/*> ^ 
 
 “LIFE AND DEATH 
 
 THE IRISH PARLIAMENT”: 
 
 BEING THE SUBSTANCE OF TWO LECTURES DELIVERED IN 
 THE METROPOLITAN HALL, DUBLIN, BY THE RIGHT 
 HON. JAMES WHITESIDE, Q.C., LL D., M.P., 
 
 REVIEWED AND CORRECTED 
 
 BY THE 
 
 REV. SYLVESTER MALONE, C.C., 
 
 KILKEE. 
 
 DUBLIN : 
 
 JOHN F. FOWLER, 3 CROW STREET: 
 
 AND ALL BOOKSELLERS. 
 
 1863. 
 
J. F. FOWLER, PRINTER, 
 
 3 CROW STREET, DAME STREET, 
 DUBLIN. 
 
3 x<5 , \ <5T 
 
 Vs'sJL'f^ 
 
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 r4 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 On reading Mr. Whiteside’s lectures in a pamphlet 
 form this week, I find them different from what the 
 journals reported them; and, as the Times of the 20th 
 or 22nd declared it gave the lectures verbatim , I am 
 to presume that, on reflection, Mr. Whiteside corrected 
 some errors. Too many still remain, especially in con- 
 nection with the celibacy and working of the Catholic 
 Church in Ireland. Being urged by some friends, I 
 throw off the following pages, in the hope of dispelling 
 some particles in the atmosphere of error in which our 
 Protestant fellow-countrymen live, and to give more 
 correct views to some Catholics, who are as eminent in 
 the social scale as ignorant on the celibacy of the an- 
 cient Church. Owing to the name he enjoys, too much 
 importance, I was afraid, would attach to the remarks 
 of Mr. Whiteside — far too much, because his lectures 
 
 1 B 
 
IV 
 
 appear to me to be a tissue of misstatement, misrepre- 
 sentation, bigotry, and shallowness. His aim, to my 
 mind, was to have a laugh at the Catholics, and make 
 all ashamed of the Parliament, and so, averse to Repeal. 
 He chose a subject to attract the many, and treated it 
 in a way to please the few. 
 
 Sylvester Malone. 
 
 Killcee , Ash- Wednesday, 1863. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 Mr. Whiteside’s unphilosophic introduction of the subject-matter of 
 Lecture — His irrelevancy and bigotry — The celibacy of the ancient 
 Irish Church established — Objections met — Its connection with Rome. 
 
 It is very usual with historians or essayists, before intro- 
 ducing their readers to a certain period under review, to 
 give a general outline of the period that preceded. Such 
 a course has been found useful, if not necessary, for the 
 appreciation of facts to be submitted to consideration. 
 This utility or necessity is the more felt in proportion 
 as the time which a writer takes up forms an epoch. 
 Because, after all, a great deal, if not everything, de- 
 pends on contrast. We think the present strange only 
 because it differs from the past. Our estimate of what 
 we have depends on the value of what we exchanged 
 it for. One might naturally expect, then, from Mr. 
 Whiteside, when giving an account of the origin of 
 the Irish Parliament, that he would allude to the form 
 of government it replaced. His readers not unreason- 
 ably expected that he would represent each of the petty 
 kings of Ireland as so many petty tyrants, and the chief 
 king as a monstrous despot, in order to increase our 
 appreciation of English law. It was thought, if his 
 knowledge of the ancient history of Ireland were not 
 deep or accurate enough to serve for a description of its 
 laws and form of government, that he would fall back 
 on Tacitus’ account of the manners of the German 
 barbarians, and apply the picture to the Irish. Or, if 
 the picture required being pleasantly shaded off, and 
 that he chanced to learn from Guizot, in his History of 
 European Civilization , that states borrowed the idea of 
 representative government from the Church, he might 
 have placed the Irish, in their mode of legislation, merely 
 a few removes from utter barbarism. Mr. Whiteside, 
 
6 
 
 however, did not give us an idea of the first half of the 
 twelfth century, nor of the eleventh century; but, un- 
 fortunately for himself, to gratify a low bigoted preju- 
 dice, carries us back to the fifth century. He there puts 
 forward a statement impertinent, irrelevant to the sub- 
 ject on hands. But, unpardonable as it was in him to 
 wander from his subject, I hope for indulgence, kind 
 reader, in turning from the Irish Parliament, my aim 
 being to follow him in his wanderings, and review his 
 statements. In page 1 1 of his pamphlet, he says, that 
 u the Church of Ireland was a free and ancient Church, 
 held its synods, that in one of these it was ordained, at 
 which St. Patrick presided, that priests should have 
 wives”, and concludes as illogically, as clumsily, and in- 
 elegantly, that “ by the practice of the ancient Church of 
 Ireland, and, perhaps , of St. Patrick, we are assured the 
 Scripture was not contradicted by the ancient Church in 
 Ireland, and that the clergy were wisely married men”. 
 
 Truly the ancient Irish Church did not contradict 
 the Scriptures, but, at the same time, acted quite op- 
 positely to what he imagines. If Mr. Whiteside means 
 a probability by “ perhaps”, speaking of St. Patrick in 
 reference to marriage, he says what is utterly false. 
 There is not the slightest probability, not a shadow of 
 proof, in favour of the insinuation. In the sixty-five 
 lives written of him, there is the minutest, most detailed 
 account of his birth, of his education, of his companions, 
 of his staff, of his reliquary, of his long and chequered 
 and glorious career, of his relatives,* of his death, but 
 not a tittle to favour his insinuation, which no Irish 
 scholar would seriously throw out for a moment. In 
 the absence of all other proof, we might with the greatest 
 certainty presume, that St. Patrick, if opposed to the 
 celibacy of the clergy in sentiment or action, would 
 never have received consecration, or a sanction as mis- 
 sionary from Pome. That the clergy were not married 
 
 Trias Thcnmat . — Primordia Eccles. 
 
7 
 
 in the ancient Irish Church is made certain from the 
 penitential canons. Some of these, drawn up by 
 Cummian, who lived in the first half of the seventh 
 century, decree,* “ That if a cleric or monk, after con- 
 secrating himself to God, shall return to his secular 
 habit, or marry a wife, he shall do penance for ten years, 
 three of which he shall spend on bread and water, and 
 shall ever abstain from the use of marriage”. Look 
 again to the scale of penances graduated by St. Colum- 
 banus, who lived in the sixth century. He speaks in the 
 twentieth canon of those who had wives when ordained : 
 “ If any cleric or deacon, or one of any ecclesiastical dig- 
 nity, who after his conversion again knows his wife, let 
 him be assured that he has committed adultery, and 
 sinned as grievously as if he had been a cleric from his 
 youth, and as if he had sinned with a stranger; because 
 he sinned after taking a vow, by consecrating himself to 
 God, and made void the vow. Therefore let him do 
 penance on bread and water for seven years”, f To the 
 same purpose are the rules laid down in the Irish liturgy, 
 and most probably brought to Bobbio by the same Co- 
 lumbanus:J “If any cleric who was married, knows his 
 wife, after being raised to the ecclesiastical dignity, let 
 him know he has committed adultery. The inferior 
 cleric must do penance on bread and water, for four, the 
 deacon for six, priest for seven, and a bishop for twelve 
 years”. 
 
 Ecclesiastical celibacy in the ancient Irish Church is 
 established by an irresistible mass of evidence, that all 
 the sophistry of pleaders on either side the Channel can- 
 not set aside. The express canons, the incidental prac- 
 tices of the Church, the constant traditions support it. 
 Who could doubt the opinions of St. Gall in Switzer- 
 land, of Columbanus in France and Italy, of St. Co- 
 lumba among the Northern Scots ? No objection was 
 
 * Dupin, Bibliotheca Patrum , tom, 12. 
 
 f Ibd., p. 21, de mensura pcenitentiarum. 
 
 | Nouveau Traite de diplomatique , 1757 ; Dr. Lanigan. 
 
8 
 
 ever made by Rome to their notions of ecclesiastical 
 celibacy. And yet the slightest difference on a compara- 
 tively immaterial point is noticed. A small deviation 
 from the Gallican Liturgy is spoken of, in reference to 
 Columbanus in France; the rather bold tone he assumes 
 in addressing the Pontiff on the “ Three Chapters” does 
 not escape censure. The learned Virgilius, an Irishman, 
 brings trouble about his ears, because, in hinting the 
 sphericity of the Earth, his notions did not square with 
 those of his archbishop, Boniface. Never, as I said, 
 was the least suspicion whispered against the purity of 
 doctrine and practice of the Irish missionaries on 
 clerical celibacy. It is a well known fact that St. 
 Augustine in the conversion of England availed him- 
 self of the services of the Irish. Now, I put it to 
 any man of common sense, would such be the case if 
 the Irish Church did not agree with the centre of unity 
 on such an important point of discipline as ecclesias- 
 tical celibacy ? Certainly not. He would no more 
 have done so than a missionary now from All Hallows 
 or the Propaganda would beg the cooperation of the 
 Archbishop of Canterbury or Dr. Colenso. Why, the 
 Catholic Church allows the most public veneration, 
 allows Offices and Masses in honour of those saints, the 
 fathers of the Irish Church — to Saints Columba, Kevin, 
 Canice, who were born before St. Patrick was well cold 
 in his grave. And need I tell my reader that such 
 honours would not be allowed, that they would not be 
 put forth as bright examples for the imitation of the 
 faithful, if they had offered any opposition to Rome on 
 a point of discipline, the breach of which incurred, as a 
 matter of course, the penalty of the heaviest excommu- 
 nication. Even the calumniator, Gerald Barry, had to 
 acknowledge that the Irish clergy were famed for chas- 
 tity. Even the English archbishops, Lanfranc and 
 Anselm, in writing to the Danish bishops of Water- 
 ford* and Dublin and Limerick — as the latter put 
 * See Ussher’s Sylloge. 
 
9 
 
 themselves under the protection of the English bishops, 
 as being Normans — never, amongst the several abuses 
 alluded to, is there the slightest reproach made on the 
 non-observance of ecclesiastical celibacy. And this 
 happened after the Danish invasions. By these invasions 
 the bands of discipline were relaxed, the sanctuary was 
 profaned and deluged with blood,* the cloister was 
 rifled, the primatial see was usurped by laymen for 
 nearly two hundred yearsf — and yet, after the storm 
 had blown by, the Irish Church on the whole was found 
 pure. Wherever immorality entered the sanctuary, it 
 was not without trouble the tide was stayed or the evil 
 stopped. To do so, required the efforts of popes, and 
 often they had to sink into their graves before their 
 work was done. It might have been completed by 
 their successors, but never without noise and without 
 an effort. No noise was made, no trace of an effort by 
 Rome, to bring about a thorough harmony of feeling 
 and practice in reference to ecclesiastical celibacy in 
 the Irish Church. And as surely as there may be a 
 necessity for such a step, so surely would it be ac- 
 companied by noise or resistance. 
 
 In fair play, however, I will bring forward the only 
 objection worth notice against the celibacy of the an- 
 cient Irish Church. It is the strongest I have ever met 
 with, and my line of reading brought more under my 
 notice than probably fell in the way of Mr. White- 
 side. It is given by d’Acherry, by Martene, and by 
 Sir James Ware ( Opuscula Scti. Patricii). It runs thus: 
 “ If any cleric, from the doorkeeper up to the priest, 
 shall be seen without being habited in his tunic, in 
 order to conceal his nakedness, and if his hair be not 
 shorn according to the Roman manner, and if his wife 
 walk forth with unveiled head, let them be despised by 
 
 * Armagh was plundered eleven times by the Danes, and burnt five 
 times. — Archdall. 
 
 t St. Bernard’s Life of St. Malachy. 
 
10 
 
 the laity, and separated from the Church ”. Does this 
 prove that priests were allowed to marry ? Certainly 
 not; it would rather prove the contrary. Is it recon- 
 cileable with ecclesiastical celibacy ? Most certainly. 
 And first, the mention of the “veil”, to my mind, points 
 to a profession of chastity. The “ veiling of the head ”, 
 or “ taking the veil ”, in ecclesiastical language, means 
 a profession of religion or chastity. Now supposing — 
 though some deny it* — that the canon was drawn up 
 in the middle of the fifth century, yet the “ taking of 
 the veil ”, even so early, was in use for the religious pro- 
 fession. 
 
 Was the veiling of the head a civil ceremony ? No. 
 
 * I dissent with reluctance from Dr. Lanigan and Villeneuve. The 
 former cannot necessarily infer the spuriousness of the canon from 
 mention of the tonsure. It is not necessary to suppose that the clip- 
 ping of the hair was anything more than what propriety or decency 
 called for ; nor is it necessary to suppose that the Roman custom is 
 introduced in opposition to the oriental, but rather to the barbarian 
 custom of letting the hair grow long. St. Jerome says that the clerics 
 ought to distinguish themselves, by the cut of the hair, from the bar- 
 barians or Goths, who wore it long. The custom of the ancient 
 Romans was to wear the hair short ; and this practice, common to the 
 Romans, laics and ecclesiastics, was recommended by St. Jerome. On 
 the other hand, he would have them not shave the head all over, like 
 the priests qf Isis and Serapis. Besides, the canon alludes to the im- 
 propriety of having the clothes fit too tightly to the body, but recom- 
 mended the full, flowing garment. Now this, certainly, was not to 
 conform to any precise canon or fashion of Rome, but to follow the 
 natural dictates of propriety. More than that, Fleury ( Institution au 
 Droit Ecclesiastique) observes, that in 428, just four years before St. 
 Patrick came to us, Pope Celestine said that the dress even of bishops 
 in their civil actions did not differ from seculars. St. Jerome, in his 
 letter to Nepotien, says the same thing. But, while I may say that 
 there was not necessarily mention of the tonsure as an ecclesiastical 
 rite, so I may with great probability say, against Villeneuve, that the 
 Roman tonsure , as such, was not known in Ireland ; for, if once intro- 
 duced, it would not have been given up, such was the respect for St. 
 Patrick and Rome. To repeat, the object of the canon was to prevent 
 the wearing the hair long — the “ coulin ”, to which the Irish were so 
 attached ; as it was the object of St. Jerome, about the same time, to 
 prevent ecclesiastics from imitating the barbarians rather than the 
 Romans. 
 
11 
 
 Because we know, whatever may have been the custom 
 in the east, that in the west, and especially in the 
 north, it was not usual for females to be veiled in the 
 fifth century, I am certain it was not usual for the 
 Irish females to be veiled. If it were in a Church 
 merely, or on some solemn occasion, that the woman 
 was ordered to be veiled, there may be room for 
 discussion. But when in her ordinary actions, in her 
 hours of recreation, she was to appear with the head 
 veiled, and when it was not customary, does it not 
 afford the presumption that it was not a mere civil un- 
 spiritual action ? And then, when we consider that the 
 neglect of wearing the veil led to her being cut off from 
 the Church, can we doubt that it was deemed a grievous 
 transgression ? If Mr. Whiteside be not able to object, 
 you, gentle reader, may ask, was not the ceremony of 
 the veil in the profession of a nun introduced in the 
 course of time by the Church, and perhaps not in use 
 at the time spoken of? Well, from the end of the 
 fourth or beginning of the fifth century its use was 
 quite common.* In 852, just a hundred years before 
 the so-named canon of St. Patrick, Marcellina, sister 
 of St. Ambrose, received on Christmas Day the veil 
 from Pope Liberius. St. Ambrose, f speaking of virgins, 
 says: “ I do not deny that much caution should be used 
 by the Church before a girl be rashly veiled ” — Temere 
 velctur. OptatusJ blames the Donatists for making 
 the virgins throw off their veils. He says : “Now it is 
 very foolish and vain to make the virgins change from 
 their heads the veils, marks of a vow long since made, in 
 order to make them do penance”. Then, too, we have 
 the Pontiffs, Innocent§ and Gelasius,|| use the phrase, 
 “ covered with the veil”, as synonymous with a reli- 
 gious profession. They say : “These who are not as yet 
 
 * Academy of Inscriptions, t. 5, p. 173, in duodec. 
 
 t Lib. 3, p. 112. J Contra Parmenionem, lib. 6, p. 96. 
 
 § Epistle 2, ad Vitric, c. 13. || Ep. 9, ad Episcop. Lucanise, c. 14. 
 
12 
 
 covered with the sacred veil”, etc. Even the Lutheran 
 Bingham allows that the sacred veil was synonymous 
 with religious profession, and given not only to virgins, 
 but to widows.* Now, it may be seen how the canon 
 mentioning the veiled wife, if it does not clearly prove 
 the celibacy of the clergy, is surely reconcileable with 
 the wholesome discipline that I have established by 
 irrefragable proofs. It may appear strange, but it is 
 what could be done at the present day, if need were, 
 agreeably to the opinion of all Catholic theologians and 
 the letter of the canon law.f It says : “ No married 
 person is to be promoted to holy orders, unless with the 
 consent of the wife, who must vow continence”. How 
 foolishly then indeed would one infer at the present 
 day the absence of celibacy from the above canon. 
 The necessities of the Church would reduce the canon 
 to practice at the present day. But how much greater 
 the necessity for allowing married men to the service of 
 the Church in her infant state, while the former wives 
 took the veil. It was peculiarly necessary in Ireland. 
 The conversion of the people as a nation was rapid 
 beyond precedent. The harvest was great, and required 
 many labourers. It were long to wait to have the 
 young grow up. A spirit of zeal seized the married 
 after conversion. The wife contracted chaste espousals 
 with the Heavenly King. The goodness, the merits, the 
 learning of the husband, marked him out as a fit minister 
 for the altar. Synesius, who was consecrated Bishop of 
 Alexandria during the life of the wife, represents such 
 a class. Dr. Lanigan, then, in meeting the objection 
 from the Irish canon given by me, lay under no neces- 
 sity of saying, that it did not necessarily include the 
 priests. But no inconvenience would follow, though it 
 did include even the priests and bishops. Look over the 
 canons drawn up at the Council of Tours, in the year 
 
 * De Originibus, B. VII , c. iv., and quotes the 27th Canon of the 
 Council of Orange. 
 
 t Ex Capit. Conjugatus, de Convers. Conjug. 
 
13 
 
 565.* Amidst several bishops composing the council, we 
 meet with Saints Germanus of Paris, and Praetextatus 
 of Tours. Now, the twelfth canon states, “ that a mar- 
 ried bishop ought always be accompanied by clerics, 
 even in his chamber, and so separated from his wife 
 that her servants could have no communication with his 
 servants. The priest, or deacon, or sub-deacon, found 
 in company with his wife shall be under an interdict for 
 a y ear”. W ell, then , if Saints Germanus and Praetextatus, 
 such bright examples and upholders of clerical celibacy, 
 legislated for a married bishop, and for the living wife, 
 probably in the same house, as may be inferred from 
 reading the entire canon, how could any man in his 
 senses say that the Irish clergy were not bound to conti- 
 nence, merely because the wife, and not mentioned as 
 being in the same house, was obliged to wear the veil ? 
 Something, however, by way of objection — not that I 
 anticipate it from Mr. Whiteside — may be urged. It 
 may be asked, if no intercourse were to be between the 
 cleric and the former wife, why not have the latter lead 
 a conventual life, when the husband took holy orders ? 
 especially as some conventual houses, not improbably, 
 were founded at the time under consideration. Perhaps 
 she could have done so, but it was not necessary, or even 
 usual. For this we have the authority of Fleury. “ In 
 the first ages”, he says, “ virgins consecrated to God 
 lived, for the most part, with their parents, never stirring 
 out unless to go to church, where they had a place 
 separated from other women”, f So it was in Ireland ; 
 for we read in the life of St. Bridget, by Cogitosus, that 
 there was a place reserved for the nuns at one side the 
 sanctuary, away from the other women, while the clerics 
 were at the other side. And this arrangement was 
 found convenient a full century after the canon in dis- 
 pute was passed, and when there was ample time, one 
 
 * Tom. 5th of Cuncils, p. 857, quoted by Alletz, p. 392, die. of 
 Councils. 
 
 f Moeurs des Chret., n. 26. 
 
14 
 
 would think, for systematizing and perfecting con- 
 ventual arrangements. We have even stronger proof 
 of the non-necessity of conventual enclosure. In 633, 
 nearly two hundred years after the enactment of the 
 canon of St. Patrick, a General Council was held at 
 Toledo. It was composed of sixty-two bishops, of whom 
 five were metropolitans, and presided over by St. Isidore 
 of Seville.* Now, the fifty -sixth canon ordained, “ that 
 women taking the habit from the bishop need not enter 
 a convent, that they were religious to all intents and 
 purposes, and that they could not marry”. Even so late 
 as 7 2 1, the like legislation was necessary. Whoever mar- 
 ried the wife of a priest, even after his death, incurred 
 excommunication, f If, then, in Spain, that is supposed 
 to have received the faith from the apostles, in France, 
 even in Rome, the mother of churches, legislation about a 
 married priest became necessary nearly three hundred 
 years after the like legislation in Ireland immediately 
 after its conversion, what wonder we meet, and I never 
 met with it more than once, with the mention of a priest’s 
 wife during the life of the cleric ? It meant generally 
 that the wife either died before the ordination of the 
 husband, or, as in our case , that she died morally by 
 taking the religious veil. We may suppose, from the 
 practical turn of St. Patrick, that he trained the youth 
 for the altar, and prevented the necessity of pressing the 
 old into the service of the Church. But the Church 
 still would legislate for what would be but of rare 
 occurrence, for what would happen only once or by a 
 miracle. J The churches of Elvira, Toledo, Orange, 
 Arles, Tours, Agde, and Orleans used language more 
 calculated to excite our suspicion of their love of eccle- 
 sistical celibacy than what was used in the Irish Church, 
 and yet they unflinchingly upheld clerical celibacy. 
 
 The Irish Church “ was a free Church, too”. It was 
 
 * Tom. v. Con., p. 1702. f Tom. 6th Con., p. 1455. 
 
 } See Rubrics of Mass on the miraculous disappearance of the host. 
 
15 
 
 free from Anglo-Saxon control or interference. But 
 though Mr. Whiteside did not speak out plainly to the 
 mass, he was understood by a certain clique. Those 
 reading the account of the Irish Church by such Pro- 
 testants as Dr. Mant and King, are insulted by being 
 told that, till the coming of the English in the twelfth 
 century to Ireland, or the Synod of Kells, the au- 
 thority of the Roman Pontiff was unheard of. Now, 
 one of the canons at the so-called Synod of St. Patrick 
 decrees: “That if any difficult cases arise, that cannot 
 be decided by the Irish Church and the See of Armagh, 
 let them be referred to the Apostolic See”.* Ireland, 
 than which no nation is more tenacious of its practices 
 or faithful to its traditions, was not likely to forget the 
 lesson of its apostle. Hence, nothing but the authority 
 of Rome could prevail on the Irish priests and bishops 
 to give up the paschal computation as left them by St. 
 Patrick. St Columbanus, whose boldness of language 
 is only equalled by his respect for the Holy See, ad- 
 dresses Pope Boniface as “ the most honoured head of 
 all the Churches in Europe, dearly beloved pope, the 
 exalted prelate, shepherd of shepherds”. “We are”, 
 he continues, “ disciples of Saints Peter and Paul, and 
 of the divinely inspired writers, admitting no doctrine 
 save what comes down from the Gospel and apostles. 
 The faith is inviolate which has been transmitted to us 
 by you, the successors of the apostles. We are attached 
 to the chair of Peter; and though Rome be great and 
 renowned, we esteem it so, only because of that chair. 
 On account of the twin apostles you are almost Hea- 
 venly, and Rome is the head of the world and of 
 churches”.f There were legates appointed from time 
 to time, as David in the sixth, and Gillebert in the be- 
 ginning of the twelfth century. J Of course there was 
 
 * Ware, Ussher, Martene, D’Acherry. 
 
 t Mabillon, Critica in Annal. Baron. 613. 
 
 | Ware, Ulster Annals. I am surprised Dr. Lanigan would repre- 
 sent Gillebert as the first Irish legate. 
 
16 
 
 not the same communication between Ireland and 
 Rome in the earlier as in later ages. It was not easy, 
 on the death of each bishop, to despatch messengers or 
 letters for confirmation from the Pope; but the Pope 
 could commission the metropolitan or the senior bishop 
 to give canonical institution without reference to the 
 Holy See at each vacancy. Such was the case, on 
 account of the distance and difficulty of communication. 
 Such had been the case in reference to countries that 
 lay nearer to , Rome than Ireland. Pope Honorius 
 wrote to the Archbishops of York and Canterbury, 
 Honorius and Paulinus, gave them the palliums, and 
 leave that one, on the death of the other, should 
 appoint a successor to the deceased, and invest him 
 with the pallium, on account of the distance of place.* 
 We have, then, the earliest Irish canons, drawn up by 
 the great apostle, recommending connection with and 
 submission to Rome. These were acted on in the life 
 and writings of the saints and doctors of the Irish 
 Church. The Irish Church was free, and is free — no 
 creature of the state. Its ministers do not owe their 
 advancement to flattering the vicious, or crouching to 
 the tyrannous and the great. They are no mere decent 
 police for the preservation of power. They derive their 
 authority from no civil sanction, and defy the mightiest 
 earthly potentate to unfrock them. The Irish Church 
 is free, because subject to the chair of Peter. There 
 is freedom in that subjection, because rational, and 
 founded on legitimate law and religion. There is sla- 
 very in the absence of respect for and obedience to that 
 chair; and whenever the link is snapped binding one 
 to it, one is laid at the mercy of a lay pope, whether in 
 England, in Russia, or Constantinople. I am reminded 
 of a savage roaming without restraint through the desert 
 or forest, without any laws but what the wild passions 
 dictate, who boasts that he only enjoys the freedom for 
 
 Epistle 6th, in the reign of King Edwin. 
 
17 
 
 which man was created. The pity of the prodigal child 
 for his more sensible and dutiful brother, is not unlike 
 what Mr. Whiteside affects to feel for us. He may 
 very well spare his pity in our regard, and extend it to 
 Dr. Colenso and his own. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Henry’s visit as a conqueror, not as a courteous tourist — No conquests 
 before him — His character — Misrepresentation of Mr. Whiteside — 
 Unfair quotation by mutilated passages — The desire of plunder, not 
 reformation, the motive of Henry’s visit — Contrast between Irish 
 and English Churches — Mr. Whiteside’s blunders in reference to 
 Councils. 
 
 ITavjng occupied myself in the last chapter with show- 
 ing how false were the assertions of Mr. Whiteside in 
 regard to the Irish Church, you will not be surprised to 
 find proof of a good deal of his misrepresentation in the 
 present chapter. And, indeed, unless you bear in mind 
 his aim, his object, you cannot well understand his in- 
 troduction of a variety of matter. To make us venerate 
 the memory of Henry the Second, for giying him a par- 
 liamentary and physical constitution (how nearly re- 
 lated is he to Henry ?), and to neutralize that alienation 
 of feeling we should entertain towards him as a con- 
 queror, he tells, p. 9-10, that Henryk visit was quiet 
 and courteous. Of course, having used Cooke’s name 
 as a sort of talisman, a u demiourgos”, to work wonders 
 with, and enchant us in ecclesiastical regions, now at 
 once he is brought forward to prove that Henry was no 
 conqueror. King Edgar, according to him, mastered 
 the greater part of Ireland in the tenth century. Allow 
 me to assure Mr. Whiteside that Edgar made no con- 
 quests. He was styled the a peaceable’’. During the 
 sixteen years of his reign he carried on no war, abroad 
 or at home. So far from mastering Ireland, he was nbt 
 
 5 
 
18 
 
 master of England. It was on condition of allowing 
 the Danes to have their own laws that he secured any- 
 thing like allegiance.* He had to fit out a fleet of three 
 thousand boats yearly to check their depredations in the 
 north, though, indeed, without ever bringing it into 
 action, its appearance was enough to insure order, f 
 It may not be denied, indeed, that there is mention of 
 Ireland as subject to him. But this arose from the fact 
 that the Danes were in possession of a great part of Ire- 
 land, and particularly the maritime towns, and as the 
 Danes in Northumbria made a show of submission to 
 him, he thought, or they thought, their countrymen in 
 Ireland may be included. In fact fifty years had not 
 elapsed when Brien the “brave” had to engage in a 
 death struggle with them. King Edgar’s successors 
 sent no help. Why, England was overrun with Danish 
 hordes at the time. By the way, one northman was 
 deemed a match for ten Englishmen. J Brian Boroimhe 
 fought and fell, but conquered, yet a few cities were left 
 to the Danes. Even two hundred years after, the love 
 of kindred shown by the Danes in having their country- 
 men in Ireland mentioned in King Edgar’s charter, was 
 still manifested. For the Bishops of Dublin and 
 Waterford, in the possession of the Danes, asked conse- 
 cration from the Norman Archbishop of Canterbury, 
 with whom they claimed kindred. § Edgar, then, was 
 not conqueror of Ireland; and the Danes themselves, 
 the very descendants of those who called, or allowed 
 themselves to be called, subjects of Edgar, fought des- 
 perately against the English sent by Henry the Second. 
 
 Can we forget the bravery of the citizens of Dublin, 
 the heroic efforts made by the saintly patriot, Laurence 
 O’Toole, who, as some say, buckled on armour, but, by 
 the admission of all, went among the dying to rescue 
 them from the heel of the oppressor, and give them the 
 
 * Lingard. f Malmesbury, 33. 
 
 | Serm. sup. apud Hickes, 103, Ibid. § See Ussber’s Sylloge. 
 
19 
 
 last rites of the Church ? Can we forget the scenes 
 that were enacted at Reginald’s Tower ?* How, with 
 what face can Mr. Whiteside say that no opposition 
 was offered to Henry? No resistance was offered to 
 him personally, because the work was done by his sub- 
 ject adventurers. Molyneux — and I could wish Mr. 
 Whiteside his love of country — may have said that 
 Ireland was not conquered, in order to insist on the 
 rights of a free nation. We all can say that it need not 
 have been a conquest. MacMurrough, King of Lein- 
 ster, need not have been a traitor and in the camp of 
 the enemy. The Northerns need not and should not 
 have given grounds for suspicion of their fidelity to 
 Roderick, Monarch of Ireland, and so caused them to 
 be sent away from his ranks. Roderick, thus deserted 
 by the Northerns, might have staked the fate of the 
 country on the issue of a battle. None of these things 
 occurred that might have united the Irish and driven 
 the invader into the sea, but we can’t help admitting 
 that Ireland was conquered. If it could, it w r ould have 
 expelled the stranger. There was scarcely an interval of 
 five years between the risings in the several parts of the 
 country (not simultaneous, indeed) during four hundred 
 years. As ill luck would have it, no one thought of 
 combining with the neighbour till the danger or griev- 
 ance came to his own door. As soon as the foe had 
 trampled out any rising for independence in one part, 
 they were prepared to face opposition in another. Need 
 I speak of the partial, and therefore unsuccessful efforts 
 in later ages ? I know of only one occasion when there 
 was made what might be called a general stand. I 
 allude to the rising, in 1642, of the natives in union 
 with the Pale. The result was, that there was scarcely 
 a fortress left the English during the few months of 
 harmony between the old and new families. United, 
 I repeat, they may have swept the stranger off the land 
 
 2 B 
 
 Leland, book i. 
 
20 
 
 on many occasions; but they were not, and the conse- 
 quence was the pressing the yoke the more tightly, by 
 each unsuccessful effort, about their necks. Henry's 
 visit was unacceptable. He came to fasten the yoke 
 thrown over the natives by his bold adventurers, or 
 rather by the disunion of their adversaries. No nation 
 ever gave so many unmistakeable signs of the impatience 
 with which that yoke was borne. It is, then, quite 
 correct to say that there was a conquest. It is no mis- 
 nomer, as Mr. Whiteside maintains. To say anything 
 else is but an euphemism, the toning down, softening 
 the harshness with which the word “ conquest ” grates 
 on the ear. It is not willingly that five-sixths of the 
 population at the present day submit to the laws as ad- 
 ministered by English officials. Such was the case in the 
 days of “ Cambrensis ” or Gerald Barry. W ith propriety, 
 then, did the same Gerald write a book entitled the 
 “ Conquest of Ireland ”. Henry the Second then was con- 
 queror. He gave the title of kings to the petty princes, 
 because he could not help it, because his conquests ex- 
 tended only over three or four counties; nor, after 
 many changes, now extended, now contracted, did they 
 include a larger territory at the beginning of the six- 
 teenth century.* But let us hear the amiable charac- 
 ter drawn of this “ no conqueror ” by Mr. Whiteside. 
 He pretends to take his colours from Gerald Barry, who 
 came over to Ireland as tutor to Prince John: — “Henry 
 the Second, King of England, was of a very good colour, 
 but somewhat red; his head great and round, his eyes 
 fiery, red, and grim, and his face very high-coloured; his 
 voice or speech was tremulous, his neck short, his breast 
 broad and big; strong-armed; his body was gross, and 
 his belly somewhat big, which came to him rather by 
 nature than by any gross feeding or surfeiting, for his 
 diet was very temperate, and, to say the truth, thought 
 to be more spare than comely; and yet, to abate his 
 
 Liber munerum . 
 
21 
 
 grossness and to remedy this fault of nature, he did as 
 it were keep a continual war with himself. He was 
 learned, affable, gentle, courteous, besides so pitiful, 
 that when he had overcome his enemy, yet would he 
 be overcome with pity ” (p. 10). Who would not fall 
 in love with such a character ? But we know that 
 Gerald Barry could speak different language when 
 Henry was dead. Many of us wish to flatter the powers 
 that be. Now what does another writer, Peter of Blois, 
 say of him ? — “ Henry was like a lion when angry, and 
 chewed the straw like a madman. He scarcely ever 
 forgave those he hated ”, And let me turn to the same 
 man from whom Mr. Whiteside pretends to give a like- 
 ness of Henry: — “He disregarded the obligation of an 
 oath, plundered churches, and persecuted her minis- 
 ters”.* Mr. Whiteside, instead of painting him in 
 these dark colours, represents him in the brightest 
 light. To give these partial views, half truth, may suit 
 a pleader, but is quite unworthy the impartiality of an 
 historian. It is more unmanly, more dangerous, be- 
 cause sometimes difficult of detection, than gross, un- 
 mixed falsehood. This same Henry, while he came to 
 take care of Ireland in 1161, kept on his hands, for his 
 own benefit, one archbishojmic, five bishoprics, and 
 three abbeys. f How reconcile with his forgiving dis- 
 position and courtesy the murder of the Archbishop of 
 Canterbury, who stood up for the independence of the 
 Church, and whom he pretended to have been recon- 
 ciled with by honouring him before the nobility ? 
 How reconcile the unrevengeful spirit, a stranger to 
 anger, attributed to him by Mr. Whiteside, with the 
 ungenerous persecution of St. Laurence O’Toole? St. 
 Laurence did what man could do to avert calamity 
 from his country, and when he could not prevent, he 
 broke the fall of the nation. He went to stipulate for 
 the making or fulfilment of favourable terms for the 
 
 * Hib. Expugnata , ch. 45. 
 
 t Madox, 209-212. 
 
22 
 
 unfortunate monarch of Ireland. So taken with his 
 character is the Protestant Archbishop Ussher, his noble 
 lineage, love of country, love of his neighbour, of self- 
 denial, that he appears to have forgiven him for his 
 saintship with which the Catholic Church has honoured 
 him.* Now the saintly, patriotic Laurence, having 
 pleaded strongly the cause of Ireland and her unfortu- 
 nate monarch, he was forbade by Henry returning to 
 Ireland. He had to go to Normandy. Persecution 
 preyed on his spirits, a fever ensued, and he died in a 
 strange land because he loved Ireland, and pleaded her 
 cause before her oppressor. 
 
 Now that we have seen that Henry could be received 
 only as conqueror in Ireland, and that his real charac- 
 ter must be drawn in unfavourable colours, I go to con- 
 sider what, according to Mr. Whiteside, he did while in 
 Ireland. He says (p. 10, pamphlet), that before Henry 
 left Ireland, “ he caused obedience to be sworn to him 
 in a council at Lismore, and in a general council held 
 at Cashel, rectified many abuses in the Church agree- 
 ably to the laws of the English Church”. In the first 
 place, there was no council held at Lismore, either 
 during the stay or after the departure of Henry, in 
 that century. Secondly, there was no general council 
 in Cashel, nor did the king assist at it. He was in 
 Dublin when it was held. Hoveden, indeed, would 
 lead a superficial reader to think it was general, because 
 he there takes an occasion to give a list, and curious 
 one, of the Irish sees.f So far from it being general, 
 that the primate, Gelasius, was not present, though he 
 went through a visitation in Connaught the same year. 
 If you except the Bishop of Clogher, whose prince 
 yielded to Henry, none of his suffragans attended. 
 How, then, could it be called a general assembly of the 
 
 * See Usher’s Sylloge . 
 
 t He gives Cellumbrathensis. I would wish to know from Mr. 
 Whiteside what does that mean. 
 
23 
 
 clergy ? Again, what were the abuses rectified ? We 
 can judge from the remedies prescribed, from the 
 canons that were enacted: — 1. That marriages should 
 not be with relatives by blood or marriage. 2. That 
 baptisms should take place in church. 3. That all 
 the faithful should pay tithes. 4. That all ecclesias- 
 tical lands should be exempt from the exactions of lay- 
 men, and that victuals and entertainment should not 
 be required by laymen. 5. That a priest shall not pay 
 a fine for a murder committed by a relative — eric it 
 was called. 6. That, after making confession, dying per- 
 sons divide their property between children and wife, 
 and leave the third part for burial expenses. 7. That 
 all things be done according to the rite of the English 
 Church.* Now, canons to the same effect were often 
 passed in Irish synods before. There may have been a 
 difficulty of their being generally acted on, owing to 
 the confusion of the times and want of consolidation of 
 the provinces into one kingdom. But though the 
 canons did not originate with the English, yet if they 
 afforded a greater facility of reducing them to practice, 
 w^e could forgive them. But no. The impediment of 
 relationship to the seventh degree was difficult of ob- 
 servance, so that it had to be reduced to the fourth de- 
 gree in the universal Church. It was peculiarly diffi- 
 cult of observance amid the system of clanship in 
 Ireland. However, we know that the bishops might 
 have got leave to dispense in the impediment. The 
 baptism of children at the church was not necessary, 
 though seemly; and often since that time the Saxon 
 put it out of our power to baptize in church or in the 
 mountain cave. Tithes were partially paid before the 
 coming of the English,! and their more general intro- 
 duction after, led to many feuds, to bloodshed and 
 
 * Wilkins, vol. i., p. 472. I don’t know should the seventh be 
 made a distinct canon. 
 
 t D’Acherry, in his Spicilegium , says the Irish paid tithes according 
 to the ministrations. Dr. Lanigan, vol. iv. 
 
24 
 
 death.* * * § Ecclesiastics had been exempted from accom- 
 panying the chief to wars so early as in the year 779 ;f 
 and I am sorry to have to say, the English ecclesiastics 
 marshalled their countrymen for war from time to time 
 in Ireland;^ and down so late as the year 1503, we find 
 an agreement entered into by the friars of Kilcormick 
 and Theobald, son of Donogh, on the other hand, binding 
 the former to feed four persons, or give food in each quar- 
 ter of the year.§ The exemption from eric, as regarded 
 the priest, prevailed full three hundred|| years before 
 the invasion of Henry. The decency of burial, and the 
 interests of the relatives of the deceased, were legislated 
 for even in the days of St. Patrick.^ One-third of the 
 property went to the church where the burial took 
 place, or one-sixth if the family church were different 
 from the burial church, and the remaining two-thirds 
 given to the surviving relatives. Then wdth regard to 
 conformity in ritual practices with the English Church, 
 that, too, was not carried out.** 
 
 The regulations then made at Cashel did not rectify 
 abuses; they were not original, they were not carried 
 out, and they regarded matters of discipline. Every 
 step was taken to prevent abuses before the Anglo- 
 Norman invaded Ireland. In 1152, there was a gene- 
 
 * Gillebert, in a sort of compendium of canon law, speaks of tithes. 
 Sylloge of Ussher, p. 85. See Harris’ Ware, Bishops of Lismore and 
 Waterford. 
 
 f See Annals of Four Masters , ad annum, and Moore’s Ireland , vol. 
 ii., pp. 1 6, 55. 
 
 X The Irish were thrown into confusion by a wound received on 
 the part of Ryan, an Irish chief, in 1171, from an arrow shot by an 
 English cleric (Leland, book i.) ; and in the thirteenth and fourteenth 
 centuries, the Bishops of Dublin, who were chief justices, led on the 
 English to battle. 
 
 § Irish Archceological Miscellany , vol. i., p. 104. 
 
 || See Cambrensis Eversus , vol. ii., p. 548, note, as edited by Rev. 
 M. Kelly. 
 
 IT Seanchus More quoting the acts of St. Patrick. 
 
 ** See the Martyrolgoy of Christ Church , published by the Irish 
 Arch geological Society. 
 
25 
 
 ral national council held at Kells, at which Paparo, 
 the Pope’s legate, presided.* * * § In the year 1157, a council 
 was held at Mellifont, at which were present eighteen 
 bishops. In 1162, Gelasius, the primate, presided at a 
 council held at Clane, County Kildare. j* In fact, as Le- 
 land observes, councils were of yearly occurrence since 
 the synod of Kells, so much so as to justify the supposi- 
 tion that all efforts were made to have the bull of 
 Adrian the Fourth not acted on — to leave no grounds 
 for censure. J No abuses were to be rectified, but much 
 disorder was induced. Listen to what the author 
 quoted by Mr. Whiteside himself says. Gerald Barry 
 says, “ that the cathedral churches mourn, having been 
 robbed by those who came over, of the lands given 
 them, and ample estates, by the devotion of the Irish; 
 and that while nothing new was conferred on the 
 Church of Christ in our new principality, so far from 
 thinking it worthy of new honour, that having taken 
 away its lands, we abrogated its former dignities and 
 privileges ”.§ A very low standard, indeed, for the 
 Irish Church to take the English for its model, as Mr. 
 Whiteside says in p. 11. If love of reformation, and 
 not plunder, impelled Henry the Second, he had enough 
 to occupy him at home. Just three years after the 
 Council of Cashel, a council was held at Westminster 
 in .the year 1175. It was on the Sunday before the 
 Ascension. The bishops met to devise some means 
 against the enormities that were incessantly cropping 
 up in England ( pullulant incessantur). They legislated 
 against concubinage of the clergy, against receiving 
 money for the administration of communion, baptism, 
 confirmation, etc. Laws were made against private 
 marriages, against consecrating in tin chalices, also 
 against the administering communion in a way that 
 
 * Grace’s Annals ; Ussher (who puts it at Mell) ; Diceto , Colgan, 
 
 app. 7th. 
 
 f Harris’ Bishops. j Leland, book i., ch. 2. 
 
 § Hib. Expug., preface, book ii. 
 
26 
 
 savoured of heresy.* * * § Hence we find clergymen of this 
 immoral stamp sent over in the train of Henry. The 
 calumniator of the Irish, Gerald Barry, acknowledged 
 in full synod, that the Irish clergy were always famed 
 for the purity of their lives and observance of ecclesias- 
 tical celibacy. And it is a generally known fact, that 
 a complaint was made by the Bishop of Ferns in synod, f 
 that the English ecclesiastics were tarnishing the purity 
 of the Irish Church, and that one hundred and fifty were 
 sent to Rome for absolution by St. Laurence O’Toole.J 
 Such missionaries for the reformation of Ireland, how 
 suggestive are they of the Bible-readers and missionaries 
 of our own day sent to enlighten the Irish ! Nor were or 
 could the laics be better. Hervy de Montmorris hurled 
 scores in cold blood from the rock of Carrick. Philip 
 of Worcester was distinguished by cruelty and oppres- 
 sion, “ eating meat in mid-Lent”, to the scandal of the 
 faithful. Hamo de V alois robbed the church of Dublin. 
 John, Earl of Moreton, kept the sees vacant from cu- 
 pidity. De Lacy plundered Clonmacnoise, and was 
 struck dead by some peasant shocked at his profanation 
 of a monastery; and this same De Lacy had De Courcy 
 seized while in prayer and pilgrimage on Good Friday. § 
 Strongbow, according to the Irish annalists, was the 
 greatest tyrant since the days of Turgesius. “ He died 
 full of remorse, smitten by remorse and the saints of 
 God”. William Hail wasted the whole island in 1179, 
 not sparing the churches. FitzAdelm was corrupt, 
 sensual, tyrannical, and governed only to enrich him- 
 self. || To finish with the words of Gerald Barry, the 
 “exalting of the Church has been changed into the 
 
 * See Hoveden, Annals , pars posterior. They dipped the sacred 
 species of bread in the species of wine. 
 
 t Albin O’Mulloy, at the time Abbot of Baltinglass. 
 
 t See Ware, Harris, and Life of St. Laurence. 
 
 § Ware, Harris’ Bishops , p. 455 ; Leland, ch. 4, 5 ; Liber munerum y 
 Gesta A.nglorum , p. 52. 
 
 j| Leland, book i., ch. 4 ; Archdall. 
 
27 
 
 plundering of the Church”.* I hope I will hear no 
 more of the rectifying of abuses in the Irish Church by 
 Henry and his followers, or of the conformity of the 
 Irish to the English ecclesiastics. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 The English and Irish Churches never forming, in the earlier ages, a 
 National Church, as at present understood — “Modus” of Parlia- 
 ment not sent over by Henry the Second The Irish Parliament 
 
 did sit not long after the death of Henry the Second — Not bound 
 by the English Parliament — Brehon Laws. 
 
 Unless to persuade people that the supremacy of the 
 English king in ecclesiastical matters was always recog- 
 nized, I can’t see what object Mr. Whiteside has in 
 dwelling on the union of the Churches of England and 
 Ireland, on their forming one National (sic) Church. 
 Besides, he asks, why did King John acknowledge that 
 he granted “ Magna Charta by the advice of the Arch- 
 bishop of Dublin”? (page 11 of pamphlet). For this 
 very reason, that Henry Loundres was an Englishman, 
 was a bad man (he went by the name of Scorch-villain 
 among the Irish), and, finally, because he was valued 
 by John for having given him help in the day of his 
 distress, for having spoken insolently to the Pope’s 
 legate, and for having been opposed to the surrender 
 of his kingdom as a fief to the Holy See.f Kings 
 Henry and John claimed a voice in the nomination of 
 bishops. They enjoyed a privilege no greater than 
 what the Pope grants to all Catholic princes. At first 
 
 * Hib. Expug ., preface, 2nd edition. 
 
 t Leland, Ware. He one day got all his tenants together, got them 
 to surrender their leases on some pretext, and threw them into the 
 fire. Several of his attendants being killed, himself narrowly escaped. 
 
28 
 
 bishops were poor in the things of this world, lived on 
 the voluntary donations of the people. By-and-by 
 their sees were endowed — they became temporal as 
 well as spiritual lords. The prince wished to be satis- 
 fied of the loyalty of the subject to whom he gave such 
 ample revenues. The Pope thought it not unreason- 
 able to gratify the prince. The English monarch had 
 a voice, then, in the nomination of bishops in Ireland 
 and in every part of his dominions; but in no other 
 sense was he head of the Irish Church. In no other 
 sense did the Irish Church and the English Church 
 form one, than that the same monarch had a voice in 
 both kingdoms in presenting to the vacant sees. Both 
 professed obedience to Borne as if under different 
 monarchs. And by looking into Harris’ Bishops you 
 will find that sometimes the Pope opposed, and success- 
 fully, the appointment of the English sovereigns. The 
 English Church did not appoint to a bishopric, to a 
 prebend, to a single living in Ireland, did not interfere 
 in the holding of synods, did not dare to issue censures, 
 unless on one or two occasions, by the authority of the 
 Pope, when the Irish bishops were deemed rather partial 
 to their countrymen. So far, then, from there being an 
 amalgamation between the two Churches, that even the 
 religious of the Irish within and without the Pale were 
 formed into two provinces, and both quite distinct from 
 the English province.* The foolish notion of a “ na- 
 tional ” Church in two nations absolutely managed by 
 the monarch, was reserved for the days of Mr. White- 
 side. 
 
 I come now to consider two points, on neither of 
 which I agree with Mr. Whiteside. These are the modus 
 or form of holding parliament, and the time or birth 
 of the parliament. You will not be surprised to 
 hear him quote Cooke as his authority for forming his 
 opinion on the first. According to him, Henry the 
 
 * Hib. Dominicana , passim . 
 
29 
 
 Second transcribed the form of summoning parliament, 
 and sent it to Ireland. Owing to the obscurity in which 
 the matter is involved in Mr. Whiteside’s eyes, he he- 
 sitates following Cooke, till Dr. Dopping, Protestant 
 Bishop of Meath, discovers the original document, and 
 that establishes the fact in his mind (p. 12). Now, with 
 all respect for Messrs. Whiteside and Cooke, the fact is 
 not established. Prynne and the learned Selden think 
 otherwise. Of what use, sending a writ to hold a parlia- 
 ment, when there was no sheriff, no shire ground, no 
 suffrage ? But, then, how are we to get over the original 
 document of Dr. Dopping ? To burn it, as every false 
 forged piece should be treated. Now, the form runs 
 thus : “To the archbishops, earls, barons, clergy, knights, 
 etc., etc., in Ireland”. Now, the clergy were not sum- 
 moned to parliament for a considerable time after the 
 death of Henry the Second. But Mr. Whiteside may 
 say that they were not, nor any person actually, but 
 that there was a right given, there was an intention of 
 doing so. There could have been no intention of doing 
 so, because, up to Henry’s death, the clergy, as a third 
 estate, were not summoned to parliament. And if, 
 according to the ablest historians, the idea of summon- 
 ing the clergy arose from chance events after his death, 
 surely he did give a writ in which their names appear 
 as a matter of course. Furthermore, there is an allusion 
 to the precedency of Armagh before Dublin, and, on the 
 other hand, of Dublin before Armagh, according to cir- 
 cumstances.* Never was the supremacy of Armagh ques^ 
 tioned till the issuing of a bull by Pope Lucius the Third. 
 That bull was given in the year 1182. The Dublin 
 bishops did not use it for a considerable time after, to dis- 
 pute the supremacy or precedence of Armagh. f I am 
 sure of that. The controversy was warmly carried on by- 
 and-by to the bewilderment of the English kings. The 
 controversy was not known or heard of till after Henry, 
 
 See Harris’ Antiq. f Jus. Primat. Armacanum — Harris’ Bishops. 
 
30 
 
 and therefore he did not legislate or word the writ, to 
 reconcile claims that were not made, to settle a contro- 
 versy that had not arisen. The second point Mr. 
 Whiteside is more anxious to establish — namely, that 
 there was only one parliament for both kingdoms, and 
 that the Irish members were summoned to Westminster 
 (p. 16), and that no statutes appear before the time of 
 Henry the Sixth. 
 
 If he looked into the preface of the famous record- 
 compilation, Liber munerum , he would learn how, like 
 more precious records, they disappeared. It may seem 
 curious that representatives were summoned over to 
 Westminster in the year 1375, but it is no less curious, 
 that the Archbishop of Tuam did not answer the sum- 
 mons, and that all protested against their right to vote 
 taxes on their nation, that they came to give advice, and 
 not to impose burdens.* Besides, just two years after 
 the curious summons to Westminster, the clergy ‘of 
 Cashel were fined for not attending a parliament held 
 at Castledermot.f Let it not then be thought that an 
 occasional summons to England supposes the absence of 
 a parliament in Ireland. Blackstone, himself such a 
 stickler for the supremacy of the English Parliament, 
 what does he say ? “A tax granted by the parliament 
 of England does not bind Ireland, because they are not 
 summoned over to our parliament” — 20th of Henry 
 the Sixth. This was the language of even an English 
 Parliament. And Blackstone adds, that no act from 
 the twelfth of John bound Ireland. J In fairness, I ac- 
 knowledge, he says that the English Parliament could 
 bind Ireland, if it were so pleasing to it. Of course they 
 could bayonet us into the sea at present, if they thought 
 fit and were able. The weaker has only to submit. But 
 Blackstone contradicts Mr. Whiteside, as the latter says 
 there was no parliament for one hundred and forty years 
 in Ireland (that country being ruled by the English), and 
 
 * Leland, Appendix to vol. i. t Harris’ Bishops , p. 480. 
 
 | Commentaries , p. 101, vol. i. 
 
31 
 
 the former says, that from the twelfth of King J ohn, none 
 of the English acts bound Ireland. Laws of a general 
 character made in England, and applicable to Ireland, 
 may have been adopted and become binding in the 
 latter country. Such things were not unlikely. Be- 
 cause one great source of clash in opinions, heresy, was 
 cut away, or rather unknown. Because there was an 
 absence of the many complex relations which advanc- 
 ing civilization gave rise to. Above all, because the 
 laws were not made with the aim of exterminating the 
 “ Celt with a vengeance”, and making the surviving in- 
 habitants beggars at the door of England. For these 
 reasons, some of the laws of England were adopted in 
 Ireland. Such were the thirteenth of Edward the First, 
 and many under Edward the Second and Third. But in 
 the reign of Bichard the Third, men were found in the 
 Irish Parliament, who denied that the laws of England 
 could be made binding on a single corporate town, 
 without the consent of the Irish Parliament.* 
 
 King John formed twelve shires in Ireland, and this, 
 according to Mr. Whiteside, was done that there should 
 be no parliament in it. Can he be serious, when he 
 ought to know that the country was parcelled among 
 eight or ten palatines, whose power overshadowed the 
 crown, who claimed little less than kingly authority, 
 who created knights and inferior barons, exercised 
 power over life and death, and within whose palatinate 
 even the king’s writ did not run ?f These had the 
 country given them on paper; they gave themselves no 
 rest till they made good their title at the point of the 
 sword. Whenever their exchequers or their pockets 
 were empty, they were replenished by going a-hosting 
 into the territories of their inoffensive neighbours. I 
 readily acknowledge there were not many parliaments, 
 properly so called. There was no need of consulting 
 
 * Leland, passim. Hallam’s Constit . Hist., vol. ii., p. 523. 
 
 t Sir John Davis’ Hist. Relations , pp. 30, 31, fol. ed. 
 
32 
 
 an English or native one for maintaining their camp or 
 extending the limits of the Pale. But when Sir John 
 Davis assures us that each palatine was a sort of king in 
 his own territory, is it likely that he who would not 
 allow the king’s writ to run in his own principality, 
 would not be indulged with an image of the English 
 Parliament in Ireland ? To me such a state of things 
 appears more to resemble separation than union. One 
 can afford smiling at the argument put forward in page 
 21, by Mr. Whiteside, that Charles ordered the duties 
 on Irish exports to be raised without consulting Parlia- 
 ment. Does Mr. Whiteside forget that Chaides tried 
 whether he could not govern without even an English 
 Parliament ? Did he not trample on the Petition of 
 Rights, and did he not pay the penalty by laying his 
 head on the block ? Rather look at the demands made 
 by the Catholic agents at Oxford, during the rising of 
 the Pale, in a few years after the time referred to by 
 Mr. Whiteside. They were seventeen in number. The 
 demands of the Confederate Catholics were answered by 
 the Protestant Irish agents. The answers are lengthy, 
 I won’t say conclusive. But among the several griev- 
 ances complained of was Poynings’ Act, and a suspen- 
 sion of it called for. The eleventh proposition required 
 “ that an act be passed in the next Parliament, declara- 
 tory that the Parliament of Ireland is a free parliament 
 of itself, independent of, and not subordinate to, the 
 Parliament of England; and that the subjects of Ireland 
 are immediately subject to your majesty, as in right 
 of your revenue; and that the members of the said Par- 
 liament of Ireland, and all other subjects of Ireland, 
 are independent, and no 
 
 eluded by the Parliament 
 
 be governed within that kingdom by your majesty and 
 such governors as shall be appointed, and by the Par- 
 liament of that kingdom, according to the law of the 
 land”. It is not so much for its sake I quote this, as 
 to give you the answers to it of the Protestant agents 
 
33 
 
 at Oxford, who opposed every one of the seventeen 
 petitions of the Confederates. Well, the answer tP 
 the above proposition is: — “The proposition concerns 
 your majesty’s high court of Parliament, both of Eng- 
 land and Ireland, and is beyond our abilities, and 
 therefore humbly desire your Majesty’s pardon for not 
 answering the same”.* They dared not give any 
 answer, as they attempted to the other sixteen proposi- 
 tions. But whoever made the laws, or whenever first 
 introduced into Ireland, why not have them given to 
 the country as a compensation for the bitterness and 
 disorders of invasion ? Mr. Whiteside presumes that, 
 like the Romans (page 6), the English gave the benefit 
 of their laws, and did not churlishly withhold them 
 from our forefathers. I can assure him that our fore- 
 fathers did not get the benefit of the English laws. 
 They often applied for them, they gave sums of money 
 for them, but to no purpose, f As Sir John Davis re- 
 marks, the English were not able to root out the Irish 
 by arms, and yet would not endeavour to win them by 
 the amenities of English law. Of course I except a few 
 families — the O’Neill in Ulster, the O’Brien in Thomond, 
 Melaghlin in Meath, O’Connor in Connaught, Mac Mur- 
 rough in Leinster. The English laws, as a positive fact, 
 were churlishly withheld from the mass, of the nation. 
 Very inconsistently, Mr. Whiteside (p. 13) says, that 
 the Irish had no laws. What became of the Brehon 
 laws ? We are told by Ware that they were a com- 
 pound of the civil and canon institutes, engrafted on 
 their own national customs. J 
 
 “They were laws in which”, says Spenser, “there ap- 
 pears a great show of equity”.§ “ They were”, says 
 Campion, “the several branches cultivated by particular 
 families. The lawyers considered the wrongs offered, 
 and received among their neighbours, whether murder, 
 
 * See Cox, Hib. Anglicana , vol. ii., app. 22. f Hist. Relations. 
 
 X Ware’s Antiq p. 20. § Spenser’s State of Ireland. 
 
 9 
 
 6 
 
34 
 
 felony, or trespass. The lords and gentlemen sat them- 
 selves on a bank round the Brehon”. * The proceedings 
 wore the appearance of pastoral simplicity. They bring 
 us back in spirit to the days the patriarchs sat under 
 the oak’s shade and dispensed justice. In them were 
 no quirks or quiddities, no costly apparatus, no be- 
 wildering delays, nothing that savoured of “ Jarndyce 
 and Jarndyce”. No beggaring suits dragged their slow 
 lengths through several generations ; but I submit they 
 were not the less laws on that account. There was a 
 law which tended to bring the arts to great perfection. 
 It assigned a master to preside over each art. He was 
 bound to indemnify for any injury done through 
 ignorance by any of the artists in his line.f If such a 
 law prevailed among us, I doubt would we have so 
 many foolish and third-rate pamphleteers. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Mr. Whiteside and Macaulay compared — The poor use made of the 
 statute book by Mr. Whiteside — Sumptuary laws, falcons, provisors. 
 
 Though I have written at considerable length, I have 
 found matter enough in the first chapter of Mr. White- 
 side’s pamphlet. Before taking up the second chapter, 
 I will advert to what he says in p. 19. It is worse than 
 a “ bull” ; there is nothing witty, nothing amusing. It 
 arises from confusion of ideas. After speaking of 
 Poynings’ Act, he adds: u The great matter for inquiry 
 thereafter, with the lawyer and antiquarian, shall be, 
 what was the law of England ? Because all former acts, 
 at least those lately made, were repealed, and assimi- 
 lation of the laws of England and Ireland took place”. 
 
 * Campion’s History of Ireland. 
 
 f Cambrensis Eversus , vol. ii., p. 193, edited by Rev. Mr. Kelly. 
 Petrie’s Round Towers. 
 
How could this, the knowing the laws of England, 
 throw much light on the laws of Ireland ? Let me 
 suppose that the laws made in Ireland were declared 
 void, and as if they never were, would this satisfy the 
 antiquarian ? Certainly not. They may not be of 
 much use to a lawyer, they may not be appealed to as 
 furnishing precedents ; but if they were once made, they 
 were immortal facts, and had a value for the antiquarian, 
 independent of legislation. If Mr. Whiteside would 
 have us believe that the laws of England and Ireland 
 were identical, because it was so decreed by Poynings’ 
 Act, he committed, at all events, a gross mistake. 
 
 One more point touched on in this Chapter, and I am 
 done with it. In page 3, he says there was a prophecy 
 in the old law books, that the Saxons would Christianize 
 the Earth, and that it is being fulfilled by the spread of 
 their religion. It occurred to me that there was too 
 much of the black-lettered, matter-of-fact element in 
 law books, under considerable verbiage, to be the 
 medium of prophecy. Had he spoken of poetry, he 
 may be nearer the truth. The fine frenzy of the roll- 
 ing eye, the words of fire, the rapid imagination, the 
 shadowing forth the unknown, and the giving to the 
 unreal a “ local habitation”, these belong to the poet, 
 and can claim closer kindred than the law books with 
 the prophetic spirit. But in sober earnest, setting aside 
 the divinity of religion, which I claim for mine, and 
 would never think of attributing to his, is it in the 
 nature of things, that such a prophecy could be ful- 
 filled ? Without pretending to be mathematically cor- 
 rect as to the number of Catholics, to speak within 
 bounds, it may be safely said, that they exceed all other 
 Christian sects. Many good souls, Saxons, did a great 
 deal, once on a time, and may yet, for the spread of 
 religion, but it has not appeared, that their voices as 
 apostles have rung through the Earth, and been the 
 principal medium of carrying tidings of salvation to a 
 Pagan world. 
 
 3 B 
 
36 
 
 If Mr. Whiteside means, as he must, the Protestant 
 by the Saxon, he ought to acknowledge, apart from a 
 divine commission, the advantages of the Catholic mis- 
 sionary. He goes forth poor, requires only a cassock 
 and a cincture, with a crucifix. No family ties make 
 him falter in a perilous path. Moreover, he may hope 
 for God’s special help, visibly manifested, as has been 
 vouchsafed to many a Catholic missionary. He requires 
 no goodly supply of creatures, no entertaining society, 
 no armies to protect. Often he deprecates co-reli- 
 gionists, lest their conduct may be at variance with 
 their profession. On the other hand, look to the em- 
 barrassing retinue required by another missionary. The 
 legions must precede and protect him. Considerations 
 of flesh and blood must have their weight with him. 
 Before the Protestant was heard of, who Christianized 
 and gave a shape to the nations of Europe ? Who but 
 the Catholic plunged into the lonely primaeval forests, 
 and sought out the savage, from Japan to the Atlantic 
 ocean, from the rocks of the Thebaid to the steppes of 
 ETussia? And in later ages, the few pounds in the 
 hands of the Propaganda have done more than millions 
 with Missionary Societies. The journeyings of Saint 
 Francis Xavier alone, and even barefoot, amid savage 
 nations, have been computed to be equal to the tour of 
 the globe. Yes, even honest Protestants are not slow to 
 see and acknowledge this. Montesquieu avows that the 
 Jesuits alone healed one of the greatest wounds of 
 humanity. Behold, said the great Leibnitz, China open to 
 the Jesuits. We are not sufficiently united to admit of 
 our undertaking such great conversions.*' Can we forget 
 China, Mexico, and Paraguay? And that we may not 
 travel far abroad, let us look at home, because as much 
 danger awaited the Irish missionary as ever beset the 
 path of the martyr. Is it to this state of things Mr. 
 Whiteside alludes in page 46, when he says that people 
 
 * Letter in Literary Journal of Abbe Feller, August, 1774. 
 
37 
 
 wanted protection for life and religion in Elizabeth’s 
 reign, rather than laws? Well, let us hear Spenser: 
 “ What a great difference between the priest and the 
 minister! the former comes from Rome or elsewhere, 
 though he has but little inducement, but death awaits 
 him, if apprehended ; the other can scarcely be got to 
 stir a leg, though no danger awaits him. He won’t 
 move for love of God or the neighbour”.* 
 
 The Second Chapter of Mr. Whiteside’s little pam- 
 phlet opens with very great pretensions. He says that 
 one of the most interesting parts of Macaulay’s history 
 relates to the domestic account of the nation; and 
 ours, too, may be made so, by illustrations from the 
 statute book. Even in matter he far yields to Macaulay, 
 but in point of style it no more stands a comparison with 
 him, than a print I bought for two pence a few days ago, 
 does to the u Last Judgment” by Michael Angelo. Exclu- 
 sive of the puerile discussion on the leprosy, the points to 
 be gathered from the statute book, and introduced by 
 him, relate to the sumptuary laws, to the rare value of 
 falcons, and to “ provisions ” by Rome. And so these 
 three points are the materials from which a history is to 
 be woven, to rival the charms with which the great essay- 
 ist is read. Instead of telling us that one hundred pounds 
 were required for wearing fur, would it not be as inter- 
 esting to mention that, by the 3rd of Edward the Fourth, 
 it was not allowed to wear pikes on the shoes more 
 than two inches long? As he was on the subject of 
 falcons, ought he not add that among the obligations 
 which the prior of some monasteries lay under, was to 
 keep a falcon for the Anglo-Norman baron ? Yes, and 
 an action was the result against the prior for letting it 
 escape, though there was mitigation of punishment, as 
 the neglect was not wilful. This surely was no very 
 useful way to rectify abuses, and make the monastic 
 institutions retreats for meditation, study, and useful 
 
 * Spenser’s State of Ireland in 1596. 
 
38 
 
 labour. With regard to the statutes against pro visors, 
 which, Mr. Whiteside thinks, deserve the praise of 
 posterity as being signs of the Reformation, I need 
 scarcely add, that there are two opinions on that point. 
 As well observed by others, they were enacted when 
 those having a tendency to Lollardism were in power. 
 Avery canonical way of proceeding was to leave elections 
 in the hands of the chapter. But we should know that 
 before proceeding to an election it was necessary to 
 get the king’s leave, a conge d'elire , as it was called. 
 And after getting leave, their choice was nullified if not 
 approving itself to the monarch. Was it not well, then, 
 to have the power of the Pope to neutralize that of the 
 monarch ? If the Pope allowed, out of his mere* bounty, 
 the nomination of a candidate for a prebend or bishop- 
 ric, was it unreasonable that the monarch would allow 
 the temporalities to follow a worthy appointment by the 
 Pope ? Was it not natural that the Pope should be 
 anxious to provide for a benefice in the person of one 
 whom he found faithful and worthy from personal 
 knowledge ? Was the Church to become a close 
 borough ? There was an effort made of a like nature 
 to keep Romans from the University of Oxford, but the 
 result was a want of healthy competition. There was no 
 stimulus to study. Hence, before fifty years, the Com- 
 mons petitioned that the law would be repealed pro- 
 hibiting strangers enjoying a prebend in connection 
 with the University. 
 
 Need I remark, that such was the exclusive, narrow 
 disposition of the Anglo-Normans, that they left the 
 parishes vacant, left the people uncared for, rather than 
 have a stranger, or even an Irishman, fill it ? This was 
 making a close borough of the sanctuary of God, that 
 ought to have been thrown open to Greek and barbarian. 
 It was making an Irishman an alien in his own land. 
 If there had been fewer of the statutes against provisors, 
 the English Church would have fared better. Had there 
 been less jealousy of the Pope, the Church would not 
 
39 
 
 have become the creature of the State. The breath of 
 the King would not be its life. It is against the King 
 the statutes of provisors should have deen enforced. 
 Were such the case, the fees, the livings — I mean the 
 temporalities — would be enjoyed not by Socinian, Arian, 
 dissenting, anti-Mosaic incumbents, but by orthodox 
 Catholics. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Mr. Whiteside’s partiality in speaking of Protestant and Catholic 
 Sovereigns — His misrepresentations — The golden age in Catholic 
 times — Geraldines vindicated — Errors of Mr. Whiteside regarding 
 them. 
 
 On first taking up Mr. Whiteside’s Lecture, I was sur- 
 prised to see party feelings show themselves quite un- 
 necessarily. So I resolved to take a note of the objec- 
 tionable passages. However, I gave up the attempt as 
 impossible; for there is scarcely a page that do'es 
 not betray the party writer. Having detected him as 
 skilled in the substitutio falsi , of course he must be 
 practised in the suppressio veris. Without giving a 
 single false statement, one could leave an impression as 
 far from truth as light from darkness. For this art, 
 the artful laying on of colours, there is ample scope in 
 giving the characters after the revolution in religion in 
 the sixteenth century. He blames King James for being 
 anxious to give liberty of conscience to his subjects, and 
 repeal the Act of Settlement, by which so many Irish 
 families were plundered and sent adriit on the world. 
 The plunder was perpetrated to reward those very 
 persons who came to Ireland to fight against the King, 
 and brought that king to the scaffold On the other 
 hand, he praises William, who, without minding what 
 Miss Strickland says, or Macaulay, or Mr. Whiteside 
 himself, belied his promise, and allowed the Treaty of 
 
40 
 
 Limerick to be dishonourably trampled on, in violation 
 of his plighted honour.* He censures Queen Mary, 
 because it was reported by Protestants that she intended 
 to persecute in Ireland. Now, she had six long years 
 to persecute, and no man, woman, or child suffered the 
 slightest molestation in Ireland on the score of religion. 
 But then, the Pamphleteer says, that just as she died she 
 gave a commission to persecute. Who is his authority? 
 Leland. But Leland does not vouch for it. What is 
 his language towards Queen Bess? She not only 
 intended to persecute, but 'persecuted with a vengeance. 
 Penalties, in the way of fines, transportation, death, 
 were the consequence of professing the Catholic religion. 
 I should fill a volume were I to quote, not the Catholic, 
 but Protestant authorities. The parliamentary records 
 put the matter beyond doubt. And yet, instead of 
 throwing a single shade over her character, he repeats 
 that she realised the visions of the poet. The poet said, 
 that “ Truth shall nurse her”. I maintain that she was 
 full of duplicity and lying. The poet said, u She was 
 in maiden meditation, fancy-free”. Well, is the 
 Pamphleteer in earnest when he subscribes to this 
 character ? Does he think we forget the doings of 
 Simier, Hatton, Dudley, etc. ? I don’t want to occupy 
 space by what is found in every manual of history, 
 unless manuals written by such men as Mr. White- 
 side. The principal fault that can be found with Miss 
 Strickland’s queens, is that she makes them heroines 
 too faultless. But with this fault, she will be far from 
 admitting that Bessy kept “in maiden meditation, 
 fancy-free”. Every epithet of praise is lavished on 
 another gentleman; he was virtuous, etc. Was he a 
 Catholic ? Of course not. He was the first of the 
 nobility taken up, and obliged to sue out his estates by 
 being educated a Protestant; he was one of the most 
 unrelenting enemies of the Catholics for half a cen- 
 
 Brown’s Penal Laws . 
 
41 
 
 tury: you all know 1 mean Ormond. Writing to 
 Ormond, the king says: “If the suspension ofPoynings’ 
 Law take place, and the penal laws against Papists, I 
 will not think it a hard bargain to do anything not 
 against conscience or honour” * Now Ormond inter- 
 cepted the graces, the penal laws were not repealed, 
 and, in consequence, the Catholics did not give the aid 
 that might have kept his head on the king’s shoulders. 
 And yet this same man, with puritanical strictness, 
 would not hesitate applying to the Pope for aid.f 
 Again, when the Irish applied for some redress at the 
 .Restoration, and wished to get from the king a portion 
 of their property that had been given by Cromwell to 
 his (the king’s) father’s murderers, Ormond interposed, 
 and quashed their claims. Not satisfied at seeing the 
 Catholics beggared, he sought, by sowing division, to 
 make them weak and contemptible. And Orrery asks 
 him, “ whether this may not be a fit occasion, to make 
 that schism you are sowing amongst the Popish clergy 
 publicly to break out, so that we may reap some prac- 
 tical advantage thereby?”! How, with these facts, and 
 hundreds of the same character, before one, could 
 Ormond be singled out from so many noblemen as the 
 theme of panegyric ? 
 
 Mr. Whiteside does not display the patient research, 
 and least of all, the calm thought of many of his co-reli- 
 gionists. For who can count the objectionable passages 
 in the third chapter, devoted to Henry the Eighth? I 
 have no idea of praising Catholic sovereigns, or objec- 
 tion to seeing Protestant ones get a meed of praise in 
 fairness and in truth; but I have no notion of swallow- 
 ing all that has been said of Harry, even though he 
 were chosen as a subject for panegyric; and, least of all, 
 could I see a man leave the high road of history quite 
 
 * Carte’s Ormond , appendix ii., passim. Charles’ works, 149, 150. 
 f Carte’s Letters , p. 461. 
 
 | Orrery’s Letters , Dec. 14, 1666. French’s Unkind Deserter , p. 23. 
 
42 
 
 undebateable ground, in order to gratify the prejudices 
 of a clique. 
 
 I seize the most salient points as put forward by Mr. 
 Whiteside. “ Many useful laws were adopted by the Irish 
 Parliament in his reign : he did not wish to have rents 
 received by absentees through agents, did wish to see the 
 people well fed and clad, and was an enemy to idleness 
 in strong beggars that could work : his theory of a poor 
 law was simple and practical”, etc. Why, this were to 
 make him a model king, and would be sufficient to cover 
 the deformity of a thousand crimes and bad traits. Not 
 one of those, however, can Mr. Whiteside find it con- 
 venient to allude to for purposes of illustration. I 
 shall not analyse them, but confine myself to what has 
 been said by his advocate. I won’t say that he brought 
 forth the so-called Reformation in lust, nursed it in 
 blood and plunder. Among the useful laws imported 
 to Ireland, I wonder is that included, which made the 
 parliament declare Anne Boleyn to be the lawful wife 
 of Henry, and on the next day decreed she was not, 
 having heard of the change and complaisance of the 
 English Parliament ? With regard to the heading of 
 laws, it is often fallacious. I found a most villainous 
 law follow a most virtuous title, and the basest mo- 
 tive the moving spring of a law that pretended to 
 the most perfect disinterestedness. The absentee law 
 was conceived in the spirit of selfishness. Let 
 us learn the story from Protestant Cox : — “ It is 
 not unworthy of remembrance how this statute came 
 about. The king was inclined to make Aylmer, who 
 was Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, Lord 
 Chief Justice of the King’s Bench. The Earl of 
 Shrewsbury, at the instance of his tenants in Water- 
 ford, opposed his preferment, on the grounds that he 
 was a 4 silly fellow’. On this the king reprimanded Lord 
 Cromwell, who recommended him. But Cromwell in- 
 sisted that his majesty was misinformed, and that by 
 speakjjp; with Alymer, he would find him a sensible 
 
43 
 
 person. On this the king asked the reason of the decay 
 of the king’s interest. The cunning lawyer said, be- 
 
 » cause those who had estates did not remain to care them 
 in Ireland; that if his majesty seized the estates, that he 
 would find a reformation brought about”. The king, 
 of course, from a love of plunder, and not of Ireland, 
 had all the estates vested in himself, the estates of 
 those that could not reside in Ireland, those of Duke of 
 Norfolk, Earl of Shrewsbury, of Prior of Bristol, of 
 Canterbury, of Lanthony, of Curtinel, of Kentesham, of 
 Furnes, of Osny, of Bath.* I mention all these, that 
 I may ask what were the statutes against provisors 
 doing ? What was done by him to have the people 
 well fed or clad? The man that squandered the in- 
 heritance of a father, who died one of the richest 
 sovereigns in Europe, who was impelled by his wants 
 to secularize monastic property, who spared no man in 
 his anger or woman’s honour in his lust, what special 
 care could he extend to his subjects? He paid the same 
 regard to them that vultures do to lambs. He borrowed 
 money, he did not pay it; a complaisant parliament 
 exempted him from all debts contracted since the thirty- 
 first year of his reign, and even what he did pay, had to 
 be refunded, f He debased the value of the coin, from 
 a shilling to six pence, so that it had to be kept from 
 circulation in the end as valueless. J He put on a tax 
 rising from four pence to three shillings in the pound. 
 It is estimated, that his oppressive taxes amounted to 
 more than all his predecessors enjoyed. § What was the 
 poor law? He ordered collections to be made at 
 churches for the poor, the lame, and infirm, who were 
 thrown adrift on the world by the dissolution of the 
 religious houses. Hence the rebellion in Northumber- 
 land. Amongst the list of grievances, the suppression 
 
 • of religious houses occupied a prominent place. And so 
 Henry, in replying, wondered at their conduct, “that 
 
 * Hib. Anqlicana , vol. i. p. 248. f Saunders, 203; Lords 1 Journals, 265. 
 
 • % Stowe, 587 ; Fleetwood, 53. § Apolog. Reg. Poli p. 9%.^ 
 
44 
 
 they should oppose the suppression of monasteries, as if it 
 were not better to relieve the head of the church, than 
 to support the idleness and wickedness of monks.* No 
 legal provision was made for the poor. Why, then, 
 speak of the poor-law ? The poor, who were caressed 
 by the good religious ; the young and the timid, who 
 shrunk from the gaze of the cold and grudging and 
 calculating, were received with tenderness as brothers 
 by the good monks. They trained and caressed the 
 young, kissed salt tears from the cheeks of aged woe ; 
 they proved themselves the best friends to the interests 
 of humanity. They were easy landowners,! verifying 
 the old saying, that, “ it was happier to live under the 
 crozier than the sceptre”; they displayed a munificence 
 in their institutions. Nor was the hospitality a mere 
 indiscriminate dole of provisions, encouraging idleness 
 on the part of the Church. There was no need of 
 borrowing light from the so-called Reformers to see the 
 nature of charity and the evil of idleness. Before Henry 
 the Eighth mounted the throne, one might derive a use- 
 ful lesson in listening to the discourses of the Catholic 
 Archbishop Fitzsimons. He inculcated the utility of 
 labour, not that it was absolutely necessary, “ owing to 
 the abundance of provisions the land produces, but 
 because idleness was the root of all evil, whereas 
 it is a greater charity to find work for them than to 
 relieve them from door to door, for the work is accept- 
 able to God, profitable to the neighbour, and useful to 
 the health of the body”.J What writer of political 
 economy, what advocate of the utilitarian system, 
 would wish for sounder views? For the admirable 
 relief then given at the convent gate Henry left nothing 
 in exchange, save the chance alms of the charitably 
 disposed. Even this he took no trouble to provide for 
 
 * Speed, 1038. 
 
 t Hume. It is in Henry’s reign we meet with the first mention of 
 the law of bankruptcy in the acts. 
 
 \ Harris’ Ware’s Bishops , p. 344. 
 
45 
 
 Ireland, plundered of the provision for the poor so mu- 
 nificently given by our Catholic forefathers. What bad 
 
 ♦ luck, then, made Mr. Whiteside stumble on this topic ? 
 Together with making him out a rambling lecturer, it 
 was suggestive of scenes and events that had better 
 been left sleeping in the burial-place of memory. If 
 the people were well fed and clad, such blessings were 
 derived, under Providence, from a sweet, fruitful soil, 
 from laws established in Catholic times, and not from 
 Henry the Eighth. All I could say were weak, in com- 
 parison to what the Lord High Chancellor Fortescue 
 says, writing from France in the time of Henry the 
 Sixth, and comparing the laws of the Continent with his 
 own, as shown by the happiness of the people.* “ The 
 King cannot alter the laws or make new ones, without 
 the express consent of parliament assembled. f Every 
 inhabitant is at liberty fully to use and enjoy whatever 
 his farm produceth, the fruits of the earth, the increase 
 of his flock and the like, all the improvements he makes, 
 whether by his own proper industry or of those he re- 
 tains in his service, are his own to use and enjoy, with- 
 out let, interruption, or denial of any. J If he be in any- 
 wise injured or oppressed, he shall have amends and 
 satisfaction against the party offending. Hence it is 
 that the inhabitants are rich in gold, silver, and in all 
 the resources and conveniences of life. They drink no 
 water unless at certain times, on a religious score and 
 by way of doing penance. They are fed in great 
 abundance with all sorts of flesh and fish, of which they 
 have plenty everywhere. They are clothed throughout 
 in good woollens. Their bedding and other furniture in 
 their houses are of wool, and that in great store. They 
 are also well provided with all other sorts of household 
 goods and necessary implements for husbandry. Every 
 
 * De Laudibus Legum. 
 
 t In after times the King’s proclamation, Henry the Eighth, had the 
 force of law. 
 
 • \ What a satire this on the present miserable position of the tenant ! 
 
46 
 
 one according to his rank hath all things which conduce 
 to make life easy and happy”. This needs no comment- 
 tary from me, and, on that account, I offer no apology 
 for its length. They were golden times indeed. Tempora 
 mutantur! A sad change, indeed, but that sad change 
 began with the so-much bepraised hero in Mr. White- 
 side’s third chapter. 
 
 A few words in reference to the Geraldines will close 
 this chapter. Methinks they have been harshly, un- 
 fairly dealt with in connection with the Irish Parlia- 
 ment. Weighed in Mr. Whiteside’s balance against the 
 Ormonds, they are found wanting. There appears to 
 have been very little sympathy for their misfortunes; 
 too little admiration for their deeds of valour. Sprung 
 from as old a stock (and as proud, because connected 
 with them) as the Plantagenets themselves, why forget 
 the many heroic deeds in France, on the Tuscan slopes, 
 on the Syrian plains? “The Geraldines, the Geral- 
 dines”. Their magnificence, their tendency to sympa- 
 thize and amalgamate with the Irish, deserving in an 
 especial manner to be called Hibsrniores Hibernicis 
 ipsis , their readiness to lose their life for the rescue of 
 a poor foster-brother — do not these things appeal to the 
 sentiment of national honour? Or if there be no sym- 
 pathy for these things, as no qualities will compensate 
 for unshaken loyalty in the mind of Mr. Whiteside, 
 why make them a compound of treasonable selfishness ? 
 Who could blame young Thomas for rushing to arms 
 in the flush of youthful vigour, in the confidence of 
 power, under a maddening feeling of revenge, which 
 natural promptings construed into a sacred duty for the 
 father supposed to have been done to death by the 
 English in the Tower? And it is one of the many mis- 
 takes in the pamphlet to say, that the father enjoined 
 the rebellion of the son. I was always under a different 
 impression; so I looked into Ware.* He says, that, so 
 
 Ware’s Annals , ad an. 1334. 
 
47 
 
 « 
 
 far from encouraging the rebellion of the son, that the 
 news shot like an arrow through his breast, and in a 
 i few days carried him to the grave. 
 
 Cox says the same.* A full page is devoted to a 
 touching address to the young son, enjoining caution, 
 tells him to conduct himself so wisely that he may 
 reach the winter of life, and hopes that, young as he is, 
 he will obey any orders he may send him, told him to 
 be guided by the wisdom of the council-board, and in 
 their presence delivered to him the sword. Silken 
 Thomas may have rebelled, but not from selfishness, 
 and certainly not by the orders of his father. 
 
 CHAPTER VL 
 
 h 
 
 The lecturer, Mr. Whiteside, dwindled down to a transcriber — His 
 errors with regard to education — True cause of the death to Irish 
 Parliament — The proper lessons to be read therefrom. 
 
 The last thirty pages of the first part, and almost the 
 entire of the second part, of the pamphlet devoted by 
 Mr. Whiteside to the Irish Parliament, consist chiefly 
 of quotations. Just as much as connects the several 
 passages is given by himself. He even then observes 
 caution. I am glad of it; because, no matter how 
 unmistakeable, all through, be his drift, yet it is pleasant 
 not to meet with the gross errors, and still grosser mis- 
 representations, that characterize the earlier part of his 
 pamphlet. One passage, however, I take exception to. 
 It closes the last but one chapter of his literary effort. 
 He says that there was a petition in 1795, from some 
 Catholics, protesting against the establishment of a col- 
 
 Hib. Ang ., vol. i., ad an. 1334. 
 
48 
 
 lege, lay or clerical, for themselves. He makes the re- 
 flections that one would expect, and dwells on the 
 matter with peculiar emphasis. Now, from the very 
 partial way the petition is given by him, so as to be 
 almost unintelligible, and from having detected him 
 mutilating quotations before, I must say I deny the 
 authenticity or the integrity of the passage. I dis- 
 believe the conclusion he would draw from the petition, 
 if any such existed. When his lectures appeared, some 
 time ago, he was represented as saying that there was a 
 meeting of Catholics in Dublin to protest against sepa- 
 rate education. In reply I challenged him to produce 
 his vouchers. Now there is no mention of a meeting, 
 it is a petition, and no mention of Dublin. Again, 
 then, I call on Mr. Whiteside to tell the public, is the 
 petition found in Grattan’s works — in the Commons’ 
 Journals — where ? As interpreted by him, it is nowhere 
 to be found. Not one of the names attached to the 
 document is given. It is an important matter, should 
 he show a petition to that effect from those who may 
 be said to represent the Catholics — not that Catholics, 
 and priests, and bishops, may not differ and undergo a 
 change in matters involving prudential considerations 
 merely. But it appears to me so much affecting morals 
 and discipline, that, to my mind, such persons would 
 cease to be recognized as Catholics. Not allow a separate 
 college even for ecclesiastics ! So far could such language, 
 that would urge candidates for the priesthood to the 
 halls of Trinity College, be from being tolerated, that 
 whoever denied the utility or necessity of educating 
 ecclesiastics apart from laics, even Catholics, would 
 call for the special watchfulness of his spiritual supe- 
 rior. The petty sum of eight thousand pounds was 
 voted for the endowment of a Catholic College at May- 
 nooth. The tardy and niggardly instalment of justice 
 was clogged with the ungracious condition that the 
 child of a Protestant or a convert could not be educated 
 there. This exclusive bigoted spirit of legislation may 
 
49 
 
 have called forth the protest against the separation. Or 
 it may have been that a fear was entertained that 
 « the state would interfere in regulating and enforcing 
 laws affecting Catholic discipline. This is not impos- 
 sible, because, by the fortieth of George the Third, in 
 the year 1800, it was agreed on that the visitors or other 
 laymen would not meddle with the internal arrange- 
 ments or code of ecclesiastical discipline.* And, indeed, 
 there were some grounds for the apprehension. F or, in 
 May, 1799, the Protestant Bishop of Meath, writing 
 to Castlereagh, said, that the principal object in estab- 
 lishing Maynooth was to mould according to the will of 
 government, the clergy, in whose hands lay the training 
 of the people, and that the trustees should, as a majority, 
 be Protestants, f And very naturally, perhaps, with some 
 reason would a person run the risk of going to Trinity 
 College, and let the ecclesiastics go to the college of the 
 Lombards, or elsewhere, for education ; rather than have 
 the Protestant Bishop of Meath’s project carried out, that 
 of making the Catholic clergy a salaried or chartered 
 police in the hands of government. But if Mr. White- 
 side means, as he insinuates, that mixed university 
 education was called for, and that the separate, as we 
 understand it, was objected to, the same appliances, 
 the same facility being given to the Catholic as to the 
 Protestant education, — if in a word, cceteris paribus , 
 that the preference was given to the mixed rather than 
 to the separate system, he says what no Catholic will 
 believe on Mr. Whiteside’s mere word. Only two years 
 after, Dr. Hussey, Bishop of Waterford, addressed a 
 pastoral to the subjects of his diocese. He touched 
 like a philosopher and an apostolic bishop on a variety 
 of topics bearing on the vital interests of society. The 
 immortal Burke was so charmed with the beauty and 
 # solidity of the composition, that he wrote to congra- 
 tulate him, but, at the same time, told him to prepare 
 
 * 
 
 * Liber Munerum . f Wright, vol. iii. 
 
 4 
 
50 
 
 for a prosecution.* I am getting off in a tangent. In 
 the course of the pastoral the good bishop says : “ Do 
 not allow your children to go to any places of educa- 
 tion where their faith may be endangered: caution 
 them, complain of them to the Church, and, if neces- 
 sary, keep them from the holy table”. Now, this is the 
 language of Catholics, this is the teaching of the Church 
 in all ages. We are told a to avoid danger lest we 
 perish in it”. And whilst the sacred text rings a warn- 
 ing in our ears, to speak of no other objections, no 
 Catholic would be tolerated in giving a preference to 
 such dangerous mixed education. Doctor Hussey 
 was not singular in such language. No priest raised 
 a voice, no bishop raised a voice against the endow- 
 ment of Maynooth. Eleven bishops were appointed 
 trustees — Eight Keverends Dr. Hussey, Dr. French, 
 Dr. Delany, Dr. Tehan, Dr. Moylan, Dr. M‘Dermott, 
 Dr. Plunkett, Dr. Egan, Dr. Bray, Dr. Troy, and Dr. 
 O’Reilly, f We know that when the question of the 
 veto was ventilated, some of the venerable hierarchy, 
 from a desire to remove shackles from the people, would 
 have some influence vested in the Crown in ecclesias- 
 tical matters. The laity, in a spirit of generous rivalry, 
 would not purchase an hour’s freedom at the cost of the 
 Church’s independence. So, too, there may have been 
 a readiness in 1795 to rest satisfied with the hedge 
 school, rather than accept education under what was 
 feared might become dangerous restrictions. Again, I 
 would fain know where did the strange petition come 
 from. How many signed, and what influence did they 
 represent ? 
 
 Having noticed the main historical errors in Mr. 
 Whiteside’s lectures, it remains for me to observe that 
 it was an ignoble task for a lecturer, the picking out the 
 littlenesses or anomalies of the Irish Parliament. Why, 
 
 * Burke oq. Irish Affairs. 
 
 t By the 40th George the Third, three bishops were appointed 
 visitors — Liber Munerum . 
 
51 
 
 the most faultless human institution — not that I look 
 on the Irish Parliament to have been such — must par- 
 take of the imperfectness of its origin. Perfect as is 
 the British constitution in the eyes of Mr. Whiteside, 
 some eccentricities may be found in its career. How 
 the “ mad” parliament lived and died, and the “wonder- 
 ful” in Richard the Second’s reign, and the “ Barebones”, 
 and the “ Rump” ; how the penal laws of “ vicious per- 
 fection” worked ; how fines for the poor were levied on 
 recusants, and the Catholic poor would get none because 
 it was their own fault to be poor — for deserving to be 
 fined; how sacred writ as well as the decrees of par- 
 liament were made articles of faith; how the same par- 
 liament declared Henry the Eighth’s marriage valid with 
 each of his five ladies of pleasure, during the lives of 
 several of them and of his queen, Catherine; how it 
 thanked the infant monarch for the Reformation, and 
 in the next years, “ on the knees of their heart”, begged 
 pardon for their sin ; how each lady whom the monarch 
 took a fancy to, was bound by parliament to declare the 
 degree of purity she was adorned with, for the royal 
 monster; how an act or proclamation was issued that 
 only Lilly’s grammar should be used through the king- 
 dom; how the English Parliament voted that importa- 
 tation of cattle from Ireland was felony, and, as an 
 amendment, it was put to be adultery. To tell all this, 
 and draw out each point, would, perhaps, afford amuse- 
 ment, but not a lively image of the English Parliament. 
 One may be put on the same shelf with Disraeli on the 
 Curiosities of Literature , or Sir Bernard Burke on the 
 Vicissitudes of Illustrious Families. One did not give 
 the history of literature, nor the latter of the human 
 race, nor surely did Mr. Whiteside give but the ridicu- 
 lous of the Irish Parliament. He had no idea of doing 
 anything else, otherwise he might have looked on both 
 sides. For there were bright points, such as may con- 
 trast very unfavourably to the Imperial Parliament in 
 which the honourable gentleman acts so distinguished 
 
52 
 
 a part. Why not allude to the fine put on the lord for 
 every emigrant that left his district by the Irish Parlia- 
 ment? What a censure this on the awful exodus of our 
 own times ! Why not allude to a decree in 1 379 by the 
 Irish Parliament, that absentees should bear two-thirds 
 of the burdens of the state ?* What a lesson does not 
 this read to those who, by carrying the Union and be- 
 praise it as Mr. Whiteside, made Ireland the land of ab- 
 sentees, and by this fact multiplied her taxes — giving less 
 straw and requiring double brick. And, if Mr. White- 
 side had not the large heart of a philanthropist, and the 
 generalizing spirit of a philosopher, for striking out 
 some brilliant beneficent theory, yet would I expect 
 him to point to the narrow basis of representation, as 
 one of the causes of death of the Irish Parliament. 
 
 It was very easy for Mr. Whiteside to point to the 
 inconvenience of two parliaments in the event of the 
 two differing on the choice of a regent, or on the adop- 
 tion of laws providing for the commercial prosperity 
 of both countries. He found it much to his purpose 
 to say that England never gave up the right of legis- 
 lating for Ireland. A flattering unction that, to think 
 of the unpurchaseable integrity of present members, in 
 comparison to the venality in the old parliament. But 
 there was not a word of the tempter, of the millions that 
 were expended, the moral virtue that was so sorely 
 tried, and the physical courage often tested, in order to 
 sap and terrify, and carry the Union. No hard task was 
 it to allude to an awful rebellion, and be silent on the 
 connivance or encouragement given by government to 
 it, in order to sicken men’s minds, and make them long 
 for repose at any cost. It was very amusing to call for 
 the ridicule of his hearers on the undignified conduct 
 of the Irish Parliament in getting into the merits of 
 every petty grievance. The more so, as he can promise 
 us that the Imperial Parliament will not stoop to a 
 concern about our grievances, petty or enormous. He 
 
 * Leland. 
 
53 
 
 mentioned what was accidental. He did not touch on 
 the spirit by which it lived and by which it died. He 
 » did not bring before us the narrow' feeling, the perse- 
 cuting feeling that was the soul of the Irish Parliament. 
 Sir John Davis tells us that the English monarchs 
 issued orders to have the Irish admitted to the benefit 
 of English laws, but that the Irish Parliament disre- 
 garded them. Such was the unnatural relation in which 
 the natives and Anglo-Normans stood, that the privi- 
 leges of a commoner were denied to one who had an 
 Irish servant. He was not allowed to accompany, for 
 honour or protection, his master to the house of parlia- 
 ment.* This state of things continued for four hundred 
 years. And when, by and by, the Pale disappeared, 
 and all subjects in the realm were made sharers in the 
 privileges of the constitution, the moral pale continued. 
 National animosities, religious rancour, built as great 
 a wall of division as any physical boundary. In order 
 to indulge religious prejudice, the love of ascendancy, 
 they allowed persons to be returned for parliament in 
 boroughs not at all qualified; boroughs which the mem- 
 bers never saw, without at all issuing writs, in fact, in 
 violation of all precedent, they allowed the house 
 to be swamped. And by and by, when dark times 
 came on, the dissenter called for punishment on 
 himself, by insisting on test oaths in order to punish 
 the Catholics. And then, when they were ground 
 to the Earth, so that they dare not raise their heads, 
 when all fear of rivalry or opposition was removed, 
 when the Catholic was in a state at which the hard- 
 est heart should rue, there was no touch of pity, 
 no thought of easing the irons that were eating 
 into the very soul. The concessions were so slow and 
 wretched, as to make one smile, if it were not a mockery 
 # of woe. Even that, wretched as it was, appeared wrung 
 from necessity. By the eleventh and twelfth of George 
 the Third, leave was given to reclaim only the bog, for 
 * Leland, Liber Munerum. 
 
54 
 
 
 wliich a lease was given for a term of years, but if half 
 were not reclaimed in twenty-one years, the reclaimed 
 part was forfeited.* * * § The Catholic was made a hewer 
 of wood. Without the pretence of being overrid- 
 den by the English Parliament, the Irish Commons 
 allowed a cruel sort of rent called “ quarterage” to be 
 levied on Catholics, even so late as 1773. The pre- 
 tended object of the tribute was to provide all regalia 
 and banners for the different fraternities, for the sup- 
 port of a reduced freeman, waiting on the mayor on 
 days of solemnity, and providing anniversary entertain- 
 ments.! In the same year, the fell spirit of jealousy 
 made them pull out two eyes from themselves, in order 
 to pluck one from the Catholic — I speak metaphorically. 
 By the labour of a slave, without the expenses that are 
 incidental to a state of enjoyment, the Catholic amassed 
 money. The Protestants were embarrassed To coax 
 the money a bill was brought in, to give security for 
 money advanced on a mortgage of land. It was 
 thrown out on the grounds that the Protestant would 
 be made dependent on the Catholic, and that money on 
 mortgages might be left to any heir, but that, if left to 
 themselves, they may expend it on land, and that the 
 land could and should be given to a pervert in a 
 family. Short-sighted, suicidal reasoning !J 
 
 In 1776 American independence was granted, and 
 in October the same year, a relief bill allowing leases 
 for 999 years was granted. § Fear of an invasion 
 generated liberality. And when the Irish Parliament 
 assumed an erect, independent position in 1782, at the 
 era of the Volunteers, when the spirit of persecution 
 might be supposed to be exorcised in a paroxysm 
 
 * Brown’s Penal Laws , p. 316. 
 
 f Commons ’ Journal. 
 
 f Liber munerum , part, vii. 
 
 § Wyse, p. 101. Cath. Assoc. Liber Munerum. A convert could 
 not claim the benefit, nor one who allowed a child under four years to 
 be trained up a Catholic. 
 
55 
 
 of gratitude and joy — this very year the monastic 
 bodies would have been suppressed, were it not for the 
 influence of Arthur O’Leary.* Maynooth endowment 
 was granted lest the clergy, educated abroad, would 
 become revolutionary. The relief bill was given in 
 1793 admitting Catholics to vote, though contemptu- 
 ously rejected the year before. Why was this ? Burke 
 tells, because there was fear of an invasion. Because, 
 in the contest between the Irish Parliament and Eng- 
 land, there was a desire to have the voters slaves to 
 landlords.! A narrow, ruinous feeling characterized 
 the Irish Parliament. The mass of the Catholic popu- 
 lation was of no political consideration in the first half 
 of the eighteenth century; their weight was as dust in 
 the balance. Hence the contest was between the Pro- 
 testants in Ireland and the English. The Irish interest 
 suffered; it was in half despair the Irish Parliament 
 roused itself. Division among the Irish gave a triumph 
 to the English. In the latter part of the century Ca- 
 tholics fared better, because the Parliament and the 
 English were bidding for them. Whatever was got was 
 given to fear or self-interest. And what originated the 
 idea of an union ? We have the great authority of 
 Burke, that it arose from a desire to keep the mass of 
 the people from power. This he said so early as 1792 
 (Burke on Penal Laws). The Catholics admitted to 
 the franchise, to the several offices of trust and emolu- 
 ment, it was feared that the ascendancy would be lost. 
 As in the time of James the First, the Parliament 
 allowed the house to be swamped by undue elections, 
 so in 1800 it annihilated itself to be true to its narrow 
 jealousy. It became a slave, for the pleasure of whip- 
 ping those on the round below it. There was corrup. 
 tion, but it was practised for an end. There was th e 
 foul dog of rebellion let loose over the land, when th e 
 
 * See Life, by Dr. England. 
 
 t This is the view taken by Wyse, who says the south, covered with 
 Catholic tenants, would be an accession. 
 
V 
 
 56 
 
 government might have kept it in a leash. It was done 
 for an end. Mr. Whiteside is wrong in saying that the 
 Union took place as a consequence to the rebellion. 
 The rebellion, on the other hand, took place as a means 
 to the Union. The Irish Parliament lived in a narrow 
 jealousy, and by a narrow jealousy it died. On the 
 best authority, then, do I say that a love of ascendancy, 
 fear of equality, influenced the Union. The great phL 
 losopher and statesman, Edmund Burke, said the idea 
 originated in 1793 from such a motive. Even in the 
 year 1799, at the instance of Lord Castlereagh, applica- 
 tions were made to the Right Reverend Dr. Bray, to 
 have signatures procured discreetly for the Union in Tip- 
 perary and Waterford. The Catholics and Catholic 
 hierarchy were left to believe, that till the Union was 
 carried they could not expect emancipation; that the 
 Irish Protestants, left to themselves, would be weak 
 against the Catholics, but that commingling with the 
 English, they could be strong enough to afford doing 
 justice to the people of Ireland.* So certain is this 
 matter, that the ministry who promised, pledged them- 
 selves not to take or keep office, unless emancipation 
 were given to the Catholics. Emancipation was not 
 given, and the dishonourable members did after take 
 office. 
 
 My object in saying thus much, is to show that carry- 
 ing of the Union was made a condition for Catholic 
 relief. Accordingly, as I said, Dr. Bray was applied to. 
 To his honour be it said, that he refused going against 
 the wishes of his people. He did not wish to sell his 
 country for partial relief. Full justice has not been 
 done to the Catholics and their venerable hierarchy. 
 More than once I remarked there was a bidding for the 
 Catholics during the volunteer movement. The Eng- 
 lish government, or officials in Ireland, promised the 
 Catholics great things. They wished to have them look 
 
 
 See Plowden’s Ireland , passim. Brown’s Penal Laws , p. 366. 
 
57 
 
 to the parliament rather than to the convention. A 
 'm statement was put forward by Sir Boyle Boche in the 
 name of the Catholics, to the effect that they had no 
 Si ' sympathy for the volunteer movement, and valued not 
 the concessions by the convention. What was done ? 
 Why, the Catholics called a meeting, presided over by 
 Kenmare, and declared, “that they were thankful for 
 the efforts made by their countrymen, and that they 
 would be grateful for what indulgence the legislature 
 would extend to them ; and they did not differ so much 
 from the rest of mankind, as not to wish to remove their 
 shackles, and that these resolutions be sent to the Earl 
 of Bristol, the Protestant Bishop of Derry”. If all were 
 influenced by a national sentiment, the independence of 
 the country would be secured. It is said there was no 
 alternative between separation and union. But what 
 created this critical conjuncture, this dilemma ? Was 
 it the Catholics ? Certainly not. 
 
 Is it so certain that there would be a separation? Of 
 three classes the community was formed. The Dissen- 
 ters were disloyal; the Protestant oligarchy were for 
 maintaining connection with the crown of England; the 
 Catholics, the most numerous, were slow to catch the 
 flame of revolutionary feelings. Burke tells us that the 
 Catholics were disaffected only because they came in 
 contact with the Dissenters.* Nay more, the Catholic 
 Hierarchy raised their voices in solemn warning against 
 the seduction of Erench ideas. To the same effect spoke 
 Arthur O’Leary in his address to the people of Ireland 
 some years before, than whom no man exercised a 
 greater influence on his generation. Bight Kev. Bishop 
 > of Galway addressed a pastoral to his people, denouncing 
 in the strongest terms any connection with the French, f 
 ^ An Augustinian friar stood sentinel at the bridge of 
 Galway (his name, I think, was Joyce) to prevent the 
 disaffected from entering the town. J The same warning 
 
 '•* * Burke, M‘Nevin*s pieces of History. f Wright, vol. iii. 
 
 1 Hardiman’s Galway. 
 
 5 
 
58 
 
 ( 
 
 was given by Dr. Moylan, of Cork, Dr. Hussey, and 
 others.* Naturally there was a fear that the Irish would 
 be ready to seize an opportunity of rising on their 
 masters, as their neighbours the French, and avenging 
 the tyranny of six hundred years. For the French 
 roturier , in the most insolent mood of the noblesse , were 
 in an Eden in comparison to the Irish Catholic. Did 
 not the Catholic show as much moderation in the exer- 
 cise of the little power he was clothed with as any man 
 under the circumstances ? There was a fear that the 
 Irish would rise and inflict an awful retribution. Who 
 gave grounds for that for centuries ? Was there any- 
 thing done, even before its dissolution, by the Parlia- 
 ment, but what appeared generally to proceed from the 
 most selfish motives ? Nothing was done to knit toge- 
 ther the several children of the nation, and rest the 
 constitution on the broad and sure basis of their affec- 
 tion. Want of representation, directly or mediately, 
 was a powerful, I might say the chief cause, of death to 
 the Irish Parliament. 
 
 Of course there were terrible influences at work from 
 without, but the knowledge of an empiric might enable 
 Mr. Whiteside to see that the Irish Parliament in its 
 constitution bore the seeds of decay and of death. Is it to 
 no purpose history unrolled its volumes before him? 
 Wherever the representation was confined to a pure 
 minority, no matter how ardent the thirst for freedom, 
 corruption and decline were the consequences. Want 
 of proper representation was a powerful cause of decline 
 to pagan Rome, to the old Grecian states, to the re- 
 publics of the middle ages. So fared it with the Irish 
 Parliament. It was class legislation. The pure minority 
 legislated for, or I should say against, the majority. No 
 new life poured into the constitution from the masses. 
 The Parliament bred in and in. It was like a pyramid 
 supported on its apex. For six or seven years Catholics, 
 
 Wright, vol. ii. 
 
indeed, had the right of voting. But it was too late. 
 The Irish Parliament was oddly balanced, the attacks 
 against it were violent, and it fell. Not a word of this 
 from Mr. Whiteside. 
 
 It did not suit the views of the lecturer to point 
 to those defects, because it is to be feared that 
 there is not a yet a sufficient representation. It is idle 
 to talk of a certain proportion graduated according to 
 wealth. Though all the Irish members were free and 
 fairly influenced, what could they do against such odds ? 
 When there is a dispositson to legislate for one country 
 at the expense of another, of what use to the latter the 
 enjoyment of equal laws ? There was a complaint in 
 parliament against the conduct of the first of the 
 Georges, because his legislation was more suited to the 
 principality of Hanover than the meridian of London. 
 The same may be said of Ireland. The two countries 
 are geographically distinct. The wide sea runs between 
 them. The genius of the people different in both coun- 
 tries. No effort made on the part of the executive to 
 modify as much as possible the execution of the laws, 
 and bring them in harmony with the feelings of the 
 people. I am afraid of going beyond the object pro- 
 posed to myself, but I cannot help alluding to the crip- 
 pling of the commercial, agricultural, mechanical inte- 
 rests, without any concern to the Imperial Parliament. 
 In imagination or on paper there may be a union, but 
 there is no natural or lasting union. England can af- 
 ford this for some time, because, after all, viewed in con- 
 nection with Great Britain, Ireland is only a portion, 
 and far the smallest portion, of the empire, and so may 
 be ruined while the rest exhibits an unhealthy vigour — 
 nay, by the fact England may become internally, so- 
 cially more prosperous, but internationally weak. Ire- 
 land may become the mother of flocks and herds, an 
 out-farm for England; but so surely as the water finds 
 its level, or that bodies fall to their centre, the policy 
 will react and bring on a fearful retribution. Were 
 
there no other grievance crying for it, that monstrous 
 incubus of the Church Establishment were sufficient to 
 invoke it. I turn to Montesquieu, who says “ that 
 wherever the legislative becomes as corrupt as the exe- 
 cutive, that nation will fall”.* English legislation is not 
 favourable to Ireland, and whatever rays of justice are 
 directed to it, are refracted in the atmosphere that 
 surrounds the executive. It appears on the bench, 
 on the bdard of guardians, on the grand jury. The 
 stream of justice appears polluted at its outfall, and 
 is not free from pollution at its source. Till a more 
 generous spirit actuates the English, there is not suffi- 
 cient representation for Ireland. These are the lessons 
 I derive from contemplating the causes of decline to the 
 Irish Parliament. The result, of course, may be slow 
 to the empire, but no less sure than to the Irish Par- 
 liament. There is not a system of education, a poor- 
 law system, in harmony with the feelings of the people. 
 There is not a due fence thrown around the suffrage. 
 “The object of qualification”, says Blackstone, “is to 
 raise the voter above influence”, f Need I repeat that 
 the unnatural relations of landlord and tenant render 
 this impossible? Want of representation is a reflection, 
 or its necessity, that comes from a review of the Irish 
 Parliament. We feel the same want now. It gave the 
 death-blow to that parliament, and, as sure as the mor- 
 row’s sun, it will tell with the same result on the Im- 
 perial Parliament. 
 
 * Montesquieu, Spirit of Laws. f Commentaries , p. 173. 
 
 J. F. Fowlkb, Printer, 3 Crow Street, Dame Street, Dublin.