96 [I'roc. B.N.F.C, 



When war was not raging the country was comparatively free 

 from ordinary crime. When the Tudor dynasty succeeded to 

 the Throne of England, the Crown had hardly any power in 

 Ireland. The country was governed by the great lords, under 

 whom were minor chiefs. Ireland was a nation of nations, 

 comprising nearly one hundred distinct governments. Even 

 the Pale, which was often considered distinctly English, was 

 only held by the strong intervention of one of the great Nor- 

 man families, usually of the house of Kildare. With the 

 advent of Elizabeth and the more aggressive policy carried on 

 by her statesmen and her captains, a new regime was soon 

 brought about. From wars and rumours of wars thence- 

 forward the island was never free. It was an age of great 

 activity in England; the best blood of her great houses had 

 traversed the Western main, fighting and harassing — pirating, 

 if they liked it — the Spaniard in his strongholds along the 

 coasts of that half -discovered Continent. The Shane O'Neill 

 wars in the North and the Desmond wars in the South were 

 somewhat familiar to all; the aftermath of those devastations 

 made a horrible record. To what extent the State embroiled 

 itself with the chieftains and the chieftains resisted the State 

 might be realised when he mentioned the fact that there was 

 no great lord in the land who had not at one time or another 

 in his career been out in rebellion. The greatest and the 

 noblest of all the Elizabethan Viceroys was Sir John Perrott, 

 a son of King Henry VIII. He it was to whom most credit 

 must be given for having brought into almost complete sub- 

 jection all the great lords of Ireland. The President, after 

 describing in detail the great Parliament of the Irish chief- 

 tains called by Perrott in 1585, said for many years the great 

 dread of the Spanish Armada hung over the whole of Eng- 

 land, the rumours being, perhaps, worse than the reality, 

 dangerous as that was. All England rallied nobly to the 

 standard of the Queen in resistance to the proud Spaniard, 

 and the heroic deeds of Drake, Frobisher, Grenville, Hawkins, 

 and Howard would be told while the world lasts. Scattered and 

 broken by the winds of heaven and the irresistible onslaughts of 



