M‘Sweeny, on the Climate of Ireland. 209 
Many boggy and fennish places being also now drained, the temperature of the air 
has been much improved. As to the grains of corn, they are not generally so small 
as Giraldus and his followers say ; for in very few of the neighbouring countries, 
fairer or larger corn is to be found, than in Ireland. Nor can we allow of the opinion 
of Raphael Maffeus Volateranus, that Ireland produces nothing but corn and horses, 
The error likewise of Ranulphus Higden, that Ireland has no pheasants, partridges, 
deer, nor hedgehogs, is to be corrected. We might observe many things that are fa- 
bulously delivered by Giraldus Cambrensis, concerning Ireland ; and the reader is to 
take notice that Giraldus’s Topography is to be read with caution, as Giraldus 
himself in a manner acknowledges in the apology which he makes in his preface to his 
book of the conquest of Ireland.”—/Vare’s Antiquities of Ireland, chap. 23. 
Here we have the testimony of Sir James Ware, that in his time, the fields were 
green in the midst of winter, and that cattle were not prevented from grazing, except 
in case of snow, which rarely lasted two or three days. 
In the Speculum Regale, a work supposed to be written in the twelfth century ; we 
are informed that oxen and sheep were continually fed out of doors in Ireland.— 
Antiquarian Repertory, Vol. I. p. 336. 
Petrus Lombardus, in his book de De Regno Hibernize Sanctorum Insula, stated 
that the habitants neglected to make hay. “ Hic plerique negligunt resecare foenum 
ob summam temperiem aeris.” The mildness of the climate is here given by him as 
the cause ; but though this neglect of saving hay might have been very common in his 
time, yet the word ‘‘ plerique” shows that it was not universal. 
Patterson thinks it may be accounted for, by the plenty of ground they had in pro- 
portion to the stock of cattle. 
The evidence of Lombard and of Sir James Ware, may be put in opposition to the 
statement of Hamilton, who thinks that the great mildness of our winters is of recent 
date. He says in his memoir on the Climate of Ireland— Winter has likewise felt 
the general influence of this Atlantic temperature, our grasses scarcely droop beneath 
the frost.” When he penned this he certainly could not have recollected, that Boate, 
in his work on Ireland, had also mentioned, that in his time, cattle fed out in the fields, 
day and night in winter, and were seldom troubled with great frost. Thus the state- 
ment of Hamilton himself may be used now to show that no great change has taken 
place in the climate. 
Some particulars relating to the climate, may be gleaned from the history of the 
civil war, at the time of Charles I. Sir J. Temple describes the weather as very severe 
on the breaking out of the rebellion in 1641—* Most bitter cold and frosty.” He 
describes it as the severest year in the memory of man. Among other reasons for 
sending an army of Scots into Ireland, one was, “ that their bodies would better sort 
with the climate."—Sir J. Temple’s History of the Rebellion of 1641. 
