Clare Island Survey -Agriculture and its History. 6 29 



might conquer and hold. That meant that the king became first owner of all 

 the land ; and, while he let that over which he was immediate lord either for 

 knight-service or for payments in money or in kind, he let the rest to the 

 Norman lords upon their oath of fealty ; and they in turn were expected to 

 sublet the land they held for knight-service or for direct payment. Primo- 

 geniture and the usual incidents of feudal law, such as wardship, escheat, fines 

 and relief followed in consequence ; and the Brehon law was annulled. 



But in Ireland feudalism lacked one essential feature which elsewhere 

 was its mainstay. When the conqueror divided up England among his 

 Norman lords and knights, he retained a number of manors as his own, 

 and, in after-days, the knights and soldiers living on those manors were used 

 effectively in keeping the lords and barons true to their overlord, the king. 

 In Ireland, on the other hand, the king retained only the Dublin district, 

 which was altogether too small to keep the Norman lords in check ; and, if he 

 had to use force, he " had to rely upon such of the great feudal vassals as 

 might remain loyal. . . . The invariable result of this policy was to kindle 

 a civil war and excite personal feuds in the attempt to maintain order." 1 

 Another Irish feature was that the Norman lords themselves, partly because 

 their original feudal retainers were too few, partly because they found Irish 

 soldiers cheaper, and partly for other reasons, fell away from feudalism and 

 adopted such of the Brehon laws and customs as were to their interest. At 

 the same time their retainers and their descendants who remained in Ireland 

 were absorbed in the Irish population. 



Thus it was that only the country under the immediate eye of the 

 king's deputy, the Pale, whose boundaries fluctuated considerably but were 

 never confined to an area much less than that represented by the present 

 counties of Dublin, Louth, Kildare and Meath, was the only part of Ireland 

 in which feudal laws and customs continued to prevail. 



It is not easy now to say for certain how the English worked the land 

 within the pale, because the problem has not yet been fully investigated, but, 

 from circumstances which will now be quoted, it can be inferred that the 

 system was approximately that of England during the Middle Ages. 



Sir John Davies tells us that " when the English Pale was first planted 

 all the natives were clearly expelled, so as not one Irish family had so much 

 as an acre of freehold in all the five counties of the Pale." 2 The incomers 

 were English, knowing the English system of agriculture only and likely to 

 establish no other. That system had originated and grown from the old 

 English village as a nucleus, but separate farms, demesne farms, manor 



Kichey, p. 171. - Letter to Salisbury in Ireland uudei Elizabeth and James, p. 389. 



