150 
« doubtless they are very necessary to understand the form of 
« government among the ancient Irish, and deserve a full research ;” 
and that, from a publication of them, “ we shall have a very delight- 
* ful and instructive view of many ancient rites and customs of this 
* country, which as yet continue in the utmost darkness and ob- 
“© scurity.” 
For the existence of some of the ancient Irish written laws, so 
low as the reign of James the first, we have the authority of Sir 
John Davis, who, in his first letter to the Earl of Salisbury, * men- 
tions an ancient Roll, containing an account of the various articles 
payable to Maguire, Chief of Fermanagh, by the subordinate 
chieftains, or heads of tribes, within his principality. The Roll was 
kept by O’Brislane, the principal Brehon of the country. It was 
written on both sides in a fair Irish character, and it was with great 
difficulty he could be prevailed upon to suffer it out of his hands 
to be copied. 
But that the ancient Irish laws did exist, and were even in force, 
down to the days of James the first, does not depend upon indi- 
vidual authority ; nor are there wanted proofs to show, that they 
were in some districts practised so late as the latter end of the un- 
fortunate reign of the first Charles. 'To exclude those laws from the 
English pale, an act was passed in the parliament held in Kilkenny 
in the fortieth year of the reign of Edward the third. By this act it 
appears, that the Irish laws had been pretty generally adopted by the 
English colonists in preference to those of their own native country- 
Hence it may be concluded, that these English conceived the Irish 
laws to be preferable to their own; and it may not be improper to 
remark, that in the Anglo-Irish Parliament held in the 33d and 35th 
* Historical Tracts, 8vo. Dublin 1787, page 253.—Collect. de Reb. Hib. Vol. I, p. 159. 
