495 



August 1562, % hathe pomest (promised) for this last yer for the forsaid 

 rent xxxij kyne, from this forthe yerly as is aforsayd. Beying p'sent. 

 " Meyleb, Htjssey, Tyrell Tadeskyd, Redmond M'Shane, 

 " Will'm Cougar."* 



It is plain that the payment here recorded is precisely that which 

 in our Agreement is stipulated to be paid on the lands of Mac Rannall 

 and O'Ruark. The lands named in the instrument are the same; the 

 amount of payment is the same ; the rate per quarter is the same ; in 

 a word, the transaction, as recorded in the Rental Book, is literally 

 identical with the engagement undertaken in the Agreement. 



There can be no doubt, therefore, that, although the Rental does 

 not expressly recite the consideration on the part of the Earl which 

 is stipulated for in the original Agreement, nevertheless the title deed 

 upon which the payment was based was no other than the very docu- 

 ment which is still preserved in the family archives, and which I had 

 the pleasure of exhibiting to the Academy. 



The obvious conclusion from the comparison of this entry in the 

 Rental with the original entry to which it refers, is, that the entries of 

 the Rental Book are by no means to be regarded as complete. And, as in 

 the one instance in which we are enabled to test it, we find that the 

 consideration of " protection against the followers of the Earl," which 

 we know to have been contained in the original Agreement, is not 

 recorded in the entry which appears in the Rental, we are not warranted, 

 in the case of other covenants, in arguing from the silence of the Rental 

 as to such considerations, that no such consideration originally existed 

 in these covenants. On the contrary, it would be much more natural to 

 infer from the terms of the Mac Rannall Deed, which alone among the 

 many originals has escaped destruction, that in the case of the other entries 

 in the Rental Book, which are couched in similar terms, there did origi- 

 nally exist the same or similar deeds of agreement, although they are 

 no longer discoverable. 



At all events, for such entries as those which expressly recite the 

 consideration of " defence," I cannot hesitate to interpret that phrase by 

 the light of the Mac Rannall Deed. And without in the least denying or 

 doubting — what indeed was expressly supposed in my former Paper — 

 the identity of interest between the Geraldines and the native Irish 

 population, their constant interchange of friendly offices, and the exist- 

 ence of friendly alliances between them in public policy, as well as of 

 secret confederations forthe private purposes of both parties, I am forced 

 to recognise the "Duties upon Irishmen" generally, and the Mac Rannall 

 Agreement and the corresponding entries in the Rental in particular, as 

 evidence of a system of irregular exactions on the part of the Geraldines 

 from the Irish population outside the Pale ; beyond the law, but yet tole- 

 rated by the Crown, in its inability to cope with the enormous resources 



* " Kilkenny Archaeological Journal," N. S., pp. 134-5. 

 H. I. A. PROC. — VOL. X. 3 rj 



