THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES THE MAKING OF IRELAND AND ITS UNDOING MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED LONDON BOMBAY CALCUTTA MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK BOSTON CHICAGO ATLANTA SAN FRANCISCO THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD. TORONTO IRELAND This Map is specially drawn to illustrate Chapter I, it is not exhaustive English Miles O 10 20 30 40 50 Roads thus %, dglas THE MAKING OF IRELAND AND ITS UNDOING 1200-1600 BY ALICE STOPFORD GREEN MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON 1908 First Edition June 1908. Reprinted July 1908. GLASGOW : PRINTED AT TUP, UNIVERSITY PRESS BV ROBERT MACLIiHOSF. ASM) CO. LTD. DA 933 G- Atioif oAome CAfCAniLA, 7 AJA nAicne oo gem pnn. t)o oibnij; AH djeAfvnA gl6in tfidn mAille piu cfie tiA ih<5}\cottiAc1ic An Luchc pJAlp UAcJlCAj\AnAcVlC 1OttA niOgAchc, T>AOine ir)6l\T)AtACA nA ccotfiAclicAibli A5 CAbAipc comAi)Vle |\etiA ccuicpn, 7 AJ An pobAil/ 1/e nA cotfiAinLe, 7 Le heol/Uf A b-pojtonicA t)on pobAl, cnionnA xjeAgLAbAncAC Ann A cc An T>non5 )ruAifv AmAch -pumn ceoit, 7 TJO AicfMj'eAt) oAncA A t)AOine ]-Ait)biie Atn tnbeic 5leti|T)A te cumAf, AIJ\ mbeicn p'ot)- CAncA nonA nAidb cotrinui'oe. t)o liononuigeAt)!! iAt)j-o tnte ionA ngmeAl/Actubn, 7 t)O bu-6 iAt> A ATo cuit) t>iob -oo fAg Ainrn ionA nTJiAij, lon-ou^ 50 nAicneo]~CAOi A mot,CA. Aguf ACAit) QAome Ann AIJ nAcn bi cuiifine Ain biocn O|\JAA, ceit) AJ" THAN. nAC beit)if |MAITI Ann, CAimc Ann|"A |\iocVic -piAth iAt>, 7 A cclAnn ionA Acne but) -OAome c|\6cAineACA IAOJ'O nAC An TjeAnmA'OA'6 [A] Aig A ft/iocnc Anpuiti A ccoriinuitie oigneAchc tiiAicn, 7 ACAit) cctAnn CAob A't>i x>on c 6 A p'oL 50 peAftfiAcn 7 A cctAnn Ain A x) A p'oL 50 bnAch, 7 ni pcuinpjeAn AniAcli A njtoip. A ccui|\p AwlAicce A p'oticAin, Aclic niAi^Toli A nAinm 50 [From the unpublished MS. of the translation done under Bishop Bedell in Marsh's Library, Dublin.'} [Let us now /~" O 6655^0 Let us now praise famous men, and our fathers that begat us. The Lord hath wrought great glory by them through his great power from the beginning. Such as did bear rule in their kingdoms, men renowned for their power, giving counsel by their understanding, and declaring prophecies : Leaders of the people by their counsels, and by their knowledge of learning meet for the people, wise and eloquent in their instructions : Such as found out musical tunes, and recited verses in writing : Rich men furnished with ability, living peaceably in their habitations : All these were honoured in their generations, and were the glory of their times. There be of them, that have left a name behind them, that their praises might be reported. And some there be, which have no memorial ; who are perished, as though they had never been ; and are become as though they had never been born ; and their children after them. But these were merciful men, whose righteousness hath not been forgotten. With their seed shall continually remain a good inheritance, and their children are within the covenant. Their seed standeth fast, and their children for their sakes. Their seed shall remain for ever, and their glory shall not be blotted out. Their bodies are buried in peace ; but their name liveth for evermore. PREFACE MANY reasons have prevented the writing of Irish history. The invading people effaced the monuments of a society they had determined to extirpate, and so effectively extinguished the memory of that civilization that it will need a generation of students to recover and interpret its records. The people of the soil have been in their subjugation debarred from the very sources of learn- ing, and from the opportunities of study and association which are necessary for the historical scholar. The subject too has transcended the courage of the Irish patriot. Histories of nations have been inspired in times of hope and confidence, when the record of triumph has kindled the writers and gladdened the readers. The only story of a " decline and fall " was composed when the dividing width of Europe, with the span of a dozen centuries, and the proud consciousness of the heir of the conquering race, encouraged the historian to describe the catastrophe of a ruined State. Thus the history of the Irish people has been left unrecorded, as though it had never been ; as though indeed, according to some, the history were one of dishonour and rebuke. It is the object of these studies to gather together some records of the civilization of Ireland before the x PREFACE immense destruction of the Tudor wars; to trace her progress in industry, in wealth, and in learning ; and to discover the forces that ruined this national life. Three reasons have led me to undertake this work. It was the fashion among the Tudor statesmen, very confident of their methods, to talk of " the godly conquest," " the perfecting of Ireland." The writers of triumphant nations are enabled to give the story of their successes from their own point of view ; but from this partial tale not even the victorious peoples can learn what the warfare has implied, nor know how to count the cost nor credit the gain. The present state of Europe is the result of vast destructions and vast obliterations. The aspect of its troubled civilization may one day lead to a new and more searching study of the conditions of such destructions, with their interminable penalties both to the conqueror and the conquered. In the history of Ireland we may learn to measure the prodigious and endless waste of a " godly conquest " and of the " perfecting " of one race by another. There is no more pious duty to all of Ireland birth than to help in recovering from centuries of obloquy the memory of noble men, Irish and Anglo-Irish, who built up the civilization that once adorned their country. To them has been meted out the second death, the lot feared beyond all else by men of honour. They have been buried by the false hands of strangers in the deep pit of contempt, reproach, and forgetfulness an unmerited <>;rave o f silence and of shame. O The Irish of to-day have themselves suffered by the calumny of their dead. They, alone among the nations, PREFACE xi have been taunted with ancestors sunk in primitive disorders, incapable of development in the land they wasted. A picture of unrelieved barbarism " hateful to God" served to justify to strangers the English extirpa- tion of Irish society ; and has been used to depress the hearts of the Irish themselves. For their birthright they have been told they have inherited the failings of their race, and by the verdict of the ages have been proclaimed incapable of success in their own land, or of building up there an ordered society, trade, or culture, and have indeed ever proved themselves a people ready " to go headlong to the Devil " if England " seek not speedy remedy to prevent the same." Thus their energy has been lowered, and some natural pride abated. It is in the study of their history alone that Irishmen will find this just pride restored, and their courage assured. In this effort however Irishmen are confronted with a singular difficulty. In no other country in the world has it been supposed the historian's business to seek out every element of political instability, every trace of private disorder, every act of personal violence, every foreign slander, and out of these alone, neglecting all indications of industry or virtue, to depict a national life. Irish annals are still in our own days quoted by historians as telling merely the tale of a corrupted land feuds and battles, murderings and plunderings ; with no town or church or monastery founded, no law enacted, no controversy healed by any judgment of the courts. If the same method had been followed for England, what an appalling story we should have had of that mediaeval xii PREFACE time, of its land-thefts, its women-lifting, its local wars, the feuds handed on from father to son with their count- less murders and atrocities, devastating for generations whole country sides. In Germany or Italy or France the picture of anarchy would appear like hell let loose on earth. In all other histories however than that of Ireland a certain convention has been observed. Men by some high instinct of faith have agreed amid all disorders to lay stress on every evidence of reason, humanity, justice, and to leave out of the record the tale of local barbarities, the violences of the rich, the brutalities of the ignorant and the starving. No human society could endure in fact if these made up in any nation the sole history of the people. In our country alone the common convention has been reversed, and the comparison of its culture with that of other lands has thus been falsified at the outset. " No man," cried a learned Irishman as the torrent of accusation swelled against his countrymen, " can be so inveterately attached to vice as not to break its chains occasionally, and perform some virtuous action." l Ireland indeed not only shared in the sufferings and confusions of the whole mediaeval world, but had moreover to contend with a ceaseless war of conquest. But in Ireland not less than elsewhere, side by side with mediaeval violence the forces of learning and piety and humanity were maintaining the promise of better things. This was the justification of its patriotic sons in the passion of their sorrow at the destruction of their national civilization. 2 " So are we all impelled, 1 Cambrensis Eversus iii. 247. 2 Ib. i. 109. PREFACE Xlll by an instinct of nature," wrote one in the hour of her darkest ruin, " to centre all the affections of our souls on the land that gave us birth. In solitude it engrosses all our thoughts ; in society it is our favourite topic ; and even when the clouds of woe have closed over it it still commands our sympathies." ALICE STOPFORD GREEN. 36 GROSVENOR ROAD, LONDON, S.W. There are few workers, as will be seen, in this period of Irish history. One student, H. Egan Kenny, has for some years made a laborious study from first- hand sources of the commercial and industrial life of Ireland throughout the Middles Ages ; and I give him my sincere thanks for the valuable help he has most kindly given me, both in suggestions and in corrections. CONTENTS PART I TRADE AND INDUSTRIES CHAPTER PAGE I. IRISH COMMERCE - i II. IRISH INDUSTRIES - 44 III. COUNTRY LIFE- 72 IV. THE WAR ON IRISH TRADE - - 123 V. THE TOWNS AND THE CLANS - 169 VI. THE RUIN OF THE TOWNS - 203 PART II EDUCATION AND LEARNING VII. IRISH LEARNING - 235 VIII. THE IRISH AT OXFORD - 265 IX. THE NATIONAL EDUCATION - - 303 X. DESTRUCTION OF IRISH LEARNING - - 360 XL THE NEW LEARNING - 401 XII. FOREIGN UNIVERSITIES - - 439 XIII. THE POLITICAL MYTH AND ITS CONSEQUENCES 459 INDEX - - 495 SOME ABBREVIATIONS OF BOOKS CITED. Papers Foreign and Domestic, Henry vni. ... Pap. F. and D. State Papers, reign of Henry vni. Record Commission ... St. Pap. Carew, Calendar of State Papers ... Car. Calendar of State Papers ... C.S.P. Calendar of Documents, Ireland, ed. Sweetman ... Cal. Doc. Ireland. Cambrensis Eversus, ed. Kelly. Dublin, 1848 ... Camb. Ev. Annals of the Four Masters ... 4 M. Annals of Ulster ... An. Uls. Stafford, Pacata Hibernia ... Pac. Hib. O'Grady, Catalogue of MSS. in British Museum ... O'Grady, Cat. MSS. Kuno Meyer, The Triads of Ireland, 1906 ... Triads, K. Meyer. Collins, Letters and Memoirs of the Sidneys . Sidney Lett., Sidney Mem. History of Sir J. Perrot, ed. 1728 ... Perrot's Life. Libel of English Policy, Political Songs, Rolls Series ... Lib. Eng. Policy. Rimeri Faedera ... Rim. Holinshed's Chronicle ... Hoi. Original Letters illustr. hist, of Church in Ireland under Ed. IV., Mary, and Eliz., ed. Shirley, 1851 ... Shirley's Orig. Let. Hanmer, Chronicle of Ireland. Dublin, 1633 ... Hanmer's Chron. Campion, History of Ireland. Dublin, 1633 ... Camp. Desiderata Curiosa Hibernica, 1772 ... Des. Cur. Hib. Tribes of Hy-Fiachrach, ed. O'Donovan ... Hy-Fiachrach. Lives of Saints : book of Lismore, ed. Stokes . . . Lismore Lives. Gilbert's Facsimiles of National MSS. ... Fac. Nat. MSS. Eriu, Journal of the School of Irish Learning. Dublin ... Eriu. Tracts Relating to Ireland, Statute of Kilkenny. Irish Arch. Soc. 1846 ... Tr. Rel. to Irel. Stat. Kilk. The Pilgrim: by W. Thomas, ed. Froude, 1861 ... Froude's Pilgrim. O'Flaherty, Description of West Connacht ... W. Conn. Hardiman, History of Gal way ... Hard. Gal. Historical MSS. Commission ... H.M.C. Gilbert's Calendar of Ancient Records of Dublin ... Cal. Rec. Dub. Macnamara, Story of an Irish Sept in Clare ... Ir. Sept. Brady (W. M.) State Papers concerning Irish Church in time of Elizabeth. 1868 ... Brady's St. Pap. Hogan (Edmund) Ibernia Ignatiana, 1540-1607. Dublin, 1880 ... Hogan, Ibernia Ignat. Lombard's Spicilegium Ossoriensis, ed. Moran ... Lombard, ed. Moran. Macpherson, Annals of Commerce ... Macph. 1805. Irische Texte ... Ir. Texte. Zeitschrift der Celtischen Philologie ... Z.C.P. PART I. TRADE AND INDUSTRIES. I. IRISH COMMERCE. IRELAND a name by which the whole island was known in southern France at least as early c.iooo. as 1000 A.D. was distinguished then as "that very wealthy country in which there were twelve cities, with wide bishoprics, and a king, and which had its own language and Latin letters." Hundreds of years later it was still wealthy, c. 1450. From hence to Rome in all Christendom, men said, was no ground or land like to Ireland, so large, so good, so plenteous, or so rich: 2 " none other but a very Paradise, delicious of all pleasaunce, to respect and regard of any other 1536. land in this world." 3 Ireland had long been desired by continental peoples. In Roman times her channels and harbours, opening to Gaul and Spain, were better known than those of Britain from the frequency Chronicle of Ademar, monk of Angouleme, before 1031 ; Labbe, Nova Bibl. MSS. torn. 2, p. 177. 2 Lib. Eng. Policy (Pol. Songs, Rolls Series). 3 St. Pap. II. iii. 31. 2 THE NORMAN SETTLEMENT A.D. 82. of commerce and merchants, and Agricola stationed troops in Britain fronting the island, with an idea of rounding off the empire. But the Romans stopped short of the conquest of 790. Ireland. The Norsemen pried out the country and seized or planted trading towns on its coasts. The Danes came with an immense fleet, carrying their wives and children, to extirpate the Irish and occupy in their stead that very wealthy land ; 1015- and king Cnut would have made Ireland an outlying part of a vast Northern Empire with its centre at London. That dream too was defeated. From the Welsh cliffs the Norman 1087- William Rufus looked across the Channel towards ' Ireland " a land very rich in plunder, and famed for the good temperature of the air, the fruit- fulness of the soil, the pleasant and commodious seats for habitation, and safe and large ports and havens lying open for traffic." " For the conquest of that land," said he, " I will gather together all the ships of my kingdom, and will make of them a bridge to cross over." " After so tremendous a threat as that," said the king of Leinster, " did the king add, ' if the Lord 1175. will'?" Henry of Anjou, the empire-maker, established the first lasting settlement of foreigners to dominate Ireland, sat in his timber palace in Dublin, and made treaties with the Irish chiefs. 1 Gir. Cambr. Itin. Cambriae, lib. ii. c. i (vol. vi. p. 109, ed. Dimock) ; Freeman's Rufus, ii. 94. His knights, Norman, French, and Welsh, seized lands, built castles, declared themselves con- querors, and, themselves vanquished by the Irish civilization, turned into patriots in their new country. " For," said a mediaeval Irish writer, "the old chieftains of Erin prospered under these princely English lords, who were our chief rulers, and who had given up their foreignness for a pure mind, their surliness for good manners, and their stubbornness for sweet mild- ness, and who had given up their perverseness for hospitality." l Successive generations of new- comers cast in their lot with their adopted land, till there was not more than twenty miles about Dublin that obeyed English law. Danish and Norman invasions had interrupted the growth of Ireland, but had not arrested it. The union of the Danish settlers with the sur- rounding population was followed by a remarkable movement in the twelfth century towards an organized national life. This was broken by the violence of the Norman invasion, but among Normans and Irish again centuries of intercourse overlaid the first animosities of war with kindlier ties of co-operation, and in the city as in the country a new race was born of " Ireland men," alike zealous for the wealth, the liberties, the self-government of the land which was their D common home ; so that the fifteenth century 1 Tribes and Customs of Hy-Many, ed. O' Donovan, 1843, p. 136. 4 THE COMING OF THE TRADERS saw the new beginnings of a national reconstruc- tion. The country meanwhile had grown in civilization and wealth. Her people, skilled craftsmen at home, traded over Europe, and through their constant communication with the Continent kept in relation with foreign learning, while maintaining their own culture. It was in fact the activity, the importance, and the riches of Ireland that drew to it the attention of commercial England under the Tudor kings. For in the spacious days of their business adven- tures, wealth that was not in English hands seemed to practical Englishmen resources merely wasted and lost. Traders and adventurers overran the country, and gave vent to their anger at the people's unwillingness to hand over to them all the profits of their labour. Ireland, said the specu- lators, " hath not shewed herself so bountiful a mother in pouring forth riches as she proveth her- self an envious step-dame." They were shocked at the sloth of him, " who will not by his painful travail reap the fruit and commodity that the earth yieldeth " for the benefit apparently of the English invader. They cried out to the world that the Irishman was idle, negligent, without enter- prise, the profligate waster of his rich resources. " Diligent Englishmen " were needed to replace these " luskish loiterers," and so fair a land made perfect by " the bringing in of a better race." The true answer to these political legends can IRISH ENTERPRISE 5 only be given by a scientific study of mediaeval Irish history, such as has never yet been attempted. But though Irish records have been deliberately wasted and destroyed, though no research has yet been made in foreign archives for the continental trade of Ireland, there are yet indications of the commerce and the wide enterprise of the country when Henry vm. saw its wealth and let loose on it the Tudor wars. The practical Englishman of that day had himself no belief in fictions of Irish lethargy and incapacity for business. The English difficulty, in fact, was how to destroy the trading and industrial energies of their rivals. For if a"t one time the Irish were charged with having no activities, at another it was said they had too much. " Divers Irish enemies of our Lord the King" were accused in an act of parliament 1429. of raising and holding among them different fairs and markets where English colonists were drawn to buy and sell, and Irish enemies gained great custom and profit in their too successful competition : and fifty years after the lament was renewed "to wit, they have com- 1480. menced markets in the country of O'Reilly and the country of O'Farrell, at Cavan, Granard, Longford, and other places, which, if they be long continued, will cause great riches to the King's enemies." l !Tr. Rel. to Irel. Stat. Kilk. 115, 117. 6 THE FAIRS Ireland, in fact, had many an ancient fair, some long forgotten, some which have left at least a memory ; like the Fair of Teltown, re- nowned down to the Middle Ages ; l the Fair of Connacht ; 2 the Fair of Clapping of Hands ; 3 the Fair of Carmain ; 4 Aonach, now Nenagh, " the place of fairs"; Monaster-anenagh ; 5 Killeagh in Offaly ; Dunananie near the landing-place of the sons of Usnach, a trading place of the Scots. 6 The people of Tuam gather to this day in a bare field three miles out of the town, remote from any shop or public-house, to an ancient Fair of Tulach na Dala (the Hillock of Assembly), and, despising all persuasion to bring the fair into their town, still buy and sell once a year on the silent spot formerly peopled and prosperous by the industry of their fathers. There was the 1 23 1. later market town of Port-na-Cairge 7 near Boyle, built by Cormac MacDermot ; Rory O'Connor's stone-built town of Ballymote ; Tirerill in Sligo ; and many more from end to end of the country. This trading activity reached its highest point at a time when the Irish had in effect secured for themselves the possession of their country and the use of their law, and English influence had sunk low. The fifteenth century was the J 4 M. 23, 392, 414, 417, 541, 1169 (A.D. 1168). 2 4 M. 552. 3 4 M. 371. 4 4 M. 914 (see note p. 40). 5 4 M. 1266 n. 7A The "fair of crosses" in Antrim. Irish Arch. Soc. 1841, 31. 7 Annals of Boyle. GROWTH OF IRISH LIFE 7 time of the great Irish revival. After three hundred years of war the English were in fact penned into a tract around Dublin " the little Place," as they called the Pale, " out of which they durst not peep." 1 "There was not left in Dublin, Meath, Louth, and Kildare, scarce M35- 30 miles in length and 20 in breadth there as a man may surely ride or go in answer to the King's writs and his commandments." 5 In those days 30 miles from Dublin was "by west of English law." "Many folk doth 1515. enquire the cause why that the Irish folk be grown so strong and the King's subjects so feeble, and fallen in so great rebellion for the more part." "Your Highness," the deputy 1536. wrote to Henry vni., "must understand that the English blood of the English conquest is in manner worn out of this land, and at all seasons in manner, without any restoration, is diminished and enfeebled. . . . And, contrary- wise, the Irish blood ever more and more, without such decay, encreaseth." 4 " For the English husbandmen . . . goeth daily into England and 1537. never after returneth, and in their stead none can be had but Irish." 5 In that decay of English interference Irish industries multiplied, new markets were founded, and the old added new activities 1 Hav. 355; Hoi. vi. 21-2. 2 Gilbert's Viceroys, 331. 3 St. Pap. II. iii. ii. 4 St. Pap. II. iii. 338. 5 Luttrell, St. Pap. II. iii. 509. 8 IRISH TRADING CENTRES and prosperity, with much exchange of gold and silver : Irish moneys called Reillys, an Act alleged, 1 do increase from day to day to the hurt of the King's mint, and great carriage of plate was made into England. All Ireland shared in this prosperity. In Wexford the fair at Eniscorthy 2 on Great Lady Day " is far the greatest of any in Ireland, and held yearly, and usually at a day certain " ; it would be hard to number or describe, the Annals say, all the steeds, horses, gold, silver, foreign wares at that fair. Irish markets were developed at Youghal, incorporated under earl Thomas of 1463. Desmond, at Dungarvan and Maynooth. 3 Perhaps the greatest extension of commerce was in the 1483. border countries between Leinster and Ulster, running from Dundalk to Sligo by Longford, Granard, and Cavan. In Cavan, lying in the shelter of the morasses and mazes of Lough Oughter, we may still trace the remains of a peaceful and undefended open trading centre the sunny valley with gardens stretching up the hills, the great monastery, and by its side on a low lift of grass the palace and business centre of the O'Reillys, among the greatest of Irish trading chiefs, whose money was spread by their traffic over all Ireland, and was even "commonly current " in England. The Maguires were famed Mr. St. 1447. 2 Car. ii. 343; 4 M, p. 1631. 3 Smith's Waterford ; Gilbert's Viceroys, 414. IRISH ROADWAYS 9 for the husbandry, crafts, and commerce that occu- pied the men of Enniskillen. 1 It was such markets as these that the English legislators deplored, exhorting all English traders to clear out of them, and by a rigid boycott doom these busy Irishmen to ruin. From market to market 2 the country was traversed by roads or by water-ways. It is commonly supposed that the Irish had no roads, and indeed it is evident that the people obliter- ated all passages before the advance of invading troops. But where the English armies had not yet penetrated, the deputy was surprised to see the highways and paths so well beaten. 3 Irish chiefs, in fact, were bound to maintain the highways, and compensation was paid to them for the cutting up of the road. 4 The five ways that led to Tara through every province of Ireland were in full use as late as the sixteenth century. The "sanctuary of Ireland," in a proverb of the early middle ages, " was the House of Cairnech upon the Road of Asal," 5 that ran from Tara across West-Meath. The king of Gowran, one of the three independent kings of Greaf Munster, had his house on the " noisy " or frequented Pass of Gowran leading to the north, and the earls of Ormond as their first adventure planted them- selves on that road and took its tolls. A second ^ee p. 76. 2 Ir. Stat. 1458, cap. ii. 3 Pac. Hib. 77. 4 O'Grady, Cat. MSS. 81, 384. 5 Triads, K. Meyer. 10 of the three kings ruled at Raithlean, where the O'Mahonys maintained the Road of the Chariots to the north, the Road of the Mules below, and the Ford of Spoils eastward. 1 There was an open road 2 that ran between Rathconyll 3 and 1478. Queylan, used only by the " Irish enemies of the King," which the invaders viewed with avarice, where were to be seen trains of bullocks and horsepacks of merchandise and victuals, to the profit of these " Irish enemies." Without roads 1106- Turlough O'Connor would scarcely have built ' three bridges, 4 Athlone and Athcroghta over the Shannon and Dunlo upon the Suck, a few years only after William Rufus had made his bridge 1319- across the Thames. "There hath been a worthy prelate, canon in the cathedral church of Kildare, named Maurice Jake, who among the rest of his charitable deeds builded the bridge of Kilcoollen, 1 Cork Hist. Journ., 1907, xiii. 27-30; Kilk. Arch. Journ.', July 1871, 536. Raithlean is in the parish of Castlehaven, barony of Carbery West (E.D.), Co. Cork. The barony of Kinalmeaky or Cineal mBeice was the tribe land of a sept of O'Mahonys. (v. Cork Hist, and Arch. Soc. J., 1907, 28.) 2 Tr. Rel. to Irel. St. of Kilk. 82-3 n. 3 Rathconyll is probably Rathconnell about three miles north- east of Mullingar ; there is another Rathconnell in Kildare. Queylan would probably now be Anglicised " Cullen," but where it is I am unaware. This trading road may possibly have been the ancient Slighe Asail. Rathconnell is at any rate in Magh Asail. 4 Hard. Gal. 39 n. Athlone castle and bridge were built 1129, 4 M. p. 1033 ; Athcroghta was by the ford of the Shannon opposite the modern town of Shannon Harbour in King's County ; and Dunlo was part of the town of Ballinasloe. MEDIAEVAL ROADS n and the next year following he builded in like manner the bridge of Leighlin, to the great and daily commodity of all such as are occasioned to travel in those quarters." 1 In later days O'Brien, lord of Thomond whose people were said to be in manner the best in Ireland, civil and well fed, and who had the best havens and the hardiest warriors made his famous bridge 1506. over the Shannon of good timber, in length 300 paces. Roads from one monastery to another served the double purpose of religion and of trade, such as the famous pilgrims' way which led from the east to Clew Bay, traversed by pilgrims to Croagh Patrick and by traders to Westport and Burris. We know how the Roman roads driven across England by a conquering Empire formed the main channels of communication over that coun- try till a long use of some 1400 years brought them to decay. For after Rome England had no mediaeval road-makers who could overcome the difficulties of bog and mountain. In Ireland the traveller who drives from Dundrum among the hillocks of Monaghan, with sinuous marshes creeping up every hollow and valley, or who follows the threatening passes from Sligo to Enniskillen, or crosses the shaking bogs, or the 1 Hoi. vi. 45. Manus O'Conor in order to build a bridge over the river Geirctheach in Leitrim had a chapel demolished in the fall of which he was himself killed, 1244. O'Grady, Cat. 332-3. 12 WATERWAYS mountains of Munster or of Wicklow, will not wonder that the old Irish were content in such places to carry their traffic on mountain ponies and pack-horses along paths known to the people. They continually used too the natural waterways of the country, now neglected. The ruins of towns on the water's edge, of churches and villages and little ports beside them, still tell of the once active life on lake and river. A fleet of boats on the Shannon bore " the trade of merchandise on the river," 1 and no monopoly was more eagerly sought for by later English adventurers. The lakes of Leitrim and Cavan, the Upper and Lower Erne where at Enniskillen the masts of Maguire's fleet stood as it were a grove along the shore, 2 Lough Oughter and Lough Neagh, the Bann, the Barrow and the Nore and the Suir, 3 were gay with boats three large and navigable rivers these last, by which inland commodities could be cheaply carried to Waterford from the very centre of the kingdom, out of the seven counties washed by those rivers and other adjacent lands. 4 " Would God," cried a deputy, weary of his toilsome marches, " that all carriage was by water ! " xiii. The inland trade fed and was in turn supported ' by a large European commerce. There was ^ar. ii. 284, 371; C.S.P. 1590, 374; 1580, 271. 2 O'Grady, Cat. 431. :i I3th Eliz. c. ii.; C.S.P. 1552, 126. 4 Smith's Waterford, 168. CONTINENTAL COMMERCE 13 extensive Irish trade with France, Spain, and Italy as far south as Naples : merchants of the society of the Ricardi of Lucca were dwelling 1294. in Ireland, and foreigners of the dominion of the king of France, who carried their mer- chandise to sell. 1 Youghal merchants traded in Bordeaux. Irish ships sailed to Bruges, each 1265. mariner allowed to carry as his provision four J 3 2 3- barrels of beef, salmon, suet, butter, and lard. At the request of Ghent, Bruges, Ipres, and 1387. Franc, Phillippe le Hardi gave a special safe conduct to Irish merchants to settle in the Low Countries with their goods and families ; 2 and "ships of Ireland " were long known in Antwerp. 3 1565. Wine was carried by Irish navigators in their own vessels ; the chiefs were used to make the pilgrimage to Compostella, sometimes two or three times, and commerce followed the road of pilgrimage and intercourse. So frequent was ocean traffic that when Chester wanted to send messengers in a hurry to Spain, they went by way of Ireland as the quickest route, a fact l Cal. Doc. Ireland, ed. Sweetman, 77-80. Edward I. (1294) for the Ricardi debts owed to him ordered the Lucca merchants in Ireland to be attached and not allowed to leave. He also ordered the goods of the French merchants to be seized, and forbade Irish exports to France ; and took toll on the goods of Irish merchants for his war with France. 2 Gilliodts Van Severen Cartulaire de 1'ancienne Estaple de Bruges, t. i. pp. 49, 50, 87, 89, 156, 358 n., 424, 435 (Bruges, 1904). 3 Shirley, 175; Macp. i. 706. 1 4 THE IRISH HARBOURS which shows the number of Spanish trading ships in Irish waters. 1 Capacious harbours, where navies might lie at anchor, are now left vacant and unfrequented, so that scarce a sail save that of a poor fisherman's boat can be seen on their broad waters. But every port in the circuit of Ireland was then filled with ships busy in the Continental trade, and in 1570 Stanihurst reckoned 88 "chief haven towns." ; A rapid circuit round the coasts of Ireland may give some idea of the business done in these harbours. The ships of Bretons, Spaniards, French and Scots sailed up the narrow seas of the east. There Wexford, Dublin, and Drogheda had their own shipping ; in case of danger Drogheda could successfully man its fleet 3 as well c. 1140. as Dublin. They traded with Chester, Gloucester, Chepstow, and Bristol " a commodious and safe receptacle for all ships directing their course for the same from Ireland" 4 supplying wine at times to these ports, and they imported stores of powder, lead, and ammunition, which they sold to the 1500. Irish. 5 Dublin had a very large Continental trade, its great fair of S. James crowded with foreign merchants, its market " stored by strangers " with coal and fruit and wine, carpets, broad-cloth 1 H. E. Kenny, Lect. Mediaeval Life in Ireland. 2 Hoi. vi. 35. 3 C.S.P. 1509, i. *Hakluyt, I. 315. 6 C.S.P. 1543, 67. ARDGLASS 15 and kerseys, velvet, silk, satin, cloth of gold and embroideries. 1 The O'Neills held the trade of Ulster, and doubtless long before the time of Shane had their vast cellars at Dundrum where 200 tuns of southern wine were commonly stored. 2 In the 1 06 miles of coast that lie between Kingstown mole and Belfast bay, there is but one harbour where a ship can enter at all stages of the tide without a local pilot Ardglass ; traces remain of the shore road that connected it with the neighbouring harbour of Killough, used for the out-trade, and known as " the haven of Ardglass." The town had a port-reeve and corporation in mediaeval times, 3 and sent members to parliament. The forts that dominate the port King's castle, Jordan's castle, Horn castle, Cowd castle, Mar- garet castle 4 show with what tenacity the O'Neills defended their Ardglass trade, with what determination the invaders sought to master it. English kings from John to Henry vm. granted it in frequent generosity to courtiers, but the grants remained nominal, and after many burnings and wars, the English almost disappeared out 149- of Lecale. 5 The great Earl of Kildare 6 marching ^al. Rec. Dub. i. 8-16; Cal. Rec. Dub. i. 233. 2 Hoi. vi. 331. 3 Harris saw the charter in 1744. 4 Grose's Antiq. II. 96. 5 O'Laverty, Down and Connor, 342. 6 He claimed through his mother to inherit Lecale which Richard n. had given to her ancestor d'Artois. 1 6 SHANE O'NEILL'S HARBOUR to protect Magennis from the Savadges, was allowed supremacy of Ardglass and the lands about it ; the next earl Gerald got a grant from 1514. Henry viu. of the customs of Strangford and Ardglass, which traded in wines, cloth, kerseys, all kinds of fish, wool and tallow. 1 On the execution 1538. of Gerald's son, Silken Thomas, the English were 2< out burning again in Lecale ; 2 but when they 1558. sought to plant in it the new earl of Kildare, an obedient Angliciser, Shane O'Neill cast them out and " forcibly patronised himself in all Lecale . . . and the Ardes, which are great countries." 3 In that time of his pride, when " the queen had nothing in possession in this vast tract of land but the miserable town of Carrickfergus, whose goods he would take as oft as he listed," Shane built the famous " New Works " of Ardglass the great fortification to protect his trade. Close to the harbour ran a range of buildings 250 feet long, with three square towers, walls three feet thick pierced on the sea-side only by narrow loop-holes, and opening into the bawn with sixteen square windows, and fifteen arched door-ways of cut stone that gave entrance to eighteen rooms on the ground floor and eighteen above. A wall 1 A copy of this interesting grant, with the list of services to be given by the tenants, is in the Belfast Morning News of June 27, 1902. 2 Annals of Dublin, Dublin Penny Journal, 1832-3, 315. 3 Sidney to Walsingham, 1583. THE ENGLISH AT CARRICKFERGUS 17 surrounded the bawn or court of the New Works sloping up the hill, and on the higher ground a building with narrow loopholes must have been part of the defences. Since the destruction of 1790, the great circuit of the enclosure, the massive New Works, with the old central tower and the remnants of one by the water's edge, and the line of the road by the shore, alone survive of a trade the very recollection of which is lost. Towers and walls at Ardglass were O'Neill's defiance of the English castle of Carrickfergus, planted on the site of an Irish fort, where a huge fortress like the White Tower of London rose sheer from the waters of Belfast Lough, dominating this second chief harbour of Ulster to the east. A castle, a church, a dozen stone houses, and a number of circular dome-shaped huts made up this military post. 1 We may still see the Irish town lying on one side of the fortress, the English on the other ; and the old circular huts survived, built then in stone, till the end of the eighteenth century. Two years after Shane's "New Works" at 1578. Ardglass had been taken by Bagenall, the English pulled down Woodburn abbey at Carrickfergus r^go. and used the stones to build Castle stores, calling them their own " New Works." The old Irish fair persisted : " In Carrickfergus twice a week 1 Uls. Arch. Journal, N.S. v. 4. B 1 8 O'DONNELL'S HARBOURS a good market was kept, 1 where out of the English Pale, the Isle of Man, and Scotland came much merchandise, victuals, and other com- modities, and out of France ; and in one summer three barks of 40 tons apiece discharged their loading of excellent good Gascoigne wine, the which they sold for 9 cowskins the hogshead." The fortresses of Ardglass and Carrickfergus are o o note-worthy because they recall the secular con- flict that was waged across S. George's channel for the possession of the wealthy Irish trade. But the chief harbours of Ireland did not front England : it was to the great Ocean that they looked, and here the Irish had long an undisputed commerce. O'Donnell's country " was large, pro- fitable, and good, that a ship under sail may come to four of his houses": "King of fish" 2 he was called, for his great commerce in fish for foreign goods. Hulks were laden in France for O'Donnell with salt; 3 trading ships frequented Lough Foyle, Lough Swilly, and the bay of Donegal, and from Ulster carried staple merchandise to Scotland, 4 without heeding any claim of the foreign king for tolls. The ports and islands of Connacht were full of ships that sailed the Atlantic from the Orkneys to Spain. For the province was by nature opened to trade. " There are upwards of twenty safe 1 Car. ii. 342. 2 Car. i. 308. 3 C.S.P. 1592, 524. 4 Ir. St. I2th Ed. iv. CONNACHT HARBOURS 19 and capacious harbours fit for vessels of any burthen; about 26 navigable lakes in the interior of a mile or more in length, besides hundreds smaller ; the sea-coast and these lakes abound with fish." The castle of Sligo, built by Maurice 1245. FitzGerald, fell back to the Irish O'Conor, maker 1318. of the stone bridge at Bally sadare. 1 An Irish 1360. city whose buildings of wood and stone were said to be splendid, whose ships traded with Spain, and carried cloth to Southampton 2 (doubt- less for the trade with the Low Countries), Sligo was one of the chief ports of the west. " This county, or these countries," wrote Sir H. Sydney, 3 i75 6 - " are well inhabited and rich, and more haunted with strangers than I wish it were, unless the Queen were better answered of her custom." MacWilliam of Mayo " is a great man," and in his land " he has many goodly havens." On his coast the OMailles, the most expert mariners in Ireland, swept the sea with their famous long- ships 4 far beyond the western isles "John of 1513. the Sails " famous among them in Elizabeth's day ; and the chief OMaille, 5 " an original Irishman, strong in galleys and seamen " ; not to speak of the " most famous feminine sea- captain, Crania OMaille," with three galleys and two hundred fighting-men at her command, wife J 4 M. 315, 619. 2 Town Life, ii. 289; O'Rourke's Sligo, 349-5- 3 Car. ii. 48-9. *4 M. 1323. 6 Car. ii. 49, 285, 353. 20 OMAILLE HARBOURS of Richard-in-Iron Burke, whom " she brought with her, for she was as much by sea as by land more than Mrs. Mate with him." Their ruined church on Clew bay is crowded with the graves of O'Conors, Kellys, O'Donnells, 1580. O'Craidhens : " Buresowle, 1 an Abbey standing very pleasant upon a river side, within three miles from the sea, where a ship of 500 tons may lie at anchor at low water. It hath a goodly and large lough on the upper part of the river, full of great timber, grey marble, and many other commodities; there cometh thither every year likely about fifty English ships for fishing ; they have been before this time compelled to pay a great tribute to the OMailles which I have forbidden hereafter " (in other words an honest rent for the fishing). " It is accounted," Malby adds, " one of the best fishing places in Ireland for salmon, herring, and all kind of sea-fish." Another castle of OMaille commanded the southern half of the bay 2 " Cathair-na-Mart," the Stone Fort of the Beeves, was remembered till our own time by the Irish when the stones had been long removed, and gave its Irish name to Westport. South of these the O'Flahertys held a long line of coast: Morogh ne Moor 3 in D D 1588. Elizabeth's time had a fleet of galleys Tibbott 1599. na Long (Theobald of the Ships), was his half brother. 5 C.S.P. 1580, Ixii-iii, 216. ^4 M. 1803 n. 3 W. Conn. 402. GAL WAY PORT 21 A mile outside Galway the road climbs a hill, where suddenly there burst on the visitor's sight the towers of Galway, lying in its fair bay and girt about with lakes. On that " Hand to Face Hill," Buais-le-headan, the frequent travellers of an older time, Irish merchants, pilgrims, min- strels, factors of the trading chiefs, were used at the first sight of Galway to cross themselves and bless the town. Before the coming of the noo- English, 1 Galway had traded under protection of 1 Irish tribes, who commanded their bay to north and south, and when the Burkes took possession of the town the O'Briens, lords of the Arran islands, remained the traditional guardians of Galway commerce. They policed the bay and harbour against pirates for a tribute of twelve tuns of wine yearly, of connoue 2 and meals given to them every year within the town for two days and two nights, and a promise of aid at all times from the Galway men. From St. James' Fair at Compostella, the centre of the Galway trade, Irish merchants spread over Spain and Portugal. There is re- membrance in the Church of S. Nicholas of centuries of trade with S. Malo and other ports 1 Hard. Gal. 51, 52 n. 2 Connow or connowe seems to be merely an anglicised form of coinneamh or coinnmheadh, usually turned into coyne or coyney : it may be founded on the south Connacht pronun- ciation of the Irish word. Its meaning is "entertainment" or "billeting." 22 TRADE OF GAL WAY of France, from the old French tomb-stone of the early fourteenth century for Adam Burie, to the French inscription on the bell of 1631. 1361. Galway ships sailed to Orkney and to Lilbeck. 1 Her markets held Irish cloaks, Irish cloth 1381. and blankets coarse and fine, Irish linen, sail- cloth and ropes, leather, gloves, brogues for the poor and ornamental shoes for the rich, baskets, carts, chests and boxes, dishes and platters, kettles, hemp and flax, nails ; with all kinds of skins, and cheese, butter, and honey. They sold carpets ; there was coal and cloth from England ; wine from Canary and the Levant, with ginger, saffron, figs, pepper, and cloves ; gold thread and satins from Italy ; iron and wine from Spain ; woad, salt, and wine from Toulouse and Picardy ; painted glass, perhaps from the Netherlands. 2 In the sixteenth century Galway had become one of the greatest ports of the British islands, and paid ^1000 of impost a year. 3 Its streets were already lined with " houses all of hewed stone up to the top, garnished with fair battle- ment in an uniform course, as if the whole town had been built upon one model," all thatch and straw forbidden: 4 and besides these mansions 1568. built after the Spanish fashion, merchants and ^.S.P. 1587, 320; v. p. 25. -Hard. Gal. App. xviii, xx, 58, 208. 3 C.S.P. 1587, 394; Hard. Galway; Tuckey's Cork, 35. 4 Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. x. App. v. 399. TRADE OF LIMERICK 23 craftsmen had country houses. An Italian tra- veller : being at mass at a private house, " saw, at one view, the blessed sacrament in the hands of the priest, boats passing up and down the river, a ship entering the port in full sail, a salmon killed with a spear, and hunters and hounds pursuing a deer ; upon which he observed, that, although he had travelled the greatest part of Europe, he had never before witnessed a sight which combined so much variety and beauty." Munster possessed " such commodity of havens as indeed I think in all Europe in so short a tract of ground there is not so many good to be found." 2 Galway's closest neighbour and com- petitor was Limerick, " a wondrous proper city, and it may be called Little London for the situa- tion and the plenty. 3 A ship of 200 tons might sail to the quay of Limerick, and it had, like Galway and Sligo, its stone houses, and its citizens dressed in Irish array with silk em- broideries and peaked shoes. In its midst was the stately church, built by Irish hands a generation before the coming of the English, with a marble altar (now degraded) some feet longer than that of the new Westminster Cathedral, and a roof of carved wood which could scarcely be destroyed by English tools a few years ago, and its 1 Hard. Gal. 79, 85. 2 Sid. Let. 24. 3 Ir. Sept. 153, 215, 228; v. C.S.P. 1579, 188. Gilliodts van Severen. Cart, de Bruges, iii. 52 ; Hoi. vi. 30 ; Lenihan's Lim. 74; 4 M. 815 ; Car. i 411. 24 MUNSTER HARBOURS fragments turned into ornaments for local parson- ages. Visitors may still in its poorest streets mark the decaying ruins of the stone houses where Limerick merchants once grew wealthy on Irish trade. The cities of the south were all rich in com- 1303-19- merce. 1 Cork had an early prosperity, shown in its stone houses, its bridges and quays and paved streets and water conduits. The eleven parishes 1450. of the city stretched a mile every way within the walls, and round the walls lay a mile of 1344. " suburbs." Cork merchants were allowed to 1359. pass freely out of Ireland when all other travellers were forbidden. 2 Into its harbour sailed great ships from Venice, alongside of those of France and Spain, 3 and from the opulent trade of the merchants their wives " kept very honourable, at least very plentiful houses." 4 Dungarvan, Kinsale, Youghal, 5 Bantry, Baltimore, all had 1537. their busy trade with the Continent. O'Driscoll of Baltimore had a chief galley of thirty oars, and above three or four score of pinnaces. 6 1376. Kinsale, a staple town, was given the customs 1380. of its sea traffic for the building of its wall, 1389. and its people were exempted from going to musters or parliaments. Loyal merchants of 1 For Munster fleet ?/. Cellachan of Cashel, Bugge, 76, 9S-H3, 151- -Tuckey's Cork, 15-23, 38. S C.S.P. 1548, 92 ; Car. i. 439. 4 MacCarthy, Life and Letters, 2. 6 Smith ; s Cork, i. 114. Tuckey's Cork, 47. KINSALE AND DINGLE 25 Athenry, 1 sailing from Galway to Llibeck, touched at Kinsale to pay their dues when stubborn 1416. Galway refused to admit an English collector of customs. Cork and Kinsale were closely united in business, as we may see by the Latin in- scription in the church which tells of Patrick 1558. Mede, burgess and often sovereign of Kinsale, and citizen of Cork. 2 A traveller in the eigh- teenth century describes the relics of the ancient wealth of Dingle (a forlorn village now) the remembrance of Spanish merchants who had lived there for commerce and built the church dedi- cated to S. James of Compostella the houses " built in the Spanish fashion, with ranges of stone balcony windows, this place being formerly much frequented by ships of that nation who traded with the inhabitants and came to fish on this coast ; most of them are of stone, with marble doors and window frames." One Rice carved on 1563. the house he built two roses, and beneath them a notice that, " At the Rose is the best Wine." While travellers " well refreshed " themselves, "the Irish harp sounded sweetly" in their ears. 3 The country round was full of people industrious 1 In the murage charter of Athenry (1310) we find mentioned among a number of other articles of trade Irish cloth and mantles, linen, cheese, butter, oil, wax, honey, verdigris, onions, nails, wheels, brass and copper worked and unworked, iron implements. W. Connacht, 266. 2 Tuckey's Cork, 27, 28, 32, 35, xxxvi. 3 Kilk. Arch. J., 1852, n. i. 133. 26 WATERFORD and prosperous : every parish having its own church, many of which were very large as appears by their ruins ; while several of the mountains, though but of poor and stony soil, are marked by old enclosures and other signs of former culture on their sides even to the very tops. Waterford said to have been called by the Irish the harbour of the sun x was full of traffic by means of their excellent good haven, the people thereof " very civil, and for this country full of industry." The quay, above half a mile in length, was held not inferior but rather to exceed the most celebrated in Europe, for to it the largest trading vessels might con- veniently come to load and unload, and at a small distance opposite to it lie constantly afloat, sixty of them at a time French, Spanish, Portuguese, Florentine, from the Netherlands and Brittany. 3 The town made a boast of the wealthy citizen of Bruges " le Noble de le scluse," who amid the lamentations of Bruges settled at o Waterford, 4 and was buried in a fine tomb in Smith's Waterford, 166. 2 Sid. Let. 22. Some of their articles of commerce are given in Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. x. App. v. 290. 3 Tr. Rel. to Ireland, ii., Kilk. Stat. 18 n. ; Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. x. App. v. 330, 267, 289. 4 Smith's Waterford, 176: " Bruges crie et lamente, Apres son citadin. Waterford s'en augmente, D'avoir fait tel Butin" records the inscription. THE MUNSTER FLEET 27 the cathedral. A contest of centuries between Waterford and Baltimore for command of the foreign trade shows the energy with which their commerce was prosecuted. 1 Their practical capa- 1591. city was proved in the conduit which was highly thought of 200 years later. " Many towns abroad are much admired by travellers for the con- veniency of having two or three fountains in a town ; but although these may contribute to the beauty of a place, yet it must be allowed that the advantages of having water conveyed by pipes to every street are much more preferable and convenient. " ; In all these cities of the south the earls of Desmond kept retainers and factors for their foreign trade. They had a house in the city of Waterford. 3 Earl James aimed at building up a fleet to command the Irish Channel, and to secure the commerce of his country 4 from English piracy. The Spanish envoy reported that Desmond kept better justice than any other 1530. chief, and robbers and man-slayers were executed out of hand ; that his people were in high order and discipline, armed with short bows and swords, and his own guard in mail from neck to heel ; and that he had a number of horse, some trained to break a lance and all admirable riders Smith's Waterford, 127-9, M ) I ?6- 2 Smith's Waterford, 196-8. 3 C.S.P. 1587, 311. 4 Car. i. 309, Pap. F. and D. Henry vin. iv. ii. 4485, p. 1962. -v. C.S.P. 1525, pp. 5 n., 50, 52 ; pp. 7 n., 66. 28 IRISH IMPORTS without stirrup or saddle. 1 His people were very civil, in manner the best in Ireland, and well fed with fish, beef, and wine. He kept 1528. his ships stirring. Twenty thousand Irishmen flocked over to St. David's and round Milford Haven. Tenby was almost all Irish, rulers and commons, and a townsman there had two heavily armed ships manned by Irish sailors : " they will take no English or Welsh into their service." Rich in all that was wanted for daily life, there were only two necessaries that Ireland had to ask of other lands salt and iron. A salt well at Carrickfergus was used in old days, but the salt- mines there were only opened in modern times ; and as Strafford pointed out, salt was a first necessity for much of the Irish trade 2 the pre- serving of fish and meat and skins. There was some iron in the country, 3 but it had long been the custom for Irish smiths to mix Irish iron with Spanish. Except however for these two articles the trade of Ireland with Europe was a trade of luxuries, which she bought with what remained over of her produce when her own people were fed and clothed. "Rich store of wine" was the chief and the 1 Froude's Pilgrim, 173. 2 Strafford's Letters (Dub. 1740), i. 93. 3 " There is very rich and great plenty of Iron stone, and one sort more than we have in England, which they call Bog mine, of the which a smith there will make at his forge Iron presently." Irish Arch. Soc. 1841 ; Payne, 6. WINE TRADE 29 most ancient import, since the days of the wine- drinking at Tara festivals under King Laoghaire. Gaulish merchants from "the land of the Franks" sold wine at Clonmacnois in the time of S. 550. Ciaran : l the Norsemen of Limerick who paid tribute to Brian Boru of a tun of wine for every- day in the year only developed an existing Irish 1000. trade with Gaul and Spain. In 1381, 8d. had been fixed as the price of a bottle of red wine of Gascony, 2 two hundred years later wine was sold at Youghal for 4.6.. a gallon, 3 and 1000 tuns of Spanish wine were imported yearly into 1580. Munster alone. 4 Galway and Waterford rivalled or exceeded the commerce even of Cork : and Galway, which practically monopolised the whole commerce in wine of the west and north-west of Ireland, was reported to have had vaults and stores at Athboy in Meath, the ruins of which it is said remain to this day. 5 When in course of their wars the English occupied the towns and English fleets seized their trade, Irish ships still " ran into every creek and unhaunted port and place with cargoes that paid no revenue to the queen." 6 Materials of war too were imported, " the com- modities which the Irish make by entertaining pirates," said the English, " and also Portingalls Stokes, Lismore Lives, 277. 2 Tuck. Cork, 30. 3 Car. i. 76. 4 Car. ii. 286. 5 Hard. Gal. 79. 6 Ir. St. p. 410. 30 MEDITERRANEAN TRADE and Spaniards that yearly come to fish in those harbours, bringing with them powder, calivers, sculls, targets, swords, and other munition, whereby the idle men of this realm are most plentifully replenished." l There was much trade in eastern spices and in costly materials of Europe, displayed in every market. In the towns merchants' wives 2 and even their servants went abroad splendid in gold embroidery and silk and taffetas, in furs and fringed laces, wearing coloured hats and caps trimmed with costly gold thread from Genoa or Venice, and pointed shoes. The young men, even the prentices, paraded in gorgeous apparel of silk garments and linings of silk, with long double ruffs thick and starched, fine knit silken stockings, and foreign pantoufles shoes with beaks and points and laces of silver. 3 Their display was rivalled by the Irish captains. From Venice came the rich stuffs for O'Donnell's coat of crimson velvet with 20 or 30 pairs of aiglets, and cloak of rich crimson satin bordered with black velvet. 4 " Rich dresses " are always mentioned as part of the plunder of the camps in war. 5 " Linen shirts the rich do wear for wantonness and bravery, with wide hanging sleeves pleated, thirty yards r. ii. 285. a 28th H. vin. 3 Hard. Gal.; Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. x. App. v. 336. 4 Haverty, 371 n. 5 4 M. pp. 1551, 1559; Cormac's Poem, Irish Arch. Soc. 41, p. 39. IMPORTS AND EXPORTS 31 are little enough for one of them." l " Against the high feasts as Christmas and Easter," 2 said their enemies, " there is no Irishman of war . . . but will steal, rob out of churches and elsewhere, to go gay at a feast, yea, and bestoweth for saffron and silk to one shirt many times five marks." The Irish women were not behind the merchants' wives in stateliness of dress : when Margaret D O'Carrol, wife of Calvagh of Offaly, entertained 1450. the poets and learned men of Ireland, it was in a dress of cloth of gold that she stood on the " garret " of the church, and made offerings of golden cups at the altar. 3 English law in vain proclaimed that there should be no saffron dye for caps and ties and smocks, no women's garments " embroidered or garnished with silk, nor couched nor laid with usker " after the Irish fashion. 4 A trade on such a scale as this could scarcely be paid for, as we are asked to believe, by the raw hides or salt fish of barbarian traffickers, nor was it the work of " luskish loiterers." It might even seem that Ireland carried out more goods than she brought in, from the English complaint of 'large tributes of money' given 1465. her by the foreigner, such as must cause the enemies' increase in wealth, 5 and the augmenta- tion of their power and force. English writers, concerned at Ireland's growing cap. vi. - St. P. n. iii. 450. 3 See ch. ix. 4 28th H. vin. c. 15 ; Camb. Ev. ii. 205. 5 Ir. St. 1465, c. vi. 32 ORGANISED INDUSTRY 1437. prosperity, drew up lists of the many commodities of her trade. 1 " They have havens, great and goodly bays ; " " it is fertile for things that there do grow ; " " of silver and gold there is the ore." The Irish merchants' mansions, an eye- witness tells, were adorned with costly furniture, and the stranger was ever welcome to the hospitable and splendid board. " Commerce was not less busy or profitable in our cities than in those of other countries." 2 Ireland in fact was a country of active and organised industry, with skilled manufacturers and a wide commerce. Its artizans and merchants had long been passing over to other lands for trade in considerable numbers. A multitude, said Sir i57 6 - Henry Sydney, of poor men of Ireland were freemen of divers mean crafts in London, 3 as they were of many other cities. Besides these working people there were Irish vintners and goldsmiths and merchants of good fame, with their apprentices, in London and all the English towns. 4 Irish dealers carried to Liverpool " much 1533. Irish yarn that Manchester men do buy there." 1 Hakluyt, ii. 132-3. - Camb. Ev. i. 61. "Touching the customs of this realm in the time of king Edward the Third, that those duties in those days should yearly amount to ten thousand marks, which by my own search and view of the records here, I can justly control." Davies, 30, U. 1787. 3 Car. i. 133. 4 To\vn Life, i. 173-4; ii. 41, 42, 206, 289; St. H. iv. ; Gilb. Viceroys, 308. IRISH TRADERS IN ENGLAND 33 Men of Dublin and Drogheda joined the Corpus Christi Guild of Coventry. Irish vessels fed the smuggling trade of Gloucester in its fight with Bristol. Edmund Yryshe, a brewer, was alder- 1547. man and mayor of Oxford. 1 Irishmen flocked 1551. in numbers to Bristol, and took their places on the Town Council, till the order went out that no Irishman born within the country of 1437. Ireland of an Irish father and mother should be in future admitted to the Common Council.' 2 The year after the victory at St. Albans of the Duke of York, lord lieutenant of Ireland, some daring " Irish burgesses began a suit 1456. against the Mayor and Council before my Lord Chancellor, with subpoenas and privy seals, of which Irishmen one Harry May was vaunt parloure and chief labourer." 3 It was for this appeal to law in defence of some liberty that " he and all his fellows were discommerced of their freedom till they bought it again with the 1456. blood of their purses, and with weeping eyes, kneeling on their knees, besought the mayor and his brethren of their grace." 4 There was 1 Oxf. Reg. ii. 296-7, 330. In 1529 a case was submitted to the arbitration of William Clare and Edmund Irishe, bailiffs of Oxford. Little's Grey Friars in Oxford, 93. 2 Little Red Book of Bristol, i. 86. 3 Ricart, Calendar (Cam. Soc.), 41. He was probably of a lead- ing Waterford family. Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. x. App. v. 300, 331-2. 4 Ricart, Mayor of Bristol's Calendar, 41 (Camden Soc.). This was the time when the corporations were turning the town governments into oligarchies. c 34 IRISH TRADERS IN EUROPE 1525. rioting at Bristol between inhabitants of the town and the retinue of Piers earl of Ormond, and 600 of them pressed upon his lodgings to burn the house while he was in bed in the night ; l they were probably Irishmen, for Piers was travelling with money harshly exacted from his people to supplant Kildare, and to take the earldom of Ossory by a bad bargain with Henry. The Bristol Irish evidently remained faithful to the Fitzgerald house, for the Earl of Desmond, 1562. imprisoned in London, prayed to be sent at least to Bristol. 2 But the chief resort of Irish merchants was xii. to the Continent. A hospital for the Irish in cent< Genoa shows their presence there 3 before ever the English had settled in Ireland. When king 1388. John of Portugal built the great monastery of Batalha to commemorate his victory of Alcoba9a, one of the two original master builders was Hacket an Irishman, called in the Portuguese records Houguet or Huet. Numbers of married i3 8 7- Irishmen settled in the Netherlands and in Spain, ^.S.P. 1525, 5. "The reason of the inhabitants of Bristol riotously attacking the Earl of Ormond's house at night was that, previously, they and the Earl's servants had been in conflict with one another, through the seeking and fault of the said inhabitants, of which the Earl was ignorant until afterwards, for otherwise he would have punished his servants, or delivered them to the officers of the town when demanded." S.P. Ireland, Hen. vin. vol. i. No. 48 (Cal. 1526, p. 5). 2 C.S.P. 1562, 204. 3 Schultze, Geschich. Mittel-alterlichen Handels, 85. IRISH MERCHANTS ABROAD 35 and had free access and traffic there. 1 In the Spanish war with England, Philip ordered that the Irish traders should not be interfered with : they passed freely everywhere. 2 English traders in Lisbon pretended to be French to escape disturbance from war, but the Irish residents carried on commerce openly. 3 They were to be found throughout France. 4 Irishmen were in the guild-merchants of many European as well as English ports. 5 European culture was carried back to Ireland by her merchants abroad, and Irish scholars were supported on the Continent and Irish colleges endowed by these traders in foreign lands. It has been commonly reported that the Irish, too idle or incompetent for trade, left the profits of their national industries to foreigners. But the very names of the traders showed them of the race forbidden by the English, those " born of an Irish father and mother." 6 Galway was 'C.S.P. 1572, 469. 2 C.S.P. 1587, 439- 3C.S.P. 1556, 25; 1587, 423; 1588, 486-9. 4 Car. ii. 250. 5 Kenny, Lect. Mediaeval Life in Ireland. 6 Dr. Lynch describes the situation under James. " If the Irish do not renounce the Catholic faith, they are to have no share in the government of their country, which was won by the blood of their ancestors ; none of them is ever made lord deputy, or chancellor, or attorney-general ; none of them are raised to the bench or allowed to plead at the bar ; the best benefices of the church are never given to the Irish, and in the army they cannot rise even to the rank of a sergeant. Admirable indeed must be their patient industry, when they bear up against such discouragements. Yet the bounteous 3 6 GAELIC TRADING ENTERPRISE full of Irish traders ; l the richest merchant in Ireland in Elizabeth's time was Dominick Bryan, whose daughter James Blake prudently married. 2 The O'Craidhens seem to have been " rich and affluent merchants " in Sligo from father to son, 3 1506. one of them in Donegal "a pious and conscien- 1576. tious " trader. 4 MacWilliam Oughter, ruler of a land where there was not one Englishman, had fifty householders 5 trading in Galway. Arch- bishop Creagh 6 was the son of a wealthy Limerick merchant, and was himself in his youth a trader and partner in a ship worth 9000 ducats ; on a business journey to Spain he delayed too long at mass, and came out of church to find the ship which was to have brought him home had already sailed, and to see it sink at the mouth of the harbour ; turning back to the altar he devoted himself to the religious life. The O'Shaugh- nessys near Galway were very wealthy, 7 apparently J 535- from their Galway trade ; Garrett MacShane, wrote an English official, u the which is a man grace of God has favoured them so, that many of them not only support their families independently, but have even amassed great riches. They do not murmur that foreigners of obscure origin have suddenly amassed enormous wealth, and are now parading their pomp and accumulated titles." Camb. Ev. iii. 71. *v. p. 187. 2 C.S.P. 1591, 454. 3 4 M. 1657; C.S.P. 1591, 464. 4 4 M. p. 1287. 6 Car. ii. 49. 6 Shirley, Orig. Let. 170, 178, 287; Bellesheim, ii. 149. 7 C.S.P. 1567, 340. GAELIC TRADING ENTERPRISE 37 that can speak never a word of English and made us very good cheer"; and twenty years later the Deputy camped at one of O'Shaugh- nessy's houses 1 and "dined so worshipfully as divers wondered at it, for the like was not seen in no Irishman's house": the conforming host ventured, it would seem, to display his wealth. The Roches traded from Kinsale; 2 and the Myaghs, the O'Heyns, the Murroughs, the Reilleys of Cork were as famed as the Blakes of Galway. Before the Desmond wars and the ruin of Munster James Myagh, citizen of Cork, represented that, being by profession a Merchant Adventurer, 3 he was very well able to live and maintain himself by his trade in transporting wines from beyond the seas, and this at a time when the English, in no favour with the Spaniards or unaccustomed to the trade, complained of their miserable state, begging their bread in Cork and 1580. Kinsale. 4 No doubt John Olonye 5 was an Irish- man, he who helped a merchant of Fecamp to take 600 of plunder from the English Nicholas St. John on the high seas ; and John Brian of Ross, speculator in fish and wines. 6 With this active trade a spirit of enterprise, of growing independence, and of proud hope was stirring over the land, insomuch that Henry 1501. J Car. i. 76, 277. 2 C.S.P. 1580, 226; 1583, 487. 3 C.S.P. 1586, 93-4. *C.S.P. 1580, 226. 5 C.S.P. 1548, 80. 6 H.M.C. Rep. x. App. v. 330. 38 COMING OF THE TUDOR KINGS duke of York, being sent at eleven years old by his father Henry vn. with an army royal into that country to be lieutenant there, he found William de Burgo, O'Brien, MacNamara, O'Carroll, and certain others ready to make head against him. It was from very boyhood therefore that Henry vm. in his " royal appetite " had determined to reduce " that realm to knowledge of God and obedience of Us," and by conquest cure " all the disease and infirmity of all this land," bring the wild Irish into civilization, and introduce for the first time, according to the invaders' fiction, tranquillity and restfulness, wealth and prosperity, to a savage people. 1 1515. Some say, Henry was told, that all the noble folk of the land of Ireland, from the highest degree to the lowest, English or Irish, that used Irish customs, had liever to continue the same at their liberty, and bear the great danger of God and of their enemies, than to have all the land as well ordered as England, and as obedient to God, and to the King. 2 But " bar- barism " was not tolerable to Englishmen. Pious prayers deplored it. " God with the beams of His grace clarify the eyes of that rude people, that at length they may see their miserable estate.' " 3 1 St. Pap. II. iii. 17, 31, 32. 2 St. Pap. II. iii. 16. 3 Hoi. vi. 69. NOTE ON IRISH "AONACHS" 39 Mr. G. E. Hamilton has kindly sent me the following notes : A NOTE ON IRISH " AONACHS." For the whole subject see Mr. Goddard Orpen's paper in Journal Roy. Soc. Antiquaries^ Ireland^ 1906, p. 1 1, in which he shews that " Aonach Carmain " was held on the Curragh of Kildare, at the foot of Knockaulin, or Dun Aillinne, and not at Wexford. To hold the Aonach Carmain was a prerogative of the King of Leinster (" Book of Rights," pp. 4, 14). It was a triennial festival, held on La Lughnasadh or 1st of August, and lasting seven days. It was apparently celebrated for the last time in A.D. 1079 (according to the Four Masters) by Conchobhar Ua Conchobhair Failghe, who was jointly with Domhnall Mac Murchadha (the father of Diarmuid na nGall) the 66th Christian King of Leinster ; they were both slain in 1115 by Domhnall Ua Briain and the foreigners of Dublin after a reign of two years. (Mac Firbhisigh, Book of Genealogies, p. 428.) Aonach Carmain was also called Aonach Aillinne, Aonach Life, Aonach Curraigh, and Aonach nGubha or " Fair of Mourning." It was the prerogative of the King of Tara to hold the Aonach Tailltenn, celebrated at Teltown in Meath on La Lughnasadh in every third year. This Aonach had the same importance for the men of Meath as had Aonach Carmain for the men of Leinster. Its last official celebration was in 1169 by Ruaidhri O Conchobhair, King of Ireland. 40 NOTE ON IRISH "AONACHS" The Aonach Muirtheimhne was held on Li Lughnasadh, probably at Traigh Bhaile Mhic Bhuain, the modern " Seatown " or part of Dundalk next the strand. Aonach Cruachan held at Rath Croghan in the Barony of Roscommon, most probably had the same importance for the King of Connacht ; it is probably identical with the " Fair of Connacht." Aonach Ailbhe "at which the men of Leinster were wont to bury " was perhaps held on the Hill of Ballon in the Barony of Forth O'Nolan, Co. Carlow. It was at any rate in Magh Ailbhe, the plain between the Barrow, Sliabh Mairge and the Wicklow Mountains. Aonach Cholmdin where the men of Munster were buried, was held in the parish of Lann Eala or Lynally in the Barony of Ballycowan, King's County, about a mile to the south-east of Tullamore, in the ancient tuath of Feara Ceall, and province of Meath ; this district was originally in Munster, from which it was taken by Tuathal Teachtmhar A.D. 130. Aonach Cholmain would appear to have been the original site of the Mor-Aonach of Munster, which was afterwards transferred to Aonach Teite, called in later times Aonach Urmhumhan (" the fair of Ormond ") and now Nenagh (an Aonach) in Co. Tipperary. Aonach Cholmain then became merely a tribal assembly of the Feara Ceall under O'Maolmhuaidh or O'Molloy. Aonach Cuile, also called Aonach Clochair, Aonach Beag, and Aonach Cairbre, was held at Monasteranenagh (Mainistir an Aonaigh) near Croom in the Barony of Pubblebrien, Co. Limerick. An Aonach Macha is mentioned by the Four Masters A.M. 3579, it was probably held at Eamhain Macha. Aonach Carmain was situate on the Slighe Dala or Bealach Mor Muighe Dala which led from Tara to Nenagh, it passed through Naas, crossed the Liffey at NOTE ON IRISH "AONACHS" 41 Ath Garvan, traversed the Currach, and so led through the north of the Queen's County to Roscrea. Aonach Tlachtga was celebrated at the Tlachtga or the Hill of Ward about two miles from Athboy in Meath. Tlachtga was situate in the ancient Munster. Aonach Uisneach at Uisneach or the Hill of Usnagh in West Meath, in the ancient Connacht. Aonach an Bhrogha at Brugh na Boinne, now New Grange on the Boyne. So too the Ui Amhalgaidh, or people of the Barony of Tirawley, celebrated an Aonach every year at Cam Amhalgaidh, the earn of Amhalgaidh, son of Fiachra Ealgach, son of Dathi, son of Fiachra. This earn is near Killala in County Mayo. These provincial Aonachs must originally have had a very intimate and close connection with the great " Feis Teamhrach " or " Festival of Tara " which was the national assembly held by the High-King of Ireland, the other Aonachs being merely provincial gatherings. The sites of these Aonachs are mostly near the great roads and only about 50 to 70 miles away from Tara in a straight line. In fact they are all much more conveniently situated to Tara than to their own pro- vinces. While the official celebrations of some of these provincial Aonachs lasted until the 12th century, the last Feis Teamhrach was held in A.D. 560. Although these Aonachs were primarily established for political and tribal reasons, it is probable that in the course of time their commercial importance increased while their political aspect vanished with the decay of the provincial kings, and that they survived as modern "fairs." For a general description of what took place at these Aonachs see Joyce, Social History, ii. p. 438, et seq. 42 NOTE ON IRISH ROADS A NOTE ON IRISH ROADS. In the A. F. Masters of the year 123 A.D., there occurs the following passage. "The first year of Conn Ceadcathach as King over Ireland. The night of Conn's birth were discovered five principal roads (prtamhroid) to Tara, which were never observed till then. These are their names : Slighe Asail, Slighe Miodhluachra, Slighe Cualann, Slighe Mor, Slighe Dala. Slighe Mor is that called Eiscir Riada, i.e. the divison line of Ireland into two parts between Conn and Eoghan Mor." This probably means that according to the tradition the building of these principal roads from Tara was completed by Feidhlimidh Reachtmhar, King of Ireland, Conn's father. He died in the year 119 A.D. Slighe Asail ran from Tara due west towards Lough Owel in West Meath : it divided the province of Meath into two equal parts, North and South. It crossed Magh Asail or Feara Asail which was that portion of the Barony of Moyashel and Magheradernon on the East of the River Brosna and of the town of Mullingar. It probably then turned in a north-westerly direction and ran to Rath Croghan. Slighe Miodhluachra ran to Slane on the Boyne, then northwards through the Moyry Pass on the borders of Armagh and Louth, past Newtown-Hamilton to Eamhain Macha. Slighe Cualann ran south-eastwards to Dublin, where it was called Bealach Duibhlinne, it followed the line of the Bothar na gCloch (Stoney batter), crossing the Liffey by the ancient hurdle-bridge from which Dublin takes its Irish name of Baile Atha Cliath (Town of the Hurdle ford). This bridge, which was called Droichead Dubh- ghaill (The Dane's Bridge) in Brian Boroimhe's time, NOTE ON IRISH ROADS 43 occupied the site of the present Whitworth Bridge. The Slighe Cualann would then appear to have divided into two parts, one leading towards Bray through Baile an Bhothair or Booterstown, the other by Dun Liamhna or the Hill of Lyons to Naas. It then crossed the Liffey again at Ath Garvan, passed by Dim Aillinne or Knockaulin, and ran by Bealach Mughna or Ballagh- moon in the south of Co. Kildare, towards Bealach Gabhrain or Gowran in Co. Kilkenny, here it was called Bealach an Fheadha Mhoir or Road of the Great Wood. Then it turned westwards across Ossory to Cashel. Slighe Dala ; this road apparently ran due south from Tara and joined the Slighe Cualann near Naas, it parted from it again near Dun Aillinne, turned west- wards across the Curragh and ran through the North of the Queen's County to Roscrea in County Tipperary. Presumably it then led by Nenagh to Limerick. The Slighe Mor led south-west from Tara until it joined the Eiscir Riada near Clonard, which it then followed to Galway. This Eiscir Riada is "a long, natural, wavy ridge formed of gravel, running almost across the whole county from Dublin to Galway. It was much celebrated in old times, and divided Ireland into two equal parts, Leath-Chuinn on Conn's Half, on the north, and Leath-Mhogha or Mogh's Half, namely Eoghan Mor's Half, on the South." Thirty-seven other roads are mentioned by the Four Masters, but their lines cannot now be more than guessed at. For the whole subject see Joyce, Social History, ii. 393 et seq., from which this note is mainly derived. There is also a good notice in O'Donovan's Introduction to the Book of Rights. II. IRISH INDUSTRIES. WE have seen the evidences of an extensive commerce round the entire coast of Ireland, and spreading thence over the whole of Europe. The imports were rich and various iron, salt, silks and satins, cloth of gold and embroideries, carpets, wines and spices all the luxuries of a wealthy country. Irish merchants of the towns were sailing their ships to the chief ports of Europe, and amassing substantial fortunes. At home they were building houses and improving the towns in a manner that befitted their stand- ing. The country gentry were flocking into so promising a trade, and serving their time as apprentices to successful merchants with agree- ments to be made free of the foreign commerce. o Inland trade prospered with the traffic of fre- quent markets, the interchange of gold and silver and plate, and the " large tributes of money " given to Ireland by the commerce of European nations. The people who had some schooling naturally talked Latin, the language of their continental trade, for English would IRISH RESOURCES 45 have been of little use to them in commerce, and " the Irish is as wise as the Spaniard is proud," said an English observer. 1 What then did Ireland send out to pay for the imports landed at her harbours ? There was no doubt a vast country trade in hides and skins of all kinds and meat, an early and an enduring industry. But this alone would neither have bought the foreign luxuries, nor exhausted the resources of Irishmen ; and many other trades and manufactures were developed by their labour. The country had much natural wealth. The people worked quarries for stone, and others famous for the variety and solidity of their marbles, 2 which they cut, polished, and exported. Presents 1566. of stone for their buildings were sent to Cecil, Leicester, and Sir N. Bacon ; and patterns of stone 1584. sought for in Ireland to be sent to Barbary. The timber trade was very active ; amid all the wars of Dublin with the O'Byrnes stacks of Wicklow timber were piled up on her quays, 3 laths and boards to make barrels " for the export of the 1 Ir. Arch. Soc. 1841. Payne, 13. 2 " Of hevven stone the porch was fairly wrought, Stone more of value, and more smooth and fine Than jet or marble far from Ireland brought}' 1 Fairy Queen, Book ii. Canto ix. (1590). C.S.P. 1566, 290; 1580, 230; 1584, 519; Kilk. Arch. J., May 1859, 324. 3 Cal. Dub. Rec. i. 284-5. 46 TIMBER INDUSTRY inbred commodities," 1 or to be sent away for shipbuilding or for herring-casks. There was also a finer trade. Irish wood was often cited in French lists of the fourteenth century as a specially choice wood 2 for furniture, painting, and sculpture ; the holly, which grew to a great size, was probably used for painting; yew per- haps, as with the Greeks, for carving. Great oaks were felled in successive centuries for the 1200. roof of Westminster Hall, for the palace at 1700. Whitehall, for the Dutch Stadthaus at Amster- dam. 3 The coasts of Ireland were famous for their fisheries -a trade carried on both by the Irish and by foreigners. O'Sullivan, prince of Bear and Bantry, ruled over a people who lived by fishing, and had his native fleet : 4 when an English ship seized a Spanish fishing-vessel ofF the 1 F. Moryson, p. 33; iii. 161 ; Piers' Desc. of Westmeath ; C.S.P. 1568, 385; 1595, 306; v. Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. x. App. v. 394-5. In 1579 the export of timber was forbidden in Gal way : ib. 430. Irish casks and barrels were very cheap. Ir. Arch. Soc. 1841 ; Payne, 7. "A simple workman with a brake axe will cleave a great oak to boards of less than one inch thick, xiiii inches broad and xv foot in length." Ir. Arch. Soc. 1841 ; Payne, 6. 2 Z.C.P. vi. 1907, 192-3. 3 As late as 1760 Lord Hertford got ,500 a year from the oak-woods of Ballinderry. Heterogenea, 214. For the woods of Glenconkine see Concise view of the Society of the new Plantation, called the Irish Society. B. ed. of 1842 by Vander- com, Saunders & Bond. 4 C.S.P. 1587, 364; cf. Cormac, 29, Irish Arch. Soc. 1841. FISHERIES 47 coast he manned a small squadron, brought both ships to Bearhaven, hanged the English captain and set the other free. 1 Fishermen of Duncannon and Waterford carried their hake to France; 2 MacSweenys, 3 O'Briens, OMailles fished in their own seas. Devon and Cornwall sent their fleets to the south coast, and 50 English ships sailed yearly to Clew bay, paying rent to the OMailles. There is a tale of English merchants, 4 who in time of war took an Irish escort to carry "big 1452. packs of fish " from Athlone to Trim, Athboy, and Dublin, but were fallen on and slaughtered o by the MacGeoghegans, " and no man living shall give account of the multitude of Eels lost or left therein, wherefore that defeat was called 'the defeat of the fish." Three thousand 1535- Englishmen, they boasted, gathered to the fishing off Carlingford. 5 The most dangerous foreign rivals of the English were the Spaniards, great fishers along the southern coast; they viewed with jealousy this Continental trade with the wealth it brought to Irishmen, and passed an act to forbid any strangers from fishing on the Irish 1 4^5- shores without license; while to encourage the 1548. English trade another act forbade any exactions of money or shares of fish from merchants or fishermen going to Ireland and other places Gibson's Cork, ii. 36. 2 C.S.P. 1590, 291. 3 C.S.P. 1569, 405- 4 4 M. 985 n. 5 Car. i. 85. Ir. St. 5th Ed. iv. c. 6. 48 RIVER FISHING commodious for fishing. 1 But statutes were vain against an ancient and thriving commerce, 1569. and a century later at least six hundred Spanish ships, besides others, sailed to Ireland every year for fishing alone. Two or three hundred used to fish off MacCarthy's coast, lying in his harbour of Valencia, a harbour much coveted by Henry vm. 1569. and carried away 2000 beeves, hides, and tallow, paying no dues to the queen but leaving coin for Irish traders.' 2 Besides the sea-fishing there was a large export of salmon and eels carried in trading ships from the river fisheries, 3 then of great value and strictly regulated ; no swine allowed on the strand of rivers from March to October, and no flax to be steeped there for the linen yarn. 4 The laws that forbid the steeping of flax recall one of the most famous of Irish industries. The spirit of Irish civilisation was finely expressed in their old proverb of the " three slender things that best support the world: 5 the slender stream of milk into the pail, the slender 1 Hakluyt, viii. 8. 2 C.S.P. 1569, 405; Car. i. 439; ib. 209. 3 In 1608 a Dublin merchant Henry Quinn wrote that he had abandoned the business of purchasing yarn and sending it to Manchester, the trade having decayed from the long civil war, and had taken instead to the trade of fishing in the Bann. In Pennant's time 320 tons of salmon were taken from the Bann in one year. Ulster Arch. J., ii. p. 149. 4 Tuckey's Cork, 31 ; Ir. St. 1569. 6 Triads, Kuno Meyer. IRISH LINEN 49 blade of green corn upon the ground, the slender thread over the hand of a skilled woman." Linen, as we see by the trade lists, was sold on the stalls of every Irish market, and was carried abroad ; and flax was grown in every part of Ireland from north to south. " Foreign writers attest the great abundance of linen in Ireland. 'Ireland,' 1 they say, l abounds in lint which the natives spin into thread, and export in enormous quantities to foreign nations. In former ages they manufactured very extensively linen cloths, the greater portion of which was absorbed by the home consumption, as the natives allowed thirty or more yards for a single cloak, which was wound or tied up in flowing folds. The sleeves also were very capacious, extending down to the knees. But these had gone nearly out of fashion 2 in 1566. Need I mention the common linen covering which the women wear in several wreaths on their heads, or the hoods used by others ; for a woman was never seen without either the veil or a hood on her head, except the unmarried, whose long ringlets were tastefully bound up in knots, or wreathed around the head and interwoven with some bright-coloured ribband. If to these we add the linens for the altar, the cloths for the table, the various linen robes of the priests, and the shrouds which 1 Camb. Ev. ii. 169. 2 Forbidden by Statute in 1539; "