48 Ireland: Its Ancient Civilisation and Social Customs. 



monks were schoolmasters and model farmers of the period, and 

 were centres of civilisation in their various localities. Nothing 

 was done to supply the want caused by this act, which was an 

 immense loss to the country. The Bardic schools were few and 

 far between, and no system of national education existed. 

 What a change this was from the earlier period, when the Irish 

 schools were crowded with pupils. The condition of Ireland 

 was referred to at the close of the Elizabethan wars and the 

 decadence in the social condition of the people. The houses of 

 the best people in the reign of Elizabeth were generally one 

 storey and thatched ; the floors, if they had any covering, were 

 strewed with rushes. The Irish chiefs imported Spanish wines 

 in exchange for wool and hides, drank heavily, and usually lived 

 in rude plenty. The first reference to usquebagh, or whisky, 

 is in the year 1405 ; tobacco had been only recently introduced. 

 Men used their skeans or daggers for cutting their meat, and 

 there were no forks. Potatoes were not in common use. Milk, 

 flesh, bread, and butter were the staple articles of diet. The 

 peasantry usually took only two meals in the day ; ihey were a 

 hardy race, could work or fight for a long time on very scanty 

 allowance. Watercress was a favourite vegetable. The young 

 Irish nobility were allowed to run barefooted up to fifteen or 

 sixteen years of age to make them hardy, and were usually 

 reared by foster-parents. The Lord Deputy generally held 

 hostages of all the great Irish families as a guarantee of their 

 obedience. The usual decoration over the gate of Dublin 

 Castle in Elizabeth's reign was a row of heads of the Irish 

 nobility stuck on spikes, just as scarecrows are put up now to 

 warn maurauding rooks. The face of Ulster was totally 

 different from what it is now ; it was then densely covered with 

 natural forests, through which paths were cut as roads. The 

 few towns were all walled, with a deep trench or fosse filled 

 with water all round, and were usually held for the English. 

 The little town of Killmallock, in the south of County Limerick, 

 is still a good example of an Elizabethan town. One of the 

 town gates still remains, as well as a considerable portion of the 



