Fai,kiner — The Counties of Ireland. 185 



Tinder you, especially all the lands of Connaught and Thorn one!, heing 

 within the waters of Shannon, Lough Ree, and Lough Erne." In 

 the same document suggestions are made for the appointment of "safe 

 places for the keeping of the Assizes and Cessions." Sligo, Burcs 

 (Burris hoole), Roscommon, and Ballinasloe, arc respectively designated 

 as suitable county towns/ 



Leitrim for the present was excluded. O'Rorke's country was 

 not reduced to a county until Ferret's time in 1583. But the 

 country of the O'Perralls, called the Annaly, and the territory of the 

 O'Reillys, or East Breny, both of which, as already noted, were then 

 reckoned in Connaught, were formed into the modem counties of 

 Longford and Cavan.- East Breny was described at the time by Sir- 

 N. Bagnal as ''a territory where never writ was current," and 

 which it was almost sacrilege for any Governor of Ireland to look 

 into. The precise allotment of these counties among the provinces 

 seems to have been left open, for Sydney, as will appear in a moment, 

 was solicitous lest Connaught, which he had already extended in 

 another direction, should become disproportionately large. 



The district of Thomond had always been reckoned a part of the 

 southern province. Indeed, the name signified North Munster, and 

 its people were a Munster people. But Munster was a troublesome 

 responsibility in Sydney's time ; and the Deputy, who was then form- 

 ing the system of Presidencies by which for the next seventy years 

 the provinces of Munster and Connaught were to be administered, 

 desired to reduce its importance.^ He therefore ignored this ancient 

 division, and taking the Shannon as a natui-al boundaiy (the province, 

 if we exclude Leitrim, being thus, as the author of the " Description of 

 Ireland" has it, " in manner an island"), he added this large territoiy 

 to Connaught. " Thomond, a limb of Munster, I annexed to the Pre- 

 sident of Connaught by the name of the County of Clare," is Sydney's 

 concise summary of this important transaction.^ In his instructions 

 to Malby, ali'eady quoted, the north part of the city of Limerick was 

 suggested as the " shire town," " because a jury may be had there 

 for the orderly trial of all country causes." But the President was 



' See O'FlaHerty's "West Connauglit," ed. Hardiman, p. 305. 



2 Sussex appears to have designed to add Cavan to Leinster rather than Ulster, 

 "O'Eeilly," he writes, "bordering upon Meath, and lying by situation of his 

 country unfit for any of the other Governments, is to be under the order of the 

 principal governor." Carew Calendar, i., 338. 



3 " Seasons for retaining Thomond in Connaught." Carew Calendar, iv., p. 471. 

 * Collins's Sydney Papers, i., 75. 



R.I.A. PROC, VOL. XXIV., SEC. c] [14] 



