IRELAND 



3049 



IRELAND 



the larger cities were also erected into county 

 boroughs, with similar councils. 



Religion. Though the Irish did not embrace 

 the doctrines of the Reformation as generally 

 as did the English, an established Irish Church 

 was forced on them with the Act of Union 

 in 1800, and they were compelled to contrib- 

 ute to its support. Even after the political 

 disabilities were removed from the Catholics 

 in 1829, the Irish Church continued to be a 

 drain on them, and not until 1871 was it finally 

 disestablished. To-day, therefore, there is no 

 state Church in Ireland, but about seventy- 

 four per cent of the population belongs to the 

 Roman Catholic Church. In Ulster there are 

 large numbers of Episcopalians and Presbyte- 

 rians, the descendants of Englishmen and 

 Scotchmen who settled there long ago, and the 

 Methodist Church also has a considerable fol- 

 lowing in the northern, counties. Indeed, in 

 Ulster the adherents of these three Protestant 

 Churches combined decidedly outnumber the 

 Catholics. With the decrease in population 

 (see subhead People above) it has been the 

 Catholics who show the greatest loss, for far 

 more of them emigrate than do the Protes- 

 tants. 



Education. The religious question has made 

 difficult the establishment of any system of 

 education for Ireland. The tendency of the 

 British government was to make all schools 

 Protestant in tone, and naturally the Catho- 

 lics would not allow their children to attend 

 such schools. An attempt was made to re- 

 move the difficulties by having the secular 

 teaching of Catholic and Protestant children 

 conducted together, while religious instruction 

 was imparted separately, but this did not prove 

 satisfactory, and to-day the children are in a 

 measure segregated Catholic children are 

 taught by Catholic teachers, Protestant chil- 

 dren by Protestants. The system is strongly 

 centralized, a board of commissioners having 

 almost absolute control. This board even 



supplies the textbooks, for fear religious ques- 

 tions may be brought into the secular teach- 

 ing if the teachers are allowed to select the 

 books. Though the compulsory education law, 

 which has been in existence since 1892, is not 

 well enforced, illiteracy is decreasing steadily 

 in Ireland, and the percentage of those who 

 can neither read nor write is now about nine. 

 There are no state secondary schools, but the 

 government lends aid to those of whatever 

 sect which have proved their worth. 



Among higher institutions may be men- 

 tioned Trinity College, Dublin, a famous 

 university which dates from 1591; and the 

 so-called Queen's Colleges of Belfast, Cork and 

 Galway, all three coeducational institutions. 

 At the head of the system is the National 

 University, but this is not a university in the 

 ordinary sense of the term, being merely an 

 examining and degree-conferring body. 



Literature. See IRISH LITERATURE. 



The Congested Districts Board. This is an 

 institution which deserves special mention. In 

 Western Ireland some of the counties had 

 become painfully overcrowded, chiefly because 

 poor tenants evicted from their little holdings 

 in the more fertile districts had settled here 

 in great numbers. A whole family would be 

 trying, by the most unenlightened of methods, 

 to wrest a living from the exhausted and stony 

 soil, and the result was widespread suffering. 

 At harvest time there was a regular migration 

 of these people to England and Scotland, where 

 they worked in the fields. The Congested Dis- 

 tricts Board, created in 1891, has as its func- 

 tion the bettering of conditions in these regions. 

 Some families are induced to move, others are 

 given larger holdings, and everywhere better 

 agricultural methods are introduced. Some of 

 the people, too, have had their attention turned 

 from the stubborn soil to the abundant fish- 

 eries of the coast. Over $1,000,000 is expended 

 annually by this board, and the results have 

 fully justified the outlay. 



History of Ireland 



The Very Olden Times. An Irish historian, 

 attempting to establish for his country great 

 antiquity, is willing to concede that "It seems 

 to be certain that Ireland continued uninhab- 

 ited from the Creation to the Deluge." No 

 man can say who the first inhabitants of the 

 island were, nor when they lived. Native leg- 

 ends tell of several tribes who came and went, 

 driven out before stronger invaders; and, cen- 



turies before Christ, Greek and Roman writers 

 referred to the island of lerne, or Hibernia. 

 But the dawn of authentic history came in 

 the fourth century A. D. The lords of Ireland 

 in that day were the Scoti, a Celtic tribe who 

 were strong enough to make raids on Britain, 

 then under Roman rule, and even to cross the 

 Channel to Gaul. Wonderful indeed were the 

 doings credited by later writers to some of 



