TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 127 
the higher elevating the lower, among whom they have permanently resided, must 
always tend to great and good ends in raising mankind to that state into which I 
hope it will yet please Providence to call him. 
must hasten on. The Anglo-Normans came here in 1172, a very mixed race, 
but their leaders were chiefly of French or Norman extraction. Why they came, 
or what they did, it is not for me to expatiate upon. I wish, however, to correct 
an assertion commonly made, to the effect that the Norman barons of Henry II. 
then conquered Ireland. They occupied some towns, formed a “ Pale,” levied 
taxes, sent. in soldiery, distributed lands, and introduced a new language; but the 
“King’s writ did not run;” the subjugation of Ireland did not extend over the 
country at large, and it remained till 1846 and the five or six following years to 
complete the conquest of the Irish race, by the loss of a tuberous esculent and the 
governmental alteration in the value of a grain of corn. Then there went tu the 
workhouse or exile upwards of two millions of the Irish race, besides those who 
died of pestilence. Having carefully investigated and reported upon this last great 
European famine, I have come to the conclusion just stated, without taking into 
consideration its political, religious, or national aspects, so far as this communica- 
tion is concerned. 
It appears to me that one of our great difficulties in Ireland has been the want 
of fusion—not only of races, but of opinions and sentiments, in what may be called 
a “oive and take” system. As regards the intermixture, I think there cannot be 
a better one than the Saxon with the Celt. The Anglo-Normans, however, parti- 
ally fused with the native Ivish ; for Strongbow married Eva the daughter of King 
Dermod ; and from this marriage it has been clearly shown that Her Most Gracious 
Majesty the present Queen of Ireland and Great Britain is lineally descended. 
Several of the noble warriors who came over about that period have established 
great and wide-spread names in Ireland, among whom (not to be tedious) I may 
mention the Geraldines in Leinster, the De Burgos in Connaught, and the But- 
lers in Munster, as is manifest from the name-rolls of the country ; and they and 
their descendants became, according to the old Latin adage, “more Irish than the 
Trish themselves.” 
Look what the intermixture of races has done for us in Ireland; the Firbolg 
brought us Agriculture; the Dannan the chemistry and mechanics of metal work ; 
the Milesians beauty and governing power; the Danes commerce and navigation ; 
the Anglo-Normans chivalry and organized government ; and, in later times, the 
French emigrants taught us an improyed art of weaving. 
It would be more political than ethnological were I to enter upon the discussion 
of that subsequent period which would conduct us to the days of Cromwell or the 
Boyne, or, perhaps, to later periods, involving questions not pertinent to the pre- 
sent occasion. 
I must here say a word or two respecting Irish art. In architecture, in decorative 
tone-work, from archaic markings that gave a tone and character to all subsequent 
art, in our beauteous crosses, in our early metal work, in gold and bronze, carried 
on from the Pagan to the Christian period, and in our gorgeously illuminated 
MS. books, we have got a style of art that is specially and peculiarly Irish, and 
that has no exact parallel elsewhere, and was only slightly modified by Norman or 
Frankish design. 
Time passed, as it is passing now, and events accumulated ; olitical affairs inter- 
mingle, but the anthropologist should try and keep clear of them. At the end of 
the reign of Elizabeth a considerable immigration of English took place into the 
south of Ireland. Subsequently the historic episode of the “ Flight of the Earls,” 
O’Neill and O'Donnell, brought matters to a climax ; and the early part of the reign 
of the first James is memorable for the “ Plantation of Ulster,” when a number of 
Celtic Scots with some Saxons returned to their brethren across the water; and 
about the same time the London companies occupied large portions of this fertile 
province, and the early Irish race were transplanted by the Protector to the West, 
as I have already stated. It must not be imagined that this was the first immigra- 
tion. The Picts passed through Ireland and no doubt left a remnant behind them, 
In consequence of contiguity, the Scottish people must early have settled upon our 
northern coasts. When the adventurous Edward Bruce made that marvellous 
