898 THE BEITISTI ISLES. 



hundred years before they had secured their conquest. The " pale," or barrier of 

 stakes, which formerly bounded tlie territories they held in Lein«ter, Meath, and 

 Munster, expanded or retreated according to the fortunes of war, and even in the 

 days of Henry VIII. the English pale of Dublin extended only 20 miles. But 

 more than four centuries of partial occupation had done much to mingle the blood 

 of the two peoples, and to spread the use of the English language. In a subse- 

 quent age, during the great religious wars, Ireland was once more subjected to 

 devastation. The population of whole towns was either massacred or exiled 

 in a body, and the conquered territories were divided amongst English colonists. 

 Queen Elizabeth gave away 200,000 acres in the province of Munster ; James I. 

 confiscated six entire counties in Northern Ireland (Armagh, Cavan, Fermanagh, 

 Derry, Tyrone, and Donegal), with a view of "planting " them with Scotch and 

 English Protestants, and later on, by a legal quibble, possessed himself of an 

 additional 500,000 acres in various parts of the island, which he likewise distributed 

 amongst colonists drawn from Great Britain.* During the Commonwealth one 

 of the first acts of the Parliament was to bestow 1,000,000 acres upon English 

 clergymen, and when the Catholics had been definitely defeated they were com- 

 pelled to move into the country districts of Connaught and Clare, as the towns of 

 this territory were to become exclusively Protestant, Their southern boundary 

 was to be the Shannon, and every Irishman found on the left bank of that river 

 might be killed without fear of legal consequences. " Go to hell, or go to Con- 

 naught " is a proverbial saying which originated at that time. There is no doubt 

 that many Irish Catholics, or " Tories/' remained in the provinces from which they 

 had been legally expelled. This was more especially tlie case as regards the 

 mountains of Tyrconnell, Galtymore, and Kerry, and the almost inaccessible bog 

 lands. Besides this, the new landowners themselves kept about them a number 

 of peasants to cultivate the soil. Nor were all the Protestants men of foreign 

 origin. These latter, however, formed at that time a very considerable portion of 

 the population of Ireland, and they were subsequently reinforced by the peaceable 

 immigration of Scotchmen into Ulster, where they assimilated the manners of 

 the people to those of the Lowlands on the other side of the Channel. As a result 

 of all these immigrations, there must have occurred a strong infusion of Anglo- 

 Celtic blood ; but in frequent instances the two races have lived side by side 

 without intermingling, and the stock of the people of Ireland appears to be 

 Celtic to this day. In Ulster we meet with "triple" towns, like those which 

 formerly existed in Greece and Italy. Downpatrick, for instance, has an Irish 

 quarter, a Scotch quarter, and an English quarter. Amongst emigrants of 

 various races there still remain to be mentioned the German " Palatines," who 

 settled near Gal way at the commencement of last century, f It is, however, a 

 curious ethnological fact, and one reminding us of analogous features in the 

 fauna and flora of Ireland, that a gipsy has never been seen upon that island. 

 These wanderers, who are represented in every part of the world, including even 



* Lingard; Ilallam ; Gustave de Beaumont, " L'Irlande, sociale, politique et religieuse." 

 t J. G. Kohi, "Eeisen in Irland." 



