n 



Had this venerable historian Uved at a later period, he would see those 

 boasted gifts of nature trampled under the foot of the hostile invader. 

 Instead of milk and honey, he would have described Ireland as an 

 Island flowing with blood, and plunged in all the horrors of almost 

 continuous civil warfare and confusion. Tranquillity was for ages a 

 stranger in the land, except for those few gloomy and transient 

 intervals, which in general but preceded more dreadful storms. Yet 

 even during these short cessations of war, the native character some- 

 times appeared, the cheering sounds of peace were heard, the shuttle 

 and the plough were seen to move, and numerous flocks and herds 

 covered its hills and plains. The art of agriculture too, but with 

 frequent interruptions, flourished in many parts of the kingdom, to 

 a degree that drew forth reluctant praises from those very men^ 

 whose policy and interest it was to misrepresent the country. 



The people of the west, remote from the calamities in which the 

 other quarters of the island were generally involved, retained to a 

 late period many of the simple primeval customs of rural and even 

 of pastoral life, as the instruments before us in many instances tes- 

 tify. Amongst them, debts were contracted and paid in living 

 money,* lands were given in mortgage or exchange for cows, 

 horses, sheep, c^c. and tributes and rents were rendered in cattle 

 or in ounces of gold and silver. In reviewing the manners and state 

 of society in former times, care must be taken not to draw hasty 

 conclusions from the present advanced position of human cultiva- 

 tion. -f The improvement of man is ever progressive, and in Ireland, 



• W<i '^f y)arjvutU Vil! fa f8!o!>'ja.« to ■o>iiti^xa jih i lit »il ^" naianvj' z t->' 



* Mr. Henry, in his valuable History of England, states, that living money, which was so 



general in England before the Norman conquest, is not mentioned by writers after 



that event — Vol. III. p. 510. — It appears to have been in use to a much later period ia 



Ireland. ..... 



f In England, in the days of Edward I., and even so late as those of Henry VI., wcMkfioW 



