IRELAND. 405 



be laid to the church of St. Peter, within which the defenders of the town had 

 sought a refuge. Cromwell thought of selling Ireland to the Jews, on their under- 

 taking to pay an annual rent of £2,000,000. " It is no felony to kill an Irishman " 

 was a proverb of that period. 



The greatest change introduced in Ireland by the English conquerors was 

 that which revolutionised the tenure of lands. Up to the close of the sixteenth 

 century there existed no individual property in the soil. The land belonged to 

 the septa, or clan, whose chieftain, elected for life, distributed it amongst the 

 members of the community, as was done in Russia until the abolition of serfdom. 

 There existed no large stone buildings in the rural districts, and the agricultural 

 nomads lived in miserable mud cabins, not superior to those of the present 

 day. When James I. succeeded to the English throne, he offered to convert into 

 feudal landowners the chieftains whom he found in possession, and few amongst 

 them resisted this tempting offer. Subsequently many turned rebels or engaged 

 in conspiracies, when the land was taken away from them, and handed over 

 to Scotch and English immigrants. The dispossessed septas, however, never 

 forgot that anciently the soil was the common property of all ; and even now, 

 in many villages, the descendants of the old chieftains are treated with defer- 

 ence, and entertained at the public expense, as if they were the elect of the 

 people. 



Deprived of their land, the Irish were at the same time persecuted on account 

 of their religion. Even after the law which compelled all Irishmen to live beyond 

 the Shannon had become a dead letter, those amongst them who were Catholics 

 were denied the protection of the common law. For many years a premium was 

 paid to any one who turned Protestant, and the Protestant son of a Catholic 

 father might at once enter into possession of his father's goods, though the latter 

 was still living. The office of informer or "priest-hunter" became a profes- 

 sion which led to honours and fortune. Up to 1832 the Irish were represented 

 in Parliament exclusively by Protestants, and quite recently they were obliged to 

 pay tithes to the Anglican Church, of which they were not members. The mass 

 of the Irish people are much attached to the Catholic priests, whom they look upon 

 as the natural representatives of the national cause : they have forgotten that 

 it was Pope Adrian lY. who gave Ireland to the English, and that the priesthood 

 at that time zealously supported the cause of the invaders. 



Poverty must naturally be very great in a country like Ireland, where most of 

 the soil is in the hands of great landowners ; where industry, except in a few 

 favoured districts, is hardly known ; and where, during the eighteenth century, 

 the development of various manufactures was stifled in the bad through the 

 jealousy of avaricious English monopolists. Only in Ulster did the farmers 

 enjoy security of tenure, for the privileges granted them by James I. made them 

 proprietors of all the improvements they had effected on the land. As long as 

 they paid their rent the landlord was not permitted to disturb them, unless, 

 indeed, he was prepared to compensate them for their improvements. These 

 privileges did not, however, extend to the other provinces. An absurd adherence 



