Falkiner — The Counties of Ireland. 181 



a parallel diminution of the interest in and knowledge of the country 

 possessed by the English Sovereigns may be sufficiently inferred from 

 the language used in 1537 in a " Memorial for the Winning of 

 Leinster," addressed by the Irish to the English Council, which begins 

 by reciting that " Because the country called Leinster and the situation 

 thereof is unknown to the King and his Council, it is to be understood 

 that Leinster is the fifth part of Ireland." ^ But from this period, never- 

 theless, may properly be dated the revival of English authority. In 

 1541 the resolution of the Sovereign himself to convert his long 

 nominal lordship of Ireland into an effective supremacy, was shown by 

 the Act constituting Henry VIII. King of Ireland ; and this was the 

 prelude to the adoption of that policy of converting the chiefs of the 

 Irish septs into the immediate feudatories of the Crown which led 

 directly to the conversion of the lands without the Pale into districts 

 cognisable by English law, and ultimately to their formation into 

 modern counties. Little, indeed, was done under Henry VIII. towards 

 defining the County boundaries, the only actual change in the map 

 being the severance of "Westmeath from Meath by a Statute of 34 Heniy 

 VIII. But though the proverb quoted by Sir John Davies continued to 

 hold good during the reign of Henry VIII., that ' ' whoso lives by west of 

 the Barrow, lives west of the law," the area of the anglicised districts 

 steadily increased. The greater part of Leinster was in this and the 

 succeeding reign gradually won back to what was called " civility" ; 

 till towards the close of Elizabeth's reign the Pale was understood to 

 extend through all Leinster, Meath, and Louth.- 



The first step in this process of restoration, and the first real 

 addition to the list of Irish counties made since King John's time, was 

 the formation of the King's and Queen's Counties in the time of Philip 

 and Mary.^ The districts of Leix and Offaly, the territories of the 

 powerful septs of the O'Moores and O'Connors, were, in that reign, 

 reduced to subjection, during the Viceroyalty of the Earl of Sussex, 

 who, in the words of Sir John Davies, "took a resolution to reduce 

 all the rest of the Irish counties unreduced into several shires." Sussex 

 was the first of the Tudor Deputies to acquire a really systematic 

 personal acquaintance with the country he was sent to govern ; and 

 the accounts of his journeys through the provinces,^ of which he made 



^ " State Papers Henry VIII.," vol. ii., Part iii. 



2 See "A Perambulation of Leinster, Meath, and Louth, of which consist the 

 English Pale" in 1596. " Carew Cal.," iii., p. ISS. 



■^See " Calendar of Carew Papers, I.," pp. 257, 265, 274, 330, 352 



