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the Irish laws of Tanistic or senior succession, of gavelkind, and of 
the compensation and atonement for crime by the payment of an 
Eric, with some of the ancient laws of England and other nations, 
not with a design of fixing the stigma of barbarism on those na- 
tions, but to show that Ireland was not singular in the practice of 
such laws and customs. 
But the calumnies of Sir John Davis, of Spencer, and of others, 
who have re-echoed their slanders, have had a widely extended 
circulation ; and the Irish have patientiy lain under them for the 
long period of two hundred years, without scarcely attempting to 
shew their falsehood and injustice. The writer of this essay does 
not flatter himself with the hope, that his feeble efforts to remove 
long-confirmed prejudices, and to rescue from obloquy the charac- 
ter of his ancestors and those of his countrymen, can be effectual 
in the fullest extent: but he has a hope, that what he has advanced 
may have some weight with the candid and the liberal, so as to in- 
duce them to make further enquiries before they, on the authority 
of prejudiced writers, believe that immorality and barbarism are 
the characteristics of a nation, heretofore distinguished by the glo- 
rious appellation of “ Insula Sanctorum et Doctorum,” 'To com- 
pletely expose the falsehood of Davis, and others of his description, 
the most effectual mode would be to publish those laws, which they 
have taken so much pains to misrepresent. The writer would 
therefore call upon his countrymen in general, to step forward, whilst 
it is not yet too late ; and, by the aid of the press, to rescue from obli- 
vion the Brehon Law, under which their ancestors were governed, 
when Ireland was, by all, acknowledged to be “ the refuge of 
“ learning and the nurse of science.” 
In the course of this Essay, the writer has placed such of the 
Brehon Laws as he has touched upon fairly before the reader. It 
