

IRELAND. 



K 1 

 ! 



the soil and climate, the adder and snake are 

 unknown, as is also the mole. 



PEOPLE POPULATION. 



The Irish people are, in the main, a branch of the 

 'Celtic race, though the Celts were probably not the 

 first settlers in the island ; the earlier occupants 

 belonging (as in Britain, before the arrival of the 

 Celtic Britons) to a non-Aryan stock, often called 

 Euskarian or Iverriian. The peasantry through- 

 out nearly the whole country are of Celtic or 

 mixed Celtic and Euskarian blood, and in many 

 parts they still speak the old Irish language. 

 But in the north, a great number of the humbler, 

 -as well as middle classes are descended from 

 comparatively recent settlers of Scottish descent. 

 Families of English blood are comparatively rare 

 .amongst the labouring class in Ireland ; but a 

 large portion of the upper and middle classes are 

 f Saxon descent. 



Character. Irish character is in some respects 

 ike the French. As the French are, the Irish are 

 d by impulse and by the humour of the hour. 

 They are more vain, or at least act more from 

 ^vanity, caring less to conceal the fact of its being 

 the mainspring of action, than the English and 

 the Scotch do. They wholly lack the prudence 

 and the perseverance which are so especially the 

 virtues of the latter people. They are intelligent, 

 ritty, hospitable, light-hearted, and, unlike the 

 Lnglish and the Scotch, usually content to remain 

 the social position and circumstances in which 

 they are born. The feature in the character of 

 ic Irish, to which the misfortunes of Ireland are 

 apparently to be attributed, is their disregard of 

 .w. In Great Britain, popular sympathy is almost 

 Iways on the side of the law ; in Ireland, it is 

 2arly always against the law. How far this and 

 ic other defects of national character have arisen 

 om political circumstance, or how far the misfor- 

 unes of the people have been owing to these 

 defects, are questions to be studied in the history 

 of the country. See art. HISTORY OF GREAT 

 BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 



We take the following from an able chapter 

 in a Memoir of Thomas Drummond, Under- 

 secretary to the Lord-lieutenant of Ireland, by 

 John F. M'Lennan, M.A., advocate. ' There are 

 in Ireland/ says Mr M'Lennan, ' as it were, two 

 nations interfused, yet distinct, with separate 

 traditions, and differing in blood, temperament, 

 and religion. The larger represents the tribes 

 which occupied the country before the Conquest ; 

 the smaller represents the conquerors. Their 

 relations have always been hostile. The growth 

 of the society which they compose has conse- 

 quently been abnormal ; its growing pains, acute 

 and prolonged beyond parallel. They have not 

 yet ceased ; they are constantly producing fever- 

 ishness and delirium. The history of Ireland 

 is mainly that of the larger of the two nations 

 the nation of the tribes. In the time of Henry 

 II. this consisted, according to the computation 

 of Sir William Petty, of not more than 300,000 

 souls, divided into a few tribes, and subdivided 

 into a great number of clans or septs. . . . The 

 number of clans was prodigious. The clan-feuds 

 were incessant ; the tribal wars were almost 

 incessant. Antipathies founded on wrongs, real 

 ror imaginary, divided the clans ; antipathies 



founded on real or assumed differences of race 

 divided the tribes. There were everywhere hered- 

 itary hatreds of unknown origin. The clans even 

 contained within themselves the elements of 

 discord, and fell into factions. . . . Property was 

 held in common ; the succession of sons to fathers 

 had not been introduced. The tribes had been 

 resolved into clans of different stocks; but the 

 clans had not yet, properly speaking, been resolved 

 into families. The tie of milk was superior to 

 the tie of blood ; children belonged to the sept 

 rather than to the family. They were rarely or 

 ever reared by their own mothers "the potent 

 men selling," says Sir John Davis, " the meaner 

 sort buying, the alterage of their children." At 

 the period here treated of, Irish civilisation was 

 in some other respects considerable. Christianity 

 was established, and missionaries from Ireland 

 were carrying the new light into places still in 

 the darkness of paganism. In 1154, Pope Adrian 

 IV. as "king of all islands," granted the lordship 

 of Ireland to Henry II. of England, for the pur- 

 pose of "broadening the borders of the church." 

 Henry's conquest was little more than nominal, 

 and the four centuries which followed were 

 centuries of constant feud and slaughter between 

 the invaded and the invaders. The law of Eng- 

 land was "by law" established, but practically 

 there was no law but the will of the stronger. 

 By the time of Henry VII. the English rule in 

 Ireland was verging on extinction. From a 

 report made in the reign of Henry VIII. it 

 appears that " the English order, tongue, and 

 habit" were used, and English laws obeyed, 

 within a district of not more than twenty miles 

 in compass ; sixty " regions " of Ireland were 

 under the dominion of Irish chieftains ; and thirty 

 " regions " under the authority of chiefs of Anglo- 

 Norman descent the Irish rebels who owned 

 neither the laws nor the government of England. 

 The real struggle between England and Ireland 

 began with the Reformation under Henry VIII. 

 and ended with the fall of Tyrone, a native 

 chief, in the reign of Elizabeth, leaving Ireland,' 

 says Mr M'Lennan, ' a waste of blood and ashes. 

 Love of plunder,' he continues, 'had now found 

 a powerful auxiliary in zeal for the Reformed 

 religion. . . . The English army acted, indeed, as 

 if its mission were not to conquer, but to destroy 

 the people. Its route was everywhere marked by 

 slaughter, famine, and desolation. " The soldiers 

 in the camp," says an English chronicler, " were 

 so hot upon the spur, and so eager upon the vile 

 rebels, that they spared neither man, woman, 

 nor child, but all were committed to the sword." 

 The natives, when they crowded into castles, were 

 burnt or slain in the mass. Their cattle were 

 carried off, and their crops cut down ; and those 

 whom the sword spared, hunger destroyed. 

 Catholic priests were forbidden to exercise their 

 spiritual functions, and were hanged or burned 

 if they did so. One of the first acts of James I. 



was a jail delivery, from 

 murderers and papists." 



which he excluded 

 Plague and famine 



raged over the unhappy land. According to an 

 eye-witness, whole counties were cleared of their 

 inhabitants. A man might travel twenty or thirty 

 miles and not see a living creature, either man, 

 beast, or bird : where survivors were found, they 

 were either old men and women, or children. " I 

 have seen these miserable creatures," says Colonel 



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