i88 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Acadermj. 



the Provinces of Ireland," written about the year 1580, was "civil," 

 " that part contained within a river called Pill " (a name given to the 

 estuary of the Bannow) being inhabited by "the ancientest gentleman 

 descended of the first conquerors." But this district was connected 

 with the capital by sea only, and the rest of the county was inacces- 

 sible. Sydney and Sir "William Dmry finding "that there were no 

 sufficient and sure gentlemen to be sherifis, nor freeholders to make a 

 jury, for her ITajesty," the project was let drop. Their successor, 

 Sir John Perrot, had the same object in view, and in a report to 

 Elizabeth, " how the natives of Ireland might with least charge be 

 reclaimed from barbarism to a godly Government,"^ he gives a 

 pictiu'esque account of the condition of the south-eastern counties and 

 the need which existed for providing a proper system of administration. 

 " The Birnes, Tooles, and Kavanaghs must be reduced." They are 

 "ready firebrands of rebellion to the O'AIoores and 0' Conors, and till 

 they be brought under or extirped, Dublin, Kildare, Meath, West- 

 meath, and the King's and Queen's County cannot be clear either of 

 them or of O'Moores or O'Conors, or of the incursions and spoils of the 

 3JcGeoghegans, O'Molloys, and other Irish borderers." But though 

 he stated the difficulty thus vigorously, Perrot, like Sydney, left 

 Ireland without doing anything efiective to remedy it. Sir Henry 

 Sydney's last tenure of the office of Lord Deputy closed in 1578, and 

 for the next few years the Desmond rebellion perforce put a stop to 

 the work he had set himself to accomplish. It was not until the 

 southern rising had been crushed that Sir John Perrot, who, in 1584, 

 succeeded to the Irish Government, was able to resume the work. 

 Though this statesman is best remembered in our history in connexion 

 with the composition of Connaught, which was effected during his 

 administration, it is in relation to Ulster that his proceedings have 

 most interest in the present connexion. To Perrot belongs the 

 honour of having divided the northern province into divisions sub- 

 stantially corresponding to its modem counties, though twenty years 

 were to elapse before these divisions were generally recognised, or 

 before they became effective portions of the administrative machinery 

 of the country. 



The story of the Anglo-Norman colonies of Ulster and the settle- 

 ment of Lecale, the Ards, and Carrickfergus, has never been fully 

 analysed, and to tell it is outside the purpose of this Paper. Here it 

 must suffice to observe that the only counties in the modem sense of 



iSloane MS., 2,200, Brit. Mus. 



