viii INTRODUCTION. 



Custom, the unwritten law and the legal executive 

 were ignored or derided. Custom, the unwritten law 

 of the master sanctioned by illegal physical force, 

 prevailed. Private quarrels were speedily settled by 

 a duel. Family feuds and clan feuds were of frequent 

 occurrence resulting in faction fights, many broken heads 

 and some loss of life. As though such causes of quarrel 

 did not afford sufficient opportunities for a fight, mullet 

 fishing was, for some inscrutable reason, deemed a 

 fitting occasion for a small battle between the retainers 

 of neighbouring landlords. The people believed that 

 they had a prescriptive right to rob mullet nets, and, 

 in consequence, would never be at the trouble of setting 

 them unless they had a sufficiently strong party to 

 protect the fish when taken. Of course the dependents 

 of one landlord would not rob his nets, but they would 

 rob his neighbours ; the neighbouring tribe would 

 retaliate ; and on the occasion of a great catch there 

 were plenty of broken heads, and sometimes not a few 

 gunshot wounds. One of these adventures involved 

 the summonsing of our author's host, " and it cost me 

 a cool hundred before I got clear of the Honourable 

 Justices." 



What will at once strike the reader is the extraordinary 

 change that has taken place in Ireland. When these 

 letters were penned, the only social system in Connaught 

 worth the name was the clan system ; and in a day of 

 peasant proprietors, co-operative agriculture, Land 

 Commissions, Congested District Boards and all the 



