 Continental university, whose learning he adorned 
 by his scholarship, and whose highest offices were 
 within the reach of his ability. Oxford itself 
 extended the same welcome. The order apparently 
 came from the government that he should be 
 marked out for suspicion as a rebel, forbidden to 
 rise by any scholarship to a post of dignity, but 
 ever to remain under the rule of some English- 
 man, and to carry with him the credentials that 
 allowed him even that privilege. 
 
 These checks to Irish scholars happened at a 1413. 
 time when " empire " and " conquest " were very 
 present to the mind of Englishmen, and when 
 opinion was much inflamed against Ireland. Irish 
 scholars and travellers as we have seen were 
 
 'Rashdall's Univ. ii. 405, 412. 
 
 '.^ 
 
276 IRISH POLITICAL REVIVAL ch. 
 
 frequent in European lands. They seem to have 
 talked in courts and universities of Ireland a 
 nation, and of a civilisation and wealth that in no 
 way depended on English lordship or instruction. 
 So that when Richard 11. desired to be made head 
 of the Holy Roman Empire he was met on the 
 Continent by the stinging reproach that he who 
 sought to be Emperor could not even subdue 
 
 1394. Ireland. To save his reputation he ostentatiously 
 marched "20,000 men in wages, to his exceeding 
 charges,"^ from Waterford through the territory 
 of his dependent the earl of Ormond to Kilkenny 
 and Drogheda ; and to proclaim to the world his 
 " conquest " the hamlets went up in flames before 
 him as a way was cut through the woods, and 
 with a space cleared for his fantastic chivalry 
 set against the horror of the time, amid flaming 
 houses and villages he knighted the child Henry 
 of Lancaster,^ afterwards Henry v. 
 
 These were the pictures of Ireland that occu- 
 pied the minds of Englishmen while Irish 
 graduates were pressing into Oxford. When 
 
 1413. Henry v. came in turn to the throne, claiming 
 
 the crown of France and defying the French to 
 
 a renewed war, he must have been singularly 
 
 :' exasperated, with his fiery knighthood, at news 
 
 . of troubles in Ireland. The Irish under Art 
 
 ^St. Pap. HI. iii. 417 ; according to another account 30,000 
 archers and 4,000 men at arms ; v. app. 
 'Gilb. Viceroys 281. 
 
VIII. 
 
 FEAR OF IRELAND 277 
 
 MacMurrough and O'Conor of Offaly, were 
 coming into their own : so much so indeed that 
 the Speaker of the House of Commons asserted 
 that "the greater part of the lordship of Ireland 1413 
 had been conquered by the natives."^ Com- 
 manders and soldiers had to be detached from 
 the French service to Ireland, and Henry, like 
 Richard, found himself diverted from a single- ^-^ 
 minded pursuit of a foreign crown and the glory 
 of empire. Ireland stood in the way. 
 
 At the same time the intellectual and trading 
 activity of the country had stirred a haunting 
 fear — whether Ireland civil should become more 
 dangerous to England than Ireland savage — the 
 persistent fear expressed for centuries after by 
 archbishops, philosophers, statesmen, governors, 
 traders, and the mob. It had never been any 
 part of English policy to allow Irishmen to 
 advance by education in their own land. It was a 
 fixed axiom that every post in Ireland should be ' 
 held by an Englishman born in England. A time 
 of stress recalled Henry v. to these time-honoured 
 traditions. Precautions were at once taken to 
 protect the ruling race, to check Irish competitors 
 in the higher learning, and to ensure that the 
 English alone should have the intellectual com- 
 mand and hold the entire administration, ^y 
 this strangely perverted policy English law was .' 
 to be' enforced by governors over the Pale, and 
 
 ^Haverty, 316; v. app. 
 
278 CHECKS TO LEARNING 
 
 CH. 
 
 ultimately over all Ireland, among a population 
 forbidden to learn its rules or its safeguards : 
 and the Irishman was offered every form of 
 English life which could signalise his subjection 
 and denationalisation, while he was refused any 
 share in that which might lead to his freedom, 
 dignity, or equality. 
 
 The charge is brought against Ireland that 
 the Renascence passed it by unheeded. It is 
 hard to see how, under these conditions, with 
 all the artificial and foreign-made impediments to 
 keep Irish scholars out of the country and un- 
 employed, they could have been heralds and 
 fighters for the New Learning in their own 
 land.- Not one of them could have fellowship 
 or discussion with others in an Irish university, 
 not one, if the law was observed, might have 
 a place in Church or State. If an Irishman won 
 such a place, it was by a dutiful conforming to 
 the views of Westminster politicians, or of 
 lord chancellor archbishops in Dublin, episcopal 
 privy councillors and lord treasurers, and the 
 like. The pliant and conforming temper of 
 those who achieved a position by taking the 
 government pledges would never have made a 
 Renascence in Ireland — robbed of the impulse 
 and passion of the ardent sons of freedom. 
 
 The wonder indeed is that so lively an intel- 
 lectual life should have been maintained and so 
 high a standard of learning. If the final harvest 
 
via. RETURN TO OXFORD 279 
 
 was denied, we must ' not forget the zeal, or 
 under-rate the enterprise with which Irishmen 
 drew into their country the sciences of Europe 
 and added them to their own rational culture. 
 
 About the end of the fifteehthiicentury Irish 
 students once more began to go in some numbers 
 to Oxford and Cambridge, and during the next 
 hundred years frequented English universities. 
 There was the same restriction as of old, that 
 no scholar from Ireland could get a post in his 
 own country, unless by a special dispensing on 
 the deputy's part, and a special conforming on 
 his own. Some Oxford scholars got bishoprics 
 on these terms, and some sons of the official 
 world got posts in the government. But the 
 drift of opinion at Westminster was to appoint 
 only Englishmen. 
 
 One class of students however did not depend 
 on government appointments — the lawyers ; these 
 had a chance of living by Irish patronage. 
 
 The need of counsellors trained in the English 
 feudal code increased with every fresh advance of 
 English interference. When a chief was offered 
 a knighthood, what emissary of the crown would 
 explain to him the wholly new powers that the 
 ceremony conferred on the king, who could 
 henceforth by a simple legal procedure confis- 
 cate his estate, who could have his children 
 in ward, and profit by the dower of his v/ife,^ 
 
 'Davies, D. 1787, 225. 
 
28o NEED OF LAWYERS ch. 
 
 and without further trouble inherit his land 
 when heirs failed ? What counsel had he from 
 Dublin officials if treaties imposed on him a 
 land tenure outside all customs known to 
 him, or a sheriff and shire-court to enforce 
 English law and taxes, and English punishments 
 contrary to Irish law ? Men accustomed to the 
 Brehon code of restitution and fine for theft held 
 it brutal to cut off a man's ears and hang him 
 for stealing fourteen pence ; in view of public 
 
 1537. opinion the Pale parliament had decreed that 
 theft below that sum might be atoned by a 
 fine,^ but the Irish were still recalcitrant : he 
 would have no man to be hanged for steal- 
 ing only,^ MacMurrough said. Chiefs wholly 
 dependent on the foreigners followed English law 
 out of terror of their masters : thus to appease 
 the English, and to make the Lord Chancellor's 
 conclusions sink the surer into Irish hearts, 
 Clanrickard "the Saxon" caused certain gentlemen 
 to be hanged, drawn, and quartered, which was 
 so much the greater terror to the rest that the 
 like execution was never seen there before.^ 
 There was a vital meaning in the phrase of bardic 
 
 1568. panegyric : " one item of the pure Gaels' felicity 
 that Cathal used not to hang any man,"* — he 
 did not subject them to English law. 
 
 iCamb. Ev. i. 203; v. app. *C.S.P. 1548, 79. 
 
 'C.S.P. 1551, no; 4 M. pp. 1511, 1519; v. O'Grady, Cat 
 460 n. 2. 
 4 O'Grady, Cat. 378. 
 
VIII. PERPLEXING LEGISLATION 281 
 
 Other questions arose. With what bitter irony 
 might not a lord of Fermanagh ask what was 
 the " eric " of a sheriff" forced on his country, 
 so that if he should be slain in the course of 
 his violence the penalty, whatever the English 
 estimate, should be at least known and deter- 
 minate.^ What was to be the fate of the Irish 
 people when arbitrary laws were pushed through 
 to decree, or to annul, a Poynings' Act for the 
 subjection of parliament, or to establish royal 
 claims to " the king's inheritance," or to issue 
 acts of attainder, and confiscation to the English 
 Crown .'' We may judge of the confusion which 
 the new legislation could inflict from two acts 
 of Henry viii. His Irish Act of Attainder named 1535-37 
 a certain number of Kildare's adherents, but a 
 vast number more, in fact any whom the king 
 pleased, were laid under attaint by two English 
 Acts which included the whole of Kildare's 
 comforters and abettors without naming them.* 
 The Act of Absentees apparently added for the 
 
 ' Davies, 126, ed. D. 1787. This request is usually made to 
 serve in mockery as proof of the incorrigible savagery of an 
 Irish chief. An Act of 1476 ordered "that if any Englishman 
 be damaged by an Irishman, not amenable to law, he shall 
 be reprised out of the whole sept or nation of the party doing 
 the injury, according to the discretion of the chief governor of 
 the land, and the king's council." Tr. Rel. to Ireland, ii., St. •• 
 of Kilk. 40 n. ^y Henry's law (1537) homicides in Irish lands 
 were to be paid by a fine of ;^4o, half to go to the king, half 
 to the chief. Camb. Ev. i. 203. Maguire's request was perfectly 
 correct according to the rulers' statutes ; v. app. 
 
 2 St. P. II. iii. 323. 
 
282 PRIVITIES OF THE ENGLISH ch. 
 
 moment no new land to the crown, but it 
 extinguished the claims of Anglo-Irish families 
 to any estates from which they had been driven 
 by " the Irish enemy " and vested all such pro- 
 perties in the king, so as to secure to hi«i the 
 power of negotiating with the chiefs in posses- 
 sion without rival Anglo-Irish claims. 
 
 Such were the " privities " of government. 
 Such were the intricacies to weary and delude 
 "as wise people as the Irish," ^ or for that matter 
 the Anglo-Irish. There were no less tangled 
 questions of taxation — what was the English 
 law if that was to be enforced with or without 
 the will of the Dublin parliament ; what the 
 Irish if that was not to be abused by alien 
 adventurers ; by what right did orders go out 
 to levy " grants for the king's wars," and sub- 
 sidies and port dues, and in what measure should 
 governors and soldiers march up and down the 
 country and exact maintenance on their raids. 
 The constitutional questions that were leading 
 straight to a revolution in England were mul- 
 tiplied a thousand times in Ireland. And as 
 regarded the whole people rich and poor, what 
 protection had an accused man when " one witness 
 only (and in law one is not witness) is evidence 
 against the Irish ".""^ 
 
 On the Irish side therefore there was a 
 demand for legal education which drove students 
 
 ^Cf. p. 398. ^Camb. Ev iii. 231. 
 
viii. LAW STUDIES ALLOWED 283 
 
 to Oxford and London. But the study re- 
 quired by the Irish was finally allowed by the 
 English from their own point of view. For 
 Henry viii. was busy plotting how to supersede 
 Irish by English tenure — a scheme of politic drifts 1520. 
 and amiable persuasions, as he said, rather than 
 rigorous dealing and comminacion : and it was 
 part of his plan to send men of Ireland to 
 England fpr training, and then use them to spread 
 the English land tenure at home : " some of 
 the gentlemen that be towards the law here," 1542. 
 were to form part of the privy council. The 
 whole change, as he said, " must be politically, 
 patiently, and secretly handled, and so to proceed 
 therein that the Irish lords conceive no jealousy or 
 suspicion that they shall be constrained precisely 
 to live under our law." ^ " Now at the beginning 
 politic practices may do more good than exploit 
 of war, till such time as the strength of the Irish 
 enemies shall be enfeebled and diminished" ^ The 
 policy of Henry v, was therefore reversed, and, .- ' 
 the growing desire of Irishmen to study law in 
 England was encouraged by Henry viii. When 
 " divers gentlemen minding to study at the Inns 
 of Court were by the Ancients of the said Inns 
 restrained " according to the policy of the last 
 hundred years, Henry gave orders, at the prayer 
 of the privy council, that all gentlemen of this 
 country might be admitted to the Inns of Court 
 
 •Richey, 107. *St. I'ap. 11. iii. 34. 
 
284 IRISH SCHOLARS IN ENGLAND ch. 
 
 1542. as other the king's subjects be.^ At the same 
 time he granted to the "professors of the law" 
 the dissolved monastery of the Dominicans where 
 the Four Courts now stand, the legal college 
 known from that time as the King's Inns.'' 
 
 Foreign education was therefore allowed by 
 the politic king as the surest means of weakening 
 the national fibre. The plan was not as success- 
 ful as he had hoped. The oath of supremacy 
 and the Protestant religion stood in the way of 
 Catholic Irishmen.* Still many scholars used the 
 opportunity opened them for study in England ; 
 some under high official patronage, like Cantwell, 
 who was backed by the whole bench in Dublin 
 against Ormond and public opinion in Kilkenny.* 
 
 1539- James Stanihurst reported as the experience of 
 the last twenty or thirty years " that our realm 
 is at this day an half deal more civil than it was, 
 since noble men and worshipful, with others 
 of ability, have been used to send their sons 
 into England to the law, to universities or to 
 
 1577. schools"'' — "the number trebled," wrote Sidney, 
 " if their sons, kinsfolk, and friends now by 
 them kept in the universities, and at the study 
 of the law of the realm, to that which their 
 elders kept ; and each one standeth them in 
 
 * St. Pap. HI. ili. 417, 430. 
 
 *Soc. ofAnt., Ap. 1892, p. 99. 
 
 *See de la Haide, Ware's Writers, 95. 
 
 *St. P. HI. iii. 526. * Campion, cap. x. ; v. app. 
 
VIII. RETURNED LAWYERS 285, 
 
 treble the charge that one stood the others ha 
 before." 1 
 
 These lawyers, however, returned to a country 
 where, in the Pale as out of it, law was mainly 
 used at the will and for the purposes of an arbi- 
 trary tyranny. They came back from their studies 
 acute and accomplished advocates of their people. 
 " Ungodly lawyers, sworn enemies to the truth," 
 " lawless lawyers," ^ as an indignant government 
 called them, they never ceased to fight every 
 Tudor prince in turn, denying the Reformation 
 as " contrary to learning," refusing the Supremacy 
 of English kings, battling even to prison and 
 death against the packing of parliaments and the 
 highhanded " prerogative " of the prince. " Certain 1536. 
 persons here," said Cowley ' the plover-hunter ' 
 who would have exterminated the whole of them, 
 " presume to have more higher and excellent wits 
 than is in England."^ The long struggle with ,. 
 the crown began when an old councillor of 
 Kildare, the king's sergeant Barnwell, one of the 
 "ring-leaders or bell-wethers, applying more to 1536- 
 their own sensualities, singular profits, and affec- 
 tions than to any good reason or towardness to 
 prefer the King's advantage," opposed Henry's 
 demands for taxation on trade and lands, and ^537- 
 
 'Car. ii. 480. 
 
 ^Shirley, Or.ig. Letters, 135; MacCarthy, 108; Camb. Ev. 
 ii. 613 n. 
 
 'St. Pap. II. iii. 370. I 
 
286 STRUGGLE WITH THE CROWN ch. 
 
 the suppression of monasteries ; and inspired the 
 1537. resistance of the proctors in parliament to the 
 king's claim to be Head of the Irish Church.^ 
 A group of trained lawyers led the Pale^ntry — 
 "Commonwealth men," as they began to be called 
 — in a desperate battle with Elizabeth for the 
 independence of parliament and its right to fix 
 the taxes, and bitterly did the queen and her 
 1577' deputies learn to hate these accomplished fighters 
 for freedom. When they urged a grand jury 
 in Meath to indict in the King's Bench the 
 Deputy and Lucas Dillon and most of the Council 
 of treason for wrongful imposing of the cess, 
 and caused a simple clerk to write under the 
 indictment that the Chief Justice of England 
 " Tresilian, in time of Richard 11., was put to 
 death for misconstruing the law," ^ then " strait 
 and painful imprisonment " was the lot of the 
 whole of them. 
 
 Men of the Pale, the lawyers were not of 
 necessity champions of the Irish. But a common 
 resistance to tyranny and common calamities drew 
 the people together, and the words common- 
 wealth men and Ireland men used among the 
 combatants of the Pale showed a growing union 
 
 * " All his lineage of the Barnewells have been great doers 
 and adherents, privy councillors to the late earl of Kildare." 
 lb. ; Hoi. vi. 345, 55-6. James Barnewell counsel to Dublin, 
 Bath recorder of Dublin, also adherent of Kildare. Cal. Rec. 
 Dub. i. 393 ; Car. i. 36 ; St. Pap. in. iii. 584. 
 
 2 Sid. Let. 179, 186. 
 
viii. COURAGE OF THE LAWYERS 287 
 
 of interests. A signal instance of Irish feeling 
 was given when the wrecks of the Armada lay 
 on the Irish coasts. " None of the Irish judges or 
 learned did communicate at the general Thanks- 1588. 
 giving for the deliverance from the Spanish 
 Invasion." " Even in Dublin itself the lawyers 
 in term time took occasion to leave the town of 
 purpose to absent themselves from that godly 
 exercise." ^ 
 
 Through the succeeding calamities of war and 
 plantation the lawyers fought the Crown in the 
 country and in the towns. There were always 
 about twenty Irish Catholics of good families n-""" 
 and courtly education and carriage and learning, 
 who were supported at the English Court and at 
 Dublin Castle by Irish contributions, to negotiate 
 in affairs of the Irish.^ The leading gentry 
 and chiefs kept skilled lawyers in their pay, 
 like William Hurley, who after studying at 
 Oxford came to Cork and helped MacCarthy 
 in his law business.^ All the chief cities made 
 choice of professed lawyers to be their mayors 
 and chief officers. These stalwarts obstinately 
 refusing to take any new oath of allegiance, 
 continued to swear after the old Catholic fashion,* ' 
 and maintained an undying fight for their liberties ; 
 as for example one Geoffrey Galway mayor of 
 
 'C.S.P. 1588, 109 ; 1590, 366. *Camb. Ev. ii. 612 n. 
 
 'MacCarthy, 105, 108 ; see Davies, D. 1787, 277. 
 *Camb. Ev. 610 n. ; Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. x. App. v. 481. 
 
288 EFFECTS OF LEARNING en. 
 
 Limerick, who after many years spent in studying 
 the common laws in England, returned to Ireland 
 and did so pervert Limerick by his malicious 
 counsel and perjurious example, that he withdrew 
 the mayor, aldermen, and generally the whole 
 city, from going to church, which before they 
 sometimes frequented. 
 
 So far the plan of English education devised 
 by Henry viii. had failed. It added in fact 
 a new danger, for men of learning proved only 
 the more vehement in their assertion of the 
 rights of Ireland, the more ardent in their en- 
 lightened patriotism. The claim of Ireland could 
 no longer be represented as a clamour of bar- 
 barians or error of the ignorant : the letting in 
 of education from Oxford and the Inns of 
 Court had but added fresh force to its demands. 
 From this time the government realised anew 
 the danger of allowing the men of Ireland free 
 access to learning, or permitting them to have 
 any share in guiding the affairs of their country. 
 The rulers again resolved to keep afar off the 
 perils of education and intelligence. 
 
VIII. IRISH AT OXFORD 289 
 
 IRISH AT OXFORD. 
 
 I have added here some names which I have met 
 with of men from Ireland studying at Oxford. 
 
 David de Hibernia, scholar in a hall in the little Jury. 1285. 
 Inquest on his death. Wood's Oxford, i. 528. 
 
 Walter Joyce, teacher at the Dominican Convent of 1306. 
 S. Nicholas : afterwards Archbishop of Armagh. 
 Macleane, Pemb. Coll. 60. 
 
 Thomas Joyce, his brother, teacher at the Dominican 
 Convent of S. Nicholas : afterwards a Cardinal. 
 Macleane, Pembr. Coll. 60, Ware^s Bishops, 71. 
 
 Thomas de Ketings of Ireland, clerk, who had his hand 1303. 
 in the death of another, had his abode in la I 
 Chymney hall in St. John's St. Wood's Oxford, 
 i. 181. 
 
 Walter le White, clerk, an Irishman, at de la Schield 1303. 
 hall in Kibalde St., had a hand in the killing of 
 one Adam de Sarum. Wood's Oxford, i. 190. 
 
 Wilcocks, a servitor to Daniel de Bren, (O'Brien ?) at 
 de la Schield hall, also had a hand in the killing 
 of Adam de Sarum. Woods Oxford, i. 190. 
 
 Malachias, the minorite or grey friar, a student in the 1310. 
 university of Oxford, where he attained to that 
 knowledge in divinity as he was the only man in 
 his time that was appointed to preach before the 
 king and the nobility, a sharp reprover of vice, 
 a zealous embracer of virtue, enemy to flattery, 
 friend to simplicity." Hoi. vi. 61-2. 
 
 Gilbertus Urgalius, a student in Oxford. Hoi. vi. 66. J330. 
 This was possibly the place-name that occurs in 
 Dublin records as Uriell. 
 
 T 
 
290 IRISH AT OXFORD ch. 
 
 Richard FitzRalph, born at Dundalk, was scholar in 
 the university of Oxford under Baconthorpe, a 
 good philosopher and no ignorant divine. Holl. 
 1333. vi. 60. He was Chancellor of Oxford university. 
 
 Ware's Bishops, 81-2. As Primate of Armagh he 
 purchased |he .^hatred of all religious persons for 
 reproving the begging friars. 
 
 Henry Crumpe, writer of foreign books, who was born 
 1392- in Ireland "and brought up in the university of 
 
 Oxford, where he grew by reason of his profound 
 knowledge in divinity to no small credit. Having 
 repaired to his native country, minding there to 
 defray the talent wherewith God had indued him, 
 he was suddenly apprehended by Simon bishop of 
 Meath, and kept in duresse, by reason that he was 
 suspected to be of no sound religion." Hoi. vi. 58. 
 See Hist, and Ant. Univ. Oxf. i. 496 ; Die. Nat. Bio. 
 
 Bef. Philip Norris was Doctor of Divinity in Oxford ; famous 
 1427. for his war against the friars. 
 
 Thomas Walshe, bachelor of laws, was his opponent 
 and probably therefore an Oxford man. PVaris 
 Writers, 89. 
 
 David Carrewe, probably the same as Friar David 
 1448. Carron, who with Friar Nicholas Walshe, was 
 
 appointed commissioner to elect a Provincial of the 
 Minorites in Ireland on the deposition of William 
 O'Really ; their choice fell on Gilbert Walshe, 
 but William O'Really was afterwards reinstated. 
 'Little's Grey Friars in Oxford, 261. 
 
 ^455- Richard Develyn (i.e. of Dublin), white monk. Oxford 
 Register, i. 25. 
 
 1462. Lionel Howth alias de Sancto Laurencio, "an Irishman.' 
 Oxford Register, i. 35. 
 
viii. IRISH AT OXFORD 291 
 
 Isaac Cusack obtained letters from the University i473- 
 testifying to his learning and good conduct, and 
 certifying that as D.D. he had " laudably fulfilled 
 his regency and all that pertains to the solemnity 
 of such a degree." With this testimonial he went 
 to Ireland. j 
 
 Dionisius Tully, a Dominican Friar, accompanied him, 
 and the two friars "preached publicly that Christ 
 preached from door to door, that Pope Jolm 
 was a heretic, and such like, telling the people 
 withal, that they in their proceedings had been 
 encouraged by the University of Oxford." The 
 University got the archbishop of Dublin to arrest 
 them and send them back to Oxford, where they 
 were convicted of heresy, and according to Wood 
 they were "after recantation degraded and rejected 
 the University as vagabonds." Little's Grey Friars 
 in Oxford, 266-7. 
 
 James Maddock "at Oxford studying at the University, 1475. 
 and by the grace of God proposes to be a Doctor 
 of Divinity," He was to be given six marks yearly 
 till he was promoted to a competent benefice "as 
 there are but few in this land who are able to teach 
 or preach the word of God." Tr. Rel. to Irel. ii. 
 App. 129. 
 
 Donal OTihely of Cork, student at Oxford. He c. 1480. 
 wrote the Annals of Ireland after he returned to 
 Ireland, and was much valued by his countrymen 
 for his unwearied industry in matters relating to 
 history and antiquity. Ware's Writers, 90. Wood's 
 Oxford Writers, 5. 
 
 William Ireland, Fellow of Merton. Brodrick's Merton 1487. 
 College, 243. , 
 
292 IRISH AT OXFORD ch. 
 
 1490. Nicholas Maguire of Idrone took one or more degrees 
 at Oxford. Later bishop of Leighlin. d. 15 12. 
 Wood's Oxf. Writers, 8. 
 
 Menelaus McCormic studied at Oxford, known there 
 as Carmgan Hibernicus. Later bishop of Raphoe. 
 Little's Grey Friars in Oxford, 267. Ware's Bishops, 
 274. d. 1513. 
 
 Maurice de Portu, or O'Fihely of Cork. Little's Grey 
 Friars in Oxford, 267. Later archbishop of Tuam. 
 d. 1513. 
 
 Thomas Fitch a student at Oxford, d. 15 17. Ware's 
 Writers, 92. 
 
 Terence O'Brien, bishop of Killaloe. Educated at 
 Oxford, d. 1525. Ware's Bishops, 594. 
 
 Thomas Dillon, born in Meath, educated in Oxford, 
 Bishop of Kildare, d. 1531. Ware's Bishops, 389. 
 
 1502. Thomas Walshe (Wallashe) Prior of the Monastery of 
 the Virgin Mary at Bradenstoke. An opponent in 
 Divinity at Oxford. Later prebendary of Hustwayt 
 in the Church of York. Wood's Fasti, 6. 
 
 1505. Dionis Calakan (an Irishman) B.C.L. Wood's Fasti, 7. 
 
 1506. Geoffrey Tege. Oxford Register, 46. 
 
 1506. Walter Stanihurst, scholar of Oxford. There were prob- 
 ably others of the same family. Hoi. vi. 64-5. 
 
 iS°7' Thomas Irysh. Oxford Register, 55. 
 
 1510. Walter Mey, May, or Mayo. Oxford Register, 71. 
 
 1511- Thomas Roche. Oxford Register, 76. 
 
 15 1 2. William Nangull "a poor Irishman with few friends." 
 Oxford Register, 84. 
 
 1512. Philip Marchin "a poor Irishman lately taken by the 
 French . . . having studied five years in this 
 
Vlll. 
 
 IRISH AT OXFORD 293 
 
 university, and two and a half in France, and seven 
 at home in civil and canon law." Oxford Register, 
 85. 
 George Cogley spent some time in the study of civil 1518. 
 law at Oxford. Ware's H^riterSy 92. 
 
 Richard Lorcan an Irish Franciscan. Littlis Grey 1514 
 Friars in Oxford^ lOI. 
 
 Dermitius Rian, an Irishman, studied the Law in the iSi4' 
 universities of Oxford, Paris, and Cambridge twelve 
 years. B Can. Law. Wood's Fasti, 22, 
 
 Dermitius de Meara, an Irishman, studied Canon Law iS^4- 
 in Oxford, Paris, and in Cambridge sixteen years. 
 Wood's Fasti, 22. 
 
 Thomas Irish of Exon. Proctor. Wood's Fasti, 25. 1517- 
 
 Nicholas Camay, Charney, or Kernay. Oxford Register, iS^^* 
 105. 
 
 John Kenney or Kenne. Oxford Register, i. 106. 1518. 
 
 Thomas Walsche or Welshe. Oxford Register, i. 119. 1521. 
 
 John Irysche. Oxford Register, 127. 1522. 
 
 Nicholas de Burgo, B.D. of Paris. Disp. 26 Jan. 1524. 
 
 because he is a stranger and knows no English and 
 
 has lectured almost seven years gratis. Oxford 
 
 Reg. 128. 
 John Sheyne, M.A. Ware's Writers, 97. Wood's Fasti, 1523. 
 
 35. Hoi. vi. 64. 
 
 Thomas Leverysche. Probably the Thomas Leverous 1523. 
 afterwards Bishop of Kildare. Oxford Reg. i. 130. 
 
 Richard Yrelond. Oxford Reg. \. 141. 1525. 
 
 Thomas Clere or Cleere. Born in Kilkenny. Oxford i^^S- 
 Reg. i. 142. Hoi. vi. 58. 
 
 David Kelly. Oxford Reg. i. 146. 1526. 
 
294 IRISH AT OXFORD ch. 
 
 1527. Peter Delahyde. Oxford Reg. i. 149. 
 
 1527. Thaddaeus Raynold, B. Can, Law, a secular chaplain 
 ■'• " who, if I mistake not, was an Irishman." Wood's 
 
 Fasti, 43. 
 
 1530. Adam Walche or Walshe. Oxford Reg. i. 162. 
 
 1531- Patrick Walshe, B.A., afterwards bishop of Waterford 
 
 and Lismore. Wood^s Fasti, 49. 
 
 1532- Thomas Irlonde. Oxford Reg, i. 172. 
 
 1533- Edward Delahyd. Oxford Reg. i. 176. 
 
 1533. Donatus Riane, B. Can. Law. Public Reader of the 
 
 Canon law in New Inn. Wood's Fasti, 54. Hoi. 
 vi. 64. 
 
 1534. Richard Lorgan, sometime Fellow of Oriel, then Princ. 
 
 of S. Mary's Hall, Divinity Reader of Magd. Coll., 
 D.D. Wood's Fasti, 56. 
 
 1535. Edward Quemmerford, an Irishman, B.A. Reported 
 
 by a writer of his country to be a learned man. 
 Wood's Fasti, 56. 
 
 1536. Donatus Tayge, an Irishman, B.L. Wood's Fasti, 58. 
 
 1537. Thomas Walsh, Baron of the King's Exchequer, one 
 
 of the arbitrators, in a dispute between the mayor 
 of Oxford and Oriel College concerning S. Bar- 
 tholomew's Hospital. Records of Oxford, 146. 
 1540. Sent as commissioner to Ireland. St. Pap. iii. 
 
 iii. 419. C.S.P. 54, etc. 
 
 c. 1542. Richard Smith, born in a town named Rackmackneie 
 three miles distant from Wexford, surnamed Smith 
 of his father who was by occupation a smith ; 
 being fourteen y«ars of age he stole into England, 
 and repaired to Oxford, where in tract of time he 
 proceeded doctor of divinity, was elected doctor of 
 
vin. IRISH AT OXFORD 295 
 
 the chair, taken in those days for a peerless pearl 
 of all the divines in Oxford as well in scholastical 
 as in positive divinity. Hoi. vi. 64. Ware believed 
 him to be English. Writers, 96. It is not improb- 
 able that he tried to conceal his Irish birth. 
 
 Maurice Ley or Lye, an Irishman. Exeter Coll. M.A. 1545. 
 Exeter College Register, 65. 
 
 William Cantwell of Kilkenny went to Oxford to learn. 
 St. P. III. iii. 526. i ' 
 
 William Lyggyns (? Hyggyns), student at White Hall. 1547-8 
 Oxford Reg. ii. 283. j 
 
 Henry Welshe. Allowed to vote in congregation and 1548. 
 to be a necessary regent. Oxford Register, ii. 90. 
 
 James Neyland or Neilan, an Irishman, Fellow of All 1548. 
 Souls' Coll., a learned physician. Wood's Fasti, 72. 
 Hoi. vi. 62. 
 
 David de la Hyde, Probationer Fellow of Merton, MA. 1549. 
 "An exquisite and a profound clerk, sometime fellow 1553. 
 of Merton College in Oxford, very well seen in 
 the Latin and Greek tongues, expert in the mathe- 
 matical, a proper antiquary and an exact divine. 
 Whereby I gather that his pen hath not been lazy 
 but is daily breeding of such learned books as shall 
 be available to his posterity." Hoi. vi. 58. He 
 was very witty and ingenious and so formidable a 
 disputant that "at his appearance in the schools 
 place was presently given." BrodricKs Merton 1560. 
 Coll. 45, 261. Ejected for denying the queen's 
 supremacy, he returned to Ireland. He wrote 
 many things printed beyoiid the seas. Wood's 
 Oxford Writers, 199. Oxford Reg. i. 221. 
 
 Richard Lynche at Broadgates hall. Oxford Reg. ii. 1550. 
 284. 
 
296 IRISH AT OXFORD ch. 
 
 Matthew Sheyne, an Irishman, laid a foundation of 
 
 literature in Oxford which afterwards he well 
 
 1572. improved. Returned to his own country and 
 
 became bishop of Cork and Cloyne. Wood's 
 
 Oxford Bishops, 708. IFood's Fasti, 35. 
 
 Patrick Walshe of Brasenose, bishop of Waterford and 
 Lismore. d. 1578. Oxford Reg. i. 168. 
 
 Fagan, a bachelor of art in Oxford, and a schoolmaster 
 in Waterford. Hoi. vi. 59. 
 
 1562. Robert Garvey, fellow of Oriel, a "learned Irishman" 
 bachelor of civil law, a man well spoken of in the 
 English as well as the Latin. Hoi. vi. 61. Noted 
 for his skill in both the laws, and for a volubility 
 
 d. c. in the English and Latin tongues. Wood's 
 
 1579- Athenae Oxon. i. 459; ii. 198-9. 
 
 iemp. John Garvey, born in Kilkenny, educated at Oxford, 
 Ed. yj. ^fj-gj. bJs}jop of Kilmore and archbishop of Armagh. 
 
 ^594- Ware's Bishops, 96. 
 
 ^552- F. Roach, chorister of Corpus Christi. Fowler's Corpus 
 Christ! Coll. 429. 
 
 1553' Robert Dermothe, Brasenose, "an Irishman." Oxford 
 Reg. i. 221. 
 
 1 555- Donnal Rian : "there lived two brethren of the surname, 
 both scholars of Oxford, the one a good civilian, the 
 other very well seen in the mathematicals." Cf 
 a. 1533. Oxford Reg. i. 230. Hoi. vi. 64. 
 
 1555. Thomas FitzSimon, "perhaps preb. of Dublin" (1552). 
 
 Oxford Reg. i. 230. 
 
 1556. Richard Shaghens [Shaughnessy ?] born in Ireland, Fellow 
 
 of Balliol, B.A., a noted disputant and an excellent 
 philosopher. M.A. 1560. In 1564 he retired to 
 Ireland where he gained a good report for his noted 
 parts in speaking and penning. He was school- 
 
VIII. IRISH AT OXFORD 297 
 
 master in Ireland and a learned and virtuous man. 
 Wood's Writers, i66. Hoi. vi. 64. 
 
 William Pomrelle, New College. Wood's Oxford 1 SSI- 
 Writers, 234. Disp. from determining because 
 he was a priest and had to hear confessions. 
 Oxford Reg. ii. 60. " Poomrell a bachelor of 
 divinity sometime chaplain in New College in 
 Oxford, after returning to his country he was 
 beneficed in Drogheda, from thence flitted to 
 Louvain, where through continual hearing of lec- 
 tures and disputations, more than by his private 
 study, he purchased a laudable knowledge in divinity. 
 Whereby he gave manifest show of the profit that 
 riseth of exercise and conference. Upon this 
 occasion one of his acquaintance was accustomed 
 to tell him that he had all his divinity by hearsay.". 
 Ho/, vi. 64. 
 
 Leonard FitzSimons, born in Co. Dublin. Scholar of iSS^- 
 Trinity from Corpus Christi of which he was clerk, 
 aged 17. B.A. 1559. In 157 1 he retired to Hart 
 Hall, leaving his Fellowship on religious grounds ; 
 returned to Ireland and was noted for learning. 
 Wood's Oxf. Writers, 199-200 ; Fasti, 92. 
 
 "Plunket, baron of Dunsany, scholar in Ratough to 
 M. Staghens, after sent by Sir Christopher Barnewell 
 knight, his friendly father-in-law, to the university c. 1560 
 of Oxford," where he profited in knowledge. HoJ. 
 vi. 63-4. 
 
 Rothe, bachelor of law, proceeded in the university of 
 Oxford. There hath been another Rothe, vicar 
 of S. John's in Kilkenny prettily learned. Hoi. 
 vi. 64. ^ 
 
 Rolandus Kelly, Chaplain of Corpus Christi. Fowler's 1561. 
 Corpus Christi Coll. 423. 
 
298 IRISH AT OXFORD ch. 
 
 1562. Nicholas Quemerford, born at Waterford, took his 
 
 degree in Arts after he had spent four years in 
 Oxford pecking and hewing at Logic and Philosophy, 
 and afterwards returned to Ireland and took orders. 
 Turned out of his preferments because he would 
 not conform to the established religion, he went 
 to Louvain and was there made D.D. 1576. Ware's 
 Writers, 96. Ho/, vi. 64. Wood's Oxf. Writ. 200. 
 
 1563. Peter White, lecturer in Metaphysics. Oxford Reg. ii. 97. 
 
 1565. Robert Ireland, Chaplain of Corpus Christi. Fowler's 
 Corpus Christi Coll. 423. 
 
 •5^5- David Clere, B.A. Hart Hall. Wood's Oxford Writers, 
 199. 
 
 '567- Nicholas Clere of Co. Kilkenny matriculated aged 19. 
 Hart Hall. Wood's Oxford Writers, 199. 
 
 1568. Richard Stanihurst, University. Oxford Reg. i. 266. 
 
 1569. Owin (Eugenius) Connor. [Eugene O'Conogher was 
 
 dean (1605) of Aghadoe. Owen O'Connor was 
 bishop of Killala (1585) "educated at Oxford."] 
 Cf. Ware's Bishops, 652. Owen O'Connor, bishop 
 of Killala 1591. Oxf. Reg. i. 274. v. C.S.P. 
 1569, 408. 
 
 1570- Dormer, a civilian, born at Ross, scholar of Oxford; 
 he wrote in ballad royal "The Decay of Rosse." 
 Wood's Oxford Writers, 166. Hoi. vi. 59. Ware's 
 Writers, 95. 
 
 1570. One Taylor, B.A., who proceeded in the University 
 
 and wrote Epigrammata diversa. Wood's Oxford 
 Writers, 166. 
 1 5 70- Elias Sheth, an Irishman, wrote Divers Sonnets. Wood's 
 Oxford Writers, 166. "Born in Kilkenny, some- 
 time scholar of Oxford, a gentleman of a passing 
 good wit, a pleasant conceited companion, full of 
 mirth without gall." Hoi. vi. 64. 
 
viii. IRISH AT OXFORD 299 
 
 There was also a Michael Sheth born in Kilkenny, 
 master of art. Hoi. vi. 64. 
 
 Patrick Cusack, after he left Oxford was a schoolmaster 1570. 
 in Dublin. Wrote in Latin Diversa Epigrammata. 
 Wood's Oxford Writers, 166. 
 
 Peter Nangle of Dublin, matriculated aged 15. Hart 1571- 
 Hall. Wood's Oxford Writer s, 199. 
 
 Thomas Finglas. Hart Hall. Aged 18. Wood's 157 1. 
 Oxford Writers, 199. 
 
 William Nugent of Meath. Hart Hall. Aged 21. 1571. 
 Wood's Oxford Writers, 199. "A proper gentle- 
 man and of a singular good wit." He wrote English 
 sonnets. Hoi. vi. 62. 
 
 David Sutton of Kildare, matriculated aged 16. Hart 157 1. 
 Hall. Wood's Oxford Writers, 199. 
 
 James Walsh, M.A., an Irishman, had a chamber and 1572. 
 took his commons in Hart Hall, being a student in 
 divinity. Wood's Oxf. Writers, 199 ; he translated 
 Giraldus Cambrensis into English. Ware's Writers, 
 97. 
 
 Leonard FitzSimons, his countryman, student in divinity 1572. 
 Wood's Oxf. Writers, 199. 
 
 Richard Walsh of Waterford matriculated aged 15. 1572. 
 Hart Hall. Wood's Oxford Writers, 199. 
 
 Robert Boteler of Waterford matriculated aged 23. 1572. 
 Hart Hall. Wood's Oxford Writers, 199. 
 
 George Sherlock of Waterford, Hart Hall, aged 17. 1572. 
 Wood's Oxford Writers, 199. 
 
 Richard Masterson of Wexford. Hart Hall, aged 15. 1573. 
 Wood's Oxford Writers, 1 99. 
 
 Nicholas Gaydon of Dublin, Hart Hall, aged 19. 1574. 
 Wood's Oxford Writers, 199. 
 
. 300 IRISH AT OXFORD ch. 
 
 John Linch, born in Galway, educated at Ncw-Inn-Hall, 
 Oxford : made bishop of Elphin, 1584. Wares 
 Bishops, 634. 
 
 William Laly or Mullaly of Co. Galway, educated at 
 Oxford, Archbishop of Tuam. d. 1595. Ware^s 
 Bishops, 615. 
 
 Stephen Kerovan, born in Galway, educated partly at 
 Oxford and partly at Paris. Bishop of Clonfert. 
 d. 1602. Ware's Bishops, 642. 
 
 William Bathe, born in Dublin, applied himself diligently 
 to study in Oxford, till he grew weary of the 
 heresies professed in England. Ware's Writers, loi. 
 
 William White, born in Wexford, studied in Oxford, 
 then went to London for law, to France and to 
 Rome ; and studied philosophy in Meyra in Galicia, 
 and divinity in Salamanca. He died at Wexford, 
 1 61 6. Ware's Writers, 102. 
 
 Dermod O'Meara, physician and poet ; born in Ormond, 
 
 «^- "a member of the university of Oxford," where 
 
 he took his degree in physic. He returned to 
 
 ^ Ireland and was esteemed one of the most eminent 
 
 in that faculty. He died after 1620. Ware's 
 
 Writers, 1 08. Wood's Writers of Oxford, 449. 
 
 John Clare, born in Ireland ; educated in Oxford " as 
 a lodger in the town at large " : he went to Rome 
 and became a Jesuit. Ware's Writers, 109. 
 
 1576. Stephen Lynche. Oxford Reg. ii. 68. 
 
 1 5 S3. Henry FitzSimon, son of a Dublin merchant, educated 
 a Protestant : he matriculated at 14 as member of 
 Hart Hall. He became a Jesuit, was eminent for 
 learning, and taught philosophy publicly on the 
 Continent. He returned to Ireland, one of the 
 most acute and able disputants of his time. Ware'i 
 Writers, 1 1 8. 
 
VIII. IRISH AT OXFORD 301 
 
 Alexander Barrington, a gentleman's son of Ireland. 1583. 
 Hart Hall, aged 18. Wood's Oxford Writers, 199. 
 
 William Oburne, Chaplain of S. John's. Oxford Reg. 1586. 
 ii. 92. 
 
 Anthony Garvey, comitatu Rosmen (?) in Mieth, 1593-4 
 Episcopi Tarpheiing filius, 18 (son of John Garvey, 
 Bishop of Kilmore). Oxford Reg. ii. 397. 
 
 Bartholomew Dillon, Dublin, gen. f., 25. Oxford Reg. 1593-4 
 ''• 397- 
 
 Robert Tighe, Magdalen ; an excellent linguist. Oxford 15^6. 
 Reg. ii. 134. Wood''s Fasti, 152. 
 
 John Moyowe, Corpus Christi. Fowler's C.C.C, iS97- 
 
 John Ireland. Oxford Reg. ii. 45. 1599 
 
 A few names may be added from among the learned 
 Irish not mentioned in Oxford lists. 
 
 "Eustace a doctor of divinity, a very good schoolman, 1536 
 he flourished in the year one thousand five hundred 
 thirty and six. 
 
 Olifer or Oliver Eustace a student of the civil and canon 
 law, a good humanician, and a proper philosopher. 
 
 Nicholas Eustace a student of divinity, one that not- 
 withstanding he was born to a fair living, yet did 
 wholly sequester himself from the world." Hoi. 
 vi. 59. 
 
 John Fitzgerald commonly named John Fitzedmund, a 
 very well lettered civilian, a wise gentleman, and 
 a good householder. JHol. vi. 60. 
 
 There is a Fleming now living of whom I hear great 1570. 
 report to be an absolute divine and a professor , 
 thereof. Hoi. vi. 60. 
 
302 IRISH AT OXFORD ch. viii. 
 
 c- I57S- There is another Rocheford that is a student of philo- 
 sophy. Hoi. vi. 64. 
 
 1550. **Cagher a nobleman born, in his time called MacMur- 
 rough, he descended of that MacMurrough that 
 was sometime king of Leinster, he was a surpassing 
 divine, and for his learning and virtue was created 
 bishop of Leighlin and abbot of Grage." 1 567 ; 
 d. 1587; Hoi. vi, 6; Ware's Bishops, 462. 
 
 1563-70. Thomas O'Hurley or O'Herlihy, bishop of Ross, an 
 exquisite divine, brought up in Italy. Hoi. vi. 63. 
 
 Derby Hurley a civilian and a commendable philosopher, 
 he wrote "In Aristotelis physica." Hoi. vi. 61. 
 
 d. 1542. Thomas Hurley famous canonist and bishop of Emly. 
 Wares Bishops, 499. 
 
 Robert loise born in Kilkenny, a good humanician. 
 Hoi. vi. 61. 
 
 There were many Walshes distinguished for learning. 
 "There dwelleth in Waterford a lawyer of the 
 surname who writeth a very proper Latin verse." 
 Hoi. vi. 66. 
 
 " One William an Moiryrtagh or Morgan, Brien Tayg 
 Richiblican or Kiblican, also Domigha fr Rikard, 
 Croeun Diermvid Mady, Richard Ardur (or so) 
 Moris Derby, of the which some were handsomely 
 learned." Shirley's Orig. Letters, 178.^ 
 
 * V. a pp. 
 
IX. 
 
 THE NATIONAL EDUCATION. 
 
 The Irish shared with all other peoples in the 
 cosmopolitan learning of Europe, the common ^ . 
 stock of knowledge which was generally accepted. •'" 
 But also, like other peoples, they had a literature 
 peculiar to the genius of their race, which they 
 cherished with the ardour both of the intellect 
 and the heart. 
 
 Irish annals have been quoted in proof of 
 lawlessness and barbarism. If however we turn 
 to them we may read year after year, not of 
 wars alone and cattle-raids, but of learned poets 
 and historians and doctors of the law canon and 
 civil and men " full of knowledge and of every • 
 science," of libraries and of collectors who handed 
 down their books for generations as their most 
 cherished treasures. Every province, every tribe, 
 had its Annals compiled by scholars in some 
 secure shelter, an island in the Shannon, a crannog 
 in a lake, the quiet of a termon land. Wealthy 
 men and women kept open houses for scholars, 
 and patrons of learning abounded in every Pro- 
 vince — Melaghlin Magerahty of Ulster, "the 
 
304 PATRONAGE OF LEARNING ch. 
 
 1348. servant of generosity," whose death left the 
 
 professors of poetry and the sciences grieved and 
 
 1352- broken-hearted : Conor MacDonough, general 
 
 1376. patron of men of all arts ; Hugh O'Farrell, 
 
 " like unto a fountain his generosity and bounty 
 
 flowed on the literati of Ireland universally " 
 
 from his youth until his death ; Barrett in Con- 
 
 d. 13S4. nacht "a man of exceeding good housekeeping 
 
 and one that deserved to be well commended 
 
 by the rhymers, poets, and such others in Ireland 
 
 1393- for his liberality towards them"; Magauran "of 
 
 lavish hospitality towards the literati " ; and many 
 
 1511. others. O'Kelly was the general patron of the 
 
 I5I3- learned.^ To MacWilliam Burke the friars and 
 
 chief poets were as his own family.^ 
 
 We can scarcely turn a page of the Annals 
 in fact without reading of some refuge for study. 
 The Church took its part in the protection of 
 knowledge. Monasteries were centres of culture 
 as of industry. " The monastery of Ennis, 
 diversely beautiful, delectable ; washed by a 
 fish-giving stream ; having lofty arches, walls 
 lime-white ; with its order of chastity, its sweet, 
 religious bells ; its well-kept graves, homes of the 
 noble dead ; with furniture, both crucifixes and 
 illuminated tomes, both friar's cowl and em- 
 broidered vestment ; with windows glazed ; with 
 chalice of rare workmanship — a blessed and 
 enduring monument which, for all time, shall 
 
 '4 M. p. 1311. *4 M. p. 1323. 
 
,x. SOME CHURCHMEN 305 
 
 stand a legacy and memory of the Prince (Tur- 
 lough O'Brien) that raised it."^ The friary of 1306. 
 the Hermits of S. Augustine at Callan, which 
 held the bones of its founder James Butler father ' 
 of Piers earl of Ormond/ was famous among the 
 learned for its library of valuable manuscripts. 
 Churches too had collections of books,^ and 
 officials distinguished for generosity to travellers, 
 such as MacRory erenach * in Fermanagh, " a 
 humble meek man for the love of God, and a • 
 man who kept a house of hospitality." 
 
 There was no lack of holy men in the Irish 
 Church, pious, humane, and learned — men who 
 wakened even in English visitors wonder at 
 the lofty fervour of their faith, " such mirrors 
 of holiness and austerity that other nations 
 retain but a show or shadow of devotion in 
 comparison of them," O'Fallon/ bishop of 1485- 
 Derry, was "of great reputation for learning, 
 and a constant course of preaching through all 
 Ireland which he continued for full thirty years," 
 "the preacher that did most service to Irishmen ' 
 since Patrick was in Ireland." Andrew MacBrady 1471- 
 bishop of the two BrefFnys for thirty years,® ^5^^- 
 "the only dignitary whom the English and Irish 
 obeyed, a paragon of wisdom and piety," preached 
 
 *Soc. of Ant., Sep. 1895, 231. 'Archdall's Monasticon, 348. 
 ^An. Uls. 197. The mention of them is frequent. 
 *Davies, D. 1787, p. 251 ; 4 M. p. 1301. 
 'Ware's Bishops, p. 291. '4 M. 1309. 
 
3o6 NOTABLE CHURCHMEN ch. 
 
 and taught, ordained priests, consecrated churches 
 and cemeteries, established a cathedral at Kilmore 
 with thirteen secular canons, and bestowed rich 
 presents on the poor and the mighty, till he 
 died at Drumahair on his way to consecrate a 
 church, and was laid to rest at Cavan. Some 
 were themselves scholars who led the culture of 
 their time. The see of Leighlin had a succession 
 1458-89. of learned Irish men. Milo Roch "was more 
 addicted to the study of music and poetry than 
 1490- was fit." His successor, Nicholas Maguire, born 
 'S'^' in Carlow, educated in Oxford, was held in high 
 veneration among the Irish for his learning and 
 his assiduity in preaching : a great student of 
 history, he wrote a life of Roch and compiled a 
 Chronicle which was the foundation of the later 
 1523-5. Annals of Dowling. After him Maurice Doran, 
 born in Leix, was renowned for his probity of 
 manners and eloquence in preaching ; a learned 
 theologian and pious Christian, he refused to 
 lay double subsidies on the clergy of his war- 
 swept bishopric to pay the charges of his election, 
 saying he would have his flock shorn not flayed.' 
 d. 1498. The Annals of Ulster were compiled by Mac- 
 Manus Maguire, canon chorister of Armagh, 
 parson of Inishkeen, deacon of Lough Erne and 
 coadjutor of the bishop of Clogher for fifteen 
 years — a man "full of grace and of wisdom 
 in every science to the time of his death, in law, 
 
 'Ware's Bishops, 459-61. 
 
IX. LAY SCHOLARS 307 
 
 physic, and philosophy, and in all the Gaelic 
 sciences : and one who made, gathered, and 
 collected this book from many other books." 
 He left the work to be carried on by Patrick 
 Culin, bishop of Clogher, who had considerable 
 knowledge of antiquities and poetry, and 
 O'Cassidy his archdeacon, "the Grecian," lawyer d. 1551 
 and philosopher, "with an extraordinary know- 
 ledge of the antiquities of his country " : ^ with 
 his help the bishop compiled too a registry of , 
 the see, from whence the greatest part of the 
 account of his predecessors has since been taken, 
 *' the memory of whom would have perished had 
 it not been for his care." The attorney-general 
 of James i. sought out " one of the best learned 1607. 
 vicars in all the country, and one that had been 
 a brehon, and had some skill in the civil and 
 common laws, and with much ado"^ got from- 
 that unhappy patriot information on Irish customs. 
 There was provision also for lay students 
 on the church estates or " termon lands " : " the 
 tenants of the church lands are called Termoners, 
 and are for the most part scholars and speak 
 Latin ; and anciently the chief tenants were the 
 determiners of all civil questions and controversies 
 among their neighbours."^ Thus Con O'Donnell 1496 
 
 '4 M. p. 1241 n. ; O'Reilly's Cat. cxxxv. ; Ware's Writers, 
 P- 93- 
 ^Davies, Let. to Salis. 246-7, D. 1787. 
 ^4 M. p. 1228 n., 1229 ; Davies, Let. to Salis. 1607, p. 246, 
 
 D. 1787. : 
 
3o8 PLAN OF THE LITERATI ch. 
 
 was forced to set at liberty John Maguire, " all 
 the termoners of the province having flocked 
 to him to request and demand his liberation." 
 1505 37. Hugh O'Donnell was extolled as "a man who 
 duly protected their termon lands for the friars, 
 churches, poets, and oUavs." ^ From such 
 examples of sanctuary all lands that gave shelter 
 or protection presently took the name of 
 termon lands, as for instance the liberties of 
 the city of Limerick.^ 
 
 The special distinction indeed of Ireland was the 
 provision made outside religion for knowledge. 
 Every tribe maintained and rewarded its own 
 poets, judges, historians, preceptors in law, music, 
 or literature. In their hierarchy a king, a bishop, 
 and an oUave, were the three most noble. They 
 had the same " honour price " and the same rights 
 of giving sanctuary. " According to the ordi- 
 nance of science " * no king could set anyone 
 above an oUave, or chief professor of his branch 
 of learning. To him was due the warmth of 
 loving-kindness, the primest of all largesse, the 
 initiative in council. He claimed the " king's 
 shoulder " (the seat next to him) at the feast, 
 to have the same portion of meat,* and to Wear 
 the same variety of colours in his clothes.* His 
 
 I4 M. p. 1439. "O'Grady, Cat. 455- 
 
 *0'Grady, Cat. 475. * Soc. of Ant., Jan. 1867, 10. 
 
 ^Cf. O'Grady, Cat. p. 107, for the poet who claimed the 
 many coloured robe of office. 
 
IX. REWARDS OF LEARNING 309 
 
 person was sacred from harm:* "they honour 1570 
 and reverence friars and pilgrims, by suffering 
 them to pass quietly, and by sparing their man- 
 sions, whatsoever outrage they show to the country 
 beside them. The like favour do they extend to 
 their poets and rhymers." ^ 
 
 It was every chief's business to be a " protector ,. 
 of the literati," and to employ the scholars of his 
 country in works of law, history, and poetry.' 
 Lords of Hy-many by the Shannon had their 
 " Book of the O'Kellys " with its synchronism 
 of Roman Emperors and Irish Kings, its history, 
 poems, and law : and the story might be repeated 
 in every territory. The rewards of art and letters 
 were great. Twenty cows was thought a fair 
 price for a poem, and costly gifts were offered, 
 jewelled goblets, horses and hawks, fine leather 
 belts and spur-straps, and the like ; but, cried 
 the judicious bard, "without borders in which 
 to maintain cattle, without a share of imperishable 
 patrimonial soil, the very pick of thy treasure 
 and of thy various gear is but all vanity to me ! 
 To every man of us (that are oUaves) the highest 
 species of estate is a piece of land close to the 
 chief and blessed with equal facilities for grazing 
 or for tilth, as for resort also to the bordering 
 
 ^A fine of 126 cows was given for the accidental death by 
 a spear of the chronicler O'Mulconry, " perfect in his hereditary 
 art." a. 1400, 4 M. 
 
 2 Hoi. vi. 68. , 
 
 ^For the Book of the O'Byrnes see Hyde, Lit. Hist. 472-6. 
 
3IO THE KING AND THE OLLAVE ch. 
 
 pasture mountain." ^ Estates portioned out to 
 . the learned were free of rent,^ with no impost 
 to be raised on them — " the most erudite ' Servant 
 of the noble saints' hath without stint acquired 
 freehold land,"* was the history of a successful 
 literary man. 
 
 1333- We have a picture in Thomond, when the 
 O'Briens had driven out the English, of the King 
 holding court in the old style, in his scarlet 
 tunic and gold-edged coat, a saffron coloured 
 belt, buckles with crystals and gold tassels, a 
 white embroidered hood, armour gilt in delicate 
 patterns, and a conical helmet inlaid with gold 
 branches ; and sitting side by side with him 
 his Chief Brehon and Chief Ollave. It greatly 
 
 1394. shocked the decorum of English lackeys when 
 the famous Art MacMorough and three other 
 Irish kings, coming at the Earl of Ormond's 
 request to meet Richard 11. in Dublin, did 
 when they were set to table make their minstrels 
 and principal servants to sit beside them and n> 
 share their portion. "They told me," wrote their 
 English valet and allotted tutor in manners, "this 
 was a praiseworthy custom of their country"; 
 and when with pretentious vulgarity he began his 
 reformation by ordering the tables to be "laid 
 out and covered properly," placing the four kings 
 
 1 lb. 476. 
 
 *4 M. p. 1175, for a remission of rent ; cf O'Grady, Cat. 337 
 'O'Grady, Cat. 331. 
 
IX. THE KING AND THE POET 311 
 
 at one, their hereditary oUaves of no lesser birth 
 than themselves at a lower one, and the hereditary 
 officers of the household still lower, "the kings 
 looked on each other and refused to eat, saying 
 I had deprived them of their old custom in which 
 they had been brought up. I replied with a smile ' 
 to appease (hem that their custom was not decent 
 or suitable to their rank ... for that now they 
 should conform to the manners of the English "^ — 
 to which they then for the moment yielded them- 
 selves with the dignity of courteous guests. 
 
 Independent landowners who owed to the chief 
 no rent but only suit of court, these professors - 
 of learning were model farmers,^ renowned for 
 good tillage and well-furnished courts and com- 
 fortable seats, men of wealth and great power ; 
 open air students who observed and loved Nature, 
 enjoyed sport, and held the views of the modern 
 country gentleman as to its place in the training 
 of the young.' If they received gifts they too 
 kept " thronged houses of general hospitality," 
 "where successive generations of learned hosts 
 entertained all who came to them, "the needy 
 and the mighty."* The liberal hospitality of 
 MacNamee, a man of great wealth, was worthy d. 1507 
 of his fame as the most eminent poet of 
 
 1 Froissart, 1. iv, Ixiii. p. 187. 
 
 ^4 M. p. 1663, 171 1. The instances are numerous. 
 
 3 o'Grady, Cat. 488-9, 493-5. 
 
 *An. Loch C€. 207 ; 4 M. 1219, 1705, 1823, 1025, etc. 
 
312 SOME LEARNED MEN ch. 
 
 Erin. There was the notable house of Maurice 
 d. 1543. O'Mulconry, "a man of wealth and affluence, 
 a learned scribe by whom many books had been 
 transcribed and by whom many poems and lays 
 had been composed, and who had kept many 
 schools superintending and learning, several of 
 which he had constantly kept in his own house " :* 
 part of his beautiful copy of the Book of Fenagh 
 ■'X lies at Oxford. The MacDermots made their 
 
 seat " the Oxford of the province of Connacht." ^ 
 Amid the bare rocks of " old Burren " men show 
 the site of an old stone house where the O'Dalys 
 of Corcomroe kept their school, and where 
 'S^S- Teige professor of poetry had a house of general 
 hospitality till he slept in the abbey of Corcomroe. 
 Near it is the monument of Donough More 
 O'Daly, a poet and gentleman still celebrated 
 among the Irish peasants there.^ 
 
 The " imperishable patrimonial soil " of the 
 
 ollave could not in fact be enjoyed for nothing, 
 
 nor could the family idly live on the reputation 
 
 J of an ancestor. The estate was bound to produce 
 
 It a man of science dedicated to the public service. 
 
 The children were brought up in the pride and 
 
 enthusiasm of a hereditary learning, " instilled " 
 
 ' as one of them has said, " from their tenderest 
 
 ^ I4 M. p. 1287, p. 1483. One O'Mulconry was famed as "head 
 
 * of the inhospitality of Ireland. It was he who solemnly swore 
 
 that he would never give butter and bread together to guests." 
 
 4 M. p. 1 141. 
 
 »See p. 348. 3^ M. p. 847, 1331- 
 
,x. GENERATIONS OF SCHOLARS 313 
 
 years and from the lips of a parent," ^ A 
 profound and critical knowledge was required 
 of the heirs of a great tradition, according to 
 Dr. Lynch, and " how great soever the literary 
 eminence of any man in Ireland, he was never 
 called learned, but a ' son of learning.' " ^ With 
 the passing of each generation the estate along 
 with the post of science was handed on to a 
 selected " Tanist," as we may say, and an aristo- 
 cracy of learning was preserved, as great in their - 
 state and their pride of blood as the chiefs 
 themselves — the leaders of a fraternity of lay 
 scholars that spread over all * the country, and 
 themselves shared the honour of their masters and 
 patrons. 
 
 Learning in Ireland thus sank its roots deep 
 into the whole system of tribal life. It was main- 
 tained by great families endowed for that purpose. 
 Some were of ancient origin ; others were founded 
 or rose into fame after the first shock of the 
 English invasion had passed, when the old and new 
 races were settling down together into one people.^ 
 By the selection of the best skilled in the group 
 as heir, instead of the perpetual inheritance from 
 father to eldest son of English law, the family 
 preserved its intellectual succession without decay, 
 not for a generation or two but for centuries. 
 
 'Camb. Ev. i. 191. ''lb. i. 191. 
 
 'For the Irish poets see the valuable articles of Dr. Norman -^ 
 Moore in the Diet. Nat. Biog. A list is given in O'Grady, 
 Cat. 342. Misc. Ir. Arch. Soc. 1846, i. 120-2. 
 
314 DUALD MACFIRBIS ch. 
 
 We trace their long succession for some four or 
 
 five hundred years in the O'Roneys of Ulster ;^ 
 
 in the O'Husseys ; in the O'Mulconrys, great 
 
 teachers " without a blot," famed/ for history and 
 
 poetry;^ in the O'Higginses of Achonry, owners 
 
 of many thousand acres of land in Sligo ; or the 
 
 race of MacFirbis in Lecan, who had as long 
 
 and honourable a history — they kept open a free 
 
 1317-77- school : one of them Gilla Isa Mor, was chief 
 
 1418. compiler of the Book of Lecan ; and the Annals 
 
 1666. written by the family for over 200 years remained 
 
 in the keeping of the last scholar of their house. 
 
 1597- This, last Duald MacFirbis was trained at the 
 
 / school of the MacEgans in Tipperary and that 
 
 of the Davorens at Burren in Clare. One of 
 
 ' the greatest of Irish scholars in history, law, 
 
 philology, and hagiology, he fell on evil days 
 
 i when poverty and neglect were the only portion 
 
 of an Irish student. For a short time he was 
 
 - secretary to Sir James Ware^ who profited by his 
 
 learning but has not mentioned his name. At 
 
 1677. eighty he was stabbed by a Protestant gentleman 
 
 whose religion secured him from punishment. 
 
 So died the last in a great succession of learning. 
 
 " His death," wrote a later Irish scholar Charles 
 
 j O'Connor, " closes the line of the hereditary 
 
 antiquaries of Lecan in Tirfiacra of the Moy — 
 
 I a family whose law reports and historical coUec- 
 
 1 0'Gr. Cat. 500. 
 I '4 M. p. 1483 ; Tribes of Hy-Fiachrach, ed. O'Donovan, 227 
 
,x. IRISH LAWYERS 315 
 
 tions, many of which lie now dispersed in England 
 and France, have derived great credit to their 
 country."^ 
 
 The Irish brehon was a wealthy and influential 
 dignitary, removed like a judge of our own time 
 by his position from baser influences. Three signs, 
 said an Irish proverb, marked a judge's house, 
 wisdom, information, intellect.^ "My eloquent 
 Nera ! if a judge thou be, thou must utter no 
 judgment without knowledge ; without cognisance; 
 without precedent. Without foundation solid, 
 without bond, thou must not lay down. To 
 mercy violence may not be done. Before thou 
 know, thou must not proceed. Blind-judging 
 thou must not be. Thou must not be obstinately 
 blind, not rash. (For bribes emanating) from 
 either great or small thou shalt not consent (one 
 way or another)."* The Brehons kept the record 
 of the septs and families, their rights and dignities, 
 the lands they ought to hold, and their claims 
 of rents and services. So far as we can tell there 
 was no machinery for putting the decision of 
 the judge in force : his power lay only in the 
 consent of public opinion, and we must believe, 
 from the persistence of Irish law in spite of all 
 efl^orts to overthrow it, from the aff^ection of the 
 people for it, and their loyal obedience to its 
 
 ' lb. Introd. See O'Rourke's Sligo, ii. 508. - 
 'Triads, K. Meyer. 
 
 ^O'Grady, Cat. MSS. 144; see 81, 83. The Brehon was 
 liable to pay the eric of his own false judgment. 
 
3i6 
 
 IRISH LAW 
 
 CH. 
 
 decrees, that the code was humane and wise and 
 justly administered. Mediaeval law in general 
 was little more than a pious opinion of the law- 
 makers, very feebly put into effect by kings 
 whose dominions were far wider than their power; 
 but there is evidence to show that in the Irish 
 territories the law was really carried out. For 
 Irish law was not far from any one of the people. 
 Their code was one for the entire land, and 
 the multitude of copies made by the schools of 
 the various tribes are in substance the same, 
 scarcely differing save in the words of their 
 glosses. But " every country had his peculiar 
 Brehon dwelling within itself, that had power 
 to decide the causes of that country." The law 
 dispensed at the ancient hill of assembly was 
 the possession of the tribe, sprung from their 
 midst. " Three doors," said the Irish, *' through 
 which truth is recognised : a patient answer, a 
 firm pleading, appealing to witnesses: . . . three 
 glories of a gathering: a judge without perturba- 
 tion, a decision without reviling, terms (agreed 
 upon) without fraud." ^ 
 
 1 Triads, ed. Kuno Meyer. I add a few more of these 
 proverbs. " Three causes that do not die with neglect : the 
 causes of an imbecile, and of oppression and of ignorance." 
 " Three things which justice demands : judgment, measure, 
 conscience." "Three things which judgment demands: wisdom, 
 penetration, knowledge." " Three waves without wisdom : hard 
 pleading, judgment without knowledge, a talkative gathering." 
 " Three doors of a falsehood : an angry pleading, a shifting 
 foundation of knowledge, giving information without memory." 
 
,x. STRENGTH OF IRISH LAW 317 
 
 "It is a great abusion and reproach" wrote 0.1520. 
 Chief Baron Finglas of his English countrymen in i-^ 
 Ireland, " that the laws and statutes made in this 
 land are not observed nor kept after the making 
 of them eight days ; which matter is one of the 
 destructions of Englishmen of this land ; and divers 
 Irishmen doth observe and keep such laws and 
 statutes which they make upon hills in their 
 country firm and stable, without breaking them 
 for any favour or reward."^ By all report the 1592. 
 people were singularly law-abiding. " The Irish," ' 
 said Payne,^ " keep their promise faithfully and are 
 more desirous of peace than the English ; nothing 
 is more pleasing to them than good justice." 
 " There is no nation of people under the sun," 
 reported attorney -general Davies, " that doth love 1607. 
 equal and indifferent justice better than the Irish, 
 or will rest better satisfied with the execution 
 thereof, although it be against themselves, as they 
 may have the protection and benefit of the law 
 when upon just cause they do desire it."' 
 
 The companionship of the chiefs with men 
 of learning showed itself in the culture of the 
 ruling families. It was as honourable for an 
 Irish chief, to be a distinguished student as to 
 be a renowned warrior. They set the example 
 of learning in their own houses. Modern writers 
 
 'Finglass' Breviate of Ireland, p. loi, in Harris' Hibernica. -^ 
 ^Ir. Arch. Sec. 1841, Payne's Descr. 
 ^Davies, 213, ed. D. 1787. 
 
3i8 
 
 THE MAGUIRES 
 
 CH, 
 
 have contemptuously noted that an O'Donnell 
 and a Maguire in 1563 signed a treaty with 
 a + , probably a merely formal signature. They 
 have not recorded that the O'Donnells and 
 Maguires were a race of cultured men. All 
 Ireland knew the Maguires of Fermanagh, a 
 family "of greatest fame and noblest deeds''^ 
 
 1338. for many generations. " Rory the Hospitable," 
 lord of Fermanagh, had bestowed more silver, 
 apparel, steeds, and cattle on the learned men 
 and chief professors of Ireland than any of his 
 
 1394- house. Thomas Gilla-Duv was of universal 
 
 ''^^°' hospitality, founder of monasteries, churches and 
 abbeys, maker of many images, pacifier of 
 territories and chieftains.^ Ireland and Scotland 
 1430-81. were once full of the fame of Thomas Oge ; 
 who twice travelled to Compostella and once to 
 
 1447- Rome;' his masons put the "French roof" on 
 the church of Aghalurcher, where one of his 
 sons, a wise man learned in Latin and Irish, 
 was vicar-choral and kept a house of hospitality ; 
 his carpenters made new engines for casting 
 stones; his master-wright, "a man that kept a 
 general guest-house and an eminent gold-wright 
 also," made far-famed golden mass-chalices and 
 images. His son _^ trained in a court of poets, 
 historians, and lawyers, was renowned as a book- 
 d. 1501. collector; and his grandson John was the most 
 
 I4 M. pp. 735, 839. -4 M. p. 879- 
 
 ^4 M. pp. 953, 1 1 13; An. Uls. iii. 269. 
 
IX. 
 
 THE MAGUIRES 319 
 
 merciful and humane of the Irish, the best in 
 jurisdiction, authority, and rule in Church and 
 State.^ After 400 years the peasants of Fer- 
 managh still call the island of Seanadh Bally- 
 Macmanus^ after the name of MacManusd. 1498. 
 Maguire the historian : and his son again, 
 farmer of Seanadh and Official of Lough Erne, 
 was famed as a wise man skilled in the sciences.' d. 1527 
 Another Maguire was the best householder of 1530. 
 all Fermanagh.* The unhappy Cuchonnacht, 1566-88 
 was a learned scholar in Latin and Irish and , 
 lord of munificence after the tradition of the 
 Fermanagh chiefs : ^ born in an evil day to see 
 his land ravaged by the wars of the English with 
 O'Neill for its overlordship, he disappeared into 
 a Dublin prison : the calamities of the time live 
 in the burning exhortations and laments of the 
 poets that gathered round his house. O'Hussey 
 sang the hopes with which Hugh Maguire was 
 inaugurated with Irish rites at Lisnaskea,* and 1589. 
 chanted the terrific song of his hosting under 
 the fury of the firmament.'^ 
 
 '4 M. p. 1267. For Nicholas Maguire (d. 1512) see Ware's 
 Writers, 91. 
 
 ^4 M. p. 124011. 
 
 '4 M. p. 1389. *Ib. p. 1399. 
 
 '4 M. p. 1875 ; cf. O'Grady, Cat. 449 n. i. For the bards 
 of Fermanagh and collection of their poems at Copenhagen 
 see Stern, Z.C.P. II. ii. 323 ; Hyde, Lit. Hist. 536. 
 
 "O'Grady, 476, 550 n. I. 
 
 'See Mangan's translation, and O'Grady, 451-2,454-6; v. app. 
 
320 
 
 PEACEFUL FERMANAGH 
 
 CH. 
 
 Under the Maguires *' Fermanagh of the 
 bending woods," ^ bowing beneath all "wealthy 
 produce of fruit-bearing boughs," had become 
 
 c. 1580. a home of all industries and of learning. We 
 have seen O'Higgihs' account of the fleet of ships 
 on the lake, and the artificers in the chief's hall. 
 The same picture of a busy industry is curtly 
 1607. given by Davies: "the natives of this county are 
 reputed the worst swordsmen of the north, being 
 rather inclined to be scholars or husbandmen'^ 
 than to be kerne or men of action, as they 
 term rebels in this kingdom ; and for this cause 
 Maguire in the late wars did hire and wage 
 the greatest part of his soldiers out of Connacht 
 and out of the Breffni O'Reilly."" "Assuredly," 
 comments Davies, " these Irish lords appear to 
 us like glow-worms, which afar off seem to be 
 all fire, but being taken up in a man's hands 
 are but silly worms " — so difficult was it for any 
 man, scholar, artisan, or warrior, being Irish, to 
 give satisfaction to the English. 
 
 The O'Donnells were no less distinguished 
 
 for their love of books and learning. In 
 
 1402. the Irish revival one of them had been " a 
 
 learned historian."* Before his day O'Doherty 
 
 a. 1345- the son of O'Donnell's chief poet was taken 
 prisoner by the O'Conors of Sligo, and a ransom 
 given for him of the two best manuscripts in 
 
 * O'Grady, 409. ^And skilled craftsmen of all kinds. 
 
 'Davies, D. 1787, 255-6. *4 M. p. 775. 
 
rx. THE O'DONNELLS 321 
 
 Donegal — the " Book of Princely Institutions " 
 to preserve manners, morals, and government in 
 the kingdom, "which book contains as goodly 
 precepts and moral doctrines as Cato or Aris- 
 totle did ever write " ; and " the Book of 
 the Kings " written at Clonmacnois ; with the 
 history of the kings, what the high-king was 
 entitled to receive from the provincial kings, the 
 dues of these lesser kings from their subjects, 
 and of the nobles from those under them ; also 
 the boundaries and meares of Ireland from shore ' 
 to shore, the provinces and town-lands.^ These 
 books lay over 125 years in Connacht, held by 
 twelve successive lords of Sligo : it was the 
 glory of Hugh Roe O'Donnell the Great, "of 
 the best jurisdiction, law, and rule of all the 
 Gaels in Ireland in his time," to carry them 
 back as prize of war ^ with the chairs of Donnell 1470. 
 Oge.^ With his wife Finola O'Brien, " who as 
 regarded both body and soul had gained more 
 fame and renown than any of her contem- 
 poraries,"* he built the monastery of Donegal 1 474- 
 and began its fine library. His daughter Gorm- 
 ley, a most bounteous and hospitable woman, 
 bestowed many gifts on the churches " and upon 
 the literary men and ollaves, which indeed was 
 what might have been expected from her."^ 
 
 '4 M. pp. 116-117, 1068. ^soc. of Ant, July 1857, p. 372. 
 ^Donnell Oge had been inaugurated as O'Donnell of Tir- 
 connell in 1258 ; O'Gr. Cat. 350. Fac. Nat. MSS. i. p. xix. 
 U M. pp. 1393, 1087. «4 M. p. 1373. 
 
322 
 
 MANUS O'DONNELL 
 
 CII. 
 
 1522. His son and successor Hugh Duff" gave one 
 hundred and forty milch cows to buy the Book 
 d. 1563. of Ballimote.^ Manus O'Donnell like his grand- 
 d- 1535- father Hugh Roe married a wife, Judith O'Neill, 
 the most renowned of her time for piety and 
 hospitality.^ A bad politician in a very troubled 
 time, he was friendly, benign, and bountiful 
 " towards the learned, the destitute, the poets 
 and the ollaves, towards the Orders and the 
 Church, as is evident from the old people and 
 historians : a learned man, skilled in many arts, 
 gifted with a profound intellect and the know- 
 ledge of every science."' Before disaster thick- 
 ened round him and his people he lived as a 
 student working at his life of St. Columba : * 
 1532. "he gathered and collected the parts of it that 
 were scattered through the old books of Erin, 
 and he dictated it out of his own mouth with 
 great labour . . . studying how he should 
 arrange all the parts of it in their places " : he 
 ordered the part that was in Latin to be put 
 into Gaelic, and that which was in difficult 
 Gaelic to be modified, so that it should be clear 
 d. 1583. and comprehensible. Conn O'Donnell grandson 
 of Manus spent like his ancestors much of his 
 wealth in the purchase of poems and panegyrics 
 and supporting the pillars of the literati, and 
 
 » O'Reilly's Cat. cv. "^ m. p. 1423. 
 
 *4 M. pp. I59S-7- 
 
 *Fac. Nat. MSS. III. Ixvi. Part I. ed by Henebry in Z.C.P- 
 
IX. 
 
 THE O'NEILLS 323 
 
 his daughter Margaret^ was celebrated by Teige 
 Dall as a bountiful friend of the poets. Beside 
 the lords of Donegal stood the famous succession 
 of the O'Clerys,^ their ollaves in literature, 
 history, and poetry, of high descent, men of 
 consideration and great power, entertainers of 
 the learned, the exiled, and the literary men 
 of neighbouring territories. 
 
 The O'Neills maintained the fame of " Ulster's 
 art-loving province." Donnell O'Neill was writer 1318. 
 of the famous appeal of Ireland to the Pope against 
 English aggression and treachery :* Neill O'Neill 1375-97- 
 "destroyer of the English, uniter of the Irish, 
 exalter of the Church and Sciences of Ireland," 
 renewed the glories of Emain Macha by raising 
 on that mound of famous memories a palace to 
 entertain all the learned men of Ireland, and d. 1461. 
 earned once more from the poet for his house 
 the glorious name " O'Neill of Ailech and of 
 Emania."* Felim, protector of the learned and d. 1461. 
 the exiled, was " the head of the bardic bands 
 and pilgrims of Ireland, and one that most 
 bought of poetic and erudite composition, and 
 was the greatest rhymster that was in Ireland in 
 his time":^ his son Brian was illustrious for d. 1482. 
 hospitality and for that he "most bought of 
 poetry and did most of raids of border-lands 
 
 'O'Giady, Cat. 422. ^4 M. pp. 1195, 1313, 1389, 1607. 
 
 ^See King's Ch. Hist. iii. 11 19. 
 
 *Hyde, Lit. Hist. 527. 'An. Uls. iii. p. 205. 
 
324 THE O'ROURKES ch. 
 
 that was in his time. And the benison of 
 
 d. 1496. erudition and science on his soul " ; ^ " Neill the 
 
 Anglicised " was nick-named by the people for 
 
 his English talk and liking for English dress 
 
 1512. and customs.^ Later O'Neills were famed in 
 
 1244! history, poetry, and music ; full of skill and 
 
 knowledge in every science.* 
 
 In the mountainous border-land of Ulster and 
 Connacht, swept by war and the march of armies 
 English and Irish over the debated boundaries, 
 BrefFni had its home of learning * of a ravishing 
 beauty scarcely excelled by the O'Neill palace of 
 Benburb. The ruins of the banqueting hall of 
 t ' the O'Rourkes at Dromahair are lifted on a 
 
 ■ 'k. green promontory over the bend of the river 
 
 Bonnet, where the mountains open out to pasture 
 land under a spacious sky, and the line of every 
 stream is marked by little raths for cattle, the 
 folds of old times. The palace was the shelter 
 of many a scholar. There Owen O'Rourke and 
 1508. his wife Margaret O'Brien planned the Friary' 
 they built across the water, magnificent and 
 richly endowed : on one of the low pillars of 
 the cloister an Irish artist carved a tree with 
 roots and branches growing into a Celtic pattern, 
 and in the branches a S. Francis preaching to 
 
 ^An. Uls. iii. p. 281 ; 4 M. p. 1121. For Brian MacNamee 
 bard of Henry O'Neill (d. 1489) see Z.C.P. ii. 352-3. 
 
 »4 M. p. 1227. Mb. pp. 1313, 1327, 1485. 
 
 ♦ Cf. O'Reilly, Irish Writers, a. 1293. « Uls. Arch. J. v. 190- 
 
IX. DROMAHAIR 325 
 
 the birds of God — the saint may have seemed 
 to the Irishman a re-incarnation in his passion 
 of charity of those Irish missionaries whose 
 singular glory it had been through five hundred 
 years to win peoples to the faith by human 
 love without help of axe or fire or deadly viper. 
 A reliquary is preserved in the Dublin museum 
 which Brian had made, probably to replace one 
 destroyed by a fire — a mournful work made in 1536. 
 haste and under foreign influence, with repetition i537- 
 of cheap ornament unknown in the schools of . 
 Irish artists. This hurriedly-wrought reliquary, 
 in the very year that Henry viii. dissolved 
 the monasteries, marks the beginning of evil ' 
 days. Owen's son Brian O'Rourke, a good 
 writer who needed no secretary for his corre- d. 1562 
 spondence,^ adorned the palace with " the best 
 collection of poems " of all his tribe, and gathered 
 in his banqueting hall the greatest number of 
 poets.* But the armies of the Connacht pre- 
 sidents scattered the friars of Creevelea : Sir 
 John Bingham stabled his troopers' horses in - 
 the church and burned its fine wood-work for 
 their cooking fires. A touching story tells how 
 the friars driven from their house still preserved 
 the tradition of learning even in the extremity 
 of ruin : ^ for two hundred years they hid them- 
 selves in huts round the old church where they 
 
 • O'Grady, Cat. 482-3. 24 M. p. 1591. 
 
 'Uls. Arch. J. V. 190; 4 M. p. 1300. 
 
326 LEARNING IN CONNACHT ch. 
 
 still secretly gathered to worship : and it was 
 1718. a poor friar of this convent who was the first 
 to put a Latin grammar in the hands of Charles 
 O'Conor of Belanagare. 
 
 There was no part of Ireland, to its remotest 
 mountains, where culture had not penetrated, 
 nor would it be possible to find a leading chief- 
 tain's house which did not boast of a line of 
 scholars. The Burkes gave half-a-dozen bishops 
 to their province.^ From the Moy to Burren 
 Connacht had a wealth of schools, learned men, 
 and houses of hospitality. Its peasants down to 
 our own days have recited the poems of O'Daly 
 handed down among them for 600 years,*^ a poet 
 d. 12^4. famed above all others for the sweetness of his 
 verse, its gravity and dignity. Those of Leitrim 
 still remember the site of the bardic school of 
 the O'Duigennans at Castlefore by its old Irish 
 name, Baile Coillte Foghar, " the town of the 
 woods of Foghar " : they were a famous sept, 
 ollaves of history to the MacRannells of south 
 Leitrim, to the MacDonoughs of Cill Ronain 
 in Roscommon, and to the MacDermotts of 
 Moy Lurg near Boyle, employed and rewarded 
 by O'Kelly of Hy Many, and erenaghs of the 
 church of Cill Ronain founded by one of them 
 in 1339.' 
 
 'Ware's Bishops, pp. 506, 641, 612, 499, 642, 256, 502. 
 2 Hyde, Lit. His. 467 ; Songs of Connacht ; O'Reilly, Irish 
 Writers, xc. ; O'Grady, Cat. 345. 
 U M. p. 565. 
 
IX. LEARNING IN MUNSTER 327 
 
 In like manner the Munster chiefs were "pro- 1531-2 
 tecting heroes" to the learned, and gathered 
 scholars to national festivals.^ The land of the 
 MacCarthys stretched west of Cork for sixty miles 
 to the very uttermost parts next towards Spain.^ 
 Donnell, MacCarthy Mor, was a poet.* His son- 
 in-law Fineen, son of MacCarthy Reagh, chief 1565. 
 of Carbery, had never been sent to an English 
 university where he would have been a hostage, 
 nor had he an English tutor (and spy) as " the 
 commendable lords of the Pale did." But he . 
 had learned much from his Irish teachers and 
 his Spanish friends. He knew Latin, English, 
 and Spanish perfectly. He was a finished scholar 
 in the Old Irish used some hundreds of years 
 before his time, " copious and elegant," as he 
 said, " though now out of use." He was skilled 
 in the history and antiquities of his own country. 
 He was completely trained both in Irish and 
 in English law, and in the conduct of the most p 
 difficult questions raised by English lawyers as 
 to his inheritance and property, he held his own 
 against all the resources of the English court 
 and bar. Irish scribes had taught him the skill 
 of hand in writing for which they were famous, 
 and the poets and historians had trained his 
 memory according to their habit. Both are 1610. 
 
 *4 M. p. 1403. "MacCarthy, 136. 
 
 'lb. 143-4. Two of his poems remain : "A Sorrowful Vision 
 has deceived me," and a poem to the Virgin. 
 
328 THE ANGLO-IRISH ch. 
 
 shown in the remarkable treatise on the Antiqui- 
 ties of his country, which he wrote " after nine 
 years of extreme endurance" in the Tower, 
 " before I end my life in the languishing torture 
 of this close prison," ' The pages, recovered and 
 published after 250 years by O'Donovan, are 
 written without a blot, with scarcely a correction, 
 in a hand distinct, clear, and firm as print, and 
 so minute that there seemed on the page but a 
 slender thread of white encircling each word. 
 
 Norman and English settlers had been early 
 adopted into Irish life. Ireland made her brave 
 boast of all her children. " Seldom it hath been 
 with us and with yourselves," sang the Irish poet, 
 " de Burgo's blood of notable achievements — 
 champions to whom it fell to safeguard Ireland — 
 that with each other we should be at variance."^ 
 They gathered all peoples into the common 
 family. According to the bards the FitzGeralds 
 had sprung from Greece (in proof of which 
 perhaps the glorious David had shone at the 
 Olympicum) ; ' the Burkes were Franks, showing 
 their descent from Charlemagne by exploits greater 
 than those of the Baldwins ; all the other incomers 
 were plain Saxons.* The foreigners themselves 
 had been caught, as we have seen, by the spell of 
 1362. Irish culture. French, long used as the language 
 
 ^Fac. Nat. MSS. iv. i. Ixxii-iii and n. ; O'Grady, Cat. 61. 
 ^O'Gr. Cat. 403, 428-9. ^v. p. 243. 
 
 ♦O'Grady, Cat. 428-9, 454. 
 
IX. IRISH IN THE PALE 329 
 
 of public business, died away among the barons 1465. 
 in private speech: though a proclamation was 
 read in both French and English that it might 1324. 
 be generally understood, a lord who spoke French 1326. 
 was nick-named " the Frenchman." ^ In the 
 Pale English was supposed to be used, but 
 every gentleman there had Irish, and most of 
 them as their ordinary and customary language. 
 " The King's subjects," Henry's chief justice 
 said, were " near hand Irish, and wear their habits 
 and use their tongue." "All the English March /537, 
 borderers use Irish apparel and the Irish tongue, 
 as well in peace as in war, and for the most part 
 use the same in the English Pale, unless they 
 come to parliament or council."^ They "not only 
 forgot the English language but scorned the use 
 thereof,"^ wrote Lynch. "It is not expedient," 
 complained Stanihurst,* "that the Irish tongue 
 should be so universally gaggled in the English 
 Pale" ; why, he asked, was the Pale "more given -5,71. 
 to learn the Irish, than the Irishman is willing to 
 learn English ? we must embrace their language 
 and they detest ours I " " Rebels," the Anglo- 
 Irish were to English-born officials, " degenerate." 
 But to the Irish patriot all who lived in the 
 common country owed, like all other peoples, 
 their first loyalty to the land that encompassed 
 
 'Gilb. Viceroys, 158, 192; Clyn. 18; H.M.C. Rep. x. App. v. ' 
 271 ; Ware's Ant. 245 ; v. app. 
 
 -C.S.P. 1537, 32. ^carnb. Ev. i. 233. ♦Hoi. vi. 5, 6. 
 
330 ANGLO-IRISH CULTURE ch. 
 
 them with its skies, and fed them with the fatness 
 of its fields, and nourished them with the civilisa- 
 tion of its dead. There was no prouder family 
 of the Anglo-Irish than the Lynches, who claimed 
 to share with King James himself the blood of 
 the Red Earl Richard de Burgo. " If," exclaimed 
 one of them, " those Irishmen whose names 
 denote their English or their Irish descent, and 
 who can trace back their parents or either of 
 them to an English stock, have the same regard 
 for England, their original country, as the English 
 have for the Saxons and Normans, the French 
 for the Sicambri, the Spaniards for the Goths, 
 the Italians for the Vandals, and other nations 
 for the people from whence they sprang, have 
 they not punctually done all that can justly be 
 required of them ? " ^ 
 
 Surrounded by Irish historians and singers,^ 
 building monasteries for the patriot Franciscans, 
 the Anglo-Irish rivalled the mere Irish in learning. 
 We read of Jenkin Savadge in the Ards that 
 
 d. 1374. "the literati were left orphans by his death."* 
 There remains a token of how the lords of 
 Athenry had thrown themselves into Irish life, 
 
 d. 1376. in the shrine* made by Thomas de Bermingham 
 
 'Camb. Ev. iii. 175. 
 
 2 Athairne O'Hosey (d. 1489), a poet and a good scholar and 
 a youth honoured among the English and Irish, was distin- 
 guished for musical powers both vocal and instrumental. 
 4 M. p. 1175 n. 
 
 ^4 M. p. 659 n. '•Nat. Mus. Dub. 
 
~A 
 
 IX. THE HOUSE OF ORMOND 331 
 
 for S. Patrick's tooth, the most venerated relic 
 in Connacht — a shrine of silver, decorated with 
 raised figures in silver and settings of crystals, 
 coloured glass, and amber, with spiral and inter- 
 laced work of Celtic art. Nugents and Cusacks ^ " 
 and Englishes, and other foreign names were 
 entered on the roll of Irish poets. In the 
 ardour of Irish studies a Fitzgerald, even a 
 Butler, was not behind a MacCarthy or an 
 O'SuUivan. 
 
 The house of Ormond, it is true, had been ' 
 artificially kept apart from the national life. For 
 nearly 200 years the heirs were all in turn 
 minors, held in ward by the king. A training 
 at the English court, constant visits there, knight- 
 hoods and earldoms and wealthy English mar- 
 riages, tied the heirs of the house to England. 
 But MacRichard Butler, " Captain of his nation," 
 his mother an O'Reilly, his wife an O'Carroll 
 of Ely, had been the pupil of a great Irish 
 scholar and patriot, O'Hedigan archbishop of 
 Cashel,^ — the great builder and repairer of 1406- 
 
 churches, he who had been impeached on the 
 
 1421. 
 
 charge that he made very much of the Irish 
 and that he loved none of the English, and 
 that he gave no benefice to Englishmen [in 
 defiance of the statute of 141 6 that no one of 
 
 ^Christopher Cusack of Meath made a book of Collections - 
 relating to Irish Affairs (151 1). Ware's Writers, 91. 
 
 ^Ware's Bishops, 480 ; 4 M. pp. 1021, 1030 n ; v. app. 
 
332 JAMES BUTLER ch. 
 
 the Irish nation might hold any ecclesiastical post,] 
 and advised other bishops to the like practice. 
 462. When MacRichard was taken in war by Desmond 
 he gave for his ransom the chief of all his 
 treasures — the " Book of Carrick " and the 
 " Psalter of Cashel " written for him by O'Clery, 
 and still preserved at Oxford with its inscription — 
 " A blessing on the soul of the Archbishop of 
 Cashel, i.e. Richard O'Hedigan, for it was by 
 him the owner of this book was educated."^ 
 
 1539- His son Red Piers made Kilkenny famous for its 
 artificers from Flanders, makers of diapers, tapes- 
 tries, Turkey carpets, and other like works,'' for 
 its gardens and orchards, and for the school he 
 153946. founded.' MacRichard's grandson, Earl James, 
 was known for " the entire affection he bare his 
 
 T542. country." It was he who in Parliament trans- 
 , lated into Irish the Speaker's address and the 
 Chancellor's answer.* Ormond as he was, he wept 
 openly, the tears streaming down " his leeres," 
 at the ruin and humiliations of the Kildares ; a 
 suspected man at the court, dying of English 
 546. poison in London, " before he could see that day 
 after which he doubtless looked and longed, the 
 restitution of the house of Kildare," he bequeathed 
 his heart to Kilkenny,* that where his mind was 
 settled in his life his heart should be there en- 
 tombed after his death. 
 
 '4 M. p. 1030 n. 2 St. Pap. III. iii. 146 n. ^ P. 366. 
 
 *St. Pap. I. iii. 304. *Hol. vi. 318-20; v. app. 
 
IX. JAMES FITZGERALD ^33 
 
 It was the Fitzgeralds however, of Desmond' 
 and of Kildare, who were beloved in Ireland 
 as the most learned and most bountiful of the 
 foreigners who had come among them. " Gerald 1359-98- 
 the Rhymer " third Earl of Desmond, " a noble- 
 man of wonderful bounty, mirth, cheerfulness 
 in conversation, charitable in his deeds, easy of 
 access, a witty and ingenious composer of Irish 
 poetry," " excelled all the English and many of 
 the Irish in the knowledge of the Irish language, 
 poetry, and history, and of other learning,"^ 
 Earl James, foster-son of O'Brien, cousin of 1416-62. 
 Henry vi., had. an O'Daly for his " chief Ddn- 
 maker." He was not regarded in his time as 
 having sunk into barbarism. The scholar Are- 1440. 
 tino. Secretary of the Republic of Florence, 
 complimented him with a letter : *' Magnificent 
 Lord and dearest friend, if it be true, and is 
 publicly stated, that your progenitors were of 
 Florentine origin, and of the right noble and 
 antique stock of the Gherardini, still one of the 
 greatest and highest families of our State, we 
 have ample reason to rejoice and congratulate 
 ourselves that our people have not only acquired 
 possessions in Apulia, Greece, and Hungary, but 
 that our Florentines, through you and yours 
 bear sway even in Ibernia, the most remote 
 island in the world. O great glory of our 
 State ! O singular benevolence of God towards 
 
 '4 M. p. 760 n., 761. 
 
334 THE DESMONDS ch. 
 
 our people ! from whom have sprung so many 
 nobles and dominations, diffused over the entire 
 orbit of the earth." Earl Thomas, bountiful to 
 
 1462 8. learned men, founded a College at Youghal, and 
 desired to make a University at the frontier 
 
 1465-6. town of Drogheda, where Irishmen shut out of 
 Oxford might study and be made masters and 
 doctors in all sciences and faculties — that Drog- 
 heda where he himself was " extortiously slain 
 and murdered by colour of the laws " by Tiptoft 
 Earl of Worcester, " the Butcher." It was for 
 his daughter Catherine, married to MacCarthy 
 '45°- Reagh, that the Book of Lismore was compiled 
 from the now lost Book of Monasterboice. The 
 messengers of a later Earl James carried presents 
 to Charles v. at Toledo and begged in return 
 1529. for artillery and cannon,^ and when Charles' 
 envoy cruised along the Munster coast, with 
 his commission oddly enough made out in 
 English, Desmond requested him to read it in 
 Latin for the benefit of his Irish council. His 
 unhappy son Earl Garrett, and John of Desmond, 
 and James Fitzmaurice, were " three lords loved 
 like none other " — John " the beloved of the 
 1570. bards of Erin" — James "a man very valiant, 
 politic, and learned, as any rebel hath been of 
 that nation for many years," ^ skilled both in 
 Latin and English. 
 
 'The Pilgrim, ed. Froude, p. 169; Car. i. 42-3; 7/. app. 
 2Z.C.P. ii. 347; Perrot's Life, 50. 
 
IX. 
 
 THE EARLS OF KILDARE 335 
 
 The highest union of the culture of England 
 and of Ireland was in the Fitzgeralds of Kildare. 
 The Great Earl Garrett was as conspicuous for 1480 
 
 • 1 C I "^ 
 
 ability among London courtiers as among Irish "• "^* 
 chiefs : like Desmond he too once wrote to 
 Florence announcing himself head of the " Gher- 
 ardini" in Ireland. "To increase their joy"^ 
 he told the Florentines of his wealth and honours, 
 and of a relation called the Earl of Desmond 
 who owned 100 miles of country : and asked 
 a history of the House, who are in France and 
 who in Rome, and whether they would like 
 hawks, horses, or dogs for the chase. His 
 beautiful church at Sligo, as it may be traced 
 under later disfigurations, shows the Great Earl 
 as a distinguished lover of the arts. He laid 
 the foundation of a true civilization of Ireland, 
 based on Irish law and custom ; and this great 
 conception was carried on by Earl Garrett, his 1513-34 
 son, who inherited his ability and his patriotism. 
 The most handsome man of his time, he lived 
 in princely style. At Maynooth was " such 
 stores of beds, so many goodly hangings, so 
 rich a wardrobe, such brave fiirniture as truly 
 it was accounted for household stuff and utensils 
 one of the richest earl's houses under the crown ' 
 of England."^ Gold and silver goblets and 
 great carfdlesticks and bottles for damask water 
 
 ' Gilb. Viceroys, 473 ; cf. Hoi. vi. 46-7. 
 
 " Hoi. vi. 300, 309 ; Lives of Kildares, ii. 46, 47, 53. 
 
236 THE KILDARE HOUSEHOLD en. 
 
 loaded his table. He built the college of May- 
 nooth " in a most beautiful form." The Red 
 Book of the estates and rentals of Kildare had 
 d. 1519. been drawn up by Philip Flattisbury for the 
 Great Earl his father, and Garrett Oge was 
 known in his turn as " the greatest improver 
 of his lands in this land." ^ He kept the state 
 of an Irish chief. From his vast stables with 
 
 iSi?' 300 brood mares he gave in Irish fashion horses 
 every year to a host of friends and retainers, 
 who followed him as he rode in his scarlet 
 cloak to war. Four hundred spearmen were of 
 his following. His hospitality was more lavish 
 than that of any man of his day. A number 
 of Irish chiefs paid him rent in return for his 
 protection, a groat on every cow that grazed on 
 certain lands : maintaining Irish taxes, he never 
 oppressed the people with any arbitrary or law- 
 less impost.'' He was a lover of Irish learning. 
 
 1536- O'Mulconry was his ollave, a man full of the 
 grace of God and of learning, whom the Geral- 
 dines and the English had selected in preference 
 to all the chief poets of Ireland, and gave him 
 jewels and riches.^ Philip Flattisbury was em- 
 ployed to transcribe divers chronicles of Ireland 
 for him, and his library was as well furnished 
 with Irish books as with English : * there his 
 
 *St. Pap. II. iii. 185, 300. 
 
 'C.S.P. 1557, 137; Car. i. 264-5. M M. p. 1345. 
 
 *0'Gr. p. 154; Fac. Nat. MSS. in. Ix.-lxiv. ; Bowling, vi.; 
 Ware's Writers of Ireland, p. 92 ; Hoi. vi. 233-267. 
 
IX. GATHERINGS OF SCHOLARS 337 
 
 brother Richard, " more bookish than the rest, 
 was much given to the studies of antiquity." 
 "In short time he made his English wife to 
 read, write, and perfectly speak the Irish tongue." 
 His son Silken Thomas, surrounded by Irish 
 poets and historians, was carefully educated, as 
 we may see by the clear and beautiful hand- 
 writing of the letter from prison in which he 
 told his trusty servant Rothe of his piteous 
 destitution.^ 
 
 By a fine custom the Irish chiefs, " heroes 
 who reject not men of learning," were in their 
 own houses "the sheltering tree of the learned"'' 
 and of the whole countryside. When a noble- 
 man made a set feast or " coshering," there 
 flocked to it all the retainers and many a 
 visitor, the mighty and the needy — a gay and 
 free democracy of hearers and critics, with a 
 welcome for " every first-rate and free-hearted 
 man that is refined and intelligent, affable and 
 hilarious."^ Far-off wanderers lovingly recalled 
 "Ireland's rushes green" that carpeted the floor 
 when the people gathered " to hear their rhymers, 
 their bards, their harpers that feed them with 
 music, and when the harper twangeth or singeth 
 a song all the company must be whist, or else 
 he chafeth like a cut-purse by reason his harmony 
 is not had in better price,"* The standard of 
 
 *Fac. Nat. MSS. in. Ixviii. * Hy-PMachraich, 207, 227. 
 
 'O'Grady, Cat. 493. *Hol. vi. 57. 
 
338 IRISH COURTESY ch. 
 
 art and scholarship was kept up as well by the 
 criticism of a lively and ingenious people as by 
 the patronage of the chiefs ; and from time to- 
 time we see a figure illuminated by the popular 
 aftection — that wonderful bard who was " the Head 
 of the jocularity of Ireland," or that other nick- 
 named " Of the Stories," or MacDermot the 
 Blind^ "a small blind man that retained much 
 poetry, and a man of great memory for every- 
 thing he heard of, and in particular for the ages 
 and for the stories of people." 
 
 The house of an Irish chief was in fact an 
 academy of courtesy and conversation. " Sweetly 
 c. 1213. would I sleep," sang an Irish pilgrim in the 
 Adriatic, " on my visit to Murray's ^ gentle joyous 
 race ; in Cruahan along with the graceful company 
 and upon Ireland's rushes green." " Four hatreds 
 of a chief," ran the Irish saying : " a silly flighty 
 man, a slavish useless man, a lying dishonourable 
 man, a talkative man who has no story to tell. 
 For a chief does not grant speech save to four : 
 a poet for satire and praise, a chronicler of good 
 memory for narration and story-telling, a judge 
 for giving judgments, an historian for ancient 
 lore." ^ Irish proverbs illustrate the conduct of 
 their good society. " Three ungentlemanly things : 
 interrupting stories, a mischievous game, jesting 
 
 'An. Uls. 1458, p. 197. 
 
 'Murray O'Daly of Lisadill in Sligo ; O'Grady, Cat. 337-8; 
 V. Hy-Fiachrach, 187, 222. 
 3 Triads, K. Meyer. 
 
IX. 
 
 THE POETS 339 
 
 so as to raise a blush. . . . Three rude ones of 
 the world : a youngster mocking an old man, 
 a healthy person mocking an invalid, a wise man 
 mocking a fool. . . . Three fair things that hide 
 ugliness : good manners in the ill-favoured, skill' 
 in a serf, wisdom in the mis-shapen." 
 
 But the gatherings of the learned taught more 
 than manners. When Manus MacMahon ^ made 1432 
 depredations on the English, and set their heads 
 upon the stakes of the garden of his own mansion 
 seat, Baile-na-Lurgan (Five-mile town near Car- 
 rickmacross), the bards, minstrels, and poor of 
 Ireland who frequented his house were shocked 
 at a spectacle so hideous and horrible to the 
 beholders. The scholar may occasionally have 
 boasted the independence of his own ancient 
 order against the clerical hierarchy, as when Mac- 
 Namee, rich, skilled in poetry and literature, a 
 great entertainer, "struck the Great Cross," (or 1542. 
 was he perhaps an Angliciser .?) and died about 
 the festival of Columcille through the miracles 
 of God and the Saint and the curse of O'Roarty.'' 
 
 The disdainful words of rhymsters, beggars, 
 strolling bards and minstrels, vagabonds to be 
 committed to the stocks, which were used 
 indiscriminately by the English for the whole 
 body of Irish poets and chroniclers, or Spenser's 
 subtle phrase of scorn, whether malicious or 
 Ignorant — "a certain kind of people called bards 
 
 \ '4 M. p. 889. 2 4 M. p. 1467. j 
 
340 IRISH POETRY ch. 
 
 which are to them instead of poets " — these and 
 such like insinuations long repeated have answered 
 their purpose of filling men's minds with con- 
 tempt of Irish scholars and their alleged cheap 
 and vulgar appeals to barbarism. The weight of 
 centuries of calumny lies heavy on their graves. 
 But no student can remain in such disdain. " In 
 1660. the opinion," wrote Lynch, "of men who are 
 well acquainted with several languages Irish poetry 
 does not yield, either in variety, construction, or 
 polish of its metres, to the poetry of any nation 
 in Europe." ^ Modern scholars have pointed out 
 the " miraculous freedom " with which the Irish, 
 escaping from mediaeval conventions, led the way 
 in poetry of pure Nature,** and as one gift among 
 the many given by them to Europe stirred the 
 Continent with the spell of the sea : they have 
 shown to those who supposed effusiveness of 
 thought, luxuriousness of language, and vague 
 fancies to be the chief characteristic of the race, 
 other qualities — classic reserve in thought, form, 
 and expression, a penetrating and varied emotion 
 which no lapse of centuries can render old.' 
 
 iCamb. Ev. i. 185. ^Ker, Dark Ages, 147, 329-62. 
 
 * See King and Hermit, ed. K. Meyer. Wohlleben, London, 
 
 1901. 
 
 Songs of Summer and Winter, ed. K. Meyer. Nutt, 1903- 
 
 Liadain and Curithir, ed. K. Meyer. Nutt, 1902. 
 
 The old woman of Beare, ed. K. Meyer. Otia Merseiana, i. 
 
 Other stories and songs from Irish MSS. lb. ii. iii. iv. 
 
 Cf. Lecture on Ancient Gaelic Poetry. K. Meyer. 
 
 Songs, ed. K. Meyer. Eriu. I. i. 40 ; il. i. 56 ; il. ii. 172 ! 
 III. i. 13. O'Grady, Cat. 488, 494 ; v. app. 
 
,x. IDEAL OF NATIONAL UNITY 341 
 
 There were ill-taught and ill-conditioned men of 
 letters then as well as now, but it was for their 
 learning and their wisdom that the true poets 
 and scholars were welcomed by the leading 
 classes of Ireland. They appealed to two great 
 sources of human endeavour — ^love of country ' 
 and love of beauty — and to know how profound 
 was the influence of their culture and humanity 
 we have only to watch the violence of their 
 extermination. 
 
 But the greatest lesson of the scholars' gather- 
 ings was their perpetual remembrance of the 
 bond of learning which knit together the whole 
 Irish race on both sides of the sea — that spiritual 
 commonwealth which had never yet been utterly 
 overthrown since the days of Columcille. 
 
 For it is a signal fact that Irish education • 
 never lost sight of a national union : it never 
 ceased, from the gatherings at Tara down through 
 the centuries, to stir the people of Ireland with 
 the remembrance of their common inheritance in 
 all that shapes the thought and spiritual life of 
 a people. 
 
 Long before the coming of the English the 
 school of Armagh had become the centre of 
 Irish life. " In Ireland the strong burh of Tara 
 has died, while Armagh lives filled with learned 
 champions."^ With its three thousand scholars, 1 133 54 
 famous for its teachers, under its High Professor "54-74 
 
 'Corm. Glos. Ixxi. 
 
342 A NATIVE UNIVERSITY ch. 
 
 Florence Gorman who had spent twenty-one 
 years of study in England and France, it had 
 been made the national university " for all the 
 
 1 1 69. Irish and the Scots": and Roderick king of 
 Ireland had given the first annual grant to 
 maintain a professor there for the whole Irish 
 race.^ Ruin fell on the university under English 
 
 1202. domination. King John would have put an 
 Englishman in S. Patrick's chair at Armagh : 
 the Irish by a desperate struggle kept out the 
 strangers for a while ; but after a few alternations 
 of Irish, English, and German prelates, not one 
 of them consecrated in Ireland, the unhappy con- 
 flict at last ended, and there began the long line 
 of English archbishops, scarcely broken by the 
 rare name of an Irishman trained as a foreigner. 
 The object of these political archbishops was 
 mere conquest, and for centuries Armagh became 
 the prey of soldiers. English troops " obtained 
 great gifts from the clergy and students of the 
 town as considerations for refraining from burning 
 
 1432. their churches." ^ But there survived in Ireland 
 the dream of a united commonwealth of scholars. 
 Their chief men of science ruled far beyond the 
 tribe, and rested in no local fame. The 
 O'Higgins* were for centuries down to the 
 
 * Lanigan, ix. 190; cf. Ware's Bishops, pp. 52,60; Antiquities, 
 241; Annals UIs. 1162; 4 M. p. 1147; v. app. 
 
 24 M. p. 891. 
 
 'lb. pp. 961, 969, 1099, 1165, 1305, 1425; An. Loch Ce. 
 ii. 177, 207. 
 
IX. ORGANISATION OF SCHOOLS 343 
 
 times of J persecution the "chief preceptors in 1448- 
 poetry of ^all Ireland," "of Ireland and Scot- ^^^ " 
 land," "of the Gaeidhil," "superintendents of 
 the schools of Ireland." Paidin O'Mulconry was d. 1506. 
 "preceptor of the men of Erin in poetry and 
 history " : ^ Mac Ward, oUave to O'Donnell in 
 poetry, was " superintendent of schools " : * 1541- 
 O'Morrisey had the post of " master of schools, iS45- 
 general lecturer of the men of Ireland."' The 
 famous Teige O'CofFey appears as "preceptor ofd- 1554- 
 the schools of Ireland in poetry" and "chief 
 preceptor of Ireland and Scotland":* and one 1-07. 
 O'Fiaich as qualified by his knowledge of Latin 
 and poetry to become chief professor of history 
 for the two countries.^ In the same way there 
 was a " superintendent of the schools of juris- 
 prudence " ' in which the common law of the 
 whole country was preserved and expounded. 
 Even "the good-letter folk" of all Ireland, the 
 calligraphists, had their national competition.'^ 
 
 We cannot tell the exact meaning of these 
 titles until the later organisation of the Irish 
 schools has been studied : we know however 
 that Scots came to study* in the Irish schools; 
 
 •lb. 207. *4 M. p. 1465. 'lb. p. 1493. *Ib. p 1537. 
 
 *4 M. p. 1293. The same intercourse in medicine between 
 the two countries is seen in the inscription on an Irish medical 
 MS. " I am Donoch who wrote this, and it is in the house 
 of John of Scotland that I am myself." 
 
 " lb. p. 909. ' O'Grady, Cat. 339 ; v. app. 
 
 'O'Grady, Cat. 328, 335, 361. 
 
344 IRISH LEARNING NATIONAL ch. 
 
 we know that the great teachers were incessantly 
 travelling/ that their intercourse with chiefs and 
 discussions with professors of every part of 
 Ireland was frequent, that they had the freedom 
 of the whole country so that it was as natural 
 for an O'Clery to keep his hospitality in Clare 
 as in Donegal, and that the scholars of all 
 Ireland could compete for the post of ollave to 
 any chieftain ; thus one MacEgan might be 
 ollave of law in Connacht and another in Mun- 
 ster, and a bard who had served James earl of 
 Desmond and his brother John, and James 
 Fitzmaurice, when he was made homeless by 
 their deaths won a place in the court of the 
 lord of Fermanagh.^ 
 
 All provincial limits were thus obliterated for 
 the Irish scholar : if the local chief was his 
 patron, Ireland was his country,' and the bards 
 watched with equal care the fortunes of the 
 whole land.* The sense of unity was profound. 
 For while the leaders of learning aspired to the 
 title of superiority over all the schools of Ireland 
 
 *The "bardic circuit," 4 M. p. 1175. 
 
 *4 M. a. 1443 ; Stern, Z.C.P. ii. 323, etc. The sentries posted 
 by the Red Branch at the outlets of Ulster to turn back the 
 learned men who sought to leave the province, and to draw 
 in with both hands those who approached it, might recall some 
 histories of the poets under the last O'Neills and Maguires 
 and Desmonds. 
 
 3 0'Grady, Cat. 385. 
 
 *See p. 355. Thus in the poems of Teigue Dall O'Higgin 
 we can observe every event of consequence in Ulster and 
 Connacht for over 6o years, 1554-1617. 
 
IX. 
 
 NATIONAL FESTIVALS 
 
 345 
 
 and Scotland, so the chiefs when they enter- 
 tained men of learning boasted of a hospitality 
 to the whole undivided race of the Gaels and 
 of the foreigners adopted into their fellowship. 
 It was a tradition among the greater chiefs, or 
 those who sought a commanding leadership, to 
 gather together the learned men of the whole 
 country in national festivals of all Ireland — "a 
 mound of grand convention."^ For example 
 William O' Kelly, lord of Hy Many,^ patron of 
 the O'Duigennans, extolled as the man of 
 greatest character, worth, and renown of his own 
 tribe, invited all Irish poets, brehons, bards, i3Si- 
 harpers, with the gamesters and jesters, the 
 learned, the travellers, and the poor to his house 
 for Christmas, where all, noble and ignoble, were 
 served to their satisfaction, so that they were all 
 thankful to him and sang songs to his praise — 
 
 " the Poets of Erin to one Houses 
 
 NeiU 
 
 O'Neill, as we have seen, gathered all the 1375-97 
 scholars of Ireland to the mighty rath of 
 " smooth delightful Emain," ' where thb knights 
 of the Red Branch had feasted, where bn a mild 
 May morning the guardian angel of an Irish 
 poet descended to show him the gatthering of 
 the horsemen of the north, the east, the south, 
 whitening the plain with their dust an^i making 
 it glow with their rich pennons, and from the 
 
 'O'Grady, Cat. 457. «4 M. p. 601. . 
 
 ^Ir. Texte, ii. 2, p. 113. 
 
346 MARGARET O'CONOR ch. 
 
 west the weaponless Tuatha de Danann, with the 
 poet's wand in each man's hand.' Twice Mar- 
 garet or Mar^ague, daughter of O'CarroU, wife 
 of the warrior Calvagh O'Conor of OfFaly, called 
 the learned of the whole island about her. It 
 1434. was in a year of famine,^ " the summer of slight 
 acquaintance " because no one used to recognise 
 friend or relative in consequence of the great- 
 ness of the famine, that Margaret gave two 
 general invitations to the Colleges and pro- 
 fessional men. "All persons, Irish and Scottish 
 or rather Albans " ; were invited " in the dark 
 days of the year on the feast-day of Da Sinchell " 
 (March 26) to a festival at Killeigh in the "field 
 of the long ridge," in the great plain of OfFaly : 
 "as it is recorded in a Roll to that effect, and 
 the account was made thus, that the chief kins 
 of each family of the learned Irish was by Gilla- 
 na-naemh MacEgan's hand, the Chief Judge to 
 O'Conor, written in the Roll, and his adherents 
 and kinsmen, so that the aforesaid number of 
 2700 was listed in the Roll with the arts of ddn 
 or poetry, music, and antiquity. And Maelin 
 O'Mulconry, one of the chief learned of Con- 
 nacht, was the first written in that Roll, and 
 first payed and dietted or set to supper. . . . 
 And Margaret on the garrets of the great 
 
 iQ'Grady, 405. 
 
 ^4 M. pp. 897, 953-S, 973; cf. MacFirbis' "Annals of Iiel., 
 Three Fragments": eel. O'Donovan, p. 64, n. u ; and for a 
 queen's gifts, p. 73. 
 
IX. 
 
 TWO FEASTS IN OFFA 
 
 347 
 
 church of Da Sinchell clad in cloth bf gold, her 
 dearest friends about her, her clergy and judges 
 too. Calvagh himself on horseback by the 
 church's outward side, to the end that all things 
 might be done orderly and each one served 
 successively. And first of all she gave two 
 chalices of gold as offerings that day on the 
 altar to God Almighty, and she also caused to 
 nurse or foster two young orphans. But so it 
 was we never saw nor heard neither the like of 
 that day nor comparable to its glory and solace. 
 ... And so we have been informed that that 
 second day in Rathangen (on the f^ast day of 
 the Assumption in harvest) was nothing inferior 
 to the first day. And she was the only woman 
 that has made most of preparing highways and 
 erecting bridges, churches, and massfbooks, and 
 all manner of things profitable to serve God 
 and her soul, and not that only, bdt while the 
 world stands her very many gifts tb the Irish 
 and Scottish nations shall never be numbered. 
 God's blessing, the blessing of all saints, and 
 every our blessing from Jerusalem to Inis Gluair 
 be on her going to heaven, and blessed be he 
 that will read and hear this for lilessing her 
 soul." Great were the lamentatiohs for her 145 1. 
 death, when " the glory and solace bf the Irish 
 was set," in "an ungracious and inglorious year 
 to all the learned in Ireland . . . and to all 
 manner and sorts of the poor." 
 
348 "ALL IRELAND'S PROFESSORS" ch. 
 
 These national festivals lasted on till the Tudor 
 d. 1458. plantations in Ireland. Tomaltagh MacDermot, 
 lord of Moylurg, was the " general patron of the 
 d. 1482. learned of Ireland" ;^ Con O'Neill the "general 
 patron of the literati of Ireland and Scotland."* 
 1531. MacCarthy Reagh lord of Hy-Carbery was "a 
 man who had given a general invitation of hos- 
 pitality to all those in Ireland who sought gifts." ^ 
 1540- Rory MacDermot and his wife, daughter of Mac- 
 William of Clanrickard, were said to have made 
 of their Rock of Lough C6 the Oxford of the 
 province of Connacht : there the schools of Ireland 
 flocked to them, "and they were all attended to 
 1570-80. by that couple,"* The house of Sheela Mac- 
 William Burke " was the resort of bards from the 
 LifFey side, of the Dalcassians' choice poets, of the 
 schoolmen from near Barnasmore, of tale-reciters 
 and of minstrels out of every airt in Ireland."* 
 So again " all Ireland's professors " obeyed the 
 1577- summons of Turlough O'Neill* to the house he 
 had spent ten years building near Coleraine at 
 the Creeve, where all his glory was spread out 
 before them to tempt a song acclaiming him as 
 the O'Neill. But there was silence amid that 
 ^ dazzling glitter and the lavish pouring of wine 
 as surf might beat upon a shore — for no bard 
 would shape the unrighteous song against great 
 Hugh of Tyrone, and Turlough striding among 
 
 '4 M. p. looi. ^4 M. p. 1119. '4 M. p. 1403. 
 
 *Ib. p. 1459; V. app. "O'Grady, Cat. 404. 'lb. 433. 
 
IX. AN ULSTER FESTIVAI^ 349 
 
 them with eyes on the ground scornfully announced 
 that they might take their fees for all the poems they 
 had brought, but would neither hear ojie of those 
 indifferent lays, nor look on the stubt)orn poets. 
 A poem of Teigue Dall O'Higgin brings us 
 into one of the last gatherings ; on the eve of 
 the great ruin, doomed themselves to destruction, 
 they met, the chief poets of Ulster and Connacht, 
 at the house of Maelmora MacSweenV — a house d. 15S1 
 lime-white and fair. " One night I c^me to Eas 
 caoille — to the Judgement's day I shall think of it 
 — our visit to that dwelling shall (in memory) abide 
 for ever : the manner of the night andl what were 
 each one's doings there. The like of those men 
 that in the rath perfected with freshest hue I found 
 awaiting me — ranged along the walls of the be- 
 crimsoned mansion — before themselves no eye had 
 ever seen." Midway down one side jof the hall 
 hung with red Maelmora sat, and amon^ the great 
 concourse of bards there sat by him the poet-in- 
 chief of Turlough O'Neill, of MacWilUam Burke, 
 of Clanrickard. They stood up from beside the 
 host and pledged him in ale quaffed " ffom golden 
 goblets and from beakers of horn " ; and before 
 they slept Teigue told his story " far a price " 
 and took his gifts of honour — from Maelmora 
 a dappled horse, one of the best in Ireland ; from 
 O'Neill's bard a wolfdog that might be matched 
 against any ; from him of Clanrickard % little book 
 that was " a well brimful of the very stream of 
 
350 IRISH CONVENTIONS ch. 
 
 knowledge ... it was the flower of Ireland's 
 royal-books " ; and from the bard of Mac William 
 Burke his harp — " harp of the minstrel in chief of 
 the Burke's blood — and there it is as good as 
 ever, but he that gave it is not there." 
 
 The songs of peace were ended. Captain 
 Malby of Connacht procured Maelmora to be 
 slain by Scot mercenaries, ("and when he fell 
 generosity perished with him "). " But few sur- 
 vive of the beloved company which there before 
 me I found in the white rath : as for the deaths 
 of four that were in it, Ireland never looked to 
 have recovered from the loss." ^ It was the song 
 of Teigue's great lamentation. 
 
 By these open festivals a chief won his titles 
 of honour — " a mound of grand convention," " a 
 strand along which there is a general right of 
 way," "the causeway of the learned of Erin."^ 
 The meetings served in times of danger and 
 affliction as the parliaments, the centres of 
 political discussion, of the country-side. There 
 were met the lawyers and historians and poets. 
 They advised caution in times of danger, and 
 counselled hardy training for a life of difficulty.^ 
 They discussed the offers of the English govern- 
 ment, and the bard " as poetic Art's vice-gerent " 
 forbade the chief to take a foreign title in his own 
 country — " best to reject the foreign designation 
 
 iQ'Grady, Cat. 423; Hyde, Lit. Hist. 520. 
 
 2 O'Grady, Cat. 457 ; Tribes of Hy-Fiachrach, 229. 
 
 3 0'Grady, Cat. 437, 459- 
 

 ,x. POEMS TO IRELAND 351 
 
 ere thou and thy patrimony part company " ; ^ or 
 summoned the time-servers and the faint-hearted, 
 " the easy-going ones that loll on after day- 
 break," to rise up from forgetfulness and no 
 longer hope to claim Ireland in virtue of hunting, 
 or as the price of quaffing goblets.^ There 
 they sang the love of Ireland. " Benediction 
 westwards from me to Ireland, fair territory of 
 Felim's noble race : nurse of our bringing up is 
 she, and when you have looked at her she is 
 not unlovely. Westwards from Scotland of 
 melodious waterfalls benediction from me go to 
 Ireland : region diversified whose plain ground is 
 smooth, an ancient land like the Land of Pro- 
 mise."' They saluted all their land, except 
 traitors to Ireland, and " Meath where too many 
 English are " : blessing her rivers and lakes 
 and towns, her young women, her poets and 
 chroniclers, her physicians, clergy, minstrels, the 
 
 * " Though thou hadst all power over Flanris land it were 
 not worth thy while, O thou of gallant aspect, to have an 
 outlandish name pervade good Ireland's whole extent as being 
 thine in thine own country. . . . From this thy change of 
 name we, as poetic Art's vice-gerent, do inhibit thee." lb. 403. 
 " O my heart's innermost ! accept no gift whether of gold or 
 else of horses ; but wait until thou take thine own degree 
 according to [the rights of] Niall of old. Thy safe-guarding 
 I confide to God ; to Mary's sweet and only Son ; that He 
 may shelter thee from Anglo-word \i.e. 'punica fides'] of 
 Englishmen, and from the gentiles' act of violence." lb. 485. 
 
 ^O'Grady, Cat. 479, 413. " Some there be here to whom her 
 shame is a source of constant sorrow, while others esteem the 
 desperate state of things to be a thing of naught." 
 
 ='lb. 385. 
 
352 THE GAELIC IDEAL ch. 
 
 tombs of her dead. And they chanted the 
 deep curses on the plunderer of men tortured, 
 outraged, and exiled : " for ever and for ever 
 by him be abolished their mills, their kilns, 
 the haggarts of their grain. Through Usnagh's 
 precincts be the level borders of her stretching 
 plains piled into mountains : so that beside 
 Teffia a man shall no more find so much as 
 the bare trace of four cross-roads." ^ There 
 the poets of the affliction pleaded that united 
 Irishmen should stand for the tradition of their 
 fathers.^ They called the people to rally to 
 a single leader.' In the sorrow of each territory 
 they, whose outlook was over Ireland, saw the 
 calamity of all, and as the circle of ruin closed 
 round their country, they pleaded with the host 
 of the Gaels to defend the land of Ireland against 
 the Galls that tore it asunder ; or cried to them 
 to destroy dissension in mutual succour — "any- 
 thing that would tend to bring you down (the 
 very thing that your foe-men lust for) do ye 
 no such," said Hugh of Emania, "but consider 
 your cqnsanguinity of birth."* 
 
 It was indeed from the work of scholars and 
 poets among the whole people, Irish and Anglo- 
 Irish, that through all calamities the nation drew 
 its life. The quarrels and rivalries of Irish tribes 
 have been readily noted : there remains for the 
 
 Ub. 415- 2 Z.C.P. ii. 334-345- 
 
 3 O'Grady, Cat. 408. * lb. 355 ; v. app. 
 
IX. THE NATIONAL TRADITION 353 
 
 student the more serious and important work 
 of tracing their causes and extent, of recording 
 the forces that drew the people together, and 
 how that natural fusion was violently thwarted. 
 The fact is certain that beyond all tribal disputes 
 and provincial struggles the Irish recognised their 
 country to be comprehended in one Law, one 
 Literature, one History, one proud tradition of 
 civilisation. This belief was to prove the most 
 powerful national influence in Ireland. The 
 Tudor princes knew and feared the danger. It 
 was under Henry viii. that Teige O'Coffey, 
 "chief preceptor of Ireland and Scotland" "was 1546. 
 taken prisoner by the English and confined for 
 eighteen weeks in the king's castle for his attach- 
 ment to the Irish. It was intended that he 
 should be put to death, but he escaped safe from 
 them at length." ^ Edward vi. commanded that 
 no poet or any person should make any poems 1549. 
 or anything which is called auran to any person 
 except to the King, on pain of losing all his 
 goods and imprisonment at the king's pleasure.^ 
 But it was with Mary and Elizabeth that the . 
 great national conflict was definitely opened. 
 There was a day when the lord deputy Sussex, 1558. 
 with an army of 1200 soldiers, cast the rightful 
 heir of the O'Briens out of Limerick and by 
 the will of the infamous Donough carried his son 
 Conor to the great church founded, it was said, 
 
 ^4 M. p. 1499. *Car. i. 214. 
 
354 THE O'BRIEN APOSTASY ch. ix. 
 
 by his ancestor before ever an Englishman was in 
 Ireland. There in English fashion he was pro- 
 claimed ruler, and after High Mass was sworn 
 with his freeholders on the Sacrament and all 
 the relics to forsake the name of O'Brien and 
 be loyal to the English sovereign ;^ and as his 
 reward he was given Bunratty Castle, under an 
 English constable, taken for him by English 
 ordnance. This Conor — sprung of "a junior 
 branch who had wrested the government of his 
 principality from the hands of his seniors, according 
 to the laws, regulations, and ordinances of the 
 sovereign of England " — was the first of the race 
 of Cas to rule the heritage of the O'Briens by 
 a purely English title, without the choice of his 
 people* or inauguration by the ancient national 
 law. It was the first clear signal that in Irish 
 Ireland, where there was not as much as one 
 man of English blood, the ancient custom and 
 law of the Irish was to be abrogated and replaced 
 by a foreign code. Poets and chroniclers gave 
 warning of the great catastrophe. The Irish 
 " were seized with horror, dread, fear, and the 
 apprehension of danger ; and the descendants 
 of Con and of Cathaoir, the descendants of 
 Heremon and Heber, of Ir and Ith, were alarmed 
 at the change." Henceforth England had to deal 
 with the soul of a people in Ireland. 
 
 'Car. i. 274, 276-7, 368. 
 
 *0'Grady, Cat. 389; 4 M. p. 1563, 1725. 
 
• l AN IRISH POEM. 
 
 The following is a literal translation kindly given me 
 by Dr. Douglas Hyde from a unique Irish manuscript 
 belonging to him. (Cf. Literary History, p. 526.) It 
 will be seen how closely the writer followed the events 
 of his time over the whole extent of Ireland. The poem 
 seems to have been written before 1551. It may have 
 been for some such call to the Irish that Teige O'CofFey 
 was imprisoned in 1546. 
 
 Fooboon upon ye, O hosts of the Gael, 
 
 Not one more of you survives, 
 
 Foreigners dividing your territory,^ 
 
 Your similitude is to a Fairy [i.e. unsubstantial) Host. 
 
 The Clan Carthy^ of Leath Mhogha [it. southern Ireland) 
 And to nick them out, down to one man. 
 There is not, and pitiful is the reproach, 
 One single one of them imitating the Gaels. 
 
 The race of the O'Briens of Banba under Morrough," 
 Their covenant is with the King of England, 
 They have turned, and sad is the deed, 
 Their back to the inheritance of their fathers. 
 
 'The long-proposed extirpation of the Irish to plant with a 
 better race had begun with the first great c onfiscation, th e 
 seizing of Kildare's_estates 1535, and was continued in the 
 division of Leix and Offaly. 
 
 ^a. 1550. Then also to Lord deputy Sentleger "crept 
 MacCarthy, that had lately roved and denied his obedience, 
 with a halter about his neck and got his pardon." Camp. cap. x. 
 
 ^Mijrrough O'Brien (1540-1551) had seen the mighty bridge 
 and castles on the Shannon levelled "hand-smooth" by 
 
356 AN IRISH POEM ch. 
 
 The ancient descendants of great Brian son of Eochaidh ^ 
 
 A race who never bought their meals ^ 
 
 They are all doing knee-homage, 
 
 Those hosts of the Province of Connacht. 
 
 The Province of Leinster of the great deeds,' 
 That to warrior-hood was ever a (shining) candle, 
 They would not get from the King of England 
 For Ireland a respite from misery. 
 
 English armies, and the lands beyond the Shannon cut off. 
 There was no more to be a "great O'Brien" ruling over the 
 whole ancient territory. By submission he received a pardon 
 for his country (i 542) and an English earldom. The diminished 
 territory was allotted by the English to his son the double-dyed 
 traitor Donough the Fat, who had led the English by secret 
 paths to the bridge, and had taken bribes to betray Silken 
 Thomas, and the young Earl of Kildare. Together they stood 
 in Greenwich, (1543) Murrough to be made earl of Thomond, 
 Donough baron of Ibracken. Donough (1551-3) illegally 
 forced his son Conor on the people to be nominated and in- 
 stalled by English law (1558) and upheld by English arms 
 against the resistance of all Thomond and the O'Brien land 
 beyond the Shannon. 
 
 */.«. the tribes of Connacht, O'Conors, O'Rourkes, etc. In 
 Connacht the illegitimate Ulick Burke had been made earl of 
 Clanrickard (1542), and at his death (1544) a young son, said 
 to be illegitimate, was forced on the country by the English 
 troops, and insolently reminded by the officials of "whence 
 he was derived " and " not to have a great idea of his own 
 power but to consider well that it dependeth wholly on the 
 king." He was upheld over the Connacht chiefs (155 1) by 
 the hangings and quarterings of the English provost-marshal, 
 and was forced (1553) to surrender Roscommon to the English 
 armies. 
 
 ^/.e. they once took by force from their enemies. 
 
 3 The policy of making Leix and Offaly vacant and waste 
 and exiling the inhabitants was laid down in 1537, and 
 the "perfect reformation" of Leinster taken in hand 1542. 
 O'Conor and O'More were in the Town in 1548. "Wood- 
 kerne " was a name now invented for the hunted outlaws, as a 
 
IX. AN IRISH POEM 357 
 
 O'Neill of Aileach and of Emania,^ 
 King of Tara and of Tailltean, 
 They have given for the earldom of Ulster 
 Their kingdom submissively and unwisely. 
 
 But O'Carroll of the plain of Birr 2 
 
 It is my due to make oath of it, 
 
 There is not one man of them in the shape of a man 
 
 In Ireland at this time. 
 
 sort of wild-beast for the chase : " More wood-kerne were slain 
 that day than the oldest man in Ireland ever saw." The 
 territory was confiscated 1553-1557. 
 
 MacGilpatrick of Ossory was forced to surrender his son, 
 " a goodly child," to the king " the more to show his obedience," 
 and was made English baron of Upper Ossory, 1 541-2. 
 
 Ormond's lands and forts were coveted by the king : after a 
 feast in Ely House in London the Earl lay dead of poison with 
 seventeen of his household (1546). 
 
 *a. 1542. Con O'Neill, claiming to be earl of Ulster, was 
 made earl of Tyrone, on condition of renouncing his. Irish title 
 and authority. O'Neill and O'Donnell, (reported Sentleger in 
 1543) "had in fact all the captains of the north hanging on 
 their sleeves. We have clearly discharged them of any rule 
 over such captains." He was forced (1551) to go out to war 
 with the deputy against his son Shane O'Neill, in defence of 
 the baron of Dungannon heir to the title by English choice. 
 Suspected of favouring Shane he was "trained from place to 
 phice and so at last to Dublin," where protesting his innocence 
 and faithful service he was thrown into prison. "Were he not 
 so old," the deputy told him, " and such one as did no service 
 in his years ill-spent, he would have off his head and see his 
 blood poured in a basin or saucer." 
 
 ^ a. 1 548. O'Carroll in dread of the fate of O'Conor thrown 
 into the Tower hesitated to obey the deputy's summons to 
 Dublin. It was better, Bellingham warned him sharply, 
 to come late than not at all. On which O'Carroll "went to 
 Dublin to the great court, and was taken by treachery and 
 unprisoned in the king's castle : nor was any one suffered to 
 know why he was in prison or how much would be demanded 
 for his life." 
 
358 AN IRISH POEM ch. 
 
 O'Donnell of Ath-seannagh * 
 
 Who never refused combat or hardship, 
 
 (To Ireland great is the misery) 
 
 He has failed, Manus O'Donnell ! 
 
 Fooboon on the foreign-grey gun ! ^ 
 Fooboon for the yellow chain ! * 
 Fooboon for the Court without any English ! * 
 Fooboon for Shane (?) O Son of Mary ! 
 
 •a. 1542. Manus O'Donnell sunk into dependence on 
 English protection, gave two of his sons in pledge, allowed the 
 king's bailiff to collect trading dues in Sligo, paid tribute of his 
 fish and his herds, repaired (1543) to the great council at 
 Dublin with his captive relatives to take orders from the lord 
 justice as to freeing them, and accepted English captains (1544) 
 and ordnance to help him in war on his own house. In 1555 
 he was imprisoned by his son Calvagh. 
 
 *Lord Deputy Skeffington "the Gunner" had (1535) brought 
 "great guns" against Kildare's castle of Maynooth and battered 
 it down in ten days. Irish strongholds had not been built to 
 withstand the new ordnance, and their defences were one after 
 another shattered ; so that Con O'Neill left his curse to any 
 who at that time made buildings in Ulster, saying that in 
 building they should do but as the crow doth, make her nest 
 to be beaten out by the hawk. Cefence had now to be in the 
 woods and mountains. 
 
 'Con O'Neill was the first to receive (1542) robes of state and 
 a gold chain of ;^ioo as earl of Tyrone kneeling in the queen's 
 closet at Greenwich (his eldest and best son hostage for his 
 coming). The gold chain of submission and bondage to 
 England was given to O'Brien as earl of Thomond, to Burke as 
 Clanrickard, to MacGilpatrick as lord of Upper Ossory, 
 (1542-3). "Your highness may say that none of your noble 
 progenitors might, that ever O'Neill or O'Brien came into 
 , England." 
 
 * Does this mean that the Dublin Council whose work was 
 the destruction of Irish life might henceforth be filled with 
 Irishmen who had become English peers and renegades to 
 their country ? Each Province of Ireland had now a great 
 Irish lord sitting in English parliament robes in the conquerors' 
 council to carry out their policy. 
 
IX. AN IRISH POEM 359 
 
 Oh ! Nobles of Inis-Seanart (?) 
 Ungood is your rank being overturned,^ 
 O misguided withered host 
 Say henceforth nothing but Fooboon ! 
 
 1 Each peer in return for the yellow chain had to make oath 
 to " forsake and refuse his own name and state," and to hold 
 his land as the queen's " mere gift." 
 
X. 
 
 DESTRUCTION OF IRISH LEARNING. 
 
 Every Tudor prince knew that the enemy 
 he had most to fear were the leaders of Irish 
 education — lawyers, historians, "their poets or 
 heralds that enchant them in savage manners 
 and sundry other such dregs of barbarism and 
 rebellion."^ The patriotic faith of the scholars 
 ' and the learned knew no faltering, their enthusiasm 
 no yielding. It was they, the hereditary guardians 
 of its civilisation, who were the powerful and 
 incorruptible defenders of their country, the 
 animating soul of the national life.^ Liberty, 
 the officials of Henry viii. complained, was 
 " the only thing that the wild Irish and the 
 Scots constantly seek after." Edmund Spenser 
 under Elizabeth accused the poets that their songs 
 tended " for the most part to the hurt of the 
 English, and the maintenance of Irish liberty, 
 they being most desirous thereof ^ The popular 
 
 1 Bacon to Cecil, Works, 1841, ii. 24. 
 
 * For Teig mac Daire, O'Clery, Teig Dall O'Higgin, O'Hussey 
 and O'Cainti, and the poets of the Irish in their affliction, see 
 Hyde, Lit. Hist. 515-27, 534-7. 
 
y 
 
 cH.x. INFLUENCE OF THE BARDS 351 
 
 confidence in the national loyalty of the bards 
 is shown by the evil fame in tradition of one 
 who was counted a traitor to his class — one 
 O'Daly, "Angus of the Satires," "the Red 
 Bard," suspected of yielding to the agents of 
 Essex or Mountjoy, who thought to incite rebel- 
 lion or civil strife by the use of his bitter tongue 
 in maddening the chiefs to frenzy: at their c. 1600. 
 bidding, it is said, he went up and down the 
 island to satirise the Gaelic households in their 
 humiliation and ruin after the long wars : to 
 hold up to the contempt of the people their 
 empty households and stinted boards, their bad 
 wines, their poverty and decrepitude. In that 
 journey of outrage on the desolate he found 
 his merited death.^ But his message shows how 
 highly Elizabeth and her deputies estimated the 
 power of an Irish bard, and the enchantments of 
 "the metaphors and flights of those poetic 
 Madmen."^ 
 
 Side by side with the bards stood the chro- 
 niclers and brehons, their teaching of history 1558. 
 and law forming the very substance of the 
 poet's national song. In the great war of the 
 English and Irish peoples that filled the six- 
 teenth century feudal law and tribal law were 
 face to face. Both alike have now utterly 
 passed away, and looking back we can see that 
 
 * Hyde, Lit. Hist. Irel. 476-7 ; O'Grady, Cat. 443. 
 "Ware's Writers, 106. «i. 
 
362 ENGLISH AND IRISH LAW ch. 
 
 each social system had its benefits, and each its 
 wrongs. But in those days it was inconceivable 
 to an Englishman that his own system was not 
 eternal, or that any other method than the 
 English of holding land and paying taxes was 
 not of savage or diabolical invention. The 
 Tudor landlords were a high-handed people ; 
 robbers of the monastic lands, robbers of the 
 commons of the poor in England, robbers now 
 of the Irish tribe-lands, they could not tolerate 
 within the king's dominions a tenure that 
 recognised a right of property in the people, or 
 loosened their grip on the peasant. Fresh keen- 
 ness was given to the natural instinct of social 
 antipathy by the fact that the Irish system of 
 taxes diverted to the chiefs the wealth coveted 
 for the royal exchequer ; that the Irish land 
 tenure barred the way to confiscations and the 
 ' seizing of wards and dowers ; and that any 
 national law that knit together the Irish people 
 into one community was dangerous to English 
 conquest. Apart therefore from any knowledge 
 of the principles or practice of Irish juris- 
 prudence, the Englishman declared it "hateful 
 to God" and so made an end of the matter — 
 " the wicked and damnable law called Brehon 
 law," they said, " which by reason ought not to 
 be named a law but an evil custom."^ Barbarism 
 or " degeneracy " in their speech simply meant 
 
 > St. Kilk. Tr. Rel. to Irel. p. 16. 
 
X. THE IRISH SCHOOLS 363 
 
 a different way of paying rent and taxes from 
 the English. 
 
 The schools in Ireland rose into great activity 
 with the revival of national life and the growth 
 of commerce that marked the fifteenth century. 
 While the English were proposing to brush 
 away in contemptuous fashion all Irish custom 
 as a vain and damnable barbarism from which 
 the people would rejoice to be freed, the Irish 
 schools were hard at work teaching and tran- 
 scribing their ancient laws. It is the toilers 
 of that time who have preserved for us what- 
 ever of Irish tradition and literature has sur- 
 vived. Schools kept by teachers such as the 
 O'Mulconrys were chiefly maintained for history 
 and poetry, but they transcribed not only the 
 great epics of the past, the lives of saints, the 
 records of the kings, the songs of the long line 
 of mediaeval poets, but wrote also the Brehon 
 laws with the tracts and commentaries, the 
 boundaries of tribes, the order of their govern- 
 ment, the rights and duties of the various 
 classes. Each generation gathered carefully the 
 scattered leaves saved from the last. They 
 copied endlessly ; they learned by heart in the 
 schools thousands of pieces. " I saw a great 
 number of thick volumes of Irish laws," wrote 1660. 
 Lynch, " with the text written in large characters, 
 and a large space between the lines, to admit 
 more conveniently in smaller letters a glossary 
 
364 THE TOWN SCHOOLS ch.* 
 
 on the meaning of the words. The page was 
 covered over with copious commentaries," ' Forty 
 
 c. 1700. years later Thady O'Rody, an excellent scholar, 
 , could show several volumes of the Irish laws, 
 not one of which has escaped destruction.^ Law 
 and history, and a surprising amount of frag- 
 mentary literature was carried down to the 
 eighteenth century. We owe in fact our know- 
 ledge of the past to whatever now remains of 
 the copies of these devoted students, whose 
 work unhappily lies in great measure neglected, 
 unedited, uncatalogued. 
 
 Besides the old country schools where students 
 lived together and were trained on the traditional 
 lines, there had long been grammar-schools in 
 the towns of a more modern type. These were 
 now rising to great importance as the boroughs, 
 with their increasing wealth and commerce, be- 
 came the natural centres of culture for the 
 neighbouring Irish gentry. While officials and 
 
 1537-93- bishops in Dublin were wrangling for some sixty 
 years as to whether they should allow a school 
 of learning there, and where they could filch 
 the funds, every Irish town had set up its local 
 college whose class-rooms were thronged by the 
 sons of the surrounding chiefs and freeholders.' 
 1540- In Dublin a common school-house was leased 
 to a merchant to repair and maintain, and it was 
 
 ' Camb. Ev. ii. 375. ^ O'Reilly's Cat. viii. ; v. app. 
 
 '^v. p. 175, and app. 
 
X. DUBLIN SCHOOLS 365 
 
 proposed to use some of the funds of Christ- 1542- 
 church, " that one may be schoolmaster which will 
 much please the citizens that have no school now 
 here." ^ The citizens however objected to any 
 meddling with Christchurch, and so remained 1562. 
 without any public school, till ;^20 was voted for 
 a learned schoolmaster/ and a grammar-school 
 apparently set up. They had teachers of whom we 
 know nothing more than the names : " Macgrane 
 a schoolmaster in Dublin, he wrote carols and c. 1550 
 sundry ballads";* Travers a schoolmaster in 1566. 
 Dublin ; * Patrick Cusack educated at Oxford 
 whose "admirable learning gave great light to 1569. 
 his country":" one of his pupils was "James 
 King, born in Dublin and scholar to M. Patrick 
 Cusack, under whom being commendably trained, 
 he repaired to the university of Cambridge, 
 where he deceased before he could attain to that 
 ripeness of learning whereto one of so pregnant ^S^^. 
 a wit was like in time to aspire."* One Stafford was 
 "a careful school-master," and after him Michael 1599. 
 Fitz-Simon, " a proper student and a diligent man 
 in his profession," ^ one of a wealthy family that ' 
 lived in Dublin with much credit of learning. 
 
 But the great schools were in the Irish 
 countries. There, in Kilkenny, Galway, Limerick, 
 
 'Cal. Dub. Rec. i. 409 ; St. P. in. iii. 415, 468, 490. 
 ^Cal. Rec. Dub. ii. 16, 24; one or two other efforts are 
 mentioned, 69, 120, 177, 201. 
 ^ Hoi. vi. 61. * lb. vi. 65. * Ware's Writers, 95. 
 
 * Hoi. vi. 61. ' Ware's Writers, 100 ; Hoi. vi. 60 ; v. app. 
 
266 THE KILKENNY SCHOOL cii. 
 
 Waterford, Wexford, Irish scholars were trained 
 1660. to a wide and exact erudition in their own 
 tongue, " that Irish language which all of us 
 to this day drink in on our mothers' breasts," 
 and learned along with it Latin and English: 
 " except the inhabitants of Dublin, Drogheda, 
 and Wexford, and their immediate vicinities, the 
 only knowledge we have of English is what we 
 learn in schools." ^ 
 
 d- 1 539- Red Piers of Ormond was a pioneer in the 
 new education. He founded a school in Kil- 
 kenny, " out of which school have sprouted such 
 proper imps through the painful diligence and the 
 laboursome industry of that famous lettered man 
 Peter White," ^ wrote Richard Stanihurst, one of 
 
 c. 1560. his scholars, "as generally the whole weale 
 public of Ireland, and especially the southern 
 parts of that island, are greatly thereby furthered 
 ... in the realm of Ireland was no grammar 
 school so good, in England I am well assured none 
 better. . . . And certes I acknowledge myself 
 so much bound and beholding to him and his, 
 as for his sake I reverence the meanest stone 
 cemented in the walls of that famous school," . . . 
 This gentleman's method in training up youth 
 was rare and singular, framing the education 
 according to the scholar's vein. The free he 
 would bridle and spur forward the dull, if he 
 understood that he were the worse for beating 
 
 • Camb. Ev. i. 191. ' Hoi. vi. 34, 66 ; v. app. 
 
X. THE WATERFORD SCHOOL 367 
 
 he would win him with rewards, and by inter- 
 lacing study with recreation and roughness with 
 mildness, he had so good success in schooling 
 his pupils as to earn the name of * the lucky 
 schoolmaster of Munster.' 
 
 There was already a school at Waterford 
 (probably the same as the later free-school in 
 Christ-church yard)^ where the scholars were as 1550- 
 numerous as poor, and apparently made their own 
 candles, since the town ordered that no freeman 1518. 
 nor foreigner shall sell no wax to scholars.^ There 
 the heir of the O'SuUivan territory was sent to 
 learn English,' and for generations the children of 
 the Irish gentry round came to be fostered or 
 boarded with the merchants,* their cousins and 
 friends, doubtless to be put to school and to trade. 
 One Pagan, bachelor of arts in Oxford, was school- 
 master there.' Peter White, himself a Waterford 
 man, educated at Oxford and a Fellow of Oriel, 
 being called to his native town as dean, and then 1566. 
 ejected from the deanery for his religion, con- 
 tinued to teach school there,^ beloved by all the 
 Irish, "a man very well learned ... by whose 
 
 'Smith's Waterford, 189. 'H.M.G. Rep. x. App. v. 327. 
 
 3C.S.P. 1587, 342, 344. *H.M.C. Rep. x. App. v. 307. 
 
 'Hoi. vi. 59. The houses that gave mayors and bailiffs 
 to the town gave to it also its great schoolmasters and scholars 
 of genius — Devereux, White, Lombard, Fagan, Quemerford. 
 The liberal training and national character of the school, where 
 'the antiquities of Ireland" were known, may be seen in the , 
 history of the leading Waterford men of the XVI I. centurv 
 
 HVare's Writers, 95. 
 
368 WEXFORD AND CORK SCHOOLS ch. 
 
 industry and travail a great part of the youth 
 of his country and of the country of Dublin 
 have greatly profited in learning and virtuous 
 education." ^ In forty years of devoted labours 
 till near the end of the century he sent out a 
 long line of brave patriots, learned scholars, and 
 eminent divines. One of his most famous pupils, 
 Peter Lombard, born in Waterford, of a leading 
 merchant family, went thence to study philosophy 
 at Louvain, and " when he proceeded master of 
 art there was chosen Primus universitatis by the 
 uniform consent of the four principals, which 
 preferment did happen to none in such consenting 
 wise in many years before." ^ 
 
 There was such another school at Wexford : 
 " Deurox, there are two brethren of the name 
 learned, the elder was sometime schoolmaster in 
 Wexford,"* So also Father Robert Rocheford, 
 " a proper divine, an exact philosopher and a 
 very good antiquary,"* Cork had a schoolmaster, 
 Owen MacRedmond, who had apparently travelled : 
 " this fellow said that it was not known who was 
 king of England, for that to his knowledge about 
 seven or eight years before there was no other 
 mockery in all the stage plays but the king of 
 Scots " : ^ with much other news gathered of king 
 1603. James and of the king of France which brought 
 
 Mb. 95-6. 2 Hoi. vi. 61. 
 
 ^ Hoi. vi. 59. The Devereux were one of the governing 
 families in Waterford. 
 ♦lb. 64. "xuckey's Cork, T^, 78 
 
X. THE LIMERICK SCHOOL 369 
 
 him at last to his death. The Irish gentlemen 
 of Galway and Clare flocked to Limerick. There 
 the distinguished bishop Leverous taught after 1565. 
 Elizabeth turned him out of the see of Kildare — 
 he who had been tutor to the sons of Silken 
 Thomas, who had hidden the young Gerald 
 (child heir of the FitzGeralds, then lying at his 
 house ill of small-pox) in a "cleefe" and carried 
 him safe from the massacre — who, wrote Croft, 
 " for learning, discretion, and in outward appear- 
 ance for good living, is the meetest man in this 
 realm, and best able to preach both in the English 
 and the Irish tongue. ... I heard him preach 
 such a sermon as in my simple opinion 1 heard 
 not in many years." ^ Irish scholars from all the 
 country round gathered to him, and to Richard 
 Creagh, son of a Limerick merchant, scholar of 
 the Emperor Charles v. for seven or eight years 
 on the Continent and of other good outland 
 men,^ who returned from Louvain to teach in 
 his own city.' The Englishman Good set up 1566. 
 school too,* whose bitter temper and slanders 
 against the Irish can scarcely have made him 
 acceptable or successful. Limerick became the 
 refuge for students for the next thirty years : 
 " I saw," wrote an Englishman, " a grammar 
 school in Limerick, one hundred and three score 
 scholars, most of them speaking good and perfect 
 
 ^Shirley, Orig. Let. 62. ^ Shirley, Orig. Let. 170, 178, 287. 
 'Ware, Writers of Irel. 97. *Cam. Ev. ii. 153. 
 
 2 A 
 
370 T^E GAL WAY SCHOOL ch. 
 
 English, for that they have used to construe the 
 Latin into English."^ 
 
 But of all the schools none was so renowned 
 as the free school founded at Galway by Dominick 
 1566. Lynch.^ There Alexander Lynch gathered 1200 
 scholars from all parts of Ireland, and laid the 
 foundations of a great school of classical and 
 Irish learning ; and there his son Dr. John Lynch, 
 the famous apologist of the Irish, got the begin- 
 
 b. 1599. nings of his erudition, and with his two chief 
 friends and fellow-students, Duald MacFirbis "the 
 most learned antiquary of any age," and Roderick 
 O'Flaherty, made " a secure anchorage " for Irish 
 history. Another master, James Lynch, gave 
 "long, painful, and profitable service ... in the 
 
 1607-38. training and breeding of the children of the 
 members of this Corporation for the space of 
 thirty years and upwards in good literature and 
 sciences liberal " ; and in his declining years was 
 given a recompense of an annuity of ;^io.^ The 
 fame of the great students of Galway, their 
 labours and their erudition, made it the intellectual 
 capital of the island, and from far and near 
 Irishmen came, even begging their way, to share 
 in its learning.* Galway in fact was fast rising 
 
 'Desc. of Irel. 1590, Ir. Arch. Soc. 1841. 
 
 'C.S.P. 1566, 302 ; V. app. 
 
 'Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. x. App. v. 480, 486. 
 
 * Camb. Ev. i. v. ; O'Flaherty, West Conn. 420-6. " In the 
 ancient school and college of St. Nicholas there, many learned 
 men were educated. Here, MacFirbis, O'Flaherty, Lynch, 
 
X. INFLUENCE OF SCHOOLS 371 
 
 to the position of a national University. The 
 English must have seen in it a great danger, for 
 in the school Irish and Latin were the languages 
 commonly used, and English was taught as a 
 foreign tongue ; so that one of its chief scholars, 
 O'Flaherty, was a greater master of Latin than 
 of English. The powerful influence of Galway 
 as a centre of the higher learning may have 
 stimulated the lagging zeal of the English to 
 found an orthodox university in Dublin ; and'' 
 presently to ensure its monopoly by the utter 
 destruction of the Irish school. 
 
 The long roll of writers that distinguished 
 Ireland in the end of the sixteenth century, and 
 on to 1648, shows the effect produced by these \ 
 town schools, and how ably the Irish youths 
 were trained for the foreign universities to which 
 they were forced to go for their degrees — men 
 such as Hugh MacCaghwell,^ reckoned a man of b. 1574. 
 great learning, of singular piety and humility, as 
 well as one of the greatest among the school-men 
 of his time. We can see moreover, from the 
 place that Irish learning took in their studies, the 
 national character of the schools. Bonaventura 
 
 Francis Browne, Patrick Darcy the celebrated lawyer, Sir 
 Richard Blake, Dr. Kirwan, R.C. Bishop of Killala, Edmund 
 de Burgo, Peter French, John O'Heyne, and other persons 
 of distinction frequently assembled. And here were planned 
 and partly executed, some of those learned works which have 
 ever since ranked among the valuable on Irish history." 
 lb. 421 ; V. app. 
 
 'Ware's Writers, 103. 
 
372 THE TUDOR ATTACK ch. 
 
 O'Hussey, born in Ulster of the ancient family 
 of poets, still preserved the tradition of his 
 c. 1600. house when he was lecturer in Louvain, and 
 was in great esteem with his countrymen for 
 his singular skill in the history and language of 
 Ireland,^ Stephen White of Waterford, the Jesuit 
 who wrote to confute Giraldus Cambrensis^ was 
 "a man," according to archbishop Ussher, "of 
 exquisite knowledge in the antiquities not only 
 of Ireland but of other nations."^ 
 
 At the time therefore when the Tudor attack 
 on learning definitely opened, Ireland was full of 
 intellectual activity, adding European knowledge 
 to Irish lore, founding schools of modern study in 
 addition to the old, and creating the beginnings of 
 an Irish university. While the country schools 
 were multiplying their translations and manuscripts, 
 while the chiefs' sons were studying under the 
 learned teachers of Waterford and Limerick, while 
 the Catholic Irish shut out from Trinity were 
 begging their way to the classes at Galway, Bacon 
 called on the Earl of Essex to march with con- 
 
 ' Ware's Writers, 102 ; O'Grady, Cat. 407. 
 
 '^Ware's Writers, 103. Among the names of scholars, these 
 are some of the writers who occupied themselves with Irish 
 history — Thady Dowling, Thomas Russell, John Wading a 
 secular priest of Wexford, David Rothe, Henry FitzSimons, 
 Connell MacGeoghegan, Geoffrey Keating, Donat Mooney, 
 Peter Lombard, Florence MacCarthy, Thomas Messingham, 
 Philip O'Sullivan, Michael Cantwell, Hugh Ward, Patrick 
 Fleming, Michael O'Clery, Bonaventura Hussey, Stephen White, 
 Duald MacFirbis, Dr. John Lynch, Roderick O'Flaherty. 
 V. Cam. Ev. i. 95, 97. 
 
X. ATTACK ON THE POETS 373 
 
 fidence to war on the Irish people, " the goodness 
 and justice of which is hardly to be matched in 1599. 
 any example; it being . . . a recovery of them 
 not only to obedience but to humanity and policy 
 from more than Indian barbarism" * 
 
 For the more vigorous and progressive was 
 Irish culture the more necessary was it for the 
 conquerors to root it out. Learning like com- 
 merce must come to the " subject " race only by 
 English hands and at their sole discretion, and 
 freedom of education was considered as dangerous 
 as freedom of trade. The same precautions were 
 therefore taken against education as against in- 
 dustries. The paralysing of intellectual vivacity, 
 the prevention of its growth, and the denial of its 
 existence, remained among the accredited means 
 of governing Ireland. 
 
 The " spoiling of the rhymers " ^ began under 
 Henry viii., Robert Cowley "the plovertaker" 1537. 
 urging that thus the ruin of the Kildares could 
 be finally completed. " Harpers, rhymers, Irish 
 chroniclers, bards, and ishallyn commonly go with 
 praises to gentlemen in the English Pale, praising 
 in rhymes otherwise called danes their extortioners, 
 robberies, and abuses as valiantness, which re- 
 joiceth them in that their evil doings, and procure 
 a talent of Irish disposition and conversation in them, 
 which is likewise convenient to be expelled."' 
 
 ' Bacon to Essex, Works, 1 841, ii. p. 17. 
 
 ^C.S.P. 1538, 42. 'Car. ii. xxix n. ; St. Pap. II. iii. 45a 
 
374 PERSECUTION OF POETS cn. 
 
 So far as the power of the deputy and the 
 council went, poets should no longer sing the 
 fame of great men and the history of Ireland : 
 
 IS37- they should not " be suffered to come among the 
 English men ; for by their Irish gifts and min- 
 strelsy they provoketh the people to an Irish order^ ^ 
 The imprisonment of Teige O'Coffey the Chief 
 Preceptor of the poets, opened the final war. 
 Bards, rhymers, and common idle-men and women ^ 
 
 1546. making rhymes, were to be spoiled of their goods 
 and put in the next stocks. " Barbarous marauders 
 in many places vent their vandal fury on every harp 
 which they meet, and break it in pieces." ' 
 
 There was one instance where an Irish ruler 
 clinging to English protection did Englishmen's 
 '^ work in the destruction of the bards. Conor 
 O'Brien, son of the traitor Donough the Fat, 
 had taken a title to rule from the English king 
 alone : no bard or chronicler could have allowed 
 his claim. So this O'Brien for his better safety 
 
 1572. hanged a MacWard and an O'Clery, " being 
 skilled men in history and poetry." A poem 
 of good counsel was dedicated to his son Donough 
 
 1580. on his succession as fourth Earl of Thomond, 
 by Teigue MacDary (MacBrody), " probably the 
 last survivor in Thomond if not in Ireland of 
 the professional poets duly qualified in the ortho- 
 dox bardic schools of the sixteenth century."^ 
 
 'St. Pap. II. iii. 508. *Car. i. 410. 
 
 » Camb. Ev. i. 317. * O'Grady, Cat. 38S-9. 
 
X. ATTACK ON THE LAWYERS 375 
 
 Like his father and grandfather this Donough, a 
 harrier of his own race and kind, had taken service 
 under the English against his people. He was no 
 rewarder of bards, and Teigue's son, the head of 
 the race, was seen wandering in ignominy through 
 the land, without house or horse, or cart or chariot, 
 and with no garment worth more than ten florins. 
 But Earl Donough in taking English pay had 
 entered on a thankless service. He finished the 
 work of Donough the Fat and assisted at the ruin 
 of the principality of Thomond. It was his sole 
 reward, and the glory of the O'Briens and the 
 race of the old Irish poets were extinguished 
 together. t 
 
 The extirpation of Irish law proved more 
 difficult, slower, more costly, than the im- 
 perialists had reckoned. To English officials 
 chroniclers and brehons remained " vain poets 
 and ploratores of Irish histories," ^ slaves to their 
 chiefs, or greedy of reward, dealing in a law 
 that no one could understand save those brought 
 up in barbarous schools of the Irish language. 
 The " Irish tyranny " that they taught was " tied 
 to lio rules of law or honour." * " The brehon 
 sitteth on a bank, the lords and gentlemen at 
 variance round about him, and then they 
 proceed,"' Stanihurst wrote, who could not have 
 understood a word of the discussions^ nor why 
 their open-air sittings were held in the high 
 • 'Car. i. 206. "Davies, D. 1787, 116. »Hol. vi. 68. 
 
376 HOLD OF BREHON LAW ch. 
 
 presence of the sun and the earth and the powers 
 of Nature. Sir John Davies after living a brief 
 six years in Ireland, amid the overwhelming ruin 
 of a fifty years' war, unable to speak to any 
 Irishman in his own language, profoundly 
 ignorant of their legal system, among others of 
 his natural errors dismissed the Irish "talk of 
 a freehold and of estates of inheritance " ^ as a 
 sort of parrot trick of repetition, or one caught 
 up for uses of guile from their civilized neigh- 
 bours. Hugh of Tyrone, expert in English and 
 Irish law, bluntly expressed his view of the 
 attorney-general — " a man more fit to be a stage 
 player than counsel to his Highness."^ 
 
 On the other hand the brehon schools were 
 strong in their hold on the country. Governors 
 found themselves again and again forced to 
 acknowledge the Irish code.^ On such an occa- 
 sion President Fyton, indignant at " English 
 1 57 1, weakness," made the Connacht brehon O'Scingin 
 write for him a Latin note in Irish characters 
 on the law of Kincogus to send to Burghley, as 
 evidence of its " mischievous " and " detestable " 
 character* — in direct conflict with all his plans 
 of confiscation and partition. A system rooted 
 in the hearts of the people was almost impossible 
 
 * Davies, D. 1787, 276-80. 
 
 ^O'Grady, Cat. 479. Davies was famed for his dancing. 
 See also his poem to James I., and the "Irish harpstrings." 
 
 ^t". app. *Fac. Nat. MSS. IV. i. p. xxix. 
 
X. THE BURREN SCHOOL 377 
 
 to obliterate. "The statutes of Kilcas," wrote 1640. 
 Lynch seventy years later, "be commonly used 
 in the country by the Lord of Ossory, and by 
 his Irish judge called a Brehon, and by all other 
 freeholders of the country, and they have none 
 other law hut the same, and divers of the books 
 of the same statutes are in the safe keeping of 
 the sheriff of the shire of Kilkenny, and the 
 bishop of Waterford, and one book is in the 
 possession of Rory MacLoughire, being Judge 
 of the country." ^ As the danger grew so grew 
 the devotion of the people to their ancient con- 
 stitution. Out of the darkness we hear the 
 cry of Irish scholars persecuted and dauntless. 
 " I am tired," wrote the transcriber of a " Great 
 Digest of the Law," ... I being this day with- 
 out cibus\ and I crave help of God.^ 
 
 We have a chance picture of a school in the 
 remote hills of Clare at the opening of the great 
 distress — a few glimpses of its work, of the 
 strong hand of discipline of the master, the 
 loyalty of his students, their gaiety and their 
 sufferings, the hunger, the cold, the cares of the 
 farm, the lamentations for lads gone to the 
 war, the calling in of herdsmen to thresh pain- 
 fully a harvest as painfully gathered.^ 
 
 In " old Burren " Donall O'Davoren, a fine 
 
 >Camb. Ev. ii. 793. ^o'Gr. Cat. MSS. 146-7; v. app. 
 
 'O'Grady, Cat. 85, 109- 141. "The president settled in ^ 
 Connacht with great obedience." C.S.P. 1569, 424. 
 
378 HARDSHIPS OF STUDENTS ch. 
 
 disciplinarian beloved of his scholars, coaxed or 
 drove them to v^ork amid cold and hunger, 
 1565-9. want and sorrow.^ As they copied somewhat 
 untidily important Tracts on Law and Grammar, 
 and ancient Tales, the lads jotted on the margin 
 notes to try whether the pen and ink were 
 good — jokings and jibes, moods " spiritless and 
 gloomy," brief lines in which we can still trace 
 destruction closing round in war and famine. 
 " My writing equipment is bad : a soft spiky 
 pen ; foxy thick ink ; vellum stony and green, 
 and (into the bargain) grief ! " They were not 
 proud of their writing : " this is not worth 
 bragging of, and if it were, so 1 would." " My 
 gear is bad, and it is not by way of excusing 
 myself [that I say it]." " Oh Donall ! how 
 exposed are my hands [to the cold]." " My 
 curse, and God's curse into the bargain, I bestow 
 on the women that have muddled up together 
 all that I possessed in the way of ink, of colours, 
 and of books ! " A scholar surveyed his law- 
 work with satisfaction — " I challenge any man to 
 say that in a single point of these there is 
 erroneous law ; but for all that 'tis impossible 
 to shut a man's mouth, and God knows ' 'tis 
 his own head he has on him.'" But study and 
 the writing of law were a bad business for 
 Donall, " oppressed with melancholy," and his 
 starving pupils : " God hinder us both of our 
 
 »OGiady, Cat. 85-137. 
 
X. THE MENACE OF WAR 379 
 
 science ! " one prayed. " Donall, jpay for the 
 knowledge ; and God be your help ye of the 
 School ! " "A dinnerless Tuesday is a cold 
 thing, Donall, and immediately before Christmas 
 too." Or again, " Here we are at Shrove- 
 Monday: and in my opinion, James, the water- 
 cresses of starvation-land are hard fare. This. 
 Donall, is supererogatory, considering that we 
 are fasting besides," this being written at Shrove- 
 tide when they had a right to feast. " I am 
 weary with all that I have written and even 
 worse it is that Saorbrethach should be seeking 
 to inveigle that which constitutes a dinner for 
 the cat." Sometimes they mocked at "a pair 
 of dice " — the two little segments of bread dealt 
 out for dinner : at another time, " I am tired 
 on Friday after Ascension day because I am 
 without food: a horrid thing, yet comical." 
 For Donall evidently they bore much. '^^ Per 
 Deum I love the man of this book " : " This, 
 Donall, from David, and his love accompany all 
 the contents." " There's for you Donall, and 
 more, because I am loth to refuse you 1 " " and 
 there never was a more accomplished rogue 
 (wheedler or coaxer) than you are." " This is 
 not fair, Donall, you with the dinner all to 
 yourself and I in grief." By degrees war en- 
 compassed the writers. " This is the eve of 
 Ladyday in Spring, and 1 grieve that from the 
 Earl of Ormond's son Donough O'Brien goes 
 
38o THE SCHOOL FARM , ch. 
 
 in danger of death. Also I am astonished that 
 Carbry is courting counsel from Conor. The 
 Park is my quarters. (Written by) Manus for 
 Donall, who is himself travelling all over Ire- 
 land." " To see whether it serves (i.e. his pen 
 and ink). I am . . . and weary. The Eve 
 of S. Matthew's festival is here. The Viceroy 
 in Galway, and going to Dunmore — M'Keorish 
 to take it, and to Roscommon as well. For 
 self and comrades all I crave mercy of God. 
 A.D. 1569." When the farm-boys were called to 
 the war, the scholars took the reaping-hook, and 
 the unskilled cow-boys brought in to thresh had 
 to be dismissed again from the " white flail " : 
 " reproach me not," the scribe writes on his 
 copy, " for hard it is to do the one-man-house- 
 hold." " You are well off Donall to be getting 
 in the harvest and I slaving for you." "I and 
 David are sad and anxious on account of my 
 boys " — the lads sent to the Connacht campaign. 
 " If David's news be true," writes one, " I must 
 needs curse, and let the prayer be for the 
 soldiers that are mustering for the fight." "The 
 conflict rages in every district of Medhb's 
 Provinces (i.e. Connacht) ; and I implore the 
 King of both the hither and the yonside world 
 to shield self and comrades with me from all 
 harm both here and hereafter." "Were all Ire- 
 land's men," a scholar sought to comfort him- 
 self, "to be engaged in rescuing one man only: 
 
X. SUPPRESSION OF SCHOOLS 381 
 
 he would notwithstanding, and willy nilly, steadily 
 progress to his death's sod " ; and soon comes 
 the entry, " This is the Wednesday after the 
 slaughter of my lord Richart's soldiers" (Clan- 
 rickard the Sassonagh). 
 
 Elizabeth had marked the Irish schools for 
 destruction, town and country, Irish and Anglo-" 
 Irish, all alike tainted with patriotism. She 
 appointed commissioners to root them out, 
 destroy their books, scatter masters and pupils, 
 and wipe away their remembrance. One Com- 
 mission followed another, to suppress " the 
 evil education and instruction of children by 
 schoolmasters in Ireland," ^ " to enquire of all 
 schoolmasters and public teachers, and their 
 manner af teaching and religion, and to place 
 and displace them as to the commissioners shall be 
 thought meet for the good of the present State," * 
 From this time the way of the Irish scholar 
 was marked by outlawry, starvation, and death. 
 Soldiers ravaged the homes once consecrated to 
 learning. Planters seized the termon lands. The 
 teachers were left destitute, flung into poverty. 
 
 The leaders of the schools answered with 
 defiance. They carried a brave heart. "To be 
 in threadbare mantles," the poet sang, "is no 
 disgrace to sons of learning : to be somewhat 
 run to decay is not a shame to any so long 
 as his science is progressive."^ "This soul is 
 ' Brady, St. P. 34. * C.S.P. 1 592, 496. ^ O'Grady, Cat. 482. 
 
382 DEVOTION OF THE LITERATI ch. 
 
 slain : I have good cause. Sad is my mind : 
 sad though I tell it not. Everything that we 
 deem evil, that we have had ; we have renounced 
 therefore to be melancholy : seeing that not an 
 ill is wanting to us, let us for the rest of the 
 time be jolly." ^ They rejected all compromise, 
 and would acknowledge no law for Ireland but 
 Irish law. Their policy was a firm national 
 union for self-defence, and the true measure of 
 their fidelity and power lies in the virulence of 
 their persecution. Spoiled of their " imperishable 
 patrimony of land," forbidden the poet's pro- 
 tection, condemned to starvation, the rack,^ and 
 the gibbet, their race was finally exterminated. 
 But their end was with honour. The professors 
 of learning in Ireland refused to betray her 
 cause. Whatever "gifts" they had received from 
 their country they returned in devoted service. 
 
 Their fidelity was worthy of their ancient 
 caste and high tradition. A tragic relic of the 
 proud race of the Brehons stood in the extremity 
 of his humiliation before the ruthless planters of 
 Ulster. In the course of their confiscations a 
 question of Maguire's lands in Fermanagh was 
 1607. referred^ "unto an old parchment roll, which 
 they called an indenture, remaining in the hands 
 of one O'Bristan, a chronicler and principal 
 brehon of that country : whereupon O'Bristan 
 
 >0'Gr. Cat. 360. ^O'Grady, Cat. 385. 
 
 'Davies, Letter to Salisbury, 1607, D. 1787. 
 
X. THE BREHON'S FIDELITY 383 
 
 was sent for, who lived not far from the camp, 
 but was so aged and decrepit, as he was scarce 
 able to repair unto us : when he was come, we 
 demanded of him the sight of that ancient roll. . . . 
 The old man seeming to be much troubled with 
 this demand, made answer that he had such a 
 roll in his keeping before the war, but that in 
 the late rebellion it was burned among other 
 of his papers and books, by certain English 
 soldiers. We were told by some that were present, 
 that this was not true ; for they affirmed that 
 they had seen the roll in his hands since the 
 war : thereupon my Lord Chancellor, . . . did 
 minister an oath unto him, and gave him a 
 very serious charge to inform us truly what 
 was become of the roll. The poor old man, 
 fetching a deep sigh, confessed that he knew 
 where the roll was, but that it was dearer to 
 him than his life ; and therefore he would never 
 deliver it out of his hands, unless my Lord 
 Chancellor would take the like oath, that the 
 roll should be restored unto him again : my 
 Lord Chancellor smiling gave him his word and 
 his hand that he should have the roll redelivered 
 unto him, if he would suffer us to take a view and 
 a copy thereof. And thereupon the old Brehon 
 drew the roll out of his bosom, where he did 
 continually bear it about him : it was not very 
 large, but it was written on both sides in a fair 
 Irish character ; howbeit, some part of the writing 
 
384 DESTRUCTION OF WRITINGS ch. 
 
 was worn and defaced with time and ill keeping 
 we caused it forthwith to be translated into 
 English, and then we perceived how many- 
 vessels of butter, and how many measures of 
 meal, and how many porks, and other such gross 
 duties, did arise unto Maguire out of his mensall 
 lands ; the particulars whereof I could have 
 expressed, if I had not lost the translated copy 
 of the roll at Dublin ; but these trifles are not 
 worthy to be presented to your Lordship's know- 
 ledge " — they concerned only the rights of an 
 outlawed people in a plundered land. 
 
 The " ill-keeping " of the brehon's parchment 
 shows another danger that hung over Irish learn- 
 ing, when the only safeguard for a manuscript 
 which the old man knew, and that a poor one, was 
 " to bear it continually about him " in his bosom. 
 " Certain it is," wrote Lynch, " that within the 
 recollection of our fathers the English burned with 
 savage rage for the annihilation of our Irish 
 documents." ^ Over all Ireland the work was 
 begun by " Sir Henry Sydney and the preceding 
 governors, who swept away in one heap everything 
 that they could lay their hands on ; so that one of 
 their most special instructions, when deputed to 
 govern this island, would appear to have been to 
 annihilate with the most unsparing hand every 
 monument of antiquity in Ireland." Wherever 
 English soldiers were quartered they seized all 
 
 'Camb. Ev. i. 335-7. Cf. Misc. Ir. Arch. Soc. 1846, 1. 46, 59, 68. 
 
X. ATTACK ON IRISH LANGUAGE 385 
 
 Irish manuscripts, which " were distributed to 
 school boys to make covers for their books, or 
 cut up in the tailor's shop to make measures for 
 clothes." The hunting out of writings in times of 
 " peace " or even among Irish allies was a very 
 trade. So complete was the long and ruthless 
 destruction that but a portion of one single volume 
 (the Book of the Dun Cow) survives from the 
 books used at the ancient School of Clonmac- * 
 nois.^ Some of the volumes were carried away 
 as antiquarian relics or the prize of conquerors : 
 " if any officers of the government heard of a 
 fragment of manuscript history being in the pos- 
 session of a private individual, it was at once 
 begged or bought ; or if neither money nor 
 entreaty were strong enough, threats and com- 
 mands immediately followed, which it might cost 
 one's life to resist." " ' Far the most active in 
 this trade of hunting out in all quarters, and 
 carrying away or destroying ancient books, especi- 
 ally in the province of Munster, of which he was 
 President, was George Carew, the son of a priest,'* 
 afterwards Viscount Totness, and author of the 
 Hibernia Pacata. ' He took from the head of 
 the noble family of the M'Carthies a most ancient 
 manuscript volume.' " 
 
 Thus began centuries of havoc, to annihilate 
 one of the oldest traditional literatures of the 
 
 '7/. Fac. Nat. MSS. i 
 
 'Camb. Ev. i. 335; Tr. Rel. to Ireland, ii. App. xix. n. 
 
 2 u 
 
386 ORDERS TO USE ENGLISH ch. 
 
 West. The Irish language was claimed by the 
 learned of that day to be " one of the original 
 \ languages of Europe," but Irish speech itself was 
 to disappear. " Forsooth we must gag our jaws 
 in gibbrishing Irish ! " cried the colonist, " if it were 
 as sacred as the Hebrew, as learned as the Greek, 
 as fluent as the Latin, as amorous as the Italian, 
 as courteous as the Spanish, as courtlike as the 
 French, yet truly I see not but it may be very 
 well spared in the English Pale":^ and the Pale 
 was to be the model for all Ireland. 
 
 We have seen the advance of English, which 
 had been peacefully spreading among the culti- 
 vated Irish students of the fifteenth century. It 
 was cut short by the intolerance and violence 
 of conquerors. The Deputy began to refuse 
 1548. treaties and negotiations in Latin, in which the 
 chief could have the counsel of his captains and 
 oUaves and clergy, and to insist on secret dealings 
 in a language unknown to them. Chiefs were 
 ordered to send their letters to the government in 
 English so that the friars, the people's friends, 
 should not be able to read them. He would 
 have no Latin, said a governor, " which may be 
 falsely expounded by deceitful friars." ^ " And 
 where you would have answer in Latin," Sentleger 
 ordered O'CarroU, " remember you live under an 
 English King, which requireth in so great a 
 circuit of country as you occupy to have some 
 
 » Hoi. vi. S-6 ; v. app. 2 cs.P 1 548, 94. 
 
X. THE OFFICIAL LANGUAGE 387 
 
 honest man whom you might trust to write 
 your letters in English, and I likewise trust to 
 expound mine sent unto you."^ A melancholy 
 begging letter from O'Reilly to Henry '^ shows 1546. 
 the straits to which the chiefs were put in find- 
 ing interpreters to spell for them the language 
 of the new and secret diplomacy. Even in the 
 mutual dealings of Irish tribes there was an 
 attempt to force English as the binding language : 
 a treaty between O'Rourke and O'Reilly, framed 1560. 
 according to old Irish customs, was put into 
 English by an interpreter, as a sign doubdess of 
 their " conquest." ' 
 
 English speech was thus made, not the means 
 of culture or intercourse, but a mere token of 
 subjugation, the emblem of a country turned into 
 an English province. The natural result of this 
 vicious policy was to make the native tongue the y 
 symbol of patriotism and honour, and degrade 
 English into the language of traitors, Maguire, 
 fearful of his people, begged that his secret dealings 1562. 
 with the governor might be written in English, for 
 the better hiding of the unhappy straits to which 
 he had been driven by force.* It was for this 
 reason that Con O'Neill laid his curse on any of 
 his posterity that spoke the tongue of the crafty 
 invaders ; language, said Con out of a deep 
 experience of his unhappy dealings with officials, 
 
 'C.S.P. 1548, 93. 2 St. P. III. iii. 559. 
 
 'O'Gr. Cat. MSS. 152-3. «C.S.P. 1562,210; 1579, Iv. 170. 
 
388 
 
 DISTRUST OF ENGLISH 
 
 CH. 
 
 bred conversation, and conversation confusion} 
 Shane refused as a man of honour to talk it. 
 "One demanded merrily why O'Neill that last 
 was (Shane) would not frame himself to speak 
 English. 'What,' quoth the other in a rage, 
 ' thinkest thou that it standeth with O'Neill his 
 honour to writhe his mouth in clattering 
 English ? • " '^ There was the same thought in 
 the warning of Blind Teigue O'Daly to Brian 
 O'Rourke that he let not the " English with 
 sweetness of their words entrap " : for from 
 making and meddling with the hungry and all- 
 depredating strangers never a single one of 
 Ireland's gentlemen ever yet came whole away 
 unscathed by guile, by treachery. In the day 
 
 • The feeling of the day is shown in a verse quoted by Lynch. 
 " Nd ddin commaoin re fear Gallda, md nir, nf feirrde dhuit. 
 Beidh choidhche ar ti do mheallta commaoin an fhir 
 Ghallda riot." 
 The meaning seems to be " Have no intercourse with an 
 Englishman : if you do, you will not be the better. The 
 intercourse of the Englishman with you will always be on 
 the point of deceiving you." Camb. Ev. iii. 230-1. See also 
 Misc. Celt. Soc, O'Donovan, 367. An English translation of 
 the history of France (1639) tells that when the English am- 
 bassador boasted that his countrymen by the purity of their 
 morals were as like angels in nature as in name, king Philip 
 immediately answered 
 
 " Anglicus Angelus est, cui nunquam credere fas est. 
 
 Cum tibi dicit ave, sicut ab hoste cave." 
 "An Englishman is an angel in whom it is right never' 
 to believe : 
 When he says to you ave ' hail,' cave ' beware,' as if from 
 an enemy." Camb. Ev. iii. 230. 
 
 2 Hoi. vi. 6. 
 
X. IRISH STUDIES CHECKED 389 
 
 of Brian's strength " the gentles of the Gael will 
 hold it a dishonour to hear those loud outspoken 
 kindreds' utterance : it will be a wonderment to 
 have the English bandy words with them." * 
 What lost story of exile, of passion for learning, 
 of stubborn indignation of the soul, lies behind 
 the brief entry in an Oxford register of Nicholas 
 de Burgo — he who went to Paris to take his 
 degree of B.D. and then turned to Oxford ; and 
 was dispensed on Jan. 26, 1524 "because he 1517-24. 
 is a stranger, and knows no English, and has 
 tutored almost seven years gratis." ^ 
 
 The " violent attempts to abolish " Irish which 
 Dr. Lynch saw, he contemptuously likened to 
 the decree of the Carthaginian senate that pro- 
 hibited all Carthaginians from learning to speak ' 
 or read the Greek language.' In his day there 
 were still men who had been trained in the 
 scientific knowledge of Irish, and could have 
 maintained the tradition of scholarship. " We 1660. 
 all speak Irish and many of us can read and 
 write English ; but some persons, in their riper 
 years, fascinated by the sweetness of their native 
 tongue, turn to read and write Irish.* . . . Such 
 however is the elegance of Irish language, that 
 how lightly soever a person sips of it, he is 
 drawn on to acquire a more profound know- 
 ledge."* But shame and terror of their ancient 
 
 'O'Grady, Cat. 418-9. ^Qxf. Reg. 128. 
 
 ^Camb. Ev. i. 183. *Camb. Ev. i. 191. * lb. ii 3-9. 
 
390 RUIN OF IRISH LEARNING ch. 
 
 speech was put into the people's hearts. " I 
 have known many persons who had but a very 
 slight acquaintance with Irish books; still so 
 great was the delight they found in reading 
 them, that they could hardly have ever let them 
 out of their hands, if the reproofs of their 
 parents had not forced their attention to more profit- 
 able studies" ^ for Irish was only profitable to 
 death. Unable to read the foreign tongue they 
 spoke painfully " some mere ghost of rugged 
 English."^ Scholars saw the near ruin of Irish 
 learning. We may measure their despair in the 
 heart-broken words of Dr. Lynch : " the age of 
 a profound knowledge of the Irish language is 
 I fear past for ever, since the hereditary revenues 
 of its professional masters have been taken 
 away."* He stood on the edge of that great 
 catastrophe. Nearly all the important literary 
 
 ^V'works of the Irish appeared before 1648. 
 
 ^ Scholars despised and slandered, hunted, scattered, 
 starving, toiling at their manuscripts in some 
 bogside or shelter in the rocks in face of the 
 printing-presses of Europe, at last laid down 
 their wearied pens in death. The old phrases 
 
 • lb. ii. 379 ; v. app. 
 
 ^"Is not this a funny habit that great part of the men of 
 Ireland have adopted— such as newly are pufifed up with a 
 most vanitous purse-proud conceit — feeble as is their mastery 
 over the 'codes' ['codices,' books] of a foreign clergy, yet 
 they utter not a sound but some mere ghost of rugged 
 EngUsh?" O'Grady, Cat. 522. 
 
 *Camb. Ev. i. 191. Misc. Ir. Axch. Soc. 1846, i. 123, 171. 
 
X. A PRIMER OF IRISH 391 
 
 of the Annals may rise to the lips of Irishmen. 
 "The benison of erudition and science on their 
 souls." " God's blessing, the blessing of all 
 saints, and every our blessing from Jerusalem 
 to Inis Gluair be on their going to heaven, and 
 blessed be he that will read and hear this for 
 blessing their souls." 
 
 In the midst of this ruin Elizabeth had an 
 Irish harper to entertain her with the music 
 forbidden in Ireland, and amused herself with 
 the fancy of adding another language to her 
 Latin and Greek ; a Primer of Irish was drawn 
 up for her by Lord Delvin, who used to 
 furnish the Government with translations of 
 Irish writings. Christopher Nugent Lord Delvin 
 succeeded his father as a boy of 14, the ward 1559. 
 of Sussex,^ and from his studies at Cambridge ^^ ^' 
 returned to take up his land in Ireland and 
 marry Mary daughter of Kildare. He was 
 constantly suspected, in spite of his protests 
 that there was nothing in the world whereof he 
 made more account than that his ancestors were 
 never spotted in blood, and that through honour- 
 able service to the crown of England he meant 
 not to deface nor lose. His politic words did 1580- 
 not prevent his being cast into prison on charge 
 of aiding the rebellion in the Pale, matters " very 
 dark against him."^ While he consoled himself 
 
 ^Fac. Nat. MSS. IV. i. xxxiv. 
 «C.S.P. 1580, 275, 382; 15S3, 476. 
 
392 THE COST OF DESTRUCTION ch. 
 
 by composing some celebrated music, he prayed 
 1583- Burghley to be admitted into her majesty's 
 presence,^ and sought to ingratiate himself in 
 the queen's favour by his Primer. No evidence 
 for the queen's great affection for Ireland, he 
 wrote in the preface, was greater than her desire 
 to understand the language of the people, her 
 majesty having understood that an interpreter 
 can never carry the grace nor intelligence which 
 the tongue being understood expresseth. Since 
 the queen undertook to learn, not as ordinary 
 men by demanding the significance of the words, 
 but by the letter, she would assuredly surpass 
 1584. all others. "Proceed therefore, proceed, most 
 gracious sovereign, in your holy intent, that as 
 your majesty hath in exhausting your treasure 
 more than any three of your most noble 
 progenitors showed how far you exceed them 
 in affection touching the reformation of their 
 country, so in this generous act you shall excel 
 them all." 2 
 
 The treasure of Elizabeth, who sent over more 
 men and spent more money to save and reduce 
 the land of Ireland than all her progenitors since 
 the conquest,^ had bought for her the slaughtered 
 bodies of scores of thousands of the Irish people, 
 the ruin of their trade, the scattering of their 
 schools, and the burning of their books. Lord 
 
 "Camb. Ev. i. 319 n. ^Fac. Nat. MSS. iv. i. pp. xxxiv-v. 
 
 ^Davies, 52, D. 1787. 
 
X. IRISH LANGUAGE CHAINED 393 
 
 Delvin was released to sit in the parliament of 
 confiscation. Now opened the vast schemes to 1585. 
 transport such as had any strength among the 
 Irish out of the country,^ to cut off the rem- 
 nant from any inheritance in their forefathers' 
 land, and to plant the country new from Eng- 
 land with "a better race." 
 
 " No more shall any laugh there, or children 
 gambol ; music is choked, the Irish language 
 chained; no longer shall chiefs' sons so much 
 as speak whether of the Winefeast or of hearing 
 Mass ; gaming is at an end, and all pastime ; 
 the improvised panegyric shall not be poured 
 forth, nor tales recited to procure sleep; books 
 will not be looked at, nor genealogies heard 
 attentively." " 
 
 The town schools, better protected than those 
 of the country and with more powerful patronage, 
 lingered for a while, but they too perished with 
 the ruin of the boroughs. Limerick ceased as a 1590- 
 place of learning when the Irish scholars fled from 
 it, parents carrying away their children in terror 
 to hide them in the fastnesses of the hills lest 
 they should be seized by English governors as 
 pledges ' and shipped away to London. Owen 
 MacRedmond, schoolmaster in Cork, was executed 1603, 
 
 ' Bacon's Considerations, Works, 1841, ii. 23. 
 
 ' O'Grady, Cat. 399. 
 
 ^C.S.P. 1590, 340. Professor Mahaffy states that they feared 
 to be taken pledges by the Spaniards of the Armada— a theory' 
 not warranted either by date or by probability. Epoch Ir. Hist. 11. 
 
394 RUIN OF TOWN SCHOOLS cm. 
 
 by martial law, as having no freehold to make 
 c. 1600. him worth the common law. Peter White 
 had no successor in a Waterford falling into 
 despair and decay. The great school of Gal way 
 was suppressed by Ussher. The old Galway 
 Corporation, drawing near its end after long 
 1627. sufferings, passed a decree reciting that " divers 
 sturdy beggars and young fellows pretending 
 themselves to be scholars do daily in great 
 numbers flock and resort to this town from 
 all parts of the kingdom," which was dangerous 
 to the Corporation, and disabled the inhabitants 
 from providing for " young scholars of the birth 
 of the town who have a desire to study and 
 learn " ; all such foreign beggars and pretended 
 scholars being born out of the town and country 
 ■:. and not licensed by the mayor were ordered 
 back to their native countries, and if they 
 returned to be whipped out of the town.^ 
 
 So closed the hopes of Irish scholarship in 
 Ireland. No Irishman was allowed to open a 
 public school, or send his children over sea to 
 study, " whence in course of time our people will 
 by necessity be made Protestants " ; while the 
 young heirs to lands were brought up in ignorance 
 so that they might not be able to guard their 
 rights to their inheritance.'^ The town schools 
 were seized, or newly endowed, to train the 
 
 > Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. x. App. v. 474. 
 'H.M.C. Rep. X. App. v. 349. 
 
X. A PEOPLE UNTAUGHT 395 
 
 Protestant English settlers, while the mass of 
 the Irish Catholics were left for the next two 
 centuries absolutely illiterate, or with such teaching 
 as the wandering hedge schoolmaster could bring 
 them. A proposal was once made to revive the 1787-^ 
 statute of Henry viii. ordering schools in every 
 parish, but nothing was done to carry the scheme 
 into effect. It died under the Hanoverians as 
 it had died under the Tudors.^ In the higher 
 education the English rulers created a University 
 for their sons — richly endowed out of Irish 
 resources — two hundred years before a small Irish 
 Catholic college with the help of French pro- , 
 fessors was tolerated in Carlow, or a college at 1793. 
 Maynooth for training priests was allowed to 1795. - 
 receive private subscriptions for its support. 
 "The children of the aliens receive a learned 
 
 ^"Parochial schools here (1815), as well as in many other 
 places, are little more than nominal. There are, however, 
 several little schools with Roman Catholic teachers, in which 
 children are instructed in reading, writing and arithmetic. 
 Though among themselves conversation is seldom carried on 
 in any but their native tongue, most of the people speak 
 English, and seem desirous of having their children educated. 
 
 " Among the many motives for obtaining such advantage, one 
 which is said to be the most cogent, is certainly the least 
 obvious. The substitution of paper money for specie has in 
 this part of the United Kingdom been productive of serious 
 injury, as well as inconvenience to the people, from the pro- 
 digious number of forged notes that are every day passed. 
 
 "To guard the rising generation against a fraud which is 
 practised with peculiar facility upon the illiterate, is said to be 
 a strong reason for sending their children to school. 
 
 " How often do advantages arise, when least foreseen and 
 least intended ?" Townsend's Survey of Cork (181 5), i. 415. 
 
396 THE ENGLISH POLICY ch. 
 
 education, which is contraband and penal for 
 ours," ^ exclaimed Lynch. 
 
 English methods had nothing haphazard about 
 them. The planters knew their own minds and 
 were perfectly definite in their intentions. Empire 
 was a subject much discussed, from the model of 
 Carthage down to the modern instances which 
 were inflaming the desires of England ; and every 
 detail of her imperial schemes was coldly planned 
 by her statesmen. It was by no chance and no 
 forgetfulness that she refused education to Ire- 
 land. We have the report of an official (Sir 
 John Perrot), who had " had some piece of 
 '583- government in it," and was charged by the 
 Queen to make her a statement as to how 
 " with the least charge " the country could be 
 " reclaimed to a godly government." " Here 
 now lastly," he winds up, "doth the common 
 objection oppose itself requiring an answer, whether 
 it be safety or danger, good or evil, for England 
 to have Ireland reformed, lest growing to civility, 
 government, and strength, it should cast off the 
 yoke and be more noisome and dangerous neigh- 
 bours to England."* The Irish, he answers, might 
 be allowed civility, for " the kings of Spain have 
 now of long time governed other countries being civil 
 and lying further off^ Thus the full subjection 
 of the Irish was to be the object of education and 
 the apology for learning. 
 
 * Camb. Ev. i. 63. * Car. ii. 370 ; v. app. 
 
X. FEAR OF IRELAND ClVIL 397 
 
 Even this idea however proved too advanced. 
 For these far dominions of Spain were indeed 
 "civil" as compared to English plans for Ire- 
 land. The institutions of learning in Mexico in 
 the sixteenth century surpassed anything existing 
 in English America until the nineteenth. One 
 Spanish school in the city of Mexico had over 1520. 
 a thousand pupils taught in the elementary ands.jVl 
 higher branches, the mechanical and the fine arts. 
 The college of Santa Cruz in Tlaltelolco wasf- i53S- 
 founded with a faculty composed largely of 
 graduates from Paris and other European Uni- 
 versities. Lima University in Peru had 2000 
 students and about 180 doctors in theology, 
 civil and canon law, medicine, and the arts. 
 England employed another system of conquest 
 and suppression. The activities of learning were 
 kept in check. In Harvard a doctor's degree f. 1639. 
 might be obtained after seven years' study, but 1691. 
 after fifty years "we never (more's pity) had 
 any Drs." "I thank God," wrote Governor 167 1 
 Berkeley of Virginia, a State filled with fugitive 
 and banished Irishmen, " I thank God there are 
 no free schools or printing, and I hope we shall 
 not have them these three hundred years, for 
 learning has brought disobedience and heresy and 
 sects into the world, and printing has divulged 
 them and libels against the best government. God 
 keep us from both." The Englishman in Ire- 
 land claimed a monopoly of all the means of 
 
398 LOT OF THE IRISH ch. 
 
 progress whether of mind or body. Planters 
 opposed enlightenment that might interfere with 
 cheap labour ; to the rulers a people untaught 
 seemed fittest for a " godly government," Bacon 
 himself supported the view that Ireland civil 
 might become more dangerous than Ireland 
 savage,^ and that ignorant people were the most 
 easily deceived by policy and stratagems — "a 
 shadow of a treaty . . . which methinks shall be in 
 our power to fasten at least rumore tenus to the 
 deluding of as wise people as the Irish." ^ 
 
 The Irishman was thus to be a stranger in his 
 own land, without industry, property, learning, 
 without a history in the past, or scarce a hope of 
 existence in the future. A land waste and desolate 
 for wild beasts, Cowley had told Henry viii., 
 would be better than to have such a people as 
 the Irishry left in it. We may still hear the 
 fierce irony of a poet of Elizabeth's time : 
 
 " Praise no man nor any satirise — but and if 
 thou praise, laud not a Gael : to him that per- 
 chance would fain do so, to chant a panegyric 
 of the Gael means odium earned. Break with 
 them — their keen valour quote not, nor call to 
 
 'Davies, D. 1787, xvi. 
 
 ^ Bacon to Cecil, Works, 1841, p. 23. Compare the letter of 
 another Earl of Essex to Burghley (1574) discussing whether 
 the people should be let live on their lands and pay rent or be 
 wholly " extirped " — " the form which shall bring about the one 
 shall do the other, and it may be done without any show that 
 such a thing is meant." Quoted in O' Grady, Cat. 418 n. See 
 also p. 414. 
 
X, THE IRISH AS ALIENS 399 
 
 mind lore of their chronicles: take not the 
 course of bestowing commendation on the Gael, 
 before whom be all other men accounted. Here 
 is the manner whereby thy words shall not fall 
 bitter, and this a mean to enhance the value of 
 thy speech : conceal the recital of their good 
 report in all degrees of worthiness, and vilify 
 the blood of every Irish man. The good that 
 hath been, meddle not with it; the good that 
 now is, dwell on that ; flatter the English 
 gallants' reputation, since to have fellowship 
 with them is now the likelier ... a stranger race^ 
 ne'er name as having any right to Ireland," * 
 
 The sorrow of the Irish vexed the English. 
 " This ungrateful people I say," complained 
 Hooker the solicitor, " notwithstanding the in- 
 numerable benefits bestowed upon them and 
 that whole commonwealth, yea and the daily 
 purchasing of their wealth, preservation, and 
 safety, could nor would be ever thankful."' "I 
 know not," Walsingham wrote sagely, "whether 
 
 ^i.e. the Irish themselves. His phrase was exact. Lord 
 Lyndhurst (May 9, 1836, Lives of the Chancellors, v. viii.) : 
 "We Protestant Englishmen are to be governed by those who 
 are aliens in blood, in language, in religion " : or Lord R. 
 Churchill (1886) on a proposal for a Parliament in Dublin 
 where the old inhabitants of Ireland should sit beside the men 
 of Belfast : " If the British nation should be so apostate to 
 traditions of honour and courage, as to hand over the Loyalists 
 of Ireland to the domination of an Assembly in DubUn which 
 must be to them a foreign and an alien assembly." Life of 
 Lord R. Churchill, p. 63. 
 
 ^O'Gr. Cat. 393. 3Ho1. vi. 404. 
 
400 THE ENGLISH RULERS ch. x. 
 
 I may ascribe these impediments to the irresolu- 
 tion of this time, or to the cursed destiny of 
 that country being not ordained to receive any 
 good of any determination agreed on for the re- 
 formation thereof" The attorney-general Davies 
 was aggrieved to see a race bowed under its 
 infinite calamity. "All the common people have 
 a whining tone or accent in their speech as if 
 they did still smart or suffer some oppression."' 
 
 •Davies, 133, ed. D. 1787. 
 
XI. 
 
 THE NEW LEARNING. 
 
 After some centuries of the halting efForts of 
 others, the Tudor statesmen took in hand what 
 they euphoniously called " the perfecting " of 
 Ireland. With the murder of Shane O'Neill 1567. 
 they thought success achieved. " This four 
 hundred and four years begun conquest is 1560. 
 now ended and brought to an honourable pass 
 
 . . by a godly conquest,"^ their Statute recorded^ 
 To abolish the Irish order of life was to them 
 a work blessed by God and deserving of human 
 gratitude. Sir Henry Sidney was, they said, " the 
 first to civilise the Irish people." 
 
 We may then ask what was the new learning 
 which England offered to Ireland in the place 
 of what she had destroyed. 
 
 The printing-press had been established in 1476. 
 England under Edward iv. : it was seventy-five '' 
 years before it crossed S. George's Channel. A 
 printing-press, however, did finally arrive in 
 Dublin in the time of Edward vi. Its first work 
 
 * Ir. Statutes, 12th Eliz. 313, etc. 
 
 2C 
 
402 
 
 THE PRINTING-PRESS 
 
 CH. 
 
 1551- was the new English service book that was to be 
 forced on the Irish Catholics, By the end of 
 the century the English press in Ireland had 
 produced proclamations against Shane O'Neill 
 ■ and the O'Conors, a tract on the Protestant 
 religion, and an almanack.^ 
 
 As for Irish readers, when the people had 
 
 1570. been goaded into a national and religious war, 
 sharply punished, the politic Elizabeth in her 
 moment of victory gave a printing-press and 
 Irish type, in the hope that God would raise 
 up a translator of the New Testament to teach 
 
 1571- obedience to the English Caesars, and heavily 
 taxed the province of Connacht to pay herself 
 
 v' 
 
 for the "gift." Kearney's "Catechism," intended 
 
 ^The earliest printed books in English are the Common 
 Prayer, 1551. The Proclamation against Shane O'Neill, 1561. 
 Proclamation against the O'Conors, 1564. Brefe Declaration 
 of certein Principall Articles of Religion (8 leaves), 1566. 
 William Farmer's "An Almanack for Ireland, 1587 (was this 
 directed against the famous reformed Calendar of Clavius, 
 Lilio, and Ciacconius, promulgated by the Pope (1582) and 
 used in Ireland? v. Acton, Lect. on Mod. Hist. 162). 
 
 In 1602 appeared A Friendly Caveat to Ireland's Catholickes, 
 etc. 4to. By John Rider (or Ryder), Dean of St. Patrick's, after- 
 wards Bishop of Killaloe. In 1604 A Rescript, etc., also by 
 Rider. It is cited in Works of Rev. H. FitzSimon, S.J. No 
 copy known. In 1604 Instructions to his Children, by Sir Wm. 
 Ussher. 4to. See Harris's Ware. In 1606 "An Answere to 
 Certaine Scandalous Papers, etc.," printed by John Franckton, 
 K.P. Dix, Earliest Dublin Printing ; Dix and Dugan's Cat- 
 of Early Dublin- Printed Books, 1 601 - 1 700. There were various 
 proclamations which are cited in the " State Papers," Ireland. 
 Of three of these published in 1605, and printed by John 
 Franckton, it is noteworthy that one was in Latin. 
 
XI. PRINTING IN IRISH 403 
 
 to be an instrument of loyalty,^ was the only 
 fruit of this press during thirty years, along with 
 a broadside of alderman John Ussher. Dublin 
 offered to the ^Irish people during the next 1600 
 hundred years a New Testament, a book of 
 Common Prayer, a Catechism, and the Old 
 Testament of the great bishop Bedell. London 
 contributed an Anglican Church Catechism in 
 1680. The view of letters was strictly utilitarian, 
 and learning arrived in Ireland from England 
 only as a political and proselytising engine of the 
 ascendancy. 
 
 There was no opportunity for the Irish tO' 
 set up or maintain a press of their own. For 
 them all chance was barred by the flaming sword 
 that turned every way. We have thus the 
 singular spectacle of a country which, while all 
 Europe was printing and throwing open to the 
 peoples a new way of knowledge, was driven 
 back on oral tradition and laborious writing 
 by hand. Some books were printed for Ireland 
 on the Continent, and in two or three towns 
 papers and pamphlets were printed from time' 
 to time ; but we may roughly say that for two 1500- 
 hundred years Irish literature was practically 
 written by devoted scribes. " When Henry viii. 1537- 
 
 Here is its title: "Alphabet of the Irish Language and 
 Catechism, that is Christian Instruction or Teaching, along 
 With certain articles of the Christian Rule that are proper 
 for everyone who would be obedient to the law of God and 
 ^he Queen in this Kingdom, translated from Latin and English 
 '0 Irish by John O'Kearney." 
 
404 WRITING OF BOOKS ch. 
 
 first revolted from the authority of the pope, 
 John Travers, an Irishman and doctor of divinity, 
 published a work strenuously advocating the 
 supremacy of the pope over the church. When 
 asked by his judges who was the author of 
 the book he held out his thumb, index and 
 middle finger of the right hand before his judges, 
 * these fingers,' he nobly avowed, * wrote that 
 book, and 1 shall never forget the labour it cost 
 me.^ " ^ Dr. Geoffrey Keating was in hiding, it 
 was said, skulking about from place to place, 
 
 1631. when he wrote his history of Ireland, which 
 remained unknown to his countrymen for a 
 century : " some curious persons got copies of 
 it " in writing, such as could afford the luxury, 
 
 1723. but it was not printed for a hundred years.^ 
 A MacDonnell had a manuscript copied for him 
 
 1681. at Ostend, from which O'Curry in later days 
 transcribed as much as 1 000 pages of poems.' 
 Such were the labours of Irish scribes — and such 
 the hindrances to Irish students. 
 
 There had long been talk of setting in print 
 the laws. An old Act had ordered the statutes 
 
 1494. of Kilkenny to be incorporated and written in 
 two books, one to be kept in the king's chief 
 place, and another in the common place.* Robert 
 
 *Camb. Ev. ii. 613; Ware's Writers, 93. 
 ''Ware's Writers, 105. 
 
 'Hyde, Lit. Hist. 471. See also Friar O'Gara's collections 
 made in the Low Countries. 
 *Tr. Rel. to Ireland, ii. App. .\x. 
 
XI. THE LAWS NOT PRINTED 405 
 
 Cowley proposed to print them, for, as he said, 
 "many of the old statutes of Kilkenny are good iS37- 
 to be put in execution, both for the extincting of 
 amyties between the Englishry and the Irishry, and 
 the encrease and continuance of Englishj manner 
 and habit" :^ "at any reasonable price," it would 1537. 
 be a necessary and gracious act, Mr. Justice 
 Luttrell thought, " for few or none can have 
 knowledge of all statutes made in this land, 
 because they be kept in the Treasury, and 
 no books made of them, by reason whereof 
 many ofFendeth therein for ignorance." ^ Another 
 official desired " order for the building of the 1538. 
 Castle Hall, where the law is kept, for if the 
 same be not builded, the majesty and estimation 
 of the law shall perish, the Justices being enforced 
 to minister the laws upon hills, as it were Brehons 
 or wild Irishmen." * But thirty years later Sidney 
 found "her Majesty's records laid as it were in 1569. 
 an open place whither any man (that vouchsafed 
 his pains) might come that would, not defended 
 but subject to wind, rain, and all kind of weather, 
 and so in a sort neglected that they served now 
 and then, (as I have by good men and good 
 means credible heard reported), instead of better 
 litter to rub horse heels." Sidney with great care 
 and diligence caused them to be perused and 
 sorted, and prepared an apt place within the 
 
 *St. Pap. II. iii. 499. *St Pap. II. iii. 509-10. 
 
 'C.S.P. 1538,37. 
 
4o6 LAWS PRINTED IN LONDON ch. 
 
 castle of Dublin, well trimmed and boarded, with 
 a chimney in the room.^ He again proposed 
 the imprinting of the statutes passed in the last 
 few hundred years for Ireland, so many at least 
 " as it was convenient for our subjects to take note of" 
 to the end "that no man henceforth might pretend 
 ignorance in the laws, statutes, and ordinances of 
 his own country where he was born," The busy 
 Hooker offered to print at his own charges, and 
 was given the privilege of issuing the selection 
 
 1571. for ten years. But two years later Recorder 
 ,'Stanihurst carried to London the roll of 170 
 statutes thought meet to be published by Carew 
 and his brother councillors — a selection which 
 was in London again corrected by Burghley, and 
 finally printed by Tottell, not in Dublin but in 
 London.^ Another scheme of Sidney as patron 
 of the sciences came to nothing. A great map 
 
 1570, 8^ ft. long and 5^ ft. wide was projected by 
 Lythe, an English engineer, who followed Sidney 
 
 •Hoi. vi. 371-2. 
 
 / "Tr. Rel. to Irel. ii. App. xxi. n. ; C.S.P. 1571, 453-4; MS. Titus 
 B. ix. Cotton. Br. Mus. 
 
 "The statutes of Ireland from the loth year of Henry vi. to 
 the thirteenth year of the Queen's Majesty that now is, printed 
 at London 1572, by the procurement of Sir Henry Sydney, 
 knight of the Garter, lord president of Wales and lord deputy 
 of Ireland, having summoned all the justices of both benches 
 with the chief Baron of the Exchequer, and the Mr. of the 
 Rolls, and referred to them the copying out and examining of all 
 the statutes as were of Record and not published ; which they 
 did, and delivered the same perfectly written and examined, 
 with all their hands subscribed to every one of them." 
 
xr. FREE SCHOOLS PROPOSED 407 
 
 for the perfecting of this " platte," but he got 
 from him too little wages to carry out the 
 scheme,^ 
 
 The Tudor princes made boast of being patrons 
 of learning, their minds exalted and their courts 
 adorned by the best science of their day. From 
 time to time they discussed education in Ireland. 
 Not however as a matter of learning, but as another 
 means side by side with religion of Anglicising 
 the Irish. A proposal to " reform " Ireland was 
 made early in the century: "Also, that every 1515 
 landlord, great or small, of every Irish country 
 subject to the king, put his son and heir to 
 Dublin, or to Drogheda, or to some other English 
 town, to learn to write and read, and to speak 
 English, to learn also the draught and manners 
 of English men." ^ Not a single school was 
 provided during that generation. The confiscation 
 of the religious houses seemed to offer oppor- 
 tunities for "the finding of a free school whereof 1543- 
 there is great lack in this land, having never a 
 one within the same"' (that is an English 1 547- 
 grammar school) and it was suggested that from 
 the chapels and chauntries taken into the king's 
 hand sundry free schools might be erected for ' 
 the education of the youth of Ireland.* But the 
 government gave no hearing to the plan ; the 
 treasure was swept into the English mint, and 
 
 ' Fac. Nat. MSS. vi. i. Plate v. ^ St. Pap. ii. pt. iii. p. 30. 
 ' St. Pap. III. iii. 468. * Shirley, Orig. Letters, 1 1 
 
4o8 A GROUP OF REFORMERS ch. 
 
 the " trussing coffers " of the English officials, 
 and still not a school was founded. 
 
 The idea was revived under Elizabeth and 
 
 1561. the advantages of such a scheme unfolded. The 
 aim was frankly political — to breed up under 
 English masters men fit to govern^ according 
 
 1563. to English ideas. Commissioners were appointed, 
 and secretly instructed that if any public schools 
 should be founded as a beginning in Dublin, 
 teachers and scholars were to be chosen from the 
 English alone.' No Irishman born or Catholic was 
 henceforth to teach either religion or classical 
 learning. The foreign schoolmaster, along with 
 the clergyman and the landlord, was to be a 
 government agent for the suppression of Irish life.* 
 Sir Henry Sidney being deputy determined 
 with his Dublin friends, the Stanihursts and 
 Campion and Hooker, to put in force these 
 
 1569. proposals of Elizabeth's government.* They 
 formed a powerful group. James Stanihurst, of 
 a merchant family settled in Dublin from the 
 
 1553- fourteenth century, was a lawyer of great 
 wealth ' and Recorder of Dublin. His son 
 
 1547- Richard had gone from Kilkenny school to 
 
 1563. Oxford, and to the London law schools. He 
 made friends with Campion, son of a London 
 
 iC.S.P. 1561, 165; Richey, 327. ^Car. i. 359. 
 
 'Camp. cap. x. ; Bellesheim, Gesch. ii. 146. 
 *C.S.P. 1569, 400; Camp. cap. x. 
 
 "Car. i. 198, 288 ; Hoi. vi. 65; Cal. Rec. Dub. i. 230, 437 
 441- 
 
XI. THEIR TRAINING 409 
 
 bookseller, who had undertaken to write the 
 history of Ireland for Holinshed's collection of c. 1568 
 Chronicles, and for this work came to live in 
 Dublin. Hooker, the solicitor of Sir Peter Carew, 
 had just come from Exeter. About the same 
 time Dr. Hanmer, vicar choral of iChrist-Church, 1571. 
 collected materials for a chronicle of Ireland.^ 
 
 The temper of these men is shown by their 
 life and work. James Stanihurst had presided 
 over Elizabeth's first parliament in Dublin,^ had 
 by common report forced through the Commons 1560. 
 the Statute of Uniformity by putting the question 
 when his chief opponents were absent, and had 
 his reward in lands.' He was again speaker in 
 the second and equally stormy parliament, which 1569. 
 ended in an Irish war and opened the era of 
 the great confiscations. Richard, who took the 
 post of schoolmaster^ to the children of the Earl 
 of Kildare at Rathangan, made a declaration 
 of the "rebels" that resorted to the earl, and 15 75- 
 prophesied God's wrath on his master.* Dr. 
 Hanmer commended himself to Burghley as an 
 informer about the doings of Tyrone, and how 1594- 
 " by making a fire on the bank " he can have an 
 endless supply of Scots : " I being set a work 
 to collect the antiquities of this land and to 
 register them unto the posterity, do come to the 
 knowledge and view of these things,"* The 
 
 'C.S.P. 1594, 229. *Camb. Ev. iii. 19-21. 2(33^.1.299. 
 *C.S.P. 1575, 74; V. app. 'C.S.P. 1594, 229. 
 
4IO THEIR WORK ch. 
 
 attorney Hcx)ker was perhaps the chief cause of 
 the Irish war in 1 569, cunning artificer of tyranny, 
 the unscrupulous agent of Carew's cruelties and 
 confiscations, the tool of Sidney, the leader ot 
 
 1569. aliens forced into the parliament by guile " which 
 could not be digested," the orator of oppression, 
 so that, said the Ireland men, " if his words 
 had been spoken in any other place they would 
 have died rather than hear them." The patron 
 ; of the whole group, Sir H. Sidney,^ " perfect in 
 blazoning of arms, skilful of antiquities," boasting 
 much of his collections of records and statutes 
 of the Pale, was long remembered in tradition 
 for his Vandalism in the destruction of Irish books 
 and manuscripts. 
 
 1570- Campion was thirty years old, Richard Stani- 
 hurst twenty-three, when they undertook the 
 history of Ireland — Campion compiling a sum- 
 mary account to 1571 ; Stanihurst writing a 
 description of Ireland, and the reign of Henry 
 VIII.; a story which Hooker continued to 1581, 
 and added a translation of Giraldus Cambrensis 
 dedicated to Sir Walter Raleigh, with a suitable 
 preface in contempt of Ireland — " a country the 
 more barren of good things the more replenished 
 with actions of blood, murder, and loathsome 
 outrages," * irksome to be read, much more for 
 any man to reduce into an history. He could 
 see but one merit that redeemed this " tragical 
 
 'Cf. Hanmer's Chron. 147. 'Hoi. vi. 103. 
 
XI. THEIR IGNORANCE OF IRELAND 411 
 
 discourse" — the prodigious example in Ireland 
 of God's just and severe punishment on dis- 
 obedience to the queen, "as the like in our 
 age hath not been seen or known" — the age 
 of Alva and the Netherland wars. 
 
 The friends were writing of a land foreign 
 to them, with the drawback that not one of 
 them knew, and none of them respected, the 
 language of the country they wrote of ; that their 
 ignorance of Irish history and law and literature 
 was complete, that their vision was bounded by 
 the Pale, and that they were alike steeped in 
 prejudices against the Irish fostered in the 
 foreign colony ^ — prejudices which left them 
 credulous and uncritical, at the mercy of every 
 fanciful tale. Campion compiled his history in 
 ten weeks. Stanihurst's "description of Ireland" 
 seems to show that the only Irish journey he 
 ever made was to his Kilkenny school, and 
 through the port of Waterford. He had seen 
 Tara too^ — now in English speech plain "Kempe's 
 
 ^Stanihurst described the danger of any communication 
 between foreign settlers and the people of Ireland. " Neigh- 
 bourhood bred acquaintance, acquaintance waffed in the Irish 
 tongue, the Irish hooked with it attire, attire haled rudeness, 
 rudeness engendered ignorance, ignorance brought contempt 
 of laws, the contempt of laws bred rebellion." Hoi. vi. 5. 
 
 *" There is in Meath an hill called the Hill of Tara, wherein 
 is a plain twelve score long, which was named the Kempe his 
 hall : there the country had their meetings and folkmotes, as 
 a place that was accounted the high palace of the monarch. 
 The Irish historians hammer many fables in this forge of Fin 
 mac Coile and his champions, as the French history doth of 
 
412 LATER SCHOLARS ch. 
 
 Hall " — for at Tara within a ride from Dublin it 
 was the custom to hold meetings to the honour 
 of St. George, and military parades, as signals of 
 English dominion. His history differs pro- 
 foundly from that of Hooker in the range of 
 its interest in Irish affairs, and its gleams of 
 sympathy and wider historical outlook ; but the 
 traditional superiority of the colonist, the lack of 
 Irish learning, and the repetition of the old 
 slanders current in the Pale, made it deeply 
 resented by Irish historians.^ It offended also 
 an English scholar in the time of Charles ii., 
 who had for twenty years made diligent enquiry 
 into chronicles and histories and study of " such 
 ancient passages of Ireland which without insight 
 in the language none can ever come to under- 
 stand; as I have well perceived by Giraldus 
 Cambrensis, Stanihurst, Sir John Davies, Dr. 
 Hanmer, Campion, Morrison, Spenser, and such 
 other partial authors who have taken upon them 
 to write Chronicles and Antiquities of Ireland, 
 whose books if they were not so filled up with 
 falsehoods and slanderings of the Irish nation 
 would produce nothing but books of white 
 paper." * "I cannot forbear being astonished," 
 wrote the learned Dr. Ware, " that some men 
 
 king Arthur and the knights of the round table. But doubt- 
 less the place seemeth to bear the shew of an ancient and 
 famous monument." Hoi. vi. 39. 
 , *See Introd. to Keating's History. 
 *His name is unknown. Soc. of Ant., Oct. 1871, p. 593. 
 
XI. ACT FOR SCHOOLS 413 
 
 of this age who in other respects are men of 
 gravity and learning should again obtrude these 
 fictions of Cambrensis on the world for truths." ' 
 This was the group that proposed to " reform " 
 Ireland by teaching its people to abandon all 
 tradition of a nation. They drew up an Act ^S^9' 
 to establish schools, in which they recited the 
 political vices of the Irish, by which the greatest 
 number of the people of this land had long 
 lived in rude and barbarous states,^ not knowing 
 that God had forbidden ' the manifest and heinous 
 offences which they spare not daily and hourly 
 to commit and perpetrate. Henceforth school- 
 masters of English race and English birth, 
 appointed by English bishops and deputies,- were 
 to be placed in every diocese in schools built 
 
 'Ware's Antiqs. 190. 
 
 'Ir. Stat. I2th Eliz. c. 1. Or in Hooker's full-blooded 
 denunciation — "This wicked, effrenated, barbarous and un- 
 faithful nation who, as Cambrensis writeth of them, they are 
 a wicked and perverse generation, constant always in that 
 they be always inconstant, faithful in that they be always 
 unfaithful, and trusty in that they be always treacherous and 
 untrusty. They do nothing but imagine mischief, and have 
 no delight in any good thing. . . . God is not known in 
 their land, neither is his name rightly called upon among 
 them. Their queen and sovereign they obey not, and her 
 government they allow not : but as much as in them lieth 
 do resist her imperial estate, crown and dignity." Hoi. vi. 
 369. 
 
 'Ir. Stat. I2th Eliz. cap. v. An Anglican divine, the Warden 
 of Keble, preaching before the Peace Conference of the Hague 
 in 1907 stated that Christianity was opposed to excessive 
 Nationalism— the doctrine of the Church of Elizabeth in 
 Ireland. "Times," July 8, 1907. 
 
414 AN ENGLISH EDUCATION ch 
 
 for them, there to teach sedulously how God 
 has "commanded a due and humble obedience 
 from the people to their princes and rulers." 
 " Actuated," in a modern phrase, " by the most 
 liberal motives, and a perfectly legitimate con- 
 ception of educational principles," James Stani- 
 hurst described to parliament the aim of the 
 1570. new schools. "In particular the zeal which I 
 have to the reformation of this realm, and to 
 breed in the rudest of our people resolute English 
 hearts ... I doubt not," he adds of the schools, 
 "... but this addition discreetly made will 
 foster a young fry likely to prove good members 
 of this commonwealth and desirous to train their 
 children the same way. Neither were it a small 
 help to the assurance of the crown of England when 
 babes from their cradles should be inured under 
 learned schoolmasters with a pure English tongue, 
 habit, fashion, discipline, and in time utterly for- 
 get the affinity of their unbroken " Irish neigh- 
 bours.^ Like every other benevolence offered 
 to the Irish — the possession of their own land, 
 the practice of their religion, the use of their 
 commerce — education was to be bought by an 
 Irishman at the absolute surrender of his nation- 
 ality, and on the condition of his being fitted 
 as an instrument for the subjection of his 
 fellow-countrymen. 
 
 The bill for schools was at first thrown out 
 
 *Camp. cap. x. 
 
X,. NO SCHOOLS FOUNDED 415 
 
 because the bishops refused to allow the patronage 
 to the deputy, and objected to his exempting 
 from taxation the richest Church lands confiscated 
 into lay hands. It was passed under pressure 
 the next year.^ But the law remained dead. 1570. 
 Not a school was founded. 
 
 The plan for setting up schools, in fact, 
 shared the ruin of its loyal promoters. Campion, 
 distrusted as a Papist, spent most of his time 
 in hiding from arrest, till he escaped to England ^51^- 
 disguised as a lacquey, and then to Douay and 
 Rome, and only returned with Parsons on his 1581. 
 English mission to suffer death. James Stanihurst 
 spent the two years till his death in vain petitions 
 for additional rewards for his parliamentary 
 services. Richard, of Ireland birth and nurtured 
 in the English interest, had no country to call his 
 own : the lessons he learned at Kilkenny were 
 probably deepened by what he saw at Rathangan ; 
 escaping to the Continent he became a Roman 
 Catholic, seems to have taken up the cause of the 
 Irish at the Spanish Court, " a famous man and 
 very well thought of," and worked at Leyden and 
 Antwerp on his translations and life of S. Patrick.* 
 Sir H. Sidney was recalled by official intrigues, 
 and with a last effort to awaken enthusiasm for 
 his heavy military taxation departed, leaving a 
 debt of ;^4000. And at his very entering 1570. 
 
 ■Bagwell, ii. 15S, 176; C.S.P. 1569, 400. 
 ' ^Brenan, Eccl. Hist, of Ire. 445; C.S.P. 1592, 479. 
 
41 6 DEPARTURE OF SIDNEY ch. 
 
 into the ship for his farewell unto that whole 
 land and nation, he recited the words of the 
 psalm, " In exitu Israel de Aegypto, et domus 
 Jacob de populo barbaro."^ So he took leave 
 of " the stiff-necked and ungrateful people," while 
 J his brother-in-law Fitzwilliam took up the Irish 
 problem with the old plan for remedying the 
 *' enormities " of Ireland — English lineal inheri- 
 tance, English planters, English dress, English 
 taxes, English schools, an English Protestant 
 university, English hospitals or workhouses for 
 the Irish minstrels and horse-boys, and English 
 provost-marshals to travel through the land for 
 executions. 
 
 Under his successor, Sir John Perrot, a begin- 
 ning was made of fastening on Irish schools the 
 national system of England. On the transparent 
 plea of sympathy for Irish boys, who if they 
 should chance to move from school to school 
 might be " put back in their learning " by being 
 also moved from one grammar to another, it 
 c. 1587. was ordered that the English Lilly's grammar 
 1509-13. should alone be used,^ — a grammar compiled under 
 1540. Henry viii., remodelled and designed to become 
 1574. the national Latin Grammar. The new edition 
 lately issued " by royal authority " of Elizabeth 
 "queen of England, France and Ireland," with 
 an admonition to all masters " within this our 
 realm and dominions," and printed in London, 
 
 •Hooker, Hoi. vi. 399. *Tuckey's Cork, 64. 
 
XI. AN ENGLISH LATIN GRAMMAR 417 
 
 did not commend itself to Irish boys, and ten 
 years later it was reported that Her Majesty's 
 titles were torn out of the grammars all through 
 Cork, "though the books came new from the 
 merchants' shops." ^ 
 
 The attempt to enforce a " national " grammar 
 was however of no great consequence, for in 
 thirty years of war and massacre there was little ^ 
 thought for schools. English efforts at education 
 were exhausted. The advocates of " strong 
 government " and division of spoils obtained 
 general confidence for a policy simple and time- 
 honoured. " Such is their stubbornness and pride 
 that with a continual fear it must be bridled, and 
 such is the hardness of their hearts that with the 
 rod it must be still chastised and subdued. . . . 
 This is to be meant of the Irishry and savage 
 people who . . . the more they are under their 
 O'Brien government the less dutiful to their 
 natural sovereign and prince." ^ At the end of 
 Elizabeth's and Burghley's work in Ireland they 
 had not yet founded a single grammar-school : 
 "neither Ireland had schoolmasters of the re- 1599. 
 formed religion, nor would the Irish then have 
 sent their children to any such." ' It was the 
 great misery even in the Pale, Elizabeth was told, 
 
 'C.S.P. 1597, 13. 'Hoi. vi. 369. 
 
 'Fynes Moryson. In the next century English school- 
 masters were appointed in the towns, and funds for schools 
 ■ind apprenticeship limited to Protestants, v. Smith's Wat. 
 156. 
 
 2D 
 
41 8 A DUBLIN UNIVERSITY ch. 
 
 that there were no schools "to learn younglings 
 the English tongue." ^ 
 
 Proposals for a university in Ireland went 
 
 1315. the same way as schemes for schools. Twice 
 
 ^^^°" charters had been granted for a general university 
 of learning in Dublin,^ as from the island "no 
 access or passage is to be had to any University 
 but through great dangers by sea." Twice the 
 project had died, for lack of funds, it was said. 
 
 1465- The beheading of earl Thomas of Desmond 
 ended his effort to found a University at Drogheda. 
 No scheme prospered in fact till one had been 
 devised that confined its benefits to the ruling 
 caste and left the " mere Irish " outside. This 
 , last proposal, the scheme for Trinity College in 
 Dublin, began under Henry viii. 
 
 To persuade the chapter of S. Patrick's to 
 
 1542- condescend to its surrender at the suppression 
 of the religious houses, Henry had promised 
 that its funds should be used for a university.' 
 
 1549- But when all the plate had been seized for 
 the mint by Edward,* the plan for a university 
 slept for a dozen years. The Pope having then 
 1560-4. charged Archbishop Creagh and Father David 
 Wolfe with the erecting of universities and 
 colleges,* fear of Roman competition suddenly 
 revived the plans for a Protestant and English 
 
 ^Camb. Ev. i. 193 n. * Ware's Ant. 242. 
 
 3 Shirley's Orig. Letters, 13. *Ib. 31. 
 
 'Bellesheim, ii. 146; Car. i. 359; Shirley, 126, 141. 
 
XI. OFFICIAL OBJECTIONS 419 
 
 university, scholars to be taken from the English 
 only ; and schemes were drawn up (with lists 
 of expenses)^ to turn S. Patrick's "to some 
 use," as Cecil said, "which now serveth for 
 lurking Papists." Creagh and Wolfe however 
 were disposed of in prison and exile, and the 
 (Tovernment, thus relieved of rivalry in educa-*^ 
 tion, sank again into apathy. In face of the 
 opposition of the Dublin archbishops nothing was 
 done about S. Patrick's. Archbishop Curwen, 
 in spite of the proposal that the learners and 
 scholars should be taken from the English only, 
 raised among a host of other objections the old 
 alarm of the ascendancy:^ "An university here 1564- 
 were unprofitable, for the Irish enemies under 
 colour of study would send their friends hither, 
 who would learn the secrets of the country and 
 advertise them thereof, so that the Irish rebels 
 should by them know the privity of the English 
 Pale."' Nor did he want learned men, said the 
 Englishman, if he had not enough fat livings to 
 reward them. 
 
 Primate Loftus of Armagh, while ostensibly 
 working with bishop Brady of Meath for the con- 
 version of S. Patrick's into a University, secretly 
 and contrary to his pledged word accepted ^5^5- 
 Its deanery for himself,* (" when I knew it was ' 
 so indeed, lord, how my combe was cutl" 
 
 ' lb. 126. > See p. 269. 
 
 'Shirley, Orig. Letters, 152. * lb. 180-5, 200-1. 
 
420 
 
 SIDNEY'S ATTEMPT 
 
 CH. 
 
 cried Brady) ; and by a double treachery hid the 
 fact that he was under a bond of ;^iooo to 
 resign the deanery if the university were formed, i 
 When Curwen "the old unprofitable workman ">; 
 was called home, and Primate Loftus, in what 
 he piously called his " pilgrimage in Ireland," 
 
 1567. took the more lucrative post of archbishop of 
 Dublin his zeal yet further waned.* He was 
 interested not only in the deanery, but in the 
 livings of S. Patrick's " by long leases and other 
 estates thereof granted either to himself, his 
 children, or kinsmen." * Its translated state, 
 
 1570- Loftus now thought, would do much evil by 
 discouraging the good and godly preachers of 
 the English nation, since fifteen graduates of 
 the universities besides the archbishop himself, 
 about a dozen of them his own dependents, were 
 entertained by means of that cathedral to preach 
 in the Pale (Loftus in his zeal had given the 
 archdeaconry of Glendalough to a lay friend of 
 very ill repute).* 
 
 Sidney made an earnest effort to revive the 
 
 1570. University of 1320. "A motion was made in 
 this last parliament to erect it again, contribu- 
 tions laid together. Sir Henry Sidney then lord 
 deputy, proffered 20 pounds lands, and one 
 hundred pounds money, others followed after 
 their abilities and devotions, the name devised 
 
 1 Shirley, Orig. Letters, 201. 
 3 Parrot's Life, 242-3. 
 
 * lb. 295. 
 
 * Bellesheim, ii. 214. 
 
xi. OTHER PROPOSALS 421 
 
 Master Acworth, Plantolinum of Plantagenet 
 and Bullyne. But while they disputed of a 
 convenient place for it, and of other circum- 
 stances, they let fall the principal."^ John 1571. 
 Ussher proposed to secure funds by a reforma- 
 tion of the Staple, and offered to give up his 
 own share in these profits;^ and later urged the 1582. 
 erection of a university out of the escheated 
 lands, as the only means, by educating the Irish 
 youth at home, to keep them from rebellion 
 and the notions imbibed at Louvain and 
 Douay.^ 
 
 The government probably accepted Curwen's 
 argument against giving Irishmen from the 
 country access to the secrets and privities of 
 official life in Dublin ; and in view of Loftus' 
 attitude about the livings, it was decided that 
 S. Patrick's was " not commodious,* and other 
 circumstances inferred a feeble and raw founda- 
 tion." The official world therefore still sent 
 their sons to English universities,* and " deliber- 
 ately contrived," the Jesuits wrote to the Pope, 
 "to keep the natives in the gloom of barbarous 
 ignorance, so as thus to retain them like slaves 
 in abject obedience."® But Walsingham noted 
 
 'Campion, cap. v. 
 
 'C.S.P. 1 57 1, 452. See his request to farm the Customs, 
 1564, Shirley, Orig. Let. 154. 
 'lb. 1582, 353. *Camp. cap. x. 
 
 'C.S.P. 1588, 44; 1591, 439, 446, 456. 
 *Mahaffy, Epoch in Ir. Hist. 31. Car. Papers, 36. 
 
422 UNIVERSITY OPPOSED ch. 
 
 " the runagates of that nation, which under pre- 
 tence of study in the universities beyond the seas, 
 do return freight with superstition and treason": 
 and proposed a university at Clonfert, near the 
 Shannon, healthy, at the middle of the king- 
 dom, and easy of access : a wall was to be built 
 round it, the bishoprics of Clonfert and Elphin 
 to be appropriated for its support, and all the 
 Irish bishops were to add contributions to main- 
 tain learned men. The idea of Clonfert however 
 
 1581. did not get beyond Westminster, and the sug- 
 gestion of Archbishop Lancaster of Armagh that 
 
 1584' the university should be in Drogheda under his 
 eye, and of the parson of Trim that it might be 
 in Trim, equally failed.^ A later " discourse for 
 the reformation of Ireland " proposed the abroga- 
 
 1583- tion of all pardons, increased garrisons, and two 
 universities in Limerick and Armagh.* But 
 Archbishop Loftus saw no need for any univer- 
 sity : " I might say," he wrote to Burghley with 
 his usual effrontery, " schools are provided for in 
 every country here. Oxford and Cambridge are 
 not far off, all under one dominion, but this 
 will not satisfy."' 
 
 At last when the Irish people were " brayed as 
 it were in a mortar with the sword, famine, and 
 pestilence altogether,"* it was thought safe to 
 establish a Dublin university. Loftus was placated 
 
 iCS.P. 1581, 302; 1584, 513. "Car. ii. 369. 
 'C.S.P. 1584, cxxxii. *Davies, D. 1787, 5+ 
 
XI. DUBLIN UNIVERSITY FOUNDED 423 
 
 by assured possession of his profits in S. Patrick's, 
 and Trinity College was founded on the site of 
 the monastery of All Hallows given by the 1593 
 Dublin corporation. With the re-assured Loftus, 
 lord chancellor and archbishop, as its Provost, its 
 mission was to secure and maintain the ascend- 
 ancy of the English planters and their Church. * 
 There the youth of the Pale should be instructed 
 on " the solid foundation of the English refor- 
 mation," as the Provost in his inaugural address 
 expressed it. " Both Papists and Schismatics are, 
 though in different degrees of enmity, equally 
 our implacable enenlies." There too the sons of 
 the Irish were to be bent to the queen's law and 
 religion. The provost-marshals were making 
 orphans all over the country, and these orphans 
 were now wards of the Crown by the newly 
 ordained land-tenures. What with wards and 
 pledges a goodly company of boys could be 
 assembled at Trinity to learn loyalty. James 
 I. had a clause inserted in all grants of ward- 
 ship that the wards should be "maintained and 
 educated in the English religion and habits in ' 
 Trinity College, Dublin " ; ^ and " his majesty's 
 care " was much commended " in amplifying the 
 college there and in looking to the education of 
 wards and the like ; as they are the most natural 
 means so are they like to be the most effectual 
 
 ' O'Flaherty, W. Conn. 420 n. ; Tr. Rel. to Irel. ii., 
 Stat. Kilk. 12 n. 
 
424 
 
 IRISH AID ASKED 
 
 CH. 
 
 and happy for the weeding out of popery "without 
 using the temporal sword "^ 
 
 The new College sent circular letters to the 
 Catholic gentlemen of the country to beg funds 
 for this purpose. Their answer lacked cor- 
 diality : " the county of Limerick," said the 
 Vice-President of Munster, had agreed " to give 
 3/4 out of every ploughland, which I have sent 
 men to collect, and will do my best to draw 
 the other counties to some contribution, but I 
 do and devotion so cold as that I shall hereafter 
 think it a very hard thing to compass so great a 
 work upon so bare a foundation"^ The State 
 however did not allow this branch of the English 
 government to fail. The rival school at Galway 
 was suppressed. James gave the College lands 
 confiscated in Ulster, and benefactions enriched 
 Trinity till it was endowed with a hundredth 
 part of the land of the Irish people, for 
 the sole education of Episcopalians, rejecting 
 all "Papists and Schismatics."^ "Our tyrants," 
 wrote Dr. Lynch, "adopt the plans of Sylla 
 in the confiscation of our properties, and taking 
 an arrow from the cruel armoury of Julian the 
 Apostate, they consign all our youth to the 
 darkness of ignorance,"* 
 
 'Bacon, Works, 1841, ii. 84. Many of these captive wards 
 seem to have deserted and fled abroad. See Epoch in Irish 
 Hist. Mahaffy, 50. 
 
 ^Tuckey's Cork, 65. 
 
 ^ Royal Com. on Trinity, 1907. *Camb. Ev. i. 2r ; v. app. 
 
XI. IRISH WARDS IN ENGLAND 425 
 
 The English occupation thus ofFered no 
 culture to Ireland. We might say indeed that 
 the Irish saw the whole forces of the State 
 employed to refuse knowledge to the people — a 
 government officially occupied in destroying Irish 
 schools, and as it were busy unofficially in seeing 
 that no money was wasted in putting other 
 schools in their place — great officers of state 
 opposing a University, and when it was granted 
 confining its privileges to their own class — a 
 political printing-press whence proclamations and 
 tracts issued to outrage all the pieties of an 
 Irishman towards his people or his faith. 
 
 Since learning was thus cut off at home for 
 the great mass of the Irish people, we may ask 
 whether the English rulers offered their fellow- 
 subjects from Ireland any chance of education 
 in England. 
 
 We have already seen the fluctuating fortunes 
 of Irish students at Oxford and the Inns of 
 Court ; and the results of Henry's experiment 
 to restore them to the English Universities. 
 Such examples of free study in England did 
 not suit the royal policy. Elizabeth hoped to 
 do better by herself ordering the pupils and their 
 places of work. Here the way had been marked 
 out for her by her father. For not all the 
 students of Henry's time had been free men. 
 He had adopted the efficient policy of seizing 
 the heirs of the chiefs as wards or pledges or 
 
426 DEPORTING OF BOYS ch. 
 
 prisoners, and giving them an English education. 
 The boy was torn from his people, kept in an 
 English household or school as in a gaol, and 
 i put under a training devised to make him forget 
 and despise his own country, to enfeeble his 
 purpose, and to break the confidence of his tribe. 
 
 1537. For promise of a title, Brian FitzPatrick Lord 
 of Ossory renounced his Irish name and language, 
 promised to bring up his children in English 
 
 1549. customs and the use of the English tongue, 
 and sent his son to the Pale to be well brought 
 
 1 541. up and speak good English.^ But when the 
 
 ^^^^' robes of a baron arrived, he had to bring his 
 heir Barnaby to Maynooth " to have given him 
 to his Majesty ; he is a proper child and one 
 whom he much tendereth " ; and Barnaby, brought 
 up as playmate to Prince Edward, and later 
 gentleman of the chamber, returned to imprison 
 his father and his wife with, as they alleged, 
 unnatural and extreme cruelty, charging them with 
 " rebellion " ;^ and in his own sufferings became 
 at once the tool and the victim of the English. 
 As their power widened Sussex and Sidney carried 
 off in their train the notable chiefs' sons within 
 
 1557. their reach, O'CarroU's eldest son was deported 
 as Sidney's boy and man, and in ten years was 
 so fashioned as " to be nearly addicted to the 
 
 ' Fac. Nat. MSS. iv. i, Plates xi. and xii. ; St. Pap. in. 
 iii. 291 ; V. app. 
 *Fac. Nat. MSS. iv. i, xi. xii, 
 
XI. 
 
 THEIR TRAINING 
 
 427 
 
 English order," and able to bend his father to 
 the uncommonly hard bargain which Sidney drove 
 with him at the sword's- point. Tibbot Burke 
 was one of those who had to pay for his English 
 education by bringing the head of one of his 
 people — " putting himself into blood " as the 
 English phrase went — he who " being Sidney's 
 man " killed the great leader James Fitzmaurice 
 with his own hand. 
 
 For centuries it remained the English system 
 to train up, or to single out for wealth and 
 reward, the most ignoble of their race, men 
 greedy, dishonest, unnatural, and treacherous. 
 Such men can be found in every country. It 
 is not in every country that the government 
 undertakes to foster through a score of genera- 
 tions such a disease in the national life. 
 
 Under Elizabeth this method of proselytising 
 children at once to the English Church and Law 
 was rapidly pushed on. Chiefs were called before 
 the deputy to answer whether they had " behaved 
 themselves like good subjects," ^ and " brought 
 up their children after the English fashions, and 
 in the use of the English tongue " ; and on this 
 excuse or any other the heirs, children or grown 
 men, chosen according to the tenure,^ were sent 
 as " pledges " to Dublin Castle, or to the profit 
 of some high official, with such charges as 
 their friends were not able to bear. " Twelve 
 'W. Cono. 321. «C.S.P. 1590, 346. 
 
428 THE PLEDGES ch. 
 
 chargeable children lie on his hand,"^ grumbled a 
 
 1 5 79- vice-chamberlain. Kildare's son was seized and 
 was practically a prisoner till his death. Baron 
 
 1580. Valencia taken (with the sons of Desmond and 
 the Knight of Kerry) as a hostage for his father 
 was imprisoned in Dublin, then London, then 
 back in Dublin, whence he escaped to France to 
 
 1588. die in poverty .^ The sons of Clanrickard and 
 O'Rourke (this Brian O'Rourke "of a sharp wit 
 
 1584. and tractable mind") were sent by Sir J. Perrot 
 to the queen : " they are pretty, quick boys, 
 and would with good education I hope be made 
 good members of Christ and this Commonwealth, 
 and therefore I humbly pray you to procure that 
 some care may be had of them, and their parents 
 shall bear most of the charge." Brian was pre- 
 sently placed at Oxford in a practical captivity, 
 and in spite of his father's entreaties that he 
 should not run the risks of the young Valencia,^ 
 he did make that desperate venture and got back 
 to the mountains. 
 
 In other cases bribes were used to persuade 
 V chiefs to send their children to England to be 
 
 [585. brought up in civilisation.* Rory O'Flaherty was 
 
 given his letters patent of his castle and house 
 
 of MoycuUen and other lands " in respect of 
 
 his good and civil bringing up in England."* 
 
 iC.S.P. 1566, 299. 
 
 *MacCarthy, 145; Car. 1580, 255, 258. 
 
 'C.S.P. 1584, 539. *\V. Conn. 420 n. 
 
 'O'Flaherty, W. Conn. 420. 
 
XI. KEEPING OF PLEDGES 429 
 
 Sir Owen MacCarthy prayed for the fee farm 1583. 
 of certain abbeys for the maintenance of two of 
 his young sons at Oxford.^ MacGeoghegan had 
 a pension of 5s, a day^ that his two sons might ^589- 
 go to England to be brought up in good civility 
 and literature ; when the pension was not paid 
 he took them home. Year after year the dreary 
 procession of the children passed, with high pay- 
 ment to their English guardians, to Walsingham's 
 house, to Leicester's house, to Westminster School, 
 to Oxford, where by a cunning system of costs 
 and debts every tradesman was made a detective 
 to keep his infant debtor from escape. It was 
 to find release from such a captivity that Richard 
 Burke lord of Dunkellin begged to have his debts 1588. 
 paid up at Oxford and be removed to Court.* ^^' 
 Every governor added to the list, till there was 
 not a leading Irishman who had not given son 
 or brother as pledge.* TaafFe as an officer much 
 employed in the border states perceived the 
 opportunity of commercial profit : ^ he would 
 have all gentlemen there send their sons to 
 school if they could afford to pay, and if not 1585 
 to place them in the English Pale at twelve 
 years old to learn crafts as artificers — to serve 
 in fact as carpenters, smiths, or weavers for the 
 new English captains of industry. 
 
 iC.S.P. 1583, 471. ''lb. 1589, 275- 
 
 'C.S.P. 1588, 27; 1593, 74. Mb. 1592, 500. 
 
 'lb. 1585, 562. 
 
430 THE SYSTEM PERFECTED ch 
 
 In the course of fifty years the method was 
 fully perfected, and there was not a house that 
 did not mourn a captured son. Camden tells ^ 
 how in Westminster School he brought to church 
 divers gentlemen of Ireland, Walshes, Nugents, 
 O'Reillys, Lombards of Waterford, "and others 
 bred popishly and so affected." Lord Muskerry 
 had two sons carried off, never to be seen by 
 1602. him again ; one left a pledge in the queen's 
 hand, while the heir, " by his father extremely 
 beloved even as his own life," * was put to school 
 at Oxford under charge of the Dean of Christ- 
 church, with underhand a good eye kept upon 
 him that he should not unknown return to 
 Ireland : " The boy is very forward, of a great 
 wit and spirit and at the least sixteen years old ; 
 hereof I pray your honour to give notice to 
 the Dean to be careful. . . . He is a youth 
 
 1600. of great expectation among the Irish and will 
 be exceedingly followed." Piers Lacey saw his 
 two sons for the last time when Carew carried 
 them off to England : at their father's death 
 
 1601. Carew debated whether by their liberty the expense 
 of their keep might be saved, "but yet because 
 hereafter I am assured that within a few years 
 they will be rebels ... I dare not let such 
 
 1577. whelps loose." * Florence MacCarthy who aged 
 15 had been made ward of Drury at his father's 
 
 ■ *Lomb. ed. Moran, x. * MacCarthy, 340, 354. 
 
 'MacCarthy, 340. 
 
XI. OBJECT OF THE TRAINING 431 
 
 death, saw his own son made pledge in his 
 turn.^ 
 
 Occasionally it was proposed to release some 1602. 
 of these poor boys — " the one of the said fathers 
 being in the Tower, and the other two slain 
 in natural rebellion, so as to save the queen's 
 purse, upon good security of lords and chief 
 gentlemen of Ireland that are of power to restrain 
 their insolences, and also of merchants or citizens 
 of corporate towns that are meniable to the laws." 
 But the queen had first to make sure that they 
 were sufficiently weakened in body or broken 
 in spirit, and that no Irish Catholic but a 
 Protestant Englishman would be returned to his 
 father's house — like O'Duinn'^ of Queen's County 1566- 
 who after seventeen years of Oxford training came ^ °'^' 
 back about 1599 to persuade his name and neigh- 
 bours not to shrink from their loyalty, and had his 
 reward as Master of Chancery — like the son of 1628 
 Lord Kerry reported among the Irish a terrible 
 man, " but it is no wonder he having always 
 been brought up among the English " ® — like 
 Maurice O'Brien, a Cambridge man, who declared 
 that it would be better to be a prisoner in 
 England than a free man in Ireland, and was 
 
 'MacCarthy, 396, 340, 356. 
 
 *Soc. of Ant. I. i. 1856, p. loi. He must have belonged 
 to a chief family of learning apparently founded 1300-1400, 
 and was perhaps ordered back to use the authority of their 
 name in support of the conquerors. 
 
 'MacCarthj', 428. 
 
432 THE YOUNG DESMOND ch. 
 
 selected (six years too young to be consecrated) 
 1570- by a satisfied governor to minister the English 
 religion to his countrymen as bishop of Killaloe' 
 — like Daniell son of Florence MacCarthy, the 
 miserable victim of a foreign gaoler's training 
 (for he had known no other) — coward, gambler, 
 spy, treacherous to his sick and captive father : 
 **In England I have eaten most of my bread, 
 and although Ireland challenges my birth . . . 
 I could justly say and swear, without either 
 lying or flattery, that there is no nation under 
 the sun I do more truly affect than England and 
 Englishmen. . . . Little is it to be wondered 
 or suspected that I should be thus affected to 
 England and Englishmen, for I cannot choose 
 but be so without I were more than justly 
 ungrateful,"^ so wrote this perverted and ill- 
 fashioned pupil of the English, who had been 
 bred up in prison and had seen his father "in 
 his lunacy " from sorrow, and without offence 
 or trial left through forty years of despair to 
 grow old in gaol. 
 
 The English had no more terrible means of 
 subjugation than this capture through successive 
 generations of the hope and strength of the 
 tribes. Who can tell the agony of honourable 
 Irishmen as they mourned their best sons struck 
 down by a fate worse to them than death? 
 What story can exceed in horror that of the 
 
 > Bellesheim, ii. 265-6. " MacCarthy, 434. 
 
XI. LIFE IN THE TOWER 433 
 
 last Desmond? Born in the Tower prison, 15 73- 
 "presented" by the Earl of Leicester to the 
 Queen, seized and kept close in Dublin Castle 1579. 
 " without any kind of learning " in spite of his 
 father's prayers that he should be educated,^ 
 sent for sixteen years to the Tower, we hear his 
 lamentable complaint to Sir R, Cecil : " Let it 1593- 
 not be offensive, I beseech you, to be troubled 
 with the lines of an unknown stranger, who 
 though young in years, yet being old in misery. 
 . . . My hard fortune and my faultlessness 
 I hope are neither unknown to you ; how only 
 by being born the unfortunate son of a faulty 
 father, I have since my infancy never breathed 
 out of prison — the only hellish torment to a 
 faithful heart to be holden in suspect, when it 
 never thought upon offence."^ The wretched 
 martyr sailed at last from Bristol for Ireland, 1600. 
 travelling with the Tower curse on him, his 
 plaisters and liniments and ointments and elec- 
 tuaries, and pills and powders for the head, and 
 comfortable fomentations and boluses, and his 
 nurse.' He had his keeper Captain Price, a 
 common spy and unlearned — " no great doctor 
 nor other of those curious stately followers " * 
 but an " honest plain gentleman," who spoke no 
 Irish, but as a good gaoler stood by the captive 
 Earl when he wrote his letters, and sent word 
 
 'C.S.P. 1582, 393, 448. *MacCarthy, 490. 
 
 'MacCarthy, 487-9, 491-3, 494-5. Mb. 495-6. 
 
 2 E 
 
434 RETURN TO IRELAND ch. 
 
 to Court of what might be believed true in 
 them ; according to instructions however allow- 
 ing him to appear for the moment in public 
 under the appearance of " a free man without 
 any mark of a prisoner." He had his tutor in 
 Protestantism, Miler Magrath, to keep him 
 " moderate in religion," and preach to him 
 "that he at his first coming do fashion himself 
 in some convenient manner agreeable to the 
 Irish nation." As a further help he had his 
 gift of jC loo from Cecil to buy him armour for 
 that sad body and necessaries for the sending 
 away his nurse. But for all his new armour, 
 for all his unwonted shew of freedom, for all 
 the tractable obedience of the poor enfeebled 
 mind, neither he himself nor any of his people 
 were "to hold the reins of his bridle," in other 
 words to have any word in the spending of his 
 income, which was to be cut short, nor was he 
 even to know how much it was. "Her Majesty 
 looketh at his hands," wrote Cecil, "to fetch 
 all light for his actions from her." ^ " He may 
 also be told that he shall come over when he 
 hath done any good^ and marry in England"' 
 with a lady whose name Cecil refused to tell him. 
 So from his English training came the heir 
 of the Fitzgeralds, inheriting all the devotion 
 
 Ub. 500. 
 
 * i.e. " put himself in blood " by slaying a leading Irishman. 
 
 ^MacCarthy, 500. 
 
XI. THE PEOPLE'S WELCOME 435 
 
 that house had won from the Irish — "a man 
 infinitely adored in Munster," Under Captain 
 Price's ejje he wrote to Elizabeth of his landing 
 very sick at Youghal "where I had like,, coming 
 new of the sea and therefore somewhat weak, to 
 be overthrown with the kisses of old calleahs, and 
 was received with that joy of the poor people 
 as did well shew they joyed in the exceeding 
 mercy her sacred Majesty shewed towards me." 
 To which poor people and others that came, 
 "many of the best quality," he duly answered 
 at the bidding of his keeper after " the earnest 
 of his vows and thankfulness " to the Queen : 
 "whom I took hand over head and preached 
 to them her Highness's clemency towards me, of 
 which there could be no truer example than myself." 
 Thus he passed to Cork, "at whose entry 
 into the town," wrote Cecil's agent, "there was 1600. 
 so great and wonderful alacrity and rejoicing of ^^t- ^i- 
 the people both men, women,'»and children, and 
 so mighty crying and pressing about him, as there 
 was not only much ado to follow him, but also 
 a great number overthrown, and overrun in the 
 streets in striving who should come first unto 
 him ; the like whereof I never heard or saw 
 before, nor would think it could ever be, except 
 It were about our Prince. Indeed I have often 
 read that upon the election of a king the people 
 generally would cry King H., King H., or other- 
 wise, according to his name, so likewise (though 
 
436 THE QUEEN'S EARL ch. 
 
 unmeet to be done to a subject) the hearts of 
 the people : yea the very infants, hearing but 
 this Desmond named, could not contain themselves 
 from shewing the affection they bear to his house. 
 I assure your Honour it was not like the cry 
 made to Richard the third at Baynardes Castle."' 
 So the crowd followed, "everyone throwing on 
 him wheat and salt (an ancient ceremony used 
 in that province), as a prediction of future peace 
 and plenty." 
 
 Trouble began with the Welsh soldiers who 
 set out foraging through Cork as in a captured 
 town, so that presently neither lodging nor supper 
 was to be had there, and for many hours "it 
 was much ado that we got anything for money":' 
 but the poor Earl comforted himself with a hope 
 that by help of her Majesty's forces he would get 
 Castlemagne, and his " best friend the archbishop 
 of Cashel putteth me in very great hope that 
 we shall shortly perform our greatest task, the 
 taking or killing of James FitzThomas " — in 
 honour of the English armour. The people 
 turned from the shadow of their great house, 
 stunted in mind and body, a worshipper at the 
 Englishman's church. " The Tower Earl," they 
 cried, " the Queen's Earl," and they spat as he 
 entered the temple of the aliens. His terrified 
 mind sought, out of the memories of his prison, 
 some phantom of security in expressions of loyalty- 
 
 ' MacCarthy, 494. '^ Cf. ib. 499. 
 
XI. EDUCATION BY ENGLAND 437 
 
 "I know not whither to turn me, if into time 1601. 
 past I behold a long misery : if into the present 
 such a happiness, in the comparison of that 
 Hell, as may be a stop to every further encroach- 
 ment . . . where can her Majesty's charity more 
 perfectly shine than upon her humble creature 
 who hath received life from her and grace from 
 you . . . me that submits all his ends to your 
 liking."^ The Tower air had done its work, and 
 the last Desmond died before he had " done any 
 good." "The late unfortunate young Earl hath 1602. 
 left here four poor sisters." * 
 
 This then was the sum of education ofiered 
 by England to Ireland. A printing press which 
 produced nothing but proselytising catechisms, 
 and proclamations of death and confiscation for 
 Irish patriots — a press which in effect could 
 only make the printed leaf a thing of uni- 
 versal dread and hate ; a Latin grammar of 
 which the whole point was in the title-page ; 
 an Act to found schools, and in the century not 
 one school founded ; after long wrangling a 
 University at Irish expense for the training of 
 the alien rulers and adventurers, every Irishman 
 shut out who had not proclaimed himself a 
 deserter from his people : a system of teaching 
 m England which by debasing character and 
 destroying an Irishman's honour, made him no 
 longer an object of fear, nor of regard, to the 
 
 'MacCarthy, 501. »Ib. 501. 
 
438 THE IRISH ANSWER ch. xi. 
 
 ruling caste in Ireland — such was the new learning 
 laid before the Irish. 
 
 And the Irish for answer shunned the English 
 universities, and flocked to continental schools 
 " where your Majesty is rather hated than 
 honoured in." ^ 
 
 *Car. ii. 480. 
 
XII. 
 
 FOREIGN EDUCATION. 
 
 " They are to be pitied that lack letters, and 
 through hatred of the alphabet are brought 
 low," wrote one of the banished Irish scholars 
 in the Irish grammar he printed in Rome.^ The 1677. 
 destruction of all national education in Ireland, 
 the denial of learning to the whole people save 
 the garrison of the Protestant ascendancy, was 
 a policy far-reaching in the history of the Irish 
 nation. There is no other instance of a race 
 subjected to this peculiar doom, that every student 
 who would not abandon his nationality and his 
 religion, must seek education in exile : while the 
 remnant in their own land were to be deprived 
 of all the aid that knowledge, association in 
 learning, or cultivated leaders could give them. 
 Historians have dwelt on the injury done to 
 France by the expulsion of the Huguenot weavers 
 and artisans. That act was not comparable in 
 Its extent, its sustained cruelty, or its national 
 consequences, with the driving out of the best 
 intelligence and character of Ireland. The torrent 
 
 iQ'Grady, Cat. 52. 
 
440 THE BANISHED SCHOLARS ch. 
 
 of emigration carried off all the ablest and most 
 high-spirited Irishmen. Scattered over Europe 
 and divided among all its nations, they were 
 split up and weakened in that great dispersion, 
 and merged in the surrounding peoples. The 
 only refuge of the banished scholar was the 
 monastery ; there generation after generation 
 died, to be replaced by ever new exiles from 
 home. Whole families were lost for ever to 
 Ireland, their gifts and learning extinguished. 
 While they lived, their scholarship was at the 
 service of continental peoples. No country has 
 ever suffered such a banishment, not only of 
 its industry but of its learning. No princes 
 who ever claimed a territory have cast out 
 from it such a wealth of intellect and treasures 
 of the mind, to endow foreign nations. 
 
 We have seen the efforts of learned Irishmen, 
 even in the absence of a university, to give the 
 higher education to Irish youths. But no patriot 
 scholar could henceforth hope to work in Ireland. 
 Englishmen, if they were of Irish birth and 
 devotion, shared in the outlawry and banish- 
 ment of the mere Irish. Take the race of the 
 Whites, whose origin and blood is unknown. 
 Victor White in Clonmel would rather sacrifice 
 goods and life than betray a priest and fellow 
 country-man. Richard White lord of Loghil 
 lost goods and freedom for refusing the oath 
 of supremacy to an English prince. Sir Dominick 
 
xii. 
 
 THE WHITES 441 
 
 and Sir Andrew White sacrificed possessions and 
 home for the national faith. The Jesuit Stephen 1575- 
 White ^ of Clonmel, a most renowned professor, ^ ^^l ^ 
 nicknamed a Polyhistor and a Walking Library, 
 was one of the group of scholars who by their 
 learning refuted the malicious slanders of English 
 traducers of their country : educated at Salamanca, 
 rector of a college at Cassel, he laboured among 
 the Irish manuscripts preserved in German uni- 
 versities, Balthazar White was distinguished at 
 Nantes. The Oratorian John White, with the 
 title of Rector of the Academy, lectured at Nantes i577- '' 
 on Theology with great success. John White 
 the Jesuit was worshipped as a god, said the 
 president of Munster, between Kilkenny, Water- 
 ford, and Clonmel, and was the chief preacher 
 and strength of the Catholics ; his success may be 
 measured by the hatred of the English and the ■" 
 busy tongues of informers : " he said," according 
 to these men of infamy, " over in Bristol that 
 he would be our inquisitor in England to burn 
 a thousand in England for religion!"* Thomas 
 White passed to Spain to found the Irish college 
 of Salamanca, and Peter White ruled over that 
 of Lisbon. 
 
 At this time the old Irish establishments, 
 which had been founded hundreds of years 
 
 'Camb. Ev. i. 95, ed. Kelly, 1848; Hogan, Ibeinia Ignat / 
 229. 
 
 "Brady, St. Pap. 22. 
 
442 WANDERING SCHOLARS ch. 
 
 before by travelling scholars and missionaries 
 in Germany, had either fallen or passed into 
 the hands of other nations, German and Scotch.^ 
 On the cunning plea that they were " Scot " 
 foundations. Bishop Leslie secured from Rudolf 
 ^u. the Irish monastery in Vienna and that of 
 Eichstatt ; two in Cologne had also been granted 
 away, and Erfurt was also given to the Scotch. 
 The founders of these monasteries had in old 
 time gone out as leaders of learning, with the 
 •-wealth of Ireland at their service. Now starving 
 exiles wandered abroad to pray for education. 
 It was a veritable Exodus. They went to Spain 
 and Lisbon, to the new college at Rome founded 
 by Loyola, to the colleges of the Irish Fran- 
 ciscans at Louvain, Prague, Rome, Capranica 
 near Viterbo, and Boulay in Lorraine.* Donnell 
 Spaniagh, the head of the MacMurroughs, was 
 
 1572. so called from having been educated in Spain.' 
 Edmund O'Donnell was a scholar at Lisbon,* 
 and so was the son of James Fitzmaurice. We 
 see the wanderings and struggles of a poor 
 
 1583. student in the story of Christopher Roche of 
 Wexford. A youth of 22, he took passage 
 from Wexford to Bordeaux,* was porter in 
 Guienne college for a year, taught children 
 
 • 1 For foreign schools and scholars see the accounts in Belles- 
 heim, vol. ii. 
 
 "Soc. of Ant., Sept. 1893, p. 239. 
 
 »Ib. N.S. vol. i. 3, p. 99. 
 
 «C.S.P. 1572, 472- *C.S.P. 1591, 4SS- 
 
XII. A POOR SCHOLAR 443 
 
 Latin for six months at a school near Libourne, 
 studied eight months among the scholars at 
 Toulouse, and at colleges in Paris for a year 
 and a half : then went to Lorraine for three 
 years, and to Antwerp, Brussels, Douai, St. Ouen 
 — in all eight years of wandering, sometimes 
 serving for his living, and studying when he 
 had money for food. Some parents were i still 
 able to pay for their sons. Others obtained 
 benefices granted by the Court of Faculties, •' 
 and used them not for Oxford or Cambridge 
 but to send their children abroad, who "were 
 trained up in Spain and Flanders, not in our 
 schools and universities." Dermod O'Hurley b. 1519, 
 of Limerick, son of a wealthy landowner and 
 steward of Desmond, and of Honora O'Brien 
 of Thomond, was sent abroad for study in 
 Henry's reign, graduated and taught as professor 
 in Louvain, became doctor of theology and law 
 in Paris, and studied for four years in the new 
 school of canon law at Rheims. He was dis- 
 tinguished in Rome as mathematician, philosopher, 
 and learned in the laws, and at the age of sixty- 
 two' was consecrated by Gregory xiii. to the 1581. 
 dangerous post of archbishop of Cashel — another^ 
 of the long line of Irishmen in whom years of 
 exile only deepened the martyr's passion for 
 their country. 
 
 The flight never ceased. An Irish priest, 
 John Lee, led a little group of students from 1578. 
 
444 IRISH COLLEGES IN EUROPE ch. 
 
 Ireland,^ who after a stormy week at sea reached 
 Brittany, and were welcomed in Paris, first in 
 the college Montaigu and then in that of Navarre, 
 until the president of the parliament of Paris, 
 baron von Lescalopier, hired a house for Irish 
 
 1605, scholars in the rue de Sevres. " To us," wrote 
 the Irish, " he was all in all ; we, banished for 
 religion, will ever remember how he brought 
 us from a miserable corner into a large room, 
 how he increased our means and our students, 
 and brought us before the public." Lee was 
 succeeded by Messingham, famous author of the 
 Florilegium Insulae Sanctorum, but the college fell 
 into bitter poverty, and four Irish bishops sent 
 out a prayer to the French Catholics and the 
 University to help its work. In Spain Irish 
 
 1582. refugees who were without means of study, or 
 knowledge of the language to earn their bread, 
 were gathered by Thomas White of Clonmel 
 
 1588. into a house given by Philip 11., which as the 
 i college of Salamanca became the first Irish 
 
 1592. foundation in Spain, El Real Colegio de Nobles 
 Irelandeses. The college was controlled by the 
 Jesuits, Thomas White and James Archer, and 
 
 1605. Richard Conway a Franciscan. Conway brought 
 
 over scholars from Valladolid, and opposed 
 
 ' Archer, who fetched new students from home, 
 
 for favouring the south of Ireland rather than 
 
 the north. Irish priests had already founded 
 
 ' Bellesheim, ii. 217-23. v. app. 
 
XII. FOREIGN EDUCATION 445 
 
 an Irish school in Lisbon, which twenty years 1573. 
 later became S. Patrick's college under John 1593. 
 Holing, who brought to it thirty boys. Two 
 years after Don Antonio Ximenez gave them 1595. 
 a house and money for the maintenance of 
 fourteen students, and Peter White passed from 
 Spain to Lisbon to superintend this college. 
 About the same time the seminary of Douay 
 was formed by an Irish priest, Christopher 1594- 
 Cusack, who drew into a common life the 
 Irish students there, and received a grant from 
 the Spanish Crown. Other Irish colleges were 
 founded at Prague, Alcala, Genoa, Antwerp, 1590- 
 Tournai, Lille, Louvain, and Rome. 
 
 The records of this great dispersion have still 
 to be gathered together. Fifty years after 
 Elizabeth's death over 30,000 Irish, besides those 
 banished to the Bermudas and the West Indies, 
 were wandering in various parts of Europe.^ 
 We may be assured that among the permanent 
 miseries inflicted on the Irish there was none so 
 profound or so irreparable as the condemning of 
 the nation to a foreign education, wholly detached 
 from the inheritance of their fathers, from their 
 language, literature, history, and all the emotions 
 and traditions that ennoble a race. The list of 
 famous scholars sent forth by Ireland showed the 
 passion with which her sons sought knowledge : 
 but they now wrote as they studied in a 
 * H.M.C. Rep. X. App. v. 376. v. app. ■ - - 
 
446 
 
 LATIN WRITERS 
 
 CH. 
 
 foreign tongue. Even the devoted Irish Fran- 
 ciscans of Louvain suffered the change made 
 by a strange soil. " They are not only bringing 
 to light every day the more abstruse ver- 
 nacular documents, but translating them from 
 the rugged obscurity of an obsolete idiom into elegant 
 Latin "^ The fervent patriot thought to save his 
 national literature by translation into the cosmo- 
 politan language of Europe. But Europe had 
 already renounced a common language and 
 declared, with modern applause, for the national 
 tongue as the only vehicle of the thought of a 
 people. After the tragedy of a hundred years of 
 fierce persecution, the destruction of Irish educa- 
 tion, the forcing of the people into continental 
 schools, we hear in this sentence the last desperate 
 appeal of a nation to a foreign tongue and a 
 foreign ideal. There was a long and brilliant roll 
 of Irishmen distinguished for their learning, 
 Father David Wolfe, Father Richard Fleming, 
 and many more,^ whose erudition was praised 
 even by Englishmen while they wrote in Latin, 
 The reproach was lifted off Latin authors, since 
 Ireland would not gain the fame of their repu- 
 tation nor the honour of their training. Their 
 country in fact profited nothing from their 
 learning. 
 
 We may indeed say that it suffered in a very 
 profound sense. Cosmopolitans by compulsion, 
 
 > Camb. Ev. ii. 379. 
 
 ' Hoi. 57-66 ; Ware's Writers. 
 
XII. FOREIGN-BRED SCHOLARS 447 
 
 the foreign-bred scholars were too often fashioned 
 to a formal European pattern, without the spirit 
 which then flamed in every European people — 
 the courage of a strong and growing nationality. 
 Men trained abroad from childhood in foreign 
 prejudices and conventions, detached from their 
 own people in all the essential matters of tradition 
 and literature, would return to their own land 
 too often in a sense aliens, knowing nothing of 
 a civilisation of which they had not been taught 
 to interpret the language, the history, or the 
 evidences. Nurtured in European capitals, they 
 were horrified at the destitution and wretchedness 
 of the remnant of the Irish scarcely escaped from 
 famine and massacre ; dazzled by the Imperial 
 theories of Spain and England and Rome, they 
 were blinded to the virtues, as to the hopes, of 
 a national struggle of the Irish people. By a 
 curious perversion of misfortune, men deprived of 
 a country of their own and the steadying force 
 of its affections, have always been found liable 
 to drift into instinctive rancour against patriotic 
 aspirations elsewhere, and willing to level others 
 to their own estate. It was the foreign-bred ■ 
 scholar who knew his country not at all, or 
 only under the worst catastrophes of war, who 
 appealed to the Irish to abandon their nationality 
 and the law and customs of which he was 
 Ignorant, to accept the English land-tenure, the 
 English mode of succession, the English dress 
 
448 IMPERIAL IDEALS ch. 
 
 and speech, the English dominion in all 
 things. 
 
 If on the other hand he resisted the new 
 imperial views of England, it was in the name, 
 not of his native country, but of the old imperial 
 views of Rome. Against England proclaiming her 
 exclusive commerce, speech, and law, he opposed 
 the Roman Empire with its powerful tradition of 
 a universal language and discipline and law. In such 
 wide dreams, in the tempting vision of the king- 
 doms of the earth and their glory, the lament of 
 the Irish people was but a cry carried on the wind. 
 
 Sometimes the two imperial theories joined 
 hands ; and arguments from Roman law were 
 used to enforce the authority of the English 
 crown. Returned controversialists urged the 
 theory, so antagonistic to the immemorial law of 
 Ireland, that only from polluted sinks of heretics 
 could come the idea that the people might 
 elect a ruler, and confer supreme authority on 
 whomsoever pleased them : they proclaimed the 
 prescriptive right of a prince who has possession of 
 a country and administers its government, reaching 
 indeed to a Divine right, though originally he had 
 no title to it, and was guilty of gross injustice in 
 invading and occupying it.^ Denationalised as 
 they were, the Irish theory of national rights 
 was lost in a more material view. The spirit of the 
 strangers is illustrated in Archbishop Creagh, who 
 • Camb. Ev. iii. 69. 
 
XII. 
 
 DIVIDING THE IRISH 
 
 449 
 
 had studied abroad from childhood at outland 
 
 men's costs : " my power from my youth hitherto 
 
 was (as I thought) always spent for to serve the 
 
 crown of England, as of nature and duty I was 
 
 bound, knowing and also declaring in diverse 
 
 places the joyful life that Irishmen have under 
 
 England (nothing so plucked of their good, as by 
 
 sundry ways other princes' subjects are oppressed 
 
 in other countries), if they were good and true in 
 
 themselves.^^ This was the Creagh who rated 
 
 Shane O'Neill, and prayed for " some other of 
 
 that country, to whom God give grace to be true 
 
 to his natural Queen and crown of England, 
 
 whom the Lord God maintain now and ever." ^ . 
 
 A new and subtle division was thus introduced 
 
 among all educated men of Irish birth. It had 
 
 always been the policy of the English to vanquish 
 
 the Irish by setting disunion among them. First ? 
 
 the tribal system was used to make variance 
 
 and draw one sept into war with another. 
 
 When the tribes were obliterated to make way 
 
 for the planters' settlements, a new quarrel was 
 
 attempted by seeking to awaken race hatred 
 
 between Irish and Anglo-Irish, so long united as 
 
 one people. And when both races had joined 
 
 in resistance and by a merciless war had been 
 
 " brayed together in a mortar " and alike cast 
 
 out to make way for the plantations, then a 
 
 fresh dissension was created — the intellectual 
 
 ' Creagh to Cecil, Shirley's Orig. Letters, 171. 
 
 2 F 
 
450 
 
 IRISH SCHOLARS 
 
 CH. 
 
 chasm that separated the foreign-bred from the 
 home-keeping Irishman. The Irish students, 
 denied the ordinary courses of learning, were 
 confronted with the literary gentlemen from 
 abroad, fortified by the current conventions of 
 that foreign world ; and the social prestige of 
 the disputants was ingeniously used to appraise 
 the justice of their cause, its wisdom and 
 patriotism. Well might Bacon indulge in hopes 
 of the final success of Elizabeth's plots against 
 the Irish people : " She shall have time to use 
 her princely policy ... to weaken them . . . 
 by division and disunion of the heads." ^ 
 
 Even in these straits there remained a band 
 of workers for the preservation of Irish learning. 
 They laboured under many sorrows. " Of each 
 one that shall read this book," wrote the 
 laborious compiler of the O'Gara manuscript, 
 " and observe aught that in the same is wrongly 
 written or omitted, I crave pardon that they 
 will not blame me, seeing that I had not any 
 to teach me these things. The poor brother 
 O.S.A. frater Fergal O'Gara." ^ And again: 
 " 1 2th of February at Lisle in the Low Country 
 1656; here I break off until morning, and I 
 in gloom and grief; and during my life's 
 
 ' Bacon to Essex, Works, 1841, p. 17. 
 ^ ^O'Grady, Cat. 360-1. A collection of historical Irish poems 
 from A.D. 1030 to 1630 — compiled at Antwerp and Lisle by 
 Black Fergal O'Gara (1659), a priest driven out of Ireland. 
 O'Grady, Cat. 339. 
 
XII. 
 
 IRISH AT LOUVAIN 451 
 
 length unless only that I might have one look 
 at Ireland. Fergal O'Gara of the Augustinian 
 order." ^ Scholars had to lament that they were 
 still left without a perfect dictionary compiled 
 from their ancient and modern manuscripts, and 
 that from the depressed state of the country, and"^ 
 the increasing apathy of the natives, the present 
 generation might pass away without seeing one.'^ 
 The tradition of their ancient law seemed itself 
 perishing. " As the laws themselves have been 
 long excluded from the courts they would have 
 fallen into oblivion, if a small number of per- 
 sons, inspired by an innate zeal to save their 
 native language from ruin, had not ^resolved to 
 study them," seeking by their voluntary exertions 
 to avert the effect of English penal enactments.' 
 It was the Franciscans, those old friends of 
 the Irish people, who at Louvain* became the 
 centre of the most intense national feeling, and 
 as it sieemed the last refuge of Irish learning. 
 A number of native Irish speakers seem to 
 have gathered there for mutual comfort and 
 support. " It is thus that the English language 
 is labouring to deprive the Irish of its ancient 
 splendour, if some Irishmen who have not 
 received their native language from books but 
 absorbed it from nature, who have not learned 
 It from masters but imbibed it from their 
 
 ^O'Grady, Cat. 357. ^Camb. Ev. ii. 379, n. 
 
 ^Camb. Ev. ii. 375. *z/. app. 
 
452 
 
 IRISH AT LOUVAIN 
 
 CH. 
 
 nurse, who have not picked it up in schools 
 but drank it in with their mother's milk, had 
 not resolved to retain it rather than learn a 
 stranger tongue from six hundred commentaries 
 and schoolmasters." 1 A fervent Irish feeling 
 was preserved with the Irish language. Informers 
 reported that James Archer of Kilkenny "did 
 
 1577- swear against Her Majesty's jurisdiction in 
 Louvain, and to read not in no English booky° 
 Dr. Quemerford and Chanter Walsh of Water- 
 ford were among its scholars. " There are a great 
 number of students of this city in Louvain at 
 the charge of their friends and fathers." In 
 
 1605. yet darker days O'Hussey, student of the Irish 
 college of St. Antony of Padua at Louvain, 
 afterwards author of various Irish writings in 
 prose and verse, wrote in Irish from Douay to 
 Father Robert Nugent at Louvain, that though 
 invited to pursue his studies at Salamanca and 
 Valladolid he would prefer Louvain as the best 
 place for the acquirement of learning, and where 
 he would be with the son of the exiled earl 
 of Tyrone and with Father Robert himself.' 
 
 1 Camb. Ev. ii. 375-7. Lynch adds a historical parallel as an 
 appeal to English tradition and generosity. " The grand 
 object of their zeal has been to keep it alive, like the Anglo- 
 Saxon monks of the monastery of Tavistock, who formerly 
 took the English language under their protection, and estab- 
 lished Saxon lectures in their monastery, lest the knowledge 
 of the language might be lost." 
 
 2 Brady, St. Pap. 22. 
 
 »Fac. Nat. MSB. iv. i.lxxviii, Plate xxxiv; O'Grady, Cat. A°l' 
 
XII. 
 
 IRISH FIDELITY 453 
 
 When calamity even more overwhelming fell 
 on the " battered " country of Ireland, the hopes 
 of scholars still turned to the sheltered remnant 
 at Louvain. "The labours of the Reverend 
 Fathers of the order of St. Francis in the 1650. 
 college of Louvain will we hope once more 
 revive the Irish language. . . . We have 
 already seen many books printed in the Irish 
 type at the press of this college, and we are 
 expecting soon from the same source a copious 
 Irish dictionary which some of the same fathers 
 are said to be compiling. . . . Those fathers 
 stood forward when she (Ireland) was reduced 
 to the greatest distress, nay threatened with 
 certain destruction, and vowed that the memory 
 of the glorious deeds of their ancestors should 
 not be consigned to the same earth that covered 
 the bodies of her children. May the wisdom 
 of God be ever praised and adored for inspiring 
 those fathers with the resolve that the ancient 
 glory of Ireland should not be entombed by 
 the same convulsion which deprived the Irish of 
 the lands of their fathers and of all their 
 property." ^ 
 
 *Camb. Ev. ii. 379-81. 
 
454 IRISH SCHOLARS IN PRAGUE ch. 
 
 IRISH SCHOLARS IN PRAGUE ^ 
 
 I have to thank Mr. R. I. Best for the following 
 interesting list of Irish professors and students in Prague, 
 which I give as an illustration of the flight of the Irish 
 to Europe. Similar lists from other universities on the 
 Continent would give an idea of the immense dispersion. 
 The list is taken from "Catalogus admodum Rever- 
 endorum . . . patrum professorum ex diversis religioni- 
 bus scilicet RR. PP. Hibernorum, Praemonstratensium, 
 Cisterciensium, Benedictinorum, . . . Franciscanorum 
 Nivensium, tam philosophiam, quam Theologiam, et 
 controversias in Celeberrimo Collegio Archi-Episcopali 
 Pragensi, ab anno 1635 usque ad annum 1 697, docen- 
 tium, et ex Cathedris hujus Collegij ad Praelaturas, 
 abbatias, praeposituras, et ad alias in Religionibus Pro- 
 motiones assumptorum." In the first list of professors 
 the names of the chairs they filled (Philosophy and 
 Theology) are omitted, and some other particulars. 
 
 The Antony Gernon among the students is probably 
 the writer of the " Parrthas an Anma " or " Paradise 
 of the Soul," pub. 1645. 
 
 Nomina Professorum, philosophiam, & theologiam in 
 Archi-Episcopali Collegio, ex Collegio Imaculatae 
 Conceptionis B.V. Mariae ad S. Ambrosium PP. 
 Hibernorum Neo-Pragae ab anno 1635 usque ad 
 annum 1 693 docentium. 
 
 P. Malachias Fallonus, Killconelensis . . . Obiit Anno 
 165 1. 9 Jan. 
 Eduardus Tyrellus. 
 Franciscus Ferallus. 
 Patritius Wardasus, Senior. 
 Franciscus Flemingus. 
 Paulus Frair. 
 
 ^v. app. 
 
XII. IRISH SCHOLARS IN PRAGUE 455 
 
 Jacobus Geraldinus. 
 
 Bernardinus Gavocus. 
 
 Joannes Barnavall. 
 
 Franciscus Wardaeus. 
 
 Antonius Gavan, Professor Philosophiae, Missionarius 
 
 Apostolicus in Scotia Minori. 
 Ludovicus Connaeus . . . Ob. 14 Aprilis, Anno 
 
 1652, sepultus est in Collegio Immaculatae 
 
 Conceptionis Pragas. 
 Bernardinus Clanchy, ... 27 Annis Professor. . . 
 
 Ob. 5 Maii 1684. Aetatis suje 72. 
 Daniel Bruoder . . . Ob. 1687, 30 Sep. Aetatis 86. 
 Bernardinus Higginus ... 13 annis Plasij Prof. 
 
 Theologiae. 
 Antonius Donelly, docuit philosophiam & theo- 
 
 logiam multis annis in Seminario Archi-Episcopali. 
 
 . . . Ob. 20 Maij, Anno 1682, aetatis 70. 
 Antonius Ferallus ... per 20 aliquot annos docuit 
 
 theologiam in Seminario, per 9 annos erat theo- 
 
 logias professor primarius . . . Mortuus est 12 
 
 Januarij, anno 168 1, .^tatis 63. 
 Antonius de Burgo. 
 Franciscus Haroldus. 
 Andreas Vitalis. 
 Joannes Brady. 
 Bonaventura Bruodinus. Prof. Philosophiae & 
 
 Theologiae 15 annis. Pro fide obijt in carceribus 
 
 Dublinij. 
 Bonaventura 6 Conorus. 
 Franciscus Fenellus. 
 Antonius Bruodinus. 
 
 Patritius Wardaeus, Junior, philosophiae & theo- 
 logiae per 14 annos in Collegio . . . professor. 
 
 . . . Obijt anno 1678 aetatis 56. 
 Philippus 6 Reily . . . Ob. anno 1680 die 28 Maij, 
 
 aetatis 40. 
 
456 IRISH SCHOLARS IN PRAGUE ch. 
 
 Joannes Clanchy . . . Obijt 1680, 19 Octobris. 
 Aetatis 50. 
 
 Bonaventura 6 Kelly. 
 
 Franciscus 6 Neill ... bis Pragae Guardianus 
 
 Ob. Pragje 1696 . . . Aetatis 51. 
 
 Petrus Ferallus . . . saepe Guardianus. 
 
 Franciscus Ma-Kenna ... 5 annis docuit in Semin- 
 ario theologiam. Ob. 1684 . . . Aetatis 39. 
 
 Franciscus Philippinus de Burgo. 
 
 Bonaventura de Burgo. 
 
 Petrus Marianus Murry. Bononiae docuit theo- 
 logiam speculativam 4 annis, & in CoUeg. Archi- 
 Episc. per 9 annos, adjunct^ morali per 5 annos, 
 Lector Jubilatus, eandem in Monasterio Waldsas- 
 siensi in Palatinatu per duos annos docuit, dein 
 Guardianus Pragensis. 
 
 Michael Deane . . . Guardianus Lovaniensis. Ob. 
 anno 1697, 4 Aprilis. 
 
 Bernardinus Gavanus . 
 
 niensis. 
 Antonius Morphy. 
 Joannes Scotus. 
 Bonaventura 6 Flyn. 
 Ludovicus 6 Neill. 
 
 nunc Guardianus Lova- 
 
 Nomina aliquorum, qui in Collegio Archi-Episcopali 
 Pragensi, Ex Collegio PP. Hibernorum studuerunt, 
 Qui fortd: vivunt, Antiquiores vero recensere per- 
 longum foret. 
 
 P. Jacobus TaafFe, Lector Jubilatus, Reginae Anglis 
 Confessionibus, ac in Regno Hiberniae Nuntius 
 Apostolicus. 
 
 Daniel Clery. 
 
 Hugo Grajus. 
 
 Antonius Geoghean, SS. Theologiae Lector, & 
 Episcopus Cluinmacnosensis. 
 
XII. IRISH SCHOLARS IN PRAGUE 457 
 
 Jacobus Coghlanus, Lector Jubilatus, Guardianus 
 
 Pragae, & Cladrubij diu Professor. 
 Antonius 6 Neill, in Hibernia Diffinitor, Gustos, 
 
 Vice-Commissarius, quatuor vicihixs Guardianus 
 
 Armachanus. 
 Franciscus Sweiny. 
 Bernardinus Plunkett, bis Guardianus, & semel 
 
 Diffinitor. 
 Paulus 6 Neill, Diffinitor & saspe Guardianus. 
 Bonaventura de Burgo, Vicarius Hierosolymitanus, 
 
 SS. Theologiae Lector actualis in Bethlehem. 
 Antonius Kelly. 
 Franciscus Conorus, SS. Theologiae Lector emeritus, 
 
 Guardianus Romanus. 
 Ludovicus Mac-Namara, SS. Theologiae Lector 
 
 Jubilatus, & Guardianus Pragensis. 
 Franciscus Wallis, Theologias Lector Jubilatus, 
 
 Guardianus, & Diffinitor in Apulia. 
 Franciscus Magnesius, bis Guardianus. 
 Andreas Eganus, bis Guardianus, & Diffinitor. 
 Franciscus 6 Donoghue, Theologiae Lector actualis. 
 Malachias Breen, Theologiie Lector. 
 Michael Landy, do. 
 
 Paulus Wardaeus, do. 
 
 Bernardus Lorcan, do. 
 
 Franciscus de Burgo, do. 
 Franciscus Gualaghan, do. 
 Joannes Coghlanus, Guardianus Athloniensis. 
 Joannes Lorcan, Theologiae Lector. 
 Antonius Moloy. 
 Joannes Contuly. 
 Michael Sweiny. 
 
 Franciscus Ma-Gauly, Theologiae Lector actualis. 
 Jacobus Ouin. 
 Franciscus 6 Deulin, Waldassij in Palatinatu, & 
 
 Pragae SS. Theologix Lector. 
 
458 IRISH SCHOLARS IN PRAGUE ch. x. 
 
 Bonaventura Conway, Philosophias Lector. 
 
 Petrus Junius, Romse Philosophiae Lector. 
 
 Petrus 6 Neill. 
 
 Antonius Murry. 
 
 Antonius Gernon. 
 
 Andreas Dowdall. 
 
 Joannes Cusak. 
 
 Josephus 6 Brien, 
 
 Antonius de Burgo. 
 
 Antonius 6 Bryne. 
 
 Bartholomaeus Skerrett. 
 
 Andreas Fallonus. 
 
 Antonius Conorus. 
 
 Marcus Greefy. 
 
XIII. 
 
 THE POLITICAL MYTH AND ITS EFFECTS. 
 
 We have traced the activity of Ireland in the 
 later middle ages, both In its industrial and its 
 intellectual life. 
 
 In commerce we have seen its people trading 
 from Naples to the Orkneys and to Dantzic, 
 every Irish port busy in a wide traffic, and men 
 both of Anglo-Norman and of Irish blood 
 growing wealthy in their frequent mercantile 
 adventures. The rich dress of the people, in 
 . town and country, showed the wealth of their 
 trade, and with the sumptuous stuffs and em- 
 broideries of the Mediterranean commerce came 
 the spices and wines and carpets of the Levant, 
 salt, and the indispensable iron of Spain. For 
 the luxuries they imported they paid with the 
 raw produce of their country ; with the fruits of 
 their tillage, and with abundance of manufactured 
 goods ; their famous serges, the soft rugs or 
 blankets of their beds, even their much-maligned 
 cloaks being famed from London to Naples. 
 
 Behind this export trade lay the organised 
 industry of a people. The inland traffic passed 
 
460 
 
 IRISH INDUSTRY 
 
 CH. 
 
 along frequented, even " noisy " roads, over 
 bridges, and along waterways to Irish fairs, 
 where the Irish took "great profit"; and dealers 
 carried wine over mountain tracks in barrels 
 slung across horses, and brought back bales of 
 linen and woollen goods. A deserted valley near 
 Lough Lene, lying between rounded hills of 
 gorse and steep limestone cliffs, holds the fine 
 Norman ruins of Fore, on an ancient trade-route 
 from the Shannon eastwards, not far from the 
 O'Reilly land. There we may still trace how 
 the monasteries along the lines of commerce 
 extended their warehouses, and fortified their 
 stores, and how towns built their walls, with 
 great gates on either side for the traffic, and set 
 up their termon crosses, and enlarged their mills. 
 In the ruin of Fore nothing is now left to 
 the people but the well of S. Fechin issuing 
 from the bare rock, and his grave-yard. 
 
 It has been shewn too how the land system 
 lent itself to husbandry. " There were no better 
 earth-tillers nor more obedient than they be," 
 Henry viii. was told, which was indeed proved 
 by the long and profitable export of corn from 
 Ireland. Property was respected, and the land 
 elaborately portioned out, if we accept the English 
 account. The freeholders' security of tenure, 
 the tenants' short leases, frequently renewed, 
 which seem to have had a democratic value, 
 the right of pasture over heath and mountain gave 
 
xiii. IRISH CIVILITY 461 
 
 to the people a real hold on the soil and inde- 
 pendence. The farmer was protected by definite 
 laws (which were recognised and observed) 
 against a rapacious landlord or an extortionate 
 chief; so that wars of the poor in self-defence .. 
 against the rich formed no part of Irish troubles. 
 Taxation was regulated by custom in the 
 minutest detail ; there is not a single instance 
 of a tribe asking help of the English against 
 its lawful chief, and levies made by force prac- 
 tically denoted a usurper. The landed gentry 
 — whether men of the chieftain's house, or 
 officials, or professors of learning, or soldiers — 
 were skilled agriculturists, and famed for their 
 good tillage and housekeeping. The plenty of 
 their houses, their hospitality, and their wealth, 
 show the capable conduct of their business. 
 Their dwellings, of stone or of good woodwork, 
 were gay with crimson hangings — in Galway 
 with tapestries and worked bed-lappets — their 
 food and drink abundant and varied. "As to 
 the surmise of bruteness of the people and 
 incivility of them, no doubt if there were justice - 
 used among them they would be found as civil, 
 wise, and polite, and as active as any other nation." 
 " I have been of this opinion ere now," the 
 Master of the Rolls asserted, " that Irishmen 
 were more conformable to good order than ' 
 divers of the king's English subjects, and 
 kept their oaths better." " For Irishmen keeping 
 
462 IRISH COMMERCE ch. 
 
 their pacts," said Sentleger, " I know not wherein 
 they have greatly broken them : but perchance 
 if Englishmen being there were well examined, 
 they all keep not their promises " ; he himself 
 was not allowed to speak them fair, or yet minister 
 them justice, " whereby much marvel it is they 
 be so good as they are." ^ They are obedient 
 to the laws, so that you may travel through all 
 the land without any danger or injury offered of 
 the very worst Irish, and be greatly relieved 
 of the best." "" 
 
 In the towns we have seen differences of race 
 obliterated, and the rise of a genuine Anglo-Irish 
 civilisation, in which both races were gradually 
 united in a common patriotism. City traders 
 depended on the country, and the country youths 
 of the *' mere Irish " flocked into the cities to 
 share in their commerce, passing from apprentices 
 to full merchants in the continental trade. In 
 the traffic of an earlier time. Prankish wines were 
 sold at Clonmacnois and Tara, and " Munster 
 of the great riches" gloried in the swift ships 
 of " the fleet of the Munstermen " ; commerce 
 increased with Danish and Norman settlements, 
 and the union of the peoples, rooted in a common 
 interest and love of country, was rewarded by a 
 great and expanding prosperity. 
 
 If we turn from the material to the intellectual 
 
 'St. p. III. iii. 256-60, 571-2. 
 ^Ir. Arch. Journ. 1841. Payne. 
 
xiii. THE NATIONAL CULTURE 463 
 
 r 
 
 side of Ireland's life, the same activity is present. 
 A continuous intercourse, whether of trade or 
 travel or scholarly studies or pilgrimage, kept 
 Ireland in close touch with Europe. This is made 
 evident by the translations into Irish of con- 
 tinental books, and by the familiarity of Irish 
 doctors and astronomers and lawyers with the 
 work done in the leading schools of Europe. 
 The knowledge of Latin spread through the com- 
 mercial as well as the learned classes : the women 
 were educated, patrons of learning, fine dispensers 
 of benevolence, fit to be entrusted with public 
 duties of arbitration. Country schools of the old 
 type were maintained in vigorous work, and town 
 schools were added of a more modern sort, but of 
 equal ardour, to which the Irish country gentry 
 came to learn English and Latin with the towns- 
 people. There was no lack of Irish effort to 
 create an Irish University. The national culture 
 was inspired by the idea of the unity of the Irish 
 people in the spiritual and intellectual life — a 
 unity which in times of comparative independence 
 began to show itself in the political sphere. 
 
 It is thus evident from the records of con- 
 temporary history that the Irish, before the 
 catastrophe of the commercial invasion under 
 the Tudors, had reached a high degree of in- 
 dustry and wealth — that they had a flourishing 
 commerce, a considerable culture, and a life 
 tempered by the arts. 
 
464 DOOM OF IRISH CIVILIZATION ch. 
 
 We have followed also the doom of this 
 civilisation. In " the expansion of England," 
 traders, younger sons, and soldiers out of 
 employ looked across the water to this land of 
 " infinite commodities." Lured not only by its 
 gold mines, but by its wealth of wool and its 
 goodly havens, economists saw " a nation and 
 kingdom to transfer unto the superfluous multi- 
 tude of fruitless and idle people here at home 
 daily increasing." So opened " the godly con- 
 quest" of Irish trade. The scheme was fully 
 mapped out under Henry viu. The whole of 
 the inhabitants were to be exiled, and the 
 countries made vacant and waste for English 
 peopling ; " then the king might say Ireland 
 was clearly won, and after that he would be at 
 little cost and receive great profits, and men 
 and money at pleasure." There would be no 
 such difficulty, Henry's advisers said, to " subdue 
 or exile them as hath been thought," for lands 
 settled by the English would be centres from 
 which the plantations could be spread into the 
 surrounding territories, and the Irishry steadily 
 pushed back at last into the sea. 
 
 Henceforth the English never wavered from 
 their intention to " exterminate and exile the 
 country people of the Irishry." " It were good 
 with the sword," some held, " to destroy all the 
 inhabitants of that realm for their wickedness, 
 and to inhabit the land with new." Whether the 
 
XIII. WAR OF THE TRADERS 465 
 
 Irish submitted or not, the king was to people 
 the country with English blood : it would be a 
 livelihood for younger sons of English families 
 who had little or nothing to spend there : some 
 lands also " shall not need to be inhabited with 
 Englishmen but may be mixed with divers born 
 in the English Pale " : and some " poor earth- 
 tillers of the Irish " could be retained, " which be 
 good inhabitants." For in moments of difficulty 
 the English admitted that the land was large, 
 and to people the whole with new inhabiters no 
 prince christened could commodiously spare so 
 many subjects to depart out of his realm ; which 
 would be a marvellous sumptuous charge, and 
 great difficulty, considering the hardness and 
 misery those Irishmen can endure both of hunger, 
 cold, thirst, and evil lodging, and to eat roots 
 and drink water continually. On the other 
 Hand if they were subdued and all their weapons 
 and harness and their own captains taken from 
 them, then strong garrisons might for ever keep 
 them in subjection, as miners and fishers and 
 diggers of the ground. 
 
 It was for this "perfecting" of Ireland therefore 
 that harbours were blockaded, and English fleets 
 lay round the coasts, while English garrisons held 
 every haven town. Troops were poured into 
 the country ; themselves fed by the corn of 
 Danzic and the fish of Newfoundland, they were 
 charged to exterminate a people by famine, and 
 
 2G 
 
466 "REFORMING" OF IRELAND ch 
 
 " reform Ireland by replenishing it with English 
 inhabitants." The soldiers prepared the way for 
 speculators, who held royal licenses to seize all 
 the yarn and wool of the country, to engross 
 all its corn, to capture all the carrying trade. 
 "While the continental trade of Ireland was de- 
 stroyed, commercial laws and a debased system 
 of coinage drew to London the profits of her 
 English trade. So thorough was the work of 
 " reformation," that before it was complete the 
 flourishing towns of Ireland sank into ruins, the 
 people lay dead in thousands upon the fields, 
 and the new planters used even the former 
 chiefs " to bear and draw with their fellows." 
 
 For complete subjection it was also held that 
 the mind of the people must be atrophied — and 
 the destruction of their law, history, language, 
 poetry, followed as a matter of course. How 
 easily literature is disturbed we may see from 
 its interruption for a century and a half^ after 
 the Norman invasion in England. In Ireland 
 there was mere annihilation. Schools in town 
 and country were broken up, books destroyed, 
 professors of learning slain or turned out to 
 beggary. No Irish University was allowed : 
 Irishmen were permitted or forbidden to study 
 at Oxford as it suited the imperial policy. 
 There was no attempt to replace the old learning 
 which had been destroyed by any new study. The 
 
 *Ker, Med. Liter. 1-3. 
 
XIII. THE EFFACING OF HISTORY 467 
 
 printing-press, when it had issued some treason 
 proclamations, a Protestant catechism, a Bible, 
 lay idle. The education offered to the Irish 
 by England, was the same as that offered to 
 Greece at that time by the Turks ^ — a tribute 
 of children to be separated from every tie of 
 country and of race, trained in the imperial 
 conqueror's religion, and enrolled in the imperial 
 service. " The manhood of a tormented people 
 can fight against every plague of Egypt except 
 the last ; but there could be no future for 
 Greece while every household in the land, 
 where the voice of children was heard, lay 
 under the continual shadow of a power which 
 not only rent asunder the bonds of national 
 loyalty and of natural affection, but which 
 forced parent and child alike to believe that in 
 this world and in the world to come they were 
 divided by an impassable abyss." 
 
 The Irish suffered a further calamity. The 
 memory of their former civilization was deli-- 
 berately blotted out as though it had never 
 existed. Another story was given to the world 
 — a picture gloomy and savage, and stained 
 with every vice and folly. Circulated by ad- 
 venturers and planters, renewed by English 
 exploiters and Protestant fanatics, by historians 
 and politicians and journalists, through sheer 
 
 ^v. Jebb's Modern Greece, 39-42. Cf. Emmet, Ireland 
 under English Rule, ii. 216-8; v. app. 
 
468 THE FIRST CALUMNIES ch. 
 
 repetition it has passed as it were into the 
 common creed of Englishmen. The growth of 
 this political myth, its planting and watering 
 through seven centuries, has been a stupendous 
 fact in Irish history. 
 
 The misrepresentation of the Irish people began 
 with the first efforts at conquest. Gerald of 
 Wales, the most lively and dashing author of 
 his time, precursor of the modern journalist,' 
 opened the long system of slander — " the lying 
 bull of the herd," as Keating called him. The 
 usual credulities of a conquering race, its large 
 ignorances and boastful superiorities, left the 
 foreign invaders of Ireland victims of many 
 notable errors and delusions, and Gerald's stories 
 were in full circulation five hundred years later.' 
 Irishmen and " all those that favour their beastli- 
 ness " remained to the invaders through the 
 changing generations " our natural enemies." 
 Their customs were " damnable," their ancient 
 
 'Green's Short History, 119. 
 
 'Gerald's work, written in 11 86, was translated into English 
 in the fifteenth century. Fac. Nat. MSS. in. xxxviii. "I 
 find," wrote Lynch in the seventeenth, "the calumnies of which 
 he is the author published in the language and writings of 
 every nation, no new geography, no history of the world, no 
 work on the manners and customs of different nations 
 appearing in which his calumnious charges against the Irish 
 are not chronicled as undoubted facts ; no map engraved 
 whose margins are not defiled with a thousand silly blunders 
 on Ireland; and all these repeated again and again till the 
 heart sickens at the sight." Camb. Ev. i. 107. v. Keating's 
 preface to his history. 
 
XIII. 
 
 THEIR CIRCULATION 469 
 
 law "hateful to God." "The people are such 
 as Satan himself cannot exceed in subtlety, 
 treachery, and cruelty." ^ So officials wrote in 
 endless succession. " The poor fools as a menye 
 of brute beasts lived under the miserable rule 
 of their ungodly Irish lords." * English officials 
 and soldiers in the Tudor wars sent to court 
 scoffing reports of their courage and training : 
 " the -^rebels' heels exceed their hearts," Their 
 patriotism was rebellion : their courage iiKdefence 
 of home and country a beastly fury.* The 
 proud endurance of an Irish chief meant no 
 more to an English adventurer than a " glym 
 silent look, which by use he hath framed to 
 the conformity of his wicked disposition." 
 
 We have already seen the frequent charges 
 that the Irish had no sense of property, nothing 
 but a transitory and scambling possession, and a 
 common life of thieving ; so that the people 
 
 'C.S.P. 1580, 249. 2 Bagwell, ii. 123. ' 
 
 '"Quod si Hibernos bestias appellet, meminisse ilium 
 oppoituit, se ac suos bestiarios esse, ac bustiarios gladiatores, 
 qui quasi ad bestias damnati cum iis pugna congrediuntur." 
 "If then he call the Irish beasts" said Dr. Lynch in his 
 onslaught on the traducers, " it behoved him to remember that 
 he and his are bestiary and bustiary sworders, who fight with 
 them like Romans in the circus, doomed (yea damned) to the 
 beasts." Camb. Ev. ii. 249. The vigorous author remembers 
 Cicero, who uses the term bustuarius: he finds it a good 
 term, not on account of any particular meaning in it, but 
 because it sounds well, and because it is Ciceronian scolding : 
 pretty certainly also on account of associations in sound with 
 ' busteousness ' and 'robustious.' 
 
470 STORIES OF IRISH RUDENESS ch. 
 
 built no houses, nor had gardens nor orchards, 
 nor knew how to till the ground, until the 
 English came to give them security of tenure ; 
 that they scarcely wore any clothes save a 
 filthy cloak, nor had the ordinary habits of 
 civilized people ; that they had no industries, 
 and had never even got so far as to make 
 a trade in wool and wool-felts ; that none of 
 these disorderly people would ever learn a 
 trade/ and so excelled in " their savage and idle 
 life " that " the wild beasts were indeed less wild 
 and hurtful than they." 
 
 Thus on every side stories were spread abroad 
 of Irish rudeness. Calumny had full way. If 
 an Irish chief manifestly kept good order, word 
 went round that it was " not to the intent that 
 his subjects should escape harmless, but to the 
 intent to devour them by himself" 
 
 As for their religion, the nation was " uni- 
 versally drowned in infidelity," or " idolatry," 
 but anyhow it was not Christian. Their delight 
 was to raid churches.'* " They exercise no virtue 
 
 'The skill and industry of the Irish in their poverty are 
 illustrated by Ann McGinty "a woman of great energy and self- 
 reliance," " very ingenious," who brought the first spinning-wheel 
 to Kentucky, and made the first linen there of lint of nettles and 
 buffalo wool. 
 
 -Dr. Mahaffy, who sees in Shane O'Neill a Zulu or Maori 
 chief, with a retinue of armed savages, says he burned 
 Armagh Cathedral not from a hatred of Christianity, but 
 merely from the uncontrolled love of plunder shown by bar- 
 barians in all ages. (Ch. of Ire. Gazette, Mar. 1907.) Shane 
 
xm. INFIDELITY AND IDOLATRY 471 
 
 nor yet refrain nor forbear any vice ... as 
 thereby should seem they neither love nor dread 
 God, nor yet hate the Devil." "// hath been it^id. 
 preached publicly before me," said Sidney, with 
 the large ignorance of an English deputy of 
 Irish life, " that the sacrament of baptism is 
 not used among them, and truly I believe it." ^ 
 Lord deputy Sidney had seen tens of thousands 
 of outcasts die in Munster : he could not find — 
 this courtier conqueror coming with his foreign 
 tongue — " that they make any conscience of sin, 
 and doubtless I doubt whether they christen their 
 children or no, for neither find I place where 
 it should be done nor any person able to 
 instruct them in the rules of a Christian ; or 
 if they should be taught, I see in them no 
 
 attacked the cathedral when the Earl of Sussex had turned it 
 into a barrack, and when he had further, by a lying trick, 
 re-filled it with the soldiers he had by treaty pledged himself 
 to withdraw. The churches which O'Conor burned in Meath 
 in 1362, fourteen of them, were holding English garrisons. 
 O'Grady, Cat. 359. Perhaps some story of a fatal conflict 
 between religious traditions and military necessities lies in 
 the quaint lament over an Irish king (131 1): "Donough 
 O'Brien that never raided a church : how comes it then that 
 he is even now fallen? Raiding of churches what profit to 
 abstain from ? Ireland's head has not for that lasted one whit 
 the longer." O'Grady, Cat. 333-4 ; Richey Lect. ii. 60 ; v. app. 
 
 'Sidney's Letters, 25, 112. The charges that the Irish did 
 not christen, marry, or bury, depended in great part on their 
 refusal to pay dues for these services to foreign clergy. The 
 dues were paid, and the services performed in secret by their 
 own priests. In marriage further complications arose out of 
 their use of canon law and of Irish law, both of which the 
 English found it convenient to deny. 
 
472 FABLES AGAINST THE CHURCH ch. 
 
 grace to follow it ; and when they die, I can- 
 not see they make any account of the world to 
 come," or, as Chichester put it, "They are 
 generally so stupid by nature, or so taught and 
 disposed by their priests, as they show no 
 remorse of conscience or fear of death " ; in 
 other words, thousands of Irishmen went to the 
 hanging impenitent of the crime of having 
 defended their country.^ A fragment of an 
 epistle was found with a monk's story that a 
 grave gentleman came to him to be confessed, 
 who in all his life had never received the 
 Blessed Sacrament, and being asked whether he 
 were faultless of homicide said he never knew 
 it to be a sin, "but being instructed thereof, 
 he confessed the murder of five, the rest he 
 left wounded, so as he knew not whether they 
 lived or no. Then was he taught that both the 
 one and the other were execrable, and very 
 meekly humbled himself to repentance." ^ A 
 
 iSid. Let. 25. Chichester's account of an O'Kane executed 
 by justice of the civil law : " Which was a kind of death 
 seldom or never seen in these parts of Ulster before this 
 time, and seems to terrify them more than that of hanging 
 by martial law : a death which they contemn more, I think, 
 than any other nation living." O'Grady, Cat. 461. 
 
 2 Campion, cap. vi. Tuathal O'Gallagher, one of the most 
 powerful sub-chiefs of Tirconnell (1541), was "a man of 
 valour and prowess, though he never used to kill or destroy 
 persons, for there was no battle or skirmish into which he 
 went from which he would not bring away prisoners. The 
 reason of his acting thus was this : one time in his youth 
 that he was listening to a sermon and exhortation of one of 
 
XIII. 
 
 ORIGIN OF THE FABLES 473 
 
 violent sermon, a torn fragment of an anonymous 
 letter, were all the evidence the English required. 
 The Pope had filled the Church with vicious 
 persons, " murderers, thieves, and detestable, by 
 whom wars had been stirred and deeds which 
 abhor any good Christian man to hear."* 
 " Neither bishop nor priest, high nor low, useth 
 to preach the word of God, save the poor friar 
 beggars." " There was no more Christentie than 
 in Turkey." To judge by the evidence this 
 seems to mean that there were no English 
 sermons. 
 
 Many reasons may be given for the growth 
 of these fables. One of them was no doubt 
 the fact that deputies in Dublin, and soldiers 
 
 the friars of Donegal, he heard it inculcated that, in order to 
 attain everlasting reward, it was not meet to kill persons, or 
 to shed blood ; wherefore he made a resolution never to 
 wound a man, and this he always kept while he lived." 
 4 M. p. 1463, cf. p. 1829. Duty to animals was not forgotten. 
 " If thou be undefiled ; if thou be conscientious ; if thou 
 observe purifying baptism's law : then to men (that commit 
 wrong) be neither meek nor mild ; but animals, that follow 
 no the laws of God or man, transgress innocently." O'Grady, 
 Cat. 100. Cf. Mac Firbis, Annals of Irel. Three Fragments. 
 Irish and Celt. Arch. Soc. 15 ; v. app. 
 
 'No doubt it was the national spirit of these Irish-born 
 and trained clergy — these zealots for Irish against foreign law 
 — that gave them their ill repute among the English. For 
 example Hugh Oge O'Donnell chose a cleric famous for 
 piety and good deeds as Official of Tirconnell and select 
 Brehon : and Sir John Davies was forced (1607) to refer to 
 
 one of the best learned vicars in all the country, and one 
 that had been a brehon, and had some skill in the civil and 
 common laws." Davies, 246, D. 1787. 
 
474 IGNORANCE OF OFFICIALS ch. 
 
 on the march, and foreign speculators, learned 
 scarcely anything about the Irish people. " Ire- 
 land is not known to every one for a year 
 
 • or two's trial," complained an official of Henry 
 VIII. With "no term, no certainty of years" 
 in their " often changing," the rulers sent from 
 England were in fact very ignorant of the country. 
 Irish was not a language that tempted them in 
 . their brief years of passage and of exile.^ They 
 had no real sources of information. In Elizabeth's 
 time a vigilant deputy, watching that there should 
 be no holiday in honour of the national saint, 
 was given a wrong date for St. Patrick's Day, 
 and wrote with satisfaction that no Irishman 
 now observed that forbidden festival. Nor 
 did officials trouble to ascertain the meaning of 
 the common war-cries : Desmond was crying 
 " Papa abo," a governor wrote to the queen, 
 " or the Pope above all, even Your Majesty," 
 542. In that changing scene which left John Alen 
 
 ,. after fourteen years " the oldest servant of any 
 Englishman your Highness hath in this realm," 
 
 1 " A gentleman of mine acquaintance," wrote Stanihurst, 
 " reported that he did see a woman in Rome which was 
 possessed with a babbling spirit, that could have chatted any 
 language saving the Irish : and that it was so difficult as the 
 very devil was gravelled therewith. A gentleman that stood 
 by answered that he took the speech to be so sacred and 
 holy that no damned fiend had the power to speak it. . • • 
 Nay, by God's mercy, man (quoth the other), I stand in doubt 
 (I tell you) whether the Apostles, in their copious mart of 
 languages at Jerusalem, could have spoken Irish if they were 
 apposed : whereat the company heartily laughed." Hoi. vi. 7- 
 
xni. FEARS OF THE LANDLORD 475 
 
 there was much "sinister information"^ — of more 
 hindrance, deputy Bellingham held, " than all 
 the rebels and Irishry within the realm";'' and 
 so it was that " the best minister that ever was, 
 and he that best doeth and meaneth were as 
 good sit still as go about it." 
 
 The charges against the Irish were not . brought 
 forward as mere hap-hazard denunciations. 
 There were solid reasons behind all of them. 
 We have already seen how tribal land tenure 
 rose before the English landlord as a Socialism 
 that menaced his class, his property, and his 
 authority, and he reviled it with becoming 
 vehemence. The nature of men descended of 
 English blood, even in Ireland, was pretended 
 to be "too noble to rest satisfied with the 
 continuance of so vile a trade of living " as this 
 •communism and " state of nature." * The 
 controversy was one familiar to every age ; in 
 this instance it was carried on under the terms 
 of feudal and tribal law, both of which were 
 alike about to perish in these lands ; and in 
 the Irish struggle the pride of caste was 
 embittered by pride of race. 
 
 'The account of Commissioners sent from England might 
 be written to-day. St. Pap. I. iii. 132. 
 
 ""The King," wrote Bellingham, "hath not so great an 
 enemy in Ireland as the Council is ; and if they were hanged 
 it were a good turn." 
 
 ^^- pp. 107, 115-7; O'Conor, 125; Froude's Pilgrim, 66, 
 ^- pp. 106-8. 
 
476 GREED FOR THE LAND ch. 
 
 Again, some sort of excuse was needed to 
 justify the never-ending massacres and executions 
 and starvation of a whole people for the sake of 
 their land, and the character of the Irish was 
 made to serve the turn. " Rude, beastly, 
 ignorant, cruel, and unruly infidels 1 " cried the 
 plunderers. It was but the natural animosity of 
 adventurers for those whose lands they coveted. 
 One of the most common accusations had a 
 practical bearing on English schemes to grab 
 the land : they " seldom or never marry, and 
 therefore few of them are lawful heirs by the laws 
 of the realm to those lands they presently possess " ; 
 " for all the children they have in that country 
 are bastards," ran the comprehensive charge. 
 "They never esteemed lawful matrimony, to 
 the end they might have lawful heirs." ^ Lord 
 deputy Sidney could not find that the Irish 
 people regarded marriage more than unreasonable 
 beasts.^ His description was merely the official 
 prelude to an announcement that all Munster 
 was to be confiscated to the English. 
 
 We must remember, too, the position of the 
 English governor. Every deputy knew that it 
 he wanted to keep his post or save his head, he 
 had to write what the king and the parliament 
 wanted to hear. A word even of supposed 
 sympathy with the Irish was treason ; it was 
 
 'Car. iii. xcii-iv ; C.S.P. 1578, 333 ; Davies, D. 17S7, 2S0. 
 2 Sid. Ltt. 25. 
 
xiii. POSITION OF THE DEPUTY 477 
 
 treason to make a peaceful progress among 
 them, or to win them by kindly persuasion. 
 The adventurers demanded the land and the 
 king his profits, and the war must be maintained. 
 " Yet many that make show of peace, and desireth 
 to live by blood, do utterly mislike . . . any 
 good thing that the poor Irish man doeth."^ So 
 every governor sent with dreary reiteration the 
 despatches wanted at Westminster, the expected 
 and threadbare phrases of the barbarism of " Irish 
 savages," their joy at tasting "the sweets of 
 English law," their " loathing " of their own 
 customs, and craving for English order.^ They 
 vaunted killings which had never happened, and 
 furbished up fanciful tales of successes to win 
 the royal goodwill — the war was over, the country 
 willing to bear its charges, and vast profits would 
 now begin for the Crown — all this to be invari- 
 ably followed by expenses doubled, new debts, 
 and a new catastrophe, each fresh tale the cloke 
 to a fresh despair and the prelude of another 
 rising. The discontent of the Irish under these 
 conditions they attributed to supernatural iniquity. 
 "As I suppose," wrote a deputy to Thomas 
 
 'Ir. Arch. .Soc. 1 84 1, Payne, 12. "Our drift now is," wrote 
 '1 Munster planter, "being here possessed of land, to extort, 
 make the state of things turbulent, and live by prey and by 
 pay." C.S.P. 1589, 222. "The covetous surgeon to increase 
 "IS commodity, lengthened the cure, and paineth the patient 
 to pleasure himself, and oft festereth the sound to gain by 
 the sore." lb. 540. 
 
 ''Car. ii. 81. 
 
478 ENGLISH CIVILIZATION ch. 
 
 Cromwell, "/'/ is predestinate to this country to 
 bring forth seditions, inventions, lies, and such 
 other naughty fruits, also that no man shall have 
 thanks for services done here." 
 
 Reports of the barbarism and disorder of the 
 country, moreover, served admirably to confirm 
 the theory that the English were the only 
 civilizing force in Ireland, the withdrawal of 
 which would plunge the country into savage 
 vices and anarchy. In this way the memory 
 of mediaeval Irish prosperity has been obscured 
 so that some have doubted whether it ever 
 existed. So also the extravagant allusions to 
 extortions and tyranny of barbarous exactions 
 enabled officials to glorify the mission of Eng- 
 land, expending her treasure and her men to 
 bring " the sweets of English liberty " to wild 
 Irish and degenerate English. In Sidney's story 
 the wealthy and powerful lords of Munster 
 were but degraded " thralls and slaves " to 
 
 1568. Desmond, "all which with open mouth and 
 held up hands to heaven cried out for justice, 
 and that it might please your majesty to cause 
 your name to be known amongst them with 
 reverence, and your laws obeyed " ; ^ and the 
 
 1576. lords of Connacht followed in like manner, 
 "all lamenting their devastation, and with one 
 consent crying for justice and English govern- 
 ment, in so miserable (and yet magnanimous) 
 
 1 Sid. Let. 23. 
 
xiii. REASONS OF FOREIGN POLICY 479 
 
 manner, as it would make an English heart 
 to feel compassion with them,"^ The march 
 of Sidney's army was more extortionate and 
 devastating than that of any Irish chief had 
 ever been : and in the scenes he describes we 
 may see not only the skill of his romantic 
 pen, but the panic spread by his troops. 
 "The numbers of them are infinite whose 
 blood the earth drank up, and whose carcasses 
 the beasts of the field and the ravening fowls 
 of the air did consume and devour. . . . The 
 curse of God was so great, and the land so 
 barren both of man and beast."* 
 
 The domestic grounds for the slander of the 
 Irish were thus many and powerful ; but added • 
 to these were reasons of foreign policy. It was 
 the object of England to slacken sympathy and 
 divert aid from Europe to Ireland by heightening 
 the colours of its poor and savage state. The 
 wealthy cause had ever its own special means of 
 propaganda, and the whole system of English 
 diplomacy was ceaselessly employed at every 
 European Court — English ambassadors now treat- 
 ing with foreign States that they should send no 
 ship save to the king's own ports in Ireland ; 
 now spreading lying reports of Irish " barbarism " 
 and of English " civilization " there. All visitors 
 were warned away, or closely guarded on Irish 
 ground. No independent eye might look on 
 
 * Sid. Let. 105. ^ Hoi. vi. 459. 
 
48o ISLAND BEYOND AN ISLAND cm. 
 
 the dark and hidden scenes of the " perfecting " 
 1572. of Ireland. Three German earls arrived under 
 the conduct of Mr. Rogers, who brought orders 
 from Burghley to Fitz William : " according to 
 your lordship's direction," the deputy answered, 
 " they shall travel as little way in the country 
 1579. as I can." ^ Drury entertained at Trim three 
 German notables " (one of them a rich merchant's 
 son of Strasburg), while he debated if he could 
 safely grant their desire to visit Galway and 
 Limerick and other ports of Ireland ; he allowed 
 them at least a vision of English triumph, in 
 the submission of O'Reilly with his thirty horse- 
 men, under compulsion of English troops. 
 O'Reilly's speech was in English and in Latin. 
 " But how strange," commented Drury in the 
 conventional manner, " how strange the view of 
 those savage personages (most of them wearing 
 glibbs, and armed in mail, with pesantses and 
 skulls, and riding upon pillions), seemed to our 
 strangers I leave to your wisdom to think of."^ 
 In that new-made isolation of the Irish, in the 
 silence and darkness that was henceforth to wrap 
 the island round, the political myth could grow 
 unchecked. 
 
 By diplomacy as well as arms, in fact, Ireland 
 was now for the first time to be made an island 
 beyond an island, her old free intercourse of 
 
 ^C.S.P. 1572, 479; 7/. app. 2 lb. 1579, liii. i69-7i- 
 
 - 'C.S.P. 1578, Iv. ; and the editor's fantastic comment, liii- 
 
XIII. ENGLISH DIPLOMACY IN ROME 481 
 
 learning and trade with Europe broken, all now 
 to come to her by the way of England alone, 
 her fair fame denounced by slanders renewed 
 with every century. 
 
 Attention was especially directed to the Roman 
 Curia. The Pope's alleged grant of Ireland was 
 even under Henry and Mary still, considered a 
 main title of the English kings, and had been 
 repeatedly confirmed ; and throughout the reigns 
 of Elizabeth and James there was an active con- . 
 troversy, in which continental scholars defended 
 the view (contrary to the bulk of native Irish 
 opinion) that Ireland was a fief of the Holy See 
 in which lay the political supremacy. Through- 
 out these discussions English diplomacy took 
 much pains to represent the cause of Rome and 
 of England, the two external powers in Ireland, 
 as being the same — the alleged advance of religion 
 and civilization in a barbarous land. English 
 influence was steadily worked to throw Rome'' 
 against the national life of Ireland. The Pope 
 was plied with reports in which it is hard to 
 distinguish ignorance from malice.^ The writer 15^6 
 who sent to Rome the description of Clonmacnois* 
 
 'A secretary of state advised Charles i. as to the qualities 
 needed in an agent to Rome. "That this is a very honest 
 , gentleman, I doubt not ; but honesty alone will not despatch 
 business ; and of the two (I speak as a secretary, and humbly 
 crave your majesty's pardon), honesty, in this Romish employ- 
 ment, may better be spared than sufficiency." Clarendon's 
 I St. Pap. quoted in Moran, Archbishops, 370. 
 'Bellesheim, ii. 30; Riche/s Lect. ii. 54. 
 
 2H 
 
482 STORIES SENT TO ROME ch. 
 
 as having but twelve poor cabins of mud and 
 straw, with a church in ruins, and only one altar 
 and brass cross, had doubtless never been there, 
 and apparently could not speak to an Irishman, 
 for he could not tell who was the Irish saint 
 ' buried in that most famous shrine : still less 
 could he decipher the honoured names graven 
 on the hundreds of beautiful inscribed tombstones 
 that lay round, among them those of the three 
 learned men who in 891 had visited the court 
 of Alfred ; nor did he know anything of the 
 neighbouring romanesque church with its rich 
 carvings ; nor of the four carved crosses and the 
 two famous round towers ; nor of the great 
 bells and the lesser bells, and the images, altars, 
 books, gems, and painted glass in the church 
 windows.^ 
 
 It was useful indeed for English purposes to 
 have the Irish described to the Pope as prowling 
 bare-foot cave-dwellers : " A large proportion of 
 15 16. the inhabitants even spend their time with the 
 cattle in the fields and caves ; almost all of them 
 wear no shoes, and are given up to robbery"— 
 in other words (as from the earliest time caves 
 
 *4M. p. 1523; Camb. iii. 321. Clonmacnois had evidently 
 been a busy trading place when Gaulish merchants brought 
 their wine there and carried it by the eiscir or gravel ridge 
 across the middle and east of Ireland. When English statutes 
 were passed to check the traffic of Ireland with the Pale, it 
 is probable that trade began to pass ^y Clonmacnois, and was 
 carried on up the Shannon to enrich the Irish territories of 
 Connacht and Ulster, with their growing and wealthy markets 
 
XIII. STORIES TOLD THE NUNCIO 483 
 
 are never mentioned in Irish writings as dwellings, -^ 
 but only as places of penance)^ the people were 
 suffering the extremities of war. A Papal nuncio 1517. 
 travelling in Ulster with letters of Henry viii. 
 was alarmed by the traditional English warning* 
 that without a large escort he would be killed 
 or robbed by the wild Irish, and seems to have 
 been effectually kept by his English guard 
 from the chance of talking to any O'Neills or 
 O'Donnells. The lords, he was told, were little 
 better than peasants ! The country was p)oor, 
 and only produced fish, cattle, and chicken ; 
 the people were clever and cunning and always 
 quarrelling : they lived on oat-cake, with milk 
 or water. They were communists in all things, 
 had no private property and lived by thieving. 
 Of Clogher and Omagh he knew nothing but 
 that they were " full of thieves." Further north, 
 he heard, the people were yet more savage : 
 "they go naked, live in caverns, and eat raw 
 flesh. This is all I could find out about the island 
 of Hibemia and the Well of S. Patrick " — " not 
 of great interest," as the nuncio justly remarked.* 
 
 '"They were retreats in time of danger, not the usual 
 residence of her sons ; for it was not in holes and caverns like 
 the ancient Germans, but in houses that the Irish lived." 
 Camb. Ev. ii. 113. The word desert was used by Irish writers 
 to mean a hermitage or asylum for penitents and pilgrims. 
 
 "■ the Spanish noble in 1393, Gilbert's Viceroys, 275. 
 
 Papal nuncio Francesco Chiericati to Isabella d'Este 
 marchioness of Mantua, Aug. 28, 1517, quoted in life of the ' 
 marchioness by Julia Cartwright, 172-183; v. app. 
 
484 THE PICTURE OF BARBARISM ch. 
 
 The picture of barbarism however served the 
 
 15 1 7. purpose of English princes. The nuncio's story 
 
 no doubt confirmed Leo x. in the bull he had 
 
 1516. just issued which excluded all Irish born from 
 
 Christchurch and S. Patrick's in Dublin.^ 
 
 The work of misrepresentation was not difficult. 
 Rome was far away. Ir ish pilgrims at this time 
 went chiefly to Compostella. The few lawyers 
 sent from Ireland to the Roman Court scarcely 
 lived on the scanty fees they levied. When 
 stories were circulated of cattle snatchings, 
 thievings, and revenges, no Irish lawyer was 
 called to explain the seven legal cattle drivings 
 that by the brehon code were exempt from the 
 charges and consequences of trespass,^ or the 
 Irish laws of debt and compensation, or to 
 examine how far the " robbery " was an act of 
 war, or of a plundered man seeking to recover 
 his own through forms of Irish law which 
 allowed him to re-enter on his property. There 
 was a like confusion in ecclesiastical causes. To 
 take a single case, when Cardinal Wolsey 
 attempted as legate to England to levy certain 
 fees from Ireland, the Irish refused to recognise 
 that an English legate had by that fact authority 
 over Ireland, and denied the ecclesiastical as 
 ■^ well as the temporal over-lordship of England. 
 It is evident how plausibly, with what political 
 ingenuity, and with what ardour of expression, 
 
 'Bellesheim, ii. 132. ^o'Grady, Cat. 96, 99- 
 
XIII. 
 
 RISE OF THE LEGEND 
 
 485 
 
 this legal contention of the Irish could be 
 misrepresented by an English agent at the 
 Papal Court as a " savage " hatred of the just 
 authority not only of England but of Rome 
 
 itself. 
 
 We may therefore judge if this country, whose 
 deeds of blood have been so fastidiously sought 
 out and circulated for 700 years, was really the 
 most savage and uncultured among European '^'" 
 peoples. It is evident that the picture given by 
 the invaders cannot serve as a guide : in the 
 Englishman's view there was no conceivable 
 way of progress but through his own social 
 system ; men busied in the exploiting of Ireland 
 and ignorant of its language could have no 
 knowledge of the internal refinement of Irish 
 life ; planters and soldiers and politicians, annoyed 
 by the long resistance of the Irish to English 
 rule, used the exasperated phrases of disappoint- 
 ment and anger ; the peculiar barbarism of the 
 English wars in Ireland had to be justified by 
 the alleged savagery of the " natives " ; and so, 
 fed by many sources, the convenient legend 
 grew of a people sunk in sloth and ignorance, 
 whose only redemption was through the cannons 
 and fire-brands of a higher race. 
 
 It may be thought unnecessary to revive the 
 tale of slanders hoary with the age of centuries. 
 But unhappily age has not abated their strength, 
 Reports born of prejudice and ignorance, born 
 
486 LEGEND IN MODERN HISTORY ch. 
 
 even of downright panic, have been commonly 
 accepted as the truth about Ireland. Persistently 
 repeated, and accepted without criticism, they 
 have had a lasting and wide-spread effect, and 
 hostility of races is still nourished by old 
 ignorances, by vulgar traditions, by the idle use 
 of hackneyed phrases. 
 
 Slanders have passed into current history. His- 
 torical science looks proudly on its modern 
 conquests. Ireland has been left out. As in 
 Elizabeth's day, it is still generally accepted 
 that history may neglect a study that reveals 
 " nothing but a dreary picture of convulsions 
 and blood, painful to peruse, and but slightly 
 connected with that of any other country." ^ The 
 Elizabethan word " savage " still exercises its spell 
 on writers, controversialists, and historians.^ The 
 Irish had no settled industries and no settled 
 
 1 Annals of England— a handbook used at Oxford by Prof. 
 Stubbs and Prof. Goldwin Smith. Cf. ch. xi. p. 413 n. Dr. 
 Mahafify has given currency to many of the most blatant 
 slanders : v. Ch. of Ire. Gazette, March, April, 1907. The 
 license of ignorance and bigotry may be seen in the Irish 
 chapters of an "Introduction to English History," by Mr. 
 Fletcher, Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford. That such 
 gross errors and fantastic absurdities could be printed in a 
 " historical " work, without fear of awakening any protest, is 
 a curious illustration of the state of historical study so far as 
 Ireland is concerned. A notion of these absurdities may be 
 given by the Fitz-Nigels turning into O'Neills, and de Burghs 
 into O'Bourkes ; and a population drinking usquebagh like 
 liquid fire, varied by refreshing draughts of blood from the 
 live cow. 
 
 ' V. app. 
 
XIII. THE BARBARIAN LEGEND 487 
 
 habitations, and scarcely a conception of property ; 
 they were supported by the pillage of their 
 neighbours or the wild cattle which wandered 
 through the forests. They had some human 
 traits : they were fond of music and ballad-singing. 
 But no sacred sense of hearth and home has 
 stirred their nobler natures.^ So one historian 
 tells us. The peopk were semi-barbarous, lead- 
 ing a wandering life, eating no bread, saved by 
 their frieze cloaks from the need of building 
 houses, with no internal intercourse amid their 
 trackless forests, and knowing nothing of Europe 
 or its political, moral, or intellectual influences. 
 It was " hardly to be expected " that the feeling 
 of religion should be anything but superficial : 
 " a reformation implies something to be reformed, 
 but outside the Pale there was nothing worthy 
 of being called a church."* So we learn from 
 one of the latest authorities. According to the 
 editor of the Calendar of State Papers, " the rude 
 way of living described by Hesiod " lingered on 
 in Ireland till the Elizabethan wars, a nomad 
 life of wild Irish, sheltered in their cloaks, 
 rarely building houses, like the early Gauls and 
 Britons hiding corn in woods and caves — so 
 " primitive " that there was but " one apothe- 
 cary " in the land, " nor was the unit of progress 
 followed up by any rapid improvement " — and 
 moreover among " the many ills concomitant with 
 
 'Froude, English in Ireland. ^Camb. Mod. Hist. iii. 578. 
 
488 CHARGES OF FACTION ch. 
 
 the primeval state we find enumerated here the 
 baneful ingredient pride." ^ 
 
 The common explanation of the wreck of 
 Irish society is well known — it was the just 
 downfall of a people without a national sense, 
 having proved themselves incapable of union, 
 divided like " uncementing sand " and crumbled 
 by "domestic hate." We cannot here enter 
 on the political history of Ireland in the 
 middle ages. This needs a separate study. 
 Nor can we trace the ruin of the Irish system, 
 violently arrested in its development by pro- 
 longed foreign invasions. In England the 
 Norman conquerors set themselves to build 
 up a united State : the foreign rulers of Ireland 
 were from first to last the diligent fomenters of 
 1278. civil strife. The English bishop of Waterford 
 explained to Edward i. "that in policy he thought 
 
 'The rest of the Introduction is of corresponding triviality. 
 Compare the reference to the Lacustrine habitations of these 
 •'"primeval natives" of Ireland: C.S.P. 1509, iii. iv. ; 1586, xi. 
 He represents Smith and Essex as sent to Ulster by Elizabeth 
 "with a view of teaching the native Irish how to live in towns." 
 lb. 1574, xxxii. Brewer, with a truer historical sense, saw the 
 real problem, and cherished a desperate hope that Irish 
 antiquarians might tell of some advances the Irish had made 
 in learning and arts, or of some progress at least by the 
 nobility, "from the day when the Saxon first planted his foot 
 on the Irish strand. For it is hard to believe that any people 
 should go backward — any people so witty, subtle, quick, and 
 versatile, — whose cheerfulness centuries of famine, war, and 
 misrule have never been able to extinguish, nor impair the 
 strength and elasticity of their physical powers." Car. II- 
 xxxii.-iii. His description, however, does not differ from the 
 rest, xiv.-xvi. xxv. xxvii. xxxiii.-vi. xxxii. 
 
xiii. 
 
 CAUSES OF FACTION 
 
 489 
 
 it expedient to wink at one knave cutting off 
 another and that would save the king's coffers 
 and purchase peace to the land : whereat the 
 king smiled and bid him return to Ireland." 
 Three centuries later lord justice Arnold described 
 to Cecil his same method of government : " I am 1565. 
 with all the wild Irish at the same point I am at 
 with bears and banddogs when I see them fight ; 
 so that they fight earnestly indeed, and tug the 
 other well, I care not who have the worse." 
 To which Cecil answered that the letter " showeth 
 you to be of that opinion that many wise men 
 are, from the which I do not dissent, being as 
 an Englishman. But being as a Christian man, 
 I cannot without some perplexity enjoy of such 
 cruelties."* Bacon lauded Elizabeth's " princely 1599' 
 policy ... to weaken them ... by division and 
 disunion of the heads." Strafford pressed the 1634 
 advantages of " fomenting emulations " between 
 Catholics and Protestants. Ireland, said England 
 at all times, "would be as good as gone if 
 a wild Irish wyrlynge should be chosen there 
 as king." At every national movement, 
 therefore, the strength of England was thrown 
 in to break the rising hope of union and 
 peace, and fling the country again into dis- 
 order. In the swell and tumult of that tossing 
 sea, leaders of the people emerge now in one 
 province, now in another, — each to be cast into 
 * Soc. of Ant., May 1856, pp. 96-7. 
 
490 THE ELIZABETHAN LEGEND ch. 
 
 the abyss by the policy of the English court, while 
 another pressed on to take his place. Wars of 
 conquest and civil conflicts have their natural 
 limits and close : but there are no limits to the 
 course of disturbances fomented by a foreign 
 power. " Laws were like good lessons set for 
 a lute that is broken and out of tune."^ 
 
 By modern writers however mere faction is 
 given as the sufficient cause of Irish misfortune 
 — like the accusations of poverty, idleness, and 
 barbarism, and repeated in the same traditional 
 and superficial way — just as the Elizabethans 
 rounded off their sentences with the curse of God 
 that lay on Ireland, predestinate to bring forth 
 naughty fruits, and to love no English sovereign. 
 Thus the conventional phrase is handed on from 
 one to another without a question, and the Irish 
 story banished once for all.* Of Ireland's greatest 
 sons we may still repeat the mournful words of 
 a learned patriot two hundred years ago — " his 
 character lies entombed in the history of a people 
 hardly enquired after in our own time." ' 
 
 It is no wonder when historians give currency 
 to these tales that they should be accepted by 
 politicians and journalists, and made to serve the 
 
 ^v. Camb. Ev. i. 201 n. 
 
 *A few weeks ago I saw children in an Irish school 
 instructed from a reading book beginning " The southern part 
 of the island in which we live was not always called England.' 
 The map of Ireland was rolled up behind the door. 
 
 'Charles O'Conor, quoted in Irish Arch. Soc. 1841, p- 'J 
 
XIII. IN MODERN POLITICS 491 
 
 uses of prejudice, the excitements of panic, and 
 the jealousies of property. So we have the 
 ceaseless stream of modern comment on the Irish 
 down to our times, on " the demons of assassina- 
 tion and murder," the " raw materials of treason 
 and sedition," the " aliens in race, religion, and 
 language," still reported " idle." ^ The Tudor 
 theory appears again unchanged, that it needs 
 but " to exterminate and exile the country people 
 of the Irishry " to ensure the prosperity of the 
 island.* " This is not a symptom," said a states- 
 man in i860 as emigration swelled from the poor 
 to the better educated, "... at which viewed 
 
 ^v. p. 399. Hooker in 1581 pictured a happy commonwealth, 
 "when the good are preserved and cherished (z>. the English 
 settlers); and the wicked (the Irish), prepared for the gallows, 
 according to their deserts are punished ! " Compare the 
 comment of a modem editor that the "very good course ot 
 execution of idle men in the English Pale leads to serious 
 reflection on this ready way of ridding the world of superfluous 
 life." C.S.P. 1574, XXX. The old "chronic complaint" of 
 Ireland "tuants nothing but bleeding to cure it." Lever's Life 
 (1906) ii. 117. Again, the notion of contemptuous bribery of 
 barbarians survived from Elizabeth's day to our own. Soc. 
 Ant. 1857, 364. Lever's Life, ii. 158. So also the official 
 policy of Drury (supra, 480) has many parallels. " It was 
 said that the British Minister at Florence was eager that 
 the Italian patriot [Garibaldi] should be disabused of the 
 favourable impressions he was supposed to entertain of the 
 Irish revolutionary movement. The Vice Consul at Spezzia 
 found it necessary to explain to his guest that any overt 
 expressions or acts of sympathy with Fenianism would be 
 certain to alienate English sympathies. Garibaldi seemed to 
 be somewhat surprised at this. lb. 29, 30. Compare the 
 argument in the Letters of Queen Victoria, e.g. Oct. 10, 1848. 
 
 ^v. St. P. II. III. For emigration and forced change of 
 names see Emmet, Irel. under Eng. Rule, ii. 211. 
 
492 ' THE USES OF HISTORY ch. 
 
 at large we ought to repine." Davies would 
 have driven out the savage Irish for deer : the 
 modern English publicist welcomed the passing 
 away of "howling assassins" for "lowing herds." 
 The Elizabethan deputy seeing " the commodious 
 houses and harbours, the beauty and commodity 
 of the river Shannon " thought what " places of 
 pleasure " there would be in Ireland " if the land 
 were blessed with good people " ; the journalist 
 of our own time rejoiced to see the "island of 
 one hundred and sixty harbours, with its fertile 
 soil, with noble rivers and beautiful lakes, . . . 
 being cleared quietly for the interest and luxury 
 of humanity."^ And so the vacant Shannon 
 flows through its deserted plain. ^ 
 
 Thus it has been that a long perversion of 
 history has lent itself to politics. In speeches 
 of politicians, in writings of the leading press, 
 we see errors down to our own time moulding 
 men's thought and action, and repeated almost in 
 the same old words. It would indeed be easy 
 to draw up a series of modern quotations and 
 intersperse them with Tudor sayings, without 
 any difference of thought to be discerned, so 
 uniform are the workings of ignorance through 
 the centuries when the knowledge of history is 
 set aside. We have seen the well of a primitive 
 
 ^Car. ii. 243; v. p. 128. "The instinctive feeling of an 
 Englishman is to wish to get rid of an Irishman," wrote Lord 
 Salisbury, as Lord Burghley might have written. Life of Lord 
 R. Churchill, 486. 
 
XIII. 
 
 THE IRISH HOPE 
 
 493 
 
 world, where a hood-winked horse treads his 
 darkened round of monotonous labour : so it 
 may happen that in Europe, as with Eastern 
 peoples, statesmen and nations may turn blindr 
 folded in an endless circle of experience, ever 
 renewed and ever forgotten and unregistered. 
 
 It is for this reason that Irish history cannot 
 safely^ be ignored. Its study is needed to correct 
 a whole series of misconceptions which have been 
 for generations instilled into the minds of English 
 and Irish alike — prejudices which have been the 
 source of fatal errors. 
 
 It is needed for the Irish people, for these 
 misconceptions have penetrated far. In the six- 
 teenth century the accusations of the stranger 
 found no belief beyond, the foreigners themselves. 
 Ireland men had an assured knowledge, which 
 lifted them above the legends of the stranger. 
 They remembered a land prosperous and active ; 
 they had seen the struggle of the heroes of the 
 great war, their fortitude and their fidelity ; they 
 had seen the schools of the learned, and heard 
 the faith of the poets ; and the image of Ireland 
 was not defaced to them. " Nurse of our 
 bringing up is she, and when you have looked at 
 her she is not unlovely." Now, in recalling the 
 way of sorrows they have traversed, their history 
 will renew their confidence in the strength and 
 vitality of a race which no ruin has till now 
 destroyed. 
 
494 FOUNDATIONS OF ESTEEMch.xiv. 
 
 There is another purpose which the scientific 
 study of Irish history may serve. The story of 
 the English in Ireland shews with what stubborn 
 will and long tenacity this people too is endowed. 
 But it also demonstrates how dangerous and un- 
 profitable a foundation for a lasting settlement is 
 a false or perverted history. For centuries, a 
 number of circumstances aiding to perpetuate the 
 first error, the English have been constantly mis- 
 led as to the main facts of Irish life, both political 
 and economical. And the natural results have 
 followed. There are men however in England 
 who believe in Ireland; many desire her pros- 
 perity ; many follow justice for its own sake, and 
 recognise that a right order will never be estab- 
 lished on the legends of ignbrance. This book 
 will have served some purpose if it should call 
 attention to the importance for Ireland of a 
 critical study of national history corresponding 
 to its revived study in other lands. For the true 
 record of Ireland will be powerful to efface the 
 prejudices, the contempt, and the despair that 
 falsehood alone can foster ; and to build up on 
 solid foundations of fact the esteem and con- 
 sideration that must form the only honourable 
 relation between two neighbouring peoples. 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 p. I, n. I. The Irish name was Eriu, the older form of which 
 was *Iveriu. This was Latinized as Hiberio, see St. Patrick's 
 Confession ; early writers used the form Hibemia, which seems 
 partly due to an imagined connection with the Latin word 
 for wintry. From the fourth to the twelfth century Latin 
 writers used the word Scotti for Irish, and Scottia for Ireland. 
 " Hibernia," says King Alfred in his Orosius, " which we call 
 Scotland." Pauli, Alfred the Great, p. 259. In the twelfth 
 century these words came to be used for Scotch and Scotland, 
 and Latin writers returned to Hibernia. 
 
 From Eriu the Vikings took the name /r/a«rf (Ireland), Irar 
 (Irishmen), Ira-konungr (king of the Irish), Irskr (Irish), Irska 
 (Irish tongue). Iraland occurs in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle 
 a. 937. A report sent to the Pope in 1517 says, "The island 
 of Hibernia, called by Pliny Juverna, is one-half less than 
 Great Britain, and is now called by the barbarians Irlandia." 
 Theiner, Vetera Monumenta Hibernorum et Scotorum, 1216- 
 1547, p. 521. 
 
 P. 4, n. I. Berry, Stat. 490. The third part and more of 
 Ireland had before 1342 come back into the power of the Irish. 
 
 "^- 333, 335- 
 
 P. 5, n. 8. See Cormac's Glossary, 141-2. These roads were 
 choked when English settlements broke up the old custom of 
 repairing by the tribe, and a statute ordered that the ancient 
 highways, "«ow so closed up" that passage was impossible, 
 should be preserved. Berry, Stat. 209. 
 
 P. 6, n. I. Cork Hist. Joum. 1907, xiii. 27-30 ; Soc. of Ant 
 July, 1871, 536. Rath Raithlean is in the parish of Temple- 
 martin, and the barony of Kinelmeaky, or Cindal mBdice, 
 the tribe-land of a sept of the O'Mahonys, five miles from 
 Bandon. See the Irish poem on Rath R. attributed to 
 Gilla Caoimh in the Leabhar Oiris (6riu, i. 98 flf.), also an 
 
496 APPENDIX 
 
 interesting note on the site of the Rath by Fr. Lyons, Gael. 
 Joum. vii. 94. Some interesting notes on early Irish commerce 
 are given by Zimmer in the Akademie der Wissenschafften. 
 1909. Nos. xiv, XV, XX, xxi. 
 
 P. 8, n. I. Ir. Stat. 1458, cap. ii. "Whereas now of late, 
 there are divers towns and villages made waste in this land, by 
 the robbery of thieves in the night, by default of inclosure, 
 stopping and ditching ; and because that many of the said 
 towns be in high-wayes between market and market, the 
 tenants and inhabitants thereof dare not stop, ditch nor enclose 
 such towns and villages for fear of indictments, so that many 
 towns and villages are made waste, to the great hurt of this 
 land ... it shall be lawful to every tenant and inhab' of 
 such towns and villages being in highways to stop, ditch and 
 enclose the said towns and vill" in the strongest manner that 
 they can, so as there shall be a competent and a sufficient 
 high-way left ... so that people be not interrupted in their 
 passage from market to market." 
 
 The Tochar Phatraic was the ancient pilgrims' road from the 
 east to Croagh Patrick. Knox. Tuam. 140. Sussex in 1556 
 mentions the Castav Loughe Keoulle, which was made by the 
 Red Earl ; and also a " fayle great causy," or high gravelled 
 way. Carew, i. 261. 
 
 Mr. Richard Wall has written to me an interesting descrip- 
 tion of an ancient causeway in the bog of Garron MacConnoUy 
 near Borris-in-Ossory, and of the general features of the sur- 
 rounding country. The bog is large, about 1000 acres. The 
 old road is about 15 feet down from the surface, and a portion 
 of it is tossed over each spring during turf-cutting. It is 
 formed of oak beams about 16 feet long, chopped square, and 
 laid crosswise side by side close up, and then flagged over. 
 Flagging of the description used is not found nearer than the 
 Ballinrally Quarries, up in the Slieve Bloom Mountains. The 
 beams are, like all bog oak, black, and from the extent and 
 depths of the tool-marks on them — which are still as fresh as 
 when made — cutting implements equal to anything now in use 
 must have been used. The bog at this point is very deep, 
 and has never been bottomed — that is, cut to gravel — though 
 generally dug down some thirty feet or more, rather dangerous 
 work, as the banks have a habit of suddenly caving in. To get 
 at the correct age of this piece of old engineering would be 
 interesting, and the purpose also for which the road was made. 
 
 P. 9, n. 3. Hardiman, more than sixty years ago, urged the 
 
APPENDIX 497 
 
 need of study of the bridges of Ireland (lar Connacht, p. 41) ; 
 but no list of these, with their dates, has yet been made. 
 Where great herds of cattle were driven as prey, or out to 
 pasture, or to port towns — all of which took place in summer 
 and autumn seasons — the drivers would prefer shallow fords to 
 any mediaeval bridges. But that fact need not prejudice the 
 question whether for military purposes, or for traffic carried on 
 at all seasons, the use and convenience of bridges may not have 
 appealed to the inhabitants of Ireland. 
 
 Annals of Ulster, 1000, " The causeway (tochar) of Ath-Luain 
 [was made] by Mailsechlainn and by Cathal son of Conchobar." 
 In Leabhar Oiris (Eriu, i. 81) the Leth Cuin made a stone cashel 
 over Ath-Luain fearing that Brian's fleet should pursue them. 
 The bridges of Athlone and Athcroghta were destroyed by 
 the men of Meath in 1126, and the castle and bridge of Athlone 
 were rebuilt by Turlough in 1129. 4 M. a. 1126, 1129. In 1155 
 "A fleet was brought by Turlough O'Connor to Athlone, and 
 the wicker bridge of Athlone was made by him for the purpose 
 of making incursions into Meath." lb. 1155. The bridge was 
 at once destroyed, and its fort burned by the men of Meath. 
 I do not know whether the form of this entry implies a more 
 hasty and temporary bridge than the other mentioned. It was 
 the custom in England as in Ireland to make bridges of hurdles 
 and wood. King John sent over such bridges for the invasion of 
 Ireland. Cal. Doc. Sweetman, i. Nos. 413, 419, 423. Henry III. 
 ordered a number of hurdles and bridges to be made out of the 
 twigs of the woods in Dorset, Somerset, and Gloucester. lb. 
 Nos. 2049, 2059. In 1233 the EngHsh calculated the cost of a 
 bridge at Athlone to be 50 marks on works and 30 marks on 
 carriage. lb. No. 2043. But in 1288 " the bridge of Athlone 
 was falling." lb. iii. p. 273. 
 
 As early as 12 16 Henry III. ordered that "No town nor 
 individual shall be distrained to make bridges over rivers except 
 those who of old and of right ought to make them." Berry, 
 Stat. p. 13. There was a statute for repair of bridges and 
 causeways in 1297, as well as of the ancient highways. lb. 209. 
 For new Kilkenny bridge in 1285, see Cal. Doc. Sweetman, iii. 73. 
 Great oaks were sent from Glencree for the Prior of All Saints' 
 mill and bridge, 1299. lb. 219. Manus O'Conor, in order to 
 build a bridge over the river Geirctheach in Leitrim, had a 
 chapel demolished, in the fall of which he was himself killed, 
 1244. O'Grady, Cat. 332-3. "A bridge of lime and stone was 
 built by Cathal O'Conor across the Eas-dara." 4 M. a. 1360. 
 
 2 I 
 
498 
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 John Plunket had a grant of lo acres of arable land " near the 
 bridge of Finglas," 1557-8. Cal. Patent Rolls, i. 383-4. A 
 grant was made to Sir Maurice FitzGerald of the Bridge of 
 Bealyne in O'Dempsy's country, with the boat and the lands 
 thereunto belonging on condition that he shall build a castle at 
 one end of the bridge, and a tower at the other, 1553. lb. i. 266. 
 
 P. 10, n. 3. Waterford had a trade in the fifteenth century, 
 carried in boats, the number of men to each boat and their wages 
 being fixed, and all sworn to be true to the king and the city. 
 H.M.C. Rep. X. app. v. 296, 299, 325. There was an organi- 
 zation at Galway of boatmen of the Wood Key under a Master, 
 and of fresh water and salt water fishers. lar Connacht, 
 237-240. For a boat on the Barrow in O'Dempsy's country see 
 CS.P. 1552, 126. 
 
 P. 13, n. I. The number of oreign merchants in Ireland 
 from Italy, Gascony, and Flanders was very great, and the 
 references to them in Sweetman's Calendar of Documents are 
 too numerous to give. See iv. 260. Many of them owned land 
 and lived in the country. 
 
 In 1 2 16 foreign merchants were by statute allowed freedom 
 of trade in Ireland. Berry, Stat. 17. Both English traders and 
 the good men of Dublin in 1220 resented the exactions of the 
 justiciary. Their goods are taken from them whether they will 
 or not under the name of loan. This violent taking has 
 rendered the city of Dublin and other Irish cities so hateful to 
 merchants of foreign countries that none will come thither. 
 The king ordered that these loans were to cease. Cal. Doc. 
 Sweetman, i. No. 971. 
 
 In 1273 there was a complaint that foreign merchants were 
 burdened beyond measure with new customs, prisage, and 
 undue exactions. lb. ii. 972. Edward I., 1273, ordered that 
 merchants were to travel safely through Ireland without new 
 and unwonted customs. Lib. Mun. Hib. i. iv. p. 75. New 
 customs were granted by the magnates in 1275, ^^d these were 
 farmed out to merchants of Lucca and afterwards to those of 
 Florence. The extent of the Irish trade may be seen by the 
 large sums levied in the next few years. Cal. Doc. Sweetman, 
 ii. 1902. The customs were farmed in 1280 to the merchants 
 of Lucca for ;^i,8oo. See ib. iii. pp. 9, 11. See also 739, 1112, 
 1 1 13. Account of the new custom granted to the king in 
 Ireland, by merchants of Lucca appointed to collect it for 
 the king's use ; also for merchants of Florence, 1287. 11 Pip* 
 Roll for a. 2. xv. Ed. I. 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 499 
 
 Merchants from Italy were numerous. The Archbishop of 
 Dublin, 1266, owed large sums to Cino de Sancino of Florence. 
 Gilbert, Hist, and Man. Doc. 166. David Bishop of Emly and 
 Matthew Bishop of Killaloe, driven by necessity, bound them- 
 selves in 100 marks, by pledge of the Abbot, to one Mons 
 Lombard and his sons. The bishops died, and the Abbot, unable 
 to pay, gave the Lombards the manor of CouUety and Grange- 
 corkeran ... to hold for 50 years. Cal. Justic. Rolls, June 15, 
 1297. The sheriff was directed to deliver all the goods of 
 James . . . except ... by reasonable price to Gestus de 
 Assissio, merchant. lb. July 21, 1297. Maurice attached to 
 answer Henry de Cogan of a plea that he acquit him against the 
 Merchants of Lucca. lb. Ap. 28, 1297. Sheriff commanded to 
 raise money from lands of certain men, for one Malizard, 
 merchant of Lucca. lb. Oct. 13, 1299. Pardon from the 
 king to Reyner of the Society of Merchants of Sienna for his 
 trespass in causing men of Ireland to be summoned out of 
 the kingdom by letters apostolic, against the custom of the 
 kingdom. lb. Oct. 13, 1299. Debts due to merchants of 
 Florence in Dublin. lb. Jan. 20-27, 1299; July 8, 1300. Con- 
 cerning the tenth in Ireland granted for the Holy Land, the 
 goods taken, wools, hides, etc., to be given for safe keeping " 
 to the merchants de Spini in Ireland; taking from them 
 sufficient security, viz. " certain foreign merchants as pledges." 
 lb. Oct. 3, 1300. Dispute with Torosianus Donati, a merchant 
 of Florence, concerning debt. Action given up for 12 marks, 
 which Torosianus should receive from a rent of 4 marks yearly, 
 arising from a mill in the town of Dublin. lb. June 18, 1302. 
 Debt of the king to merchants of the company of the Spini in 
 Florence, for which he assigned to them all that part of the ^ 
 tenth which was granted to him in Ireland for three years 
 by Pope Boniface viii. lb. Nov. 25, 1302. Account of the 
 merchants of the Society of the Friscobaldi : they account for 
 ;£i75 borrowed from the Society of the Spini, 1302. 21 Pipe 
 Roll, XXX. Ed. I. 
 
 From a very great number of entries in the Calendar of 
 Documents, ed. Sweetman, it is clear that practically most 
 of the wine for Scotland, Wales, and the north-west of England 
 came through Ireland, mainly from France, and the French 
 merchants were numerous. Payment to William son of Florent, 
 a rich man of S. Omer, out of the king's treasure in Ireland, 
 and of proceeds of the loan from Irish, Welsh, and English 
 merchants. Cal. of Documents, ed. Sweetman, Sept. 21, 1217 ; 
 
Soo APPENDIX . 
 
 Aug. 30, 1218. Six hogsheads of wine of Anjou bought of Irish 
 merchants for the king's use. lb. May 14, 1223. French 
 merchants in Ireland. lb. Jan 22, 1235. Merchants coming 
 with wine from St. Milione, 1288. 12 Pipe Roll, xvi. Ed. i. 
 Henry de Trym accounts for £7 4s. in respect of 37 tuns of 
 wine shipped at Dordon, which he bought from Peter Beg, 
 a merchant of Gascony, 1293. 15 Pipe Roll, xxi. Ed. i. Mer- 
 chant of S. Seyner, in Gascony, complains of an English 
 merchant that he is bound to him in 8^ lasts of hides to be paid 
 at Waterford. A day is given to Arnald de Emlydons, merchant 
 of S. Seyner, in Gascony, plaintiff, and W. Purcel of a plea of 
 debt. Cal. Justic. Rolls, June 16, July 8, 1297. New customs 
 of merchants to the king from Ulster ports, Drogheda, Dublin, 
 Wexford, Ros, Waterford, Yochell, Cork, Kery, Lymerick, Galuy. 
 They account for the smallness of sums raised at Dublin, 
 because wools and hides could not be exported owing to war 
 with France, 1297. 17 Pipe Roll, xxv. Ed. i. Wexford sent 
 to Rochelle coal, mantles, hides, and brought back salt, iron, 
 •■'prepared pitch, tar, linen, and silk, 1566. Hore's Town of 
 Wexford, 173. 
 
 P. 13, n. I. The complaint of Irish wealth was an old one: 
 " Item Hibernenses sunt divites, potentes, et Anglici pauperes, 
 quod vix illi Anglici qui potuerunt in sexdecim . . . eisdem in 
 equitatura contra Hibernenses ; modo non habent quod man- 
 ducent." Cal. Doc. Sweetman, iii. p. 15, c. 1285. 
 
 P. 14, n. I. In 1204 the king claimed two-thirds of Connacht, 
 and commanded the Justiciary that he select for the king's use 
 the two-thirds in which lay i/ie best towns and harbours, those 
 fittest for the king's interest and for fortifying castles. Cal. Doc. 
 Sweetman, i. No. 222. 
 
 In a writ of 1229 ordering the statute of false money to be 
 observed in market towns and ports (Cal. Just. Rolls, June 21, 
 1299), the following names are mentioned : Cork, Lyoghil, 
 Tathmolag, Carritothel, Botauant, Balehac, Castrocoly, Martre, 
 Cloen, Moyel, Tolaghrath, Corkbeg, Castle Olechan, Glenoure, 
 Schendon, Moyale, Bridgetown, Mora, Carrig, Killurd, Brigon, 
 Newtown of Olechan, Carrigehan, Town of the Castle, Dunrail, 
 Dunbolg, Insahenan, Grenagh, Athule, Kensale, Aneheo, Dun- 
 dynan, Rymon, Ryncornam, Boy, Bonner, Dunglasse, Del Fayth, 
 Dublin. 
 
 In 1300 the communities of Waterford, Yoghil, Fythard, 
 Tylaghrath, Clonmell, Carryk, Athmethan, Typerary, Casshell, 
 Limerick, the Naas, and many other towns appear by their 
 
 
APPENDIX 501 
 
 attorneys against Edm Birorin, late Keeper of Measures and 
 W-jights of the King in this land, for that when he went to their 
 towhs to do his office . . . Edm falsely changed or diminished 
 the legal measures, and amerced them when not culpable or 
 convicted. lb. Ap. 24, 1300. 
 
 A subsidy was required in 1300, and of the towns that gave 
 grants outside Dublin there were four named as " the King's 
 city,'", Waterford, Limerick, Cork, Carrick ; five that belonged 
 to a ld|"d or prelate, Ross, Youghal, Cashel, Clonmel, Athassel ; 
 and tw>;nty-five other towns, Kilmeadan, Affane, Stradbally, 
 Dungarv*n, Emly, Ardfinnan, Nenagh, Modreeny, Thurles, 
 Fethard^Modeshil, Kilkenny, Trim, Carlow, Adare, Rathkeale, 
 Askeatof , Ardagh, Croom, Kilmallock, Darragh, Aherlow, Aney, 
 Grean, C ahircoolish ; besides twenty-nine " communities " and 
 "tenants ' of certain districts who must have done trading, as 
 they had nioney to give. Berry, Stat. 229-37. 
 
 There w:s an old Irish town at Kilkenny before the Norman 
 invasion. Hoi. vi. 33. 
 
 P. 14, n. :;. Paid into the Treasury ;^2o and 200 marks and 
 allowed other sums for sending wine from Dublin to Chester 
 castle. Pipe Roll, a. 2, 1267. There are frequent notices of 
 trade wiri Chester, Carlisle, and Scotland. For the Argyle trade 
 see Cal. Doc. Sweetman, iii. 1136. From Kilkenny 9 tuns of 
 wine brought into the March of Scotland for the King's war. 
 Cal. Just. Rolls, Ap. 24, 1300. John Heyde complains of Philip 
 le Carpenter ... it having been argued between them that 
 Philip should convey the timber of a certain house from New- 
 castle of Are in Scotland to Dublin, and John having procured 
 at great costs men at arms and foot soldiers to conduct it safely 
 to the ship, said Philip crossed at another place and did not see 
 that the timber was conveyed to Dublin as had been agreed, to 
 the damage of John of 40 marks. Cal. Justic. Rolls, 30 Ed. i. 
 1302, May 13. In the sixteenth century many " pleasures and 
 commodities " and victuals of the Scots were sent to them by 
 the Irish trade. St. P. 11. iii. 93, 100. License to Archibald 
 Laughlen, otherwise Liell, and John Greme of the city of 
 Glasgow to import 200 tons of salt, 100 tons of iron, 200 hogs- 
 heads of wine, 100 lasts of fish, and 400 pecks of flour. Cal. 
 Patent Rolls, Ireland, i. 374, 1556-7. 
 
 P. 14, n. 3. For the trade of Drogheda in the thirteenth 
 century, see Cal. Doc. Sweetman, ii. 1517, iv. 311. See the 
 tolls taken for the new bridge at Kilkenny in 1285. Among 
 other things wool, sheaves of steel, lead, Irish cloth called 
 
502 APPENDIX 
 
 pynnok, foreign cloth, every kind of grain, etc. lb. iii. No. 7j. 
 In Trim market in 1289, cloth of silk with and without g>»ld, 
 cloth of Ireland, carried by cart or horse, loads of tan, i':on, 
 lead, wood, etc. lb. 560. At Fethard in 1591, cloth of gold, 
 silk tissue, diaper, and Baudekyn. lb. 1015. 
 
 P. 15, n. I. In 1243 mandate to the justiciary and treasure;- of 
 Ireland, that out of the king's profits they cause to be con- 
 structed, in the Castle of Dublin, a hall 120 feet in length and 
 80 feet in breadth, with glazed windows [cum fene^ris et 
 verinis], after the manner of the hall of Canterbury ; and that 
 they cause to be made in the gable beyond the dais 'a round 
 window 30 feet in diameter. They shall also cau 2 to be 
 painted beyond the dais the king and queen sitting v-ith their 
 baronage ; and a great portal shall be made at the entrance of 
 the hall. The whole shall be completed by the kinp,'s arrival. 
 Cal. Doc. Sweetman, i. No. 2612. 
 
 P. 16, n. 2. Divers inquisitions as to Ardglass' and other 
 places were taken, Cal. Pat. Rolls, p. 242, and th« y are men- 
 tioned in a writ dated 5th Hen. vi., commanding that John 
 Dartas as son and heir of Janico Dartas should be put in 
 possession of these lands. No inquisitions, however, are to 
 be found relating to Ardglass in the Chancery Irc^uisitions 
 Post Mortem, Chancery Inquisitions Ad Quod Damnum, or 
 Chancery Miscellanea for Ireland for the period Rich. 11. to 
 Hen. VI. 
 
 P. 21, n. I. The Bay of Galway was called of old Lough 
 Lurgan, and was counted one of the most ancient lakes of 
 Ireland. Legend told that there Lugaid Mac-Con with a fleet 
 of foreigners arrived (a. 250) and became king of Ireland. 
 O'Flaherty, lar Connacht, pp. 42-3. 
 
 St. Furse was the patron saint of the O'Flahertys, and St. 
 Brendan the saint of the Enaghdun diocese, whose feast on 
 May i6th was kept in Galway by the ancient dwellers on the 
 Quay Street. lb. p. 33. 
 
 We may judge of the importance of Galway in the twelfth 
 century by the constant struggle between chiefs of Munster and 
 Connacht for its possession. In 1 125, the year the Round Tower 
 at Clonmacnois was finished, the Connacht men built three forts 
 at Colooney, Dunlo, and Galway. Galway fort was destroyed by 
 Munster men in 1132 and again in 1149. It was, according to 
 O'Donovan, a stone castle. In 1154 the fleets of Galway Dun, 
 and of Connemara were sent out upon an expedition " on the 
 sea round Ireland northwards." In 1 162 "Demon ships were 
 
APPENDIX 503 
 
 seen on the bay of Galway and they sailing against the wind. 
 The fortress on the day following was consumed by fire." The 
 inhabitants of the fortress are mentioned in 11 78, so it had 
 been rebuilt. Richard de Burgo made his new castle in 1232. 
 4 M. an. 1 132, 1 149, 1 1 54, 1162, 1 178, 1232. Cf. also Hardi- 
 man's Galway ; and OTlahertys lar Connacht, 30, 31. 
 
 P. 23, n. I. Waterford, Limerick, and the other towns in 
 Ireland gave grounds and buildings to foreigners not dwelling 
 in the cities or good towns of Ireland. This was forbidden by 
 Henry in. in 1222. Cal. Doc. Sweetman, i. No. 1032. 
 
 In 1293 Alfonsus of Spain was parson of Dungarvan. lb. iv. 
 pp. 22, 64. 
 
 A German name is found (1346) in the conveyance of Joan, 
 daughter and heiress of William Sepisheind, chief miller of the 
 town of Galway, to Thomas Martyn and his heirs, of all the 
 profits out of the mills of Galway, descended to her by heredi- 
 tary right. Cal. Pat. Rolls, i. 33. 
 
 In 1355 a Bordeaux merchant claimed tenements in Cork. 
 Lib. Mun. Hib. i. iv. p. 34. 
 
 P. 24, n. 4. In Cork the shop of Thomas de luenton had 
 cloth worth 2d. an ell. Cal. Just. Rolls, July 26, 1295. Trade 
 with Gascony is mentioned in 1297. lb. Jan. 20, 1297; and 
 the freight of a ship sent to Gascony. lb. May 3, 1299. Grant 
 of freedom of the city of Cork to John, son of Thady, Donat and 
 Reginald, the Lumbards ; that they might freely trade and enjoy 
 all the liberties and customs of the city, with exemption from 
 toll, lastage, passage, pontage, pavage, and keyage. March 28, 
 14 Edward. Cal. Pat. Rolls, i. 428. 
 
 In 1287 there were traders in Kilmallock, some of them Irish, 
 competing with Cork. Cal. Doc. Sweetman, iii. No. 310. 
 
 P. 24, n. 5. For the trade of Youghal in 1275, see Cal. Doc 
 Sweetman, ii. No. 1 144. Peter de Paris, merchant of Youghal in 
 1293. lb. iv. No. 120. 
 
 For trade of Tralee in 1286, CaL Doc. Sweetman, iii. 226. 
 
 The King to sheriff of Kerry. Order through all ports and 
 merchant towns in your bailiwick, that no merchant or other 
 • • . take out of Ireland any victual or other thing, which may 
 advantage any person of Scotland. ... If any one of Scotland 
 come into your bailiwick, arest him. . . . This precept to 
 include clerics, as well as laymen, and merchants of Scotland, 
 as well as those of their affinity consenting to them of whatever 
 condition. Cal. Just. Rolls, Nov. 26, 1295. For MacCarthy, 
 Sid. Lett. 24, 39. 
 
504 APPENDIX 
 
 p. 27, n. I. For the rivalry of Waterford and New Ross, see 
 Hore's Old arid New Ross. Waterford claimed from the first 
 the ri^fht of being the port of landing for merchandize, which 
 Ross even in 1215 sought to infringe. Cal. Doc. Sweetman, i. 
 646, 890, 912, 968, 2361 ; iii. 1085-7, 1 160. The fight seemed to 
 culminate in 1518 when the "citizens and Commons of the City 
 of Waterford, at the command of Patrick Roofe, Mayor of the 
 said city, together with many Spaniards, Frenchmen, Bretons, 
 and Irish, came riotously with a fleet of boats and ships, in 
 piratical or warlike fashion, variously armed : to wit, with sur- 
 coats, coats of mail, helmets, shields, spears, swords, lances, 
 cross-bows, weapons, bows, arrows, broad-axes, and bombards 
 or cannon," to assault the town of Ross. Hore's Old and New 
 Ross, p. 232. 
 
 Waterford commerce before the coming of the English is 
 mentioned in Cal. Doc. Sweetman, iii. 1160. 
 
 P. 29, n. 4. In 1547 each ton of Spanish wine j[Jb. And for 
 each ton of Gascon wine £,i,. Fiants of Edward vi. 22 Nov. 
 1547. From its position Ireland was a convenient distributing 
 centre from which wine of Gascony or Spain passed to Scot- 
 land, Wales, and north-west England ; and this old trafific was 
 rapidly increased after the Norman settlement. Every Irish 
 port from Carrickfergus to Wexford, and thence to Sligo, seems 
 to have been busied in this commerce. The import of wine 
 was not all destined for Irish use. 
 
 P. 32, n. 3. In 1409-10, there was so great emigration of 
 labourers and servants from Ireland that mariners of ships, 
 boats, and barges were forbidden to transport them. Berry, 
 Stat. 517. 
 
 In 1536 one Stephen Ap Harry "hath a fleece of all poor 
 men that come from Ireland." C.S.P. 22. 
 
 P. 33, n. I. The editor of the Coventry Leet Book, Miss 
 Dormer Harris, writes that there was a great deal of inter- 
 course between Ireland and Coventry, which was a thoroughfare 
 town. There is, or was, a foot-path skirting the city called the 
 " Irishman's Pad." Irish names may probably be found in the 
 Alien Subsidies Rolls. The Leet Book in 1 5 1 1 gives the name 
 of Laur. Ireland among those who were alone allowed to cut 
 sea-fish. 
 
 P. 35, n. I. In 1387 Philippe le Hardi, desiring to receive 
 trade in his dominions, gave a letter of safe-conduct to Irish 
 merchants and their families. " Accordons et octroyons \ tous 
 marchanz et maistres de neifz dudit pays D'irlande quilz, leurs 
 
APPENDIX 505 
 
 (;imilles, valles et mesines avecques leurs vaisseaux marchan- 
 dises et biens puissent doresenavant, tout qu'il nous plaira ct 
 iusqucs ;\ nostre rappel, paisiblement venir, arriver et descendre 
 sous armeures en nostre dit pays ; illecques vendre, achater, 
 marchander, demourer, rechargier et retourner sans empesche- 
 ment. . . • Par ainsi toutes voies que les dis marchans et 
 maistres de neifs quant ilz serond descenduz en nostredit pays, 
 seront tenus de jurer et promettre . . . quilz ne traicteront 
 ou pourchaceront en notredit pays, ne avecques les subgez 
 dicellui ne aultres, aucune chose au contraire de monseigneur le 
 Roy de nous et de nostre pays dessus dit, et bailleront suffisante 
 seurte aux marchans et habitans de nostre dit pays de Flandres 
 quilz puissent aler arriver, seivierner, marchander, ensemble 
 leurs familliers, valles, mesines, biens et marchandises audit 
 pays Dirlande, et en retourner paisiblement sans empeschement 
 ne destourbier aucun." If the safe-conduct was withdrawn, the 
 traders were to have three months' notice to withdraw their 
 goods. Gilliodts van Severen. Cart, de Bruges, i. 358. 
 
 P. 45, n. I. For a variety of trades in Ireland, see a satirical 
 poem of 1308 A.D. Ulster Arch. Journ. Old Series, viii. 268. 
 
 P. 45, n. 2. In 1285 the pillars of marble were taken from the 
 King's Hall in the castle of Dublin, where they had been 
 placed about 1243, and carried to the Justiciary's manor of 
 Dunbro. Cal. Doc. Sweetman, iii. p. 13. 
 
 P. 45, n. 3. In 1214 boards were sent from Ireland to Eng- 
 land. Cal. Doc. Sweetman, i. No. 527. In 1224 wood was 
 sent from Dublin for the fabric of the church of Salisbury. lb. 
 1196. In 1225 ashen oars 12, 13, and 14 ells in length were 
 made in Ireland for Winchilsea, and two good shiploads of 
 boards sent to the king for making galleys and long vessels, 
 lb. 1232. In 1245 eight wooden towers were sent from Ireland 
 to the king in Wales. lb. 2735, 2736, 2775. In 1250 looo 
 boards of Ireland were sent for the king's works at Marl- 
 borough, lb. 3090. In 1254 Henry ill. ordered to be made 
 in the woods of Ireland 3000 wattles for the ships and 80 
 bridges for his Gascony war. lb. ii. 310. 2000 pieces of 
 timber were sent to make wooden towers. lb. 446. Much 
 timber was sold from Drogheda. lb, 1517. Waterford had a 
 timber trade in 1234 : timber for barrels, boards, and planks for 
 ships. lb. i. 2133. Gifts and grants were made of good oaks 
 from Irish forests. lb. ii. 51, 156, 1633, 2084; iii. 92, 581, 
 741, 769. 
 
 P. 46, n. 4. The old superstitions among the fishermen of the 
 
5o6 APPENDIX 
 
 West mentioned in Hardiman's Galway, notes, pp. 95-101, 
 point to an ancient sea-fishing by Irishmen. See also O'Flaherty's 
 lar Connacht, 99, etc. There must have been considerable 
 river fishing, since in 12 16 a statute ordered that all weirs in all 
 Ireland should be put down except by the sea-coast. Berry, 
 Stat. 15. Fish of various kinds are mentioned in all the 
 markets, and among the provisions sent to England, Wales, 
 and Scotland. 3600 eels sold at Athlone for ^4 i6s. in 1293. 
 Cal. Doc. Sweetman, iv. p. 29. 
 
 P. 49, n. I. In 1492 sixty hundred-yard-pieces or rolls of 
 linen were sold by Lynch of Galway to a merchant of Genoa. 
 Blake Rec. i. 46. (" Summe sexaginta centorum lyntheaminis 
 seuroUorum" — "summe predicte Ix" rollorum lyntheaminis" — 
 are the words in the original document, in the possession of Mr. 
 Martin Blake.) The will of Valentine Blake mentions over 
 4000 linen cloths. lb. 48. See also ib. 52, 61, 86. This will 
 also shows that linen was bought by merchants from the mere 
 Irish. A customs receipt of 1543 gives 24 lasts of hides, and 40 
 butts and pipes of falingas and other things, and linen cloths 
 laden by a Spanish captain. Ib. p. 86. "Omnibus Christi 
 populis fidelibus ad quos presentes literas pervenerint Sciatis 
 me Thomam Blake custumerium Domini Regis de omnibus 
 rebus et mercandiziis mercibus seu mercimoniis custumalibibus 
 in portu suo ville sui Galvie. Recepisse de Stephano Faunt et 
 Waltero fitz Ricardi Lynche indigenis, pro vigenti quatuor lastis 
 coriorum vaccarum, et quadraginta butis ac pipis falingarum et 
 aliarum rerum, ac linthiamenis, onustatis in carvelam vocatam 
 Sancta Maria de Gras unde Balthazar Affonsa, sub deo, est 
 magister, custumam cockettam et subsidium Domino Rege inde 
 debita et consueta. In cujus rei testimonium sigillum officii 
 custumarii presentibus est appensum. Datum apud Galviam 
 xiiii die Novembris anno regni invictissimi principis nostri 
 Henrici octavi Regis Anglie Francie et Hibernie xxxv'"." 
 {falinga and /a/anga repTtsent /a/Zaing, an Irish word formed 
 on the Latin pa/la, robe or mantle, with the characteristic 
 change of^ to/.) 
 
 Linen is mentioned in 1543 as part of a marriage dowry. Ib. 
 86. " Knowe all men be these presents that I John Niell know- 
 ledge and confesse my to be fully content satisfied and paid in 
 all manner actions duets and demaunds that ever I and my wyf 
 some tyme Anastas Blake clamed of Nicholas Blake fitz John as 
 heire to hys father, for resone of her duery & mariage goods j 
 for the whiche I recewed of the said Nicholas to morgage, for 
 
APPENDIX 507 
 
 eight marks mony xix medele tnantells, seven honndred lyn- 
 clothe and one pype of hony, the tenement in Blakes lane be 
 force and vertu of an arbitrement made betwixt my & tho 
 saide Nicholas wherein we were bound to stande to be our jura- 
 ments, as the selfe arbitrement and dede of morgadge doth 
 declare more att lardge : Wherin I the said John holde my myn 
 heires & assignes fully content satisfied & paid in all manner 
 things that ever was or myght be layde to the said Nicholas is 
 chardge or hit father. And he the said Nicholas his heires and 
 executores therin to be quite and fully dischardged for ever 
 more, but onely in the contents of the said morgadge. In 
 witenes wherof I prayd a public (?) notary to writt this general 
 acquitence under his signe manuell, with myne owen subscrip- 
 tion. Att Galway the xxviii of November the xxxv"* yere of the 
 Regne of our Soveraigne Lorde King henery the ight | 1543 1| 
 Being present, Mr. Jonekyn Lynche Mayor, Edmund Kyrwan, 
 & Edmund Bodykyn, Baillives, the notary, and many others|| 
 
 Per me 
 
 John Nell 
 Nicholas Molgan 
 publicus notarius." 
 
 These transcripts have been kindly given me by Mr. Martin 
 Blake. 
 
 Leather and linen were sold in Wexford. Hore's Town of 
 Wexford, 177. 
 
 P. 52, n. 3. In 121 1 King John had robes which came from 
 Ireland, and the next year received red and white cloth sent 
 from Ireland. Cal. Doc. Sweetman, i. Nos. 420, 462. In 1212 
 Irish cloth was used in the Abbey of Abbotsbury, Dorset. lb. 
 Nos. 425, 500. In 1 2 16 dyed cloth, russets, and habergets were 
 ordered to be of a fixed width. Berry, Stat. 15. In 1250 Irish 
 cloth was sold in Dublin market (Cal. Dub. Rec. 9), as in every 
 other market of the country. See Cal. Doc. Sweetman, i. 2135. 
 In Drogheda and other places there was Irish cloth, Galewith 
 or worsted, and Irish jackets. lb. iv. 311. Cloth — green, 
 yellow, and red — was sent from Ireland in 1282 to supply the 
 king's army in Wales. lb. ii. 2009. 
 
 P. 52, n. 4. By an old custom of Galway every layman who 
 wanted to be buried in the church had to give his best cloak 
 towards the restoration fund, otherwise he was buried in the 
 churchyard. O'Flaherty, lar Connacht, p. 237. 
 
 P- 55) n. I. In 1380 merchants of Portugal and Lisbon were 
 allowed to travel and trade in Ireland freely, and merchants of 
 
5o8 APPENDIX 
 
 Ireland to go as freely there. Berry, Stat. 477. In 1453 a 
 Portuguese ship carried from Ireland over ^200 worth of leather, 
 besides other goods. Cart. Bruges, Gilliodts van Severen, ii. 17. 
 There was trade between Desmond and Portugal in 1568. 
 C.S.P. 380. For cloaks and cloth laden at Galway for Spain in 
 1543, see Blake Rec. i. 86. 
 
 P. 55, n. 3. It is very difficult to measure the full extent 
 of the trade. "In the Dutch market 'English serges' were 
 held in superior estimation. But the goods so classed were 
 in reality, to a great extent, Irish ; and the author of the prize 
 essay on 'The Natural Advantages of Ireland' shows how it 
 was that our native manufacture, in this instance, lost its 
 identity. The criterion of the buyer, he remarks, was a par- 
 ticular manner of folding and packing. Quantities of Irish 
 serges used to be sent to England. They were then new- 
 folded and packed by the English factors, who received a 
 percentage for their trouble, and finally were exported to the 
 Dutch market, under the denomination of English serges." 
 Essays, Sarah Atkinson, p. 485. 
 
 In 1228 Flemish merchants deposited 300 marks in Dublin. 
 Cal. Doc. Sweetman, i. 1586. Foreign merchants were bring- 
 ing into Ireland moneys made at Faukemont and divers other 
 places in Germany, and it was permitted that money called 
 the Ballards and like moneys, of which each pound is worth 
 eighteen shillings, should run with the king's money. In 1299 
 a law to provide against loss by false moneys brought by 
 these foreigners was agreed on, by advice of two burgesses 
 from every burgh where the foreign merchants landed. Berry, 
 Stat. 213. There was a trial concerning this German money 
 the same year. Cal. Justic. Rolls, June 28, 1299. 
 
 In 1277-8 there was a trade dispute with Flanders, and com- 
 merce practically closed. Cal. Doc. Sweetman, ii. 1369, 1403, 
 1404, 1421, 1437, 1538. The Countess of Flanders had com- 
 mitted depredations on English and Irish merchants to the 
 value of ;^4,7S5. In 1279 the Count of Flanders annulled 
 the seizures made of the goods of English, Irish, and Welsh 
 traders. Cart. Bruges, Gilliodts van Severen, i. 89. The dispute 
 was ended in 1286. Cal. Doc. Sweetman, iii. 188. In 1297 
 a merchant of Bruges De Coudreye complained of unpaid 
 debt from merchants of the Society of the BettiUi of Lucca . • • 
 all in Ireland who were indebted to the burgesses and mer- 
 chants of the Count of Flanders were distrained to pay them. 
 Cal. Justic. Rolls, June 16, 1297. In 1304 Irish leather and 
 
APPENDIX 509 
 
 wools at Bruges. Hanseatisches Urkundenbuch. iii. 624. In 
 1327 Waterford trade with Dinant and Bruges in wool, 
 leather, and other merchandise. lb. ii. 463. "En 1327 Jean 
 Hasard, Thomas li Vias, Albredus de Scioteriou, Jean Jacob, 
 mercatores de Dynaunt de regno Alemannie, chargent k Water- 
 ford en Irlande, un bateau k destination de Bruges." Dinant 
 dans la Hanse Teutonique. H. Pirenne (Namur 1904), p. 7. 
 "Dfes la fin du Xiii. si^cle, ils (les Dinantais) embarquaient 
 leurs cuivres a Damme, les dechargeaient k Londres, puis les 
 empilant dans des chariots, s'en allaient de foire en foire les 
 offrir aux acheteurs, poussant meme parfois, comme on I'a vu 
 plus haut, par une navigation plus lointaine, jusqu'k la c6te 
 irlandaise." lb. p. n. In 1344 Irish cloth and provisions 
 sold in Sachsen Lauenburg, and Luneburg and Eslingen along 
 the Elbe. Hans. Ur. B. iii. 24. In 1342, 1353 Irish cloth 
 in Liibeck. lb. ii. 725 ; iii. 682. In 1353 "Gheste de Yresche 
 lakene habben edder sardoke eder syden wand, de ne moghen 
 se nicht sniden to der elen, mer bi gantzen lakenen and doken 
 scholen se de verkopen " ; i.e. 'guests that' have Irish sheets 
 or ' sarducks,' or silk stuff, they must not cut them up in ells, 
 but shall sell them in whole sheets and pieces. lb. iii. 483. 
 Sardok was a rough cloth, half woollen, half linen. Cloth of 
 flax and wool was called in Ireland " drugget," said to be derived 
 from Drogheda. The " roll " of Irish linen seems to have been 
 of 100 yards. In the Flemish market "pieces must not be cut 
 longer than 42 ells, unless there is a mixture of yarns in them ; 
 penalty I2d. if they are cut longer without mixture of yarns." 
 " Dits van der Saien. Ende dukerlinghe moet men niet laugher 
 sceren danne 42 elne lane, het ne si tusshe scoten ; die se 
 langher scerde sender ausscheschieten, hi verburde i2d." 
 Ausscheschieten= weaving in of inferior yarn, mixture of wools. 
 Espinas and Pirenne, Rec. Doc. Flandre, i. 377. 
 
 In 1282 it was ordered in Flanders that " Alle pleine lakene 
 ende strijpte sal men maken elc van sire sonderlangher wuUe, 
 ende elc sal hebben sijn sonderlanghe teken : dats te wetene 
 dat inghelsche van der inghelsche wulle sal hebben 3 crucen, 
 ende die crucen sullen ligghen int erste velt, ende sie sullen 
 wesen van diverser verwe dan dat laken es ; tscotsche sal 
 habben 2 crucen ligghende diere ghelike also als hier vorseit 
 es, ende divers van verwen : ende thiersche sal hebben i cruce 
 ligghende also hier vorseit es, ende divers van verwen ; ende 
 tvlaemsche sal hebben ^ cruce ligghende als hier vorseit es, 
 snde divers van verwen " : i.e. all pieces, plain and striped, 
 
5IO APPENDIX 
 
 must be made of its proper wool, and each sh.iU have its proper 
 mark, viz. the English of the English wool shall have 3 crosses, 
 and the crosses shall lie on the first fold (?), and they shall be 
 different colour from the piece ; the Scottish shall have 2 crosses 
 in like manner, and of different colour ; and the Irish shall have 
 I cross in like manner, and of different colour ; and the Flemish 
 shall have ^ a cross in like manner, and of different colour. 
 lb. i. 389, 396. 
 
 In 1360 Irish trade with Flanders. Hans. Ur. B. iii. 265. In 
 1360 Irish cloth at Hamburg. lb. iii. 537. In 1383 Charter of 
 Graf Ludwig assuring freedom of trade to merchants of the 
 Irish nation in Flanders. lb. iv. 773, n. i. 
 
 In 1296 Edward i., Lord of Ireland, gave the Flemish the 
 right to trade in England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales for 
 wool and other merchandise. Cart. Bruges, i. p. 87. In 1323 
 Irish ships were coming to the staple of Bruges. " Item 
 Dengleterre, Yrlande, Escoche ne doit estre aucun portaige se 
 non seulement de char, saumon, sien, beere, grasse, dont chacun 
 maronnier a quartre barils." lb. 156. In 1404 Irish ships with 
 merchandise were carrying on a smuggling trade. lb. 435. In 
 1497, after the ordinance against foreign cloth, a clamour arose 
 from all the poor in the Netherlands that they should be allowed 
 still to buy the cheap Irish (yersshe) cloaks, Scot kerseys, 
 "mantelakenen," "ghemeene lakenen," "ghewrene lakenen," 
 and other cloths " stocbreeden." The wholesale and retail sale 
 of these cloths and linens by the strangers was therefore 
 allowed. lb. ii. 314. In 1548 leather and skins were carried 
 to Bruges from Cork. lb. iii. 35. In 1549 an Ostend ship 
 carried two bales of Irish cloaks. One bale had 40 cloaks of 
 the large kind, at 45 solz each ; 3 cloaks of the smaller kind at 
 20 solz each ; and 30 yards of frieze at 3 solz the Flanders yard. 
 The other bale had 40 large mantles, 5 1 small, and 30 yards of 
 frieze. lb. iii. 50. In 1549 a ship loaded at Limerick for 
 Bruges with 4,440 salted hides, 75 bales of skins, 3,000 sheep- 
 skins, 300 calf-skins, 500 lamb-skins (counting 120 for 100 not 
 packed in bales), four "quarteaulx de molases" (honey, or 
 mead ?), a tun of beef, a tun of pork, a pipe of salmon, 24 seal- 
 skins, lb. iii. 52. In 1563 trade is mentioned between Bruges 
 and Ireland. lb. iii. 154. In 1580 the Irish and Scotch trade 
 in wool were carried on apart from England, for staple dues 
 were fixed for these and other countries, " excepte Dangleterre 
 qui a son tonlieu k part." lb. iii. 276. In 1556-7 Abraham 
 Kerste, factor and attorney for Hubarte Van de Sande and 
 
APPENDIX CI I 
 
 John Hone, of Andewarpe, merchants, wa4 trading under a safe 
 conduct to the state of Antwerp. Cal. Pati Rolls, i. 380. 
 
 Rudolf Hapke, in Hriigges Entwicklung, p. 72, gives a few 
 references to Irish trade. In 1252 Irish hides from Ulster 
 were known in Bruges — "duodena coriorum, que dicuntur 
 vulsters." Hans. Ur. B. i. n. 432. In 1273 merchants from Ire- 
 land were selling wool in Flanders. Varenbergh, Relations 
 diplomatiques entre Flandres et I'Angleterre, 208. In 1303 a 
 tax was laid on the great sack of Irish wool. Cart. Bruges, i. 
 n. 140. In 1387 evidence of Irish trade is given in Bulletins de 
 la Commission Royale d'Histoire, Briissel, 2 xii. p. 39, n. 1519 ; 
 p. 43, n. 2203. In 1404 two Irish ships were in Swin. Cart. 
 Bruges, i. n. 521. 
 
 A. Kiesselbach, in Die wirthschaftlichen Grundlagen der 
 deutschen Hanse, p. 73, speaks of the import of woollen stuffs 
 from Ireland by Hamburg ships in the thirteenth century, and 
 says "In 2. privilegium of 1297" (the document is printed in the 
 Hanseatisches Urkundenbuch, vol. i. No. 1251) "the safe use of 
 all Scottish ports is assured to Hamburg and Liibeck ships.'' 
 For the Hanseatic trade to " Schottland und Irland " in the 
 fourteenth century he quotes Hanseatisches Urkundenbuch, 
 vol. iii. No. 579, 580. 
 
 In Add. MSS. Br. Mus. 23, 745, f. 19, a case is quoted of 
 merchants of Waterford (1423), whose ship was seized for carry- 
 ing merchandise to Sluys, in Flanders, instead of to Calais, 
 according to a statute made in England. 2 H. vi. c. 4. 
 
 In 1326 the staple towns for Ireland were Dublin, Drogheda, 
 and Cork. Berry, Stat. p. 315. In 1353 wool was allowed to be 
 exported from Dublin, Drogheda, Cork, and Waterford also. 
 Hanseatisches Urkundenbuch, iii. 571. 
 
 In 1282 "ende ware dat sake dat iemene wilde sai doen 
 sceren an die rechte, dat men se soude sceren om 5 d. so wie 
 dies te doene hevet." Espinas and Pirenne, Rec. Doc. i. 380, 
 185. We read of the " wild English " cloth of the Russian 
 market, and " wild " cloths in Liibeck. Hans. Ur. B. ix. 352, 
 558. Were these the rough Irish frieze carried by English 
 merchants, and sold by them as the wild or savage cloth of 
 the "wild Irish".? There can be no doubt, considering the 
 extent of Irish trade with England, tliat large quantities of 
 Irish cloth went through English merchants to the Continent. 
 
 P- 55> 1. 4. Irish wool was sold in the Low Countries in the 
 thirteenth century. Espinas and Pirenne, Rec. Doc. i 196, 443, 
 457) 469. The only wool mentioned in these records was im- 
 
5T2 APPENDIX 
 
 ported from Spain and from Ireland. In 1265 Irish merchants 
 sold wool at Bruges and Uamme. Cart. Bruges, Gilliodts van 
 Severen, i. 49, 50. The sack of wool in Ireland was larger than 
 in England, and the custom on it was half a mark ; 300 wool 
 fells made one sack. Cal. Doc. Sweetman, ii. Nos. 1305, 1429. 
 Each sack had 42 pieces (ib. iii. p. 9) ; that is, 42 stone, and each 
 stone 13 lbs. in weight. These fifty great sacks of good wool 
 cost 300 marks in 1284. Ib. No. 13. In 1254 fifty sacks of 
 white, dry, and marketable wool was counted at 275 marks. Ib. 
 ii. No. 431. The export was very large. Bendinus Panyk and 
 the society of the merchants of Lucca owe ;^40o for the custom 
 of 1,200 sacks of wool, Dublin, 1292. 14 Pipe Roll, xx. Ed. I. 
 
 P. 56, n. I. For the leather trade in 1275, see Cal. Doc. 
 Sweetman, ii. No. 11 17. The Charter Book of the Corporation 
 of Dublin preserved two wills dated 1388 and 1440. " They are 
 perhaps the earliest wills on record in this country." The first 
 begins : " Inventarium omnium bonorum Johannes Hamound." 
 . . . The tenter house for stretching and drying skins = "domo 
 tantoris." Oak bark (barkett), and overleathers (overleddys) are 
 mentioned. Misc. Ir. Arch. Soc. 1846, i. 106-8. Irish leather 
 was sent to Bruges and Dinant in 1304 and 1327. Hanseatisches 
 Urkundenbuch, iii. 624, ii. 463. A Portuguese ship carried over 
 ^200 of leather from Ireland in 1453. Cart. Bruges, G. van 
 Severen, ii. 17. Cork sent leather to Bruges. Ib. iii. 35. 
 
 P. 57, n. 3. In Blake Records, i. 126-8, the wages paid to 
 masons in Gal way in 1585 are given as 8d. and is. a day, with 
 " for their entry first a quart of wine " at 6d. The names given 
 of the timber-men and carpenters are Irish. 
 
 P. 58, n. 2. In 1222 orders were sent to Dublin, Drogheda, 
 Waterford, Limerick, and the other ports of Ireland, to cause 
 galleys to be made in each port for the defence of the king's 
 realm of Ireland. Cal. Doc. Sweetman, i. No. 1049. Cf. Gilbert, 
 Hist, and Mun. Doc. 100. In 1226 ships of Waterford went out 
 to foreign places. Cal. Doc. Sweetman, i. 1404. In 1589 two ships 
 of Waterford were sold at Lisbon. Other ships are promised to 
 be sold into Spain. C.S.P. 347. Repairing of ships. Cal. Doc. 
 Sweetman, ii. No. 96. 
 
 P. 61, n. 2. The castle at Tuam is mentioned in the continua- 
 tion of the Annals of Tighemach, Rawlinson, B. 488 (a Bodleian 
 manuscript). This continuation was written in the fourteenth 
 century, and has been published 'n the Revue celtique, t. xviii- 
 pp. 150-197, 267-303. The passage, p. 195, runs as follows : 
 
 Caislen ingantach do denum la Ruaidhri hua Conchobair 
 a Tiiaim da gualand, 
 
APPENDIX 513 
 
 which means "A wonderful castle was built by Ruaidhri hua Con- 
 chobair in Tuam." Dr. Lynch wrote of it : "The former annals 
 likewise record that Ruaidhri O'Conchobhair, king of Ireland, 
 built a wonderful castle at Tuam, which was admired as a 
 novelty, not because it was of stone and the others of wood, but 
 probably because it was provided with arches, or adorned widi 
 some other unusual style. The walls of this castle are standing 
 at the present day. In the peaceful days of the church, it was 
 the dwelling of the archdeacon of Tuam." Camb. Ev. ii. 191. 
 This is quoted in Harris' Ware, p. 134. Ware himself (Prelates 
 of Ireland, ed. 1705, p. 2) held that Roderick's castle, "as a 
 thing new and unusual to the Irish in those days, was called the 
 ' Wonderful Castle' " ; and adds in the margin, " Stone Buildings 
 unknown to the Irish till the year 1 161." Cf. his Antiquities, 
 1705, p. 52. Unfortunately Dr. Petrie never completed his pro- 
 jected work on the Military Architecture of the Irish. Mr. 
 Goddard Orpen has made a careful study of Motes and Norman 
 Castles in Ireland, which should be consulted. Soc. of Ant. 
 June 1907, Sep. 1908, vols, xxxvii. and xxxviii. 
 
 P. 61, n. 3. This list in Irish was copied in an eighteenth 
 century hand, and the sources are not given. All the owners of 
 the castles named are of Irish race. An English list was drawn 
 up tempo Elizabeth, which gives the sum of the Clare castles as 
 172 ; in this there occur 67 of the names given in the Irish list. 
 In the centuries after the Norman invasion the Irish as well as 
 the Normans built forts of stone and lime. 
 
 P. 62, n. 2. In 1245 masons and other workmen were sent 
 over from Ireland to build fortifications in Wales. Cal. Doc 
 Sweetman, i. 2768. 
 
 P. 63, n. 3. " The Great Gem of Colum Cille," a cross sent 
 him by Gregory the Great — " and that is a cross extant to-day," 
 says a MS. before the eleventh century. It was said to be 
 preserved in Tory island in 1532. Colum Cille's poem was in 
 return for the cross. Lib. Hym. 23, 141. 
 
 P. 65, n. 4. A few among many instances of wealth in 
 mediaeval times before and after the Anglo-Norman settlement 
 may be noted. Turlough O'Conor (d. 1156) gave crosses, 
 distiches, and silver chalices to Clonmacnois, some plated with 
 gold ; and bequeathed to the clergy 450 ounces of gold and 
 40 marks of silver, with gold and silver vessels, gems, and other 
 riches. Camb. Ev. ii. p. 61. For the gifts to MeUifont in 1157, 
 566 4 M. A tribute of 420 ounces of pure silver was taken 
 instead of seven score cattle. 4 M. an. 1161. "A peace was 
 
 2 K 
 
514 APPENDIX 
 
 afterwards concluded between the foreigners and tlie Irish; and 
 six score ounces of jjold were given by the foreigners to 
 O'Lochlainn, and five score ounces of gold were paid by 
 Diarmid Ua Maoleachlainn to Kuaidhri Ua Conchcibhair for 
 West Meath." 4 M. an. 1 162. In 1 168 Ruaidhri O'Conchobhair 
 *• commenced his reign with a present of a gold shrine, superior 
 to any that had yet been seen in Ireland, for the relics of 
 St. Manchan of Moethail." Camb. Ev. ii. 75. See 4 M. 1 166. 
 See Christian Inscriptions, Miss Stokes, i. 3, and n. 3. 
 " Donnell O'Brien had gone to his house at Dunlo, where he 
 was entertained for a week ; and O'Conor gave him sixty cows 
 out of every cantred in Connaught, and ten articles ornamented 
 with gold ; but O'Brien did not accept any of these, save one 
 goblet, which had once been the property of Dermot OTirien, 
 his own grandfather." 4 M. an. 1 189. 
 
 After the Norman invasion the dealings of Irishmen with the 
 crown to have possession of their lands shews that they had 
 considerable wealth. In 12 15 the king of Connacht paid the 
 king 5,000 marks for his land, and a rent of 300 marks. Cal. 
 Doc. Sweetman, i. Nos. 653, 654, 656, cf. 900. Muriard O'Bren 
 shall give the king 1000 marks in two years, and 100 marks a 
 year (ib. No. 669), or Duncan Carebrach 800 marks. lb. No. 673. 
 Rents or payments were made with Kathel, King of Connacht, 
 O. King of Keneleon, Dunekan Obren, Muriardac Obren, 
 Dermot Macarthi, Loueth MacDoncwhod. Ib. No. icoi. In 
 1228 Moriar de Haghobren offered 80 marks increased rent 
 and ^1,000 for certain land which had been leased at ^100 a 
 year to Duncan Macarbragh. Ib. i. 1636. Conehorn O'Bren 
 was to give in 1240, 2,200 marks to the king for the land which 
 his father held by charter from John. Ib. i. 3054. In 1253 
 Conor O'Brien offered to give the king for the land which he 
 held on lease in Thomond 2,000 marks entry, and ;^ioo a year 
 annual rent ; or ;^ 1,000 entry, and 200 marks a year rent ; or 
 no payment for entry, and 300 marks a year rent. Ib. ii. No. 273. 
 In 1251 O'Brien of Thomond offered ^500 for a grant in fee of 
 land. Ib. ii. No. 31 14. 
 
 In 1285 Cathal O'Conor gave bond for 1,000 marks of silver 
 to have his portion. Ib. iii. No. 172. In 1285 an Irish chaplain 
 was ransomed for ;^ioo from the justiciary. Ib. iii. No. <P' 
 In 1290 Calvagh O'Conor of Offally found pledges for a fine 
 of 1,000 marks to be liberated from prison. Ib. iii. 1018. I" 
 1 33 1 a statute ordered that fines for redemption were henceforth 
 not to be taken in cows but in money. Berry, Stat. 327. 
 
APPENDIX 515 
 
 The Norman lords had amassed great wealth. The Arch- 
 bishop of Tuam in 1288 possessed cups and ewers of silver, 
 cups, ewers, dishes, spoons and plates of gold, silver and silver 
 gilt, cloth of gold, silken shoes, linen for tablecloths, furs, and 
 stores of figs, dates, etc. In the Church of Athlone he had 
 mitres, crozier, silk copes, silken frontals for the altar and many 
 other rich things. Much of this may have been gathered by 
 his Irish predecessors. Knox, Tuam, no. In 1295 it was 
 complained of Hugh Parcel, Sheriff of Tipperary, that he 
 broke into the castle of Dounhochil, broke open chests and 
 coffers, and took goods to the value of ;^5oo, viz. £$0 in money, 
 robes, tablecloths, napkins, sheets, hacquetons, gambisons, 
 habergeons, helmets, spears and bows and other armour, 
 68 charters of feoffment, . . . cups and silver spoons, gold 
 rings, precious stones, brooches, girdles woven with silk and 
 other jewels . . . brass pots, cauldrons, a:.d dishes ... 471 
 cows . . . iSoafers . . . 48 stud mares . . . 48 oxen . . . 1,500 
 sheep, 400 lambs, 215 pigs, 150 goats, 80 kids, 46 bacons, 7 tons 
 of flour, 4 tons of ale. . . . Cal. Justic. Rolls, May 13, 1295. 
 Statutes of 1299 and 1300 forbid the carrying abroad of plate 
 and silver vessels. Berry, Stat. 225, 239. In 1270 one lord 
 paid to another a fine of 3.500 marks for the custody of the 
 lands and tenements in Ireland that belonged to Maurice 
 Fitzgerald. Cal. Doc. Sweetman, ii. 867. In 1293 Theobald 
 Butler paid a fine of ;^i,ooo for his marriage. lb. iv. 57. 
 
 The revenue derived by the king from Ireland in the thirteenth 
 century was greater than that which the Tudors received from , 
 it. In 1278 it was over £fi.,ooo. Cal. Doc. Sweetman, ii. 1496. 
 The receipts from 1278 to 1284, given in ib. ii. No. 2284, were 
 usually from ^5,600 to ^6,600 : the "foreign receipt" so-called, 
 customs, Irish fines, etc., from 1279 to 1284 came to nearly 
 .^10,740, and the total account was nearly ;^42,oc)o. According 
 to another account the revenue from 1278-1285 was about 
 .£7,500 a year. Ib. iii. No. 42. In 1286 the receipts for three- 
 quarters of the year were ^5,240. Ib. iii. No. 251. In 1293 the 
 fifteenth granted to the king amounted to over .^3,278. Ib. iv. 
 No. 48. And again .^900. Ib. No. 90. 
 
 The aids to the "imperial" exchequer were considerable; 
 very large sums, and frequent, were sent over to England from 
 Ireland. Henry ill. ordered all sorts of payment to be made 
 out of his Irish treasure — for his foreign wars and costs, his 
 favourites, his alms, his debts, his gifts to churches, his ward- 
 robe, his household expenses, and for the king's use generally, 
 
5i6 APPENDIX 
 
 golden fringe for his fla}>, silk hanjjings for Westminster, and 
 such like. See Cal. Doc. Sweetman. For example, 2,000 marks 
 of Irish treasure was sent over in 1230 (ib. i. 1781) ; 2,000 murks 
 and ;^i,ooo in 1239 (ib. i. 2473, 2474) ; 3,000 marks at least, and 
 as much more as possible to Gascony in 1243 (ib. i. 2612). In 
 1235 Henry ill. ordered his payments to the king of Man for 
 guarding the coasts, to be receivable in Ireland yearly by the 
 hand of the justiciaries — 40 marks, 100 crannocks of wheat, and 
 5 hogsheads of wine. Ib. i. 2269. The Spanish peril appeared 
 very early on the scene. In 1253 Henry ill. wrote to Maurice 
 Fitzgerald that the king of Castile with an army of Christians 
 and Saracens was about to enter the king's land of Gascony, 
 aspiring thence to enter England and Ireland. Maurice was 
 therefore ordered to go with horses, arms, and a strong force. 
 The king will ever feel grateful to those who assist him in 
 encountering this urgent pressure, while he must lose confidence 
 in those who abandon him. This was of course followed by 
 orders for wattles, ships, bridges, and great stores of provisions. 
 Ib. ii. Nos. 305, 310. From 1278-1285 about ;,^30,ooo were 
 delivered into the king's wardrobe and elsewhere. Ib. iii. 42. 
 A surprising amount of money and provisions was sent to the 
 Welsh wars in 12S5. For example, in money 1,000 marks (Cal. 
 Doc. Sweetman, iii. p. 13); over ^9,000 (ib. No. 59); all the 
 profits of Ireland, except reasonable expenses incurred in its 
 custody (ib. No. 75) ; the whole of the customs on wool and 
 hides (ib. No. 77); in 1286, 1,000 marks for the castles of 
 Carnarvon and Conway (ib. No. 248, 259) ; in 1289, 2,000 marks 
 to Carnarvon (ib. 598, 830). 
 
 P. 70, n. 4. The wealth which could be gained by English 
 officials was an old story. In 1285 a statement as to the 
 exchequer explains how the justiciary of Ireland became rich. 
 His profits indicate the very great trade which passed through 
 his hands, and the use he made of it. Cal. Doc. Sweetman, iii. 
 pp. 12-14, 180-2, 255, 258 ; iv. 93, 143, 183. For the wealth of 
 the Archbishop of Dublin in 1295, see ib. i4. 275. In 1421 the 
 heirs of Sir John Stanley "are greatly enriched and aggrandised 
 by the goods of your said land." Berry, Stat. 569. After the 
 planting of Munster and the Elizabethan wars, Dr. Lynch 
 wrote : " I could give a history of 600 other Englishmen who 
 1/ rapidly amassed colossal fortunes in Ireland. But the narrative 
 would detain me too long. Donchadh O'Briain, earl of 
 Thomond, one day speaking in a company of Englishmen at 
 Clonmel, with the president of Munster, one of the swarm of 
 
APPENDIX 517 
 
 those threc-farthing adventurers who every day ftfere acquiring 
 such enormous wealth : ' Ireland,' said he, 'is another India for 
 the English, a more profitable India for them than ever the 
 Indies were to the Spaniards.' India gave to the Spaniards 
 gold and silver only, but Ireland supplied the English not only 
 with immense treasures of ready money, but also with extensive 
 estates, and high titles." Cambr. Ev. iii. 75. 
 
 P. 75, n. I. In London, "although this city has no building in 
 the Italian style, but of timber or brick like the French, the 
 Londoners live comfortably." Italian Relation, 42, Camden 
 Soc. 1847. 
 
 P. 75, n. 2. For the Irish stone castles and the thatched 
 banqueting halls attached to them, see Stanyhurst, Uc Rebus in 
 Hibernia Gestis, Antwerp, 1584, quoted by Mr. Justice Madden 
 in his Classical Learning in Ireland, pp. 84, 89-95. " So these 
 chieftains — I always except O'Neill, who rules in Ulster, for he, 
 because he is a bitter opponent of British rule, keeps his camp 
 for the most part in fields of herbage [lit. fennel ; cf. in foenicu- 
 lariis campis, Cic] — own castles, strongly constructed, as regards 
 fortification, and mass of stone-work, with which are united, by 
 a close connexion, fairly large and spacious halls, constructed of 
 a compound of potter's earth and mud. These are not securely 
 roofed either with quarried slates, or with rough-hewn stones or 
 tiles, but are as a rule thatched with straw from the fields. In 
 these halls they usually take their meals ; they seldom, however, 
 sleep except in the castles, because it is possible for their 
 enemies with great ease to apply to the coverinsr of the halls 
 blazing torches, inflamed by the fanning of the wind, since that 
 kind of stuff takes fire very rapidly." 
 
 P- 75) n- 3- On the house of Ballinacor after Fiach O'Byrne's 
 death. " How is this dwelling now within itself? inside of 
 which we used once to see women, and abroad before its walls 
 young men in companies at practice of athletic sports, of 
 shooting. From morning till the evening's cloud — as though it 
 had been a public banquet-house — there was gay uproar of lasses 
 and lads outside, along the rampart of the ornamental lawn that 
 lay exposed to the [summer's] heat. There it was that we were 
 witness of a man out of every airt in Ireland, after his having 
 [already] for a season served in hardships of spears, [yet coming 
 thither and] learning farther feats and martial games. There it 
 was that sons of chiefs devoid of melancholy or of lassitude did 
 most abound, on their own account dealing out their valuables 
 in reward of the strains of harpstrings played around them. 
 
5i8 APPENDIX 
 
 There it was that Fiach himself was wont to be — in the bright 
 well-appointed mansion's centre — and panegyrists with their 
 polished duans, and the weapon-wounded lying to be healed. 
 There it was that I found it wonderful — considering all that I 
 saw of Ireland's poets [there] — that of his own free will he 
 devoted himself to each individual man in order to dissipate the 
 desire \i.e. to gratify the demands] of the schools." O'Grady, 
 Cat. 508. 
 
 1'. 76, n. 2. About the castle of Enniskillen the Maguire had 
 almost a ballibetagh of land, which he manured, or tilled, with 
 his own churls. Davics, p. 255. 
 
 P. 79, n. 4. In 1 52 1 the kerns' harness was a corselet of mail 
 made like a shirt, and his skull covered over with gilt leather 
 and crested with otter-skin. Soc. of Ant. 1868, p. 191. 
 
 P. 80, n. 2. The growing importance of mercenaries in the 
 lengthening wars is indicated in O'Grady's Cat. 427. 
 
 P. 83, n. 2. A Spanish enemy in Munster, 1579, reported: 
 " Although they are devoid of all polite training, they neverthe- 
 less treat each other with such kindness and urbanity, that 
 during six months, I did not see even the soldiers come once to 
 blows : this spirit of concord seems to extend to the horses and 
 dogs, wherefore, I am disposed to refer it all to the mildness of 
 the climate and temperature." 
 
 " The men salute each other with a kiss : the women also 
 salute each other in the same manner." Moran's Archbishop's, 
 91-3. For the salute with a kiss by Murchad at the battle of 
 Clontarf see Wars of the Gaedhil, ed. Todd, p. 171. 
 
 P. 85, n. 2. " If you except the port towns, there are no hotels 
 or lodging-houses to be found in the island. Every traveller 
 sets up in the first house he meets, and there is provided with 
 whatsoever he desires, gratuitously. 
 
 " Table is not usually laid until evening, but in the meantime 
 drink is not denied to travellers. 
 
 " They arise at midnight for prayer and meditation, to which 
 some devote an entire hour, others half an hour : the fires are 
 always lit at the same time." Moran's Archbishops, 91-3. 
 
 P. 86, n. 3. " They eat a great deal when food can be found ; 
 but they also fast with alacrity for two or even three days. 
 
 " On Wednesdays they abstain from flesh-meats ; on Fridays, 
 from white-meats and milk. 
 
 " There are eight sorts of draughts : beer made of barley and 
 water, milk, whey, wine, broth, mead, usquebagh, and spring 
 water." Moran's Archbishops, 91-3. 
 
APPENDIX 519 
 
 p. 87, n. I. " They do appear (in the upper sort) very kind and 
 hospitable to all new comers, as I did well expefrience in this 
 country, even so much as (if my own lands were here) I would 
 hazard my dwelling with them for life. I was often well enter- 
 tained, and in some sort got ill will for speaking in praise of 
 their civil usage among our own commanders, whom I often 
 told that tho' I was sent out to fight with some, there did appear 
 no reason for my not eating with others. I was well used, and 
 therefore am in duty bound to speak well of the Irishry." 
 Harrington, Nugae Antiquae, i. 177, 1804. 
 
 P. 89, n. 3. At the Norman settlement the Government was 
 careful to maintain Irish agriculturists on the land. When John 
 claimed two thirds of Connacht he ordered that the villems and 
 fugitives who had fled away should return to farm or do the 
 king's pleasure therein. Cal. Doc. Sweetman, i. Nos. 222, 223, 
 279. Cf. No. 2706. Irish tenants did the agricultural work on 
 the lands of English lords, ib. ii. Nos. 52, 135, 179, 269; iii. 147, 
 459, p. 250, 266, p. 353, p. 313. The last instance shows how 
 insecure was an Irishman's tenure if an Englishman wanted his 
 land. In 1293 the services and fines of the Irish were consider- 
 able, for out of them the justiciary was to have compensation of 
 over ^1178. Ib. iv. No. 48. Some of these services are 
 mentioned in No. 86, among them two services of the army of 
 the new vill of Leys. The fines are frequently mentioned, e.g. 
 No. 129. 
 
 P. 90. n. I. The "orchard" of Inishowen seems to have been 
 famous; it was cut down by Rory O'Conor in 11 57. 4 M. 
 p. 1 127. In 1216, in making the English castle at Clonmacnois, 
 the fruit trees were cut down, and cows, horses, etc., taken away. 
 Cal. Doc. Sweetman, i. No. 694. The wood of wild damsons 
 at Iniscaltra may represent an old orchard there. 
 
 There is an interesting note on the price of trees in the 
 Common Pleas of Dublin: 200 apple trees, value ^20; loo 
 pear trees, value £,\o\ 30,000 ash, value ^200 ; 1,000 alders, 
 value ^60. Cal. Just. Rolls, May 20, 1302. 
 
 P. 91, n. 3. Compare the account of this country in 1709. " I 
 observed scarcely any corn or enclosures but old ruined ones of 
 stones heaped along in rows, which way of enclosing land, by 
 being so frequently met with in many parts of Ireland, seems 
 once to have been much in use. 
 
 ' We came in two hours, through good roads and an open 
 country ; nothing of enclosures, but some scrubs and bogs." 
 Journey to Connacht, Misc. Irish Arch. Soc. 1846, i. 164, 166. 
 
S20 APPENDIX 
 
 p. 91, n. 4. The cartulary of Bruges mentions honey, salt-beef, 
 and pork among the imports of Bruges from Ireland. 
 
 P. 93, n. 6. The Irish had much tillage. The compiler of the 
 Leabhar Oiris (£riu i. 98) states that 360 sacks of meal passed 
 into Rath Raithlean every day. There was an immense export 
 of corn and provisions. To take fifty years alone, 1200 to 1250, 
 the Calendar of Documents, ed. Sweetman, has 28 entries giving 
 to various monasteries the right to buy provisions in Ireland. 
 (See i. Nos. 117, 149, 167, 186, 242, 494, 908, 943. 982, 1,052, 1,093, 
 1,131. »,37o, 1,532, 1,560, 1,626, 1,934, 1,937, 1,995, 2,065, 2,263, 
 2,371,2,498,2,839,2,859,2,924,3,149,3,182.) From 1200, and pro- 
 bably long before, it seems that the abbeys in the wilder parts 
 of Lancashire, such as Furness, regularly imported their victuals 
 from Ireland. They probably went there for the better class of 
 foods, e.£: wheat, as Lancashire grew mainly barley and oats. 
 Victoria County Hist, of Lancashire, 272-3 ; where references 
 are given to Cal. Pat. Rolls, 1272-81, p. 250 ; 1307, p. 203, etc. ; 
 1292 1301, p. 579. In the same fifty years there are 34 other 
 entries of provisions to be sent to Wales, Scotland, or England 
 for the King's use. Cal. Doc. Sweetman, i. 706, 827, 944, 957, 
 1,040, 1,05s, 1,276, 1,285, 1,377, 1,447, 1,917, 2,073, 2,108, 2,248, 
 2,269, 2,271, 2,424, 2,429, 2,531, 2,687, 2,696, 2,733, 2,768, 2,795, 
 2,803, 2,831, 2,835, 2,836, 2,882, 2,925, 2,931, 2,934, 2,937, 2,986. 
 Corn, wheat, oats were sent in very large quantities, also hogs 
 and herrings, etc. The price of a crannock of wheat in 1251 
 was 4od., and a crannock of oats i8d. See ib. i. 3,203. In 1294 
 a crannock of wheat was valued at five shillings, a crannock of 
 oats at twenty pence, cows at four shillings apiece. Ib iv. 
 No. 131. For the capacity of a crannock v. Gilbert, Hist. Mun. 
 Doc. p. xxxiv. 
 
 This traffic never ceased. In 1245 the king bought in 
 Ireland cloth, hides, iron, salt, wines, com, hogs, and other 
 provisions for Wales. Cal. Doc. Sweetman, i. 2,795. I" 1267, 
 63.';. 9d. was spent in carrying and guarding 80 crannocks of 
 corn to Chester. Pipe Roll. li. Henry III. In 1283, 75 cran- 
 nocks of wheat were bought for the king's use, and 50 crannocks 
 sent for the army in Wales. Ib. xi. Ed. I. In 1284, hire of 
 houses to store wheat when brought to Drogheda from Slane 
 and other parts of Meath for the King's army in Wales . • ■ 
 wheat bought to be sent to Connacht for the Justiciar. Ib. xi'- 
 Ed. I. See also the large sums spent in provisions for the king's 
 forces and castles in Wales ; for example, over ;^i,98o in one 
 account. Cal. Doc. Sweetman, iii. No. 42, 736. In 1288, wheat 
 
APPENDIX 521 
 
 and oats sent to the king's army in Wales. Pipe Roll, xvi. 
 Ed. I. From 1294 the entries begin again. Cal. Doc. Sweet- 
 man, iv. No. 164, 169, 170, 182 (where 20 or 30 vessels are 
 ordered to be laden), 204, 271, 345, p. 165, N. 465, and so on. 
 The references are very frequent ; in fact, it might almost be 
 said that Wales was subjugated by means of Irish aids and 
 taxes. Welsh fugitives took refuge with the patriot bishop 
 of Armagh, who, however, was ordered to excommunicate them, 
 1287. lb. iii. No. 359. The sympathy of the Irish themselves 
 was wholly with the Welsh. Thomas Fitzmaurice wrote that 
 on account of the Welsh war the Irish were elated beyond their 
 wont ; some have raised war and others are ready to raise it. 
 lb. iii. No. 360. 
 
 If Irish soldiers and wealth were used to conquer Wales, 
 Welsh mercenaries in return were used to subdue the Irish, 
 from 1270 onwards. lb. i. p. 147, iii. Nos. 548, 683, 936, 1,032, 
 1,116, iv. 98, pp. 46-7, 83, 123, 164, 169, etc. 
 
 Ireland provided at the same time for the war in Gascony. 
 In 1294, provisions bought for Gascony. lb. iv. No. 150, 179, 
 197, 204, 256, 278, 307-310, 318, 323, 398, 400, 463, pp. 166, 217. 
 Lapo Tynache, merchant of Florence, and his fellow merchants 
 got in lieu of the debt owed by certain men, of money, wheat, 
 and oats, " the whole crop (Vestura) of their lands in Balynelan 
 in Co. Cork, a.id all cattle there." Cal. Just. Rolls, 13 July, 
 1295. In 1296, com, horses, and oats were sent to Bayonne 
 for the army in Gascony. Hore, Old and New Ross, 163. The 
 king caused to be collected by his minister.s through the whole 
 of Ireland, corn, according as each possessed it, saving what 
 was necessary for his sustenance, for the provisioning of 
 Gascony. Cal. Justic. Rolls, Ap. i. 1297. Louel robbed the 
 Lombards of corn to the value of ;£20 . . . Bachiler robbed the 
 fishermen of Leys at the Norrath ... lb. July 21, 1297. In 
 '297, £106 13s. 4d. was allowed to provide provisions for the 
 king's army in Gascony. 17 Pipe Roll, xxv. Ed. i. Corn and 
 provisions bought for Gascony. lb. xxv. Ed. i. The Society 
 of Lucca . . . allowed certain sums expended in buying wheat 
 for king's army in Gascony ; Dublin allowed money for carry- 
 ing horses and arms to Flanders for the expedition of the king's 
 army. lb. xxv. Ed. I. In 1298 the account of Hugh Moriz 
 and John le Marechall gave sums expended for wheat, oats, 
 wheat malt, oat malt, wine, cheese, hogs, salt, wheaten flour, etc. 
 (Drogheda). Like account of William de Meones, com and 
 provisions to be bought at Cork, Yoghell, Waterford, and 
 
522 APPENDIX 
 
 Dungarvan, wheat, cows, pigs, mutton, herrings, haddock, etc., 
 i8 Pipe Roll, xxvi. Ed. i. ; various sums expended in taking 
 wheat and oats for Gascony in the counties of Dublin, Kyldare, 
 Katherlach, Typerary, Kylkcnny, Waterford, Cork, Lymerick 
 (this account is very interesting, giving prices and procedure in 
 collecting the corn) ; sums to buy corn and provisions at 
 Dublin, to carry "wool and hides beyond the sea for the king's 
 use," and to buy "wheat, oats, wheat malt, oat malt, wine, hogs, 
 salt fish, salt, cheese, etc." lb. xxvi. Ed. i. Provisions to 
 Gascony, 1299. Berry, Stat. 217. Arnauld de Amlydones and 
 Walter de Mariscus, mariner, agreed that Walter should carry 
 in his ship to Bayonne 60 crannocks of wheat of said Arnauld, 
 and there sell it as dear as he could for Arnauld's profit. After- 
 wards Walter leaving Bayonne against his agreement, went to 
 La Rochelle, and sold the wheat there at his will for less than 
 he could at Bayonne where it was freighted. The Jurors 
 declared that Walter should satisfy Arnauld with the price 
 which the wheat would have gained at Bayonne. Walter 
 acknowledged that he had of Arnauld 4 pairs of letters directed 
 to his wife and other friends in Gascony. Cal. Just. Rolls, Nov. 
 12, 1299. 
 
 Ireland provisioned also the war of Scotland. Cal. Doc. 
 Sweetman, iv. 462. In 1299 mention of bran sold at Waterford 
 and Clonmel and Dublin, Cork and Kylmehallok, Ros, Kyl- 
 kenny, Thomastown. 19 Pipe Roll, xxvii. Ed. i. In 1301 
 account of citizens of Dublin, assigned there to provide corn, 
 wine and other provisions, to be sent to Scotland for the war ; 
 so much for wheaten flour ; bran, old sacks and packs, and oats 
 sold. Then sums spent in buying wheat, wheaten flour, peas, 
 oats, red wine, beer, empty casks, in freights and in wages. 20 
 Pipe Roll, xxix. Ed. I. Discharge of sums expended "in 
 gathering wattles to make hurdles to be put in the ships plying 
 between Ireland and Scotland, with men and horses from Ire- 
 land for the Scotch war." 21 Pipe Roll, xxx. Ed. I. Adam de 
 Bromp clerk of the king, was sent to survey provision made for 
 bringing victuals to the use of the army of the king in his war of 
 Scotland. . . . Adam, when the casks (tonelli) filled with flour 
 were carried to Drogheda, and it was testified that the flour 
 contained was of sufiicient quality, desiring to mend one of the 
 vessels which was very weak, found the flour contained in it at 
 the two ends reasonably pure, but in the middle — (Article not 
 completed). Cal. Just. Rolls, June 21, 1299. The king com- 
 manded that they should make provision in Ireland, as well of 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 S^3 
 
 wheat as other victuals, for the war of Scotland, and for susten- 
 ance of the king's hostel, and they assigned persons who would 
 provision in sufficiently, and sent more than 600 quarters of 
 dusty wheat husks in place of wheat, and wheat full of vetches, 
 and received to their own use the good wheat which was pro- 
 vided for the king's provision. lb. Oct. 3, 1300. Let a writ be 
 made to the Treasurer and Chamberlains of the Exchequer of 
 Dublin for the delivery to . . . the king's provisors of victuals 
 there bought and sent into Scotland for the king's expedition of 
 war there. lb. July i, 1302. In 1314 Edward II. ordered Wex- 
 ford to provide 1,000 crannocks of wheat and oats, and Ross 60 
 casks of wine for Wales, also provisions for Scotland. Hore, 
 Old and New Ross, 178. See also 1316, ib. 179 ; 1322, ib. 183. 
 Provisions to England and Wales in 1323, Berry Stat. 293 ; for 
 the Scotch war in 1342, ib. 341 ; secret export offish and corn in 
 
 1355. 'b. 399- 
 
 Further references to requisitions of com and victuals will be 
 found in Gilbert, Hist, and Mun. Doc. 103, 291-5, 320-58, 388-91, 
 
 503-17- 
 
 The ni^nber of people commissioned to raise provisions for 
 war in Scotland and Gascony was prodigious. 
 
 In 1323 all merchants and others were declared by statute 
 free to carry corn from Ireland to England and Wales. Berry 
 Stat. 293. In 1358 in view of the coming of Lionel of Clarence, 
 export of victuals was forbidden. Lib. Mun. Hib. i. iv. 39; but 
 li.censes were still granted, ib. 41. 
 
 This agricultural trade continued for many centuries. A 
 charter to Dundalk gave liberty to buy, sell, and export salted 
 hides and other goods of the staple, and all merchandise growing 
 in Ireland ; or brought to Dundalk from England or other 
 foreign country. Fiants of Henrf viii. 28 Aug. 1527. In 1539 
 corn was exported from Galway to Spain, France, and other 
 foreign lands. H.M.C. Rep. x. app. v. p. 408. Orders were 
 sent out before the coming of Essex (1575) that the corn in 
 Ulster must be protected from the "rebels," showing the import- 
 ance of the Irish tillage. Egerton, 2,790, f. 10, Br. Mus. It was 
 suggested that traitors might be overthrown and yet not slain, 
 but they might be kept from ploughing and farming. Add. 
 MSS. Br. Mus. 33, 143. In 1546 a license to Francis Petoo of 
 Kilmainham to export 500 pecks of com and other grain, for a 
 fine of 50s. Cal. Pat. Rolls, i. 120. In 1546 license for Henry 
 Sherwood and Richard Prowse to export 500 pecks of beans, 
 peas, and corn, wheresoever they please. Ib. i. 123. In 1547 
 
524 APPENDIX 
 
 license for Robert Jans of Baggotrath to export 600 pecks of 
 grain, for a fine of ^3, that is a penny for each peck. lb. i. 130. 
 In 1547 license for Nicholas Handcock of Dublin, merchant, to 
 export 600 pecks of com or other grain. lb. i. 130. In 1547 
 license to William Wise of Waterford, merchant, to export 1,000 
 pecks of corn or grain. lb. i. 130. 
 
 P. 97, n. I. The English, apart from any political questions, 
 had a prejudice in favour of their own, and against any other 
 system. 
 
 " The English are great lovers of themselves, and of every- 
 thing belonging to them ; they think that there are no other 
 men than themselves, and no other world but England ; and 
 whenever they see a handsome foreigner, they say that 'he 
 looks like an Englishman,' and that ' it is a great pity that he 
 should not be an Englishman ' ; and when they partake of any 
 delicacy with a foreigner, they ask him, ' whether such a thing is 
 made in their country?' " So an Italian traveller wrote in 1500. 
 Speaking of exiled thieves and murderers, he adds : " It is not 
 unamusing to hear, how the women and children lament over 
 the misfortune of these exiles, asking 'how can they live so 
 destitute out of England ' ; adding moreover, that ' they had 
 better have died than go out of the world,' as if England were 
 the whole world ! " Italian Relation, Camden Soc. pp. 20, 35. 
 
 P. 97, n. 2. Thady O'Roddy wrote in the seventeenth century: 
 " I have Irish books of all those five dialects ; I have the books 
 of our Law, being 30 in number (though my honoured friend. Sir 
 Richard Cox, was once of opinion that our law was arbitrar)', 
 and not fixed nor written, till I satisfied him to the contrary in 
 summer, 1699, by shewing him some of the said law books)." 
 Misc. Ir. Arch. Soc. 1846, i. 123. 
 
 P. 98, n. 3. V. Misc. Ir. Arch. Soc. 1846, i. 103, 150-8, 179, 191 
 
 In 1293 an order was made against feoffments made by one to 
 another, except to hold of the king in chief : but in land of war 
 or in the marches feoffments might be made for the defence of 
 the land. Berry, Stat. 193. By a statute of 1310 feoffments 
 made with intent to rebel or commit felony were to be held for 
 nought. lb. 271. This order was renewed in 1320 (ib. 289); 
 and in 135 1 (ib. 383) ; and again in 1366 (ib. 453). 
 
 P. 100, n. I. For public officers and soldiers paid by the chief, 
 see O'Flaherty, lar Connacht, p. 139-40. Some of the tributes 
 paid to the king and the gifts of the king to his tributaries are 
 given on pp. 142-3. 
 
 P. 106, n. 2. There was a grant to Milo le Bret to hunt and 
 
APPENDIX 525 
 
 take foxes and hares throughout the Icing's forests of Ireland. 
 Cal. Doc. Sweetman, i. No. 100, Sep. 13, 1199. The king's 
 forest is mentioned from 1200-1253. lb. Nos. 478, 891, 892, 951, 
 3,164 ; ii. 112, 241. In 1225 orders were given that the men and 
 vills in the forest shall not be-disturbed. lb. i. 1,317. In 1227 
 Henry III. ordered the forest in Connacht, which is a good 
 chase, to be well kept, and none of it sold or given, so that the 
 king when he goes to those parts may range through it. lb. 
 No. 1,512 ; also the Decies forest (ib. No. 1,513). 
 
 Forest-making for Archbishop of Dublin in 1207. Ib. Nos. 
 316, 477. His woods were disafforested in 1228. Ib. Nos. 
 
 1,657, 1,757- 
 
 Free chase and warren was occasionally granted in the 
 thirteenth century and later. Ib. i. 2,680, 3,132; iii. 82, 309, etc. 
 
 There was evidently a considerable effort made to create Irish 
 "forest," and its failure is interesting. The invaders seem to 
 have felt the difificulty very early. John had made forests, and 
 Justices of the Forest : but in 1216 the first law of Henry iii. 
 decreed that "All forests which were afforested in the time of 
 King John, our father, shall be immediately disafforested ; and 
 so let it be done in the case of rivers which were placed in 
 defence by the said John in his time." And further that certain 
 chapters in the former charter as seemed grevious and doubtful, 
 among others about forests and foresters, warrens and warreners, 
 about customs of counties, and rivers and their keepers, it seemed 
 good to the aforesaid prelates and magnates that these should be 
 held over until we should have had fuller counsel. Berry, Stat. 19. 
 
 The Curragh of Kildare was common land where swine were 
 anciently fed. This was forbidden in 1299. Ib. 217. 
 
 P. 106, n. 3. Even before the close of Elizabeth's reign this 
 policy was being carried out, and Camden could write : " Yet it 
 is infested with wolves on the wild and solitary mountains where 
 there are few or no inhabitants." Britannia, ii. 1,312. 
 
 See in Misc. Celtic Soc. 1849, p. 353, the lament for the 
 harbour-full country, the land of round-nutted woods, the smooth 
 and well-placed land, fertile, warm, and music-loving ; whose 
 sons were called to free her mountains and protect her cattle 
 from the rough hirelings of the English : 
 
 Much of blood have they shed on the plain 
 
 Many heroes, who should be lamented, 
 
 They have slain for a long time back 
 
 Throughout the land of the Gaeidhil of the ripe fields. 
 
526 
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 Think of the false judgments of the English horde ; 
 Understand how there is treachery in their friendship ; 
 A passive secret should not be made of it ; 
 Think of their enormous slaughters. 
 
 lb. 367. c. 1617. 
 
 P. 107, n. 2. A Greek traveller, who visited London about 
 1550, has left us the reports current there in that time of great 
 hostility. Of England he says that the " nobles and rulers are 
 replete with benevolence and good order and are courteous to 
 strangers, but the rabble and the mob are as it were turbulent 
 and barbarous in the'r manner as I have observed from experi- 
 ence and intercourse." Ireland he did not see, but this is what 
 he learned about it in London : " They possess towns and cities. 
 But the inhabitants reject political institutions and other impor- 
 tations with whatever else pertains to them. ... As many 
 indeed as live in cities and walled towns have something of 
 human polity and administration. But such on the other hand 
 as lived in forests and bogs are entirely wild and savage and 
 there remains only the human form whereby they may be 
 distinguished to be men." Most of them went practically naked, 
 but such as appeared to live in a more civilized manner sewed 
 together vestments of linens and hemp of all colours and clothed 
 themselves in garments extending to their feet, and made after 
 barbaric fashion. Nicander Nucius, Camden Soc. 1841. See 
 also Andrew Horde's Introduction of Knowledge, which appeared 
 about 1547, and was dedicated to the Princess Mary. "The 
 thyrde Chapter treateth of Irland. And of the natural disposi- 
 cion of an Irishe man, and of their money and speche. 
 
 ' I can keep a Hobby, a garden, and a cart ; 
 I can make good mantyls, and good Irish fryce ; 
 I can make aqua vita, and good square dyce,' " etc. 
 
 (The dice represents another industry.) The usual tales are given 
 of Irish sloth and barbarism, neither sowing nor baking, and 
 boiling their meat in skins. The English of the Pale were 
 testy and easily vexed. " Yet there be well-disposed people, as 
 well in the English Pale as among the wild Irish, and virtuous 
 creatures, when grace worketh above nature." The Irish dia- 
 logues, for a beginner's use, were the earliest printed in Irish. 
 Published in the Early Eng. Text Society. Extra Ser. 10. 1870. 
 P. 108, n. 2. It is interesting to note how the land system 
 which English landlords of the time determined to force on 
 Ireland in the name of civility and philanthropy was actually 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 527 
 
 working in England itself. "All the lands of the nobility how- 
 ever are not in cultivation, for a great portion lies barren and 
 waste ; and I am told that there are more than 4,cxx) parks in 
 England, all enclosed with timber fences." c. 1500. Italian 
 Relation, Camden Soc. 1847, p. 39. 
 
 The land system which seemed so beneficent to the landlords 
 was already falling under the indignation of the people of 
 England. There is a significant prayer in the last Primer of 
 Edward VI. : " We heartily pray Thee to send Thy Holy Spirit 
 into the hearts of them that possess the grounds, pastures, and 
 dwelling places of the earth, that they, remembering themselves 
 to be Thy tenants, may not rack and stretch out the rents of 
 their houses and lands, nor yet take unreasonable fines and 
 incomes after the manner of covetous worldlings, but so let 
 them out to other, that the inhabitants thereof may both be able 
 to pay the rents, and also honestly to live, to nourish their 
 families, and to relieve the poor : give them grace also to con- 
 sider that they are but strangers and pilgrims in this world, 
 having here no dwelling place, but seeking one to come ; that 
 they, remembering the short continuance of their life, may be 
 content with that that is sufficient, and not join house to house, 
 nor couple land to land, to the impoverishment oKother, but so 
 behave themselves in letting out their tenements lands and 
 pastures, that after this life they may be received \nio everlasting 
 dwelling places." 
 
 The popular feeling is illustrated in a striking way in The 
 Digger Movement, by Lewis H Berens, 1906. 
 
 P. 112, n. 2. A curious comment of Stanihurst may be worth 
 noting in relation to the position of the Irish peasant. " I have 
 apposed sundry times the expertest men that could be had in the 
 country, and all they could never find out an equivalent Irish 
 word for knave." Hoi. vi. 7. 
 
 In the hospitals every Irishman was entitled to sick mainten- 
 ance according to the place and style to which the wounded man 
 was accustomed. O'Grady, Cat. MSS. 79. There were only 
 ' three that are not entitled to sick-maintenance : a man who 
 absconds from his chief, from his family, from a poet." Triads, 
 Kuno Meyer. 
 
 P- 116, n. I. Camden (Britannia, ii. 1312-13) gives an interest- 
 ing gloss on the common accusation. " The natives are warlike, 
 ingenious, proper and well complexioned, soft-skinned, and 
 exceeding nimble through a peculiar pliantness of the muscles." 
 • • . "The leason why it [Ireland] is now and then reflected oc 
 
528 APPENDIX 
 
 is because of the inhabitants who are uncivilized in some places 
 and, which is strangely inconsistent, love idleness and hate ease." 
 
 P. 1 20, n. 4. "So that this day (though our nation lost estate, 
 and all almost) there is not an ancient name of Ireland, of the 
 blood royal thereof descended, but we can bring from father to 
 father, from the present man in being to Adam ... at this day, 
 as poor as we are, we have a great value for those descended 
 from the said antiquaries, etc., and left it to us in weather-beaten 
 parchments standing for thousands of years." Misc. Irish Arch. 
 See. 1846, I. 120, 122. The utmost degradation of a ruined clan 
 was " that the best chroniclers in the kingdom are ignorant of 
 their descents, and they are so common, having dwindled into 
 mere churls, and poor labouring men, that scarcely one of the 
 family knoweth the name of his own great grandfather." lb. 189. 
 The destruction of tombstones and inscriptions served further 
 to efface family records. 
 
 P. 121, n. 5. In C.S.P. 1574, Ixxvii.-lxxxi. the editor excuses 
 the barbarities of the English wars in Ireland, and quotes the 
 courtier's phrase "that Her Majesty's clement and merciful 
 disposition towards her people is the greatest comfort, and that 
 Elizabeth is the amor Hibemiae above all the princes that ever 
 reigned." lb. xcvii. He gives the case of a young O'Reilly, 
 who, deserting his own people, was trying to secure the chiefdom 
 by English nomination, not by Irish election, to shew "with 
 vi\i2X fostering care anything like civility and labour yias cherished 
 by the warlike spirits who were deputed to the task of governing 
 Ireland in those times." lb. cvii. 
 
 Hardiman writing in 1846 (Misc. Ir. Arch. Soc. 1. 89) comments 
 on the fall of the O'Shaughnessy, once head of a noble family 
 and chiefest for antiquity and nobility in his country, whose 
 descendant at that day was what he calls " a beggar," in other 
 words a barber. "The fate of this great family," he says, 
 " affords a useful lesson " : while the descendants of the burghers 
 of Galway, who "followed industry," are numbered with the 
 nobles of the land, those of the Milesian chiefs, and among 
 them of the " Lord O'Saghnissy," who " despised industry," 
 are numbered with its beggars. This moralising, however, only 
 " affords a useful lesson " against the kind of history which was 
 in fashion in his day. 
 
 P. 125, n. 4. Lib. Mun. Hib. I. iv. p. 86. Edward had already 
 in 1336 sent over miners, refiners, and coiners. lb. i. iv. 12, 13. 
 Mines are mentioned in 1213 and 1234 and 1297; and lead 
 mines in 1278. Cal. Doc. Sweetman, i. Nos. 464, 472, 2,111 ; 11. 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 529 
 
 1,516 ; IV. 456. In 1380 land owners were allowed to mine for 
 gold. Berry, Stat. 477. 
 
 P. 130, n. 2. Theobald Dillon was employed in the subjection 
 ofConnacht, C.S.P. 1580-4,423,444, 542, 555, and was continually 
 asking for rewards and maintenance. lb. 228, 231, 239, 512, 
 562, 573. In 1580 MacCostello gave him a great portion of 
 land and a fair ancient castle. Castle More, /or his friendship. 
 We may note the fact that Dillon was then applying to be High 
 Sheriff of Mayo. lb. 257, cf. 1581, 334. Dillon and his tenants 
 inhabited the land. O'Flaherty, lar Connacht, 339. MacCostello 
 was one of the Macs and Os who surrendered their Irish names 
 and customs of inheritance to secure a title by English patent, 
 lb. 1585, p. 582. He immediately renewed the possession of 
 the land to Dillon, who already held it. Annals Loch Ce, 1586. 
 And the Commissioners reported on behalf of Dillon that he 
 ought to be charged very little rent ; to which Dillon added his 
 own successful petition. O'Flaherty, lar Connacht, 339-340. 
 O'Donovan, 4 M. iii. 99, says De Nangle was the original 
 name of the Costelloes, who took their new surname from 
 an ancestor Osdolbh, probably Scandinavian. Topographical 
 Poems, Irish Arch, and Celt. Soc. 1862. Introd. 23. (Danes 
 and Ostmen were stated to be Englishmen and entitled to 
 English law, in 1290. Cal. Doc. Sweetman, iii. 622, 700.) 
 
 P. 130, n. 3. " I am assured," Agard added, "that he hath got 
 more clear than the Treasurer shall if he were here this seven year." 
 
 P. 134, n. 2. Irishmen had to get special license to be allowed 
 to use, or have the protection of, English law. The grant was 
 sometimes given only to the one individual, sometimes also to 
 his children. See grants of the two Edwards from 1279- 1305. 
 To William Naffan (Navan?). Cal. Doc. Sweetman, ii. 1,602; 
 to Gregory Olidik (ib. ii. 1,775) > to Simon Passelewe, bom of 
 an English mother though of an Irish father, that he and his 
 heirs may for ever use in England and in Ireland English law 
 and custom (ib. ii. 1,910) ; to Gerald Fitzjohn, an Irishman, and 
 toother Irish persons: Margaret de Lessan, Maurice de Lessan, 
 Peter de Lessan, Andrew de Lessan, Benedict Fitz John of 
 Armagh, William Beuk (ib. 2228) ; to Philip Cinurghethan and 
 Simon and John his brothers, Irishmen (ib. iii. No. 64) ; to 
 Mariota daughter of Macirechti, married to an Englishman, 
 and to her children ; to Rose daughter of Macinolisii, married 
 to an Englishman ; to Christopher son of Bonald Macinolisii 
 (ib. No. 94) ; to Andrew of Ardach son of Augustine Ohothic ; 
 to Denis Conchowr Macmolisii ; to Matthew of Ardach son of 
 
 2 L 
 
530 
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 Augustine Ohethick (ib. No. 153) ; to Maurice Fitz Alan, clerk, 
 who had served the king faithfully and assiduously in divers 
 counties in Ireland, that he may henceforth for his life use 
 English laws in Ireland (ib. No. 165) ; to Gilbert MacAbram, 
 an Irishman (ib. No. 311). In 1290-1292 to Maurice de Bre, an 
 Irish clerk (iii. 677) ; to Isamaye and Matilda, daughters of 
 O'Reilly (ib. 685). Petition from the Archbishop of Armagh 
 that the King will grant English law to an Irish woman, 
 Isamayo, married to an Englishman, because it is the custom 
 in Ireland that Irish women may not take dower after the 
 death of their husbands. If she survive her husband let the 
 archbishop certify the King who will take counsel (ib. 558). 
 Grant to Richard of Drumeskyn, an Irishman (ib. 697) ; to 
 Philip Makbaghely, Andrew of Ardagh, Richard Cok (ib. 702) ; 
 to Robert de Bree, citizen of Dublin (ib. 748) ; also to Ralph 
 le Teynturer (ib. 748) ; to William son of Carmok the clerk 
 (ib. 851); to Denethock Macdonethot (ib. 856); to Nicholas 
 Odubabright (ib. 876) ; to Robert of Bray, citizen and merchant 
 of Dublin (ib. 924) ; to Thomas Omelalith, an Irish clerk, 
 that he and his children may use English laws ; to Patrick 
 and Nicholas Ocathel [O'Cahill] Irishmen (ib. 1,002, 1,004) ; to 
 William son of Donald le Clerk, of Newcastle in Lyons, an 
 Irishman (ib. 1,096) ; to Hugh Kent, of Ireland, liege burgess 
 of Galway (ib. 1,174 — cf. John of Kent, ib. 721) ; to Nicholas 
 son of Brice ; to Peter Clauthnan ; to Richard and Walter 
 Neel, and Roger Fitz David ; to John de Clondowan and his 
 brothers and sisters ; to Nicholas de Mellifont, Gilbert Omole- 
 dich, physician, John son of Augustine of Ardagh, and Henry 
 Carnan ; to Alan, the baker, of Dublin ; to Maurice de Bray ; 
 to Hugh Kent of Galway ; to Nicholas Oflynnard (ib. iv. No. 19); 
 to Roger of Newcastle, an Irishman, for the good service which 
 John his son had rendered to the King in Scotland ; and to 
 Dermot O'Falvey, an Irishman, for his service in Scotland 
 (ib. V. II, 12); to Master Philip de Seche, Henry de Seche, 
 Philip de Seche, clerk, Luke de Seche, and Maurice de Seche, 
 Irishmen, to use English laws in Ireland ; and to William de 
 Nethebeyn, an Irishman (ib. v. 378, 379) ; to Richard Neel, of 
 Clondalkin, an Irishman, and Peter his brother (ib. 386); to 
 William Balygaveran, an Irishman (ib. 392). 
 
 In 1309 William Brown of Drogheda, Irishman, was given 
 right to use English law. Lib. Mun. Hib. vol. i. part iv. p. 5- 
 In 1 316 Richard son of John Makeshiteruk "custumanno do 
 Hibem" (ib. p. 7). Other names are given (ib. p. 26). 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 531 
 
 We may note that the sons of Irish mothers had to get 
 license to use English law ; in these cases the Irish name 
 disappeared. 
 
 In a list therefore, which lies within a single generation, of 
 Irishmen legally privileged to trade or become burghers in their 
 own land, it appears that no more than one-third of them could 
 be recognised by name as Irish, and among these in some 
 instances the " O " was dropped, or the name of a town was 
 taken. Two-thirds of the names, however, have been given 
 an English or Norman form. Other proofs of this customary 
 change of names may be found in this appendix, note to 
 page 182, where men with English or Norman names were 
 claimed as Irish villeins, and had to prove their foreign 
 birth. The dropping of the Irish name under pressure of 
 soldiers or officials or proclamations of outlawry, was older than 
 the statute of Edward IV., and marked the whole course of 
 English domination. See Emmet. Irel. under Eng. Rule, ii. 211. 
 
 A certain number of settled Norman and Danish families, 
 during a limited time, and in certain districts, took Irish names ; 
 but their origin was never forgotten. It seems unlikely that a 
 single one of these was ever so merged as to become counted 
 among the original Irish septs. This very limited dropping of 
 English names cannot be compared to the permanent extinction 
 of Irish names, which continued for many centuries, and happened 
 all over the country, and where the definite purpose was to hide a 
 descent which would impede the career of merchants, traders, 
 clerks, or those that wanted to receive a holding on their ancient 
 lands. It is evident that in the towns there must have been 
 numbers of Irishmen under alien names, whose activity and 
 enterprise is claimed to the credit of the English. 
 
 P. 140, n. 2. In 1550 it was ordered by Edward vi. that all 
 havens and ports were to be got into the king's hands ; and 
 that the commodities of the realm were not to be transported. 
 Egerton, 2,790, Br. Mus. In 1 566 George Lodge was appointed 
 to stop the illegal export of merchandise from Ireland, with 
 power to search all vessels in ports of Dublin, Drogheda, 
 Dundalk, Carlingford, Wexford, Waterford, Dongarvan, Gal- 
 waye, Youghall, Corke, Lymericke and Kynsale. Wares and 
 merchandises prohibited to be exported were : wheat, beef, 
 lard, bacon, butter, tallow, wax, wool, flocks, tanned leather, 
 hawks, hobbies, horses, gold and silver, coined and uncoined. 
 These had been exported by various merchants "only for 
 theire pryvate gayne without consid° of the ordinnances and to 
 
532 
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 the hindrance of provisioning of forts, &c., in Ireland." ' Fiants,' 
 Elizabeth, 17 June, 1566. In 1567 Sidney complained that the 
 Spaniards not only carried away fish " but also each thing else 
 of any price which your country here breedeth as hide, tallow, 
 fell, wool, and floxe, flesh, and yam. All which were wont to 
 be sold at the forenamed towns ; and thereby they were main- 
 tained and enriched ; and now, for want of the same, not a 
 little impaired, and the people thereof enforced, for the main- 
 tenance of that little trade which is left with them, to use the 
 same for ready money. Whereby all the treasure your Highness 
 sendeth, is used out of this realm ; and so will it be, though 
 your Majesty sent as much as England breedeth. This mischief 
 is no way to be helped, but by ministering of justice, and planting 
 some civil people upon those barbarous places." Sid. Let. 24. 
 In 1 568 there was a group of English settlers " who mind to be 
 suitors to the Queen for the fishing of the south and south-west 
 seas of Ireland, and enjoying of certain havens, islands, and 
 castles, and the incorporation of the town of Baltimore." C.S.P. 
 
 399- 
 
 P. 145 n. I. It had been already ordered in 1326 that the 
 commonalty — that is all who spent less than £^0 a year— of 
 England, Ireland, and Wales should use no cloth but cloth 
 made in England, Ireland, and Wales. Berry, Stat. 319. 
 
 P. 146, n. 2. These licenses were very frequent — e.g. license 
 to John Travers, to export within 7 years 33 sacks of wool to 
 ports of Weschester, Lyrpole, and Brystow in England. Reports 
 of D. Keeper of Pub. Rec. Fiants, Henry viii. 15 June, 1534. 
 License to Richard Forster to transport annually for 6 years 200 
 stones of wool from Ireland to any port in England. lb. 20. 
 April, 1537. 
 
 P. 148, n. I. By the end of Elizabeth's reign the cloth 
 trade seems to have been reduced to the rougher manufactures. 
 " They shear the sheep twice a year and of the coarse wool 
 make Irish rugs and mantles which are carried into foreign 
 parts." . . . Camden, Britannia (1594) ii. p. 131 2. 
 
 P. 153, n. I. The complaint of the Irish woolgrowers against 
 
 the staplers. 1619. MSS. Br. Mus. Add. 34,324, fo. 23. 
 
 The facte that the staplers forbeareth all manufacturers there; 
 
 Walter White maketh a monopoly, whilst none may buy 
 
 but they transport the same into forraine partes, at every 
 
 passage, and some into England to the factor's owne 
 
 profit. 
 
 The staplers employ not their owne stock there, but use by 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 533 
 
 bills of exchange to take the custom money to the great 
 hindrance of the countrey people, and procuring great 
 want of money in Ireland, 
 They cause the woolgrowers to sell at unreasonable low 
 rates and prises, so as the country are thereby undone, as 
 XI.* a stone . . . whereas the like was sold in England 
 forXIX.". . . 
 By reason of these prises, men omit nourishing of sheep 
 there and are enforced to . . . laid their wolls into boates 
 and other vessels to transport them to forraine partes, and 
 let theire pastures for plowing, and arrable at easie rates 
 . . . they want the good wooU growing from English 
 sheep, and discourage the newe undertakers. 
 Informed, that when the custome of the cloth was the 
 last yere 47,000 lib:, this yere it came but to 17,000 lib:, 
 or thereabouts. 
 There are complaints of 1641 which give the reasons for the 
 Irish dissatisfaction. 
 
 "All the trading, traffic, shipping, and riches of this whole 
 isle, by the corruption of the state, are engrossed by the Dutch, 
 Scottish, and English, not residing here, who exclude the 
 natives wholly from the same ; and who return the product, and 
 all their stock and coin back unto their native countries. 
 
 " All the staple and rich commodities of the realm are turned 
 to monopolies, and heavy impositions against law laid on all 
 merchandise. 
 
 " The principal native wares of the land exported into foreign 
 parts, unwrought and unmanufactured, thereby depriving the 
 kingdom of all manual trades and occupations ; and driving 
 the natives to furnish themselves from head to foot, with manu- 
 factures from abroad, at very dear rates." Or again 
 
 "That though this isle doth abound with more native mer- 
 chantable commodities, and export to other extern countries, a 
 larger proportion thereof yearly, than any one of your majesty's 
 dominions, and commonly double as much as it doth import 
 hither from foreign parts, which, in all presumption, ought to 
 make it exceed in wealth ; yet is it in that deplorable state at 
 this present, that our nobility and gentry are not able to support 
 their calling, nor scarce subsist ; and such is the general scarcity 
 of money throughout this land, that tenants cannot pay easy 
 rents, nor creditors be satisfied of any part of their debts ; all 
 trade and traffic within this land quite destroyed, and the king- 
 dom reduced to a more deplorable estate than ever it was in 
 
534 
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 man's memory, which hath its offspring chiefly from these 
 heads." Lodge, Desiderata Curiosa Hibernica, ii. 79, 94, etc. 
 
 P. 154, n. 2. In 1251 there were mints in Dublin, Limerick 
 and Carrickfergus. Cal. Doc. Sweetman, i. 3,201 ; in 1282 in 
 Dublin, Waterford and Roscommon. lb. ii. 1,930. 
 
 Stephen, bishop of Waterford 1273- 1 286, built houses for a 
 mint, and coined a new money called Scalding, Bishop's money, 
 or Stcphening. lb. iii. p. 7-8. 
 
 In August, 1284, Nicholas MacMolissa, the vigorous patriot 
 archbishop of Armagh, was accused amongst other nationalist 
 tendencies, that he coined money against the king's crown and 
 that he has a stamp or stamps. He seems to have been con- 
 cerned in large mercantile transactions. lb. ii. 2,274. In 
 September there was an ordinance to proclaim through all 
 the mercantile towns that no money should be used save the 
 king's coinage of England, Ireland or Scotland. lb. No. 2,280. 
 
 German merchants brought false money, 1299. Berry, Stat. 
 213. The king sent his writ . . . although the king in his 
 council ordained that no one, under penalty, should bring into 
 the kingdom money called Pollard and Crocard, yet it does not 
 appear, whether the money should run in his kingdom, or his 
 land of Ireland, until otherwise ordained ; command to permit 
 the burgesses and merchants of Bristol authorised under seal of 
 the constable of the castle there, to come to Ireland and trade 
 with such money until otherwise ordered. Cal. Justic. Rolls. 
 Oct 29, 1299. In 1300 Drogheda paid dear for buying mer- 
 chandise with forbidden money. Berry, Stat. 231. Alexander 
 Norman of Lucca was commissioned to make money of a 
 certain standard. 1302, 21, Pipe Roll, xxx. Ed. i. In 1308 
 Edward 11. ordered that the money of England and Scotland 
 should be used in Ireland, and that no goods or victuals were 
 henceforth to be sold or bought beyond their true value by 
 reason of those moneys at a dearer price than they were wont 
 to be. Berry, Stat. 245, 251. In 1310 a parliament was sum- 
 moned at Kilkenny to enquire into the reason of the excessive 
 increase of price of all things saleable. The reasons given by 
 the council were that those of great lineage robbed the merchants 
 passing through the country, or kept them for ransom, or bought, 
 as well in towns as in the woods, bread, wine, beer, flesh, and 
 other victuals and things saleable wherever they be without 
 making reasonable payment. lb. 259-69. This seems to indi- 
 cate some conflict with the Irish as to accepting English 
 money. 
 
APPENDIX 535 
 
 p. 154, n. 3. Thady O'Roddy, a great collector of antiquities 
 in the seventeenth century, wrote : " I have seen and had several 
 pieces of silver coin for our Irish kings and princes, with their 
 names, but have none now in hand, and am in hopes to get 
 some of the coin very soon. For our last Irish monarch, Roderick 
 O'Connor (in whose reign Hen. the 2nd came into Ireland), had 
 silver and gold coined for him at Clonmacnois and so had his 
 father, Tordelvachus O'Connor, King of Ireland, and several of 
 our kings, as our records attest." Misc. Ir. Arch. Soc. 1846, 
 i. 115, 122. The first authentic coin is that of Sihtric, 989. The 
 Hiberno-Danish coins in the Dublin Museum range from 989 to 
 1029. 
 
 P. 155, n. 4. In 1421 the king's lieges had prayed for a coinage 
 within your land of Ireland as was done within your kingdom of 
 England. Berry's Stat. 565. 
 
 P. i6i, n. 6. The merchants of Galway as far as they could 
 rejected the base coinage, as may be seen in the mortgage trans- 
 actions, etc., given in Blake Rec. i. pp. 61, 68, 98, 105, iii, 117, 
 120, 128-9, '33) 134 ; ii- 22. Some of these deeds show how 
 largely Spanish money was used in Galway in the sixteenth 
 century. In 1558 a payment was made partly in marks of 
 " Dominus Hibemiae" groats, partly in marks sterling. lb. i. 
 103. 
 
 P. 169, n. I. The fortifying of towns seems to hav^e been the 
 policy encouraged by the central government. Many towns 
 remained unwalled. Ir. Stat. 1458. The townsmen were unwill- 
 ing to spend their money. Cal. Doc. Sweetman, iii. 986. Water- 
 ford was to be walled in 1234, and again in 1243. lb. iii. 2,133, 
 2,613 '• it seems to have put up some wooden defences, which 
 were twice burned down before 1290. lb. p. 309. Limerick 
 was to be enclosed in 1237, but the citizens grudged their money 
 for it. lb. i. 2,405. Drogheda was to be walled in 1243, ib. i. 
 2,614; and again in 1278, ib. ii. 1,517. In 1266 Kilkenny was to 
 be walled. Ib. ii. No. 796. This was apparently not yet done 
 in 1282. Ib. Nos. 1,913, 2,136. Dublin in 1278. Ib. Nos. 1,465, 
 2,181. The Cork walls were to be improved in 1284, but the 
 citizens seemed to prefer improving the port and bridges. Ib. 
 ii. 2,247, 2,248. In 1286 Tralee, Mallow, and Ard, were ordered 
 to be walled. Ib. iii. No. 226. Trim was to be enclosed in 
 1289. Ib. iii. 560. In 1291 Fethard was to be enclosed. Ib. 
 iii. 1,015. 
 
 P- 169, n. 3. In 1360 it was to be publicly proclaimed in the 
 towns that no mere Irishman of the Irish race should be made 
 
536 
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 mayor, bailiff, janitor, or other official or officer in any place 
 subject to the king. Berry, Stat. 420. 
 
 In 1280 "The Irish had humbly prayed the king that he 
 would of his grace grant to them that they might use and enjoy 
 in Ireland the same laws and customs as the English, and that 
 they might in future be governed by those laws and customs. 
 The king being unwilling to comply without the consent of the 
 archbishops, etc., commands them to meet on days to be 
 appointed before the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin (Sept. 8), 
 at some convenient place, and there diligently to debate whether 
 or not the king can, without prejudice to themselves, their 
 liberties and customs, make this concession." Cal. Doc. Sweet- 
 man, ii. 1,681. The prohibition to use English law had the 
 effect of barring out the Irish from the town courts, and rights 
 of burgesses ; and of hindering their inheritance of land. The 
 petition of an Irish woman (1289) to inherit from her English 
 husband by English law was adjourned. The king was to take 
 counsel. Cal. Doc. Sweetman, iii. p. 252. 
 
 P. 169, n. 4. In 1293 Philip Wodeloc of Drogheda was fined 
 114s. for cows bought of felons, a word commonly used of Irish- 
 men. Cal. Doc. Sweetman, iv. p. 13. Carrok and Thomas 
 Glygry bought salt, wine and other things at Dublin for felons 
 and sold to them. Cal. Just. Rolls, July 21, 1297. In 1310 it 
 was ordered that no one should supply victuals or aid to any 
 openly against the king's peace. Berry, Stat. 271. Richard 11. 
 in 1394 ordered that "no liege subject of ours, of whatever 
 estate or condition he be, give, sell, send, bring or lend to any 
 Irishman, not abiding among our English lieges, any corn, malt, 
 bread, wine, ale, salt, iron, horses, armour, or other necessaries 
 whatsoever." lb. 499. 
 
 In 1366 the statute of Kilkenny ordered "for the better 
 maintaining of the peace and doing right, as well to the 
 Irish enemies being at peace as to the English, it is ordained 
 and established, that if any Irish, being at peace, by bargain or 
 purchase of merchandise, or in any other manner, become 
 debtor to English or Irish, being at peace, that for such cause 
 no other Irish person with him, under him, or in subjection to 
 him, or his goods, be seized or attached for such debt, if he be 
 not pledge for the same debt ; but that his recovery be against 
 the principal debtor, as the law requires, and be he well advised to 
 give his merchandises to such person as he can have recovery 
 from." lb. 443. In these last words we may see a possible 
 reason for forbidding trade with Irishmen owing to the difficulty 
 
APPENDIX 537 
 
 af the English seller to recover except by Irish law, which it was 
 now forbidden to every settler to recognise in any way. 
 
 P. 170, n. 3. In 1310 men "of great lineage," a term used at 
 that time of Irish chieftains. Berry, Stat. 313, were buy.ng 
 all kinds of goods " as well in towns as in the woods. " lb. 265. 
 In 1403 New Ross petitioned for license to sell to the Irish as 
 " they have no other means of living but in the buying from and 
 selling to the aforesaid commons victuals and other small neces- 
 sary articles, to prevent their malice and ill-will." They were 
 also permitted to pay 10 marks yearly to Art MacMurrough, 
 captain of his nation. Hore's Old and New Ross, 217. (He 
 had a castle at Old Ross. lb. 223. Art and the Chief Brehon 
 of Leinster were said to have been poisoned there, 1416. lb. 223.) 
 In 1525 complaints were made against New Ross "that the 
 inhabitants of the aforesaid town did retail with Irishmen, and 
 sell them their tillery, as well in war as in peace, and did keep 
 out Englishmen to be murdered of the enemy " : and that they 
 closed the gates of the town against gentlemen of the country 
 pursued by the Irish. lb. 233. 
 
 P. 171, n. I. Dominick Lynch of Galway had relations with 72 
 religious houses. Misc. Irish Arch. Soc. 1846, i. 52. 
 
 P. 173, n. 3. In 1297 a statute proclaimed : " Englishmen also 
 as degenerate in modern times, attire themselves in Irish 
 garments and having tlieir heads half shaven, grow and extend 
 the hairs from the back of the head and call them Culan, con- 
 forming themselves to the Irish as well in garb as in counten- 
 ance." It was ordered that "all Englishmen in this land wear, 
 at least in that part of the head which presents itself most 
 to view, the mode and tonsure of Englishmen, no longer presume 
 to turn their hair in the Culan, which if they shall do" the 
 officers of the law should " compel those Englishmen by their 
 lands and chattels, and also, if it shall be necessary, by arrest of 
 their body and imprisonment, to relinquish the Irish dress, at 
 least in the head or hair, and that there be no fiirther answer 
 made to an Englishman having his head transformed in the 
 fashion of an Irishman than would be made to an Irishman if he 
 should complain in the like case." Berry, Stat. 211. Marriages 
 with Irish women were frequent from the first coming of the 
 Normans. In 1351 a statute declared that heretofore by reason 
 of strifes made between English and English, they have used to 
 be governed by the law of the March and the Brehon law, and 
 not by the law of the land. lb. 389. 
 
 P. 176, n. 3. A roll of 70 names still exists of the merchants of 
 
538 
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 the new Anglo-Norman Dublin. The names are partly Latinised 
 and partly a mixed Anglo-Norman or Early English. Physicians, 
 apothecaries, spicers and goldsmiths are registered, and men of 
 almost every craft or trade from various parts of England, 
 Ireland {i.e. Derry, Trim, Cork and Naas), Scotland, Wales, 
 France, Brabant and Flanders, c. 1 172. Fac. Nat. MSS. Plate Ixiv. 
 
 P. 178, n. 5. Donnybrook fair seems to have been older than 
 the time of John, and to have been held on S. Patrick's day. 
 John, 1200 and 1214, gave a grant to the Dublin citizens for a 
 fair at Donnybrook at the Finding of the Holy Cross, May 3rd. 
 Gilbert, Hist, and Mun. Doc. 62. In 1225 the archbishop (who 
 had a right to two days of the fair) was granted till the majority 
 of Henry in. thtfair he was wont to have on S. Patrick's day, 
 Sweetman Cal. Doc. i. 1351, the day being thus changed back 
 again from the Finding of the Cross. lb. 1354. In 1252 Henry 
 altered the date once again, now making it the Translation of 
 S. Thomas the Martyr, July 7, ib. ii. 40 — a festival which he had 
 in 1240 ordered to be celebrated with great pomp in Dublin. Ib. 
 i. 2497. Edward again altered it in 1280 to the Translation of 
 S. Benedict the Abbot, July 11. Ib. ii. 1684. These constant 
 changes seem to indicate a restlessness among the people after 
 the old date of their fair was changed. Possibly the opening of 
 the city to all comers on S. Patrick's day was a relic of the old 
 fair which the government dared not suppress. 
 
 P. 180, n. 3. The church of Gal way was dedicated to S. 
 Nicholas, bishop of Myra in Licia, and on his feast, Dec. 6th, 
 the Galway men invited to their table those who were to keep 
 Christmas with them. After the law of 1518 that the Irish septs 
 were not to be invited at Christmas time, it was the custom for 
 any of the Burkes, MacWilliams, or Kellys who found himself 
 uninvited to dinner to appear abroad in his boots and spurs, on 
 which the invitation was given him. Was this a convenient 
 fiction by which the loyal Galway men could urge that they were 
 compelled by superior force } O'Flaherty, lar Connacht, p. 35. 
 And was it against this custom that in 1 593 weapons were for- 
 bidden to country people coming into the town? H.M.C. Rep. 
 X. App. V. 454. 
 
 P. 183, n. 4. There were very early attempts to oppress the 
 ■'English bom in Ireland. In 1280 Stephen Brandon had to get 
 a testimony from the king that though born in Ireland he was 
 purely English and should enjoy English customs. Cal. Doc. 
 Sweetman, ii. 1658. In 1282 John Fitz Nigel was claimed by 
 Thomas de Clare as his Irish villein ; by the king's order an 
 
APPENDIX 539 
 
 inquisition was held which proved him English by origin and a 
 free man, his grandfather having been born at Lichfield. lb. ii. 
 No. 1,946. In 1284 Thomas Wade, burgess of Carlow, had also 
 to get an inquisition from the king that he was not of the race of 
 the Irish but a pure Englishman. lb. ii. 2,183. The notable 
 and manifest division between those who were English by birth 
 or by blood seems to have begun in 1341 with the revocation 
 by Edward III. of all grants that he and his father had made in 
 Ireland. Lib. Mun. Hib. I. iv. p. 30. In 1357 the Justiciar was 
 ordered to enquire into discussions between the English born in 
 England and those born in Ireland. Berry, Stat. 417. In 1366 
 it was again ordered that " no difference of allegiance henceforth 
 be made between the English bom in Ireland and the English 
 born in England by calling them English hobbe, or Irish dog, 
 but that all be called by one name, the English lieges of our lord 
 the king." lb. 437. Whether there were enough new incomers of 
 English birth in 1532 to make such a rule necessary in Gal way 
 (or in 1384 in Waterford) I cannot say, but it seems unlikely. It 
 is at least possible that in the common use of ordinary people the 
 phrase ultimately came to fit the facts, and was used to forbid 
 quarrels and defamations between men of pure English descent 
 and of Irish blood. If the rule took this wider meaning in 
 Galway, and perhaps in Waterford, it shows more fusion of the 
 races than the authors of the Statute of Kilkenny contemplated 
 or desired. 
 
 P. 185, n. I. The MacDavids, a branch of the Burkes, were 
 descended from Nuala, daughter of O'Finaghty. 4 M. a. 1225, 
 p. 237 n. 
 
 P. 186, n. 4. Blake Rec. i. 16-49, S6-59, 64, 67, 84, 92, 124, etc. 
 In 1449 Manus McDonagh, "an original Irishman," had a 
 grant of the customs of Galway and Sligo from Henry vi., and 
 paid forty marks yearly for the grant. lb. i. 33 ; lar Connacht, 
 205. Considerable trade dealings with the Irish appear in the 
 wills of John Oge Blake, 1420, of his grandson John Blake, 
 1468, and of the latter's son Valentine Blake, 1499. Blake Rec. 
 '• 18, 39, 47 ; lar Connacht, 198-209. 
 
 In the Blake Records, i. 13-64, we meet with Irish ofRcials, 
 burgesses, and clergy : such as Nicholas O'Lachnan bailiff of 
 Athenry (1384), O'Kyerryke burgess of Athenry (1439), O'Tyer- 
 nay bailiff of Galway, and O'Buoyd and O'Flannagayn tribunes 
 (•443)) Curragh bailiff of Dublin (1444), Tyemay bailiff of 
 Galway and MacCurke tribune (1444), Manus McDonagh 
 keeper of the customs (1449), O'Lachnayn, O'Kermayg, O'Mul- 
 
540 APPENDIX 
 
 braynan, burgesses of Athenry (145 1), O'Muloghane, arbitratot 
 at Athenry (1452), O'Kyrmec, umpire at Athenry (1457), O'Tyer- 
 nay, vicar of Galway (1468), O'Nellayn, clerk and notary of 
 Kilmacduagh (1482), Kafify, clerk and notary of Enaghdune 
 (1488), Magrath, bishop, Dermot Cluayn public notary at 
 Athenry (1507), and Nicholas O'Cunnil and Dermot O'Laene 
 tribunes (1527), Morony notary of Galway (1528), etc. (Athenry 
 was very Irish at this time. Cf. ib. 33.) 
 
 The few deeds preserved in these Records give a great 
 number of Irish names, McGrasa, O'Gillayn, MagMalayn, 
 O'Kyrvayn, O'Haygayn, McKynnamuyn, McSeayn Glays, 
 O'Lorchayn, O'Conyll, O'Kyervyke, O'Tyernay, O'Laghnan, 
 Denys Ruaiie, O'Braeyn, Denis McGyllonach, Fergus McCar- 
 roll, Thudeus Mackenaeld, Thadeus O'Daegeayn, Denis 
 McGillonanath, O'Maellagayn, Cateline ny Curke, McHyre, 
 O'Hylane, O'Myny, Katerine y'Keally, McElyre, McMoriertha, 
 O'Guny, McDonogh, O'Donna, Olanthe Dermitio, Magrath, 
 bishop, O'Cathayl, O'Lunisse, O'Ruarc, Tayg, O'Keryn, 
 McFolan, O'Mongan, O'Longan, Gallarywagh, O'Fyn, McShanyn, 
 O'Gorman, Dermot O'Clowayn, McGyllanahyn, Redmond Rea- 
 wagh, McFarranta of the Wood, McDowyll, Rory Duff, O'Dun- 
 nayn, O'Culeayn, O'Growne, O'Kermac, O'Donnachayd, O'Nolyn, 
 McGnell, etc. 
 
 In an inquisition as to S. Nicholas Church in 1609 the names 
 of 24 jurymen are given. Twelve are of the families of Lynch, 
 Brown, Curwen, Blake, Bodkin, Martin, and Athy. The other 
 twelve are Martin Bige, merchant ; Teig Ballaghe, shoemaker ; 
 Gillepatricke mc Coghlane, weaver ; Dermott mc ffollane, brog- 
 makere ; Willm O Many, cottner ; Walter Shoy, tailor ; 
 Nicholas Nolane, goldsmith; Muriertagh Mc I nylley, glover ; 
 Donnell O'MoUhane, cooper ; Connor Duffe, fisherman ; Davy 
 O'Ffodaghe, boatman ; Loughlin, fresh-water fisherman ; 
 O'Flaherty, lar Connacht, p. 237, 240. In the list of dues 
 from traders to the church given on p. 238-40 other Irish 
 names appear as masters of trades, etc. 
 
 P. 188, n. 5. See Blake Records, 37, n. 56, for debts claimed 
 by John Blake from the hamlets of Na Lachreach and Nicobru 
 in 1462. See his bequest of lands to the community of the 
 hamlet of Lachreagh. Ib. p. 40. And land mortgaged to Patrick 
 O'Cathayl. Ib. 49. 
 
 The will of Wadinus Blake (ib. 46), gives instances of buying 
 linen cloth and hides from Irishmen. See also will of Geoffrey 
 French. Ib. 65. 
 
APPENDIX 541 
 
 An instance of a Galway merchant's trade with the Irish 
 appears in ib. i. p. 38. Mr. Martin Blake has kindly sent me a 
 transcript of the original, and some notes. 
 
 " Eandem quam corpori nostro, Johanni Blac et Juliane 
 Frenshe salutem in eo qui est salus omnium et scire dignemini, 
 Quod nos hac vice sumus occupati, quominus vos visitare potui ; 
 Idcoque vos rogamus quatenus venientes cum vino vestro ad 
 villam nostram do Roscoman, quia ibi omnia vestra mercimonia 
 comode vendere potestis ; et si velis quod ego ibo, in ocursum 
 vestrum scripbatis mihi, cum latore presencium certum diem ; 
 et ego cum festinacione transibo, et vestra lintiamina in quibus 
 vobis teneor habeo in servatu, exspectando ad . . . vestrum et 
 mensuram ; et si non venietis ad villam nostram scripatis nobis 
 certum diem infra quam vobis ponemus, et ita faciemus. Non 
 plus hac vice sed custodiat vos altissimus. Scripta sub testi- 
 monio nostri sigilli quo ad majora utimur." 
 
 The letter is written in fifteenth century hand, with usual 
 contractions, on a strip of vellum. This strip has been cut off 
 after the last word " utimur " ; and thus the portion of the strip 
 bearing the seal, and possibly also the date and name, of the 
 writer is gone. The document bears no endorsement ; which 
 is rather curious, as other documents in this collection ot 
 about the same period, bear endorsements written in English 
 in a handwriting of the middle of the seventeenth century. 
 The letter must have been written before A.D. 1468, probably 
 between A.D. 145 1 and 1467. The last words indicate a person 
 of importance. He speaks of "our town of Roscommon": 
 Roscommon was altogether Irish, held by the O'Conors. 
 
 P. 193, n. I. The claim of English merchants for free trade in 
 Ireland practically dated from "the Conquest." See petition 
 heard of the burgesses of Donenic in England, that they be 
 quit of customs of their merchandise in this land, according to 
 their charters, transcript of which under their common seal they 
 bring. Cal. Justic. Rolls, June 21, 1299. See Gilbert's Hist, 
 and Mun. Doc. pp. 82, 136, for the roll of the Dublin Guild 
 Merchant in 1226 and 1256. There are 224 names in the first 
 list, 205 in the second. A number of English towns are 
 represented. 
 
 P. 195, n. 4. In 1358 the Dublin merchants represented to the 
 king that owing to the dangers of the harbour of the city of 
 Dublin, no large ship laden with cargo will venture thither, and 
 that consequently merchants have usually sold their goods on 
 shipboard within a distance of six leagues of the city. The king 
 
542 APPENDIX 
 
 allowed shipmasters and mariners to anchor in the sea within 
 the port, and make sales from there. Cal. Dub. Rec. i. 19. Had 
 this any connexion with allowing wool to be exported from 
 Waterford in 1353, v. Hans. Ur. B. iii. 571 ? 
 
 I give some of the licenses to trade. 
 
 Act of Council of certain merchants of the city of 
 Dublin that Hamone Brysarte, Bartarm Jongcs, and Charles 
 Eustace of Saint Mallowes, in Brytayne, and Francis Barnarde 
 of Conquete, merchants of the French King, and their factors, 
 may enter the port of Dublin with their ships and goods for the 
 necessary furniture of the realm. Cal. Patent Rolls, Irel. Oct. 
 26, 1549. License to Walter Pippard of the city of Dublin and 
 James Dover, of the city of Waterford, to import 1,000 hogsheads 
 of wine, 400 weys of salt, and four hundred tons of iron into the 
 ports of Wexford, Waterford, Dublin, Drogheda, Dundalk and 
 Carlingford, lb. i. 374, 1556-7. License to John Challoner, 
 Thady Duffe, John Nagle, and John Usher, citizens and 
 merchants of Dublin, to import by themselves or their factors in 
 their ships or galleys a thousand hogsheads of wine, 400 weys 
 of salt and 400 tons of iron before the Feast of the Purification, 
 1559, into the ports of Wexford, Dublin, Drogheda and Dundalk ; 
 that the merchants, whether French or others, should remain in 
 safe conduct and special protection with their wares in passing 
 and repassing, and might take and export out of Ireland wares 
 and commodities to the value of the merchandise and victuals 
 imported. lb. i. 374, 1556-7. License to Thady Duff, Richard 
 Fyan, Patrick Sarsfield, Christopher Sedgrave, William Hand- 
 cock, and Patrick Gough, merchants of Dublin, to import 
 1,000 hogsheads of wine, four hundred weighs of salt, 1,000 
 "doles" of iron, and merchandise, for three years, in the ports 
 of Wexford, Dublin, Drogheda and Dundalk, and not elsewhere, 
 lb. i. 414, 1558-9. License to Gabriel Galvani, merchant of 
 Arguza ... to import 100 tons of wine, 200 tons of salt, 200 
 tons of iron, spicery, grocery, linen drapery, within one year to 
 the ports of Dublin, Waterford, Drogheda and Dundalk, and 
 to take return cargoes not exceeding the value of the goods 
 brought. lb. i. 415, 1558-9. (See also Fiants of Elizabeth, 
 27 Feb. 1559: several licenses to merchants as above "on 
 account of the war with France.") License for William Forster 
 of Dublin, merchant, to trade with Scotland, paying the usual 
 customs. lb. i. 446, 1560. License to John Gardiner or bearer 
 to take up and provide in any town, haven, or creek in Ireland, 
 100 tuns of Gascony wine or sack, and convenient ships, boats, 
 
APPENDIX 543 
 
 and lighters, mariners and pilots, for the safe and speedy 
 conveyance thereof, as well by sea as by land, to the city of 
 Dublin ; at such reasonable price as hath been accustomed, 
 lb. i. 474, 1562. License to Arsbalde Laughlin otherwise Lill, 
 of Arselott, and Edward Larken of Skerries to pass and trade 
 freely with their goods into Scotland and to purchase there 
 100 tuns of wine, 200 weys of salt, a hundred tons of iron and 
 the value of ;^ioo sterling fish, victuals, and other necessaries to 
 be imported in Scottish vessels and by Scottish mariners to the 
 havens of Carlingford, Dundalk, Drogheda, Dublin, Wexford, 
 Waterford or Ross ; and to export wares and commodities to 
 the value of the merchandise and victuals brought from Scotland. 
 No date. lb. i. 374. License to Robert Birssaile to trade with 
 Scotland with his servants and to purchase 100 tuns of wine, 
 100 weys of salt, 100 tons of iron, and the value of one hundred 
 pounds of fish, victuals and other necessaries to be imported 
 into the havens of Waterford, Carlingford, Dundalk, Drogheda, 
 Dublin, Wexford, or Ross, and to export wares and commodities 
 to the value of the merchandise brought from Scotland. lb. i. 375. 
 No date. 
 
 P. 204, n. I. In the conflict of 1388 the burgesses were led by 
 Henry Blake, burgess. The matter was to them evidently a legal 
 question ; they reserved the cokket alone for the king. All 
 other profits were held to belong to de Burgo. (Henry Blake was 
 pardoned by Richard II. 1395.) Blake Rec. i. 136-7. In this same 
 year 1388, Nicholas Kent agreed with some merchants of Bristol 
 to fit out a predatory expedition against the to^vn. But 
 the king's leave was necessary, and "a license to make war 
 against the Irish enemies " dated 1400 was obtained on promise 
 made not to make war against the faithful Irish, but against 
 rebels and enemies, that is Anglo-Irish and Irish. 
 
 P. 206, n. I. In 1525 the King granted to Robert Cowley, of 
 Dublin, merchant, the lastage of hides, commonly called the 
 fees of the town of Galway ; being two shillings sterling money 
 for every last (twelve dozen) of hides, in every ship within the 
 port of Galway, and the bays and creeks thereof, for a term of 
 30 years, theretofore held by Stephen Lynch Fitz-Dominick. 
 Hard. Galway, 77. Fiants of H. viii. 22 Feb. 1525-6. For 
 Crown grants of fisheries in Galway, see Blake Rec. i. 13, 14. 
 The ordinances of Galway in the sixteenth century should be 
 studied in relation to the king's action there. 
 
 V- 215, n. 2. For the ruin of Limerick at this time, cf. p. 229. 
 For mdications of its trade before Elizabeth's time, see charter 
 
544 APPENDIX 
 
 of Limerick ; confirming the charter of King John. Cal. Patent 
 Rolls, Irel. i. 271, 1552. John de Whyte citizen of Limerick v. 
 I'eter Hereward of the same. Peter should have brought a ship 
 of John's to Dertemuth in England, to carry thence salt. Peter 
 by his temerity brought the ship to the Galuy in Ireland, and 
 remained there for 7 weeks at the costs of John. Cal. Justic. 
 Rolls, Feb. 3, 1297. In 1556 7 license to Stephen White and 
 Nicholas White of Limerick to import 600 hogsheads of wine, 
 400 weys of salt, 40 hogsheads of honey and 20 hogsheads of 
 dry wares. In 1557-8 license to William Stritch FitzNicholas 
 and James Stritch FitzNicholas of Limerick, merchants, to 
 trade with the French, British, Scotch, or other foreigners for 
 salt, wine and iron. In 1559 order of the Lord Deputy and 
 Council directing seizure of two French ships, which arrived at 
 Limerick, laden with wines and military stores, in contravention 
 of a license which they had obtained to trade when peaceful 
 relations were interrupted between England and France, 1556-8. 
 Cal. Pat. Rolls, i. 374, 389, 427. 
 
 P. 218, n. 3. Waterford, like Galway, bought hides and cloth 
 throughout the neighbouring counties — Waterford, Kilkenny, 
 Tipperary, Wexford, and Carlow. H.M.C. Rep. x. App. v. 318. 
 Like the Cahvay merchants also the Waterford men went to 
 live outside the walls of the city, and even in the fifteenth 
 century were used to make their "continual residence" in the 
 country. A law was passed in 1480 that their continual residence 
 and principal resort should be within the city, at the discretion 
 of the Mayor and council. lb. 315. 
 
 P. 220, n. I. The rule that a man of Irish race must have his 
 " liberty of the king " before he was made freeman of a city does 
 not imply distrust or hostility of the towns to the Irish. By 
 English law Irishmen, unless enfranchised by special charters, 
 were not admitted to the benefit and protection of the laws of 
 England ; and they were therefore disabled from bringing 
 actions in court, and so far out of the protection of the law that 
 it was often adjudged no felony to kill a " mere Irishman " in 
 time of peace. " The killing of Englishmen and of Irishmen 
 requires different modes of punishment," says a statute of 1297. 
 lb. 211. V. Davies' Discovery, 77-101 ; Waterford Ordinances, 
 H.M.C. Rep. X. App. v. 308. By the rules of Waterford, as 
 distinguished from the laws of the English Government, the 
 slaying of a man, English or Irish, was punished under the same 
 law. lb. 306-7 ; and all pleas were tried in the same court. It was 
 thus essential in Waterford and in other towns that every Irish 
 
APPENDIX 545 
 
 citizen snould be openly admitted to the use and protection of 
 the common law, to preserve the order of the city and to prevent 
 legal complications. The English government, if we beheve 
 Davies (Discovery, p. 86), intended to make a perpetual 
 separation between English and Irish. The city rulers in Ire- 
 land, on the other hand, united them on terms of complete 
 equality in the courts, a reasonable and friendly relation. In 
 the Exchequer receipts quoted in Cal. Doc. Sweetman, vols. ii. 
 iii. iv. there are names of Irishmen in the towns in the thirteenth 
 century. 
 
 Waterford, like Galway, forbade selling materials for boats to 
 " idle-men " of the country. The city had a large traffic through- 
 out the counties of Waterford, Kilkenny, Tipperary, Wexford, 
 and Carlow, for frieze, timber, and victuals, much of it river- 
 borne. A considerable timber trade in the fifteenth century 
 was carried in boats, the number of men to each boat, and their 
 wages being fixed, and all sworn to be true to the king and the 
 city. (H.M.C. Rep. x. App. v. 296, 299, 325.) No doubt the 
 monopoly of boat traffic was jealously guarded against both 
 Irish and English smugglers. 
 
 P. 238, n. I. The parish in which Rosbrin Castle was situate 
 was, and is, called Schull, from the Irish scoil, ' school.' A school 
 had been established there by O'Mahony's ancestors, as we find 
 the name "Scole" for the parish, in a Bull of Innocent III., 
 in 1 198. 
 
 P. 242, n. 2. The monument in Athlone church runs thus : 
 
 This monument was erected for the Right Worshipfull Sib 
 
 Mathew Renzi knight who departed this 
 Life the both of August : 1634 : beinge of the age of : 57 : years 
 
 BORNE at CULLEN IN GERMANY AND DESCENDANT OF 
 
 That famous and renowned warrior George Castriott als 
 Scanderbeg (who in the Christian warres fought 
 
 52 : battailes with great conquest and honnor against the 
 Great Turke) he was a great traveler 
 
 And genekall linguist and kept correspondence with most 
 nations in many weighty affaires : and in three 
 
 Years gave great pfection to the nation by composeinge a 
 
 GRAMMER dictionary and CHRONICLE IN THE 
 
 Irish tongue and in accompts most expert and exceeding all 
 
 OTHERS to his GREAT APPLAUSE. 
 
 This worke was accomplished by his sonn Mathew de Renzi 
 August the 22 1635. 
 
 P- 242, n. 3. "Brother James of Ireland" was the companion 
 of the Franciscan Odoric, the greatest traveller of his time, who 
 
 2M 
 
546 
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 in 1 3 16-1329 traversed eastern Asia, sailed from Ormuz to 
 Madras, thence to Java and Cochin-China, spent three years in 
 Pekin, and returned by Tibet and Persia. Beazley, Dawn of 
 Modem Geog. iii. 251-287. 
 
 Simon Simeonis, an Irish Franciscan, went to the Levant in 
 1322, stayed in the Massiliot factory in Alexandria on his way 
 to Jerusalem ; he tells about the trade of Massiliots and men of 
 Montpellier, and of the Genoese, Catalans, Venetians, etc., in 
 Egypt in the early fourteenth century, and gives one of the 
 standard accounts of the Italian fondachi in the Levant lb. 
 484, 491. 
 
 A Spanish MS. of the sixteenth century in National Library, 
 Naples, which appears to be copied from an older one, says of 
 the Irish : " The people are simple and very handsome and 
 many of them come to the feasts of S. James ; and their kings' 
 arms are a golden shield with a black lion rampant." Soc. of 
 Ant. 1896, p. 81. 
 
 P. 243, n. 3. See Plato, Hippias Minor, p. 3,688. Hippias illus- 
 trated how the "wise " man should be self-sufficing, not in the sense 
 of a Cynic or Stoic philosopher, but as accomplished as possible 
 in every direction. Thus the wise man should be the maker of 
 his own cloak, tunic, boots, and signet ring, as well as the author 
 of his own peace of mind, and doubtless, like Hippias, he should 
 be famous for his memory and prove if necessary a successful 
 ambassador. David Fitzgerald seems to have been a good 
 parallel to his model. 
 
 P. 244, n. 4. "Panormitanus" refers to Nicholas de Tudeschis, 
 of Palermo, 1370-1443, a Benedictine abbot and a famous writer 
 on canon law. 
 
 P. 255, n. 5. For Morogh O'Leys medical MSS. the "Book 
 of O'Brassil," see O'Flaherty, lar Connacht, p. 70-71. 
 
 Dr. Norman Moore gives an interesting sketch of Celtic 
 medical studies and of the medical clans, in Medicine in the 
 British Isles, 139-153. 
 
 P. 258, n. 2. O'Grady, Cat. 95, notes that the Canon Law is 
 often quoted in the Latin language in Irish law tracts. 
 
 P. 265, n. I. A decree in a suit about land (1504) is given in 
 Blake Records, i. 53. Mr. Martin Blake writes : " The original 
 is in Latin. The subtlety, acute reasoning, and legal knowledge 
 displayed in the pleadings there recorded, indicate a very high 
 standard of culture and training in the lawyers of Athenry and 
 Galway at that period ; they seem to be quite as familiar with 
 the code of Justinian and the doctrine oi patria potestas as with 
 
APPENDIX 547 
 
 the principles of English law respecting ' seizin ' and ' entry '." 
 The document is written and attested by Dermot O'Cluayn, 
 clerk of the diocese and public notary. 
 
 P. 266, n. I. In 1287 Robert de St. Michael was studying law 
 in the King's Bench, Westminster. Cal. Doc. Sweetman, iii. 
 331. In 1290 David O'Curry, clerk, canon of the church of 
 Cork, had license to study for two years in England. lb. iii. 
 719. In 1291 Hugh Hune, remaining by license in England to 
 study. lb. 921. There were a great number of licenses at this 
 time to remain in England, but the reason is seldom given. 
 
 P. 268, n. I. It was proposed in this same year (1410) to enact 
 a law that no Irishman shall henceforth have charter of denizen 
 unless he find sufficient surety in the Chancery beforehand that 
 he shall never after adhere to any Irish enemy in any manner. 
 Berry, Stat. 527. 
 
 P. 268, n. 3. O'Connell, in "Ireland and the Irish," i. 58, 
 quotes an Act of the tenth year of Henry VI., entitled "An Act 
 that every liege man shall take the Irish conversant as espialls 
 amongst the English, and make of them as of the King's 
 enemies " ; whereby it was enacted, That it should be lawful for 
 every liege man, to take all manner of Irish enemies, which in 
 time of peace and truce should come and converse amongst the 
 English lieges, to spie their secresies, force, wayes, and subtil- 
 ties, and to make of them as of the King's enemies. 
 
 P. 271, n. 2. The king's subjects in Ireland presented a 
 grevious complaint to Henry v. in 142 1. "Also your said lieges 
 show that whereas they are ruled and governed by your laws 
 used in your realm of England, to learn which laws and be 
 informed therein, your said lieges have sent to certain inns of 
 court able men of good and gentle family, your English subjects 
 bom in your said land, who have been received there from the 
 time of the conquest of your said land until now lately, when the 
 governors and companies of the said inns would not receive 
 the said persons in the said inns, as they used." Berry, Statutes 
 575- 
 
 Many of the king's lieges went " to reside in England as well 
 at the schools and the universities there, as to learn your common 
 law as apprentices of the Court, divers of these, by your licence 
 given under your great seal of Ireland, and several without your 
 licence, but who maintain sufficient men as their substitutes, yet, 
 notwithstanding this, the said persons who are scholars and 
 absentees outside your said land because of their education, are 
 Harassed and burdened by your officers of your Exchequer of 
 
548 APPENDIX 
 
 Ireland, who take from them two parts of the issues and profits 
 of their lands, rents and tenements, offices and possessions 
 within the said land, as fully as from those who were absentees 
 from the said land without licence, — to the very great hurt of 
 your said poor lieges." lb. 581. There is a list of people from 
 Ireland given licenses to remain in England in 1430. Lib. Man. 
 Hib. I. iv. p. 95. 
 
 P. 276, n. I. In 1385 English rumour went that the Irish were 
 confederate with Spain ; but " at this next season, as is likely, 
 there will be made a conquest of the greater part of the land 
 of Ireland." Berry, Stat. 485. This was the year in which 
 Richard II. bestowed the sovereignty of Ireland on Robert de 
 Vere, who was made Marquis of Dublin and Duke of Ireland, 
 and given by Parliament a vote of money for its conquest. On 
 this occasion Richard and his favourite got no farther than 
 Wales. In 1394 he undertook the second expedition. 
 
 P. 277, n. I. In 1 42 1 the English community complained that 
 Ireland was devastated and destroyed by Irish enemies and 
 English rebels, and will "within a short time be quite utterly 
 ruined and destroyed for ever." They pray that Henry V. will 
 complain to the Pope of the Irish " with a view to having a 
 crusade on that account against the said Irish enemies for the 
 relief and safety of the Irish land . . . and with God's help, to 
 the perpetual overthrow of the said enemies." Berry, Stat. 563, 
 567. 
 
 P. 280, n. I. In 1324 a penalty of fine at the king's will had 
 been for the first time ordained by Parliament against the 
 chieftains of great lineage who did not chastise the robbers and 
 malefactors of their clan. Berry, Stat. 313. 
 
 P. 281, n. I. Add. MSS. Br. Mus. 33, 745, a paper attributed 
 to the pen of the Chancellor Bolton, impeached 1641, gives 
 instances of the mediaeval difficulties as to the statutes passed 
 in England, and whether they were valid in Ireland or not. 
 These legal complications gave considerable advantage to 
 sovereigfns intending to press unlimited rights of conquest and 
 of the royal prerogative in Ireland. 
 
 P. 302, n. I. Some fiirther names of Oxford students have 
 been sent me : 
 
 Geoffi-ey of Waterford, O.P. 
 
 c. 1250. William of Drogheda, who lived at Drawda Hall, 
 High Street. 
 
 1258. John Walsh, Regent of Oxford. 
 
 1 296- 1 304. Duns Scotus, who lectured at Merton. 
 
. APPENDIX 549 
 
 1365. Matthew O'Howen, Lecturer at Oxford. 
 
 1485-1501. William Joy or Joyce, educated at Oxford and 
 Paris ; archbishop of Tuam. Blake Records, i. 48-9. 
 
 Fifteenth cent. Walter Blake, educated at Oxford ; appointed 
 bishop of Clonmacnois by Innocent VIII. 1487 ; nominated by 
 Henry VII. to Tuam ; d. 1508. lb. 58. 
 
 Fifteenth cent. Morough O'Fihely, native of Clonfert, educated 
 at Oxford ; afterwards archbishop of Tuam. lb. 58. 
 
 P. 319, n. 7. This Hugh was the alpha, and his brother Co- 
 conaught the omega of the last rebellion, for Hugh was the first 
 that went out, and himself the last that came in. Hugh was " a 
 valiant rebel and the stoutest that ever was of his name." 
 Davies, 255, 256. 
 
 P. 329, n. I. The oldest known Anglo-Irish poems in English, 
 transcribed in 1308, are a lament for Sir Piers de Bermingham, 
 foe to the Irish, who " rode about with strength to hunt them out 
 as hunter doth the hare " ; and a satirical poem attributed to 
 Friar Michael of Kildare on classes of men and various trades. 
 Fac. Nat. MSS. III. pi. iv. 
 
 The "Secreta Secretorum," written in England for James 
 fourth Earl Ormond, the White Earl, is the earliest known 
 composition of any length in English ; it tells how the Earl's 
 grandfather " slew people in the red moor of Athy " while the 
 sun stood still till the slaughter was done, "and no pity in 
 that moor letting horse nor man in all the slaughter time " ; 
 and how he had slain at AscofFy hundreds of MacMurrough's 
 men. 1419. Fac. Nat. MSS. iii. Compare the comment on 
 the Biblical story in "Fiac's hymn," given in a MS. of the 
 twelve century, as an illustration of the pity or piety that marks 
 the Irish saints. Since the sun stood with Joshua, he says, at 
 the death of the sinful, though he was just, it was more meet 
 that radiance should be at the death of saints. lb. I. pi. xxxiv. 
 
 P. 332, n. 5. There was an epitaph over Ormond's heart at 
 Kilkenny : 
 
 " Cor patriae fixum vivens, iam dedditur iUi 
 Post mortem, patriae quae peracerba venit." 
 
 P- 334> «• I- Richard III. begged James ninth Earl of Desmond 
 to give up Irish dress, and wear the gowns, doublets, hosen, and 
 bonnets he sent him : to marry after Richard's choosing : to 
 maintain order so as to " appear and be named a very justicer" ; 
 and to take the king's livery, a collar of gold. Gilbert, Viceroys, 
 417. 
 
55© APPENDIX 
 
 p. 340, n. 3. Dr. Meyer's translation of the Sea Song of Ruman 
 MacColniain, from a XV. cent. MS., is given in the All Ireland 
 Review, Oct. 4th, 1902. 
 
 P. 342, n. I. Flann [i.e. Florentius] O'Gorman, chief lecturer 
 of Armagh, and of all Ireland, a learned sage, and versed in 
 sacred and profane philosophy, after having spent twenty-one 
 years of study in France and England, and twenty other years 
 in directing and governing the schools of Ireland, died happily 
 on the Wednesday before Easter, in the seventieth year of his 
 age. 4 M. a. 11 74. 
 
 In honour of S. Patrick, Rory O'Connor gave an addition of 
 ten oxen to the annual salary of the professor at Armagh, and 
 confirmed the same from his own successors for ever, on condi- 
 tion that such professor would be bound to receive to his literary 
 lectures all students from Ireland and Albany. Cambr. Ev. 
 ii. 75- 
 
 P. 343, n. 7. The Psalter made for the Friar of Christchurch 
 Cathedral in the fourteenth century is one of the finest of its 
 class that remains in Great Britain or Ireland, the shamrock and 
 Irish interlaced work showing an Irish hand. Fac. Nat. MSS. 
 IV. I. Ixxxiv. 
 
 P. 348, n. 4. Mr. Whitley Stokes gave me the following 
 corrected translation from the Annals of Loch C^ in 1540, which 
 illustrates the reputation of Oxford among the Irish, as 
 well as their pride in their native schools. The annalist 
 writes of a literary congress at the seat of the MacDermots : 
 "The poets and ollavs of Ireland came to the Oxford 
 of the hospitality and wisdom of the province of Connacht, 
 i.e. to the Rock of the smooth flowing Loch C^." Annals, ii. 327. 
 Here Ucsanfport is the Irish form of Oxnaford, now Oxford. 
 The word engnam rendered as " wisdom " might also be trans- 
 lated by " generosity." 
 
 P. 352, n. 4. " They cultivate sacred poetry with great assiduity; 
 they do not undertake to compose verses on sacred subjects, 
 except after fasting and prayer. When important negociations 
 have to be made, the bards are always chosen as the negociators." 
 Moran's Archbishops, p. 91-3. 
 
 P. 364, n. 2. " I, Thady Rody, of Crossefield, in the province of 
 Connacht, and county of Leitrim, Esquire, have as many Irish 
 books of Philosophy, Physic, Poetry, Genealogies, Mathematics, 
 Invasions, Law, Romances, etc., and as ancient as any in Ireland, 
 and so has several others in all parts of the kingdom. My 
 honoured friend, Mr. Roger Flaherty, lost a curious volume of 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 551 
 
 the Mathematics the last war, in Galway, which I lent him, the 
 loss whereof he wonderfully condoles in a letter to me ; that 
 great man's sense of the loss of so rare a piece piercing his noble 
 vitals, for being the instrument thereof, and blaming me in his 
 letter for lending him the book (tho' nothing in the world was 
 more welcome to him than the same, nor more ardently courted) 
 ... I have several volumes that none in the world now can 
 peruse, though within 20 years there lived three or four that 
 could read and understand them all, but left none behind 
 absolutely perfect in all these books, by reason that they lost 
 the estates they had to uphold their public teaching, and that 
 the nobility of the Irish line, who would encourage and support 
 their posterity, lost all their estates too, so that the antiquaries' 
 posterity were forced to follow husbandry, etc., to get their 
 bread, for want of patrons to support them. Honos alit artes." 
 Misc. Ir. Arch. Soc. 1846, i. 123, etc. 
 
 P. 364, n. 3. For the Irish in schools, see Alithinologus 
 (Eudoxius), Lynch. The argument which Lynch is combating 
 is that the towns are becoming infected with heresy. " Deinde 
 fraudulentus accusator adjicit civium zelum minui et mores 
 hereticorum consortio magis depravari quam antiquorum Hiber- 
 norum qui ab illis quo possunt distantius habitant." I.e. — "There- 
 upon the false accuser goes on to say the spirit of the 
 townsmen is being weakened and their character ruined rather 
 by association with the heretics than with the Old Irish who 
 dwell as far away from them {i.e. the townsmen) as they can." 
 To which Lynch answers : " Quod si mores civium adeo depra- 
 vati essent omnis Hiberniae nobilitas tam prisca quam recens 
 liberos suos cum literis tum moribus imbuendos non amandaret." 
 " But if the character of the townsmen were so depraved, then 
 the whole nobility of Ireland, both of the ancient and the newer 
 stock, would not send their children (sons) among them to be 
 instructed both in letters and polite manners." P. 14. In the 
 marginal explanation the author says : " Liberi nobilium urbes 
 erudiendi plerumque mittuntur." In reply to an imaginary 
 assertion that the Old Irish lived as far as possible from the 
 towns, Lynch says in margin : " Hiberni novi et veteres habitant 
 in iisdem locis." 
 
 P. 365, n. 7. There is a tomb in Westminster Abbey to 
 FuUerton, a Dublin schoolmaster, d. 1630. Guide to the Abbey 
 by M. C. Bradley, ed. 1908, p. 66. 
 
 P. 366, n. 2. " Here in our own day Peter White opened a 
 school — a man whose services to the State at large stand high. 
 
552 APPENDIX 
 
 From this man's school, as from the horse of Troy, men of the 
 highest learning came to light in the State. What names I 
 might recall — the Whites, the Comerfords, the Walshes, the 
 Wadings, the Dormers, the Shees, the Garveys, the Butlers, the 
 Archers, the Strongs, the Lombards ; men distinguished by 
 talents and learning, who early in life committed themselves to 
 his training. Under this man, as my teacher, I worked in the 
 same school while still a little boy ; a man to whom I am bound 
 by such strong ties of duty, or rather of affection, that I know 
 not how I could repay him, seeing that I am unable even to 
 reckon up in numbers the countless services which he rendered 
 to me." Stanyhurst, De Rebus in Hibernia Gestis, Antwerp, 
 1584, quoted in Mr. Justice Madden's Classical Learning in 
 Ireland, p. 81-2 — a study of Irish culture which was published 
 when this volume was already in the press. 
 
 P. 370, n. 2. There was doubtless a school in the fifteenth 
 century, for Wadinus Blake in 1499 left "to each of his three 
 younger sons 40 shillings in silver, to have them taught the 
 necessary teaching in school." Blake Rec. i. 48. 
 
 P. 370, n. 4. Among his other works. Dr. Lynch translated 
 Keating into Latin (unpublished). In the Trin. Coll. Cat. of 
 MSS. No. s6o is described " Lynch (Joh.) Historia Ecclesiastica 
 Hiberniae (copy from MS. in the Bodleian Library), fol. chart, 
 s. xix." This work is not mentioned in the Diet, of Nat. Biogr. 
 
 P. 376, n. 3. Misc. Ir. Arch. Soc. 1846, i. 193, 123. O'Grady, 
 Cat. 152. See Berry's Stat. 389. 
 
 P- 377> n. 2. A medical MS. of the sixteenth century, now in 
 the British Museum, has the following note : " There it is from 
 me to thee oh ! John and as I think indeed it is not too good, 
 and no wonder that, for I am ever on the move, flying before 
 certain English up and down Niall's wood and in that very 
 wood I have written a part of it and prepared the skin. I am 
 Cairbre." Moore, Med. in Brit. Isles, 151. 
 
 P. 386, n. I. The determination to suppress the Irish language 
 was an old policy of the English kings. It was given as a 
 reason of the retusal, from the time of John, to allow Irishmen 
 to hold benefices. There were complaints of the patriot bishop 
 of Armagh, Nicholas MacMolissa, in 1285 for appropriating 
 vacancies and appointing bishops. On this the king's advisers 
 say : " And it would be expedient to the king that no Irishman 
 should ever be an archbishop or bishop [?], because they always 
 preach against the king, and always provide their churches with 
 Irishmen ... so that an election of bishops might be made of 
 
APPENDIX 553 
 
 Irishmen, to maintain their language ; and not of others . . . 
 fundendam linguam. In like ■ manner the Dominicans and 
 Franciscans make much \Jaciunt multd\ of that language." 
 Cal. Doc. Sweetman, iii. pp. 9-10. 
 
 P. 390, n. I. " During the first part of the eighteenth century, 
 the possession of an Irish book made the owner a suspected 
 person, and was often the cause of his ruin. In some parts of 
 the country the tradition of the danger incurred by having Irish 
 manuscripts lived down to within my own memory, and I have 
 seen Irish MSS. which had been buried until the writing had 
 almost faded, and the margins rotted away, to avoid the danger 
 which their discovery would entail at the visit of the local 
 yeomanry." O'Curry, Manners and customs of the Ancient 
 Irish, i. p. xix. 
 
 P. 409. n. 4. Richard Stanihurst illustrates the difficulties of 
 the English born -in Ireland. Severed from Irish life by the 
 exclusive politics of the Pale, forced by lack of university or law 
 schools in Ireland to go to Oxford, Fumivall's Inn, and Lincoln's 
 Inn, his training was in the main English. But the teaching of 
 White at Kilkenny, his own historical work, and what he 
 witnessed at Rathangan, seems to have completely alienated 
 him from English politicians in Ireland. He left the country for 
 London, then for the Low Countries and Spain, became a 
 Roman Catholic, made studies in Irish history, and in Spain 
 seems to have taken some part in Irish politics. Denied by his 
 English training a knowledge of Irish language, history, and 
 aspirations ; denied by his Irish birth and Irish sympathies, 
 any adhesion to English views and methods, he remained 
 without country or hope ; an alien everywhere, deprived of 
 influence on the affairs of either land. 
 
 P. 424, n. 4. "The youth of this kingdom, especially of us 
 catholics, is debarred from education and learning, in that no 
 schoolmaster of our religion is admitted to teach, nor any 
 admitted to be bred beyond seas ; and the one only university 
 of Ireland, doth exclude all catholics, thereby to make us utterly 
 ignorant of literature and civil breeding, which always followeth 
 learning and arts, insomuch, that we may boldly affirm, we are 
 the most miserable and most unhappy nation of the Christian 
 world." 1641. Lodge, Desiderata Curiosa Hibemica, ii. 91-2. 
 
 P. 426, n. I. The policy of taking the heirs of estates into the 
 Deputy's house, as pledges for their fathers, and to be given an 
 English training, was laid down in a report to Thomas Cromwell 
 '" 1533- St. Pap. II. iii. 171. 
 
554 APPENDIX 
 
 p. 444, n. 1. An account of the students in Paris, of the 
 distinguished career of their leading scholars abroad, and of 
 the later history of their settlement, will be found in "The 
 Irish College in Paris," by Rev. P. Boyle. 
 
 P. 445, n. I. See a poem " Lamentation for Ireland," written 
 by a Franciscan James Carthtin, in exile, with contemporary 
 translations in English and Latin. He tells of the ruin and 
 desolation of Ireland, and falls back on the theory of sin and 
 punishment. The MS. contains other poems inspired by the 
 oppression and suffering of the Irish. Revue Celtique, xiv. 
 p. 153. The poem is edited by Thurneysen. 
 
 P. 451, n. 4. "It was reserved for the Spanish monarch, 
 Philip III., to take the lead in founding the Irish continental 
 colleges. In 1609 he laid the first stone of the convent and 
 schools of the Irish Franciscan fathers in Louvain, which, under 
 the invocation of S. Anthony, were destined to be for many 
 years a nursery of zealous labourers from our Church. Dr. 
 Florence Conry, the exiled archbishop of Tuam, ever loved to 
 reside in that religious house ; and after death, his remains were 
 deposited within the hallowed precincts of its sanctuary. To 
 this convent flocked the most distinguished Irish scholars of the 
 age : it became, in fact, the historic school of our island. A 
 small catechism in the Irish language and character was 
 printed there by the first guardian of the convent, father 
 Bonaventure Hussey ; and thus was happily commenced that 
 long series of works with which Colgan and Ward, Fleming 
 and Hicky, and so many other students of this institute enriched 
 the literature of our country." Moran, Archbishops. Dublin, 
 1864, p. 277. 
 
 P. 454, n. I. This list of names is taken from a rare printed 
 4to volume in the Joly Collection in the Nat. Library, Dublin, 
 consisting of six tracts relating to the Archi-Episcopal College 
 at Prague, and printed in 1697. The volume has no general 
 title-page. The first tract is entitled : Quartum | quod incedit 
 feliciter | seu | Numerus | quatemarius, | Celeberrimo | CoUegio | 
 Archi-Episcopali | Pragensi, | Felix, Faustus, et | Fortunatus, | 
 Discursu Panegyrico deductus. That relating to the Irish 
 students is here slightly abbreviated. It is the second tract 
 The four following tracts give the names of various orders who 
 were alumni of the College : Benedictines, Cistercians, Premon- 
 statensians, etc. They form with the Irish one, a single publi- 
 cation, having running signatures and catch words, though each 
 tract has its own title-page. The other tracts are lists of names 
 
APPENDIX 555 
 
 of various orders who were connected with the College : Bene- 
 dictines, Cistercians, Premonstratensians, etc. 
 
 The above title-page is inscribed Fris. Fran"^' : Flemmingi. 
 Medensis, 1723. He is one of those mentioned in the list. 
 
 P. 467, n. I. In 1653 an order was made that poor children of 
 twelve might be taken up by the overseers and transported into 
 some English plantations in America. In 1654 it was proposed 
 that there should be a " yearly transportation of some fit number 
 of Irish children into England ; to be bred in the English 
 customs, and from their superstition, by being distributed into 
 such parishes in England and Wales as may be thought meet." 
 O'Flaherty, lar Connacht, p. 182. 
 
 P. 470, n. 2. A contemporary English mention of Irish customs 
 in 1521 says: "the wild Irishmen had churches in such reverence 
 till our men taught them the contrary that they neither would 
 nor durst either rob ought thence or hurt any man that took the 
 churchyard for sanctuary, no, though he had killed his father." 
 Soc. of Ant. 1868, p. 190. 
 
 P. 472, n. 2. O'SuUivan Beare (Dub. Ed. 1850), p. 136, relates 
 how the people used to pay the Protestant minister for not being 
 prevented going to their own priests for marriage and for 
 baptism of their children. " Dar mo bhaiste," by my baptism, 
 was an old Irish oath that has come down to the present day. 
 It is evident that the comments of Englishmen of Elizabeth's 
 time cannot be quoted as authorities on Irish practices. 
 
 P. 480, n. I. English policy in Ireland was very early marked 
 by this jealousy. In 1236 a mandate was sent to officials in 
 Ireland "to cautiously enquire into the position of Master 
 Walter, the Emperor's clerk ; what are his object and the cause 
 cf his going to Ireland ; with whom he converses ; whether he 
 directs his enquiries to anything touching the King or his 
 kingdom ; by whose counsel he acts ; and to secretly send to 
 the king what he may learn." Cal. Doc. Sweetman, i. no. 2,340. 
 
 A fantastic Italian play, Arrenopia Tragedia Dim. Gio. 
 Battista Giraldi Cinthio, has the scene laid in Ireland ; it is 
 represented as a country where all the soldiers are dashing 
 young men who had never seen war, whereas all the Scotch 
 soldiers are old and like grave senators armed. 
 
 P. 483, n. 3. Francesco Chiericati was high in favour of Leo X. 
 and Charles V. From his position in relation to them he was 
 made much of by the king and Wolsey when he was sent to 
 Henry VIII. Every splendour of the English court was exhibited 
 to him ; the king danced, sang, played, changed from cloth of 
 
 y 
 
556 APPENDIX 
 
 gold to brocade and ermine, to white damask, to blue velvet ; 
 and gave him the most splendid banquets, with animals and 
 churches made in jelly. The methods used were perfectly suc- 
 cessful. " I would rather live under his mild and gentle sway 
 than enjoy the greatest freedom under any other form of govern- 
 ment," exclaimed the dazzled Francesco. He left London for 
 Ireland with letters from the king, and was personally conducted 
 '-'in the interests of Henry. He evidently felt the change of scene 
 from the churches in jelly of London banquets. Ireland had no 
 such delights. In Down he wrote : " I could not walk about the 
 streets without being pursued by people who came running out 
 of their houses to kiss my clothes when they heard that I was 
 the Pope's nuncio, so I was forced to stay at home. Such is the 
 annoyance which arises from over much religion." 
 
 P. 486, n. 2. The word "savage" was in fact conventional, as 
 we see in Cuellar, or in the Italian Relation, Camden Soc. 1847, 
 p. 1 5. " The inhabitants of the country are called the wild or 
 savage Scots, not however from the rudeness of their manners, 
 which are extremely courteous. The nobility reside on their 
 estates, where they have generally great forests for hunting 
 game. They have excellent houses, built for the most part, in 
 the Italian manner, of hewn stone or brick, with magnificent 
 rooms, halls, doors, galleries, chimneys, and windows. These 
 savages are great soldiers, and when they go to war, the privilege 
 of guarding the king's royal person belongs to them." 
 
INDEX 
 
 Acworth, Master, 42 1 
 
 Aghalurcher, French roof on 
 church at, 318 
 
 Alcala, Irish college at, 445 
 
 Alfred the Great, Irishmen at 
 the court of, 482 
 
 All Hallows or All Saints, mon- 
 astery of, 171, 423 
 
 Amsterdam, Irish oak in the 
 Stadthaus at, 46 
 
 Anglo-Irish, 109, 180, 186, 192, 
 282, 328, 329-3o» 352. 381, 
 
 449. 462 
 Anguilbert, Theodore, an Irish- 
 man in Paris, 247 
 Annaghdown, See of, 190 
 Antwerp, Irish trade with, 13, 
 55 ; Irish college at, 41 5, 443, 
 
 445 
 Aonach, lee Fairs 
 
 Archer, James, 444, 452 
 
 Architecture, mediaeval Irish, 62 
 
 Ardes, the, 16, 330 
 
 Ardglass, fortress of, 18 ; harbour 
 of, 15; Kildare allowed supre- 
 macy of, 16 ; Shane O'Neill's 
 "New Works" at, i6 
 
 Aretino, secretary of the Republic 
 of Florence, 333 
 
 Armada, 210, 249, 287 ; Irish 
 corn and horses for the, 222 ; 
 search for treasure after the, 66 
 
 Armagh, cathedral of, 91 ; gather- 
 ing of poets and bishops at, 
 249 ; roof of oak shingles in 
 cathedral of, 58 ; school of, 
 341 ; stores in, 92 
 
 Armour, 138, 180; goldsmith's 
 work on, 64 
 
 Arnold, lord justice, 489 
 
 Arran, 21, 184, 189 
 
 Astronomy, treatise on, 253 
 
 Athboy, 47 ; merchants of, 132 ; 
 vaults and stores at, 29 
 
 Athcroghta, bridge of, 9 
 
 Athenry, 330 ; Clanrickard's fine 
 for the destruction of, 69 ; 
 merchants of, 25 
 
 Athlone, 47, 58 ; bridge of, 9 
 
 Athy, family of, in Galway, 188 
 
 B 
 
 Bacon, Francis, Viscount Veru- 
 
 1am, 372, 398, 450 
 Bacon, Sir Nicholas, Irish stone 
 
 sent to, 45 
 Bagenall, Sir Nicholas, 17, 77 
 Baile-na-Lurgan, 339 
 Baldwins, the, 328 
 Bally-Macmanus, 319 
 Ballysadare, stone bridge at, 19 
 Baltimore, 141 ; continental 
 
 trade o^ 24, 27 ; English 
 
 fleet at, 140 
 Baltinglass, lord, 200 
 
558 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Bann, river, lo, 48, 74 
 Bantry, continental trade of, 24 
 Barbary, Irish stone sent to, 45 
 Barlow, Dr. Thomas, provost of 
 
 Queen's College, Oxford, 273 
 Barnasmore, 348 
 Barnwell, sergeant, 285 
 Barretts, the, 208, 304 
 Barrow, river, 10 
 Bearhaven, English captain 
 
 hanged at, 47 
 Bedell, bishop, 236 ; Old Testa- 
 ment of, 403 
 Belfast Lough, 15, 17 
 Bellingham, deputy, 475 
 Benburb, O'Neill's palace of, 324 
 Bermingham, Thomas de, 3 3 1 
 Berwick, Irish masons sent to, 62 ; 
 
 troops from, 209, 210, 214 
 Bingham, Sir John, 69, 325 
 Blackfriars, Ormond's house at, 67 
 Blakes, the, 36, 37, 186, 230 
 Blankets, sold in Galway markets, 
 
 22 ; sold in England, 52 
 Bodkins, the, 186 
 Bologna, Irish serge in, 54 
 Bolton, mayor of Waterford, 231 
 Bononiensis, Giraldus, 244-5 
 Books, Irish — 
 
 Annals of Lough C6, 348 
 
 Annals of Ulster, 306 
 
 Book of Ballimote, 322 
 
 Book of Carrick, 332 
 
 Book of the Dun Cow, 385 
 
 Book of Fenagh, 3 1 2 
 
 Book of Hy-Many (Book of 
 the O'Kellys), 309 
 
 Book of Lecan, 314 
 
 Book of Lismore, 51, 94, 334 
 
 Book of Monasterboice, 334 
 
 Book of Princely Institutions, 
 321 
 
 Chronicles of Philip Flattis- 
 bury, 336 
 
 Dowling's Annals, 306 
 
 King's Book, 321 
 
 Books, Irish — 
 
 O'Donnell's Life of Columb- 
 cille, 322 
 
 O'Fihely's Annals of Ireland, 
 238 
 
 Psalter of Cashel, 332 
 
 Red Book of the Earls of Kil- 
 dare, 336 
 Bordeaux, 1 3, 442 
 Boru, Brian, 29, 184 
 Boulay, Irish Franciscans at, 442 
 Boyle, 6, 63, 326 
 Brabant, Irish cloth and linen 
 
 exported to, 50, 55 
 Brady, bishop of Meath, 419 
 Brazil, 125, 137, 140 
 Breack, Teig, 56, 218 
 Breffni, the, 240, 320, 324; 
 
 Andrew MacBrady bishop of, 
 
 305 
 Brehons, no, 191, 257, 315, 
 
 HS> 361, 375. 377. 382 
 Brian, John, 37 
 Bri Gobhann, Hill of the Smiths, 
 
 Bristol, 205, 441 ; Irishmen in, 
 33, 34 ; slave-trade at, 144, 
 204; trade with, 14, 52, 154 
 
 Brittany, 14, 26, 444 
 
 Brogues, 22, 52, 115 
 
 Bruges, trade with, 1 3, 26, 55, 56 
 
 Bryan, Dominick, 36 
 
 Buais-le-h6adan (Hand to Face 
 Hill), 21 
 
 Burghley, William Cecil, lord, 
 121, 140, 147, 148, 176, 198, 
 229, 376, 392, 406, 409, 480, 
 489 ; his financial policy, 164; 
 shareholder in the Russian 
 Company, 137 
 
 Burie, Adam, French tombstone 
 of, 22 
 
 Burke, daughter of MacWilliam, 
 of Clanrickard, 348 
 
 Burke, Richard, lord of Dunkellin, 
 429 
 
INDEX 
 
 559 
 
 Burke, Richard-in-Iron, 20 
 
 Burke, Sheela MacWilliam, 348 
 
 Burke, Tibbot, 427 
 
 Burkes, the (de Burgo), descent 
 of, 328; forbidden in Galway, 
 180, 205-6; King James de- 
 scended from, 330; lords of 
 Galway, 21, 184, 185, 204, 
 206, 207 ; scholars, 175, 304, 
 326, 389 
 
 Burren, schools in, 312, 314, 377 
 
 Burrishoole, 9, 20, 63 
 
 Butler, a pupil of Peter White, 240 
 
 Butler, James, 305, 332 
 
 Butler, MacRichard, 331, 332 
 
 Butler, Sir Piers, 61 
 
 Butlers, the, 331 
 
 Calais, Irish money forbidden 
 
 in, 154 
 Calendar, the reformed, 252, 
 
 402 n. 
 Callaghan, Peter, 218 
 Callan, friary of, 305 
 Cambridge, 365, 391, 422, 431, 
 
 4+3 
 Camden, 430 
 Campion, Edmund, 198, 250, 
 
 408,410, 411,412,415 
 Canary, wine from, 22 
 Canterljury, trade with, 52 
 Carbery, 69, 255 
 Carew, George, Viscount Tot- 
 
 ness, 385 
 Carew, Sir Peter, 120, 224, 406, 
 
 409, 410, 430 
 Carlow, Irish Catholic college at, 
 
 395 
 Carpets, 14, 22, 332 
 
 Carrickfergus, 17, 18, 28 
 Carroll, Teig, 218 
 Cashel, 132, 170, 245, 331.436 
 Cassidy, Roderick, "the Grecian," 
 248 
 
 Castlefore, bardic school at, 326 
 
 Castlemorc, engines of war at, 
 60 
 
 Catalonia, Irish trade with, 53 
 
 Cathair-na-Mart, 20 
 
 Cattle, grazing, 105-6 ; export 
 to England, 152; legal driving 
 of, 484 
 
 Cavan, 7, lo, 12, 132, 230, 460 ; 
 bishop MacBrady buried at, 
 306 
 
 Cecil, Sir Robert, 45, 433, 434 
 
 Cecil, Sir William, see Burghley 
 
 Cess, 112, 113, 286 
 
 Charlemagne, the Burkes de- 
 scended from, 328 
 
 Charles V., 334, 369 
 
 Charles IX. of France, 249 
 
 Charters, Town, 169, 170, 172, 
 205, 208-9, 218, 226, 227- 
 230 ; trading, 194 ; Univer- 
 sity, 418 
 
 Cheese, 22, 93 
 
 Chepstow, trade with, 14 
 
 Chester, trade with, 13, 14, 50, 
 52, 133, 152, 193 ; quarrel 
 with Dublin, 194, 196 
 
 Chichester, 472 
 
 Chiefs, demesne of, 99-100; 
 election of, 167 ; family of, 
 99; rents, 101-2, 109-11 
 
 Christchurch, Dublin, Irish ex- 
 cluded from, 484 ; proposal 
 for school, 365 
 
 Church, holy men in the, 305- 
 7 ; lands, 307 
 
 Civilization, 32, 35, 71, 91-2, 
 98, 105-6, 109-10, 122, 192, 
 201, 236, 259, 372 ; denied 
 by the English, 38, 96-7, 107, 
 III, 114-7, 122, 129, 165, 
 362, 399, 467-486 
 
 Clancarr, earl of, submits, 1 1 5 
 
 Clanrickard, see Burkes, 91, 348 ; 
 earls of, 69, 91, 162, 176, 
 207, 2S0, 381, 428 
 
560 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Clare, 256, 314, 344, 369, 377 ; 
 
 castles in County, 61 
 Clew Bay, 8, 20 ; English ships 
 
 in, 47 
 Cloaks, 22, 81, 178, 212, 459 ; 
 
 export of, 52, 55 ; statute 
 
 against, 120 
 Clogher, 306, 307, 483 
 Clones, silver shrine of, 252 
 Clonfert, 422 
 Clonmacnois, 29, 84, 321, 385, 
 
 462, 481 
 Clonmel, 132, 170, 231, 440, 
 
 441,444 
 Cloonfree, stone house at, 75 
 Cloth, serge and frieze, Irish : 
 
 16, 22, 51-2, 81, 143, 149 ; 
 
 Cloth trade with Naples, 
 
 Bologna, 54; Bristol, 52; Can- 
 terbury, 52 ; Catalonia, 53 ; 
 
 Cologne, 55 ; Como, 54 ; 
 
 Coventry, 52; Franc, 13; 
 
 France, 5 5 ; Hereford, 5 5 ; 
 
 Ipres, 13 ; Netherlands, 55 ; 
 
 Rhine, 55; Southampton, 52 
 Cloth, English, in Galway markets, 
 
 22 
 Cloth of gold, 15, 195 
 Coal, English, 22 
 Coin and livery, ill, ii2 
 Coinage, counterfeit, 161 ; English 
 
 debased, 155, i;8, 160-2, 199, 
 
 225, 229, 466 ; harp money, 
 
 157, 160, 163 ; Irish, 7, 154; 
 
 mints, 154, 157, 1 60; new 
 
 national, 155-6 
 Coleraine, 348 
 Colleges, continental, 35, 441-2, 
 
 4+4-5 
 Cologne, Irish monasteries in, 
 442 ; Matthew de Renzi, a 
 citizen of, 242 ; trade with, 
 
 55 
 Columcille, cross of, 63 
 Commercial invasion of Ireland, 
 
 201-2, 123-131 
 
 Communism, 97, 107, 469, 475, 
 
 483 
 Compostella, church at Dingle to 
 
 S. James of, 25 ; pilgrims to, 
 
 13, 169, 219, 241, 318, 484; 
 
 St. James' Fair at, 2 1 
 Connacht, in, 176, 320, 321, 
 
 33". 344. 376, 402. 478; 
 corn export, 94 ; first confisca- 
 tion of, 1 84 j land in, 97 ; 
 learning in, 252, 324, 326, 
 349. 350; mines in, 126; 
 ports of, 18 ; Rory O'Conor, 
 king of, 84 ; trade in, 50 ; 
 wealth of, 69, 91; "white 
 edifices " of, 75 
 
 Connacians in Rome, 241 
 
 Connow, 21 
 
 Continental trade, I, 13, 14, 24, 
 44,47,155,164,219,459,462 
 
 Conway, Richard, 444 
 
 Cork, 37, 132, 139, 156, 177, 
 181, 205, 216, 217, 225, 229- 
 31, 238, 246, 287, 327, 393, 
 417, 435,436 ; trade with the 
 Irish, 170; butter and cheese 
 exported from, 93 ; commerce 
 of, 29 ; eleven parishes of, 24 ; 
 export of grain, 94 ; Irish 
 mayors of, 174 ; merchants of, 
 135 ; prosperity of, 24; rising 
 of citizens of, 163 ; ruin of, 
 228-9; school at, 368; Water- 
 ford magistrates sent prisonen 
 to, 231 
 
 Corn, bought from Irish, 209 ; 
 export of, 93-6, 460; price of, 
 157; tillage, 311, 373.460 
 
 Coventry, trade with, 33, 52, 
 133. 193 ; Corpus Christi 
 Guild of, 3 3 
 
 Cowley, Robert, 206, 285, 3731 
 
 398, 405 ^ 
 
 Creagh, Richard, archbishop of 
 Armagh, 36, 369, 418, 419, 
 448-449 
 
INDEX 
 
 561 
 
 Creaghs, the, 174 
 
 Creeve, the, 348 
 
 Creevclea, 63, 325 
 
 Croft, Sir James, lord deputy, 
 
 157, 369 
 Cromwell, Thomas, 194, 195, 
 
 477-8 
 Culin, Patrick, bishop of Cloghcr, 
 
 307 
 Curwen, archbishop, 270, 419, 
 
 420, 421 
 Cusack, Christopher, 445 
 Cusack, Patrick, 365 
 Cusacks, the, 208, 331 
 
 Dall, Teigc, 323 
 Daltons, the, 1 8 1 
 Daly, studied in Paris, 247 
 Danzig, corn from, 1 14 
 D'Arcy, lord justice, 137-8 
 Davies, Sir John, attorney general, 
 106, 116, 117, 122,230, 233, 
 317, 320, 376,400,412, 491 
 Davorens, the, school of, 314 
 Delvin, Christopher Nugent, lord, 
 
 391-3 
 
 Dengen, castle of, 60 
 
 Dermot na-nGall, 239 
 
 Dermott, Galway, notary, 188 
 
 D'jrmoyte, John, 187 
 
 Desmond, earls of, 34, 84, 428, 
 443> 474> +78 ; James, the 
 "Tower earl," 433-437; Sir 
 John of, 161, 334, 344 
 
 Desmonds, the, castles of, 61 ; 
 education, 249, 332-334, 344, 
 418; landlords, no; pro- 
 tectors of trade, 132, 139, 
 216 ; trade of, 8, 27 ; wealth 
 of, 67 
 
 Deurox, 368 
 
 Dictionary, Irish, 451, 453 
 
 jJjgby, Francis, 66 
 
 Dillon, Sir Lucas, 209, 286 
 
 Dingle, 2$ . . 
 
 Domnach Airgid, the " Silver 
 
 Shrine," 252 
 Donegal, 18, 36, 254, 321, 323, 
 
 344 
 
 Doran, Maurice, bishop of Leigh- 
 lin, 306 
 
 Douay, 415, 421, 443, 445, 452 
 
 Dress, 30, 81, 224, 459 ; laws 
 against Irish, 150-2, 179, 212 
 
 Drogheda, 146, 147, 231, 276, 
 366, 407 ; decay of, 198; pro- 
 posals for a university at, 334, 
 418, 422; trade of, 14, 33 ; 
 weapons supplied to Hugh 
 O'Neill by, 201 
 
 Drumahair, 306, 324-5 
 
 Drury, president, 221, 431, 480; 
 his patent to export grain, 95 
 
 Dublin, 2, 4, 70, 115, 132-5, 
 156, 161, 162, 171, 173, 269, 
 271, 284, 310; discontent of, 
 198, 200; Irish influence in, 
 176-8 ; schools in, 364, 407-9 ; 
 trade of, 14, 33,47, 133, 146-7, 
 152, 176, 192-202 
 
 Dublin Castle, 157, 201, 223, 
 406, 427,433 
 
 Dun, Thady, physician at Lucerne, 
 
 247 
 Duncannon, fishing at, 47 
 Dundalk, 7, 173, 201 
 Dundrum, 9, 15 
 Dungannon, herb-garden near, 
 
 254; Tyrone's treasure at, 
 
 68 
 Dungarvan, trade of, 7, 24 ; under 
 
 an English constable, 228 
 Dunlo, bridge of, 9 
 Dyes, Irish, 53 
 
 E 
 
 Education (see Schools), English, 
 425-34 ; foreign, 439-53 ; na- 
 tional, 303-54 
 
 2N 
 
562 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Edward I., 93, 488 ; II., 93 ; 
 III., 93, 123, 125, 190; IV., 
 65. 134. 13^. 154. 200, 205, 
 
 401, 440; VI., 126, 157, 
 .175. 187, 353, 401, 418, 426 
 
 Elizabeth, queen, 70, 120, 126, 
 
 I27j 137. 140. 141. 145. 147. 
 150, 152, 160, 162, 163, 286, 
 
 353. 361, 369. 381, 392. .^96, 
 
 402, 408, 409, 416, 417, 425, 
 427, 428, 430, 431, 433-5, 
 489 ; learning Irish, 391 ; 
 plantations of, 71, 127-9 » 
 shareholder in the Gold Coast 
 trade, 137 
 
 Emania, Hugh of, 352 
 Embroideries, 15, 23, 30, 44, 77, 
 
 82, 84, 195, 459 
 Emigration, 71, 440, 445, 491 ; 
 
 of English out of Ireland, 131- 
 
 132 
 Emly. college for secular priests 
 
 at, 247 
 English merchants, policy of, 138, 
 
 199 
 Ennis, monastery of, 304 
 Enniskillen, commerce of, 8 ; 
 
 court of, 76 ; Maguire's fleet 
 
 at, 10 ; passes to, 9-10 
 Eric (fine), 241, 281 
 Essex, Robert Devereux, earl of, 
 
 361, 372 ; Walter Devereux, 
 
 earl of, 120, 249, 488 
 European wars, 127 
 
 Pagan, Richard, mayor o' 
 Dublin, 178 ; one school- 
 master in Waterford, 367 ; 
 Thomas, 225 
 
 Fairs, 5, 7, 14, 131, 134, 165, 
 169, 460 
 
 Families, intellectual succession 
 
 in, 313 
 Feradach, king of Ossory, 64 
 
 Fermanagh, 59, 305, 318, 319, 
 
 320, 344, 382 
 Festivals, 87, 180, 345-7 
 Fethard, 132, 170 
 Financial relations, 154, 158, 
 
 199 
 Fishing Industry, 16, 47-8, 86, 
 
 130, 138 
 Fitton, Antony, collector of 
 
 impost, 210; Sir Edward, 
 
 president of Connacht, 208, 
 
 210, 376 
 Fitz Edmund, John, wealth of, 
 
 67 
 Fitzgeralds, the, great builders, 
 
 19. 335, 336 ; learning of, 
 
 333-7 ; origin of, 243, 258, 
 
 328, 331, 333, 335 
 Fitzmaurice, James, 334, 344; 
 
 his son educated at Lisbon, 
 
 442 ; rising of, 249 ; killed by 
 
 Tibbot Burke, 427 
 Fitz Patrick, Barnaby, 426 
 Fitz Simon, Michael, 365 
 Fitz Simons, archbishop, work- 
 houses of, 96 
 Fitzwilliam, lord deputy, 95, 
 
 148, 149, 161, 164, 211-12, 
 
 416, 480 
 Flanders, artificers from, 332 ; 
 
 Irish trade with, 13, 56, 145, 
 
 195, 219 ; scholars in, 443 
 Flattisbury, Philip, 336 
 Flax, 22, 74 ; laws to restrain 
 
 steeping of, 48 ; not to be 
 
 carried to England, 5 5 
 Fleming, Father Richard, 446 
 Florence, connexion with, 26, 
 
 54, 94, 95, 219, 241, 333. 
 
 335 
 
 Flyn, Thomas, 56, 218 
 
 Foghair, 326 
 
 Fore, 63, 132, 460 
 
 Four Courts, 284 
 
 France, 241, 428 ; Irish pro- 
 fessors in, 246 ; Irish trad« 
 
INDEX 
 
 563 
 
 with, 13, 35. 55. 56, 94. 217, 
 
 241 ; merchants from, 195 ; 
 
 ships from, 14, 18, 24, 26, 173 
 Franciscans, 330, 442, 451, 453 
 French settlers, 2-3, 186, 230; 
 
 the language of business, 328-9 ; 
 
 roof, on the church of Agha- 
 
 lurcher, 318 
 Freynes, de, the, I 5 1 
 Fyan, Richard, 146, 178 
 
 Gaels, union of, 345, 352-3, 
 
 398-9 
 Gallow-glasses, 79, 80, 100 
 
 Galway, buildings at, 63 ; bye- 
 laws against the Irish, 1 80 ; 
 charters to, 145, 205-6, 2089 ; 
 circuits of merchants of, 50; 
 commerce of, 94 ; decay of 
 wine trade in, 69 ; English 
 speech, 239; Irish dress, 179 ; 
 Irish sympathies, 174-6, 182- 
 4, 186-91, 201, 204, 207 ; 
 merchants sailing from, 25 ; 
 O'Flahertys and town, 1 84 ; 
 ruin of, 204-13, 230, 231 ; 
 school at, 365, 370, 371-2, 
 394, 424 ; taxing of the people 
 of, 69 ; trade, 21, 22, 29, 
 35-7, 141-2, 480 ; wealth, 
 
 ^ 30, 461 
 
 Galway, Geoffrey, mayor of 
 Limerick, 287-8 
 
 Games, Irish, 179 
 
 Garrisons, English, 204, 209-10, 
 213, 214, 465 
 
 Garvey, Robert, 240 
 
 Gascony (Gascoigne), trade with, 
 18, 29, 196 
 
 Gaul, trade with, 29 
 
 Genoa, gold thread from, 30 ; 
 hospital for the Irish in, 34 ; 
 Irish college at, 445 ; Irish 
 Mrge in, 54 
 
 Gerald of Wales, 88, 410, 412, 
 
 413,468 
 Germany, earls and merchants 
 
 from, 241, 486 ; miners from, 
 
 126 ; Irish establishments in, 
 
 441-2 
 Gerrard, lord chancellor, 147 
 Ghent, 13 
 Gilbert, Sir Humphrey, 140-1, 
 
 227 
 Gilla-na-naev, ollave of Munster, 
 
 257 
 Glass, painted, 22 
 Gloucester, Irish vessel to Spain 
 
 sent by way of, 222 ; trade 
 
 with, 14, 33, 52 
 Gold Coast trade, Elizabeth had 
 
 shares in, 137 
 Goldsmiths, 65, 187 ; work, 64 
 Good, teacher at Limerick, 88, 
 
 369 
 Gordon, Bernard de, 256 
 Gorestis, lord, 273 
 Grammar, Lilly's, 220, 416-17, 
 
 437 
 
 Granard, 7, 12, 132 
 
 Greece, 242, 243, 328, 333, 467 
 
 Greek church at Trim, 248 ; 
 manuscripts, 248 ; language, 
 247 
 
 Gresham, Sir Richard, 194 
 
 Grey, lord Leonard, his destruc- 
 tion of O'Brien's Bridge, 62 
 
 Grey merchants, see Laxmen 
 
 Guienne, 156, 442 
 
 H 
 
 Racket, Houguet, Huet, 34 
 Halloran, a Galway apprentice, 
 
 187 
 Hanmer, Dr., his chronicle of 
 
 Ireland, 409, 412 
 Harbours, 14, 18, 19, 30, 48, 
 
 138, 465, 491, 492 
 Harp, the, 25, 76, 88 
 
564 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Hatton, Christopher, 147 
 
 Hawks, 73, 130, 309, 335 
 
 Hemp, 22, 50, 74 
 
 Henry II., 116, 168, 190; III., 
 6, 185, 249; IV., 15,267; v., 
 268,271,272,276,277, 283 ; 
 VI., I3J.333 ; VII., 65, 123, 
 182; VIII., 16,70,123, 127, 
 131, 136, 138, 139, 145, 157, 
 168, 179, 205, 226, 249,253, 
 272, 281, 283, 285, 288,325, 
 
 353. 360, 372. 387. 395.398. 
 403, 410, 418, 425, 460,464, 
 
 474, 481, 483 
 Herbert, Sir W., 114, 120 
 Herb-gardens, 254 
 Hibemia, Hugo de, 243 
 Hibcrnia,Mauricede,x« O'Fihely 
 Holing, John, 445 
 Holinshed, Chronicles of, 409-10 
 Holland, visitors from, 241 
 Holy See, the, Ireland a fief of, 48 1 
 Honey, 22 
 Hooker, Solicitor, 227, 399, 406, 
 
 408, 409, 410 
 Horses,73,76, 119, 130, 309. 335 
 Hospitality, 85-8, 180,303,305, 
 
 3"» 326, 3+8,461 
 Houses, description of, 17, 22, 25, 
 
 32, 66, 74, 85-6, 335, 461 
 Hugh, ollave of Lower Con- 
 
 nacht, 257 
 Hungary, visitors from, 241 
 Hurd, mayor of Galway, 2 1 2, 23 1 
 Hybernicus, Petrus, scholar, 244 
 Hybernus, Thomas, 244 
 Hy-Many, 309, 326, 345 
 
 Idle-men, 78, 80 
 Illuminators, 2 1 8 
 Imperialism, 128-9, 275, 396, 
 
 447-8 
 Imports, 28, 31, 149, 150, 152, 
 
 224 
 
 Impost, on wines, 22, 63, 141, 
 161, 210, 211, 223 
 
 Industries, 7, 44-71, 91, 119, 
 122, 144, 149, 152, 165, 173, 
 201, 218, 223, 459 
 
 Inland trade forbidden, 132, 
 169-70 
 
 Inns, the King's, 284 
 
 Inns of Court, 266, 269, 283, 
 288, 425 
 
 "Ireland men," 158, 286 
 
 Irishmen, banished out of Eng- 
 land, 133, 268; deprived of 
 education, 273, 277, 393-8, 
 407-8, 415-7, 422-3; made 
 to change their names, 134-6, 
 178, 491 ; forbidden to come 
 to councils, 269 ; forbidden 
 posts in Church, 270; for- 
 bidden to trade, 1 3 1 
 
 Iron, imported, 22, 28 ; Irish 
 work in, 28, 60-1 
 
 Italy, scholars in, 245-6 ; trade 
 with, 13, 22, 54 ; travellers, 
 241-2 
 
 J 
 
 Jake, Maurice, canon of Kildare, 
 
 9 
 James I., 255, 307, 330, 423, 
 
 424, 481 
 
 John, King, 6, 16, 342 
 
 Justinian, Pandects of, 250 
 
 Kearney's "Catechism," 402-3 
 Keating, Dr. Geoffrey, 404, 468 
 Kells, 132, 173 
 Kelly, Radulphus, archbishop of j 
 
 Cashel, 245 
 Kellys, the, 178, 180, 304, 326, 
 
 345 
 Kempe's Hall (Tara), 412 
 Kennys, the, I 78 
 
INDEX 
 
 S6S 
 
 Kerntye, loo, 105, m 
 
 Kerry, the Knight of, 428, 43 1 
 
 Kilbride, eastern pilgrimage of, 
 242 
 
 Kilcoollen, bridge of, 9 
 
 Kildare, 4, 9, 134, 244, 245, 
 369 ; earls of, as landlords, 109, 
 409, 428 ; library of, 251, 
 256 ; Garrett, the Great Earl 
 of, in Sligo, 16-17 ; •" Ard- 
 glass, 335 ; Garrett, earl of 
 (son of the Great Earl), 16, 
 34, 335-6 ; Gerald, earl of, 
 409, 428 ; Silken Thomas, 
 earl of, 16, 281, 337, 369 ; 
 house of, 366 ; Lady of, 67-8 
 
 Kilkenny, county of, 377 ; town 
 of, 90, 132, 170, 231, 24b, 
 276, 284, 441, 452 ; market 
 at, 51 ; organ-building at, 58 ; 
 school at, 365, 366, 408, 411, 
 415 ; statute of, 78, 179, 404- 
 5 ; stone-gateway at, 61 
 
 Kilkenny Castle, 332 
 
 Killeagh, 5, 346 
 
 Killough, harbour of, 1 5 
 
 Kilmallock, 132 
 
 Kilmore, cathedral at, 306 
 
 King, James, 363 
 
 Kinsale, 132, 169, 205 ; con- 
 tinental trade of, 24, 25, 37 ; 
 ruin of, 228 ; burgess of Cork 
 mayor, 25 ; pirates at, 139, 
 
 2l6 
 
 Labour of Irish forced, 119-121 
 
 Lacey, Piers, 430 
 
 Land, tribal tenure, 99, 112, 
 460; development in, 97-8; 
 chargeable lands, loi ; free- 
 hold lands, 100, 310; moun- 
 tain lands, 105 ; hiring of 
 land, 104; mortgages on land, 
 189; security of tenure, 102-3; 
 
 charges on land, 100-102, 
 1 10-12; Irish and English 
 rents, loi, 119, 176; English 
 objections, 107, 112, 118-20, 
 
 475 
 
 Language, English, 83, 239, 240, 
 387; Irish, 174, 179,220,236, 
 329, 386,389-9,451-3, 474 
 
 Lawless, James, 188; John, 58 
 
 Laws, Brehon laws, 102, 112, 
 164, 288, 484 ; destruction of, 
 362,37s. 382-4; Irish jurists, 
 257-258, 360, 382 ; Kilcas, 
 statutes of, 377; Kincogus, 
 law of, 376 ; obedience of Irish 
 to the. III, 316, 461-2 ; 
 schools of law, 363-4, 376-8 ; 
 civil and canon law, 257 ; 
 English law, influence of, 97, 
 169-170, 265, 279-282, 475 ; 
 printing of, 404, 406 ; studied 
 in England, 268, 279, 288 
 
 Lawyers, need of, 265, 269, 279 
 
 Laxmen, 131, 172 
 
 Learning, English, 238-40, 266, 
 279 ; made official language, 
 386 ; scholars in England, 
 266-7, 283-302 
 
 Learning, Greek, 247-8 
 
 Learning, Latin, 45, 83, 240, 
 249-51, 252-8, 259, 307 
 
 Learning, Irish, aristocracy of, 
 255, 3i3-37» 340, 366, 370, 
 372, 451-3 ; assemblies of, 
 
 333-339. 345-35°; national 
 character of, 352-9; patrons 
 of, 303-4 ; ruin of, 260, 268, 
 278, 372-5. 397-8 ; unity of, 
 341-4. 350-352; translations, 
 251-2, 261 
 
 Learning, Foreign, 241-71, 371- 
 2, 441-5, 454. See also under 
 Education and Schools 
 
 Leather, in Bruges, 56 ; England, 
 56; Galway market, 22; Portu- 
 gal, 56 
 
566 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Lee, John, 443-4 
 
 Leicester, earl of, 429, 433 ; Irish 
 
 stone sent to, 45 
 Leighlin, bridge of, 9 ; see of, 
 
 306 
 Leitrim, 10, 326 
 Levant, the. Irishmen in, 242 ; 
 
 wine from, 22, 141-2, 459 
 Leverous, bishop of Kildare, 369 
 Leyns, Christopher, 2 1 1 
 Libraries, 238, 251, 256, 303, 
 
 305. 3i>» 336 
 
 Licenses, to capture Galway, 204; 
 to export corn, 95 ; Irish, 169- 
 172, 226 ; to export money, 
 200 ; to trade with Spain, 209, 
 223, 230 ; to export yarn, 
 .145-9.466 
 
 Lidlington,William, provincial of 
 the English Carmelites, 245 
 
 Limerick, 132, 353, 443, 480; 
 cathedral of, 23 ; discontent 
 in, 215, 288; Irish dress, 179; 
 Irish mayor, 1 74 ; the petition 
 for a charter, 214 ; ruin of, 
 229-31 ; school at, 88, 175, 
 
 365. 369. 372, 393 ; stone 
 
 houses, 63 ; termon, 308 ; 
 
 trade of, 23, 24, 170, 205 ; 
 
 university proposed, 422 ; 
 
 county, contribution to Trinity 
 
 College, 424 ; fertility of, 91 
 Linen, use of, 49-50, 51-52, 
 
 1 50-1 ; export of, 50, 55, 
 
 146, 173 ; sold in the markets, 
 
 22, 49 
 Lisbon, Irish college at, 441, 
 
 445 ; Irish residents in, 35 ; 
 
 Irish ships sold into, 58, 222 ; 
 
 passports allowed to Irishmen, 
 
 222 
 Liverpool, Irish yarn carried to, 
 
 32 ; Dublin trade in, 196 
 Livery, coin and, iii, 112 
 Loftus, Primate, 419, 420, 421, 
 
 422, 423 
 
 Lombard, Peter, 368 
 
 Lombards, the, at Westminstef 
 School, 430 
 
 London, catechism and laws 
 printed in, 403, 406 ; Clan- 
 rickard imprisoned in, 207 ; 
 Desmond imprisoned in, 139, 
 216 ; Irish boys in, 430 ; 
 Irish chiefs summoned to, 162 ; 
 lawyers in, 98 ; O'Conor Faly 
 imprisoned in, 239 ; Ormond 
 poisoned in, 332; trade with 
 Dublin, 133, 193, 198-200; 
 Valencia imprisoned in, 428 
 
 Long, Thomas, at University of 
 Paris, 247 
 
 Longford, 7, 12, 132 
 
 Louvain, 247, 258, 368, 369, 
 372, 421, 442, 443, 446; 
 Irish college at, 445 ; Irish- 
 men at, 451-3 
 
 Ltlbeck, trade with, 22, 25 ♦ 
 
 Lucca, 241 
 
 Lynch, Alexander, 370 ; Dom- 
 inick, his school at Galway, 
 370; James, 189, 370; Dr. 
 John, 57, 135, 313, 329, 340, 
 363, 368, 370, 377, 384, 389, 
 390, 396, 424 ; Nicholas, 
 Clanrickard's agent, 176 
 
 Lynches, the, 187, 208, 230, 330, 
 440 
 
 M 
 
 MacBrady, Andrew, bishop of 
 
 the BrefFhys, 305 
 MacCaghwell, Hugh, 371 
 MacCarthy, country of, 48, 67, 
 
 327 ; Daniell, 432 ; Finin or 
 
 Florence, 238, 287, 327, 430; 
 
 Sir Owen, 69, 429 ; lord of 
 
 Hy-Carbery, 348 
 MacCarthy Reagh, Catherine, 
 
 wife of, 334 
 MacClancys, the, 250, 257 
 
INDEX 
 
 567 
 
 MacDary, Teige, 374 
 
 MacDermot, the blind, 338 ; 
 Cormac, Port-na-Cairge built 
 by, 6 ; Rory, 348 ; Tomaltagh, 
 
 348 
 MacDonnell, 404 
 MacDonough, Conor, 304, 326 
 MacEgan, Gilla-na-naemh, 346 ; 
 
 Maelisa, 257 
 MacEgans, the, 257, 344 ; school 
 
 of, 314 
 MacFirbis, Duald, 314, 368, 370 
 MacGeoghegans, the, 47, 429 
 MacGillapatrick, 61, 249 
 Macgrane, a schoolmaster in 
 
 Dublin, 365 
 MacLoughire, Rory, 377 
 MacMahon, Manus, 339 
 MacMailin, 257 
 MacMurrough, 173 ; Art, 277, 
 
 310 ; Donnell Spaniagh, 442 
 MacNamee, 311-2, 339 
 MacRedmond, Owen, 368, 393 
 MacRory, 305 
 MacShane, Garrett, 36-7 
 MacS weeny, Maelmora, 349 
 MacSweenys, the, 47 
 MacWard, ollave in poetry, 343; 
 
 hanged by Conor O'Brien, 374 
 MacWilliams, see Burkes ; Eugh- 
 
 ter, 36, 208 ; of Mayo, 19, 
 
 240 
 Madder, 53 
 Magauran, 304 
 Magerahty, Melaghlin, 303-4 
 Magrath, Miler, 434 
 Maguire, Cuchonnacht, 319; 
 
 Hugh, 319; John, 308, 318- 
 
 9; MacManus, 306, 319; 
 
 Nicholas, bishop of Leighlin, 
 
 306; Rory, 318; Thomas 
 
 Gilla-Duv, 318 ; Thomas 
 
 Oge, 318 
 Maguires, the, 8, 10, 78, 318, 
 ,382, 384, 387 
 Malby, Captain, 210, 211, 350 
 
 Man, Isle of, trade with, 18 
 Manchester, trade with, 32, 146 
 Manuscripts, destruction of, 384- 
 5, 410 ; in German universi- 
 ties, 441 ; later manuscripts, 
 
 403-4 
 Map of Ireland, scheme for, 406 
 Marble, 20, 45, 62 
 Markets, 6, 7, 8, 14, 17, 22, 
 
 44, 51, 131, 132, 228, 234, 
 
 460 
 Mary, Queen, 140, 142, 160, 
 
 239» 353,481 
 May, Harry, 33 
 Meaghs, the, or Myaghes, 37, 
 
 ^7.4. 
 Medici, Cosmo de, at Oxford, 
 
 273. 
 Medicine, doctors of, 254-5 ; 
 
 position of the Irish in, 253 ; 
 
 treatises, 255-6 
 Milan, Franciscan schools at, 246 
 Milford Haven, Irishmen at, 28 
 Mines, 125-6 
 Minstrels, 76, 77, 170, 177, 339, 
 
 .348, 35°. 416 
 Missionaries, 71, 325 
 Monasteries, 133, 171, 304, 321, 
 
 325-6, 330, 460 ; abroad, 
 
 442 
 Mountjoy, 227, 361 
 MuUingar, 132 
 Munster, commerce of, 29, 37, 
 
 140, 145, 462 ; English specu- 
 lators in, 94 ; havens of, 23 ; 
 
 learning in, 238, 327 ; wealth 
 
 of, 90 
 Murroughs, the, 37, 174 
 
 N 
 
 Navan, 171, 173 
 
 Navigators, Irish, 13, 28, 36-7, 
 
 213 
 Netherlands, trade with, 13, 19, 
 
 22, 26, 55, 145 
 
S68 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Newfoundland, 114 
 
 New Ross, 37, 132, 169 
 
 Norman settlers, 2-3, 98, loi, 
 328, 462 
 
 Nugent, Christopher, see Del- 
 vin ; Father Robert, 452 
 
 Nugcnts, the, 331 ; at West- 
 minster School, 430 
 
 Nuncio, Papal, visit to Ireland 
 of, 107 
 
 O'Beirne, Teige, 257 
 O'Brien, bishop of Killaloe, 432 ; 
 Conor, 353, 374 ; Donough, 
 353. 374, 379; Finola, 321 ; 
 Honora, 443 ; Margaret, 324 ; 
 Maurice, 431 ; Morough, 681, 
 170, 184; Turlough, 68, 305 
 O'Briens, the, 310; relations 
 with Galway, 21, 138,184,207 
 O'Bristan, a brehon in Fer- 
 managh, 382-4 
 Obuge, David, 244, 245 
 O'Callanans, the, of Carbery, 255 
 O'Carroll, Margaret, 31, 82 
 O'CarroUs, the, 60,331, 386,426 
 O'Cassidy, archdeacon of Clogher, 
 
 307 
 O'Clerys, the, 254, 323, 332, 
 
 344. 374 
 O'CofFey, Teige, 343, 353, 374 
 O'Conor Faly, Calvagh, 276, 
 
 346 ; Cathal, his bridge, 19; 
 
 Roderick, stone castle of, 61 ; 
 
 Rory, 6, 84 ; Turlough, his 
 
 three bridges, 9; Finola, 
 
 82 ; Margaret, 239, 346 ; 
 
 forts of, 60 
 O'Craidhens, the, merchants, 20, 
 
 36 
 O'Daly, " Angus of the Satires," 
 361 ; Donough More, 312, 
 326, 333 , Murray, 338 ; 
 Blind Teigue, 388 
 
 O'Dalys, the, 312, 326, 333, 
 
 338. 368, 388 
 O'bavoren, Donall, 377-80 
 O'Doherty, 320 
 O'Donnell, Calvagh, 60 ; Con, 
 
 307-8, 322 ; Edmund, 442 ; 
 
 Gormley, 321 ; Hugh Duff, 
 
 322 ; Hugh Roe, 321, 322 ; 
 
 Manus, 322 ; Margaret, 323 ; 
 
 Rose, 84 
 O'Donnells, the, 30, 254, 318, 
 
 ^320. 343 
 O'Donogho, Richard, 218 
 O'Driscoll of Baltimore, fleet of, 
 
 O'Duigennans, the, 326, 345 
 
 O'Duinn, 431 
 
 O'Fallon, bishop of Derry, 305 
 
 O'Farrell, trade of, 12, 132; 
 Hugh, 304 
 
 O'Fiaich, 343 
 
 O'Fihely, Donnell, 238, 246; 
 Maurice, 246 
 
 O'Flaherty, Edmund, 187; Rode- 
 rick, 370; Rory, 428 
 
 O'Flahertys, the, 20, 183-4, 188 
 
 O'Fyne, Donogho, 218 
 
 O'Gara, Fergal, 450-1 
 
 O'Gibellan of Sligo, 257 
 
 O'Hedigan, archbishop of Cashel, 
 
 33>. 332 
 O'Heyns, the, 37, 174 
 
 O'Higgins, Teigue Dall, 76, 
 
 349 
 O'Higgins, the, 314, 342 
 
 O'Hurley, Dermot, 247, 258, 
 443 ; Thomas, 246; William, 
 287 
 
 O'Hussey, Eochy, 319; Gilla 
 Brigde, 372, 452; Oliver, 
 professor in Douay, 247 
 
 O'Husseys, the, 75, 178, 314 
 
 O'Kelly, lord of Hy-Many, 304, 
 
 326, 345 
 O'Mahony, Fingin, 238 
 O'Mahonys, the, 6, 9 
 
INDEX 
 
 569 
 
 OMiille, Grania, 19-20 
 OMailles, the, 188; trade and 
 
 fishing of, 19, 20, 47 
 O'Morrisey, "master of schools," 
 
 O'Mulconry, ollave to earl of 
 
 Kildare, 336 ; Maelin, 346 ; 
 
 Maurice, 312; Paidin, 343; 
 
 Sarah, 82 ; Tuileagna, 57 
 O'Mulconrys, the, 314, 363 
 O'Mulrians, the, 175 
 O'Neill, Brian, 323 ; Con, ;^48, 
 
 387; Donnell, 323; Felim, 
 
 323 ; Henry, 84; Judith, 322; 
 
 Neill, 239, 323, 324, 345 ; 
 
 Shane, 15, 17, 92, 140, 163, 
 
 249. 388, 40'-2» 449 ; Tur- 
 
 lough, 348 
 O'Neills, the, trade and wealth 
 
 of, 15, 64, 68, 92 
 O'Reilly, trade of, 8, I2, 132; 
 
 dress of, 480 
 O'Reillys, the, 174, 331, 320; 
 
 English and Latin used by, 
 
 239, 240, 387 ; at Westminster 
 
 school, 430 
 O'Roarty, 339 
 O'Rody, Thady, 364 
 O'Roney's, the, 314 
 O'Rourke, Brian, captive, 428 
 O'Rourkes, the, friary of, 325 ; 
 
 learning of, 240, 387; palace 
 
 ,of». 324. 387 
 O'Scingin, Connacht brehon, 376 
 O'Shaughnessy, William, freeman 
 
 of Galway, 188 
 O'Shaughnessys, the, 36, 37, 240 
 O'SuUivans, the, 83, 98, 99, 175; 
 
 fleet of, 46 
 O'Troighthigh, Domhnall al- 
 
 banach, 256 
 Oldcastle, merchants of, 132 
 Olonye, John, 37 
 Orkneys, the, 18, 22 
 Orraond, earls of, 9, 84, 90, 106, 
 
 206, 211, 276, 284, 310 ; 
 
 their wealth, 67, 332 ; Piers, 
 earl of, 34, 305, 366 
 Os and Macs, 178, 180, 183 
 Ossory, Brian FitzPatrick, lord of, 
 
 426 
 Oxford, Irishman, mayor of, 33; 
 trade with, 133 ; university, 
 Irish halls at, 266-7 > students 
 at, 69, 238, 244, 246, 287, 
 289-302, 306, 367, 408, 428- 
 430 ; "Nations," 274 ; charge 
 of rioting, 273 ; students driven 
 out, 268-72, 275 ; political 
 reasons, 275-8 ; students sent 
 by Henry VIII., 283-4 ; re- 
 turned patriots, 285 ; students 
 sent by Elizabeth, 428-9 
 
 Pale, the, 4, 92, 121, 134-5. 
 
 173, 235. 249.. 329. 373. 386, 
 
 417, 426 ; resistance of, 158, 
 
 285-6; scholars of the, 211, 
 
 268, 271 
 Paris, college in, 443, 444 ; Irish 
 
 scholars in, 244, 247, 389 
 Pelham, lord justice, 121, 208, 
 
 214, 222 
 Pcrrot, Sir John, 70, 77, 94-5, 
 
 121, 149, 162, 396, 416, 428 ; 
 
 Columcille's cross stolen by, 63 
 Philip II., gives a college, 444 ; 
 
 protects Irish traders, 35 
 Picardy, trade with, 22 
 Planters, 104-6, 120, 127, 128, 
 
 143. 165, 381-2, 396. 398 
 
 Plate, carriage of, into England, 
 8, 154, 164 
 
 Poer, John, 56 
 
 Policy of England} in diplomacy, 
 479^5 ' '"^ education, 275, 
 277. 396, 425 ; in govern- 
 ment, 233, 449, 488-9; in 
 trade, 166, 168, 192, 202, 227 
 
 Portu, Maurice de, set O'Fihely 
 
570 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Portugal, trade with, 21, 26, 219 
 Prague, Irish Franciscans at, 442, 
 
 445 ; scholars at, 454-8 
 Printing, 401-3, 437, 453, 467 
 
 Q 
 
 Quarries, stone and marbles, 45 
 Quemerford, Dr., 452 
 
 R 
 
 Raleigh, Sir Walter, 140,141,410 
 Reilleys, the, 37 
 Renascence, the, 278 
 Renzi, Sir Matthew de, 242 
 Rheims, Irish scholars at, 247, 
 
 258. 443 
 Rhine, Irish trade, 55, 480 
 Ricardi, society of the, 13 
 Richard II., 204, 276, 286, 310 
 Richard III., 190, 205 
 Rimini, 240 
 
 Roads, 5, 6, 8-10, 42, 460 
 Roch, Milo, bishop of Leighlin, 
 
 306 
 Roche, Christopher, his wander- 
 ings, 442 
 Roches, the, 37 
 
 Rocheford, Father Robert, 368 
 Roderick, king, 342 
 Roman Curia, English diplomacy 
 
 at, 481-5 
 Rome, Irish Franciscans at, 442- 
 
 444; pilgrims to, 241, 318; 
 
 Irish school at, 241 ; scholars 
 
 in, 244-5, 443 
 Roncus, Lewis, 247 
 Roscommon, 75, 239, 326, 380 
 Rothe, servant of Silken Thomas, 
 
 337 
 Ryans, the, 178 
 
 Saffron, 22, 31, 51 
 Salt, 28, 149-50 
 
 Schools, 250, 259, 363, 376, 463, 
 493 ; Armagh, 341 ; bardic, 
 314, 326, 377-81 ; destruction 
 of, 372-3, 381-2, 393-4, 466; 
 the English grammar ordered, 
 416 ; Professors of the schools, 
 343-4; proposals for English, 
 407, 413, 437 ; town schools, 
 
 239. 332» 364-372 
 Scribes, 327, 343 
 
 St. David's, Irishmen at, 28 
 
 S. Francis, 324 
 
 S. Malo, trade with, 21 
 
 St. Nicholas church, Galway, 21, 
 184, 190; French inscriptions, 
 22; Irish vicars choral, 186-7 
 
 St. Patrick, cathedral of, 418-19, 
 421, 484 ; festival of, 175, 
 474; Purgatory of, 241 
 
 Salamanca, 441, 452 ; Irish 
 college at, 444 
 
 Salt, 18, 22, 28, 149-50, 207 
 
 Sarsfield, mayor of Dublin, 197 
 
 Savadge, Jenkin, 330 
 
 Savadges, the, 16 
 
 Scotland, scholars in Irish schools 
 from, 343 ; trade with, 5, 14, 
 18, 56, 93 
 
 Seanadh, island of (Bally-Mac- 
 manus), 319 
 
 Sentleger, Sir Warhame, deputy, 
 62, 120, 386,462 ; knight, 217 
 
 Serge, tee under Cloth, 51, 54 
 
 Sexton, mayor of Limerick, 1 74 
 
 Shannon, river, 230, 309, 422, 
 460, 491, 492 ; bridges over 
 the, 9 ; fleet of boats on, 
 10 
 
 Shoes, peaked and ornamented, 
 22, 23, 30, 56 
 
 Sidney, Sir Henry, 19, 32, 164; 
 attempts to save manufactures, 
 146-9 ; chiefs feared to come 
 into, 121 ; his customs on 
 wine ; 68, 141, 161 ; his de- 
 struction of manuscripts, 384, 
 
INDEX 
 
 57' 
 
 410 ; his English reputation, 
 401 ; at Hampton Court, 70 ; 
 packed parliament, 221 ; policy 
 of, 91, 154. 426-7, 471-2, 
 476, 478-9 ; to the towns, 
 208, 209, 214, 226, 229; 
 schemes of education, 284, 
 406, 408, 410, 420 ; his 
 departure, 415-6 
 
 Silk, 15,30,44, 51,81, 19s 
 
 Skins, 22, 28, 73, 86 
 
 Sligo, buildings at, 19, 58, 63, 
 325 ; trade in, 7, 19, 36; 
 county, scholars in, 287, 314, 
 320-1 
 
 Southampton, trade with, 19, 
 
 Slanders against the Irish, 38, 
 107, 113, 119-22, 165, 469- 
 
 73. 485-6 
 
 Sorley Boy, mazer of, 64 
 
 Spain, gold in Brazil, 125 ; 
 government of colonies, 128-9, 
 396-7 ; trade with, 13, 14, 
 19, 21, 22, 24, 25, 26, 28,29, 
 60, 67, 94, 141, 160, 161, 
 164, 173, 209, 222, 223, 241, 
 459 ; Irishmen in, 34, 442 ; 
 Irish ships sold into, 58, 222 ; 
 trade with threatened, 169, 
 138, 142 ; towns desiring to 
 keep it, 200, 222-3, 216, 229, 
 230 ; Irish colleges in, 442-5 ; 
 education in, 442-445 ; effect 
 of, 447-9 
 
 Speculators, English, 94, 137, 
 149 
 
 Spenser, Edmund, 78, 79, 88, 
 92-94, 172, 226, 339, 360, 
 416 
 
 Spices, 22, 30, 44, 86 
 
 Stag-hounds, exportation of, 73 
 
 Stanihurst, James, 197, 284, 406, 
 408, 409, 414, 415 ; Richard, 
 '4, 243, 329, 366, 375, 408- 
 12,415 
 
 Strafford, Thomas Wentworth, 
 lord, 28, 50, 149, 489 
 
 Suck, river, bridge over the, 9 
 
 Supremacy, oath of, 231, 284, 
 440 
 
 Sussex, earl of, lord deputy, 353, 
 391,426 
 
 Tadhg the Black, 241 
 Tallow, trade in, 16 
 Tanist, maintenance, 99 ; selec- 
 tion, ro8 ; education, 1 75 
 Tanning, limited by Elizabeth, 
 
 Tara, roads to, 5 ; festivals at, 
 29, 462 ; decay of, 341, 411 
 
 Taxes, English, 112, 286 ; Irish, 
 100-103, 109-12, 136 
 
 Tenby, Irishmen at, 28 
 
 Termon lands, church estates, 
 307 ; lay estates, 308, 460 ; 
 tenants on, 307-8 ; seized by 
 planters, 381 
 
 Thomond, earls of, 84, 157; 
 Donough, 4th earl, 374-5, 
 President of Munster, 231 ; 
 bridge and fortress, 9, 60 
 
 Tibbott na Long (Theobald of 
 the Ships), 20 
 
 Tillage, Irish, 89-93, 96, 311, 
 460 ; ruin of, 1 1 3-4 
 
 Timber trade, 45, 46, 74, 173 
 
 Toulouse, woad, salt, and wine 
 from, 22 ; scholar in, 443 
 
 Tournai, Irish college at, 44; 
 
 Towns, colonies of strangers, 168- 
 170; trade with Irish, 171-3, 
 188-9,219 ; relations with the 
 Irish, 173-91, 218-20; officials 
 and traders in, 169, 173-4, 
 178, 184, 187, 188, 191, 218, 
 257; mayors, Irish, 2;, 135, 
 174, 178 ; war with English 
 traders, 140, 143-4, H5, i53» 
 
572 
 
 INDEX 
 
 192-4, 199-200, 204, 223-4, 
 
 465 ; charters threatened, 225- 
 7, 231 ; markets threatened, 
 228 ; petitions from, 131-a, 
 159 ; schools, 364-71 
 Translations into Irish, 251, 260, 
 
 273» 463 
 Travers, schoolmaster, 365; John, 
 
 404 
 Treves, Irish scholar in, 244 
 Tribute, paid by foreign vessels 
 
 to the Irish, 20, 138; paid to 
 
 the O'Briens by the men of 
 
 Galway, 21 ; mantles and 
 
 cloaks paid to kings as, 51 
 Trim, trade of, 47, 171, 173; 
 
 O'Reilly's submission at, 480 ; 
 
 proposal for university, 422 ; 
 
 "the Greek church" at, 248 
 Tuam, fair at, 5 ; O'Conor's 
 
 castle at, 61 ; archbishops of, 
 
 190 
 Turrain Castle, variegated door 
 
 of, 58 
 Tyrone, civilization of, 323-4, 
 348 ; tillage, 91, 92, 254 ; 
 treasure at Dungannon, 68 ; 
 Hugh of, 376, 409, 452 
 
 U 
 
 Ulster, trade of, 7, 1 7, 1 8, 74 ; 
 
 tillage of, 91-2; civilization, 
 
 323-6, 372, 252; dwellings, 
 
 75. 349 
 University, proposals for, 260, 
 
 371, 418, 422 ; objections to, 
 
 419-21; founding of Dublin, 
 
 395, 422-424; Irish people 
 
 shut out of, 372, 395 
 Usquebaugh, see Whiskey 
 Ussher, archbishop, 248, 372 ; 
 
 John, alderman, 403 
 Usury, loans by officials, 162, 
 
 199 ; loans in towns, 163, 
 
 211, 229 
 
 Valencia, Baron, 428 ; harboui 
 
 of, 48 
 Valladolid, 444, 452 
 Venice, Irish scholar at, 246 ; 
 
 doge of, 235; trade with, 24, 
 
 .3° 
 Vienna, Irish monastery in, 442 
 
 W 
 
 Walshes, the, 182 ; at West- 
 minster School, 430 ; Chanter 
 Walsh of Waterford, 452 
 
 Walsingham, Sir Francis, 147, 
 399, 421, 429 ; Lady, Irish 
 whiskey sent to, 142 
 
 Wards, Irish, in England, 425- 
 433 ; in Dublin, 423 
 
 Waterford, loyalty of, 217 ; 
 trade of, lo, 27, 29, 47, 56, 
 
 94, 132, I3S» 154, 218, 219; 
 haven of, 26; conduit, 27; 
 forces, 181, 221 ; discontent, 
 214, 221-3, 227 ; ruin of, 
 223-4, 227-8, 231 ; schools 
 at, 17s. 239. 366, 367, 372, 
 
 394, 441 
 Waterways, 8, 10 
 Westminster School, Irish pledges 
 
 at, 42 9» 430 
 Westport, trade of, 9, 20 
 Wexford, trade of, 7, 14, 132 ; 
 
 school at, 366, 368 
 Whiskey, 86, 142 
 Whites, the, 366-7, 372, 440-1, 
 
 444, 445 
 Winchester, trade with, 52 
 Wine, 13, 14, 15, i6, 18, 22, 
 28, 29, 68, 141, 196, 205, 
 206, 211, 230 ; inland traffic, 
 
 173 
 Winter, Admiral, 140, 209 
 Woad, 22, 53 
 Wolf-dogs, 76, 349 
 
INDEX 
 
 573 
 
 Wolfe, Father David, 418, 419, 
 
 446 
 Women, plundered by soldiers, 
 
 212 ; position of, 83-4 
 Wool, imported from Spain, 52 ; 
 export of, 16, 173 ; export 
 forbidden, 146 ; ancient weav- 
 ing, 51 ; weavers kidnapped, 
 144; weavers' guild, 218; 
 ruin of weaving, 148-50, 152- 
 3. 223-4 
 
 Youghal, trade of, 7, 13, 24, 29, 
 132, 139, 228 ; Bristol mer- 
 chant inspector of, 205 ; col- 
 lege, 334; petitions to have 
 Desmond back, 216; wealth 
 of, 67 
 
 Youngmcn, band of^ 187 
 
 Yrishe, Edmund, 33 
 
 Glasgow: pbintfo at the univbrsitv pre';'! by kobert maclshose and co. ltiv 
 
BY ALICE STOPFORD GREEN 
 
 THE OLD IRISH WORLD 
 
 Svo. 4s. net. 
 
 THE MAKING OF IRELAND 
 
 AND ITS UNDOING 
 
 (i 200-1 600) ^ 
 
 %vo. I OS. net, 
 
 TOWN LIFE IN 
 THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY 
 
 Two Vols. Svo. 20s. net. 
 
 HENRY II. Crown 8m 2s. 6d. 
 
 [^Twelve English Statesmen Series. 
 
 WITH JOHN RICHARD GREEN 
 
 A SHORT GEOGRAPHY OF 
 THE BRITISH ISLES 
 
 Map. Svo. y. 6d. 
 LONDON : MACMILLAN AND CO. LTD. 
 
BY JOHN RICHARD GREEN 
 
 A HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. In eight 
 Volumes. Globe 8vo. 4s. net. each. [Eversley Series 
 
 THE MAKING OF ENGLAND. In two Volumes. Globe 
 8vo. 8s. net. {Eversley Series 
 
 THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. In two Volumes. Globe 
 8vo. 8s. net. [Eversley Series 
 
 STRAY STUDIES FROM ENGLAND AND ITALY. 
 
 Globe 8vo. 4s. net. [Eversley Series 
 
 OXFORD STUDIES. Globe Svo. 4s. net. [Eversley Series 
 
 HISTORICAL STUDIES. Globe Svo. 4s. net. [Eversley Series 
 
 STRAY STUDIES. Second Series. Globe Svo. 4s. net. 
 
 [Eversley Series 
 
 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. 
 
 With Maps and Tables. Crown Svo. 8s. 6d. 
 
 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. 
 
 With Maps, Tables, and an Analysis by C. W. A Tait, M.A. 
 Part I. 607-1265. Part II. 1204-1553. Part III. 1540-1689. 
 Part IV. 1660-1873. Crown 8vo. 3s. each. 
 
 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. 
 
 With Maps and Tables. For school use. Part I. 607-1422. 
 Part II. 1422-1660. Part III. 1660-1873. Crown Svo. 3s. each. 
 
 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE. 
 
 Illustrated Edition. Edited by Mrs. J. R. Green and Miss 
 Kate Norgate. With fourteen hundred Illustrations. Four 
 Volumes. Super royal Svo. los. net each. Also in 40 Parts at 
 IS. net each. 
 
 READINGS FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. Selected and 
 Edited by John Richard Green, LL.D. Part I. From Hengist 
 to Cressy. Globe Svo. is. 6d. Part II. From Cressy to Crom- 
 well. Globe Svo. IS. 6d. Part III. From Cromwell to Balaklava. 
 Globe Svo. IS. 6d. 
 
 THE LETTERS OF J. R. GREEN. Edited by Sir Leslie 
 Stephen, K.C.B. 8vo. 15s. net. 
 
 LONDON: MACMILLAN AND CO. LTD.