PREFACE. 11 



the 2nd of March, 1895, at the banquet of the 

 Ulster Association in London. He said : " Irish 

 women had been noted from all time for two 

 qualities beaiity and virtue. They had certainly- 

 impregnated the English race with their beauty, 

 because there had scarcely ever been an English 

 family remarkable for its beauty that that 

 beauty could not be traced to an Irish source. 

 As to their second quality, he did not know 

 what success they might Kave met with, but at 

 all events by their example they had done their 

 best to propagate it." 



Into that interesting field of comparative 

 anthropology I have no desire to intrude. I do 

 not here claim for my countrymen any physical 

 pre-eminence over other races. If by my book 

 I encourage this " Irish idea," and enable Irish- 

 men "to justify the faith that is in them," by 

 the unimpeachable and unanswerable evidence 

 of Englishmen and other foreigners, that is not 

 my direct object. I mean not to exalt Irishmen, 

 but to defend them against shameless and 

 systematic calumny ; to prove that they are not 

 like " Hottentots," or the " veriest savages on 

 the face of the earth," or " like baboons," or the 



