192 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



troubled times succeeding the rebellion of 1641, and the Presidential 

 institution itself did not long survive that cataclysm. Though they 

 lingered beyond the llestoration, the Presidencies were not regarded 

 by the Duke of Ormond as necessary or efficient instruments of 

 government ; and in 1672, during the Yiceroyalty of Lord Essex, they 

 were finally abolished. But though the Presidency system was not 

 destined to remain a permanent feature in the administrative system 

 of Ireland, its operation during the years first following its institu- 

 tion was unquestionably effective. In Perrot's hands, both as 

 President of Munster, and later when as Deputy he became 

 responsible for the whole country, it was largely utilized to effect 

 what was practically a fresh delimitation of the old counties of 

 Munster. In an old "note," probably dating back to the fifteenth 

 century, quoted by Perrot in his Eeport to Elizabeth, already cited, 

 the Munster counties are thus enumerated: "In Munster there be 

 five English shires — Cork, Limerick, Waterford, Kerry, Tipperary ; 

 and three Irish shires — Desmond, Ormond, and Thomond." It will 

 be noted that the five former of these counties with Thomond or 

 Clare nominally make up the modern province of Munster. Ormond 

 represents Tipperary less the County of Cross Tipperary, and as 

 such still possesses a well-defined meaning. Desmond is a district 

 perhaps less clearly defined in the popular mind. It embraced a 

 large portion of East Kerry and West Cork, and at one time was 

 actually erected into a separate county. In 1571 a Commission 

 issued to Sir John Perrot and others, under the Statute 11 Eliz.,^ for 

 the counties of "Waterford, Tipperary, Cork, Limerick, and Kerry, 

 and the countries of Desmond, Bantry, and Carbery, and all countries 

 south of the Shannon in Munster, to make the country of Desmond 

 one county, and to divide the rest into such counties as may be 

 convenient." As a result of this Commission, Desmond became and 

 was long regarded as a distinct county, and its boundaries appear 

 from an Inquisition of 1606. But though Fynes Moryson places 

 Desmond on the list of the Munster counties, stating it to have 

 been lately added, its separate identity is not invariably recognised, 

 though for a time it boasted that essential note of independence, a 

 separate sheriff. This, however, had disappeared before the close of 

 Elizabeth's reign, for Haynes writes in Ids account of Cork that that 

 county,^ " being the greatest in the realm, have been tolerated to have 



1 Fiant, Eliz., 1486. Irish Eecord Office. 



2 " The Description, of Ireland in 1598," ed. by Eev. Edmund Hogan, s.j., 

 p. 169, 



