1829.] [ 625 J 
HAS ENGLAND MISGOVERNED IRELAND? 
. Accorpine to the fashionable doctrine of the day, Ireland has been 
invariably a misgoverned country, from its conquest in the twelth cen- 
tury to the present time—the governors and not the people being the 
cause of her manifold miseries! A fine, civilized, industrious people, 
governed by a long succession of barbarian pashas ! 
But let us imagine Strongbow and his handful of knights, squires, 
pages, men-at-arms, and archers, conquering three hundred thousand of 
the “ finest people on earth,” whose princes dwelt under the canopy 
of Heaven, or the embowering shelter of woods, or in those magnificent 
palaces and castles called boolies (mud cow-houses), after the fashion 
of which are the modern cabins. In such ample variety of dwellings 
they abode, so long as there was pasture for their cattle ; but when they 
had completely depastured the surrounding country, they moved on to 
anew region, devastating as they went; and then again set themselves 
down to luxuriate at leisure. These were neither locusts, nor sloths, 
nor wandering Arabs, but the Irish chieftains, and their tribes of the 
middle ages. These were the breechesless, shoeless kings, princes and 
warriors, who rode sans saddles or stirrups, to combat the English 
knights and men-at-arms, clad in steel from pole to sole! 
It is no disparagement to Irish valour that they could not withstand 
the English warriors. Neither is it surprising that small accessions of 
numbers to the English should not, during many generations, extend 
the actual sway of England over eleven millions of square acres of 
mountains, bogs, and woods. England had not, during several ages, a 
superabundant population ; besides which, France occupied her atten- 
tion, and Ireland had been a desart in the nominal possession of tribes 
unacquainted with civilized life. To illustrate this point, I shall quote 
the following anecdote from an Irish authority :— 
Sir John de Courcy having built two castles in Mac Mahon’s country, 
that chieftain swore fidelity, and made de Courcy his gossip. De Courey 
at length bestowed on him the castles and lands appendant to them. 
Within two months, Mac Mahon demolished both the castles. When 
asked his reason, he answered, “ that he did not promise to hold stones, 
but lands, and that it was contrary to his nature to live within cold 
-stone walls when the woods were so nigh!” 
Even so late as the seventeenth century, Sir John Davis states, “ I 
dare boldly say, that no particular person (Irish), from the Conquest to 
the reign of James I., did build any stone, or brick house, for his private 
habitation, but such as have lately obtained estates according to the law 
of England.” Of course, it was the misgovernment of the Plantage- 
nets and Tudors, which caused the native Irish to prefer bivouacing in 
-warm woods to dwelling within cold stone walls. And the same mis- 
government made the Irish slight the use of coined money, which had 
been first introduced amongst them by Edward III., barter better 
suiting the habits of those of the woods. Thus, in the reign of Henry IV- 
Mae Murrough, Prince of Leinster, did not value his favourite horse at 
so much silver or gold, but at four hundred cows ; and this system of 
barter continued up to the seventeenth century, gold or silver being 
unknown even in the household of the great O'Neal! Giraldus Cam- 
brensis, who accompanied Prince John into Treland, describes the 
country as being without inhabitants and without roads, which Sir 
M.M. Nem Series.—Vou. VII. No. 42. 
