200 
long before the period he mentions. ‘The laws for regulating the 
affairs of Raths or villages, and the concurrent testimony of all our 
historians, prove the first ; and the second is proved from equally 
good authority. The Irish Annals record the erection of several 
stone houses, and the Seanchas bheg, a very ancient law tract, 
grants privileges and assigns liberal rewards to artists skilled in 
the construction of such edifices. But even if the Irish houses were 
built of timber only, which, it is acknowledged, they generally 
were, how does it-prove that the Irish people were barbarians? If 
dwelling in wooden houses were a proof of barbarism, the inhabit- 
ants of the great city of London were barbarous so late as the 
polite reign of King Charles the Second; for it was owing to the 
principal part of the houses being composed of timber, that the great 
fire, which happened in that city in the year 1666, was so destruc- 
tive. ‘That the Irish did enclose their lands, and plant gardens and 
orchards, he must have been an eye witness. Why he uttered a 
falsehood on this subject, the writer of this essay might assign rea- 
sons; but, at present, he chooses to leave it to others to conjec- 
ture. 
That the Irish did enclose their lands, and that the preservation 
of those enclosures was provided for by laws, the laws themselves 
are incontestible evidence, independent of the authority of history. 
In the library of Trinity College, * is to be found a fragment of a 
law-tract beginning “ Leath Cathach a tairsciodh, &¢c.” that pre- 
scribes the manner in which fences for the enclosure of land should 
be constructed, and imposes heavy penalties for breaking through 
them. This fragment has been published by the late General Val- 
lancey ;-+ and, although the translation may not be quite correct, 
* Manuscript Room, Class H No. 54. + Collect. de Reb. Hibern. vol. 3, p. 71- 
