Falkiner — The Counties of Ireland. 183 



Statute immediately succeeding it,' "to convert and turn divers and 

 sundry waste grounds into shire ground." This Act provided for 

 the appointment of Commissioners "to view, survey, and make 

 inquiry of all the towns, villages, and waste grounds of the realm 

 now being-no shire grounds," with power to the Commissioners to erect 

 such districts into counties. Nothing was done in this short reign, 

 nor for some years afterwards, to give effect to this enactment. But 

 widely as the general policy of Elizabeth differed from that of her 

 predecessor, her attitude towards Ireland was in principle the same 

 as Mary's. The Statute (11 Elizabeth, Cap. 9), "for turning of 

 countries that be not yet shire grounds into shire grounds," sub- 

 stantially re-enacted the earlier legislation.^ And the task of giving 

 effect to these provisions was confided by Elizabeth in great measure 

 to the same statesmen who had devised them under Mary. 



Though the actual delimitation of the counties was not finally 

 settled until, in the reign of James I., it was accomplished by Sir 

 Arthur Chichester with the assistance of Sir John Davies, the 

 business of shiring Ireland, in the sense of formally naming and 

 constituting the county divisions of Connaught, Ulster, and part of 

 Leinster under their modern designations, was practically the work of 

 the two last Tudor Sovereigns. Their policy was carried out by three 

 statesmen of eminence— the Earl of Sussex, Sir Heniy Sydney, and 

 Sir John Perrot. And as in the case of the final measures taken in 

 the reign of James I. to perfect the county system we have been 

 provided by the chief agent of the work, Sir John Davies, with a vivid 

 description of the proceedings, so in the case of the earlier and 

 tentative steps taken under Elizabeth, we have the advantage of an 

 authentic narrative by one of the principal actors. The part played 

 by the Earl of Sussex has just been noticed. Sussex was followed by 

 the gifted and valiant Sir Henry Sydney. N'ot only has that ablest 

 of Elizabethan Deputies left detailed accounts of his progress through 

 the provinces, but he has given in a memoir of his services in Ireland, 

 drawn up in 1583, a striking statement of the Irish policy of EHzabeth 



1 3 & 4 PMlip and Mary, Cap. III. 



^ The preamble to both Statutes is worth quoting as showing the principle on 

 which this policy of shiring was based : — ""Whereas divers and sundry robberies, 

 murders, felonies, and other heinous offences be daily committed and done within 

 the sundry countries, territories, cantreds, towns, and villages of this realm being 

 no shire ground, to the great loss both of the Queen property and of divers and 

 sundry her Highness true subjects of this realm, and to the boldening and 

 «ncouraging of many offenders. Be it enacted," &c. 



