75 



people of the countries, whence they emigrated, had possessed. 

 The same manners, customs, religion, dress, trade, money, arts, 

 arms, maritime vessels, mode of warfare, architecture, state of 

 agriculture, judicature, medicine, and education, which charac- 

 terized the Gauls and Britons, were introduced into this island 

 by the transplanted children of those nations. The manners and 

 customs of the Irish may therefore be regarded as a tolerably 

 accurate copy of the exemplar, which their British progenitors had 

 set before them ; and consequently this part of our early history is 

 to be sought for in the works of foreign writers. 



Here, owing to an inconsiderable commerce ; to an insulated 

 situation ; a nominally elective, but really an usurped monarchy ;^^^ 

 laws incompetent and feebly executed ; frequent domestic war ;,g3 

 a want of education and of morality ; the arts continued many 

 ages in the same state, in which the first settlers had introduced 

 them : without change, without improvement ; and, not excepting 

 the round towers, which, I believe, were constructed by the Danes, 

 and aptly termed by Barry Cambrensis, ' turres ecclesiasticse,' we 

 had no buildings of stone, before the time of Henry the Second, 

 to equal even the Gothic pointed arch. The few bridges were of 

 the most simple contrivance ,* and of the public roads, which were 

 for the most part few in number, and those ill planned, none was 

 good. The market towns were in general wretchedly poor, not 

 numerous, and were situated at inconvenient distances. From the 



L 2 



192. See the history of Irish kings in Keating, O'Flaherty, &c. 



193. The fate of their kings evinces the turbulence of those times: O'Flaherty, p. 420, 

 informs us that, of 136 Pagan kings, 100 died by the sword, and only 17 met with a natural 

 death. 



